Monster Nation(61)

'Alright, so find me a General somewhere. Or a Colonel. Somebody who can give me an order.' Vikram shook his head. 'A Lieutenant Colonel? I'll take a Major.'

'I am saying that in the whole of the COARNG, I cannot find an officer that outranks your good self. I think you are it.'

Not possible and yet' many of the best officers in the Guard, and therefore the highest ranking, were deployed still in Iraq. Many more had died in Denver. Was it possible that not even a single Major had survived? Well, there hadn't been that many to start with.

The implications, however, were devastating. If a mere Captain was in charge of the Colorado Guard' well, at least he had his masters in the Pentagon. 'Alright,' he said. He placed the pen holder at the top of his desk, on the left side, then moved it to the right. It looked better there. 'Alright, we're tucked in here. If I have to be in charge I'm going to at least get a night's sleep before I start barking at people. Unless there's something more you need to tell me,' he added, seeing the look on Vikram's face.

'Bannerman, there is more to tell but I think it is better if you should see it for yourself.'

Clark raised an eyebrow.

'First Lieutenant Desiree Sanchez could use a moment of your time. Down in the Bag,' Vikram explained.





Monster Nation





Chapter Six


Mood: Pissed Off!

Listening to: Slipknot, Wait and Bleed

yo 'sup, we're still here cause the road south is closed and brian thinks its no good in Canada, either, he's so f*cking smart, he thinks excep then wheres his girlfriend?'I would have protected my woman, true dat, I would lay down all I had for her I dunno. We got three big water jugs, and I filled up the tub last night, its not clean I guess, maybe well leve before it comes to that, if brian gets off his stupid ass.

[Livejournal update for user PiramidHed, 4/9/05]

The infected man on the gurney had been cut down to an obscene minimum of humanity. His face had been carved off, as well as the front of his skull. His brain sat like a shriveled piece of fruit in a bone bowl. Much of his chest had been removed'skin, sternum, musculature'to reveal his heart and lungs. Neither of them moved. Yet his fingers twitched and clenched, his toes writhed as the First Lieutenant prodded a long white curve of nerve tissue with a pair of forceps.

'They aren't using most of their organs. Their blood is dried up in their veins. They digest their food' somehow, and they excrete wastes. Noxious waste. What you're looking at, though'it isn't human. It's a nervous system that has failed to die.'

Desiree Sanchez had doffed her level four biosafety suit. Inside the Bag she wore an apron and a pair of heavy work gloves over her uniform. She had a pair of plastic goggles for eye protection but they were pushed up on her forehead. Splatters of human tissue and clotted blood covered her from head to toe but she wasn't even wearing a filter mask.

'Lieutenant, I believe we spoke before about the patient's hypothetical morbidity.' Clark held onto the intercom box, ready to interrupt her if necessary.

'Sir, yes, sir,' Sanchez said, and blew a stray hair out of her eyes. 'I just don't know how this man could live through what I've done to him. I mean, this isn't an alternative lifestyle. This is a complete physiological change.' She dropped the forceps into a bloody instrument tray. Clark heard the clatter even through the multiple layers of thick plastic curtain between them. She leaned on the gurney and closed her eyes for a moment before going on. 'I'm at the end here, there's nothing I can do short of torturing this man pointlessly in the name of science. There's another avenue of research I've been pursuing, though'the epidemiology of this thing. I think' that' that''

Sanchez' face went blank and a pained croak belched out of her mouth. Alarmed, Clark reached for his firearm even before he knew what was happening to the woman. It wasn't there'he'd put the Baretta in his desk drawer and forgotten about it.

'Get'get off,' Sanchez mewled. Clark looked down and saw that the infected man had wrapped grey fingers around her wrist. 'Get off me,' she shouted, and grabbed with her free hand for the instrument tray. It was just out of her reach. Her eyes sought his through the plastic.

Clark lacked so much as a pocket knife. He couldn't get through the safety plastic with his fingers'he would have to go around. 'Hold on, Lieutenant,' he said through the intercom box, then dashed out of the room. He whipped out his cell phone and called for help'for anyone.