“Yes. Well, the first day. She wasn’t wearing them when I came back the morning after.”
“Did you get sick after she left?”
“Yes. Marty and I both had fevers. . . .” She stopped and stared atmygloved hands. “Did she have the . . . the Zombie plague? Am I going to break out in boils in a few weeks and go crazy?”
Everyone still alive remembered the plagues, especially the Zombie plague, transmitted by touch. The virus had come from the melting icecaps and had affected humans’ brains.
“Do you have access to a med-bay?”
“Yes,” she whispered, confusion on her face. “A portable one. It’s in back.”
“How are you getting home?”
“I have an old electric truck. Long bed.”
I removed my gloves again and held out my bare sweaty hands. Wanda shrank back. I reached as if to touch her and felt the telltale vibration. “I’m sorry. She infected you. I feel it in your skin. I survived what Warhammer has and I have the . . . let’s call them antibodies. I can share them with you. Then we can put the med-bay in the bed of your truck. When you go home, make arrangements for your kid for a week. You’ll be sick again soon. Set the med-bay to monitor your vitals and flush you with fluids. Insert every Berger chip you can find to help your brain stay active. In seventy-two hours, you’ll know if you live or die.”
She cursed, still staring at my bare hands, then at the door, which was too far away. Big globular tears ran down her face. With no way out, Wanda placed her shaking hands in mine. They were cold.
I was ashamed that I felt nothing other than that. I pushed my mutated, altered nanobots, feeling them crawl across her skin, searching for entrance—any minuscule cut, abrasion, torn cuticle—and claimed her as mine. I gave it twenty minutes. When I was done, I sat down and pulled my gloves back on. I wasn’t sure if a second transition was kinder than the actual Zombie plague or not.
“In sixty minutes, you can wash your hands. Not until then.”
She took a frightened breath through parted lips.
“When we’re done, you will get in your vehicle and go home. And stay there. You quit your job today because you got sick this morning and because your boss was selling black-market weapons. That will be your story. Where is Marty’s safe?”
Wanda paled. She had carefully not mentioned a safe. She had planned on keeping the cash for herself. Not that I blamed her. “Half the cash in it is yours,” I said. “But you have to lie low. And if you give me up to anyone, you’ll go like Marty did.” I looked at him and his henchmen, trying to decide what to do with them. Fortunately, before I thought it all through, Jagger came in. “I’d rather not have to dispose of them,” I said to him, pointing at the prisoners. “Will Marconi take care of it?”
“Yeah. But it won’t be pretty.”
“No!” one of the men said. “Not Marconi.”
“He’ll give us to Mina,” the other one said. “We’ll do anything.”
I sighed. I couldn’t take them. Or better to say that I wouldn’t. No matter how much my nanobots wanted to create a nest. To Jagger I said, “If they swear to McQuestion?”
“Doable. Better than being dead.”
The prisoners looked at each other. Simultaneously they said, “Whatever that is, yes.”
I said to Jagger, “Do it.”
Jagger pulled his cell and stepped outside. Big rigs arrived, and Marty’s container-moving equipment—a monster portable antigravity device—went to work lifting the containers and putting them on Marconi’s truck beds.
???
After Wanda left for the last time, I sat in my chair, gloves on, sipping my third mug of coffee, and watched as Jagger handed over the two henchmen to a biker wearing an OMW kutte. Sat as they were hauled away in a new electric car. Sat as the camo-painted containers were hauled off and stored at the hotel until I could get them back to Smith’s. I’d owe Marconi for this. Maybe he could take over Marty’s scrapyard.
I stared at Marty on the floor and sipped some more. He was wearing khakis and a blue shirt. His belt matched his shoes. His shit stank. I had a feeling Marty would have been surprised at that.
I hated killing people. I hated the odd look in their eyes when they knew they were dead, that moment of surprise and uncertainty and shock when the pain hit and their blood boiled and their organs sizzled. But this guy? He killed Harlan as surely as if he tortured my friend himself. And Wanda had been right. If she called the Law, her future would have been even more doubtful and . . . fraught, maybe? . . . than the future she faced now. The Law was uncertain. Vengeance wasn’t.
The sun threw long shadows. Cupcake entered, Jagger behind her, bringing with them the tantalizing smell of food. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Spy slithered in with them and jumped to the office counter. Cupcake arranged hemp-based take-out containers in the center of the table and set out three fancy plates and silver utensils from Marty’s stock. It was comfort food—eggs sunny-side up on top of fried wheat bread, with a platter of hash browns and a sliced tomato. And a bowl of grits with butter melted on top. Grits looked nasty.
Cupcake poured more coffee, which I didn’t drink. Even with my nanobots, the caffeine had me shaking. They sat and we ate, as if there weren’t a dead body stinking of feces and sour urine on the floor only feet away. I pushed away the grits and Jagger took them. The Mobile boy liked his Southern food, it seemed. I ate. And I ate. We all did. We didn’t talk, which was good. I had no idea what to say.
When we were done, Cupcake brought out a garbage bag and dumped our debris into it, tying it and placing it near the door. She retook her seat. She stared at me. So did Jagger. I sighed. “Okay. Ask your questions.”
