Page 32 of Breaking Danger
At first they watched on Jon’s scanner fed by a couple of Haven drones. At some central control station back in Haven they pieced together a large scale picture from several drones. She could tell by the slight fracture marks in the hologram, which disappeared when Jon zoomed in with one drone’s video feed.
It took a moment to realize what she was seeing, though she could hear it well enough. A loud, dissonant cacophony, growing louder by the minute. A noise unlike any she’d ever heard before, the very voice of utter chaos. Screams, bellows, fists against metal, glass shattering, all combined into one long rolling wall of sound that was the most frightening thing she’d ever heard.
Jon zoomed in more closely and there it was—the swarm. The main force rolling up Jones, people shoulder to shoulder, shoving each other, striking randomly, a mass so dense that for a second it looked like one single organism with an infinite number of moving parts. The front part of the wave was 20 blocks long.
Jon tapped and the focus zoomed in even more, so she could see individual faces.
Every hair on her body stood up in an archaic, primitive rush of utter terror. She couldn’t imagine that so many expressions of violence and madness had ever been gathered together in the history of humanity. Even in the mass battles of the past, there must have been some human expressions amongst the rank and file, a few hanging back, not wanting to maim and pillage. Some who tended to the wounded. Some who simply didn’t want to fight.
Here there was nothing she recognized as even vaguely human, just a boiling mass of bodies trying to kill each other.
Half the faces were covered in blood which was almost a blessing because she couldn’t see the inhumanity there. All she saw was blood on skin, sometimes dripping off the faces if the killing had been fresh. Nobody looked up, of course, because the drones were silent. Mute witnesses to mankind’s degradation, flying high overhead, robotic souls unflinching, cameras emotionlessly shooting video footage that sickened her heart.
“They—” Her voice came out so faint she had to stop. She was leaning against Jon like you’d lean against a wall, to hold you up. He was absolutely solid, face without expression as he held out the monitor so she could watch. At her almost soundless voice his intent gaze switched from the monitor to her face.
She was a scientist. Maybe one of the few left alive. So as long as she had a beating heart and a functional brain she was going to do what was a scientist’s first duty—observe reality. There could be no hypotheses without observation. She remembered one of her first biology professors laying down the law and how she had thrilled at the thought. It had been like looking into the very heart of life.
Well now she was looking into the very heart of death, but her duty was still clear.
She coughed, gathered her strength around her like a cloak.
“They are behaving very much like a swarm,” she said, proud of the fact that her voice was clear and steady, even while her heart hurt so much in her chest. She watched them boil and scramble up to the top of Jones. “There’s a concept in biology known as emergence. That there can be a hierarchical form of organization not apparent at the lowest levels.” She tapped the air of the hologram. “Each individual is behaving randomly and yet in their numbers, there is a primitive form of organization there. They are following the ‘nearest neighbor’ rule—blindly following where the person next to them leads. If they are swarming up Jones I can only imagine that they have an instinctive tropism for water—for the Bay. So though each individual doesn’t know where he or she is going, the herd is heading for water.”
Jon’s jaw muscles clenched. “Can they swim?”
Could they swim? “I don’t want to give a glib answer but my instinct is to say no. Swimming requires motor control and coordination adjustments. I don’t see any sign of that here. Many exhibit what could only be called spastic muscle movements, uncontrollable. That would be deadly in water. And I don’t think they could coordinate their breathing enough to stay afloat.” She looked up at him. “That’s my considered opinion but I don’t know if I’d stake my life on it.”
“If they are attracted to loud noises, maybe we could set up boom machines offshore. Watch them fall into water like lemmings.”
“Yes,” she said slowly, turning the idea over in her mind. “That could work.” She shook her head. “Do you know, that would never have occurred to me.”
“No.” His jaws snapped together with an audible click. “That’s not the way your mind thinks. You are looking to understand their behavior. I just want to find ways to kill the fuckers.” He slanted a look at her out of those ice blue eyes without turning his head. “Sorry.”
Sophie closed her eyes, tried a smile. It was shaky and felt fake. “That’s okay. Monsters are roaming the streets, Jon. Ripping each other to pieces. I’m not going to faint at the f-bomb.”
The hologram suddenly switched from the peninsula to some kind of war room. “Jon.”
It was Mac. He was sitting in a room with Catherine Young, Elle and her guy, the scarred man, Lucius Ward, and another man. He was a fireplug of a man, short—certainly next to Mac and Elle’s guy and Ward—but very broad shouldered. He had on a fleece, plaid shirt underneath and jeans but his short haircut, so extreme she could see scalp, and squared back shoulders spelled military, or at least former military, to her.
“Boss,” Jon answered. “You don’t need to tell us—trouble’s on the way. We can see it for ourselves.”
“Yeah.” Mac aimed a big thumb at Catherine and Elle. “The geek squad has come up with some facts they think you should know.”
Sophie felt like she was looking directly into Elle’s eyes, the hologram was so lifelike. “They’re swarming,” she said before Elle could speak.
Elle dipped her head. “Yes, they are. Catherine and I have been observing them, with time lapses backward and forward. There’s good news and bad news. Which one do you want first?”
Jon answered. “Bad news first. I can’t imagine there’s much good news.”
“Okay.” Elle hesitated. She was pale, stressed. “Soph…” Her voice broke and her Nick put a big arm around her. For the very first time, Sophie understood down to the bone what having a strong man at your side meant, the support it could give. She leaned back, just a little and there Jon was. Tall, broad, solid. A pillar of strength.
She’d never believed in that whole man-woman thing. She’d always dated men who were basically her—cerebral and detached—but with a cylinder of flesh dangling between their legs that came in useful now and again. Her men had been narrow-shouldered, with pale undeveloped muscles, not too good with the physical, outside world. Bad drivers, hopeless at repairs—one boyfriend back in Chicago used to call her over to change lightbulbs, though he thanked her with food. He was a fabulous cook.
Not at any stage of her life had Sophie thought toleanon a man as a source of strength. She’d never had to. But now the tables were turned and Jon and everything he represented—the iron and steel world of battle, the world of sheer male physical strength—was as necessary to her as breathing. As a matter of fact, if she wanted to keep breathing, if she wanted to make it out of the trap of her flat and to safety, she was going to need Jon’s qualities.
“The swarm grew through the night. It seems to be a universal phenomenon with the virus. We’re seeing swarms forming in Oakland, in Sacramento. And, God, Soph. Los Angeles…”
Sophie gasped. The Los Angeles basin was one large catchment area, a geographical trap, with mountains to the north, east and south and the ocean to the west.
