“Dr. Rahal,” Bahar said, leading them to her. “These women are from the Committee. They’re here to get an idea of what we know about what’s happening in Talas. Dr. Rahal is our head epidemiologist.”
Michelle extended her hand and Rahal gave her a quick dry handshake. Then she shook hands with Ana. Rahal was a dwarf, a little under four feet tall. Her grey hair was pulled back in a severe bun and, like Dr. Bahar, she wore a lab coat over scrubs.
Michelle glanced around the tent. Most of the people were nats. Many of them were strapped down to their beds with glazed expressions on their faces. One or two looked as if they were growing blood-filled masses on their faces. Jokers? Michelle wondered. Maybe this was another PPA—another wild card disaster.
“So are we dealing with a weaponized wild card virus?” Michelle asked. “Because it’s happened before.”
Rahal shook her head. “As far as I’ve been able to ascertain, no. This is nothing like what happened in Africa. Whatever is causing this, I think it’s not the virus. Some of the other doctors disagree with me.”
She gestured at the patients. “The less violent ones we’ve just sedated, but as you can tell, there are people who are too dangerous not to restrain.”
“What about the ones who have … things growing on them?” Ana asked. There was a tremor in her voice and a drawn expression on her face. She jammed her hands into her black pants.
“No, they’re not jokers,” Rahal said. “I’m not certain what they are. From the tests, they appear to be human.”
“Oh, God!” one of the female patients began to wail. “Oh, God, why have you forsaken me? I ate your flesh. I drank your blood. I did as you asked.”
Chills broke out along Michelle’s arms. The voice was cracked and filled with madness. Then the woman began grinding her teeth so hard Michelle was certain she was going to break them.
A nurse rushed into the tent. He had a carryall filled with syringes and vials.
“You’re going to have to up the dosage of Valium to fifty milligrams three times a day,” Bahar said. The nurse put the carryall down on a table at the opening to the tent. “And we’re going to double the dose of Clozaril.”
The nurse looked surprised, but did as he was told. Ana leaned over and whispered into Michelle’s ear, “The Valium dose alone is enough to take down a horse. I have no idea what the Clozaril is for. Maybe something for psychosis?”
“Jesus,” Michelle murmured. Then louder she said, “Dr. Rahal, do you have any idea what’s wrong with these people? Any kind of guess?”
Rahal shook her head. “No. We’ve checked for everything we can think of. Chemical. Biological. As I said before, the wild card virus doesn’t seem to be involved, but who knows? Until we have more information, I can’t make any kind of definitive conclusion.”
Then she gave a contemptuous smile. “One of my colleagues thinks it’s mass hysteria. Make of that what you will.”
Michelle thought about the tents with the corpses. And how those deformed bodies looked. And after her time in the PPA, there was one thing she knew for certain: what was happening here was for damn sure not mass hysteria.
“I think it’s time to do more reconnaissance,” Nabiyev was saying as Michelle and Ana came back into the command tent. “I have a unit chosen from my people. Who do you suggest from your group?”
Klaus turned toward the rest of the aces. “I think Bugsy and Lama are the best choices to help. Bugsy can send his wasps ahead, and Lama can astral-project, so he’ll be safe back here at camp and can report on what’s happening.”
The Lama blanched. He was a notorious coward, and Michelle wished he wasn’t on the mission at all. He wasn’t a bad guy, but the last thing they needed in this situation was the Lama acting like a complete candy-ass.
“So, we’ve got a plan for reconnaissance,” Klaus said, sounding pleased. He looked like he was fairly itching to be on the move. “What about after?” He tapped the map next to the pin indicating Nazabbayes Memorial Hospital.
“We’ll need to go in and deal with whatever is happening in there depending on what the recon finds,” the general said. He put his hands on his waist, then looked around the room at the Committee aces as if he was appraising their worthiness.
“I think we should send the troops in along with our aces,” Klaus said, “after we get some information from Bugsy and Lama.” He was fairly bouncing on his toes.
Michelle realized Klaus had changed since he’d lost his eye. His desire to lead the Committee had been replaced by the need to be in the field kicking ass. Michelle understood the impulse. She could be a blunt instrument herself.
The Angel liked exactly none of this. She felt awash on a sea of tension and fear that roiled off the city hunkered stolidly before them, presenting a blank yet somehow sullen face. The unnatural mist hid most of Talas, and what had attacked the troops milling about the camp like ants cut off from their colony. Some were dazed, some had been hurt and were being taken off to the Red Crescent tents clustered in a corner of the camp. All looked spooked. She doubted that any could provide useful intel, and that wasn’t even considering the language barrier. She glanced at Bugsy, who was looking around with as little enthusiasm as she had.
“I don’t suppose you speak Kazakh?” she asked.
He looked up, blankly, from the lens of his video camera and stopped filming.
“Or Russian?”
That elicited a shake of his head.
She sighed.
“I do,” a soft voice said.
The Angel looked around to see a small, young girl, perhaps in her teens, looking at her and Bugsy. She had a broad, flat-featured face with a snub nose and small, warm brown eyes. She was maybe five two and was dressed in Western though conservative style, in pants, a long-sleeved shirt, and sturdy-looking work boots. Her skin had a slight golden sheen that marked her as apart from normal.
The Angel smiled at her. “Kazakh,” she asked, “or Russian?”
“Both,” she replied with a smile. Her teeth were even and white. “I am Inkar Omarov,” she said, “and you are the famous aces Bugsy and Midnight Angel.” She looked at Bugsy. “I read your blog.”
Bugsy brightened. “Hey, what do you know, a fan, all the way out here.”
The Angel spared him a brief frown.
“I have read about both of you in ACES.” She smiled diffidently, shyly. “I, too, am an ace.”
“Excellent,” the Angel said with a smile. “We can use your help in questioning the soldiers. We have to find out what’s happening in the center of Talas.”
Inkar inclined her head. “Of course.”
They spoke to over half a dozen troops, but elicited only a story of confusion and failure. The soldiers were respectful of Inkar—it seemed that she was well known among them and had a considerably highly regarded reputation among her conservative countrymen—but hard info was scarce among the mystified and still-frightened soldiers.
Lohengrin approached, wearing his ghost armor, his only concession to the heat the lack of a helmet. He was accompanied by Bubbles, almost elfin in her slim beauty, and Doktor Omweer, the tall, khaki-clad Dutch ace. Omweer towered over all, even Lohengrin. He was an imposing six foot seven and well regarded by his ability to call upon and control lightning, if not exactly well liked. He was a peculiarly studious and serious man who’d rather spend his time studying obtuse mathematics rather than gadding about the earth, saving it.
“Have you seen the Lama?” Lohengrin asked. “I want him and you, Bugsy, to go off on a scout.”
Bugsy sighed. “Yeah, sure, a scout. Like I haven’t done that before.” He pursed his lips. “Last I saw him, he was snoozing in the back of an SUV.”
Lohengrin looked annoyed. “Well, go wake him up and get to it. We’re getting ready to go in, but we desperately need some kind of clue about what might be waiting for us.”
By his calculations Franny figured they had to be getting close. Since he’d never in his life flown
on a private plane he had no idea where they would land. Tomlin? Newark? The customs officers in Tehran might have been willing to accept the wrong passport, but that sure as hell wasn’t going to work in the States.
Given the efficiency with which Baba Yaga had arranged for their flight he assumed she had something in mind, but he needed to know what. There was nothing he could do at thirty thousand feet. He’d have to wait until they landed and look for an opportunity to escape and take Baba Yaga with him.
The old lady had slept after she’d eaten her soup, but he needed more information. Especially if the daring escape with Baba Yaga in tow didn’t work out. He returned to her.
“So we were at the point where you were holding something at bay.” He raised his eyebrows inquiringly. “I’m trying to figure out how kidnapping and torturing jokers is relevant to any of this.”
“You think I’m a monster—”
“Got it on one.”
The insult bounced off her emotional armor. “There was a reason for the death and pain I inflicted on those jokers. Their suffering kept this thing under control. Before he was lost Tolenka advised me of what I must do.” Her hand reached out and touched the stack of cassette tapes. “Over the years I refined and perfected the formula. Just enough blood and death to keep it sleeping. Too little and it would awaken. Too much and it would awaken.” The wrinkled lids lifted and the grey ice pierced him. “Then you blundered in. The big hero. And now it is coming.”
She fell silent. A line of ice traced its way down Franny’s spine. He didn’t doubt what she had said. What he had felt in that hospital room defied description or explanation.
“Why didn’t you tell someone? Get help to find a solution other than murder?”
“Humans are stupid, frightened monkeys. Anyone I trusted would probably have done something foolish and unleashed this horror sooner. No, I did what I had to do.”
He felt a strange stir of sympathy. “What a terrible choice. Killing a few to save millions, hell billions. That can’t have been easy.”
The look she bestowed on him was contemptuous. “No, it was very easy. I live on this world. All that I have worked to amass is here. I’d be a fool not to protect it.”
The cold calculation of her response awakened a blaze of anger. Franny stepped back, felt his hands clenching into fists. “So you did all this because you keep your stuff here?” She just looked at him. “God, you are disgusting.”
Her dry laughter followed him down the aisle of the plane. He went into the lavatory and sluiced water onto his face, allowed his racing heart to slow, waiting for the anger to leech out so he wouldn’t try to slap that smirk off her face. Once he was calm Franny returned to her.
“So what do we do? How do we stop this?” he asked.
“There are things that must not be done, but I will tell only your great heroes, not my errand boy.”
Franny returned to the bathroom. His fist shattered the mirror over the sink. It helped quell the rage, but not by much.
Marcus stood in the center of the street, surrounded by the entire village. They all listened as he laid out the whole unbelievable story. It fell to Olena to translate, which she did, her voice growing increasingly flatter and more distant as she went. Her eyes glazed and seemed reluctant to meet his. Marcus tried to keep himself to the basic facts, but it was hard. There was too much to say. Mostly, he tried to convince them to believe him, and to agree to flee the town and get as far away from Talas as possible.
“We have to get out of here,” he said. “There’s something horrible happening in Talas, and it’s only getting worse, spreading. Let’s plan, pack up, and go.”
When he finished speaking, the villagers spoke among themselves. Olena didn’t translate their deliberations.
Looking from face to face, he tried to read their reactions. He couldn’t, but he did marvel that he had come to know them so well over just a few days, when he couldn’t speak their language. Timur, with his head wrapped in a turban-like horn. Anara, with gill-like vents in her face, pretty not despite them, but because of them. She had served sweetened tea to the guys playing basketball just a couple days ago. Jyrgal, with his hands hidden within their burlap mittens. Nurassyl, to whom he owed both his and Olena’s lives. Jokers, most of them, like him. That they had in common, no matter the barriers of language and culture. Behind whatever the virus had bestowed on them, they were just people. Mother and fathers, sons and daughters, friends and rivals. There were nats among them, people like Aliya. He wanted to save all of them from what he’d experienced in Talas.
After conferring with the others, Olena approached him. “So, what did they decide?” Marcus blurted. “Will they leave? We should go as—”
Olena cut in. “They are split. Some have heard enough and want to go. Others cannot believe your story. Timur and some of the other men are going down the valley, toward Talas—”
It was Marcus’s turn to cut in. “No! They can’t do that! They’ll walk right into it!”
“You’re asking them to abandon their homes, all because of some crazy story. If you’d blamed it on the Russians—said it was nuclear accident or something—that they’d have believed. But this? And all on your word? No, they have to see for themselves.”
Marcus pressed a palm to his forehead, noticing for the first time that he had a pounding headache. He’d had it for a while, he realized. “None of what we saw was believable. I was there and I barely believe. Of all of it there’s one thing I can’t get out of my mind. It’s the faces of the people stuck inside that monster. I knew that I had seen faces like that before. Now I remember where. In school they showed us old footage of the Holocaust. World War II, you know? Concentration camps. That’s what those people looked like. That was the desolation in their eyes. Like they’d realized that there was a hell, and it was right here on earth.” He sighed. “They’d believe you, if you remembered.”
Olena’s blue eyes came up, sad and beautiful. And challenging. “But I don’t,” she said, her voice edged with frustration. “According to you, I was crazy. You had to poison me, and Nurassyl had to take away my memories to save me. According to you my father is dead. My father, who has never been afraid of anything.” She gestured angrily toward the villagers. “I’m just like them: nothing but your word to go on.”
A fighter jet appeared up the valley. It roared past the village. There and gone in a moment. In the uneasy silence as its roar faded, Marcus asked, “But, you believe me, don’t you?”
“I don’t know what to believe,” she said. He reached to hold her hand, but she flinched. She raised a palm to fend him off. Shaking her head, she said, “Give me room. I need to think. We all do.”
Watching her walk down the village road, toward the down valley edge of town, Marcus said, “Shit.”
It had been hours, and they still hadn’t heard from Bugsy or the Lama. Some of Nabiyev’s soldiers had staggered out of the gradually expanding miasma, but they were in no condition to do anything. Some of them looked as if acid had been thrown in their faces. They screamed and clawed at themselves until the army doctors managed to shoot them up with copious amounts of morphine.
And then there were the other men. One of them ran up to Michelle. “Can’t you feel him?” he asked, grabbing both of her arms and holding on tight as his fingers dug into her flesh. Shockingly, it hurt. Nothing like this had hurt since her card had turned. She tried to yank out of his grasp, but his hold was unbreakable. His breath was hot and smelled like the corpse tent. It was as if he was already dead. “He’s coming for us. He’s coming for all of us. He wants … gnahd hsdnga kjdiuk…”
His hold loosened and Michelle jerked her arms away, staggering backward. His gibberish continued even as blood began to drip from his nose and ears. He coughed and spattered Michelle’s face with blood. Ichor streamed down his chin onto his neck, and he collapsed.
Jesus, she thought, wiping her face with the back of her shaking hand. Nothing she could think of other tha
n the wild card virus that would change people into monstrous creatures. But that didn’t explain the rampant crazy.
“Come away from him,” the Angel said, pulling at Michelle’s arm. She was strong, and Michelle followed, surprised that the Angel could move her heavy-duty bubbling weight. “He’s insane and probably dying. And the medic is already here.”
The Angel released Michelle’s arm when they reached the Hummer. There was a bottle of water lying in the front seat. Michelle grabbed it and rinsed off her face. Her hands were still shaking. He’d touched her and it had hurt.
Inkar was leaning against the Hummer. She had a stony expression on her face. Whatever was going on, she was pissed about it. Better pissed than afraid, Michelle thought. She thought about Adesina and how Jayewardene had insisted that the only way to keep her from dying was to come to Talas. He’d better be right.
The Lama was lying in the back of the Hummer next to Bugsy’s empty clothes. His body was limp now that he’d gone into astral form. His hair was wet with sweat and his olive skin was paler than normal. Every so often, a terrible moan would escape him. He’s not even physically there, Michelle thought. How can he be so freaked out?
A buzzing sound filled the air. As it grew louder, Michelle turned to see Bugsy’s wasps coming out of the fog from Talas. But they weren’t flying in their usual tight formation. They tumbled and collided until they finally reached Bugsy’s clothes and slid in. They didn’t quite fill the pants and shirt anymore. When he finally coalesced, Bugsy was much smaller than normal. It was as if he’d lost an enormous number of his wasps.
“What’s happening?” Ana asked, her voice tight. She stared at Bugsy. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was pulled into a tight line.
Bugsy giggled. His eyes were wild. Some of the wasps hadn’t fully integrated, and he picked them off his body and began eating them delicately, one by one. He would titter and then eat a wasp.
Then, without warning, he exploded back into his wasp form and flew back in the direction of Talas.