The Reaper Plague (31 page)

Cassandra’s jaw dropped. “Okay? Just like
that? Are you nuts? Why would you risk your life?” She found that
she had involuntarily reached across and taken hold of Marquez’s
forearm in sympathy. She abruptly let it go.

His mouth quirked upward slightly as he
pointedly watched her hand retreat. “I guess you like me a little
bit after all. Those long conversations strapped to the table were
interesting, huh?”

She shook her head and chuckled. “Stay on
topic, Julio. I just wanted to know if you thought any of the
Housemates would volunteer.”

“
I dunno, but like I said,
I will.”

“
You’re trying to impress
me.”

“
Worked, didn’t
it?”

Cassandra crossed her arms, for once
nonplussed. “Okay. I pride myself on my judgment of people, but
that was a surprise. I guess I need to ask the Housemates myself
instead of assume I know what they will do.”

Marquez stood up and shrugged. “I guess so.”
He paused, searching her eyes. “You a smart lady, Senorita
Cassandra, but you don’t know everything.” He pulled out a silver
crucifix from under his coveralls and kissed it, then went back to
sweeping.

Three people volunteered. After a surreally
impromptu going-away party – Cassandra donated all her liquor –
they caught the next plane back to South Africa and the
Carletonville laboratory where Marquez had been captured.

As Cassandra stood watching the ski-equipped
C-130 Hercules take off, she mused on the unpredictability of human
beings – for cruelty, for self-sacrifice.
Who’d have thought he
would be the one to touch my frozen heart. Just a little. I said
the same thing about Zeke, and I’ve always had a weakness for
military men.

Godspeed, Julio. Even if I wanted to, I
couldn’t go watch you die. Ten years later and Zeke is too fresh.
But I’ll pray you make it through alive.

Raphaela sat in her chair and stared at the
cocoon, rubbing the slight swell of her belly. Thoughts of life
growing inside her made her melancholy, and once again, as on every
day before she went to sleep, she considered waking him up. And
every day she talked herself out of it.

She stood up to walk over to the
sarcophagus-like device. Running her finger over a touchpad, she
caused a piece over his face to become transparent.

Alan…you look so peaceful there. I love
you so much, I just wish I could trust you.
She laughed
silently at herself.
Four thousand years of memories and I’m
still a slave to human biology, human weaknesses. Raphael would
kill Alan, or fit him with a mind control plug. But I can’t do
that, no matter how much sense it makes. That proves I’m human.
Love isn’t real unless it’s freely given, and I can’t give up on
you now.

And if you never love me, then at least I
set you free.

She opaqued the window with a sweep of her
hand and laid down on the dais beside the cocoon. Its faint throb
comforted her as she pressed her back against its warm resilient
surface. Soon, mother and child joined Skull in sleep once again.

End of
The Reaper
Plague
.

If you enjoyed this book, feel free to write
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Book 4 of the Plague Wars Series

“
I got targets, Top, want
me to light them up?” Butler asked, sounding eager. His incredible
weapon quivered like a live thing, pointing toward the dozen or so
vehicles parked in front of the office building.

“
By all means,” Repeth
replied in a droll voice, “but spare your ammo.”

Butler thumbed the selector switch that chose
his burst length. The electric Gatling fired much too fast for mere
human control; at 150 rounds per second, he would be lucky to guess
burst size within 20 shots. So he clicked on “10” and put ten
rounds into each vehicle in turn. “There’s an underground parking
garage,” he warned as a tunnel leading down hove into view.

“
Lockerbie, as soon as we
dismount, push some of these hulks to block that tunnel. Butler, I
see windows. I don’t like windows.”

Butler grinned. “Roger that, Top.” He flipped
the gun back to full auto and walked a stream of rounds from the
building’s corner to corner, holing every window and the front
glass doors as well. They didn’t come apart the way they should,
though. “Armored glass. Bulletproof. Good thing these ain’t
bullets,” Butler muttered.

Profligate with ammo this time, he sprayed
the penetrators along the top and bottom of the window line, and
great gaps appeared as chunks of the hardened crystal fell to the
ground by the hundredweight. “Ammo!” he yelled, and Donovan
scrambled to reach over the seat and pull up several 200-round
cases of 20mm penetrator. Grusky helped him manhandle the
fifty-pound shell holders into the turret hoppers.

Without windows the rooms beyond were
visible, well-lit offices with computers, shelves, desks, chairs.
Tiny blue lightnings popped from broken electronics. Here and there
a small fire started, smoke curling up toward the ceiling to
activate the suppression system. In several places inverted
fountains of halon gas poured down, obscuring their view.

And a few things, once human, twitched redly
in the wreckage. The hundreds of penetrators had probably sliced
all the way through the building to burst out the other side,
slaughtering everything in their path.

Jill’s conscience banged on its box lid,
trying to get out. Shut up, she said to that piece of herself.
I’m not wrong about this place. Whatever is going on here, it’s
evil. The only thing I am going to regret is if there’s no one left
to give me intel.

“
Hurry up!” she barked as
she shoved The Beast’s heavy door open and dismounted. Her PW10
snugged on its retractable sling under her right arm, and in her
hands she hefted the rotary grenade launcher. “Butler, finish
loading the Viven yourself, and keep an eye on that jail. There may
be armed guards in there, but there may also be prisoners, so don’t
perforate it. Grusky, Donovan, you’re with me. Get moving, go go
go!”

The three burst out of the vehicle and
followed Repeth as she jogged toward the shattered front door of
the office building. Behind them, Butler reloaded his depleted bin
as Lockerbie bulldozed wrecked cars to block the underground
garage.

Repeth saw movement in a gutted room and
resisted the urge to fire a grenade.
I need information, not
revenge,
she scolded herself. For now, that other self
listened. She clambered over the sill into the office and through
the mess.

Legs struggled weakly beneath a heavy
overturned desk. Repeth pointed and the two men heaved the thing
off the body while she covered them. Beneath the wreckage lay a man
in shirt and tie, bloodied and dazed. She reached down to haul him
to a seat in a surviving chair. Grabbing his hair to look him in
the face, she lifted an eyelid. Running her half-gloved fingers
over his torso, she searched for the wound that had produced all
the blood.

She found a moist, bloody but rapidly-closing
hole in his abdomen, and she put her grenade launcher down on the
desk behind her to pull up her PW10. She set its muzzle to his
head. “He’s healing. Nano or bio of some kind. That’s good, he
won’t die on us. Cuff him, Donovan.” Once he was secured and his
eyes were starting to clear, she slapped him gently. “Hey, you.
You. What’s your name?”

They heard a burst of Vixen fire, then
silence. The man looked around wildly, realizing his
predicament.

“
Hey you. Focus. What’s
your name?”

“
Bill,” he said
dazedly.

“
Okay, Bill, are you an
Eden?”

A sly look crossed his face before it
smoothed. “Yeah, Eden. It’s legal now, you know.”

“
Liar.” Repeth kicked him
in the stones, her heel crunching down on his groin.

“
Top!” cried Grusky as the
man choked and gagged in pain.

“
Shut up, David. He’s
healing, but he’s not an Eden. He doesn’t deserve your sympathy. I
told you, what’s in here is
evil
. Even if he is just a
paper-pusher, he’s part of it. If you don’t want to watch this, go
keep an eye on the corridor, make sure no one is creeping up on
us.”

“
Come on, Donovan,” Grusky
said with a sickened expression, grabbing the younger man’s sleeve
and pulling him to the office door to watch for enemy.

Repeth continued. “Now, Bill, I know you can
heal from that, and you know I can make it happen over and over. Or
I can just pop you in the head right now and goodnight whatever you
are. You’re either a Psycho or a Nano and either way you’re only
staying alive if you give me information. What is this place?”

The man raised his head to look into Repeth’s
eyes and all resistance died. She could see self-preservation
overrule any qualms he had about betraying his employer. “Look,
I’ll tell you everything, just let me live. Once I’ve talked
they’ll want me dead so you gotta get me out of here.”

She nodded. “My word on it.”

End of
The Orion Plague
excerpt.

About David
VanDyke

David is a former US Army Airborne enlisted
Soldier and US Air Force intelligence officer. He served in and out
of combat zones all over the world in the 1980s through the
mid-2000s.

He now lives on the East Coast with his wife,
Beth, and 3 dogs spending most of his spare time writing and
editing.

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www.davidvandykeauthor.com