brought out floodlamps, too, preparing to light up the perimeter until sunrise. They were far from helpless. The town boasted an M60 machine gun and a Russian Army rocket-propelled grenade launcher in addition to dozens of rifles, carbines, handguns, and military radios.
“This is One,” Greg said in Cam’s headset, beginning their status checks clockwise around the huts.
“Two,” a woman said.
“Three.”
The sound-off continued through eleven guard posts until it reached Cam at the northernmost point. “Twelve,” he said.
“Thirteen,” Bobbi added. Inside the first sealed hut, she continued to monitor their Harris radio as well as the local net on their headsets and walkie-talkies. For nearly an hour, they’d been confirming each other’s status every ten minutes. They were afraid they might have to turn on themselves again. Already there had been a burst of flashlights and yelling at Station Eight when David’s batteries failed and the people at Seven and Nine thought they’d have to shoot him.
One of their guards wore a painter’s dual cartridge respirator. Three others had flak jackets, which were useless against nanotech but might save their lives in combat. It had been decided. Jefferson was under quarantine. Even if outsiders looked like they were okay, even if they needed help, the guards intended to warn off or kill anyone else who walked out of the hills, defending their own families above all else. Cam was ready to take part in a slaughter if necessary, yet he’d convinced them to black out the town instead of powering up their small grid. What if that old woman came here because she saw the fire? he’d said. Cam would be a long time forgetting Tony’s wide-eyed face. The kid had seemed to target them, reeling around to focus on their shouting voices.
There were other ways to watch the darkness. They had two nightscopes in addition to the one they’d lost with Tony when it was contaminated like the boy, and their fences were still a decent early warning system.
Cam believed himself to be an honorable man. Since the war he’d become a public leader much like Allison, supporting her, learning from her, taking charge of Jefferson’s economy and politics because he thought he could help. Now a lot of that person was gone. The survivor was back, his instincts and old traumas winning out over the cool, more rational mind of the statesman.
He’d taken the twelve o‘clock point in Jefferson’s defenses for a reason. Morristown lay just eleven miles north. The nanotech had dropped Allison in seconds and paralyzed Marsha down her left side, but even if the plague crippled or killed 20 percent of its victims, that could leave nine hundred men, women, and children staggering out of the much larger town.
Cam was obsessed with the way the old woman had been heading into the wind, walking out of the southeast where there were no settlements on their maps. Where had she come from? A group of nomads? He was more concerned about what they were going to do if the old woman’s direction was not entirely random. He thought she might have been moving into the wind in the same way Tony had responded to their voices—because it was a stimulus. If so, everyone in Morristown might have staggered northwest themselves, chasing the wind. That would lead them farther away from Jefferson. Good. But how long would it be until the first traces of nanotech swept over this village? What if the plague had originated first in Utah or Idaho?
The night must be threaded with poison, and Cam realized he was breathing shallowly, trying to separate himself from one of his most basic instincts. If you breathe, you die, he thought, wrestling with the impossible challenge. It had been the same with the machine plague. There was no way to stop nanotech, and he cradled the weight of his M4 instead of pacing. He wanted to save his energy. Even so, it was profoundly unnerving to stand alone in
“This is One,” Greg said in Cam’s headset, beginning their status checks clockwise around the huts.
“Two,” a woman said.
“Three.”
The sound-off continued through eleven guard posts until it reached Cam at the northernmost point. “Twelve,” he said.
“Thirteen,” Bobbi added. Inside the first sealed hut, she continued to monitor their Harris radio as well as the local net on their headsets and walkie-talkies. For nearly an hour, they’d been confirming each other’s status every ten minutes. They were afraid they might have to turn on themselves again. Already there had been a burst of flashlights and yelling at Station Eight when David’s batteries failed and the people at Seven and Nine thought they’d have to shoot him.
One of their guards wore a painter’s dual cartridge respirator. Three others had flak jackets, which were useless against nanotech but might save their lives in combat. It had been decided. Jefferson was under quarantine. Even if outsiders looked like they were okay, even if they needed help, the guards intended to warn off or kill anyone else who walked out of the hills, defending their own families above all else. Cam was ready to take part in a slaughter if necessary, yet he’d convinced them to black out the town instead of powering up their small grid. What if that old woman came here because she saw the fire? he’d said. Cam would be a long time forgetting Tony’s wide-eyed face. The kid had seemed to target them, reeling around to focus on their shouting voices.
There were other ways to watch the darkness. They had two nightscopes in addition to the one they’d lost with Tony when it was contaminated like the boy, and their fences were still a decent early warning system.
Cam believed himself to be an honorable man. Since the war he’d become a public leader much like Allison, supporting her, learning from her, taking charge of Jefferson’s economy and politics because he thought he could help. Now a lot of that person was gone. The survivor was back, his instincts and old traumas winning out over the cool, more rational mind of the statesman.
He’d taken the twelve o‘clock point in Jefferson’s defenses for a reason. Morristown lay just eleven miles north. The nanotech had dropped Allison in seconds and paralyzed Marsha down her left side, but even if the plague crippled or killed 20 percent of its victims, that could leave nine hundred men, women, and children staggering out of the much larger town.
Cam was obsessed with the way the old woman had been heading into the wind, walking out of the southeast where there were no settlements on their maps. Where had she come from? A group of nomads? He was more concerned about what they were going to do if the old woman’s direction was not entirely random. He thought she might have been moving into the wind in the same way Tony had responded to their voices—because it was a stimulus. If so, everyone in Morristown might have staggered northwest themselves, chasing the wind. That would lead them farther away from Jefferson. Good. But how long would it be until the first traces of nanotech swept over this village? What if the plague had originated first in Utah or Idaho?
The night must be threaded with poison, and Cam realized he was breathing shallowly, trying to separate himself from one of his most basic instincts. If you breathe, you die, he thought, wrestling with the impossible challenge. It had been the same with the machine plague. There was no way to stop nanotech, and he cradled the weight of his M4 instead of pacing. He wanted to save his energy. Even so, it was profoundly unnerving to stand alone in
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