Blight Read online

  Everything made of tarp has been torn down, but a few of the more permanent structures still stand—the funeral tent where Eden lay, some kind of shack made of particleboard and stripped tree branches, a small aluminum trailer raised up on struts. I find crushed glass, empty jugs, and a single shoe without a sole, but no water. No sign of Eden or Malcolm’s bodies, either. The Deacon must have decided there wasn’t enough time to dig a grave and taken them along.

  I tear through the bottles and coffee tins strewn across the clearing, but none of them has so much as a drop left. I sink down next to the muddy ash of the fire pit. Tears spike my eyes. Going on eighteen hours. I’ve stopped sweating. Not a good sign. I look down at my raw wrists and the zip tie crusted in my blood. I need water. I need medicine, bandages, food. And that means one thing. Blight or no, I have to make my way back to the AgraStar compound.

  The forest ends at the bottom of the hill. I blink against the dazzling sheet of sunlight and step out into a field of pale, feathered silvergrass that reaches past my waist. There, beyond the lip of the field, the red dirt road cuts its way east to the compound.

  The entire world stays silent. The only sound is the gentle scrape of my boots on the hard-packed clay. After the rain yesterday, the road would have been a muddy wash, but the sun has already baked it solid again. I feel as if I’m breathing in pure heat.

  Maybe Deacon Ward was wrong about everyone being dead. Maybe there will be a med team waiting for me on the other side of the fence. She must have been wrong. She must have been lying. She and her team were out in the field for hours with only vinegar-soaked bandannas to protect them, and my own throat feels less raw than yesterday. There’s no way AgraStar would let R&D keep something on the premises that could kill us all. Would they?

  Ahead, a weather-grayed bridge made of old railroad ties spans a ditch. I remember the jolt and drum of our vehicles passing over it on past missions, and then another memory follows close on its heels. My patrol got caught out in a rainstorm one time, and on our way back to the compound, the ditch had turned to a rush of brown water. This is it—the stream. The grass around it is still full and green. The blight hasn’t spread this far yet.

  I push myself into a shuffling run. Please let there be some left, please let there be some left. There must be, after the storm yesterday.

  I spot a muddy glimmer below a delicate fringe of grass. I ease myself down to the bank and scoop up a handful of water. It tastes of dirt and algae, but I don’t care. It’s water, and that’s all that matters. I drink until my throat stops aching and my head doesn’t throb in time with each heartbeat.

  The sun beats down, full and bright. I look over at the bridge, at the square of deep shade beneath it. I could lie down and sleep. But there’s no time. I have to get back to AgraStar and get some supplies. I have to make sure the Deacon was lying. I have to bury my friends.

  The road wavers before me, but I continue down it until the stark line of the perimeter fence shimmers into view half a mile ahead. The only thing between me and home is an open scrub field, most of it reduced to rot. I scan the length of the fence and the guard nests perched above it, looking for signs of life. Nothing. Behind me, a crow takes flight, croaking a warning to its mate. Ahead, there is only silence. If Deacon Ward was lying, if someone is still alive, then they’ll surely be manning the guard nests. My eyes snap to the nearest post. Was that the glint of a rifle sighted on me, or simply a ripple in the air?

  I raise my hands above my head as best I can. “Hello?” I step forward. “Hello!”

  The air muffles my words. Behind me, dead leaves rattle and scrape. I advance across the field, hands still high. “This is Tempest Torres, security substation west. Is anyone there?”

  No answer. The dead scrub drops away and the fence rises high above me, the guard nest a dark perch in the sky. I slow as I come up next to it. The fields of shriveled corn stretch for miles. A heavy column of green-black smoke rises in the north. The R&D facility. I drop my hands. It will take days for the fires to die down.

  I swallow and glance down the length of the fence. Nothing moves. I look up at the guard nest again. I’ll have to break in. I almost laugh at the thought, but the laugh turns into a sob as it rises in my throat.

  I pick out a patched spot on the fence, a weak one with an old, rusted weld, and kick. The sound splits the air like thunder. I start back in surprise and look up at the guard nest, half expecting Seth to swing a rifle over the side. But no. A hot breeze washes my shoulders and rustles across the field, a slow, quiet sound, like the creep of a snake’s belly over dry grass.

  I clench my teeth and kick again, almost falling over. This time, one side of the patch breaks free. I regain my balance and kick again and again, until the rest of the weld gives and the metal plate rattles to the ground.

  I stand back. I’m in. A gust of elation catches me up, but then drops me just as quickly. Without guards posted along the fence, anyone could get in as easily as I did. Scavengers, jackers, anybody. I curse and duck through the ragged hole. I need my hands free. I can’t defend myself like this.

  A quarter mile into AgraStar territory, I find a motorbike overturned in the middle of the dirt road. The driver lies facedown in the dead corn, a dark-skinned woman with short-cropped hair who I think might be Vonia from the east substation security team. But I don’t dare turn her over to find out. The thick, queasy stench of rot reaches me even before I hear the flies.

  I double over and dry heave into the dirt. I don’t want to know if it’s Vonia, with her tiny gold earrings that bucked dress regulations. Who once showed me and a gaggle of other trainees the puckered scar from a bullet wound in her upper arm, and grinned like crazy when we made fake gagging noises and told her it was disgusting.

  I cover my mouth with the crook of one arm and try not to think about any of that as I pull the utility knife from her belt. I saw a dead fox once when I was training. Insects had eaten away its eyes and its ribs had caved inward. It was collapsing in on itself. I felt an inexplicable sadness. I hadn’t known this animal, had never seen it alive, yet I wanted to reverse time, put it back together. But I couldn’t. It was something beautiful that was gone and couldn’t be restored. It was unfixable.

  All of this is unfixable.

  I head back up the road, brace the knife between my feet, and saw at the bands around my wrists. The sun beats down on my head as I slowly shred the zip tie. I slip a few times and nick my raw skin, but by now I don’t care. I would gnaw through the plastic if I could.

  Finally the tie pops free. My uniform is soaked with sweat, but my hands are mine again. I flex my fingers and assess the damage. I should be safe from infection if I can see to my wounds soon enough, but they’re definitely going to scar.

  I tuck the knife into my belt and walk back down the road to the overturned motorcycle. I hold my breath as I pass the body that might be Vonia. Don’t look, don’t look, don’t look. I right the bike. I’ll come back, I think. I’ll get a shovel and I’ll bury her, too. I kick the starter. The engine roars to life, and I push myself away from the scene. Don’t look back, don’t look back, don’t look back.

  I take the road north, toward the nearest substation. More abandoned vehicles and bodies litter the sides, and several miles in, I come across an overturned Humvee. I don’t look inside as I slow the bike and weave my way around it.

  A bitter, caustic taste builds on my tongue as I ride, and my nose and throat begin to burn again. I pause at the next crossroad. The bike idles under me. I shade my eyes and stare out over the fields. Without the corn rising in its green walls, I can see for miles. Nothing moves. No wind, nothing except the tower of smoke on the horizon.

  Something warm and wet trickles from my nose and spills into my mouth. I taste copper and salt. I reach up to wipe my lip, and my hand comes away smeared with bright red blood. I stare at it, heart quickening. I can taste it in the back of my throat now, too.

  Filtration masks. Crake kept filtrat
ion masks in the Eye. That might buy me some time to do what I need to do. I gun the engine and turn west, toward my own substation. There will be coms there. I can send out an SOS to the nearest AgraStar compound. Doctor my wrists. Find some clean water. Bury Ellison and the rest while I wait for rescue.

  I don’t hear the alarms until I hit the access road leading into Substation West. The wail builds as the flat roofs of the bunkers come into view, until I’m swimming in the sound. My pulse pounds with it. I can feel it in my teeth.

  I cut the bike’s engine and lean it on its kickstand. I make myself walk through the sound, down to the bunker entrance. The blast doors have jammed halfway open, their standard override position when the fire alarms trip, and the smell of burned plastic gums the air. Emergency lights flicker along the sloped corridor inside. Underneath the burned smell hangs the sickly sweet odor of rotten meat.

  I hesitate. I need those filtration masks. And medicine, water, food.

  But I also know that smell. I know what it means.

  I force myself forward through the heat and stink and blaring alarms. My training isn’t doing me any good. My brain won’t switch into its calm, professional mode and let me see only what I need to see. It jumps from the ill-lit recruitment posters—a long-haired, smiling woman with blue-patterned gardening gloves and a basket of corn balanced against her hip; AGRASTAR CONGLOMERATE, COME GROW WITH US—to the dark shapes sprawled across the floor or slumped in shadows. My breath comes fast and shallow. It’s too easy to imagine those shapes rising silently, following me, blocking the exit.

  I stop, close my eyes, and breathe.

  “You’re panicking,” I say aloud. “That’s not helping.”

  I open my eyes. The body of a young woman lies in front of me, the low glow of the emergency lights gleaming dully on her sightless eyes. It’s only then that I register the array of smaller shapes collapsed behind her. The minder, the one I saw in the women’s showers yesterday, and all her students. It’s all right, girls. Security forces are our friends.

  I turn away and gag, but there’s nothing in my stomach.

  I reach the door to the Eye. It’s sealed and the retinal scan system is down, but the battery-powered keypad is still up, and I know Crake’s door override code by heart. The doors disengage with a sudden jerk and a hiss of air. I step in cautiously and push the door closed behind me. Crake’s chair is empty, and all his screens are dark. The only illumination comes from the weapons locker. The door stands ajar, the automatic light buzzing steadily inside. I push the door open the rest of the way. Someone has emptied it hurriedly and left a mess. The few remaining rifles lean against one another haphazardly, like a child’s game of pickup sticks. Loose rounds litter the floor and spill out into the Eye, a handful of filtration masks among them.

  “Tempest.”

  I spin around, clamping my jaw closed so I won’t scream.

  Crake lies on the floor beside the uniform laundry bin. The florescent light gives his already-pale face a gray-blue cast. A smartfabric filtration mask covers his nose and mouth, but a dark stain has already spread across it.

  “Crake.” I drop to my knees beside him. He was never my friend, exactly, but he let me lurk around the Eye when I didn’t have anything else to do. My throat goes tight and my eyes prickle.

  “Tempest.” He can barely lift his head from the floor. “What are you doing here, girl?”

  “The shirks grabbed me, but I got away.” I reach out to support his head, but then I wonder if that’s what he’d want me to do, and I pull back. I don’t know how to help him. “What happened to you?”

  Crake shakes his head. “You’ve got to get out of here.” He coughs. “Far as you can.”

  “But where am I supposed to go?”

  “Anywhere.” Crake wheezes. “Not here. No good here.” His eyes roll back and close.

  “Atlanta?” I pull at his shirtfront. AgraStar’s headquarters is in Atlanta. “Should I go there? I can warn them.”

  Crake opens his eyes. “Already did.” He looks at his computers. “They’re sending a containment team.”

  He fumbles with his mask and pulls it down. I try to push it back in place, but he bats my hands away.

  “It doesn’t matter.” He unhooks the mask from around his ear and lets it fall. Dried blood streaks his chin and throat. “It’s no good.”

  “I can get you out of here.” I hear myself say it, high and girlish, even while my mind is calculating. He’s right, it’s too late. He’s been breathing in the fallout too long.

  Crake shakes his head. “It’s no good.” His eyes swim and then fix on me, suddenly lucid. “You’ve got to leave before the containment team comes.”

  “But they can help,” I say. “They’re coming to help. Right?”

  He shakes his head harder. “Not help. Contain.”

  “Contain.” I repeat. What’s wrong with that? Who knows how far the blight will spread if no one stops it?

  Crake nods faintly and closes his eyes. “Quarantine. They can’t let anyone know.”

  “Know what?” I say.

  Crake takes a shuddering breath.

  I shake his shoulder. “Know what?”

  His eyes flutter open again. “What?”

  “You said they can’t let anyone know,” I say. “Know what?”

  “R and D’s controlled blight initiative,” Crake says. “It’s not just a regular herbicide. It was supposed to target Bloom’s soybean crops, only we didn’t have it right yet. The strain was too strong.”

  I rock back on my heels. “Bloom?” Why would AgraStar do that? Why would we need to? Corn is a better source of both fuel and grain than anything our competitors grow.

  “Not just Bloom,” Crake says. “Progress Multinational and Apex Group and Fuel Solutions United. All of them.”

  I feel as if someone has kicked me square in the stomach and knocked out all the air.

  “Why? Why would we do that?”

  Crake laughs, but then the laugh turns into a shuddering cough that wracks his whole frame. “Someone had to do it first.” Wetness bubbles in his throat. “If we hadn’t, it would have been one of them. This way—” His words deteriorate into a thick cough, each spasm bringing up a fresh clot of blood.

  I look around. Water might ease his pain, but I don’t see any, and I don’t dare leave him long enough to make my way down to the mess hall. I wait until his coughing subsides.

  “We would have gotten it right.” He sighs. “A little more time, and they would have had it.” He exhales, and his shoulders relax against the floor.

  “Crake?” I jostle him.

  His body moves limply under my touch. His half-lidded eyes stare up at the ceiling. He’s gone.

  I tilt my head back to keep the tears from falling. I hate crying. I hate when anyone does it, but I hate it most when I can’t keep from doing it. It’s stupid, useless. What good has it ever done anyone?

  AGRASTAR CONGLOMERATE—REFUELING THE FUTURE. A woman in protective goggles and a white lab coat holds up a beaker of ethanol and smiles down at me from one of the posters tacked on the wall.

  Rage surges through me. It fills my stomach and my mouth and ears and eyes, until I think I’m going to choke on it. I bolt up, eyes brimming—stupid, stupid—and stride over to the poster. Then I’m tearing at it, ripping it from the wall, tears streaming down my face—stupid, useless—throwing the woman’s smiling face to the floor and stomping, shredding, destroying it with my boots. And all the while I’m screaming and screaming like I could never spill enough anger from me, like I’ll never be emptied of it. Everything is gone, ruined. There are too many people to bury. There’s no fixing it. There is no going back.

  .7.

  TAPROOT

  RADIX

  My inner soldier finally takes over, and I go blessedly numb. I grab a filtration mask from the weapons locker—it bought Crake some time; it might do the same for me—and select one of the remaining guns. The only rifles left are bolt-ac
tions for sniping, so I pick a nine-millimeter handgun. I find a backpack, cram it full of food and water from the kitchens, then pick my way over to the infirmary to doctor my hands. The alarms blare on, but I’m immune to them now.

  I hiss and bite my lip to keep from screaming when I splash rubbing alcohol over my raw flesh, but even the pain doesn’t bring me out of the fog.

  It’s better this way, I think, as I wrap my wrists and fingers in gauze. It’s better not to feel too much right now.

  I shove extra medical supplies in my bag—bandages, alcohol, antibiotics, water filtration pellets. I don’t know how long it will take the quarantine crew to get here. Hours? Days? But I do know I can’t stay much longer, not without my lungs liquefying. Better to stick to the woods where the blight hasn’t reached and watch for the crew, turn myself over when they arrive. I’m not afraid of being quarantined, no matter what Crake thinks. I’ve always been a model employee. They’ll look up my records and see they can trust me. At the very least, it means a real medic can check my hands.

  There’s only one thing left to do. I find a shovel and retrace my steps through the bunker until I’m back at the entrance. I loop the handle through the straps on my backpack and climb onto the motorcycle. I sit for a minute, watching the scattering of white clouds drift across the crystal-blue sky. Then I kick the engine into gear.

  I ride out to the spot where Ellison and the rest of my team fell. No one has moved them. Marco still hangs in the truck’s restraints. Will and Danica lie sprawled in the trampled corn. The air is thick with fat black flies. Whatever R&D engineered, it isn’t lethal to them. My filtration mask blocks most of the smell, but it hovers around the bodies, reminding me how little time I have.

  Despite the sun, the mat of rotten cornstalks and shriveling root systems have kept the clay moist. It parts easily for my shovel. My throat burns less with the filtration mask on, but the faint taste of blood still lingers in the back of it. I clear out a four by six area, about three feet deep, breaking every twenty minutes or so for water. I know I should bury them properly, but I don’t have the energy for anything more than a shallow grave.