In attempting to chronicle the Maenad epidemic, we are like archaeologists trying to re-create an ancient civilization from a few potsherds. The available record seems to be nothing but a catalogue of loose ends, the timeline of human history having been clipped like a cheap length of twine. But the unraveling was not so total. Throughout America and the world, there were refuges, havens, isolated pockets of relative security that continued to survive long after the initial outbreak. Most of these were militaristic in nature-bases and other fortified compounds-but others were due to geographical or cultural factors: islands, prisons, work camps, heavy industries such as oil drilling or mining, religious retreats. What they all had in common was a lack of women. For wherever women went, there followed doom. -The Maenad Project New Year's Day, 6:29 A.M.
Downtown Providence is deserted, all the office buildings and banks, the immense Providence Place Mall, the arena and the convention center, closed for the holiday, closed forever, and the boy skitters antlike through its brick canyons, heedless of either the harsh, wind-driven sleet or his own harsh tears mingling with it.
"No, no, no…" he whimpers as he runs.
Occasional cars shoosh past, taillights gleaming fire-alarm red off the wet pavement. Church bells are ringing, and not far away he can hear sirens and the blaring drone of car horns from I-95-it sounds like the world's biggest traffic jam. But Bobby Rubio barely takes notice of the din, or of any of his surroundings. All his thoughts whirlpool around one frantic goal: to find his father.
A big car pulls up alongside Bobby, dousing his sneakers with slush, and its driver leans across the passenger seat, yelling, "Get in, son!"
Bobby's heart leaps with the impossible hope that it is his dad, but realizes at once it's just a stranger, a red-faced old man with a cockatoo crest of white hair and the leering urgency of a drive-by pervert. Disgusted, Bobby peels away with a snarl.
The car matches his pace, the man calling out, "Listen! It's an emergency! Do you hear me? I'm trying to help you! You have to get off the street!"
Ignoring the voice, Bobby cuts sharply up a narrow one-way alley so the man can't follow. Why did everything bad have to happen at once?
"Good!" the man's voice shouts at his back. "I hope they get you!" The car spurts away.
Bobby emerges on Washington Street and breaks left, making for the massive brick edifice of the Biltmore Hotel at the end. It's not the hotel he wants, but the multistory parking garage behind the hotel, the Parkade, where his dad works. Beyond the hotel, the buildings open up in front of City Hall, and he can see others running. There's some kind of ugly riot in Kennedy Plaza: people breaking the windows of blocked cars to drag out screaming passengers, and other people fleeing their vehicles and being chased across the park. He can't see much of what's going on, but even from a distance he can tell that the ones causing all the trouble look crazy, weird-they look like his mom looked. They look… blue.
No-don't look at it! Bobby shudders in fear and turns away, gratefully ducking out of sight into a corner entrance of the garage.
Sheltered from the freezing wind and rain, he is suddenly aware of the frantic speed of his body, its manic clockwork spinning out of control to some kind of explosion or collapse. He yearns to start shrieking and never stop, or just curl up in a corner of the piss-smelling concrete stairwell and vomit up deep wracking sobs until he is empty inside. Oh God, to be empty, to be blank. He's shaking so hard he can barely think or stand. But he can't stop now; he's almost there.
At the far back of the garage, at the base of the steeply twining exit ramp, he can make out the familiar, bearlike figure of his father behind the fogged glass of the lighted cashier's booth.
Bobby whimpers, "Dad, Dad," as he shambles forward, nearly swooning in anticipation of laying down his horrific burden, of relinquishing it to his father's easygoing strength. His dad will know what to do. His dad will have to know…
Pain woke him up-something piercing the back of his hand. Bobby opened his eyes to an amazing, inexplicable vision. He was in an enormous tunnel of some sort, a windowless atrium four stories high, with rope ladders scaling the balconies and a strange ceiling of numbered white domes. Laundry was strung from one side to the other, giving it the look of a tenement courtyard, and makeshift structures of wood, fabric, plastic sheeting, and cardboard cluttered the steel-grated tiers. But the most amazing thing was that there were people-not blue-skinned monsters, but real human beings. Boys, all boys. The place smelled like a locker room and sounded like one, too, the scores of teenagers roosting in that metal cavern like so many pigeons, clambering up and down the scaffolds, sprawling in hammocks, chattering and calling to one another across the echoing subterranean galleries.
Ow-there was that pain again. It was from a big fat IV needle-a bag of clear fluid was dripping into his hand from above. Bobby had nearly yanked it out trying to sit up.
"Hey, you're awake," said a hoarse teenage voice, speaking from behind the glare of a hanging lamp. "Whoa, just chill, lie back, you're safe here." The voice spoke into a microphone: "Uh, Mr. Tran? He's awake."
"How's he look?" squawked an intercom. "Is he lucid?"
"I don't know." To Bobby: "Are you lucid?"
"What?"
"He seems okay to me."
"Keep an eye on him. Talk to him. I'm tied up here at the moment. Can you handle it a while longer?"
"Yes, sir, I guess."
"Good man. I'll be down as quick as I can. Just make sure he's comfortable. Remember what I've shown you, Sal. This is just like our first-aid drills, no different."
"I'm on it, sir. Over."
"Who are you?" Bobby asked, squinting into the light.
"I'm Sal DeLuca." He moved the lamp so that Bobby could see him. Sal Deluca was tall and thin, almost gaunt, with large, intense eyes that studied Bobby through long hanks of unwashed brown hair. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Bobby. Bobby Rubio."
"Bobby Rubio," Sal repeated, writing it down. "Age?"
"I'm ten… I think."
"You think? You don't know your own age?"
"I don't know… How long has it been? What month is it?" Bobby was suddenly seized with panic.
"April."
Slumping with relief, he said, "I'm ten, I'm still ten. My birthday isn't until July."
"And how are you feeling, Bobby? Any pain or discomfort?"
"My hand hurts."
"Sorry, we had to do that; you were very dehydrated when you came in. Any other problems?"
"Uh-uh. I don't think."
"Good. Well, pleased to meet you, Bobby." Sal shook the smaller boy's limp hand. "Welcome to the Big Room. You want some bug juice? It's like Hawaiian Punch." He handed over a straw cup full of red liquid.
Bobby accepted it eagerly, draining the sweet drink in one gulp. Catching his breath, he asked, "Where is this place?"
"What, the Big Room? It's the middle section of the hull, where all the Trident missile silos used to be-my dad helped pull 'em out. Now it's Crib City, one big slumber party. It's minorly out of control right now. Nobody wants to be in charge since the last Youth Liaison Officer, Lulu, got Exed. She thought she had something wrong with her that kept her from going Smurf, but it still got her in the end, and all her friends. I heard she got my dad killed, too." A shadow passed over Sal's face, cleared.
"Anyway, this is juvie country all in here-the adults pretty much bunk forward or aft of us. We've got the best deal on the boat, don't you think?"
Bobby could hardly follow any of this, except for one word: "Boat? What boat?"
"What boat do you think, dude? This boat."
"We're on a… boat?"
"Not a boat, dipwad, a submarine."
"A summarine? No way."
"Yes way. This is a submarine, all this. Didn't you know that?"
Bobby recoiled. "You're crazy. There's no summarine." He looked past the older boy at the steel catacomb beyond, his eyes welling with furious tears. "You're lying."
"Dude, I swear to God. Ohio-class FBM-biggest one they make. We're about thirty feet below the waterline."
Eyes overflowing, Bobby cried, "You're lying! You're trying to trick me! We're not underwater! We're not! Let me go! I want my dad! Dad! I have to find my mom and dad! Dad! Mommeee!" The boy began to thrash wildly against his restraints.
Oh man, Sal thought. Here we go. Ignoring the stares from above, he hurriedly squirted a precious cc of Demerol solution into the kid's IV line, wishing Lieutenant Tran were there to supervise. "Take it easy. There you go… there you go. Don't worry, everything's gonna be okay. I miss my dad, too, man." Brightening, he said, "Hey, how 'bout some pancakes? I've been saving some for you, for when you woke up."
Bobby stopped struggling. "Pancakes?" he sniffled.
"Yeah, I got 'em right here." Sal held up a covered tray. "But you can't have any unless you promise to be cool."
"I will," Bobby said desperately, starting to cry again. "I will, I swear."
"Hey, it's all good." Sal passed him the tray and helped him sit up. Bobby trembled with eagerness at the sight of the food-not only pancakes, but dabs of applesauce and scrambled eggs. Everything was cold, but he didn't care. Wolfing it down, he scarcely noticed the rapt, hungry eyes following his every mouthful, nor did he realize that all activity in the vast chamber had paused to watch him eat.
Nearly drooling himself, Sal said, "Make it last, kid."
"How could she have gotten off the boat without you seeing her?" Kranuski said accusingly. "That girl was critical; her body is the only existing reservoir of Miska's serum! Without her, we have nothing."
Coombs shook his head. "I realize that, Rich. She's small, it was dark. She must have just slipped out with the others. I wasn't looking for her."
"Are you sure you were looking at all?"
"You're out of order, Lieutenant. Yes, I was looking. I didn't see anything. Apparently no one else on watch did, either. All I can think is that Albemarle must have shielded her with his body."
"Well, what happens now? If she's gone, that means we lose the Xombies, right? I mean, without her blood to control them, we can't take them back on board. So the mission is effectively over." Kranuski sounded eager for this to be so.
"Not necessarily," said Alice Langhorne, intently watching her video monitor. The image was a blurred green jumble of infrared. There would be little to see until dawn. "All it means is that she left with them. Whether she'll stay with them is another matter, but there is clearly some residual bond there. Maybe that's a hopeful thing-she's obviously much more capable of independent reasoning than they are. In fact, her faculties ought to be perfectly intact. Unlike the rest of them, she's been vaccinated with the actual enzyme, the pure concentrate, which should have preserved all her higher brain functions. If she's at all sane, they could probably use her help, and so could we. I mean look at this." Langhorne pointed at the poor picture quality. "How am I supposed conduct them under these conditions?"
"Come on," blurted Kranuski. "She saw the opportunity to escape and took it. Like any caged animal. We're never going to see her again."
Dr. Langhorne said patiently, "I can't predict what she's liable to do. All we know for sure is that so far they are still on task, and until that changes, there is no reason to jump to conclusions. Lulu led them when she was alive, why not now?"
"Give me a break. You're just stalling."
"You heard her, Rich," said the captain. "We're going to stick to plan… for now. In the meantime, I want you and Mr. Robles to develop some contingencies for resupplying our provisions in case Langhorne's expedition doesn't return-food stores are at rock bottom, and those kids are going to start crashing if we don't do something fast. I don't need to tell you what will happen if we have any deaths on board, if that room back there becomes a nest of Xombies. The whole city is at our doorstep: restaurants, shops, warehouses-there must be something we can do in reasonable safety, even without the Blue Man Group at our disposal. Make this your top priority. I want at least three serious options on my desk by 0600. Don't be afraid to be bold."
"Be bold…" Kranuski wasn't listening anymore. Gesturing at someone out the doorway, he said, "Captain, I'm afraid I have a very different priority right now. If you order us to stay here, against all reasonable expectation of success, and in complete disregard for ship's safety, I must advise you I intend to follow regulations."
Everyone froze. Suddenly the hum of the electronics seemed very loud.
"Don't do it, Rich. This is not the time." Coombs felt the hulking presence of Alton Webb crowding into the radio shack behind him. He was alarmed to realize that except for Dr. Langhorne, he was surrounded by Kranuski's gang: Webb, Jack Kraus, and even a civilian, Henry Bartholomew, who blamed Coombs for the death of his nephew Jake. None of Coombs's faithful was in sight. He said, "If I don't need a security detail to protect me from Xombies, are you saying I need one to protect me from my own crew?"
"It's not your crew anymore." Richard Kranuski took a deep breath, and announced, "Commander Harvey Coombs, I hereby relieve you of command and confine you to quarters, pending charges of incompetence and gross dereliction of duty. Mr. Webb, please escort the captain to his new quarters."
"Rich, I'm telling you to consider what you're-" Coombs tried to leap for the intercom. There was a brief, ugly scuffle, Webb overpowering the captain and taking him in a choke hold.
"Don't fight, you're just making it worse for yourself," Webb grunted.
"Oh that's great," said Langhorne in disgust. She turned to Kranuski: "That's just great. Brilliant move, Caligula. What comes next? Public executions?"
Richard Kranuski turned and leaned into her face, their profiles strikingly alike, one black-haired, one white, both icily handsome and equally contemptuous of the other. "You've got exactly until the next tide to prove to me that you're not a waste of space on my vessel," he said. "Then we sail-with or without you."