Mark shook his head again. He’d just missed part of what Anton had been saying.
“What do you mean?” Alec asked. “How’d they screw up?”
Anton coughed, then sniffled and wiped a hand across his nose. “The virus. It’s all wrong. It didn’t work right on the test subjects over the last two months, but they went ahead with the plan anyway, saying what’s left of the planet’s resources is being depleted. All they did was up the dosage in those darts. Those bastards are trying to wipe out half the population. Half!”
“What about the little girl?” Mark almost shouted. “Did she have two women with her?”
Anton didn’t seem to be hearing a word that Mark or Alec said. “They said we’d be taken care of once the deed was done. That they’d bring us all back to Alaska and give us homes and food and protection. Let half the world die and we’d start over. But they screwed up, didn’t they? That little girl lived even though she was struck with a dart. But it’s more than that. The virus isn’t what they thought. It spreads like wildfire, all right. Too bad it’s got a mind of its own. Pardon the pun.”
He let out something that was vaguely like a chuckle, but it soon transformed into a hacking cough. Suddenly he was sobbing freely. The man finally slumped over onto his side and pulled his legs up onto the cot, curling into the fetal position, his shoulders shaking as he cried.
“I’ve got it,” he said through the sobs. “I’m sure of it. We’ve all got it. You’ve got it, too. Have no doubts, my friends. You’ve got the virus. I told my coworkers I didn’t want anything to do with them. Not anymore. They left me up here by myself. Suits me just fine.”
Mark felt like he was observing the whole scene through a fog. He couldn’t concentrate. He tried to snap out of it. “Do you have any idea where our friends could be?” he asked, more calmly this time. “Where are your coworkers?”
“They’re all down below,” Anton whispered. “I couldn’t bear it anymore. I came up here to die or go crazy. Both, I guess. I’m just glad they let me.”
“Down below?” Alec repeated.
“Farther down in the bunker,” Anton answered, his voice getting quieter as his crying subsided. “They’re down there, planning. Planning to revolt in Asheville, let them know we’re not happy how things ended up. They wanna take it all the way to Alaska.”
Mark looked at Alec, who was just staring at Anton. It seemed like everything the poor stranger said was a little more bizarre than the statement before it.
“Revolt?” Mark asked. “Why Asheville? And who are these people?”
“Asheville is the last safe haven in the East,” the man replied, his words barely perceptible now, nothing but dry, faint rasps. “Walls and everything—ramshackle as they may be. And they are my coworkers, all hired by the PFC—the almighty Post-Flares Coalition. My esteemed associates want to bring their bosses down before they pull out. Before they head back to Alaska through the Flat Trans.”
“Anton,” Alec said. “Listen to me. Is there anyone else we can talk to? And how can we find out about the friends we’re looking for? The girl, two women.”
The man coughed; then a little more life sprang into his voice. “Those people I work with have started to lose their minds. Do you understand? They’re … not … right. They’ll be down there for hours, planning and scheming. They’re going to Asheville, and they’ll gather an army along the way if they have to. Oh, there’s talk of an antidote there, but that’s a bunch of hooey. In the end, my people will make sure that others don’t get what’s been taken from them: life. And you know what they’ll do after that. You know, don’t you?”
“What?” Mark and Alec said at the same time.
Anton got up onto one elbow. The angle of light from the workpad caused one half of his face to be in shadow from the cot, the other in that pale blue glow. The eye on the lighted side looked as if a spark had been lit inside the pupil.
“They’ll go to Alaska through that Flat Trans in Asheville,” the man said. “They’ll go to where the governments have gathered and make sure the world ends, even though that’s not their intent. They’ll carry on about finding an antidote and taking down the makeshift government.