Plague War

Maybe there were other peaceful uses.

If nothing else, she needed the snow†ake for testing. Eventually she hoped to design some way to protect people against it, like a weapon-speci‚c ANN, but the damned thing was just too basic. There was no proof that Ruth could imagine. Not yet. In time she might design a supernano that was capable of holding a person together against anything, even a bullet. It would be a form of immortality, an augmented immune system capable of sustaining good health.

Most important to Ruth, it would be the incredible technology to save Cam, using the blueprint of his DNA to restore his body and completely heal his wounds.

* * * *

She found him where the soldier had said, hiking up from the broad valley where the town once stood. Footpaths and crude jeep trails lined the slopes by the hundreds. Mud slides slumped across the barren earth. Here and there, stripped vehicles marred the land, cars and trucks that had bogged down or run out of gas during the ‚rst sprint for elevation. They were empty shells. Everything had been ripped away from them, seats, tires, hoods, doors, bumpers. The need for building material had been that severe. Far away, all that remained of the town were the right corners and straight lines of its foundations and streets, a small maze of squares set against the uneven shore of the lake. Several concrete structures remained, as did the fenced-off tarmacs of its three gas stations, but anything that was wood or brick or metal was gone.

Ruth felt nearly as forlorn. She worried at the choices she’d made. She could have had Cam, even for a moment, but she’d run to her work instead. It was the same choice she’d always made, even when one sweet hour together would have left her rested and better focused.

She didn’t want to die alone.

The sun had fallen away from noon in a hazy sky laced with contrails. Helicopters chattered somewhere in the north and Ruth wondered what they would do if the war suddenly fell on top of them. Run down, she thought. Run to him and keep running.

There were more than a dozen people with Cam, but Ruth recognized the way he carried himself even though his body was top-heavy with equipment. He’d slung a rack of wire cages over his shoulder. He wore a pack, too, and there were thick leather gloves tucked into his belt. Her chest lightened at the sight of him so clearly in his element…

Cam was laughing with a young woman. Ruth frowned. She had waited nearly an hour, holding her stone in her left hand, pressing its gritty surface into the soft, tender skin of her palm. She could have trudged down after him instead of staying with her thoughts, but she was sure he would have made the same decision. Be patient. Don’t risk infection.

Ruth tucked her rock into her pants pocket and walked to meet him, ruf†ing her ‚ngers through her bangs when the breeze tugged at her jacket and her curly hair. She needed a barber. When her hair got too long, it †uffed and made her look like Jimi Hendrix, which wasn’t particularly †attering. Still, the primping was unlike her and she knew it.

“Cam,” she called. He didn’t react. The wind was against her and he walked in the middle of the ragged group — ragged but in good health. Their voices were loud with the satisfaction of a job well-done, and yet Cam only directed his words at one of them. Allison Barrett.

“Next time just drop the cage,” he told her.

“That little fucker wouldn’t have made it anywhere near me and you know it,” Allison said, and Cam laughed again.

The girl was in her early twenties, Ruth thought, with a wide mouth and great teeth that she liked to show in a con‚dent animal smile. Bad skin. Most of it was sunburn but there were threads of plague scarring, too, especially on her left cheek. Her blond hair had been bleached almost white by the sun.

Ruth only knew her because Allison was one of the mayors elected in the refugee camps. After Ruth’s second meeting with Governor Shaug, Allison and three others had waylaid her escort in strident voices, demanding information. Shaug hadn’t dismissed them either, taking the time to introduce Ruth and to settle their questions. The refugees had clout if only because there were so many of them, and yet Ruth suspected the “mayors” had been a large part of Grand Lake’s ability to endure. For example, the trap-and-release project was absolutely genius. It showed the capacity to look ahead instead of allowing their many immediate problems to blind them to everything else.

Allison was clever and tough, exactly like Cam. Like the rats, Ruth thought, but that was uncharitable. She made herself smile as the work crew approached, carrying Allison and Cam along in the middle. Their heads were still turned toward each other. Allison noticed her ‚rst.

“Hi,” Ruth said.

Cam hesitated. His body language toward Allison was calm and open, but his eyes grew troubled. It was a complex exchange and Ruth missed none of it.

He said, “Ruth, what are you doing here?”

“I need a minute.”

“Okay.” He set down his cages and his gloves. That he didn’t question her at all made Ruth feel good. They could still rely on each other, no matter what else.

Ruth caught his arm and drew him aside, glancing at Allison to make certain the girl didn’t follow. Stupid. If she and Cam had touched each other — if they were having sex — Ruth would need to test Allison for the ghost, too, but her instinct was to protect Cam and that meant keeping the contagion a secret as long as possible.

She let go of his sleeve. Being close to him evoked more feelings than she was ready for and she was glad to move into the wind.

I’m jealous, she realized, too late.

Ruth had been using samples of his blood and her own because they were the original carriers of the vaccine. It was widespread now, but that was just good science, and a good excuse to see him.

“There’s a problem with your work,” Cam said, watching her. His intuition was straight on the mark and Ruth was suddenly afraid of what else he might see in her.

“Where have you been?” she asked, harried and intense.

“We took some rats into town,” he said. “There’s still a chance—”

“Where have you been, Cam?” Ruth clutched his wrist to make sure she had his attention, searching his brown eyes. He stared back at her, a little frightened now. Ruth said, “In the lab in Sacramento, did you go anywhere? Did you open anything?”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s something else inside you, a new kind of nanotech. Maybe a weapon. There’s something else besides the vaccine and I don’t know what it is.”

“I — Oh my God.” Cam stepped back from her, staggering. Ruth quickly moved after him, but he brought his forearms up between them, looking at his hands as if he thought he could possibly see the subatomic machines.

“You know I’ll do everything I can,” Ruth said, sharing his fear. It was strange. She felt a very welcome intimacy in the moment. On some basic level, she had learned to associate Cam with tension and pain, and now they were bound together by those feelings again.

Hurting for him, she watched his face. She also was aware of his friends shifting behind her, and she was glad for their voices and the rustle of their boots. Standing apart from them only heightened her sense of rejoining Cam.

“What do you remember about Sacramento?” she asked.

“I don’t think I went anyplace that the rest of us didn’t go, too,” he said. Then, more ‚ercely, “I didn’t. I swear.”

Ruth matched his quiet tone. “We’ll ‚gure it out,” she said.

Allison intruded. Allison edged past Ruth, walking like a cat. The girl held her body low but kept her shoulders up, her hands ready to grab or punch. It was a posture that she must have learned in the camps, Ruth thought, light-footed and able.

“What’s going on?” Allison said. Her voice was as full of challenge as the way she held herself and Ruth met it without thinking.

“I’ll need blood samples from you, too,” Ruth said, trying to scare the girl.