Part 38 (1/2)

Zombies.

Coming for us. Moaning, aching for our flesh.

We stood there in a shooting line. Lydia, Sam, Ivan, Duncan, Montana, and Noah. And me. Echo Team.

We fired and fired and fired.

We covered one another as we reloaded.

Our guns bucked in our hands, the barrels growing hot. The air was thick and toxic with gun smoke and cordite.

The dead walked into our gunfire. They did not-could not-evade or duck away. They came into the bright muzzle flashes and the lead. They flew apart like broken toys.

We used every bullet, every grenade, every magazine.

And they still kept coming.

In the end, when the last bullets were fired and the empty magazines dropped, when we were ankle-deep in blood and spent sh.e.l.l casings, the dead still came.

A few left.

Civilians.

The ones from the last car.

Old and young. Some children among them.

They came.

Ivan was weeping openly. So was Noah. Lydia's face was stone and I feared for her. She was way, way out on the edge.

”G.o.d, please,” said Duncan. He was breathing too fast, his whole system teetering on the edge of shock as he slapped his pockets for fresh magazines that weren't there. ”I'm out. I'm out.”

I felt a sob break in my chest as I drew my knife.

What followed was unspeakable.

Chapter Fifty-eight.

Westin Hotel Atlanta, Georgia Sunday, August 31, 2:15 p.m.

Mother Night watched the video feeds.

There were six cameras mounted at different points around the subway train. Each one had a lens that provided a panoramic view of the slaughter. Three of them showed close-ups of the infected, and she took them offline, not wanting to send a mixed message. One camera had a tight view of a line of DMS agents, and Mother Night was almost positive that the second man in that line was Joe Ledger. Even with the helmet, a balaclava covering his nose and mouth, and night-vision goggles, he had the right build, the right carriage. He looked like a video game character. She could have sampled him and built him into one of her own games. Maybe she would. She'd already established a network of dummy corporations and technical obfuscation that would allow her to bring games to market under a variety of false names so that nothing could be traced back to her.

It would be hilarious to have Joe Ledger, Top Sims, and that hunky Bunny as characters. Maybe Lydia, too, though Mother Night did not know her very well. The others were strangers to her except as names on covert reports hacked by Haruspex.

The two remaining cameras showed the whole line of shooters from a distance, and as the walkers shambled forward they were torn apart. Nice. From that angle and that distance, and in that s.h.i.+tty light, it was impossible to tell that they were infected. Or how badly they were infected. They looked like frightened people reaching out for help. And being killed by government troops.

Absolutely perfect.

She took a sip of Diet c.o.ke, drew in a calming breath, let it out slowly, and then tapped the keys that would send this video feed to its various targets.

First was YouTube, with links automatically placed on six hundred preset Twitter pages and fifty Facebook group and event pages, as well as on thousands of blogs into which Haruspex had intruded.

Bang, bang, bang.

Using reposting services modeled after Tweetdeck and Hootsuite, the link was posted over and over again every few seconds. Tiny changes in wording and URL kept the antispam programs from blocking her out.

The number of hits began sluggishly, but within three minutes it had jumped, and then soared.

The thought of it going ”viral” was an irony not lost on her.

She took another sip of Diet c.o.ke.

Then she sent the YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook links to the media.

To every network news desk. To more than six hundred global news agencies, from the a.s.sociated Press to Al Jazeera. And then Haruspex took over, sending the links to local affiliates, newspapers, and Web news editors.

Within minutes the slaughter in the Brooklyn subway system had hit sixteen thousand news sources.

”Burn to s.h.i.+ne, motherf.u.c.kers,” she murmured.

Chapter Fifty-nine.

The Oval Office The White House Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.

Sunday, August 31, 2:19 p.m.

Vice President William Collins stood with a group of top advisors as they cl.u.s.tered around the president's desk to watch the horror unfolding on the TV screen. The image was that of American troops in unmarked black combat gear firing continuously on a group of unarmed civilians.

The bullets tore into the people.

The soundtrack was filled with shrieks and screams as the people begged for mercy. Threaded through the gunfire was the sound of gruff laughter.

Nice touch, thought Collins; and he wondered from which video game or movie Mother Night had lifted that soundtrack. In all the confusion it was impossible to match those cries for help to any actual mouth on the screen. Maybe one day someone would discover that the soundtrack didn't match the video at all, but by then it would be a different world.

And a different president.

Maybe a president whose last name began with a C.