The Z Chronicles Page 3

  Violet stepped over the sill and he saw her glance down and to her left, no doubt looking at the scattered remains of the couple that had banged on the door for so long before being torn apart and eaten. He’d watched their rapid dissolution on the security monitors, the animals taking whatever meat was left. And the heads, with their clacking jaws and moving eyes. He’d watched them, too.

  He’d wanted to move them, maybe smash the heads so that the people could go to their rest, but Paul had vetoed the idea, saying they provided a deterrent to anyone who might find their shelter. As disgusting as that statement was, Gordon knew it was true.

  But he also understood that it was meant to be a deterrent against any of the Shorties leaving, as well. After all, it had been made clear they wouldn’t be leaving with a biohazard suit or weapons, only the clothes they came in with or had stored in the facility. Nothing else. They would have to step over the contaminated bodies if they wanted to leave. They would have to make their way out of the Kentucky woods in their street clothes and weaponless. That would be death and everyone knew it.

  Violet was out of sight—a final flash of moving blue plastic—in less than a minute. Gordon turned to hold up his thumb for the camera again.

  “Personnel clear. Closing outer door,” Ramon called through the speaker.

  She would be gone for an hour or so. Every month the maintenance and checks on the solar and wind systems had to be done. Cameras gave them the ability to see if anything obvious happened, but cameras couldn’t replace good old-fashioned labor with a wrench and a broom.

  Gordon turned away from the door and began to prepare for her return. He didn’t need the same gear she wore, but he needed a biohazard suit for the second part of her decontamination. He took his time, avoiding the buildup of heat and sweat inside the plastic suit by delaying the donning of it. Instead, he arranged his brushes, sponges and all the other gear he would need, and tried not to think about what she was doing outside.

  Ramon knew his part in this. He would need to make sure Paul found little of interest inside the security room and wandered off while Violet was outside. He would also need to give Violet the signal through her suit radio, and be sure that no one saw her wander off course or leave the equipment array. There were a lot of pieces to keep shuffled, but their plan was doable.

  Violet was a military engineer and Ramon a security expert, or rather, that’s what they were before the nanites. Like Gordon, they were now janitors and errand boys, but it was always a mistake to underestimate people, and Paul had done precisely that. As had the others who formed the power-clique inside Vindica.

  Once they’d begun to treat the Shorties as servants, they’d begun to see them that way as well.

  Ramon’s voice startled him when it came through. “We’re clear.”

  Gordon let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, his heart thudding and a wave of heat rushing through his belly.

  Oh, god, what have I started?

  Time dragged, but also seemed to move too quickly. By the time Ramon called out that Violet was a hundred meters from the airlock, Gordon was dripping with anxiety sweat inside his biohazard suit and his face shield was fogging up around the edges.

  He pressed his shielded face to the thick pane of glass set into the inner airlock door and watched her take those last few steps. Was it his imagination or did the toolbox seem more weighty, her shoulder just a little lower on that side? It had to be imagination. She was as strong as an ox and it would be what...maybe eight pounds of extra weight? Ten? Certainly, it could be no more than ten pounds of weight.

  It was hard to process her back into the shelter as if everything were normal. It took almost all his willpower not to shrink away from the toolbox she handed him, still dripping from the antiseptic shower she took during first-stage decontamination. As he scrubbed first her suit, then the toolbox, his anxiety grew. He could feel that tightening in his chest that signaled the rise of another panic attack.

  She must have sensed it too, because she took the scrub brush gently from his hand and surreptitiously squeezed his fingers in reassurance as she did. Gordon closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them, she smiled at him in sympathy through the drops of moisture on her face shield. He felt better for it. She’d already done the hardest part. He just needed to keep it together for a little while longer.

  He opened the toolbox and dunked everything inside the box into the bucket of solution, including the large bag, now sealed and bulging with its contents. He tried not to flinch at the squishy feeling of the bag and the intermittent rounded edges of the bottles that he felt as he rolled the bag in the bucket of solution. Violet pressed a plastic-covered leg lightly into his back as she blocked the camera’s view for that critical moment.

  Once inside the entry room, they processed just as they normally would, each of them stripping down and showering one more time, bathing in the UV light and storing the biohazard suits just as they had done for the walk on day thirty-one when it had been Gordon who went outside.

  When Ramon’s voice gave them the all clear, Violet grabbed the bag from the toolbox and tucked it under the spare clothing she had brought for just this purpose.

  Paul was waiting for them when they exited into the Entry Level, where each resident had processed in that first day. Since then, it was only the Shorties and Paul that visited this utilitarian level. Here there were no marble floors or deep sofas, just easily decontaminated tiles and lots of plastic.

  “What took you so long?” Paul asked straight away. There was no thank you or any other nicety, only the demands of an owner toward the ones that were owned.

  Violet didn’t so much as blink at his tone. She simply shifted her hoodie and sweatshirt a little in her arms, pushed back her sweat dampened hair, and said, “Mud. The rains made the ground soft and I had to be careful. Plus, there was a lot of dirt on the lower panels.”

  There was no suspicion in Paul’s expression, only annoyance. Maybe he’d missed a card game.

  “Fine, fine. Carry on,” he said, turning to leave.

  At the stairwell, Paul stopped and turned back to them, his eyes in shadow so that Gordon could see only deep pits where they should be. He repressed a shudder, but only with effort.

  “Someone reported a rattle in one of the ventilation fans on Silver. Near pod S4. It’s keeping them awake. See to it first thing,” Paul said, then turned back to the stairs. When no reply came, he paused again, looking back.

  “I’ll see to the ventilation,” Violet said and Gordon felt a hysterical laugh beginning deep in his belly. His fists bunched inside the pockets of his coveralls as he tried to hold the laugh inside.

  With a grunt, Paul continued down the stairs, his head finally lowering out of sight. Violet waited a tick after he disappeared, then softly said, “Oh, I’ll take care of the ventilation all right.”

  Gordon looked at her, the second and third and fourth thoughts that had been plaguing him making him want to snatch the bag out from under the clothes and run screaming for the airlock to toss it out. Then the radio on his belt squawked and Paul’s voice called for Ramon to turn over the security monitor watch to a Steelie and report to Platinum for housekeeping duties.

  All those second thoughts faded immediately and Gordon looked up at Violet’s beautiful, but hard, face.

  “No time like the present,” she said.

  CHAPTER THREE

  That evening the residents of Platinum, Gold, and Silver celebrated Paul’s birthday. Baby lettuce grown under the grow lights in the atriums peeked out from beneath an array of brightly colored baby vegetables Ramon had harvested. Tiny radishes, beets, and carrots that would have provided fresh food when full-sized decorated the salad plates like little gems.

  And over it all, a very special salad dressing made by Violet containing a very special ingredient.

  Gordon tried not to flinch when he set the plates down at the table in the Precious Metals dining hall. He had to try
harder not to flinch when he saw someone take a bite.

  The special ingredient made it into most of the meal that evening. Only the cake was spared, since none of the Shorties could figure out how to hide the taste of old blood in such a sugary confection. Gordon didn’t even want to think about the roast with its tiny nuggets of spiced “pork.”

  As they washed dishes after the meal was concluded, hearing the last lingering traces of satisfied laughter leave the dining room for a bit of dancing in the Gathering Hall, Violet seemed utterly at ease. Inside, Gordon felt like his guts were twisting into knots.

  “Well?” he finally asked, accepting a thoroughly scrubbed roasting pan from her hands to dry.

  “Well, what?” she returned, reaching for the next dirty pan to wash.

  “Do they all have nanites inside them now?” he asked.

  For a moment she didn’t answer him, only continued scrubbing. When Gordon didn’t turn away, she sighed, turned on the water, and then bent down toward him. She said, “Most of those people already have nanites, I’d bet. That’s what rich people do. The ones for heart attacks, cleaning arteries, or whatever else could be gotten on the black market pretty easily. You know they got them. I was even thinking of ordering some of the knock-offs from China.”

  “Wait,” Gordon interrupted. “Then why didn’t you say that before? If we didn’t need to do this, then why did we?”

  Violet winked at him and said, “Just in case some of them didn’t have nanites. And, who knows if you need certain kinds, or maybe you need a bunch of different ones inside to make it happen. Who knows? The more we stack the deck the better. Am I right?”

  Gordon looked at Violet’s cold smile, so utterly devoid of guilt at what they had just done, and he shuddered. She laughed and returned to her scrubbing.

  “How long do we wait?” he asked.

  “Let’s give it a week. We’ll just see if there’s anyone worth saving in the meantime. Okay?”

  All Gordon could do was nod and accept the skillet she handed him.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “You got enough water?” Larry asked Ramon for the tenth time.

  “Yes!” Ramon hissed into the dim light of the Supply Level corridor. “There’s enough for three days, easy. Stop fussing. Just make sure you get your packs and we’ll be fine.”

  Larry’s flashlight flared to life, making the others squint in the sudden light, and then swept across the row of packs in the corridor, hesitating over the two labeled with his name and the biohazard suit bagged in front of it.

  “Put out that light! You’re ruining my night vision,” Violet hissed and smacked his wrist down.

  “Lewis, you and Ramon go ahead and get to security. Relieve the Steelie on duty and wait for us,” Gordon said, trying to get them back on track.

  Lewis reached for his pack, but Violet stopped him with a restraining hand. “No, we’ll bring them. The security cameras.”

  “Right, sorry,” Lewis said, his face gleaming and pale in the dim light.

  Violet tapped her watch as they departed and said, “We’ve got fifteen minutes. Get me suited up.”

  Gordon handed the tape to Larry, more to keep him busy than because he needed a helper, and held open the suit for Violet to step into. As he tugged it up her muscular frame, she rested a hand on his shoulder until it was time to put her arms into the sleeves. As much as Gordon loved Sarah—even now, knowing she was gone—his heart gave a lurch as Violet’s hand lifted from his shoulder. He wondered if she would ever touch him, or anyone else, ever again. Would they die or would they make it?

  Violet was going to be wearing two suits, the first layer the same as the ones Gordon and the others would don. Lighter and not as protective, it could be worn for as long as the person inside could tolerate it or the batteries inside that ran the air filter lasted. Over that, she would wear the suit she’d worn outside earlier, with its bottled air and thick plastic. It was more than a little difficult to slide the second suit over the first, the squeak of plastic on plastic loud in the room. But they managed.

  Once Larry started applying the tape around each seam in the top suit, he seemed to calm down, his hands sure and quick at his work. Both men then checked Violet’s suit while she closed her eyes against the glare of their flashlights.

  “You’re good,” Gordon said and clicked off the light. He looked at the watch Violet had removed from her wrist and said, “Fourteen minutes gone.”

  She nodded inside her crackling suits and said, “Grab the gear and go. I’ll wait ten minutes.”

  Larry’s gulp was loud in the passageway, but his hands were steady as he loaded the packs onto the janitorial cart emptied just for this occasion. Inside the service elevator, Gordon looked back as the doors slid closed and saw Violet swathed in her plastic suit, her face nothing more than a glare behind her plastic face shield. She stood there alone, her hand raised in a wave and a lumpy bag at her feet, the door to the ventilation machine room door standing open behind her. Then the doors closed and they were on their way.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lewis and Ramon met them at the entry room door and each of them donned their bio-hazard suits quickly. These weren’t suits like Violet’s, but rather the lesser suits stashed in each of the pods within Vindica, meant to be donned quickly in case of a temporary breach. They were the same as Violet’s inner suit. Not the best, but good enough. The suits would keep the smell of their human bodies inside so as to not attract the monsters, and keep any nanites outside of their bodies if they were airborne. Gordon hoped they would, anyway.

  The tiny air filters and fans inside the hoods clicked on one after the other, disrupting their ability to hear each other and leaving each in their own world of white noise. They would have to speak loudly to hear each other, and Gordon was reluctant to do so.

  Without the need for tape or heavy racks for air supply bottles, they were finished quickly and then helped each other to hoist the heavy packs, also wrapped in plastic, onto their backs. It was the work of a minute to hang the add-on packs to the various clips until each of them looked like some odd misshapen apparition or bizarre, humpbacked animal colored an improbable bio-hazard blue.

  The digital clock on the wall seemed to blink more slowly than normal, the shift from one number to the next happening with far less frequency than it should. Gordon waited and watched each blink of the red lights as if they might suddenly change rhythm and shoot forward in time.

  At last, the entry room door swung open and Violet stepped inside, another bulky apparition to join the crowd. But unlike the rest of them, she was no longer entirely blue. Wide smears of deep red crisscrossed her belly and chest, and her arms were covered with more red streaks all the way to her elbows.

  Gordon stared at the vivid red color in the dim light of a single LED light on the wall. The others must have been just as captured by the sight, because all four of the other men had gone utterly still. Violet looked down at herself at their glances, but rather than be horrified at her appearance, she merely shrugged.

  “Those livers and spleens were slippery bastards,” she said, her voice betraying a hint of humor not at all in keeping with their situation.

  “Oh my god,” Larry croaked. Even over the fan in his hood Gordon could hear the retching noises.

  “Don’t puke, for heaven’s sake!” Violet demanded, and pushed through them to get to the airlock door. Without further ado, she entered the open airlock door. When no one followed her, she beckoned them forward with an impatient gesture.

  Ramon recovered first. He grabbed Violet’s pack and pushed Larry forward into the airlock. Gordon gave Lewis a similar little shove and entered last, squeezing in with difficulty as they all shifted to accommodate five people bulked up with packs in the small space.

  It took a bit of further shoving and squeezing for Violet to get her hand up to the emergency release box. Once she pulled that cover off and hit the lever, all hell would break loose. Sirens and red lights would wak
e the entire population of Vindica immediately. They would need to hurry and there was no going back once she hit that button.

  Of course, there really was no going back now. It was already too late. They couldn’t remove their suits and pretend none of this had happened anyway. Yes, it was far, far too late for second thoughts. Even now, while the people inside Vindica slept, red mist filled with nanites was spewing forth from the ventilation, covering them in their beds. And very soon, no more than ten minutes from now, that same ventilation would shut down forever in an explosion just big enough to destroy the big fans. No one in the airlock could possibly get down there fast enough to stop what they had started.

  And then?

  And then someone would die and it would begin inside Vindica just as it began all over the world. And there would be more death. Some would escape it, but not many.

  Violet’s hand paused over the cover, perhaps waiting for anyone to object, or maybe just so that she could suck a deep breath to steel herself for what would come next. In one quick move she ripped the cover down and palmed the big red button beneath.

  As expected, red lights and sirens split the quiet, no doubt ripping everyone from their sleep and directly into panic. The door slid open, but it seemed to move so very slowly to Gordon, even though he knew it opened at the same speed as it had last time.

  Violet was nearly pushed out of the airlock, stumbling a little over the sill at the pressure of the bodies behind her. She recovered and had the presence of mind to turn and hold out a hand to help the next person out. Ramon hoisted her pack as if to help her don it once they were all out, but she held up a hand for him to wait and stepped over toward the decaying body parts lying in a tangle near the door.

  She hoisted one of the heads up in one big fist, the parts of the body that were still attached falling away and hitting the ground with wet slaps as she did. Then she bent for the other. Both of these she threw into the airlock with two underhand tosses that looked deceptively easy to Gordon’s eyes. Slime splattered the walls of the airlock and Gordon almost lost his dinner.