Plague War by Jeff Carlson Read Free Book Online

unique structure of the plague’s heat engine, which it shared, and she had given it the ability to sense the fraction of a calorie of waste heat that plague nanos generated repeatedly as they constructed more of themselves, but the vaccine was always behind its brother. It was always reacting. It was smaller and faster, able to eradicate its prey, but only after the chase.
    Fortunately, in one sense, the plague had a tendency to bunch up in the extremities and in scar tissue, attacking the body’s weakest points ‚rst. The vaccine gathered in the same way, but more than once they had all suffered some discomfort as the endless war continued inside them.
    With Ruth, it was her broken arm. The swollen, clotted tissue there seemed to act as a screen, trapping the nanos in her wrist and keeping them down in that hand, eating her away a bit at a time. She was terri‚ed of being crippled. She worried about it almost compulsively because anything more was unthinkable. Hemorrhaging. Stroke. Heart attack. Death.
    For an instant she stared at Cam, shaking all over. But behind the white light in his hand, he was only a shadow, faceless and distant. Ruth bent and grabbed her pack, pushing off of Newcombe as he switched on his own †ashlight. There was no chance she’d bother to pack up her sleeping bag. She immediately began to climb down from the truck, swinging her foot over the side.
    “Ruth—”
    “You’re sixty pounds heavier than me!” she screamed, wild with fear and envy. “Goddammit! I’ll always have it worst! I’ll always be closer to maxing out!”
    “Just let me get in front,” Cam said, jumping down from the boat. He landed hard. The beam of the †ashlight splashed over his chest, but he quickly gathered himself and took one step away from the truck.
    Ruth gritted out words. “We need to get inside. Somewhere clean.”
    “Okay.” Cam played his light over the street and changed direction, glancing back once at Newcombe. “Move,” he called. “We can douse ourselves on the move.”
    Newcombe hustled after them, a second wand of light. He caught up as they reached the sidewalk and gestured with his free hand. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll check this house. You two stay here.”
    Ruth made a sound like laughter, like sobbing. It felt insane to wait out at the edge of the patchy dry lawn beside the mailbox. In the dark, this small space looked so normal and perfect, even as she burned, but Newcombe’s decision was inarguable. His sacri‚ce.
    If there were skeletons inside, the home would be packed with nanotech. The plague was bad along the highway, where so many people had been disintegrated, but it had also been swept by wind and rain. There were safer pockets here and there, and they tended to settle down on the upwind side, using their own nerves to gauge how thick the plague might be. They’d had mixed luck trying to camp inside. A sealed room was priceless, but a single body could be exploded into millions of the damned things and they needed to avoid concentrated spikes in exposure. Worse, it might not be obvious that anyone was dead inside a building. In the ‚nal extreme, most people had hidden themselves away, crawling into corners and closets.
    Opening every door was a good way to overload the vaccine, but that kind of inspection was necessary. Houses with bodies were also houses with bugs. Either the ants had come through, often leaving a colony behind, or the rot eventually made the place more attractive to termites and beetles.
    Hunched over her arm, Ruth watched Newcombe approach the two-story home. He skimmed his light along the front of the building, making sure there were no broken windows.
    Cam said, “What else can we do? Ruth? What else?”
    “Nothing. Wait.” Oh God, she thought. Maybe she said it out loud, too.
    “Here’s another mask. Put it on over your other one. You need help? Here.” He dropped his backpack and carefully snugged the band of fabric down over her