are all the Brood.
As the myriad species fight and fuck and die, the Brood sighs content, flush with cheerful health. Oh, the joy of life. The wonder of endless creation. The brilliance of evolution. The Brood infected their world, and turned it into a laboratory for distilling perfection.
A dark shape veers shrieking from the left, and the dream ends.
Ray awakens and feels the constant hunger. He scuttles toward Tyler on his four legs and shudders, flushing powerful enzymes into the air.
“ That’s right,” Tyler says, his eyes swelling shut, his face red and shiny with fever. “You eat. You grow up big and strong. It is time for you to become, Ray. Become perfection.”
Dr. Price
Travis sees the woman head into a side tunnel terminating at a three-story office building buried under the west portal, part of the underground world where he now lives.
Don’t go , Travis wants to call after her. He mouths the words but cannot say them.
Every morning, she appears somewhere on the way to his job, but he has never had the courage to approach her. The truth is he is afraid of her, just like he is afraid of everything down here. His job may sound heroic—searching for a cure to the plague—but mostly he spends his time competing for scarce resources against the rest of the bureaucracy and staring at the ceiling in a state of mild, blank terror. Wondering if all those thousands of tons of earth, just over his head, will one day come crashing down.
Pale faces flash in the gloom of the crowded tunnel, people heading to their jobs or wandering around with nothing better to do. There are thousands more people than there are jobs. The stale air smells like minerals and concrete and sweat.
If the ceiling collapses he will be crushed like a bug, with as much awareness of his fate. The world will tremble violently; then darkness.
A man shoulders him, muttering an irritated apology. Travis catches a glimpse of blond hair in the crowd ahead and changes course, following her into another tunnel.
His stomach trembles with an odd falling sensation, reminding him of descriptions of love he has read. He wonders why he is doing this. He has no idea what he is going to say when he catches up to her.
Where are you going? he wants to ask her. I don’t even know your name. How did you survive?
Nearly three weeks ago, Travis gazed down at Washington from a thundering Army transport. Riding high in the sky, the city looked normal, as long as you ignored the columns of smoke and the omnipresent distant boom of gunfire.
Heading west, the helicopter left the city and flew over green fields that gradually turned into the treed slopes of a mountain. At its base sprawled a complex of bland, utilitarian buildings and roads girdled by miles of fencing. Beyond, the Shenandoah Valley looked lush, green, untouched by the violence. The helicopter circled the facility and landed on a broad concrete pad occupied by several aircraft, their rotors still turning. Crowds of refugees were being herded by Marines toward the yawning mouth of a large building built from corrugated steel against the base of the mountain.
My God , Travis thought, pausing to look at the buildings. This is the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center. The Alamo of the U.S. government.
A man in a business suit holding an M16 grabbed his arm and pushed him toward the tunnel. Follow the others , he said. Obey all instructions.
Travis glanced up at the sky and that was the last time he saw the sun.
Inside, the refugees streamed into what appeared to be a massive bank vault carved into the rock and waited their turn to plunge deep into the earth, emerging into the sunless world they were told was Area B.
The chase leads him to the mass transit station.
He hurries after, pushing through the crowd, trying not to lose sight of the young woman. She wears coveralls, common among the rank and file refugees who fled Washington with just the clothes on their backs. He grits his
As the myriad species fight and fuck and die, the Brood sighs content, flush with cheerful health. Oh, the joy of life. The wonder of endless creation. The brilliance of evolution. The Brood infected their world, and turned it into a laboratory for distilling perfection.
A dark shape veers shrieking from the left, and the dream ends.
Ray awakens and feels the constant hunger. He scuttles toward Tyler on his four legs and shudders, flushing powerful enzymes into the air.
“ That’s right,” Tyler says, his eyes swelling shut, his face red and shiny with fever. “You eat. You grow up big and strong. It is time for you to become, Ray. Become perfection.”
Dr. Price
Travis sees the woman head into a side tunnel terminating at a three-story office building buried under the west portal, part of the underground world where he now lives.
Don’t go , Travis wants to call after her. He mouths the words but cannot say them.
Every morning, she appears somewhere on the way to his job, but he has never had the courage to approach her. The truth is he is afraid of her, just like he is afraid of everything down here. His job may sound heroic—searching for a cure to the plague—but mostly he spends his time competing for scarce resources against the rest of the bureaucracy and staring at the ceiling in a state of mild, blank terror. Wondering if all those thousands of tons of earth, just over his head, will one day come crashing down.
Pale faces flash in the gloom of the crowded tunnel, people heading to their jobs or wandering around with nothing better to do. There are thousands more people than there are jobs. The stale air smells like minerals and concrete and sweat.
If the ceiling collapses he will be crushed like a bug, with as much awareness of his fate. The world will tremble violently; then darkness.
A man shoulders him, muttering an irritated apology. Travis catches a glimpse of blond hair in the crowd ahead and changes course, following her into another tunnel.
His stomach trembles with an odd falling sensation, reminding him of descriptions of love he has read. He wonders why he is doing this. He has no idea what he is going to say when he catches up to her.
Where are you going? he wants to ask her. I don’t even know your name. How did you survive?
Nearly three weeks ago, Travis gazed down at Washington from a thundering Army transport. Riding high in the sky, the city looked normal, as long as you ignored the columns of smoke and the omnipresent distant boom of gunfire.
Heading west, the helicopter left the city and flew over green fields that gradually turned into the treed slopes of a mountain. At its base sprawled a complex of bland, utilitarian buildings and roads girdled by miles of fencing. Beyond, the Shenandoah Valley looked lush, green, untouched by the violence. The helicopter circled the facility and landed on a broad concrete pad occupied by several aircraft, their rotors still turning. Crowds of refugees were being herded by Marines toward the yawning mouth of a large building built from corrugated steel against the base of the mountain.
My God , Travis thought, pausing to look at the buildings. This is the Mount Weather Emergency Operations Center. The Alamo of the U.S. government.
A man in a business suit holding an M16 grabbed his arm and pushed him toward the tunnel. Follow the others , he said. Obey all instructions.
Travis glanced up at the sky and that was the last time he saw the sun.
Inside, the refugees streamed into what appeared to be a massive bank vault carved into the rock and waited their turn to plunge deep into the earth, emerging into the sunless world they were told was Area B.
The chase leads him to the mass transit station.
He hurries after, pushing through the crowd, trying not to lose sight of the young woman. She wears coveralls, common among the rank and file refugees who fled Washington with just the clothes on their backs. He grits his
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