The Plague Forge (Dire Earth Cycle #3)

“God,” Vanessa said. “They’re everywhere. Tania, you have to get up.”

She tried to stand. Her head still swam with the lingering pain of the disease’s grip, but she managed to get to shaky feet and, holding Vanessa’s free hand, ran with her.

They sprinted toward the Helios, visible on a low rise just beyond a swath of forest to the northeast.

Tania stared at the plane as she ran. Please let her fly. Please.

The aircraft seemed so far away, and even in that direction Tania could see the shady forms of subhumans rushing out from the trees toward them.

Something had changed about the creatures. No respite, not like Tania was experiencing, but something else. They were deathly silent. Their faces, even from this far off, were the very picture of stoic concentration, like a sprinter eyeing the red tape at the finish line, or a lion closing the last few meters on a fleeing, tired antelope. No anger now, no rage, just the focus and certainty that went part and parcel with the clarity of a goal. Something had changed them, and she had no problem believing it was the same pulse of energy that had all but banished the pain from her own mind.

The distance closed between them and the creatures. Vanessa raised the pistol she still carried and fired. A single clap from the handgun, so loud it distorted in Tania’s already ringing ears. One of the creatures fell. The next sound from the weapon was a quiet click, and Vanessa uttered a curse in Portuguese as she tossed the weapon aside.

“Slow down a bit,” Vanessa said through heavy breaths.

Tania glanced at her. “Are you kidding?”

“We can’t stop to fight them, so we need to … just, trust me, okay?”

Tania slowed her pace to a jog, matching Vanessa. The tactic seemed ridiculous, yet what else could be done? She had no weapon now. The knife, the bloody knife, she’d dropped somewhere without even remembering.

What she had was herself. Her training, over the last year, in an Israeli street-fighting technique. A year of welts and bruises and a hardening of body. Tolerance for pain, instinct for inflicting it. And she had Vanessa, who’d spent decades studying jujitsu.

The immune angled them toward the space vacated by the one subhuman she’d shot. Those to the left or right still rushed onward, and that gap Tania suddenly realized had become a corridor.

“Now,” the woman said, “run!”

She surged ahead and Tania did her best to follow. She wished she’d ditched the entire suit and not just the helmet. Though formfitting, the material had a weight to it, a stiffness that made her feel lethargic. Compounded with the intense exhaustion she already felt … no, no. No excuses. Run, dammit. Keep up. Survive. She simply had to. For Pablo and Jake. For Skyler. For Zane. For Karl and everyone else that had fled Darwin to follow her toward a goal even she did not quite grasp.

And for Tim. Big-eared, goofy Tim, who’d been there every time she needed someone to be there. Run.

She ran, ignoring the beings in front of her. Only now they were beside her. Then, behind. Tania felt a rush of adrenaline as she realized Vanessa’s simple tactic had worked. They’d increased their pace at exactly the right moment, and the simple-minded animals couldn’t turn fast enough. Some even slipped on the damp shin-high grass and fell. Others tripped on those and went down, too. Most stayed on their feet, though, but ended up behind, adjusting and losing ground in the process.

The forest loomed ahead like a dark curtain of brown and green. She followed Vanessa as the woman plunged into that cold place, not daring to look back. She and Vanessa might have run the gauntlet, but she could still hear the beings behind them, and of course there were those already chasing from that direction. The subhumans were close, a dozen meters, maybe less.

Tania ducked under a branch and around the trunk of a pine, leapt over an exposed root, and raised her arms to protect her face as she crashed through the branches of two adjacent saplings. As complex a path as she could manage.

There were subhumans in the forest. Shadows glimpsed through the gaps between trees. Hunched, silent, and driven. On an instinctual level Tania knew they were all, every last one of them, after her. Or rather, the object Vanessa carried so awkwardly on her back.

I could die here, she thought. This thought she’d had many times already, but this time it came more as an inappropriate bit of self-introspection. I could die for this slab of graphene circuitry or whatever the hell it is. I should be dead already, or at least one of these creatures, chasing Vanessa instead of running next to her.

A shadow in front of her.

As she tried to dodge her foot snagged on a root. She fell as a snarled face, teeth bared, emerged before her. Tania tucked in her shoulder and rolled on instinct. She crashed into the being’s knees and heard it huff in surprise as it hit the ground behind her. Tania came up in a fighting stance and her breath caught in her throat. There were so many, all rushing toward her.

The one she’d knocked over stood, bared its teeth, and struck a stance so savage, so animalistic that she could, for once, no longer see the human it had once been. She just saw a creature.

It stepped forward and reached for her.

Vanessa leapt in from Tania’s right. She moved in close, beguiling the creature’s natural instincts of how prey would fight back. The sub tried to raise its hands but Vanessa was too quick. She barred both hands with her left arm held low. At the same time she raised her right forearm up under the creature’s chin, ending its effort to bite at her as she drove in. On the last step in Vanessa planted one foot behind the backpedaling creature. They were falling together, and in landing Tania imagined more than saw the result: Vanessa’s knee coming down on the thing’s stomach, her forearm still across the Adam’s apple. Something crunched. The creature did not cry out. Its limbs jerked once, then nothing.

The immune wasted no time. She was up, turning, moving back to Tania and pulling her back to her feet. Once again her lighthouse in this ocean of terrors, pulling her toward the goal. Tania hardly noticed. She couldn’t break her gaze from the pack that converged. With each pounding pulse of blood in her temples the subhumans drew nearer. They struggled to weave through the forest as she had. Many fell, many tripped on the fallen, but despite this their numbers staggered her.

They were running again, and four steps later Tania could see the bulky shape of the Helios resting in the clearing where they’d landed. The sight of it brought a renewed urgency to her burning legs, and then, as suddenly as it had started, she was through the door, closing it. Vanessa had veered away and went to the cockpit without a spoken word of planning. They both knew what had to be done.

Tania pulled the door shut at the same moment a subhuman slammed into it, forcing it closed with such ferocity that she stumbled backward. She could see the being’s face through the tiny porthole window. Two blue eyes, bloodshot and ragged and … sad. Profoundly sad.

The engines were already whirring, soon pushing to a roar that vibrated the walls.

She’ll fly, Tania thought. The pulse that had ruined her suit had not, it seemed, extended this far.

Tania realized the light above the door showed red. No seal. Panic surged through her. Had something caught in the door? The being’s foot, or hand?

She saw it then, and cursed herself. She’d simply forgotten to yank the handle into the sealed position. It took a force of will to step toward the door, toward those blue eyes and clawing fingertips that left little dirty smudges on the glass. Yet she did it, she stepped up and gripped the long metal bar with both hands and turned it clockwise. It snapped into place, the light turned green, and instantly the aircraft lurched.

Those eyes disappeared, fell down and away, as the Helios took flight.

Tania lay on the floor of the aircraft for a long time, the fingertips of her right hand resting gently on the triangular object. She stared at it, tried to thrust her very soul into the weave of microscopic channels that laced its surface, its beveled edges.

“Are you what saved me?” she whispered.

The emerald light that pulsed within those tiny lines did not waver.

She ran a finger over the corner of the triangle with the missing tip. “Are you what protects me now? Or am I … immune, after all?”

The odds of that were astronomical, she knew, and with more than a little mirth she countered that with the fact that she was an astronomer. And, if the jury will allow, this very object came from the stars, did it not? Tania smiled at her own wit. Astronomical odds weren’t so hard to believe. Not anymore.

After a time reality began to pull her back to more practical matters. She relieved herself after first shedding the torn spacesuit and the leotard she’d worn underneath. Sitting naked on the floor, she used dry-shower wipes to clean herself, then combed her hair and tied it into a tight bun. From a locker under the bench seat she pulled a fresh set of sweatpants and light sweater, both emblazoned with the logo of some Brazilian football club she’d never heard of.

She ate a bland packet of peanut butter mixed with various vitamins and some sort of grain, the type of thing they used to drop from aircraft into starving villages. She sipped water from a stainless-steel canister. Not too much. It was room temperature and tasted metallic, and when she looked down into the darkness of the container the ripple of water there reminded her of the underwater river, the cave, and Pablo.

She stared at that water for a long time, unblinking, remembering.

Later Tania pulled the hood of her sweater over her head and sat cross-legged on the floor, her arms thrown over her knees, her head bent down in something that might resemble reverence, and she cried for him. A man she’d hardly known, who died for her. Another death for her rather vague cause.

When the Builders did arrive, they’d have a lot to answer for.

A few hours later Vanessa landed the aircraft somewhere in southern Mexico. She tapped the window and mouthed that she was going to recharge the caps, then stepped back in surprise when Tania yanked the handle and opened the cabin door.

“The air’s already contaminated, remember?”

Vanessa tightened her lips. “Are you … I mean, it seems unlikely you’re immune.”

Astronomical odds. Tania tried to act nonchalant, and shrugged. “I don’t know what happened, but when that shock wave hit the pain receded, stabilized. I think maybe the object creates a small aura. I suppose now we’ll find out. Keep an eye on me.”

Vanessa nodded and moved aside.

Tania stepped out into the cool evening air and inhaled the rich aroma of wild vegetation.

Vanessa had set the Helios down on a landing pad on the grounds of a resort or hotel. An isolated place, and despite being enveloped by the jungle around it, the grounds still spoke of immaculate, expensive landscaping. Lights were on everywhere, inside and out, but of course nobody was around.

Tania moved a step from the door. Then another. Then ten.

“I’ll help you,” Tania said, smiling with more confidence than she felt. “Just … haul me back here if I start acting strange.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Come on.”

Together they found and then cleaned the charge cable, which had become home to a particularly large and hairy spider. Vanessa had recoiled at the sight of it, but Tania simply swatted it aside with one quick brush of her hand before picking away the remnants of its web. Then she carried the weight of the cord while Vanessa snapped the charge coupler into place on the receptacle near the tail of the aircraft.

“Nice strong line,” the woman said. “Won’t take more than an hour to ensure we can get home.”

“Did you fly before … you know, before?”

“No,” Vanessa said with visible pride. “Skyler taught me.”

For a time they simply sat on benches that lined the walkway to the landing pad and listened to the sounds of the jungle. Despite the ample landscape lighting around them, the stars above still put on a dazzling display. It was a clear, warm night, and other than the occasional insect landing to snack on Tania’s arm, she found the place surreal and calming.

Vanessa let out a long sigh. “I wish he was here. Pablo, I mean.”

“Me, too.”

The woman cast a sidelong glance at Tania and smiled amiably enough. It was clear she wanted to grieve but not in the company of a stranger. She wanted to be with Skyler and Ana, with her crew, to mourn and remember.

“What’s going to happen,” Vanessa asked, “when we gather all of those … things?”

A shiver ran across Tania’s shoulders.

“I know,” Vanessa continued, “I asked you before and you said you didn’t know. But … what do you think is going to happen, Dr. Sharma?”

“All I have are lame hypotheses. Guesses, really. A hypothesis would require some concrete information at least.”

Vanessa’s features hardened. “Tell me anyway. I want to know.”

“You want to know what Pablo died for,” Tania said gently. The other woman looked away, her lack of denial serving as an answer. “I want to know that, too.”

A tear slipped from the corner of Vanessa’s eye and began its stutter-roll down her cheek. She swatted it away like one of the insects and took a big deliberate breath, exhaling through her mouth.

“There is some evidence,” Tania said carefully, “that there will only be one more ship to arrive. An end to this … sequence, less than a year from now. And my guess, educated or otherwise, is that things will go very badly for us if these objects are not installed before that time.”

“And if they are? What happens then?”

Tania shrugged. “No one knows. But Skyler felt strongly that simply waiting around, or ignoring this altogether, was unlikely to lead to the desirable outcome. Assuming of course there is a desirable outcome, for us at least.”