Outside Prague, Czech Republic
November 28
It was close to eleven o’clock before the Healer escaped the old city limits. Behind him, Prague was a faint glow, patches of lights coming from fireplaces and not electricity, dark spots where civilization had retreated. Like a medieval town again.
He passed a man with a bucket, trying to steal some water from a public drinking fountain; all that came out was dark sewage. The man took it anyway. Nearby, a manhole bubbled up, pushed by foam and dirt as the old underground infrastructure crumbled. A pair of bodies lay in a ditch, decomposing in the frigid air. They were being submerged by the sewage leak, would stay frozen until spring. It was a long time away.
An armoured car driven by two men in hazmat suits rumbled down the country road. On the side of the truck was a picture of a young woman smiling, a crystal glass in her hand, the vibrant logo of her company teasing the grey, decrepit world she passed by.
The proud stadium, once a great and majestic thing, had been turned into a sorting area for the dead. A large billboard along the road had advertised a EuroCup match there from years before, the larger-than-life players faded and blue. There were no games there now, only massive furnaces turning the sky red with heat.
Large trucks covered in snow and mud paced through, in endless shifts, dropping off their grim cargo. The colour-coded body bags were deposited in heaps at the entrances, and workers moved with uneasy speed to get them cleared away, to the incinerators, as the cold set in. In the centre of the stadium, four pillars of smoke reached into the sky and faded into the clouds. Ash covered the snow on the ground.
Across the way in a soccer pitch, a large group had gathered, all dressed in black, watching the stadium’s fires. Some were praying, others weeping, and the rest just staring in uncertain disbelief. The Healer saw one cough openly, no masks in sight. He looked away in disgust.
He found a small patch of unused land at the edge of town, near a brook, and set up his tent. He lay there in the darkness, the mask pressing against his skin and the cold seeping past his armour. He listened to the sound of his breathing.
The radio crackled to life.
“Home to Green Four,” came the familiar voice. He sat up, flipped up the antenna, stared up into the sky.
“Green Four here. Go ahead.”
“You are outside Prague city limits,” Home said. “Please advise on timetable.”
He pushed open the door to his tent, looked at the pitch black sky.
“I have a credible lead. Will investigate tomorrow.”
Static.
“Understood, Green Four. However…” the voice trailed off, tentative. “Your schedule may not allow for delay.”
The Healer looked at the ground, let the tent close again.
“Approaching a target in the dark risks unnecessary violent confrontations,” he said, devoid of emotion. “It is best to make contact in the morning, in my experience.”
“Such tactics are not standard practices,” came the answer. It was meant to be the final word.
“Standard practices,” the Healer said coldly, “do not reflect the reality of the mission.”
There was a long silence. The wind blew the tent and it angled slightly, fluttering.
“Green Four, your experience is noted. You are the last of the first wave. There had been talk of relieving you as well, to give you the hero’s welcome you deserve. But you, above all others, were able to bring satisfactory results for us.”
The Healer put his head in his hands, said nothing.
“However, your rate of progress has slowed in recent months. We are re-evaluating our earlier decision.”
Static again. The Healer didn’t move. The wind gusted again, twigs hitting the tent and flying away.
“How long do I have?” the Healer asked.
Static.
“You must leave Prague within forty-eight hours. One way or another.”
The Healer said nothing for some time.
“Good luck, Green Four. We will monitor your progress carefully.”
He turned down the antenna once more, and sat there in the dark, unmoving.
* * *
In his dream, he felt the warmth of a summer’s day in the fields of Tacheng. The grass was brushing against his palms as he ran toward the piercing blue sky, chasing his brother, and he felt lightness in his chest in a way he had forgotten long ago.
And then the warmth grew stronger and redder until it was a sudden fire, lashing at his face, and he was aware he was wearing his mask, and he heard the sound of his voice (though he wasn’t speaking) in his native tongue, calling for rear guards, to hold the line. Hold the line.
And he saw the eyes of a girl in the eastern provinces, not angry, not sad, just bewildered as the smoke choked her and her black hair burned so brightly.
He never heard her scream, not this time, but he was so overcome with his own voice calling out orders that he woke with a start, gasping, his suit whining in his ears, warning him to pace himself, to calm himself, to stay on target.
* * *
Carey sat on a wire-mesh chair beneath the giant logo for Zemus Pharmaceuticals, a blue glow shining from behind its spotless silvery lettering. He paged through the magazine one more time, not pausing at the articles or photos; just going through the motions, his eyes on the clock above the receptionist’s desk.
He put the magazine aside, straightened out his trousers, and got up. Once he was at standing height, the receptionist gave him an evil stare, a carrot stick hanging out of her mouth, pinched between manicured fingers.
Carey leaned on the edge of her desk, smiled as best he could.
“I don’t suppose you have any further information about Mr Daniels, do you?” he asked.
The receptionist chewed her carrot at him.
“Mr Daniels is not in the office at the moment,” she replied. “If you’d like to leave a message, I can be sure he calls you as soon as he gets in.”
Carey sighed, played with a set of business cards on the counter, which were promptly taken away from him.
“Actually, I did that yesterday. All day yesterday, in fact, and he never did call back.”
“He’s a very busy man, Mr Daniels is.”
“I appreciate that, but I’m here on government business.”
She rolled her eyes, cracked off another piece of carrot, chewed noisily.
“Everyone calling Mr Daniels is on government business,” she sighed. “But if you want to leave another message, I can be sure he—”
“Okay, listen, I don’t believe you anymore. He’s in his office right now, isn’t he? I just can’t believe that a vice president at a major pharmaceutical company isn’t in the office at… at a half past ten on a Tuesday. It’s just beyond belief.”
She said nothing, but made it clear it was because he bored her.
“I demand to be taken to see Mr Daniels immediately!” Carey said, his voice rising.
This got her attention. She scowled at him, waved a menacing carrot.
“Mr Daniels got in a half hour ago,” she said.
“And you’re just telling me this now?”
“He’s gone straight into a board meeting. All-day type of thing. You could come back tomorrow, or leave a message, which I assure you he will reply to as soon as he can.”
Carey pressed his forehead against the counter, whimpered, then started to laugh quietly. He propped his head up on one hand, and let out a loud moan, much to the receptionist’s displeasure.
“Miss, this is not the situation I wanted to be in.”
“No, sir,” she said, inching away from him.
“My boss — he’s the Director of the Containment Office, mind you — he’s very strict about these kinds of things. Has rules. Follow the rules. Goose-stepping sort of fellow, if you know what I mean.”
By the way she slowed her chewing, it was clear she did not.
“Now my boss, he told me very clearly: if they give you any lip, any lip at all, I want you to declare a D-22 right there, on the spot.”
The receptionist blinked twice, refused to betray confusion.
“I said to him: sir, I think that’s counter-productive. A D-22 would just… just… it would be totally out of proportion to the crime, honestly. And I—”
“Fine, I’ll bite. What’s a D-22?”
Carey sprung to life. He pulled a small handheld out of his pocket, hit a few screens, turned it to show her briefly.
“Strictly speaking, a D-22 is when I say our scanners have picked up a foreign substance in the air, and you all have to be quarantined until further notice.”
She stopped chewing altogether.
“See, it’s completely unethical in these circumstances, because first of all, I don’t actually have a scanner on me most of the time. And they take, literally, an hour to process the air for a sample. So the suggestion that I’d be able to say for certain that you were all infected with something like Kiev-7… it’s absurd, really.”
The receptionist swallowed slowly.
“And in the end, it really gets us no closer to whatever we’re after in the first place. Sure, they’d lock down the whole building, strip every worker naked and spray them with six batches of disinfectant. And sort you by function and rank, then clothe you in standard issue government jumpsuits — good God do those chafe, let me tell you — and send you to Brighton for quarantine.”
“B-B-B-Brighton?”
“Oh certainly, for at least twenty-six weeks. By which point they’d have ascertained that my original reading was probably incorrect, and they’d replace my scanner and shrug and say ‘Oh well! Better luck next time!’”
The receptionist smiled weakly.
“But as I said to my boss… it won’t really help me have a sit-down with Mr Daniels.”
“Mr Daniels hasn’t been in the office for weeks,” blurted out the girl, blanching horribly. “Nobody’s seen him for so long. The president is in a tizzy, everyone is after him. I honestly, truly, don’t know where he is!”
Carey leaned over the counter, close to the receptionist, squinted at her.
“Are you sure about that? No idea at all?”
She darted nervous glances left and right. Leaned closer to him.
“He… he’s been accessing the mainframe here, through a secure connection,” she whispered.
“Do you know where from?”
“It’s never clear, but one time I saw his address resolving to something to do with ‘Praha’.”
Carey frowned.
“Prague?”
“That’s what I thought, too. But I can’t be sure.”
Carey nodded, stood back from the desk, checking his handheld again.
“Well,” he said loudly, jovially. “No readings here. Must be clean. Thank you!”
He turned to leave, hit the button at the lift, and his phone buzzed in his pocket. He slid it out, flipped it open, and was greeted with the sound of the Director clearing his throat.
“Good God, Carey, it’s been a full day. You’re supposed to have told me you took care of things.”
Carey smiled a fake smile, nodded to the receptionist, who was eyeing him cautiously.
“Took longer than expected, sir. Ran into a bit of interference, but I pulled the old D-22 card, and things worked out fine.”
“The what? Listen, Carey, there’s no time for prattling around. Have you given him the message, or not?”
Carey nodded to the receptionist, got into the empty elevator, and the doors closed. His composure melted instantly.
“No, sir. He’s not here.”
“Then go to his home, blast you. Show some initiative!”
“It’s not that, sir. He’s not in the country. I have reason to suspect he’s in the Czech Republic at the moment. Although I’d like to get our boys here to check server logs to be sure if—”
“No time for that, and no politics about it. Listen here, Carey… if anyone but you or me thinks he’s outside the country, there’ll be hell to pay. Absolute hell.”
“Yes sir.”
“I need you to get on a plane, get to whatever backward shithole he’s stuck in, and bring him back.”
“S-s-sir, we’re talking about a black zone… there are… there are protocols about quarantine and such, and I’m not sure—”
The Director cleared his throat.
“You’ve done this before, haven’t you, Will?”
Carey rested his head against the wall of the elevator, closed his eyes.
“Oh, uh, yes sir, but I… well, yes. Yes I have.”
“Good. I’ll requisition the plane. Get back here as fast as you can.”
Carey shook his head slowly, as if trying to jostle a good excuse to the fore. His hand pressed against his forehead, he whimpered a reply.
“Sir,” he said. “Sir… if… if I find him, there are only two ways this can turn out. Prison, or… or —”
The Director interrupted him.
“Or exile,” he said, his voice almost angry, but eerily calm.
