The Future War

BLACK RIVER RELOCATION CAMP, MISSOURI

Mary held the Stratzman baby, Sonya, rocking her gently. The poor little thing was no longer able to drink on her own; the only sound was the tiny labored breathing and the creak of the canvas camp chair beneath her.

And I don't think the IV is doing any good.

Sonya's fever was a hundred and six the last time it had been checked and it felt hotter by the moment; her face was withered and thin, like a tiny grandmother's. Mary no longer noticed the smell; it was all-pervasive through the clinic now.

Sonya's four-year-old brother was doing a bit better than she was, but not much. He lay in the next cot, eyes half-shut; they were dull and sunken in a hollow-cheeked face. The lids barely flickered as one of the volunteers changed the soiled pad under his hips and rolled him to one side to straighten the bedclothes beneath; there were bedsores where the bones of his pelvis and shoulder were wearing through the skin.

Mrs. Stratzman had labored over her children to the point of exhaustion, leaving her with little in reserve when she came down with cholera. She'd died this morning. Her husband was delirious, but he was the most likely to survive. Though with this kind of fever, there were no guarantees.

Mary herself was very tired, that limbs-filled-with-wet-sand, burning-eyed, hard-to-talk exhaustion that almost made her want to weep.

As if I didn't have enough reasons to cry, she thought. And then: You're healthy, you've got no one to lose anymore, you're young enough to probably throw off the infection if you do get it.

Right now it felt as though she was stealing this time from other patients, but babies responded better if they were held occasionally. And it gave the nurses, both professional and volunteer, a chance to sit down.

She opened her eyes slowly and realized that she'd dropped off for a moment. It could only have been a few seconds because Matron was still with the same patient, in much the same posture as she had been. Mary yawned, then looked down at little Sonya. The baby's eyes were half-open and her mouth was slack.

A spear of anxiety shot through her and she quickly checked the baby's pulse. The infant's skin was already cooling, and where the pulse had been far too rapid, now it was utterly gone.

She sighed. At least someone was holding her when she died; she didn't go alone in her crib.

Yet Mary regretted that she hadn't noticed. Not that there would have been anything she could have done about it.

Nurse Mary Shea rose and took the baby's chart off her crib, carrying it and the small body outside. Beside the clinic there was a large tent where the bodies were stored prior to being buried. She handed Sonya to a soldier wearing a hazard suit and respirator; he glanced at Mary and she could see the misery in his eyes through the buglike lenses of his mask. She shook her head and shrugged and he nodded; sadly, she thought. Then Mary made a note on the chart of the child's time of death and gave him the paper.

She returned to the clinic only for a moment, just long enough to inform the head nurse of little Sonya Stratzman's death.

Matron looked her over.

"Take a break," she said. "Don't come back for twenty minutes or so. We won't fall to pieces."

"Thank you," Mary said, from the heart.

She turned and walked away, grabbing her jacket on the way out. Outside the clinic she paused, but not for long. I've got to get away from the smell of this place, she thought, and headed for the gate. She just had to get somewhere that didn't stink of death and disease.

As she approached the gate a soldier stepped out of the guard shack. "Identify yourself, please," he said.

He was one of the odd ones that Mary had noticed around the camp. They had this low-affect manner and they looked at you with these dead eyes that seemed to measure you for your scrap value.

"Mary Shea," she answered. "I'm a nurse at the clinic. I'm going for a short walk; I'll be back in ten minutes." Theoretically, civilians were free to leave the camp anytime they wanted. Up until now, though, she'd been too busy to test the theory.

I hope he's not going to give me an argument, she thought. I am so not in the mood.

"I don't think you should do that," the guard said. "It's very dangerous out there."

"It's pretty damn dangerous in here at the moment," she said crossly.

"Maybe you should just take a walk around the perimeter of the fence," he said, standing in her way.

"I just need to get away from the smell around here, okay? I'm not going far; I've only got ten minutes and I'd rather not waste it arguing with you." Her voice had risen toward the end there and now the guard was looking stubborn.

"Something the matter?" a voice asked.

She turned to see a lieutenant standing there. He was a good-looking young man with light brown eyes and dark brown hair.

"I just want to go for a short walk outside the fence, but this fellow thinks it's a bad idea."

"No one here is a prisoner, Corporal," the lieutenant said.

"Yes, sir."

The lieutenant turned to her and smiled slightly. "Would you like some company?"

She returned the smile. "Another time, perhaps. But right now I really just need to be alone for a few minutes."

"Another time, then." He watched the attractive young nurse walk away. Then he turned to the corporal. "Have the orders changed recently?" he asked. "Are there now restrictions on who can leave the camp?"

"No, sir." The corporal looked surly. "I just hate to see girls go out there alone. There's some rough characters out there."

"There are rough characters lurking a five-minute walk from this fence, Corporal?" Reese gave the soldier a hard look.

"Considering that's well within our patrol range, I'd have to say that you and your friends aren't doing a very good job. Wouldn't you, soldier?"

"Yes, sir."

If there's one thing I hate, it's a trooper with an attitude problem and this guy has one in spades, Reese thought.

Granted, the world has come to an end, hundreds of millions are dead, and we've got an epidemic, but…

He looked the corporal over in the patented intimidating style that good officers learned early and utilized often. "You forgot to have her sign out," Reese pointed out. "That was your oversight, not hers. So I don't want you giving her a hard time when she gets back. Just note that a young woman left at this time and have her sign in when she returns. Don't forget it again, and don't restrict the movements of civilians. If someone wants to leave, we can't stop them. Like I said, this isn't a prison."

"Yes, sir."

Reese continued on his way. He glanced down the road, but the girl was already out of sight behind some trees. He frowned, wondering how many other soldiers were getting the idea that the civilians in the camp were prisoners. He'd felt damned uncomfortable when the captain referred to them as inmates, even though he knew Yanik was only kidding. At least he thought the captain was kidding.

Then there were the thugs who claimed to have been beaten up by the guards. Ordinarily he'd have rejected such accusations out of hand. But there was something in the atmosphere of the camp lately that made their story hard to discount. Which made a soldier refusing to let someone take a walk outside the fence somewhat worrying.

* * *

Spring was moving on and the grass was growing, still looking thin and uncertain, but pushing up to the light anyway.

It doesn't seem right, somehow, Mary thought, obscurely disturbed by the returning life. She took a deep breath of air that only smelled of cool and green.

Some trees wore a fuzz of red at the tips of their branches; others were just putting forth new leaves, all pale green, with silver-gray fuzz on the outside. It was still too early for flowers, though. Maybe there were snowdrops and crocuses blooming somewhere, but there were none around here.

Given that it was colder than usual, it was probably still too early for the young leaves that were already showing. But nature was resilient; if these leaves got burned, others would replace them.

All her life Mary had thought that if the bombs ever dropped, the world would just end—no more spring, no more people, no more anything. And here things like grass and trees were carrying on much the same as they always did.

People, however, are screwing up as usual.

Maybe that was unfair. To date, no one had been able to discover where the cholera had come from and why it continued to spread. Poor little Sonya. And her poor brother, too.

Poor me, she thought. She wasn't used to losing patients like this. I'm used to treatments that work. People died of cancer, or degenerative diseases. Apart from a few stubborn exceptions, they didn't die of bacteria!

She'd lost patients, of course. Death was a part of life and there were some diseases they hadn't yet eradicated. But this!

This was a nineteenth-century-style epidemic. Or a third-world one. Funny to think that was what they were now. As third world as anybody else.

That was probably an exaggeration. But I'm in an exaggerated mood— hypersensitive, exhausted, uncomfortable in my own skin.

Still, things were going from bad to worse at the moment.

They really were…

On top of everything else, four men had entered the clinic in the last week to be treated for what looked like one hell of a beating. Three of them had accused the guards of jumping them; the fourth was in a coma. But everyone knew the four men had been involved in selling drugs, or bootleg alcohol, or black-market goods. So their word was taken with a grain of salt.

Besides, the accused guards were able to call on witnesses who placed them elsewhere when the beatings were supposed to have been administered.

People! she thought, feeling close to despair. They just never stop. They make an accusation, which the accused deny, someone demands an investigation, the investigators claim they're being impeded, the accused say the investigators aren't going far enough, the accusers shout "whitewash!" the accused

"persecution!"

Mary stopped and plopped down under a tree with a discouraged sigh. She was in the middle of a hydrangea thicket and she looked for the clusters of buds on the tips of the branches. They were still tightly wound in their protective winter coating, not a hint of petal showing.

Taking a deep breath redolent with the scent of cool, damp air and earth and growing things, she started to let down her guard.

Mary allowed her eyes to tear up; she'd come out here to have a good cry in private. It was the sort of thing that helped her survive.

"The cholera is doing a great job."

With an effort of will Mary swallowed her tears, though it felt like they were going down inside a cardboard box. But then, she'd been startled, both by the voice and what he'd said. She hadn't heard anyone walking. How long had they been there?

"Yeah. It's really helping things along. And they're all still sniffing the toilets and boiling water and things like that."

The two men laughed; she wasn't sure, but she thought there might have been a third voice.

"I toldja nobody would believe that anthrax would occur naturally."

"Maybe not, but it spreads like crazy."

"Yeah, but it's pretty obviously not natural."

"Cholera's more treatable."

"Only if you get the medicine."

"Tomorrow trucks will be arriving to take the sickest people to the central hospital. So the clinic will be receiving even less."

"Well, fewer patients. One way or another."

They were moving away, laughing. Mary stood and crept toward the voices. Moving carefully, she peered through the branches of the hydrangeas and saw three figures, dressed in what looked like army fatigues, moving down the path. They'd gone out of sight before she could get a look at even the backs of their heads. Moving quickly but carefully, Mary moved parallel to the path, trying to catch up to them enough to get a glimpse.

She heard car doors slam and moved more quickly still, risking the sound of crunching leaves. But she was too late. By the time she reached a dirt road, a green van was just turning a corner, to be quickly hidden by some bushes and fir trees. Looking around, she saw no one else.

What was that all about? she wondered.

It had sounded as though she'd been listening to people who were happy about the epidemic, maybe even somehow causing it. But who on earth would that be? Even Arab terrorists had better things to think about these days. And this was the first she'd heard about patients being taken to a central hospital.

Or even that there is a central hospital.

She should probably tell someone. Not that she had anything concrete to tell, considering she hadn't seen any faces and hadn't recognized anybody's voice. Still… But who could she tell?

Matron? No, she had enough on her plate.

Maybe… maybe that good-looking lieutenant. She didn't mind taking advantage of his apparent interest if it would help.

It galled her that she had no proof. Unless trucks do in fact show up tomorrow. That wasn't something she would know. At least not yet. She glanced at her watch and gasped. Not now, later. Right now she needed to get back to work. She certainly had a lot to think about. Like how anyone would go about deliberately spreading cholera.

* * *

"You could spray the germs on raw fruits and vegetables,"

Mary said.

Dennis Reese just looked at her, his mouth partially open.

When she'd suggested coffee he'd been delighted; Mary Shea was a fine-looking woman, with a striking figure, long auburn hair, and hazel green eyes. She didn't look like a conspiracy nut.

"We don't have that many raw vegetables," he pointed out.

"Yes, they're scarce, which may be why everyone in the camp hasn't come down with it. It sure isn't in the water supply, which is the usual vector. The second most-likely source is contaminated food. But the kitchens and the food in storage have been checked without finding anything wrong. So what if food is being treated just before it's served?"

Dennis took a sip of coffee, never taking his eyes from her pretty, anxious face. She'd related an overheard conversation to him and it was worrying. On the one hand, a simple explanation was that someone was playing a sick joke on her. Which begged the question why anybody would do that? Maybe she turned someone

down and they resented it? The other, and actually most likely explanation was that Nurse Shea had fallen briefly asleep and had dreamed the whole thing.

"Let's see if these ambulance trucks show," he suggested.

"You think I'm making this up?" she asked. It was clear that she was offended.

"No." He waved that away. "But it's possible you dreamed it.

You looked really tired, yesterday. And that conversation had a kind of dream logic to it. You know what I mean?" She shook her head, her expression cool. "What I mean is, one minute they seem to be saying they've caused the epidemic, then they're talking about ambulances." He held his hands up, moving them like two parts of a scale. "What you fear, combined with a hope of rescue."

"Excuse me," Mary said, rising, "but it never occurred to me that this epidemic might be the result of bioterrorism. If anything, I thought it was the result of shoddy construction. And since the idea hadn't even occurred to me, it would be hard for me to be afraid of it. Don't you think?"

"Yeah," he agreed. "Like I said, let's wait and see about those trucks. Then we'll know."

"We'll know that I overheard someone talking about ambulance transport," she snapped. "We still won't believe that I overheard the first part of the conversation, will we?"

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to," she snapped, and stalked off.

I seem to be seeing this woman's back a lot, Reese thought.

Nice view.

"Cute," Chip Delaney said.

Dennis looked up at him; he and Chip were sharing quarters and getting to be friends. "You think?" he said.

"Uh-huh. Redheads, man. They're testy but they're worth it."

He slapped Reese on the shoulder. "The captain wants you, buddy. ASAP."

* * *

When the lieutenant walked into Captain Yanik's office, it was to find the head nurse on the verge of blowing a gasket.

"You can't be serious!" she was screeching. "We can't send these people on a trip. Most of my patients are too sick to be moved. And where are they being taken? How far away is it?

What are we supposed to tell their families when they come looking for them? Besides, you know I can't spare any personnel to go with these trucks and they didn't provide any. What they'll be delivering at the end of their journey is a load of corpses!"

"I have my orders, Ms. Vetrano. Worst cases to be moved to the central hospital. Doctor," Yanik appealed, "surely they'll have a better chance away from here."

"That is not necessarily correct, Captain," the Sikh physician told him. He frowned. "Perhaps we could send some patients who are very ill and some patients who are still ambulatory and might be able to administer to those who can't take care of themselves."

"Doctor, I don't understand why we have to do this at all," the head nurse said. "What we need are more supplies and more trained medical help. And we don't know why this epidemic is happening, so maybe we should truck everybody out of here."

"Nurse Vetrano has a point," Ramsingh said. "Close investigation has not turned up an answer to what has caused the epidemic. Everyone is boiling their water and washing their hands carefully, yet the contagion keeps spreading. Perhaps the problem is this place."

"This place has been a fairground for more than a hundred years," the captain pointed out. "Not once, to the best of my knowledge, has it ever been the source of an epidemic."

"Then what is?" Reese asked.

They all looked at him, the captain scowling. The look in his eyes informing the lieutenant that he wasn't helping. Dennis steeled himself, deciding to tell them what Mary had reported.

"Nurse Shea claims to have overheard some men speaking in a way that indicated they might be deliberately spreading the contagion. She suggested that they might be spraying germs onto raw fruits and vegetables after they'd been put out for consumption."

"Who?" Yanik demanded. "Can she tell us?"

"No, sir. She claims to have only caught a brief glimpse of them from the back before they drove off in a green van. She said they were wearing fatigues."

"Very useful," the captain drawled.

"It might be worth looking into," Reese suggested.

"You believed her?" Yanik said. His tone implied that the lieutenant had a screw loose.

"I have my doubts, sir. But she also heard them say that trucks would be coming for the patients and that its arrival would correspond with a decrease in medical supplies."

The captain and the doctor exchanged glances.

"All we would need to do is station someone in the cafeteria to watch," Ramsingh said.

"Better set up a video camera," Reese suggested. "They wouldn't be expecting that. Besides, if anyone is just lingering in the cafeteria, they'll be noticed. We could make sure it's a different someone every few hours, but even that would stand out. And since we don't know who might be doing this, we might blow our cover before we've even started by enlisting the perpetrator."

"Like I said, you believed her," Yanik said flatly. The captain looked more contemptuous than annoyed.

"Under the circumstances, sir, I think it's worth investigating." Reese stood at ease, hoping Mary Shea hadn't dreamed her encounter.

"I don't know," Yanik mused, rubbing his chin. "Electricity is at a premium right now."

"How about human life?" Nurse Vetrano snapped. "That at a premium, too?"

The captain flicked a look at Dennis that said, "Thanks!

Thanks a lot!"

"All right," Yanik said. "We'll set it up. I'll check to see if Nurse Vetrano's proposal is acceptable to HQ and get back to you. Meanwhile, you two can be deciding who goes."

"If we can't come to an agreement on this," Ramsingh said regretfully, "then I'm afraid I can't release those patients, Captain."

"Let's just assume everyone is working in good faith, shall we?" Yanik suggested. "I'm sure not sending medics with the trucks was an oversight. Everyone, everywhere, is overburdened at the moment. HQ is working with too few resources, too.

Remember that saying: never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity."

Vetrano looked somewhat mollified. "Truer words have never been spoken, Captain."

"Sad, but also true," Yanik agreed.

DILEK, ALASKA

The little cove hadn't been much even before the bombs fell, and it was less now—a dozen shacks, a pier for fishing boats, and a fuel store, grubby and shabby against the steep, austere green beauty of the coastal mountains. Dieter and John had planned to meet Vera in some out-of-the-way spot, avoiding anyplace too populated. They'd reasoned that at this point people might be so desperate that they'd mob the ship. But Vera had rejected their suggestion.

"I need fuel," she said. "You can't get fuel from bears." It might well be that they couldn't get fuel from people either, but they had to try. John couldn't believe that they'd forgotten to set up a fuel dump in their own backyard when they had a number of them elsewhere.

"It's not our oversight," Dieter had insisted. "It's Vera's. She should have asked us where she could fuel up when she was still off California."

But when they came to the dock where Love's Thrust was moored and the great white yacht with its touches of pink came into view, John decided that he couldn't go with them.

Just when I think I'm over Wendy, something comes along to remind me.

And Love's Thrust held far too many memories. He could feel them weighing down his gut, making the world turn gray and purposeless.

"I keep thinking of those kids," John said. "Their parents may be fools but that doesn't mean I can just give up on them."

Dieter didn't question John's motivation for heading back. He just handed over the Harley. "Keep in touch," he said. "And for God's sake, stay alive. I don't want to have gone through all this only to find Skynet in the catbird seat."

"Me either," John said. He offered his hand and the big Austrian took it, squeezing with careful strength.

"Good luck," he said.

"Back atcha," John said, grinning.

Dieter snorted, but returned the grin, ruffling John's hair.

"You remind me of your mother," he said.

"Then I'm sure to survive."

They grinned at each other for a moment.

"Give Vera my love," John said, and kicked the Harley to life.

"She'll be disappointed," Dieter said.

"Truth is, sometimes she scares me more than Skynet," John told him. He thought he caught a glimpse of champagne-blond hair at the rail and with a wave started off.

Dieter watched him go, laughing, remembering that he'd occasionally felt the same way himself.

* * *

BLACK RIVER RELOCATION CAMP, MISSOURI

Captain Yanik walked up to Reese, who was checking on the installation of cots inside the bodies of the trucks. "Good work, Lieutenant," he said heartily as his boots splashed through the gray mud.

Meaning, Reese thought, that because I stuck my oar in, Yanik has decided I'm the perfect person to liaise with the hospital on this matter. He certainly doesn't want to contend with Nurse "Virago" Vetrano.

Reese turned around and saluted.

Yanik returned it and handed the lieutenant some papers.

With a glance at the CO, Reese took them and at his nod started to read.

"Oh!" he said, pleased.

The captain grinned. "Thought that'd make your day."

They were Reese's orders to report to the Central States Regional Command for reassignment.

"Yes, sir!"

"Keep reading," Yanik directed.

"They want Nurse Shea, too?" Reese looked up. "Why? They've got your report and she doesn't know any more than she told us.

And she's really needed here."

"Well, in case you haven't noticed, the phone lines are down, and our commanding officers are a bit busy," the captain drawled. "And if it gets out that she heard this stuff, she might be in danger here. Besides, it'll soothe Vetrano no end to have a professional nurse with the convoy. And since it's not my idea, she can't complain to me about it."

"Yes, sir," Reese agreed. Nurse Vetrano in full cry was a formidable lady. And Nurse Shea might prove to be very pleasant company at Central.

"I'll leave it to you to tell her," Yanik said.

"Yes, sir." Reese saluted, but the captain had already turned away. Dennis was so pleased about his new orders that it took him a minute to realize that he was going to have to face the head nurse's wrath.

ON THE ROAD, MISSOURI

Reese had planned to ride in the cab of the first truck, but Vetrano's glare and Shea's pleading eyes had quickly changed his mind.

"I have no medical training at all," he'd protested for a final time.

"It'll be all right," Mary said, taking him by the arm. "There's nothing complicated about this type of nursing. All you'll have to do is occasionally change an IV bag, wipe some brows, give sips of water, that sort of thing. It's tiring, but it's easy, you'll see."

A glance at Vetrano had told him that he certainly would. He touched the orders in his breast pocket like they were a talisman against evil and allowed himself to be led off for instructions about the care and feeding of IVs.

He had been assigned the first truck, Mary the last, and the two in between were being tended by a pair of ambulatory patients. In case there was a problem, each group had been given a radio. Reese had been given a code that would stop the first truck if he had cause, and when it stopped, the others would automatically stop as well. With luck, it wouldn't be necessary to use it.

Nursing was tiring work, also disgusting and tedious and anxiety making all at once. Maybe it got better after you'd been doing it for a while. But Reese hoped he never had to do this again. The patients diapers needed constant changing; so far he hadn't had time to bathe anyone's brow, which all six of his patients needed.

He'd been at this for hours. Where the hell are we going? he wondered impatiently. He pulled a tiny section of the curtain secured across the back of the truck aside to see where they were. Woods. Nothing but woods and hills. No buildings, no people, and not a very impressive roadway. They were somewhere up in the hills, he realized, heading toward the Ozarks.

He stumbled back to the innermost bunk to check the IV and found that his patient had died. "Mary!" he said over the radio.

"Mugamba is dead!"

"Are you sure?" she came back.

"He hasn't got a pulse and he's not breathing."

She didn't answer for a moment and Reese imagined what she was thinking: yup, that's pretty much the definition of dead, all right.

"What should I do?" he asked.

"Just cover his face and do your best for the rest of your patients," she answered. "This isn't your fault, Lieutenant. He was very sick."

"Will do," he said, and signed off.

He wondered why he'd called her. Had he expected her to come leaping from truck to truck to hold his hand? Of course, he was an engineer. He'd never had anyone die on him before…

before this all started; since then, it was becoming an unpleasantly familiar experience.

As if some malignant fate is out to kill us all. So maybe he just wanted someone to take this burden off his hands. Make that I'd give anything for someone to come along and take this off my hands.

The truck seemed to rear up like a frightened stallion; then it jounced fiercely as it inexplicably left the road. Reese grabbed for one of the hoops that held up the tilt and braced a boot against the side slats, swaying with the lunging pull. Either they'd left the road or the road had gone out of existence. Since he was near the side of the truck anyway, he reached out and lifted its canvas tilt enough to look out.

Yep, we're off the road all right. And the patients were bouncing around like beans in a can. If the cots hadn't been secured to the truck bed and the patients secured to the cots, things would have been pretty ugly back here.

The radio at his waist squawked and Mary Shea bellowed,

"Stop the truck!"

Good idea, he thought, if easier said than done. They'd rigged up a connection to the truck's computer back here, but it was up front, beside the corpse of Mugamba. The truck seemed to be climbing and hitting every rock in the way, causing it to buck like a mad thing. By the time Reese had struggled to the front, he'd collected some serious bruises.

The bouncing made it difficult to read the computer's screen, but not nearly as hard as it was to type in the code they'd given him. He hit enter on the third try.

"Lieutenant! Are you all right?"

He unclipped the radio from his belt. "Yeah, sorry. I just entered the code; it didn't work." He spoke with his teeth clenched because he was afraid of biting off his tongue. "I'm going to try again."

He hit clear, then reentered the code, then hit enter. Nothing happened except the damn truck seemed to speed up.

"Shit," he said under his breath. He looked at the sick sharing the truck with him. They couldn't take much more of this. Maybe there was something wrong with the connection. He looked for the cord and pulled it into sight; it came easily, as though it had long since lost contact with the truck's brain. Shit, he thought bitterly.

He reached up and pulled the curtain aside, revealing, to his immense relief, a large rear window with sliding panels. Now for some movie-style heroics, he thought. He prayed the wildly bucking truck body and window frame wouldn't emasculate him as he bridged the space between the two. Just sliding the window aside, he felt like he was being punched in the stomach by a large and very angry opponent.

Finally he had it open, and after falling back three or four times managed to push out the screen as well. Reese grasped the edges of the window and eeled himself forward feet-first, trying to hold himself up and away from the truck frame as much as possible. He had his hips just over the edge of the window when the truck suddenly stopped.

The flat of his back hit the windshield hard enough to crack it; worse, his head hit the steering wheel and he blacked out.

When Reese came to, he was crunched between the wheel and the back of the seat in a sort of midsomersault position, so dazed that for a moment all he could do was wave his arms like flippers.

Gradually he became aware of Mary screaming, "Stop! Stop!

These people are sick! What are you doing?"

Reese managed to flop over on his side and raised his head.

Then lowered it again as nausea threatened. He lay still, listening to sounds from outside. Sounds of something heavy hitting the ground, sounds of bottles breaking and Mary's pleas for whoever was making all that noise to stop. In the vague way of the recently returned to consciousness, Dennis kind of wished she'd stop yelling.

The sound of a slap and the sudden breaking off of her complaints brought him completely alert. Quietly he opened the door of the truck and slid out through the narrow gap he'd made, putting his feet down carefully on the rocky ground.

The truck door was pulled fully open and Reese spun around, almost losing his balance. He found himself staring up the barrel of a Colt Commando, the carbine version of the army's assault rifle.

"Hello," he said, trying to sound friendly. That was probably more prudent than: put that thing the hell down!

"Didja think we didn't know you were in there?" the young man holding the gun asked with a sneer. "Hands on top of your head, fingers joined; now march."

The lieutenant did as he was told. He stopped in shock when they came to the back of the truck and he saw the bodies of his patients writhing on the ground. As he stood there, another body came flying out, but this one was dead. A sharp poke in the back with the gun muzzle got him moving again.

As he came around the back of the last truck, Mary shouted,

"Lieutenant!" in shock, then she ducked away from a middle-aged man who threatened her with his rifle butt.

Laughing, he approached Reese and looked him over. "Well, this must be Mr. Reese," he said.

"Lieutenant Dennis Reese, United States Army Corps of Engineers," Reese said crisply.

"We don't recognize any of that horseshit, Mr. Reese. There is no United States anymore, let alone a United States Army. No, sir, it's a new world."

"A world where you attack sick people?" Reese asked.

The man struck like lightning, bringing down the butt of his rifle precisely between Reese's neck and shoulder. The lieutenant dropped like a sack of rocks.

"That was a stupid remark," the man said calmly. "Those people were dead anyway. Waste of time and resources tryin' to keep 'em alive. Now get up." Reese struggled to his feet under the man's hostile gaze. They stared into each other's eyes for a long moment; the man with the gun laughed scornfully. Then he looked up at the truck. "You done?"

"Yes, sir," a woman said.

"You sure? Check again. I don't want to find anything back there that we don't need."

A moment later a man came out with the bucket containing the dirty diapers.

"Well, that would have made a pleasant traveling companion,"

the older man said. "I ought to make you eat that, Cloris."

"Oh, stop showing off in front of the prisoners, George." She gestured at Reese and Mary. "We gonna shoot them or what?"

"Or what, since you ask," George said. "Everybody mount up; we're due in New Madrid."

From out of the woods came thirty or forty people, mostly men; they began to get in the trucks. Mary was clearly beside herself with anxiety, making abortive gestures toward her patients and the people getting into the trucks as though the suffering humanity at their feet didn't exist. She opened her mouth to protest, and Reese took her hand and squeezed it.

When she looked at him he shook his head slightly. George grinned at her.

"Don't even ask," he said. "They'll be dead in a couple of hours anyway. Ain't nothing you can or coulda done for 'em."

"There is no central hospital, is there?" Reese asked.

"Hell, no," George said cheerfully.

"So this was all some kind of trap?" Mary asked.

George leaned toward her. "Yep."

"Why us?" Reese asked, gesturing between himself and Mary.

"The little lady has big ears, and you've got a big mouth,"

George said. "But I like you folks. You're feisty. So I'll give you guys a little clue." He leaned forward and whispered, "Y'all find yourselves some shelter." He winked and, laughing, went and climbed into the cab of the truck.

Reese and Mary watched the small convoy turn and start off back down the rocky track the trucks had climbed to this spot.

At least they threw the sick to one side, Reese thought. Either they had just enough humanity left to not run them over, or they didn't want to have to wash the blood off the trucks afterward.

Mary knelt by one of the patients. Reese recognized the man as one of the ambulatory patients. He was a lot less ambulatory now. Mary looked up at the lieutenant.

"His fever's way up," she said, her voice shaking.

"Go," the man said. Mary was ignoring him, looking around for something to help him with. He grabbed her arm. "Go!" he insisted. "There's nothing you can do for any of us. No water, no blankets, no medicine—we're goners. You should go. Now." He dropped his hand and looked at her, clearly spent.

Reese looked down at the man. I have every intention of leaving, even if I have to knock Mary out and carry her off. A trained nurse was not an asset he was likely to leave alone in the wilderness with a clutch of the dead and dying. But I feel a lot better about it because of what you said, mister.

Mary opened her mouth to speak and was interrupted by a crashing in the woods and a loud thuttering, whooshing sound, like a combination helicopter and vacuum cleaner. The man at their feet looked frightened, but he formed one word with his pale lips: "Go."

Reese took him at his word. He grabbed Mary by the arm and the waistband of her trousers and hustled her toward the trees.

"Hey!" she shouted in protest.

"Be quiet," he hissed in her ear. They ducked behind some bushes.

"Gimme a break," she snarled. "I could be singing grand opera and I'd never be heard over that racket."

She was right: whatever was approaching was loud. It reminded Reese of hovercraft he'd been on. Nevertheless, he kept her crouching beside him, looking out through a ragged screen of still-leafless blackberry canes.

"Maybe it's help," she suggested.

He looked at her until she tightened her lips and shrugged sheepishly.

From out of the trees came…

I don't know what the hell it is! Reese thought, struggling against panic. Breathe slowly…

It was oblong, made of steel, with no attempt made to camouflage it so that it would blend into the woods. It had multiple stubby arms from which the barrels of heavy machine guns extended. A central row of larger barrels were thick and stubby…

Grenade launchers? he thought.

It had antennae on top that looked like satellite dishes and on each visible side was some sort of video arrangement—not unlike security cameras in armored boxes. The machine was compact, about six feet tall and maybe four feet along the longer sides; call it twenty-four square feet. It rose and fell as it came forward, though it never touched the earth, riding a cushion of air.

Reese didn't need or want to see what was about to happen.

He grabbed the nurse by the shoulder of her short jacket and pulled her deeper into the woods.

The hammering sound of gunfire echoed behind them; the screams were few and feeble.