Out of the Ashes, Book 2 Part 4

Out of the Ashes, Book 2 by Misty Meenor A Comic RetCon Universe Story The Martian Manhunter and Miss Martian characters are the property of DC Comics. Captain America, the Red Skull and Union Jack are properties of Marvel Comics. American Dream used with the kind permission of Lilith Langtree. "Jack," Court began mildly, as she wiped brains from her face, "if you were worried that zombies were caused by something attacking the brain, something that might be infectious, something that you didn't understand at all, what part of the zombie would you least want to SPLASH ACROSS YOUR CO-WORKERS?"

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Jack reddened as the implications of his act began to occur to him. "Oh, good heavens, what have I done?" He looked at the pistol in his hand as if it was a live rattlesnake, and quickly holstered it. "I thought -- no, I make no excuses. I offer my sincere apologies, whatever they might be worth. I can assure you -- well, no, I probably can't." He slumped miserably in his seat.

The Colonel fixed Jack with a steely eye for a long moment, dabbing a spot on his cheek with a handkerchief, his silence speaking volumes. Finally he glanced to Roth. "Copilot?"

"Dead, throat's a mess. Crushed, I think."

"Major Weiss?"

The big man had pulled himself into seat, tended by the doctor, holding a large gauze bandage to his throat while she dabbed at his face. "I'll live, Colonel." Despite being a professional soldier, he was still visibly shaken by the mindless violence of the attack. "It was a close thing, though." Weiss gave Court a curt nod. "Thanks, Carter."

That casual nod, one professional to another, was something I suspect she hadn't seen much, since her change. She stopped picking zombie out of her hair long enough to return the nod, shrugging a little too casually. "I was in the neighborhood," she joked gruffly.

The Colonel wasn't finished taking stock. "Doctor, what do you recommend?"

The doctor had left Weiss and was already rooting frantically through her equipment. "We need to set down as quickly as possible, preferably near water." Her hand emerged with a jar of antiseptic wipes. "In the meantime, clean off with these, as best you can." She glanced sourly around the cabin. "-- and try not to get any more of it on you."

"Doc, I can have us at the village in a few minutes, if you'd prefer," I offered.

"Oh, that would be the best option -- but as far outside as you can manage," she directed. "We don't need two sites to clean up, but we don't want to contaminate the village with our own infections, either. There may still be something to learn."

The way she said "clean up" sounded rather ominous, but I knew better than to ask. Instead I focused on figuring out the best way to navigate, considering that pressed against the roof as I was, I couldn't see forward, and even if I could, I had no idea where to find a tiny village in this vast expanse of rainforest. Suddenly I blinked and gave myself a figurative slap to the forehead. A quick mental request to my ring, and instantly I had a heads-up display, projected onto my retina. I headed for the beacon that marked our destination as quickly as I could push the helicopter.

Court had taken the worst of the mess, and needed almost half the wipes herself, disposing of the bloody remains in a heavy plastic medical waste bag the doctor produced from her trunk. Everyone else followed suit, and then examined each other for spots they had missed. The doctor spent a few moments cleaning me off, since my hands were somewhat occupied keeping the helicopter aloft.

"That will do for a start," she pronounced. "Once we set down, we can get rid of these clothes and disinfect properly."

"C-clothes? But..." Jack sputtered.

"Even the tiniest spot of blood could harbor the virus, although we're still just assuming that's what it is. Do you want to take that chance?" She waited until Jack shook his head glumly, then relented a little. "Don't worry, I have some disposable coveralls in here someplace. You won't have to go naked."

Guided by the ring, I set us down at the end of the village's main street, such as it was. The location appeared to be a packed dirt parking lot for heavy trucks and logging equipment. The air in the chopper was becoming rank with the coppery smell of blood, and we were grateful to escape, even if it was into the fetid jungle heat.

There was a small runoff stream nearby the doctor pronounced sufficient for her needs, and she appropriated the tailgate of an abandoned pickup truck as her work table.

"Right, I have some industrial-strength disinfectant solution, it's meant for work surfaces and medical equipment and the like. It's going to burn like hell on bare skin -- and it has to get on all your bare skin. And hair. Leave it for a count of ten, then rinse off in the stream. We don't know we're dealing with a virus, but we can't take any risks. There's a medical term we use for researchers who take chances." She paused for effect. "We call them 'deceased'. Any questions?"

We shook our heads. "Good. The men can go first. Toss your clothes in the chopper, then pair up and scrub each other's backs."

There wasn't much to be said about the process; we turned our backs and let the men get to it. It sounded painful when the liquid was applied to their nether regions, and Court and I shared a glance and winced in sympathy. Eventually they were done, and walking around bow-legged in plasticized paper jumpsuits. Their skin looked raw, an angry shade of red. Major Weiss had been liberal in applying the disinfectant to his wounds, and was in obvious pain.

Finally, it was our turn. The men became terribly interested in studying the jungle while the doctor led Court and I through the disinfecting routine. I suppose I could have skipped the drill, but while I thought my Martian physiology was probably immune, that's a far cry from knowing. Besides, if there was a virus, I definitely didn't want to carry it around to infect anyone else.

Judging from the doctor's expression, the stuff was every bit as painful to apply to a woman's sensitive skin, too. It might as well have been water, for all it mattered to Court and I, but the doctor had tears in her eyes by the time she'd rinsed off. "The things I do for science," she hissed through gritted teeth.

Finally, it was done, and we pulled on the flimsy paper coveralls from the doctor's bottomless trunk. I could have shifted into anything, but I figured some solidarity was in order.
They were huge on our small frames, and we spent considerable time rolling the cuffs so we could see our hands and feet.

The Colonel was back in charge. "Doctor, I expect the suits are the next order of business?"

She nodded, and distributed plastic-wrapped packages to each of us. "They may seem a little small, but I can assure you they'll stretch to fit, even Major Weiss. Don't worry about tearing them. They'll start off feeling uncomfortably tight, but they adjust quickly."

Unwrapped and unfolded, the suits look a bit like inflatable sex dolls -- hey, I've been to my share of bachelor parties -- complete with an 'O' where the mouth should be. In this case the doll was bright yellow, except for the face, which was clear, and the 'O' was black, and looked more like a speaker grille. The doctor demonstrated how to wriggle into the suit through a tiny seam at the back of the neck, and we mimicked her example. Court and I had problems getting all our hair tucked in, but eventually we got it squared away and the doctor was checking the seal on our seams.

"The fabric of the suits is tougher than human skin, but not too much so. It probably won't wear or abrade, but anything that would cut or puncture you, won't be stopped by the suit." Her voice was remarkably clear, despite the grill in front of her mouth.

"The boots offer about the same protection as a pair of sneakers, fine for the lab and most urban environments. If you step on a nail, or anything sharp, it could still go through, so be careful. Battery packs on the belt power the air circulation, and the suits themselves will breathe like normal cloth, but only out, nothing comes in. So hopefully you won't feel like you're wearing a plastic bag. The respirator" -- she tapped the black circle at her mouth -- "is a molecular filter. It might feel a little harder to take a breath through this thing, but you get used to it, and what you do breathe is likely cleaner than anything you've inhaled before. No soot, no pollen, and definitely no bacteria or viruses. Won't stop most gases, though, so in places where carbon monoxide or hydrogen sulfide is a problem, you'll still need your own air. Hopefully that won't be a problem, because I left the air tanks in my other trunk." She forced a brief smile at her own joke. "Anyway, that's the lecture. It's all yours, Colonel. If I could get the pilot and the copilot laid out here next to the truck, I want some samples."

The doctor laid out a dropsheet and Jack and Major Roth extricated the corpses from the helicopter, a messy job that left bloody stains on their biosuits. Major Weiss attempted to raise the Brazilian military on the cockpit radio, eventually engaging in a heated conversation in Portuguese with someone equally heated.

"They won't send another chopper for us," he finally reported to the Colonel. "It seems the base had a zombie attack of its own, and somehow we're being blamed for it. I couldn't get much out of them, except the attack was contained and the base is under quarantine."

The doctor looked up sharply from unpacking her field lab. "Did they say anything about the cleanup?"

"Just that it will proceed according to the schedule, why?"

I could tell from the sick look on Court's face that she had an inkling. "Doctor, by 'clean up' you're talking about disinfecting the whole site, aren't you? In a military way."

The doctor nodded grimly. "Fuel-air bombs, to incinerate the whole area. It's textbook procedure for containing highly contagious outbreaks."

"So, when they say, 'on schedule', what schedule were they referring to?" This was directed to the Colonel.

He cleared his throat. "Seventeen hundred hours. Our pickup was scheduled for fifteen hundred, plenty of time to get clear."

Court wasn't done yet. "So, faced with a zombie outbreak of their own, and a chopper full of possibly contagious people you blame for it -- including infected metas -- who know how much time they have to get clear, what would you do?"

A chill washed over each of us, as her point sunk in. "Move up the schedule," Roth groaned. "We need to get out of here."

The doctor sighed. "It's not that simple. Maybe we are infected, or infectious. We can't just wander back to Buenos Aires -- one of the most populous cities on the planet -- and show up for work. We could be responsible for the deaths of thousands. And," she cleared her throat uncomfortably, unable to look any of us in the eye, and stated what each of us had probably been thinking, "What if metas aren't immune? Maybe staying put is the right thing to do."

I didn't want to dwell on that. "What kind of time have we got? How quickly could they get a bomber in the air?"

The Colonel shrugged. "Mission was scheduled for later today. I doubt the plane or crew was in scramble readiness, so maybe an hour, ninety minutes to get them fueled, loaded, crew briefed and in the air. Plus an hour to get here."

I turned to the doctor. "That gives us maybe an hour and a half for you to decide if we're a risk and we have to make some hard decisions. What do you need?"

She laughed without humor. "More time. More equipment, more hands, more data. Other than that, I'm good."

I got the mental equivalent of a throat clearing. Ahem. Hallooooo, advanced alien technology here, remember me? Perhaps I can help?

I smiled, realizing we'd overlooked a powerful ally. I worked the ring off my finger, then pulled my arm out of the suit's sleeve, reaching behind my neck to pass the ring through the suit's seam to the doctor, who looked at it skeptically. Now that it was off my finger, it had reverted to a silvery color.

"Go ahead, slip it on over the suit," I encouraged, and her eyes widened as the ring changed size to fit her gloved finger. "I'm not exactly sure what it's capable of, but at the very least it can probably get more from your instruments than you can, and it's a link to a supercomputer AI with a medical library better than anything on the planet. Would that help?"

The doctor's eyes widened comically as the ring introduced itself telepathically. "Oh! Well, it certainly can't hurt." She blinked, and her lips quirked. "It -- ahh, she -- has quite the personality."

Court and I shared a grin. "You get used to it," she replied.

"Trust me, it's an improvement," I added.

The Colonel was rolling his shoulders, trying to get comfortable in the suit. "What can the rest of us do to help?"

The doctor was already taking samples from the zombie's skull cavity. "Hmm? Oh. Well, this was supposed to be a sightseeing tour. The best I was hoping for was to collect some samples to compare with the ones in the lab, and try to find some clue to how this whole village turned zombie at once. I didn't expect to have a fresh zombie -- and an impossible deadline. I'm afraid you'll have to poke around without me."

"Da. Understood." He turned to face the five of us. "Split up, each take a section of the village. You metas can travel the fastest, start at far end of village. Everybody meets in the center in one hour. If you find anything urgent, make some noise, at least one of us will hear."

I nodded and lifted into the air, drifting over the silent village. Below me, Jack had already arrived at the far corner, a whirlwind settling in his wake. Court was running easily down the main street. I took it more slowly, trying to understand what I might be looking for.

The village was barely that -- mostly a collection of prefab trailers and a spur on a rail line. There were a number of tin sheds for warehouse space and a sawmill, and a few more permanent buildings for company offices, and one that seemed to be a small medical clinic, judging from the red cross on the sign.

Okay, you're going about your day and everybody turns into a zombie. What would you see? What would happen?

I frowned. Right away things weren't adding up. I thought about the lot where I'd landed the helicopter. Heavy equipment, all parked neatly and ready to go. Maybe it happened before work?

Still mulling, I landed in my assigned section of the village, a collection of prefab trailers used for living quarters. The first few I entered were single's quarters, bunkhouses with a kitchen and shower facility. Most of them were for the men, of course -- but there was one set aside for women, too. None of them were particularly well-kept, as you'd expect in a roughneck place like this -- but there was no sign that anything out of the ordinary happened, either. No doors left swinging in the breeze, no breakfasts left half-eaten. Nothing left cooking on the stove. No water running, of course, but the shower taps were all turned off. I made a mental note to ask the doctor whether any of the zombies had been found naked, or in sleeping clothes.

The silent air seemed heavier as I crossed into an area set apart from the singles quarters, a group of trailers set around a common open space: family quarters, probably for supervisors. A cheap swingset sat in the center of the space, the jungle already sending creepers up its rusted legs, and a few children's toys lay scattered about. A doll carriage lay on its side, but no dolly. A small pink bicycle with training wheels. A soccer ball, starting to go flat.

I braced myself for what I might find inside the trailers, but there was nothing to see. No sign of a panic, no indication of hasty exit. And no clue about what happened to the children. Court said they found child-sized toothmarks on the bones.

The hour was almost up, and I headed toward the center of the town to rejoin the others. Jack was the last to join us; one instant he was missing, the next he was just there, and the wind from his sudden arrival ruffled our biosuits.

The Colonel looked decidedly uncomfortable inside his suit, as did the Majors. It must have been miserable to be trapped in the suits in this heat, unable to keep the sweat from running into their eyes. "Okay, what have we got?"

Weiss spoke first. "Whatever happened, didn't catch them at work. There's no indications of damage in the offices, no chairs overturned, no papers scattered, not even a coffee spilled."

Roth concurred. "The sawmill equipment wasn't left running when it happened. Everything was locked down. The forklifts are still parked."

Jack spoke up. "The clinic was a mess, but I suspect that was from the soldiers' investigation. The door had been locked, but it was forced open. Computers gone, filing cabinets opened and rifled. Nothing worth reporting."

Court shrugged. "Pretty much the same here. The general store had been locked, but the door was forced, probably the soldiers again. The food shelves were stripped, maybe they took the cans for samples. Or maybe the Red Skull looted the place before they left. Other than that, no damage. If anyone was trapped inside when they changed, I couldn't find any sign."

I spoke up. "Colonel, how many children's bodies were recovered?"

He looked mystified. "As far as I know, there were none."

Major Weiss spoke up. "Not quite true, the youngest victim was a twelve-year-old girl. And there were two older teens, I think."

I shook my head. "Something's not right. I've seen the living quarters. There were younger children here. There's no indication they were infected and turned, and if they were abandoned when their parents turned, we'd have found signs of it. Where have they gone?"

"That is no concern of yours."

The voice came from the shadow of a storage shed. It belonged to a tall man, with short-cropped blond hair, in military fatigues bearing the Red Skull insignia. Four others appeared behind him, fanning out to cover us with automatic weapons. "Your more immediate concern, Miss Mars, should be, 'How do I remain very still to keep my associates from being killed.'"

Court sighed and glanced at me. "They've got the doctor, too."