“Goddammit,” she said.
Then several people hurried toward them in the night. In addition to their flashlights, everyone carried ski goggles, masks, and canteens. Greg Estey wore another flamethrower and the rest of the group bristled with crowbars and shovels, ready to dig open the colony. One of them was Ruth.
Cam and Allison hesitated, trying to shift gears from their private argument to assuming command of the group. “You guys ready?” Cam asked, looking only at Ruth, as Allison said, “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I’m so sorry about Eric,” Ruth said.
She was careful to keep her distance, but Cam would have recognized her silhouette even if he hadn’t memorized her voice. Ruth’s curly brown hair was longer than it had been during their run from California, and he knew her long nose and the slender lines of her shoulders and neck all too well. They had been lovers briefly. Ruth had also been the ring-leader in their conspiracy to end the war, using the threat of a new plague against the United States as well as the invaders.
Ruth Goldman was the last of the top nanotech researchers in America. She was the reason why Cam and Allison had invested themselves in Jefferson, making what had been a shantytown into a more permanent outpost.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Allison said again. “You can’t be on the smoke team.”
“Eric was my friend, too,” Ruth said.
“We can’t put you at risk,” Allison said, but the undercurrent of mistrust between the two women was achingly clear. Allison protected Ruth, accepting Cam’s friend for her own reasons, but the awkwardness of their triangle had never faded. If anything, Allison’s pregnancy heightened that tension, introducing a new kind of jealousy to their dynamic.
Ruth was thirteen years older than Cam. He thought the age difference was partly why things hadn’t worked out between them. It was also part of the allure. Ruth had not been shy at all with her body or his.
The two women were similar in many ways, not physically, but in character. Like all of the best survivors, they were both active, tough, and smart, and yet Ruth’s maturity gave her an edge over the younger woman. She could usually anticipate what Allison would do and say. On the other hand, that self-possession also worked against Ruth. She’d kept her heart from Cam, wanting time to understand her feelings, whereas Allison hadn’t hesitated.
Cam and Ruth had never fully consummated their interest in each other. Allison thought otherwise, because Cam had lied to his wife by implying it was over and done with. The truth was that he and Ruth were unfinished business.
“Ally’s right,” Cam said, emphasizing his wife’s nickname as he pointed for Ruth to leave. “You can’t help us.”
“I knew Eric better than you.” There was a dangerous tone in Ruth’s voice. She backed it up by stepping closer to them.
“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Cam said, but he regretted his honesty.
“Fuck you,” Ruth said. “I’m staying.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Allison said, and Greg Estey nodded with obvious relief.
“Yeah, let’s get started.” Greg gestured at his flamethrower and said, “This gun’s full, Cam. You want to drain some of it off?”
“Absolutely. We’ll soak the ground as deep as we can.”
“How big is the colony?” another man asked.
“Twenty feet across, maybe more,” Cam said.
Ruth scowled at them, clenching her hands on her shovel. Cam thought she might throw it down, but Ruth wasn’t given to melodrama. “Fine,” she said, thrusting the shovel into another woman’s hands.
Cam watched her walk away.
In the darkness, Greenhouse 3 continued to burn weakly. Some of the framework was exposed now, smoldering in the melted plastic. Cam knew they would be crazy to bring gasoline into the fire, but the longer they waited, the farther the ants might burrow from the heat.
He got lucky. One of their scouts ran out of the night, a sixteen-year-old boy with an assault rifle. “Wait!” the boy said. “Hey!”
Tony Dominguez was the youngest person in the village except for three infants. He was also one of Allison’s most ardent supporters. The boy had a crush on her about the size of the moon, for which Cam forgave him. For one thing, he approved of Tony’s taste in women. The poor kid didn’t have anyone his own age to lust after in Jefferson and his mom never let him join their trips to Morristown, probably because she was afraid he’d stay there. With a population of twelve hundred people, Morristown was practically a city. It was also a religious enclave and worked like a shield for Jefferson, deterring most travelers even as it provided a welcome source of crops and wealth in the area.
“Someone’s coming!” Tony said. “I heard someone in the fences on my side!”
Allison said, “You’re at Station Five?”
“Yes, ma‘am.”
Cam glanced at the southern perimeter, impressed that Tony hadn’t abandoned his post despite the ant swarm. He knew for a fact that other lookouts had left their stations, because he was one of them.
The village was supposed to have three people on patrol during the day and twice that many at night. The best time to travel was in the cold and in the dark, when most of the bugs were dormant. That made it tough to see people coming, but they’d surrounded their home with irregular rings of early warning fences. In some places, they’d actually strung barbed wire. Mostly these “fences” were just fenders, hoods, and hubcaps stripped from the dead traffic on Highway 14, which they’d scattered on the ground like bells and gongs. Not everyone who walked out of the hills was friendly. Sometimes there were bandits, and they were constantly afraid the military would learn where Ruth was hiding.
“It’s just one person?” Allison asked, tipping her head at Tony’s weapon. The M16 was equipped with a big infrared sniper scope, and Tony said, “Yeah. I think he’s either shit-faced or hurt. He’s making a lot of noise in the fences.”
“Great.” Allison’s tone was sarcastic.
Their village was one of the smallest in northern Colorado, but they did business with Morristown and New Jackson. Word got around. Sometimes their permanence made them a target for people who hadn’t worked so hard, like the weed-heads, drunks, or other troublemakers who weren’t welcome elsewhere.
Cam seized the opportunity. “See what this guy wants,” he said to Allison. “We’ll take care of the ants.”
His wife met his gaze in the dark. She knew what he was doing, but she grinned like a cat. “Fine,” she said, almost daring him. It was precisely what Ruth had said. Cam didn’t know what to make of that, although Allison could be playful about the weirdest things.
She was very pretty. A few blond strands had pulled free of her ponytail and framed her steady eyes, flagging in the wind. Then she set down her gas cans and left. Tony hurried after her, toting his rifle.
Cam glanced at a couple named Michael and Denise Stone, who both wore pistols. “Go with them, okay?”
“No problem,” Michael said, dropping his shovel and ski mask. Denise added a pry bar and her own makeshift body armor.
“Yeah.” Greg winced. In a different life, Greg had been Eric’s squad leader. Cam could barely imagine what he must be feeling. With Eric’s death, the best link to Greg’s days as an Army Ranger was gone.
