Juggernaut Read online

  “Fuck this,” he heard one of the medics say outside his room. From the sound of his voice, he thought it was Charlie Company’s medic. “I say we head for the Clean Zone, hole up in there. Get ourselves some fucking human shields. Let’s see them try to attack us, then.”

  “Have you lost your damn mind?” That strident voice he knew also. It was Xolani, Delta Company’s medic. “Human shields?”

  The argument moved down the hallway of the makeshift infirmary before Nico could hear any more. Eventually, he smoked another blunt—the Jugs had been supplementing their almost-depleted supply of analgesics with cannabis for months now—and drifted off with the pain in his leg a low, burning throb. He was glad Xolani had spoken up, because the thought of anyone using Zach as a human shield made him want to flop off his stretcher and rip Charlie Company’s medic a new asshole.

  If he had anything to do with it, Zach would never be in danger of exposure ever again.

  His dreams since the attack, when he’d heard Zach’s voice calling to him, coming closer while he was bleeding, were always the same. In the dream, Zach smiled at Nico as they whiled away a peaceful afternoon together, until a bullet tore through Nico out of nowhere and splattered Zach with his blood. Zach’s beautiful face began rotting away, his eyes full of love and pain. Zach would lean in for a kiss and pull away with bruised-fruit patches spreading outward from where Nico’s lips had brushed his.

  He always woke up screaming.

  The Jugs didn’t end up hiding in the Clean Zone or using human shields, but they didn’t give the military government a chance to attack a third time. Nico heard about the operation after it was over. The moment the gates opened two days later to let another tank pass through, a full thousand Jugs charged, gaining entrance to the underground facility before the gates shut again. By that point, the military government had expended most of their troops. Convincing them to surrender was, by all reports, easy.

  And now, in a makeshift jail somewhere nearby, Logan McClosky awaited the decision as to whether or not he would be tried by the Jugs or by a Clean Zone civilian court. Nico couldn’t decide how he felt about that.

  A rap on his bedroom door caught his attention, drew him out of his morose musings.

  “Nico?” It was Paula, Sierra Company’s medic. She poked her head in with a small smile. “Zach is here to see you again. Want me to let him in this time?”

  The pain in his chest put the ache in his leg to shame. “I thought he was going to quarantine.”

  She shrugged. “What’s it matter if he passes quarantine here with us or in the pens? We’re keeping him away from anyone who might be bleeding.”

  “Send him away. Tell him to get to the pens and stay there. I don’t want him having anything to do with us again.”

  “I’m not going to do that.” She gave him a censorious look. “If you want to send him packing, sooner or later you’re going to have to face him yourself.”

  “Fine. But just . . . not now. Not yet. Tell him I’m still not safe to be around.”

  Paula frowned and did what she was told. Nico probably should have expected that her sympathies would be with Zach. Nico was breaking Zach’s heart by refusing to see him. Hell, he was breaking his own heart. But he wasn’t going to take any more chances with Zach’s survival. When he closed his eyes, all he could think was what might have happened if Zach had gotten any closer to him that afternoon. What might still happen.

  He should have never resumed his relationship with Zach. He’d been too lonely, too weak to remember the reasons he’d let them take him away from Zach to begin with.

  No, that was a lie. He’d remembered the reasons; he’d simply downplayed them in his own mind. It was magical thinking, believing that if he just loved Zach enough, if he could just be careful enough, an accident wouldn’t happen and he wouldn’t end up killing the man he lived for.

  Nico cried a lot during those weeks of recovery, until his leg was strong enough to stand on again. He hoped shedding those tears had been enough that he’d be dry-eyed and firm when he finally saw Zach again.

  He was trying for the dozenth time to work himself up to going to see Zach when Kaleo stormed into his room one afternoon, letting him know something had shifted in the uncomfortable impasse between the Jugs and the civilians, following the surrender of the military government.

  “They’ve done it. The fuckers have actually done it.”

  “Done what?” Nico blinked, trying to focus on the man-shaped mass of furious energy barging around his room.

  “Ratified the constitution without us. As far as they’re concerned, we’re not Clean Zone citizens.” He stopped his pacing and turned to Nico, confusion and pain lurking under the outrage in his soft eyes. “They’ve exiled us.”

  “What?”

  Kaleo shoved a sheet of paper at Nico and flopped into a chair, shaking his head in disillusioned disgust.

  Written on the page was an official act of the first, lawfully elected Clean Zone Congress. It declared that anyone infected with the Alpha strain of the Bane virus was forbidden entry into the Clean Zone and that they would neither be supported by Clean Zone resources nor protected by Clean Zone laws.

  Nico let the paper fall from a numbed hand. “What are we going to do?”

  “I dunno. COs are meeting now. Guess now that all the 1st Juggernaut upper brass are dead, they’re trying to run things by committee. There’s some talk about us forming our own settlement nearby, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  Kaleo sighed. “Schuyler says it might be interpreted as an antagonistic move. Like we’re going to compete with them for resources. There we are, so much stronger than them and living so close. They’ll always be looking our way, wondering what we’re up to.”

  “She’s probably right,” Nico murmured. “They have to know we’ll be pissed off by this. They’re going to worry we’ll take action. If we stay nearby, it’ll seem menacing.”

  “That, and the fact that— I mean, what the fuck do we have to stick around for?” Kaleo ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up in spikes.

  Zach.

  Nico shut that voice in a steel box and shoved it to the very back of his mind. “Guess that’s true too.”

  They fell into a morose silence, each brooding separately until Kaleo finally spoke again. “There’s another option. Some of the Jugs have been talking about fanning the rev-hunting parties out farther, across the country. Hit all the population centers, especially in the south and on the West Coast, where the revs and the survivors are less likely to have frozen over the past couple winters.” He snorted and shook his head. When he looked up, his face was blotchy and his eyes glistened. “We still feel like we need to protect them. How fucking sick is that?”

  Nico sighed. “It’s not. Someone has to get rid of the revs. As long as they’re out there, there could be another outbreak. We’re the logical choice, because we can’t be infected. And as for the civilians?” He shrugged helplessly. “No matter how shitty they are to us, the fact is, if we don’t look after them, humanity will die. They’re our only hope for survival as a species. We have to make sure they make it, even if they reject us.”

  Kaleo sneered. “So we’re basically infertile drones—stupid, gullible worker bees protecting and supporting the members of the hive that can reproduce. Great.”

  Nico didn’t know what to say to that.

  With a great deal of reluctance, the Jugs agreed to turn General McClosky and the other high-ranking military officials over to the Clean Zone government for trial. Everywhere Zach went, he heard the arguments about it. Some Jugs recognized that it was too personal for them, that they wanted vengeance too badly to give McClosky and the others a fair trial. Others thought they were perfectly entitled to their vengeance and to hell with a fair trial.

  Ultimately, the voices of reason won out. If the Jugs flouted the rule of law to satisfy a vendetta—however just that vendetta might be—everything they had fought f
or could crumble into chaos again.

  And four weeks after that final surrender of the military government, Nico finally agreed to see Zach.

  By then, Zach had gone into quarantine, and it was fairly certain he had escaped being infected. Gillett Morris had been promoted to chief of the new Department of Perimeter Security, and as such, oversaw the new quarantine operations. He quartered Zach in a unit apart from the others so that, if Nico requested to see Zach, he could be escorted in without going near any of the other detainees.

  Zach spent a lot of his time in isolation praying, reconnecting with God. He thought he’d lost his faith somewhere along the way, but it brought him comfort now. Or maybe he just needed to not feel so alone. The people he’d thought were his friends had abandoned him in favor of fear and ignorance and bigotry. And Nico—

  Nico would leave him. Zach didn’t need to be told what would happen when they saw each other again. Nico would leave to keep him safe, and there would be nothing Zach could say to change his mind. He couldn’t even offer to go away with Nico. And he would have done so in a heartbeat. Nico wouldn’t hear of such a thing because it would still mean Zach was in danger of being exposed.

  If only he hadn’t destroyed the ampule of the Alpha virus. But it was gone, now. That wasn’t an option anymore. He could ask Nico to try to infect him, but they didn’t even know if it was possible, and he knew nothing short of an ironclad guarantee of safety for Zach would placate Nico’s concerns now.

  It was a hot, early summer day when he looked up from tending his little vegetable patch outside the house to see Gillett and Nico walking up the aisle between empty quarantine units toward him. Zach dropped his gardening gloves and closed his eyes, whispering a prayer.

  Lord, help me get through this without falling apart.

  Nico stopped on the other side of the fence, shaking his head when Gillett offered to unlock the gate and let him in. Gillett slipped away, and he and Zach stood there on opposite sides of the chain-link, staring at each other.

  He looked wrecked, and not just because he was walking with a crutch. He’d lost weight, and his face was lined with grief and turmoil. All the emotions Zach had been praying for God to help him control were there in Nico’s bloodshot eyes.

  “I’m leaving with the Jugs,” Nico said finally, and Zach nodded.

  “I know.”

  A tear escaped the corner of Nico’s eye, but Zach’s own burned dryly. “I don’t want to. I want to stay more than I want to continue breathing. But it will destroy me if I end up being the cause of your death, when all it takes to keep you safe is—”

  “Condemning us both to a life alone?” The anger in his own voice astonished him, and the words that poured out were bitter utterances he’d never even let himself think before. “A life without being touched? Without the tiny bit of happiness we’ve been allowed to have in this whole damned nightmare—” He broke off when his voice cracked, biting his tongue when he realized just how fragile his control was.

  “You don’t have to be alone, Zach.”

  “Don’t.” He gave Nico a savage glare. “You can play the martyr and walk away but spare me the whole, noble ‘find someone else’ scene, all right?”

  Nico looked like he wanted to argue for a moment, but he finally nodded. “Okay. Just don’t refuse a chance to be happy, if you get one,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

  “No, you’re doing that for both of us.”

  Nico swallowed. “It’s okay if you hate me—”

  “Fuck you!” Zach stopped himself from charging the fence when he realized he’d taken a step forward. “I don’t hate you and you know it. I wish I could. I wouldn’t feel like I was dying right now if I did.”

  Nico’s breath was so ragged Zach thought he might dissolve into sobs right there. He shuddered and hunched his shoulders, like he was trying to gather all his parts close to keep them from flying apart. “This isn’t what I came here to say.”

  “Then what?”

  “I just got done watching the transfer of the prisoners we took from Cheyenne Mountain over to the Clean Zone authorities and I saw someone. Zach, Secretary Littlewood is here.”

  It took Zach a moment to place the name, and then the blood drained from his face. “You mean, the man you—”

  “Your serial rapist. I’ll bet anything it’s him.”

  “Oh God.” Zach let his head fall back, gulping in a deep breath. “How am I going to get anyone to listen to me about that? I’ve lost all my credibility with everyone I knew in the Clean Zone.”

  “You have to find a way. He saw me, Zach.” Nico’s eyes were huge with terror. “He looked right at me. If he finds out you’re connected to me—”

  Zach nodded, clenching his fists to keep from reaching out to Nico, trying to comfort and reassure him. “I’ll be careful.”

  Nico fell silent again, still hunched in on himself, until he finally murmured, “I should go. We march first thing tomorrow. Sierra Company is going to be working its way east across the plains states toward Chicago. So that’s where I’ll be, if—”

  “Take me with you.” Zach had sworn to himself he wouldn’t beg, that he’d let go, but the plea slipped from him before he could stop himself. “Nico, please.”

  “I can’t.” Nico’s voice was raw, his face tormented. “God, Zach, I wish I could. No matter where we go, if you’re with me, you’re in danger. There’s nothing we can do to change that.”

  “That’s my risk, and it’s worth it to me.”

  “I could never live with it. I’d be terrified all the time. Maybe if there were still a sure way to infect you with Alpha, but without the ampule . . . It’s not about being together, Zach, don’t you see? I helped kill billions of people. But I can save you. Just one life. Your life. I can make sure you’re safe from what I’ve done.” He shook his head again, dashing tears from his face. “I love you too much to risk it. I’m sorry. Good-bye.”

  He rushed away, wobbling on his crutch, before Zach could even respond.

  “Good-bye, Nico,” he whispered, finally letting himself reach out and brush the chain-link with his fingertips, just inches from where Nico had stood, and let the tears fall.

  FOUR YEARS LATER

  The sound of gunfire was muffled through the thick walls of the ritzy Gulf of Mexico resort where Charlie Company had set up their base of operations. The smoke, too, was dampened, now that Nico had closed the door.

  The same couldn’t be said for the scent of blood and the accompanying stench of death. Bladders and bowels had vacated after bullets penetrated skulls, and the odor accompanied that of vomit from the other slaves who had watched their fellow captives be executed before their very eyes. They had only hesitated a moment, though, before they rose up and stopped Charlie Company from eliminating the remaining witnesses to what they had done.

  Then there was this poor bastard in front of Nico, glaring up while he tried to hold his intestines in with his hands. Four gore-covered slaves surrounded him, one armed with the knife that had unzipped the Jug’s belly and killed his comrades. The slaves had broken off their attack when Nico requested it, but blood was in their eyes both literally and figuratively, and they quivered with the need to finish what they had started.

  They were Jugs. Nico was still grappling with what he’d seen, the way the supposedly cowed “slaves” had risen up to attack their captors from the rear.

  They were Jugs.

  Outside the condo, Delta, Bravo, and Sierra Companies were mopping up the remnants of Charlie Company. It had been almost a year since a squad of Charlie Company soldiers escorting a group of survivors to the Clean Zone had attacked a squad of Sierra Company people they’d come across on a similar mission. Nico’s friend Marc had been one of the two surviving members of Sierra Company to bring back the news. He had died of an infection from his wounds shortly after he’d reached Sierra Company’s base.

  What had happened to push Charlie Company to commit such an atrocity w
as a question for someone else to answer. Nico had more pressing concerns.

  “You’ve got a choice,” Nico said, nudging the gutted man on the floor with his foot. “Tell me what I want to know, and I’ll put a bullet in your head. Or you can stay silent and I can let your slaves hang you from the chandelier by your entrails before you die.”

  The man licked his parched lips, sweat pouring down his temples. “What do you want to know?” he whispered.

  “How did these people end up infected with Alpha?”

  The dying man at his feet glared at him. “How the fuck should I know? We didn’t know they were until they fucking attacked us.” He coughed, blood splattering his lips. “Why do you care? After what they did to us, threw us out after we helped them—”

  It took all Nico’s restraint not to kick the motherfucker. “These people didn’t do that. How long has this been going on?”

  “Two years.” Another defiant glower. “Why the fuck are we wasting our time chasing down revs and helping these people? Make ’em work for us for a change. Knock ’em up and make a few babies we can raise, since we can’t have any of our own. Couldn’t even do that, though. Babies kept getting infected and dying. We thought it was us causing it.”

  One of the slaves growled and dashed forward, her hands curled into claws, but her fellows stopped her, though their own fury leaked through.

  “But it wasn’t,” Nico prompted. “You infected your slaves with Alpha.”

  The man on the floor smirked. “The ones we fucked, at least.”

  The temptation to lift his foot and just crush the man’s skull to erase that gloating look was strong, but Nico had one more thing he needed to confirm.

  “Who else knows Alpha is sexually transmitted?”

  Those bloody teeth sneered. “We didn’t even fucking know until a couple hours ago, asshole.”