The Killing Floor

the wall in office chairs, one of them a hard case in SWAT armor, possibly National Security Agency but probably a mercenary, and the other a pale, blinking specimen in a wrinkled business suit who looks like he hasn’t seen daylight in weeks.

A spook? Rod wonders, but decides against it. The second man is definitely not NSA or CIA. He looks scared. Like he’d rather be anywhere but here. Like a prisoner.

“At ease, Sergeant,” Duncan tells him.

“Thank you, sir,” he answers, assuming the at-ease drill stance.

“Sergeant, of course you know Lieutenant Sims and Captain Rhodes. This here is Dr. Travis Price, a scientist posted at Mount Weather Special Facility, and Captain Fielding.”

“Captain?” Rod says, giving the man a onceover. “First Maniple? Flying Column Corp?”

Few of the private military contractors escaped the Sandbox in the first days of the epidemic. Their dissolving companies pulled some of them out and were forced to abandon the rest. The locals chewed them up until the Army absorbed the survivors on the way back to the States.

Like many soldiers, Rod does not like mercenaries.

“I’m not a merc,” Fielding says. He does not elaborate.

“Captain Fielding is paramilitary,” Duncan tries to explain.

Rod lifts his eyebrows at this, but says nothing. Something big is being planned; the excitement in the room is as palpable as the scientist’s anxiety. They’ll get around to explaining things to him if he stays quiet.

“Rod, we have a special job for you and your squad,” Duncan says. “This one comes straight from the top, and it could end the war.”

Rhodes and Sims grin at this.

“Yes, sir,” Rod says, his heart pounding.

Duncan turns to Rhodes. “Go ahead, Captain.”

“About twenty-four hours ago, we spotted a uniform mike who carries the Wildfire Agent, but is not showing symptoms,” she explains. “About two hundred miles northwest of where we’re standing. As far as we know, the man is unique. First, he spreads Wildfire through the air, and second, the Infected appear to be aware of and submissive to him. How and to what extent, we don’t know. Dr. Price here feels if this man can be captured, the scientists may be able to isolate a pure sample of the Wildfire Agent. If they can do that, they might be able to make a vaccine, a weapon, even a cure. Is that about right, Dr. Price?”

“Yes,” Dr. Price says, clearing his throat. “That’s right.”

Rod nods, considering what he’s heard. About two hundred miles, Rhodes said. As far as we know, the man is unique. The Infected appear to be aware of and submissive to him. How and to what extent, we don’t know. Dr. Price feels they may be able to isolate a pure sample of the Wildfire Agent. If they can do that, they might be able to make a vaccine.

With so many qualifiers, he thinks, my situational awareness has not gained a single inch.

“The mission,” Rhodes adds, “is to locate, contact and recover this individual for the purpose of obtaining a biological sample. Preferably alive.”

And then we save the world and everyone gets a pony. Shit, even the Big Green Machine doesn’t believe in this saving Private Ryan bullshit. Otherwise, they’d put Special Forces on it. They’d throw everything they had at it. Not yank a single tired-out squad off the line and dump them in the middle of no man’s land to find some guy who infects anyone who comes near him, and is now surrounded by, and appears to control, an untold number of Jodies.

After dealing with all that, we just have to convince the unidentified male to surrender to a bunch of soldiers so that scientists can experiment on him in a government lab.

I’m sure this guy, alone and scared shitless, will be just fine with that!

The idea is so crazy he has to resist the urge to laugh openly at it. The Army seems to have found a very creative way to get him killed.

Dr. Price glances at him, his eyes filled with anxiety.

Rod chides himself. What did you expect—that it would be black and white? It’s a chance, and nothing more. In this war of extermination, a chance is everything.

Major Duncan appears to sense his hesitation. He clears his throat and says, “Sergeant, I know you and your men have been through a lot in this war, and that this mission offers a great deal of risk for uncertain gain. I want you to consider something. Do you know the biggest threat to our forces right now? The leading source of casualties among our fighting men?”

Rod realizes the question is not rhetorical, and scrambles to think up an honest answer. “The monsters,” he says. “The hoppers in particular, sir.”

“The correct answer is suicide, Sergeant. Our people are killing themselves in record numbers.” The Major takes off his glasses and cleans them with a handkerchief. “Let me ask you another question. Do you know why we still pay our personnel in dollars, and accept those dollars at the PX for goods available at normalized prices?”

“The dollar’s the national currency, sir.”

The man puts his glasses back on and regards Rod with a grim smile. “Gold is the closest thing this country has to a national currency right now, Sergeant. Gold and things you can touch—food, water, toilet paper. Hell, bullets are so valuable these days they should be the currency. So why bother with paper money, when so many people in the country have given up on it? I’ll tell you the answer this time, Sergeant. One word: Morale. The illusion everything is normal. We pay dollars to soldiers to clear ground and scavenge goods, which we then sell to these soldiers in return for their dollars. We do a lot of things like that to maintain the idea that things are still normal, right down to busting balls about dress and appearance. But we all know they’re not normal. This war is taking a massive toll and it’s only just started. The fact is, Sergeant Rodriguez, we are falling apart a little bit every day. Even as we continue to gain ground, we are losing the war for the hearts and minds of our own people.”

Rod nods in understanding. He underestimated this officer. For a rear echelon type, Major Duncan appears to know what he is doing.

“Do you catch my meaning, Sergeant?” says the Major.

“I understand if there’s any chance to win this fight, we have to take it, and my boys are up to whatever it takes to get the job done,” Rod tells him. “You can count on it, sir.”

“Aieeyah, Sergeant,” Duncan says, while Rhodes and Sims nod.

Rod meant every word he said. It’s a long shot, but any shot at all is enough to make me a believer at this point. After all, there are no atheists in foxholes.

Anne

The bus trembles and bangs over potholes marring the sun-dappled road. Anne studies the forest and open fields through the windows with her detached telescopic sight. A white-tailed deer bounds through the distant growth, fleeing the metal monster with its grinding hum.

“They could be anywhere,” Todd says, studying the same ground with the binoculars.

Anne wants to tell him to stay focused on the mission, which is to find and kill Ray Young before he can infect more innocent people. But she knows what Todd is going through.

“They can’t be far from here,” she says. “We’ve got to keep searching.”

“Of course. It just feels a little hopeless with so much ground to cover.”

“Stop the bus,” she says. “I think I’ve got them.”

“You’re kidding,” Todd says, leaning forward, trying to see what she sees. The forest on the right drops off in a steep slope, revealing a valley divided into farms covering the land like faded patches on an old quilt. “I don’t see anything.”

“There,” she points as Marcus pulls onto the shoulder of the road.

“That smoke? That could be anything.”