O’Dell smacked his rifle butt into the man’s spine.
“They didn’t even know what was going on. They’re out at the hangar out there, working on … well, you’ll want to see this, Tanner.”
“Is it a hovercraft with a jet engine and missiles?” Tanner asked wearily.
O’Dell threw up his free hand in exasperation. “You are no fun to surprise, Captain.”
“We were just completing the assembly,” the Frenchwoman said. “We are not dangerous. You have no need to point guns. We are engineers, just working for the company. Let us go free.”
“Uh-huh,” Tanner said. “Well, ma’am, you, too, Doctor, you now work for the U.S. Navy. You will complete your work, and if you manage to do it inside of two hours, I will not strip you both down to your underwear and send you out onto the ice.”
“The sleighs are coming in,” Stillers reported. He was casting questioning glances at Bug Man, wondering no doubt why his face was swollen, why his teeth were missing, and why he was wearing a bathrobe and flicking between YouTube and Twitter on the big TV monitor in Lystra Reid’s living room.
“Yeah,” Lear said distractedly.
“That will be the last of it,” Stillers said.
“It’s all coming down, Stillers. Um … Tell everyone good job, yeah? Yeah. Tell them all I said well done.”
He nodded. “Did you want to, maybe, come over to the dining hall and speak to them?”
Lear considered the idea, shook her head almost shyly, and said, “No, I have to watch.” She waved a hand toward a shaky YouTube of one of the endless array of riots in one of the endless number of burning cities. “Panic, you know. That’s what gets them killed. It’s like medieval, yeah? Plague. Or cholera.”
She was no longer talking to Stillers, who sensed that fact and stood there stoic and awkward.
“That’s the whole point. Madness leading to panic. If they just didn’t panic, yeah, they’d be okay. Yeah? If they just didn’t panic. But I knew they would.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Mmm. You can go, Stillers.”
Stillers seemed relieved. Bug Man was not. It was better to have at least one extra person in the room in case Lear lost it again.
She flopped beside him on the couch. They had been watching together for the last few hours. Eating and watching in a bizarre parody of a girls’ night at the movies. Bug Man had been half afraid she’d decide to paint his nails or talk about her love life.
“I’m glad you decided to join me, Buggy. Good old Buggy. You get it, yeah. You’ve been down there, down in the meat. You’ve been part of the game for a long time.”
Bug Man did not remember choosing to be here. He remembered being blackmailed and threatened, made a party to yet another crime. If anyone ever lived to tell this story in some history book, he would be labeled as the guy who killed a president and almost killed a pope. Which was unfair. He was, at most, an accessory.
An accessory to the end of the world.
“Get us a drink, Buggy. You know, I wanted to get Sadie here, too. I thought she would be fun to have around, yeah. For a little girl-time, you know? We could talk girl stuff, yeah, that I can’t talk about with you.”
He poured them each a bourbon. She had said they had enough for two years, at least. He hoped that was true, because he felt he was going to need to drink an awful lot.
I’m turning into Burnofsky, he thought. Old degenerate trying to drink away his sins. That’s me now, but not old. So I can live with this for a long time. If she doesn’t kill me.
“What is that? Is that a cross? Oh, that is awesome. They’re nailing that woman to a cross!”
Bug Man was sick so far down into his soul that he wished he could shut down his brain, go into some kind of coma—wake up later, maybe a lot later. He waited for the shaky video to end then navigated to the next clip.
“So Sadie, that didn’t work out. But I’ve got you, Buggy. And it’s all working,” she said. “All working. Except for the self-replicating nanobots. Yeah. The goo.”
“I haven’t seen anything like what you’re looking for,” Bug Man ventured. “Just crazies, no buildings eaten up or whatever.”
“Mmm. Yeah.” Lear was pensive. “Probably all burned up when the Tulip came down. Burned up with the Twins. Wish I’d been able to stay to see even more of that, yeah. Yeah. Burning Armstrongs, that would have been excellent.” She shrugged and sighed, disappointed. “But all it takes is one of those SRNs to survive. Just one.” She bit a fingernail and added a superfluous, “Yeah.”
“I’m sure—”
“Shut up!” Lear snapped. “You’re not sure. I’m not sure, so you’re not sure.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Gotta exterminate them, somehow. They’ll just … just keep on. Gotta be a way to stop them.”
“Race to the end of the world,” Bug Man said, his tongue loosened by the whiskey. “Choose your apocalypse.”
“I can’t let them beat me, the Twins. Burnofsky.”
An idea occurred to Bug Man. If he spoke it, he would never be able to unsay it. If she liked the idea, she would be happy with him. If not …
“I have an idea,” he said.
“Speak it, Buggy.”
“You have people’s biots. You can send them a message. To the right people. I mean, you have all that cross-referenced, right? I mean, you would know which people were in the Pentagon, or maybe in Russia, wherever.”