The three of them pressed in tight beneath the junipers. Newcombe’s ri†e clacked once as he braced it against his pack, but the group passed without noticing them. Ruth had a clear look at one man and glimpses of others, a white man in a ‚lthy blue jacket with a rag over his mouth. No glasses or goggles. He did not appear to be armed and Ruth thought they were probably natives, not invaders. They spoke English.
“I said just stop for a minute—”
“—from the †ies!”
They were loud to keep themselves brave, exactly like the Scouts had done. They probably couldn’t believe anyone else was down here. They were still in shock at this change in their lives, and Ruth surprised herself. She smiled. She knew that if she popped up and yelled like a jack-in-the-box, they would absolutely shit themselves. That was kind of funny.
Newcombe stirred from under the tree and stood listening. Then he knelt and spread his map. “The Scouts must have reached this island here,” he said. “We don’t know those people.”
“Do we talk to them?” Ruth asked.
“I say no. We don’t want to get tied up with anybody.”
Cam shook his head, too. “They already have the vaccine.”
But the other group was obviously in fair shape. Ruth was sure that Gaskell’s tribe couldn’t hike at that pace. The lesson learned was that anyone who was weak, hungry, and hurt was fundamentally less trustworthy — including themselves.
She wished their little trio could have kept some of the Scouts with them. She needed help. The boys could have carried her gear and supported her.
“What about the plane?” she said.
“They’re headed right for it and we can’t wait,” Newcombe said. “They might be there all day. It might attract others, too. This was a bad place to rest.”
They slipped off carefully, keeping to the trees rather than moving into any open space. Ruth glanced back with the same regret she’d felt when they split from Gaskell’s people, until she pulled together a more important idea despite her exhaustion. It was the real reason for her doubt.
* * * *
Gunshots rattled through the valley, two or three hunting ri†es and then the heavier stutter of machine guns. Cam and Ruth immediately went to ground again and Newcombe joined them against a thatch of brush. They’d gone less than a mile since encountering the other group.
“Those are AK-47s,” Newcombe said. “Russian or Chinese. Arab. That ‚ts with the MiGs. I think it’s one of them.”
Meanwhile the echoes came and went,
“You said a lot of the planes are Russian, too,” Cam said.
“Yeah, but they’ve been selling weapons tech in Asia and the Middle East for sixty years. Could be China.”
“What?” Cam looked up from his boot, where he was tightening down his laces again.
“Why come to California if they didn’t know about the vaccine?” It made too much sense. “Why not †y someplace where they wouldn’t have to ‚ght so hard?”
“Actually, this might be pretty easy,” Newcombe said with a strange gleam in his eye. Pride. “Who’s in their way here?” he asked. “A few red-blooded guys with deer ri†es? Every other place above the barrier is covered with armies.”
“But they’re right up against the American military,” Ruth said. “We’re just a couple hours away for planes, right?”
“You mean from Leadville? They’re gone. And don’t expect much out of the rebels or the Canadians. The whole continent is still blind after the EMP and might be for days. It’s perfect. They hit us hard, came in fast, and now they’re digging in.”
Ruth shook her head. “There was so much radio traf‚c before we went into Sacramento and probably ten times as much after we disappeared. They could have intercepted something or heard about it from sympathizers or spies. Maybe they even saw what happened with their own satellites.”
That was why they’d preemptively killed everyone on so many mountaintops, not only to spare themselves a few casualties as they charged the barrier but also to keep the nanotech from getting away. They didn’t know exactly where she was or how far the vaccine might have spread, and sorting through dozens of bodies would be far easier than chasing every American survivor into the valleys and forests.
The vaccine could be extracted easily from a corpse. In fact, with a little luck, the new enemy almost certainly hoped to ‚nd Ruth and her data index lying among the people they’d gunned down.
“She’s right,” Cam said. “You know she’s right. We gotta ‚gure they’ll be under the barrier any time now if they’re not already. They only need to ‚nd one person with it in his blood.”
The emotions in Ruth were ugly and thick. She saw the same contempt in their eyes, too. All of their choices up until this point, all of their suffering — it was wasted. They had just given the West to the new enemy, not only the scattered high points along the coast but everything from California across to the Rockies. More. They’d given up the world.
Whoever the invaders were, they were about to become the ‚rst well-equipped population to own the vaccine. They could keep it for themselves, inoculating their pilots and soldiers. They could simply retreat to their homeland, taking the vaccine with them even as they pressed their war here.
It was an incomparable advantage. They would be able to land anywhere, scavenge fuel and weapons anywhere, move troops and build defenses anywhere, whereas the U.S. and Canadian forces were still limited by the plague.
The invasion would already be a success if the enemy thought the vaccine alone was enough. If the enemy gave up on recovering her data index, the decision had probably already been made. They could nuke everything above ten thousand feet and scrape the planet clean of anyone else. They could do it now.
Ruth pushed herself up, staggering. “We need to get out of here,” she said.
17
They should have stopped long before sunset, but Cam shared her urgency and they were so goddamned slow on foot. Every step counted. He wanted to get out in front again, ahead of everyone else. They had to assume that most people were also heading east, not just other Californians but the invaders, too.
They still didn’t know who it was. Life wasn’t like the movies, where heroes and villains came with stupid dialogue to make sure everyone understood what was happening. Maybe it didn’t matter, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if they knew what they were up against it might improve their chances.
Behind them, the small arms ‚re had continued for nearly an hour, popping and cracking. More than once they’d stopped to look back, trying to place the ‚ght. Cam also wondered how many other eyes were watching. Two groups besides Gaskell’s? Could the Scouts have been that successful? He wasn’t sure what he wanted the answer
