Free Orbital Decay by A. G. Claymore Page A

He’d been a backup co-pilot on the shuttle carrying the euphemistically named containment team sent to eliminate the researchers and Chicago Detective Sergeant Ben Marks.
    In light of the breakout that had circled the globe in a matter of days, obeying old orders had seemed counter-productive. Ben had the researchers who caused the plague. Dwight Young and Alan Riggs rode in the lead vehicle with Ben and his family while Sarah Mendel and Tim Brown rode with Abe. They were the only people left who understood the disease.
    And they had a cure.
    The cure conveyed immunity, along with a complete re-programming of the genetic clock. The inoculated would live for centuries, depending on their age at the time of the shot. Their descendants would live for millennia.
    Assuming, of course, that you survived the shot.
    There was a chance – somewhere in the two-percent neighborhood – that the shot would give you the plague instead of the cure. Then your body would turn into a walking incubator.
    Any tissues not needed for that new role were broken down to refuel the essential systems. Skin, fatty tissue and higher brain functions were the first to go.
    After helping to rescue Lise and Brendan from the quarantine zone in Chicago, Abe had agreed to get them to a government research station on Petite Tortue Island. They had just flown past Spartanburg, South Carolina,  when the EMP hit.
    “Too bad your shuttle wasn’t a diesel.” Ben patted the side of the black SUV.
    The military had decided to shut down transportation networks in a desperate attempt to stop the spread of the disease. A series of nukes in low orbit had generated massive electromagnetic pulses across the continental United States. It was a case of too little too late.
    For Ben’s small group, it seemed more like too much too soon.
    The pulse had killed aircraft and many ground vehicles. Abe’s shuttle, hardened to survive solar flares during operations outside of the ionosphere, had not lived up to the manufacturer’s hype. They crash-landed on battery backup, barely surviving the rapid descent into the middle of Sumter National Forest.
    Before the crash, Ben had thought the ordeal was largely over. They would land at the research station and work on producing more vaccine. They were only hours from safety.
    Now they were on the ground, nowhere near their destination, and everyone was looking to him for the next move. Abe had found a military beacon on his shuttle’s mapping system, but it was in Anderson – still in South Carolina, but far beyond the forest. First, they would have to reach Clinton.
    It had taken the better part of a week to hike the twenty kilometers out to civilization.  By the time they emerged from the forest, the town of Clinton was completely deserted by the living. Only the dead walked its streets now. Leaving the rest of the group at the forest’s edge, Ben and Abe had snuck into town,  where an abandoned dealership gave them the deal of a lifetime.
    They had found two large SUV’s sitting inside the maintenance department. The metal structure of the building had acted as a Faraday cage, protecting the fragile electronics from the effects of the pulse.
    “Figure we’ve only got another thirty klicks to the unit,” Abe said, ignoring Ben’s gratitude. “Sixty, as the crow wanders…”
    Ben looked down at the pavement, hitching his thumbs into his pistol belt. “Yeah well, you saw what happened back there,” he replied after a moment’s reflection. “Folks are desperate, especially now that the pulse has killed the power grids.” He looked up to meet the pilot’s gaze. “Closer we get to big towns, the worse it gets.”
    “The longer we wander, the more time folks have to put up barricades,” Abe offered.
    Ben shook his head. “No way in hell are we gonna drive through Belton.” He glanced over his shoulder at the open door as he moved in closer, his voice becoming an intense whisper. “We stick to the plan and come