The Systemic Series - Box Set Read online

  His eyes flashed back to the cot. The pile of blankets had just moved – or had it? Maybe his eyes were playing tricks in the dim light. It was time for the third step in his search procedure, the more measured inspection.

  Cheung stepped cautiously toward the cot. He gave a quick look back to make sure Li was covering his action. Li was no where to be seen. Cheung paused, unsure how to proceed. Li should be there, but he wasn’t. Cheung turned quickly back to the cot and the blankets. He thought he had seen the pile move before, but maybe it was just his imagination; a trick of his mind which seemed to be spinning right now. An image of the villager being shot flashed into his head, but he shoved it aside. He had to concentrate on this moment. It could be the difference between life and death – his or someone else’s.

  He could hear the sounds of gunfire outside. Maybe Li had been hit by one of the villagers’ weapons. Maybe he had been overcome by the chemicals the commander said this village had obtained. Cheung took another quick look behind him. Still no Li. He was on his own.

  He stepped toward the bed, never taking his eyes from the mound of blankets. There was still no movement, and Cheung was beginning to think he had imagined it. There was a sense of relief that came with the thought. A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and he instinctively moved a hand from his weapon to wipe it away, forgetting the protective helmet that made his action impossible.

  A crash behind him made him whirl, weapon ready, his finger finding the trigger. Several of the stacked milk crates had toppled over and something small and furry charged at him from between them. Cheung’s finger clenched the trigger reflexively, and then relaxed.

  A tiny brown dog shot between his legs and out the open door.

  Cheung exhaled heavily. But his feeling of relief was short lived. As he turned around, from the corner of his eye, he caught the shadow of a figure on the cot. As he focused in the darkness, he could see that the shadow was sitting upright, still covered from the waist down with the bundles of blankets that had been concealing it.

  Cheung raised his gun at the figure, ready to fire if necessary, but he didn’t want to. He knew what his orders were, but it didn’t matter.

  “Don’t move,” he said in the most commanding voice he could muster.

  Where was Li, damn it?

  Cheung took a step toward the figure, his finger still tight on the trigger of his weapon. He could now see by the long hair that hung down around the figure’s shoulders that it was a woman. Her hair had the smooth silkiness to it that would have made her appear young, but there was something about her that made her seem older than she should. Maybe it was the shadows, but her face looked withdrawn, pale, almost withered. In the brief second or two in which he stared at the woman, Cheung noticed that she clutched something in her arms.

  He felt his finger loosen upon the trigger of his weapon. His question was answered. It was indeed more difficult to kill a human than a fish. He moved closer so that he was now maybe five feet from the woman. She remained motionless, sitting, silent. Cheung lowered his weapon slightly but still kept his finger on the trigger.

  The woman moved her arm slightly and Cheung raised his weapon again. His commander’s words in the back of his mind: “Today we take no prisoners. These people are imminent and direct threats to all they come in contact with. We have strong reason to believe they have access to chemical weapons.”

  Why should he feel sympathy for this woman he did not know, a person he had never seen before and with whom he had no relationship of any sort? She could very possibly have a weapon, possibly a chemical weapon, concealed beneath the blankets.

  Cheung could not chance it.

  “Remove the blanket and raise your hands where I can see them,” he commanded.

  He wanted to check for Li, but he didn’t dare take his eyes from the woman.

  She stared at him, her eyes black in the darkness. She coughed hoarsely but made no effort to move her hands away from whatever it was she was holding.

  Cheung moved forward again, menacingly this time, his weapon clamped tightly to his body to help keep his hands from trembling.

  “Remove the blanket and raise your hands where I can see them,” he said, louder this time. His voice sounded strange. It was high pitched and hoarse with fear.

  The woman just continued to stare, her lifeless eyes burning into Cheung. They made him uncomfortable; and worse yet, scared. If this woman didn’t care about what happened to her, she certainly wouldn’t care about harming Cheung with whatever she was hiding.

  Cheung took another step forward, his eyes locked on the woman’s arms. He was close enough to reach down and touch the woman where she sat, but he didn’t dare make direct contact with her. Instead, he used his rifle’s muzzle to poke next to her arm, lifting the blankets from her concealed object.

  At first Cheung was confused by what she was holding. In the darkened room, it looked like some sort of squash or maybe a large potato. He quickly realized though, much to his horror, that the object was not any form of vegetation, but a baby – a shriveled, malformed baby that looked, from its mummified appearance, to have been dead for some time. It’s wrinkled and contorted features held Cheung in a horrified, trans-like state. It wore a sickening sort of grimaced smile upon its shriveled beak of a mouth.

  Cheung’s panicked breath was coming in short pants now and began to fog the clear screen of his protective helmet causing him to panic even more. Pulling his rifle away from the ghastly scene, he accidentally raked the body of the tiny corpse, his rifle’s muzzle tearing into the dry flesh of the child’s miniscule torso.

  The contact elicited a tremendous response from the woman who Cheung believed must be the baby’s mother. She let out a horrific scream and lunged off the cot toward Cheung.

  Surprised by the swiftness of the woman who had barely moved since he first laid eyes upon her, Cheung stumbled backward, dropping his weapon as the woman gripped his forearm in her one free hand while still clutching her shriveled baby to her with the other. She was on her feet now, using Cheung’s arm to support much of her weight.

  Before Cheung could totally regain his balance, three shots exploded from behind him, tearing into the woman and finally breaking her grip upon the mummified child.

  The baby fell, appendages crumbling and flaking off as it fell to the floor, hit, bounced, and rolled under the cot. The woman sank to her knees, the stare of her black eyes affixed firmly to Cheung’s frightened gaze. She never said a word as the life left those eyes. Her grip upon Cheung’s arm tightened suddenly as a death spasm struck and then released slowly as she dropped to the floor.

  Cheung turned away from the terrible sight to see Li in the doorway.

  “What were you doing letting that woman touch you? She could have been a threat!” his partner’s muffled shouts came to him through his protective gear.

  Cheung was too stunned to speak. A variety of feelings and emotions were coursing through him. There was anger at Li who had not been there when he should have. There was fear from the woman’s rage. There was sadness at seeing the tiny child, several of its crumbled parts now scattered loosely on the floor beside its dead mother. There was curiosity at seeing the last ounces of life fade from this woman whom he had never known and would never know.

  Cheung just looked at Li, then down at the lifeless form on the floor below him, and then back at Li. It was only then, as the shock and confusion of the moment began to fade, that Cheung sensed the coolness of fresh morning air upon the inside of his right elbow. He glanced down at the arm of his protective suit. He could see a slight tear, maybe only a centimeter or two long, along its right sleeve.

  Fear swept over him again. He glanced at Li who was looking down at the woman he had shot. Li walked over and gave her a nudge with his boot, ensuring that she was dead. He appeared not to have noticed Cheung’s quick inspection of his suit. Cheung moved his right arm down beside his body to keep the tear out of view and moved to retrieve his rifle
.

  “I need to see the commander,” was all he said in a sullen voice as he pushed past Li and out of the miserable hovel.

  Outside, the sun had risen high enough to cast dim rays of light through the mountain peaks and across the village. There was the occasional sound of gunfire. A scream and a muffled call issued from inside one of the scattered huts; but most of his fellow soldiers had already performed their duties as ordered and were filtering from cleared buildings and forming back up with their respective units.

  Cheung stood frozen, still absorbing the shock of what had just happened. He closed his eyes and let the sun shine though his helmet and against his face, hoping that it would help burn away some of what he had seen.

  When he opened his eyes, he scanned the area, looking for his commander. Unit commanders were differentiated from other soldiers by a red circle on the shoulder of their protective suits. From where Cheung stood, he saw no white suits with red patches, so he walked around to the other side of the village, leaving Li to wonder exactly what his partner was doing.

  Cheung moved slowly, his mind muddled by the events of the morning. Images of the mummified baby, the woman’s black eyes, her strange sickly appearance, they all flashed through his mind. These visions haunted him. Not only was he disturbed by the pictures invading his mind, but he was worried. This tear in his suit might evoke a harsh berating by his unit commander. The commander didn’t like to be bothered with minor details, and Cheung could imagine his anger at having to deal with a decontamination process. He would be embarrassed that one of his men had failed in his mission.

  Eventually, Cheung found his commander. His superior was engaged in a conversation with another soldier and took no notice of Cheung’s approach. The other soldier was animated, gesturing to his protective suit, pointing at a spot on the suit near his waist.

  Cheung watched as the commander stooped to inspect the soldier’s suit. Cheung felt a slight sense of relief. This soldier must also have a hole in his suit, so Cheung would not be the only one to cause a problem. Maybe this other soldier would bear the brunt of the commander’s anger so that Cheung would get off with only a slap on the wrist.

  Cheung stopped and moved up beside a small house from which he could watch the conversation between the two unnoticed. Here he could wait until the commander finished with the solider, exhausting his anger on him. Then he could follow the other solider to the decontamination area without having to deal with the irate commander.

  Cheung felt better that he wouldn’t have to endure one of the commander’s verbal tirades. He was also relieved that it wasn’t him who had shot the woman in the hut. Li would have to live with that.

  He was still watching the commander inspect the other soldier’s suit, touching it with his fingers. The commander poked at the material near the soldier’s waist. Suddenly one of his gloved fingers disappeared inside. The commander’s reaction was immediate. He jerked his finger from within the suit, rose from his bent position, pulled his sidearm from its holster, leveled it at the soldier’s chest, and pulled the trigger.

  Cheung couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The soldier fell back onto the ground and lay motionless. The commander stepped over him, lowered his pistol at the soldier’s head, and fired again.

  As the commander stood over the fallen soldier, ensuring that he was indeed dead, Cheung quickly retreated from his position back to where his unit was forming up outside the village near the trucks. They were being sprayed down with some type of solution and then shedding their protective gear into great piles to be burned along with the rest of the village. Cheung was only too happy to be rid of his. The evidence of his error would be disposed of for him.

  What Cheung had just witnessed at the hands of his commander scared him worse than the death of a hundred unknown mothers and their rotted corpse babies. And he knew now that he must never mention the tear in his suit to anyone.

  He reasoned that had the villagers used any sort of chemical agent against them, he would surely be feeling the effects by now, so everything must be fine. He certainly wasn’t going to risk being shot just because that woman had caught him off guard. It wasn’t his fault she was crazy.

  As Cheung sat in the back of the army truck as it rumbled back down the mountainous road, he could see smoke from the burning village rising against the clouds behind him. What an hour earlier had been a serene mountain community, peaceful in its waking hours, was now just smoldering piles of charred remnants, bones, and melted protective gear.

  Unfortunately, Cheung wouldn’t live long enough to truly understand the immense ramifications of what to him had seemed but a trivial mistake.

  CHAPTER 2

  MONDAY, AUGUST 12th

  “You know what this means, right?” I dabbed a drop of coffee from the bottom of my mug with a finger and wiped it on my sweatpants.

  “Yeah, yeah…I know. I always know,” Claire mumbled as she stared at herself in the bathroom mirror before slashing a dark slip of eye-liner beneath her right eyelid.

  “I’m serious. I mean, the shit is really going to hit the fan one of these days and you’re going to thank me.”

  “Problem is, John, the shit seems like it’s about to hit the fan every week.”

  “Well, that’s because it could…or it might. I mean, I don’t know, it’s just that in this day and age the bottom could drop out at any moment. You don’t know how close this country – the world in fact – is to the brink of disaster on a regular basis. You just never hear anything about it because they try to keep a lot of it hush-hush. Otherwise people would be going ape-shit in the streets all the time.”

  “But how are you going to know when the sky actually is falling, Chicken Little?”

  I took a deep breath, sighing and shaking my head in despair.

  “Daddy?” came a shrill voice from the living room.

  “I’m sorry sweetie,” Claire’s reflection eyeballed me from the mirror as I leaned against the bathroom wall, taking a sip of coffee. It’s not that I don’t trust your judgment about these things, it’s just…I don’t know. It’s no fun having to think about this stuff all the time. I mean it’s depressing, all this end-of-the-world type crap.”

  She pressed her lips tight together, then dabbed lipstick from them with a tissue as she tried to restrain herself from pointing out too many of my recent failures when it came to predicting the future demise of the world as we knew it.

  “Well, one day when I’m right and we’re ready, then you’ll appreciate me and all of my planning.”

  Claire turned away from the mirror, crossed the bathroom and wrapped her arms around my waist, pulling me tight up against her. I wanted to pull away in frustration, but she had a way of forcing herself back into my good graces even when I tried to resist.

  “I appreciate you every day,” she smiled, giving me a kiss, and in the process leaving me with a set of red lipstick-covered lips myself. “Sometimes I just think that being home all day leaves you with too much time to think about this kind of stuff.” She went back to her preening. “So this new virus they’ve discovered in China. Really think it’s something serious?” she asked, pretending she cared.

  “Daddy…Daddy!” the voice in the living room came, louder this time.

  “Probably not. Just another SARS, Swine Flu or Bird Flu. Just something for the morning news to talk about. They’re probably just looking for another way to boost television ratings or get people’s minds off the economy. Get people focused and spending on extra food, face masks, flu shots, and all the doomsday disaster supplies. Nothing ever really comes of it. Even I’ll admit that. You know me though, I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

  Claire fired up her hairdryer.

  “I definitely know you. Always prepared,” she shouted over the hum of the dryer as she brushed out her fine, shoulder-length blonde hair. “The Third Reich could have held out another month or two with all the supplies you’ve got stashed in that little bunker of yours.”
>
  “I wish you wouldn’t call it a bunker,” I called back. “You make me sound like some kind of doomsday nut or something.”

  She shut off the hairdryer, set it on the vanity and turned around again to face me, an eyebrow raised, a half-smile, half-questioning look on her face, as if to say, “And you aren’t?”

  “Oh come on,” I laughed defensively. “I’m not that bad.”

  “Daddy, dada, daddeeeeeee!” the call ended in a high-pitched squeal.

  “Better go see what he wants, Mr. Mom,” Claire said, flipping the hairdryer back on.

  I took another drink of coffee, sighed, and left the cozy, steam-warmed bathroom.

  Jason was sitting on the living room floor, inspecting his foot, which he had pulled up near his waist.

  A fat toe jutted out from the foot of his size-two pajama sleeper.

  “Uh oh, looks like we’ve got a blowout here,” I said, bending down to give the little pink piggy a squeeze.

  “No grab toe, Daddy,” Jason squealed, pulling his foot away and rolling over onto his back.

  “Come here you fuzzy little monster,” I said, bending to grab him by the leg and pull him toward me, slopping my coffee in the process.

  “Shit! I mean, crap, darn…something other than what I said.”

  “Eeeeee! Le’ me go. Le’ me go! Daddy say bad word, Mommy!”

  “Nice,” Claire said as she stood watching from the hallway. “Hope Daddy gets that blowout fixed and finds the censor for that mouth of his,” she frowned. “I’ve got to run.”

  She walked over and bent down for a kiss. “Love you,” she said. Then she knelt to kiss Jason.

  “Ahhhh,” he writhed away from her.

  “Come here you little Rasputin,” she said, pulling him close in a tight embrace and finally getting the requisite kiss. “Okay you two, play nice and have a good day.”

  “You too, Mommy,” I said. “And remember, if there is even a hint of you know what at you know where, you get the heck out of there and back to where you belong with us.”