Mike and Randy only took ten minutes to leave. People didn’t tend to pack heavy when running for your life was a standard skill in the way driving had once been. He saw them out and watched until they were out of sight. He recognized the basic truth that the boys were no worse than anyone else their age, products of raging hormones and brains desperately trying to lay down the permanent wiring needed for adulthood.
While Mason felt regret at seeing them go, he also knew it was for the best. A softer world allowed for youthful passion and making mistakes. Even the world as it was now had leeway for it. Just not this group. Margin for error was slim.
While Kell and Jo cooled off in the lab, Mason pulled Hal and Judith to the table and woke Lee. He laid out an easy if uninspiring breakfast of dried meat and leftover bread. There was jam, however.
“Emily, what’s our next step?” he asked. Everyone in the group looked to her, which caused a slow flush to creep up her neck.
“Am I in charge now?” she asked in a sardonic tone.
Hal chuckled. “Haven’t you been?”
“Yes,” Mason said. “We’ve all talked about it. It’s not like we didn’t know we’d have to leave here eventually, and if Kell is this far along we need to start planning for it. So, again, what’s our next step?”
Emily took a remarkably short time to compose her thoughts. “Kell has a few more tests to run, and needs to work out the kinks in manufacturing. If we’re going to do this right, we’ll need to either train people in other communities to operate bioreactors to grow their own colonies of the cure or find people with the right background who can do it on their own.”
“What are bioreactors?” Hal asked. “It’s not something I’ve heard of.”
“Pretty simple,” Emily said. “It’s basically just a petri dish on steroids. It’s more complicated in execution, but they’ll let us use a growth medium to make more of the cure. Spreading production capability across the Union is going to require people knowing how to use them, if not make their own.”
She stood and pulled something from her pack: a used gas grenade sealed in plastic. She gave the bag a little shake. “This was its own little bioreactor, actually. Kell replaced the cartridge inside with a substrate growing a colony of the cure strain of Chimera.”
Mason snorted. “Have you ever tried to take one of those things apart? You’ve just breezed over a minor miracle. How’d he figure it out?”
Emily shrugged. “He has access to every file Haven does, which includes a lot of databases people collected for safe keeping. You know how he is. If he wants to do something, he’ll teach himself how.”
Mason smiled. “Of course he does. Well, if we have some time, that’ll give Lee a chance to heal up. He’ll need it if we’re going to be running all over creation showing people how to make this stuff.”
“You sure you don’t want to be in charge?” Emily asked. “You seem to have a handle on it.”
“No,” Mason said with a shake of his head. “I’m good at many things, but handling the number of spinning plates you can manage is not one of them. Also you have a way of getting people to listen to you. You’re a leader. Lee and I can handle security with Allen and Greg. Probably hunting, too, while we’re out on the road. Beyond that, it’s up to you to figure out what everyone else will be doing.”
Judith cleared her throat. “Is it really the most efficient use of our time and energy to do it that way? To travel all over the Union? Wouldn’t it be much easier and faster to send out word and have communities send people to us so Kell can instruct all of them at once?”
Mason opened his mouth to disagree, then thought about it. “Huh. That actually does make way more sense.”
“Yeah,” Emily said appreciatively. “I vote for Judith to be in charge.”
Judith scoffed. “Not on your life. I just know we’ve been talking for a long while now about having to leave here as if it’s the only way we can get the cure out in the world. Seems like a dangerous way to do it, taking the only man alive who knows how to make it on a road trip where anything could happen.”
Mason leaned back in his chair. “Everything changed when Rebound hit us, you know? Originally we were going to try to infiltrate their territory and wreak a lot of havoc. Then we lost John, who was supposed to stay safe at home when Emily, Kell, and I left. Even when Kell figured out they’d stumbled across the cure, I guess I was still looking at it as if we’d leave here and hand it out to people before going after Rebound.”
Judith leaned forward in her chair and put a hand on Mason’s. “It’s understandable, sweetheart. You’re an idiot. We all know that.”
Mason laughed.
“He’s not wrong, though,” Emily said. “The last month has been…well, I think all of us got tunnel vision. We weren’t looking at all the consequences and dangers.”
“Not entirely true,” Mason said. “I’ve thought of a few. Such as the fact that if Rebound found us way the hell out in the middle of nowhere, they probably know where we are now. Or at least have an idea. That’s part of why I’ve been so intense about getting us into shape, because I’m worried they’re going to show up looking for us.”
“They’d be pretty stupid to,” Hal said, nodded in the direction of Haven. “There are a lot of heavily armed people a quarter mile that way.”
“True,” Mason replied. “Though there are two points I should make. The first is that they can easily do to us what we were going to do to them, which is show up as traders from a community, or even just travelers. Haven lets people like that in all the time. They could already have agents here.”
That got him a round of horrified reactions. Emily was thoughtful as she said, “What’s the other?”
Face grim and heart cold, Mason said out loud what he knew she’d already worked out on her own. “Rebound had to expend a lot of resources to move their kill squad all the way to Iowa. We’re six hundred miles closer to them. If they just wanted to do damage and capture Kell, it would be much easier to do it here.”
While it was true that Mason had been working his body back into usefulness from a general concern that more Rebound operatives might show up, it wasn’t the entire truth. With so much progress being made with the cure, it was only a matter of time before word began to spread. If there were agents inside Haven already, things could and would go from bad to worse with no warning.
Which meant the other reason for all that hard work came into play.
“I’m going for a jog,” he said to Emily, who was poring over a list of things Kell would need to build bioreactors.
“Yeah, okay,” she replied distractedly.
“Might be gone a while. Haven’t done a long run in a while.”
“Uh huh, love you too,” Emily said.
Mason left with a grin on his face, wondering if she’d even realized who she was talking to.
He wore camouflage, which wasn’t unusual around these parts. Lots of people wore the stuff, and the scent-blocking variety was in high demand the way cigarettes used to be in prisons. It gave people a better chance in the open against zombies when tracking by smell was harder.
After stopping by the RV and grabbing a few weapons just in case, he set out northward at a leisurely pace. His hip had the barest ache, which he knew the run would stoke into a strong, resonant throb after a few miles.
He was a hundred yards into the woods when he ran straight into Greg and Allen.
The brothers stopped, the deer slung on a pole between them rocking slightly. “Hey,” Greg said. “Whatcha doing?”
Mason pursed his lips. “Having a run. Kind of a stressful day. Jo had it out with the boys, and they left.”
“Blowing off steam,” Greg said. “Sure. And you’re wearing a knife, a sidearm, and have a machete strapped to your back because you’re suddenly worried about your ability to defend yourself?”
“And,” Allen piped up, “you’re running in the woods because all those safe roads in Haven don’t offer enough of a challenge, right?”
Mason rolled his eyes and made sure both of them could see it. “Fine. I’m doing a little recon. I’ve been worried for a while we might have eyes on us. And before you ask, no, I didn’t tell anyone. They’d just worry a lot and tell me I’m being stupid by going out on my own.”
Greg shifted the pole to his other shoulder and scratched his nose. “You’re being stupid. Why don’t you let us come with? We can drop off this deer and be back out here in ten minutes.”
Mason shook his head. “I’d rather not risk all three of us.”
“We appreciate that,” Allen said. “But that’s not your call. You can go, but if you do it without us I can’t be sure I won’t accidentally tell Judith what you’re up to.”
Greg nodded in agreement. “That’s always a risk. Besides, we’ve spent the last two weeks hunting around here off and on. We can tell you where they aren’t, which might help us figure out where they are, if they’re here at all.”
“You guys are dicks,” Mason said. “Fine, hurry up.”
Mason didn’t ask what excuse they’d given when the brothers rejoined him. More than likely they’d just handed the deer off to Jo, told her to get to work, and left without another word. Being enigmatic had its advantages, the most important being that people learned not to bother asking questions.
They waved at a few men and women running a patrol a mile north of Haven as they passed each other, but otherwise saw no sign of bodies living or dead. It wasn’t surprising considering how long the area had been populated. Getting close enough to keep watch would be difficult bordering on impossible for an outside group.
Slipping a few people inside was much easier.
“Are we planning on walking around randomly, looking for bad guys?” Greg asked when they’d gone a mile past the patrol. “I’m not against it, but I’d prefer to have some kind of plan.”
“No,” Mason said. “There aren’t a lot of places they can be, if they’re close. I used to live here, and back then patrols were running five, ten miles out. That was when there were only a couple hundred residents. I don’t think we’re going to find anyone, but that’s not my expectation.”
“Ah, I get it,” Greg said. “You think they’re slipping in between patrols, then slipping back out.”
Mason nodded. “It’s what I’d do. Set up a prearranged time each day in case your people inside need a quick escape. They only need to be in the vicinity for half an hour, an hour at the outside. I’m betting if they do have agents in Haven, they’re running out here to do information drops every couple days.”
Over the next hour they moved from place to place with decreasing speed. Greg and Allen could move all day without complaint, as Mason had done before being shot. Now a measly handful of miles pushed him to his limit. The area they searched was a small part of the county mostly cut off from the southern half by severely damaged roads and hundreds of downed trees. A tornado had come through years before in almost perfect sync with a powerful flash flood.
There were several good spots where a small force could hide their numbers, places patrols would pass by at a distance. So long as they weren’t seen moving in or out, it was unlikely the patrols would send people in to check. Staying too long meant not cooking, of course. Smoke would be a dead giveaway. And sound, too. Mason had spent enough cold and quiet nights to know how much more likely it was that any Rebound operatives would be moving in and out rather than risk camping close by.
“There,” Allen said. “It’d have to be there.”
He pointed to a splintered raft of trees all shoved together to form a thick wall nearly thirty feet high. It shielded anything behind it from view, the only cover of its size in the area. Mason knew the approach from the north was easier, and that the patrols to the south and west were much more dense.
“Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I was thinking, too.”
He wasn’t concerned with being seen. There wasn’t much chance even one person would stay behind. No reason to. They made their way around the crumpled mass of trees and split apart to search.
It was immediately clear someone had been there. Fresh, deep tire tracks marred the tall grass with bare dirt. Greg found a heavy plastic tote wedged inside a mass of branches. Inside were some supplies and a small box with a dial lock.
“Should we take it?” Allen asked, glancing around.
“No,” Mason said. “We’ll put it back where we found it. We know they’re here. The only thing we have going for us is that they don’t know that.”
Or so he hoped.
“If you’re fucking with me right now, I swear I’ll punch you in the face so hard it will break the laws of time and space and your younger self will feel it.”
Will blinked. “That was an unusually creative threat.”
“I’m in love with a giant nerd,” Emily said. “When all you have to read is a battered collection of science fiction books, it rubs off on you. Now, tell me you’re serious.”
“I’m serious,” Will answered. “We’ve had close to four hundred people through here in the time frame you’ve given us. If it was just since you showed up, the number would be much lower.”
“No,” Emily said. “Mason thinks they’ll have sent people here before that. Probably around the time we were attacked if not before.”
Will rubbed at tired eyes. “There’s no way we can start looking at that many people without making it obvious we’re searching for someone. That’s if we could even find them. This place isn’t lacking for places to hide. We register every visitor and new citizen when they come in, but once they’re inside, they’re pretty much free to do what they want.”
She tapped her fingers against her closed mouth. “Well, shit. That pretty much means our only options are waiting for that shoe to drop or forcing it to.”
Will laced his fingers together and rested his chin on them. “I’d really appreciate it if you wouldn’t intentionally start a war inside my town.”
“I’d rather not,” Emily said flatly. “But do you see much choice? They’re here. The evidence points that way. If there’s going to be a fight either way, wouldn’t you prefer it be on our terms?”
“Stop using logic on me,” Will said. “It’s completely—”
A distant roar filled the air and rattled the window of the small office.
Emily shot to her feet. “Was that a bomb?”
Distant screams drifted through the cracked door. Emily rushed outside and automatically looked north toward the hangar. Much like a mother will always fear for her child when she hears an ambulance moving through the neighborhood on her way home, Emily’s first instinct was to worry for her people. The heart is magnetic in that way.
Thick black smoke marred the already darkening sky, a smudge against a dusky background. First glance sent a powerful surge of terror through her, but the distance wasn’t right. The smoke was too close to be from the hangar.
“It’s the front gate,” Will said. “Someone bombed the fucking gate.”
Bells rang in every direction, each a distinctly different type and sound. This was by design, a means of differentiating location as the coded patterns in the rings themselves told the citizenry where to go and what to expect when they got there.
“This has to be them,” Emily said.
“You think?” Will said acidly. He raised his hands. “I’m sorry.”
Emily waved off the apology. “I get it. I have to go. They have to be after Kell.”
He said something, but she didn’t hear it. Emily was already running at a dead sprint. The hilly terrain was a help, here, as it was all down between her and the gate. She reached the main road running through the nucleus of the original kernel Haven was built upon in seconds, and from there it was a straight shot to the main gate. The hill was steep, so much that she had to lean back while she pelted down to keep from tumbling forward.
“Oh,” she breathed when she caught sight of the north gate.
Where the guard house should have been was a smoking crater. The thick stone wall was missing fully half its thickness, and the massive hinges holding the reinforced gate in place were gone. The gate itself was tilted crazily, heavy timbers shattered where they had once met the wall.
The smoke was almost too thick to see through. Emily pulled the kerchief around her neck up over the lower half of her face and drew it as tight as she could tolerate. It wouldn’t do much, but hopefully it would keep her from inhaling too much particulate.
She ran for the gap, which was itself a cluster of burning debris. Jumping over it at a full run was an actual leap of faith, because there was no way to tell what she’d face on the other side through the smoke. If the enemy had managed to drive a herd of zombies in to create a buffer, she’d be landing among them.
Emily stumbled to a stop and shook away smoke-induced tears. Blinking, she scanned the area. There were a few zombies—toward nighttime they occasionally filtered past the patrols—but no sweeping crowd. Small favors.
Taking a deep breath and silently thanking the winds for blowing the smoke away from her, she took off once more. Emily was on autopilot as she homed in on the hangar, dodging the undead as if they were stones. A few hundred feet from home, a New Breed nearly caught her off guard, its claws catching the fluttering end of her kerchief and yanking her head sideways.
She pushed herself into the motion and took a graceless roll across the uneven ground. She let momentum carry her to her feet and whipped her belt knife free as she stood. The zombie rushed her, arms raised defensively to ward off the attack it knew was coming.
Instead, she dropped and knelt at the last second. The overextended zombie didn’t expect that; neither did it plan for her arm to piston upward and skewer it though the bottom of the jaw. Emily put her other hand to the hilt of the knife, pushing on the end as the zombie stiffened, and forced herself to stand.
The zombies made a thin sort of choking sound, impressive considering it didn’t use lungs for anything, and went limp.
She didn’t feel anything as she pulled the blade free. No anger, no worry it was playing possum. Just an intolerable need to move. To know.
The hangar loomed into view and at first glance seemed untouched. At least there was no smoke, no obvious sign from a distance that anything was wrong. For a few seconds, Emily felt a swell of hope this was all some improbable coincidence.
Then she moved closer and saw the bay door to the lab, raised a few feet from the ground and dented inward at least a foot. Dark stains stood out violently against the pale metal. She could make out at least one body there.
Heart hammering against her sternum like a mental patient trying to escape a padded room, she burst into another sprint. But the body resolved into an unfamiliar form all in black, a white man of early middle years she’d never seen before. His neck was a frayed mess of red with vacant eyes staring up at the sky and seeing nothing.
“Kell bit the fucker’s throat,” said a weak voice, startling Emily.
Allen was sitting inside the lab, his back against one of the tables. She ducked beneath the door and slid to her knees next to him. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“Not okay,” he said, his voice tight. “They hit me with their van. I crawled in here. Hurt too bad to help. They grabbed Kell when we opened the door to step outside. Must have been watching us. Waiting.”
“Where are the others?”
Allen shook his head. “Took the RV out to stock it up at the supply depot.” He laughed bitterly. “Mason said just in case we had to make a run for it. I said I’d stay here with Kell. I found a guy selling cigars today. Wanted to have a smoke. Stupid. My fault.”
“It’s not,” Emily said. “Just human. There was no way to know they’d strike this soon. Let me get the medical kit. I should check you over.”
“Not dying,” Allen said. “At least, I don’t think I am. Not important.” He paused to hiss out a long breath, carefully taking control of himself. “It was a black van. No idea where it came from. They must have hidden it somewhere in the airport. They went west. You have to get him back.”
He reached out and gripped Emily’s arm, almost painfully. “They didn’t just take Kell. They took everything. All the samples. They knew what to look for.”
“Fuck,” Emily said. “Of course they did. They’d have been given instructions to clean out anything in a cooler. Give me a second.”
She ducked outside and trotted to their collection of vehicles. The van they’d used to capture zombies was there. An utterly flat front driver’s tire, slashed. One of the rotating cast of trucks borrowed from Haven’s motor pool sat next to it in identically bad shape.
Emily went back inside and began taking Allen’s vitals.
“What the hell? Aren’t you going after him?”
“Would if I could,” she said through gritted teeth. “Our vehicles are down. They set off a bomb at the north gate, so Haven is chaos right now. I could probably run there and get a vehicle if I tried, but then I’d be going after Kell on my own. I need Mason and the others. They won’t stay gone after that explosion. If they’re not here in the next two minutes, I’ll be shocked. Until they get here, let me make sure you’re not going to die, okay? That much I can do.”
“Yeah, okay,” Allen said.
She worked the problem as she examined Allen. The exam was easy, done without thought. Her brainpower was reserved for everything else piled atop her at the moment, and all the synapses were in overdrive.
There were only certain number of exits available to an enemy inside the patrol area the locals covered. She knew them well, having been a patrol scout here before moving away to Iowa. The map in her head went dark everywhere they couldn’t possibly go, every place they might be seen or intercepted. Will’s people didn’t get by with being bad at their jobs; any vehicle hauling ass out of Haven without explanation would be chased. Period.
Given the location Mason had discovered, the possible rendezvous points narrowed further. Geographically speaking, there weren’t many options. A handful of roads that would allow them to skirt patrols
and
get far enough north to have a shot at getting away from Union forces while also meeting with the main force waiting for them.
Not that it would be easy, but Emily felt a little better narrowing down the possibilities.
When the RV pulled up, she wasted no time explaining. She pointed to Judith as the woman nearly fell out of the passenger door. “You take care of Allen. He’s hurt, broken bones I think, but not in immediate danger. Greg, you’re staying here too. Get to Haven as fast as you can and let anyone you can find know we’re heading west, then north toward the bypass. The scouts will know what I mean. We’ll need reinforcements. As fast as they can go, as many as they can spare.”
She dashed to the weapons locker inside the hangar and grabbed her rifle, a spare magazine, and a box of ammunition. As she walked by Greg, she spoke without slowing.
“Also spread the word that I want Mike and Randy here when we get back. I don’t care how long they have to wait here. Just make it happen.”
“O-okay,” Greg said, seeming overwhelmed by this onslaught.
“Let’s go,” Emily said, climbing into the seat vacated by Judith. “Hal, you keep this thing on the ground but you go as fast as you can. It’s the only vehicle we have right now.”
“How bad is it?” Hal asked as he put the RV in gear, his biker-Santa face lined with concern.
“They have Kell and all the samples of the cure,” Emily said. “It’s not a worst-case scenario, because Kell’s alive, but it’s pretty bad.”
She badly wanted to be on the roof, watching through the scope of her rifle, but Hal needed directions. A part of her long buried almost looked forward to what was about to happen. Because yes, it was bad; bad for them. Nothing would stop her from getting Kell back and retrieving the cure. And should they harm him, no force on earth would prevent her from killing every one of them with a smile on her face.