Jeff Carlson - Plague Year Trilogy 3 Plague Zone

PLAGUE ZONE

Plague Year 03

Jeff Carlson

The Plague Year Series

PLAGUE YEAR

PLAGUE WAR

PLAGUE ZONE

This book is for my father,

Gus Carlson,

who taught me to read.

Plague Zone (Plague Year Trilogy #3)

Product Details

Pub. Date: November 2009

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA)

Series: Plague Year Trilogy Series , #3

ISBN-13: 9781101151549

ISBN: 1101151544

Synopsis:

After surviving the machine plague and the world war that followed, nanotech researcher Ruth Goldman and ex-army ranger Cam Najarro discovered that a new contagion is about to be unleashed Review:

Three years ago a nanotech plague was released and spread across the world killing anyone who lived below 10,000 feet in altitude. Russians and Indians were welcome her until the Russian ignited a bomb to try and destroy the superpower. Russian military landed on the West Coast with the Chinese following them. In Jefferson, Colorado, Cam Najarro, his wife and nanotech expert Ruth Goldman formed a small community that was barely surviving. One day a woman breached their perimeter, but they soon realize she carried a new plague that affected the brain. The Chinese launched the new infection as well as deployed their military to round up survivors as they have no room for any of them. Ruth is the only chance the United States has to find a cure for this new plague, but she must meet up with plague free members of the military complex that possess the equipment she needs. Cam is looking at the hot zone of California for a scientist who might help them with the antidote while the government fires nukes at China. Cam and Ruth are in different places far apart, but sharing the same fear that short of a miracle the end of humanity is coming soonest. The final thriller in the Plague year trilogy raises ethical questions about scientific research seeking a cure for a pandemic disease and issues on government intervention along the lines of Typhoid Mary. Jeff Carlson makes a case that scientists created the plagues that governments deployed and these same researchers seek the cures. Whereas Ruth and cam hope to save Planet Earth in spite of the insanity of leaders, the governments continue on their merry military maelstrom; picture world wide New Orleans circa Katrina as DC (and Texas) fiddle with wars elsewhere. Jeff Carlson provides a super cautionary science fiction techno thriller. Harriet Klausner

Cam Najarro pushed into the fallen greenhouse with one arm, struggling through the torn sheets of plastic. In his other hand he held his flamethrower down against his leg, the blue fire in its muzzle guttering near the back of his knee. He didnt want to start a blaze if he could avoid it, so he used his body like a shield, hiding the weapon as he waded into the tangled, slumping mess.

The fuel tanks on his back snagged in the plastic. Then he encountered a broken two-by-four and had to duck, awkwardly protecting the nozzle of the gun against his belly.

The plastic was clear in single layersbut when the greenhouse collapsed, its roof and walls had twisted into knots. Worse, the sunset was fading. Cam wore a flashlight on his belt, but hed found that the light only reflected in the plastic, blinding him. He could see better in the shadows.

The greenhouse smelled like fresh earth and a dank, more humid scent. Everywhere the concrete floor was speckled with ants and locusts. Some were dead. Others jittered and flexed, trapped in the folds of plastic all around him.

His headset crackled in his ear. Whats it look like? Allison asked.

Its quiet, he said.

Ive got a bad feeling, Cam.

He smiled. Dont you always?

Get out. Please.

No. Eric might still be alive. What if hes unconscious? Cam reached into another curtain of plastic, but he could barely move its weight. He knelt and tried to squeeze past. On his right, the way was blocked by a long wooden planter, its soil blasted over the floor. Cam pushed left instead, crawling on one hand and both knees.

He stopped. There was a red-colored drift on the floor where the crushed ants were particularly dense. Cam brought up his weapon before he continued forward, wanting to be sure these ants were casualties, not a new invasion. He saw immature queens and winged males mixed with worker drones. By necessity, every man and woman on the planet had become a practicing entomologist, and Cam had a very healthy fear of these insects. The ants were both delicate and powerful. Their fragile legs and mandibles were capable of incredible force, as witnessed by the destruction around him.

He put his boot down, crunching the red bodies. I think I know where they came in, he said.

Each word echoed in the silence. Beyond the greenhouse, he could hear the wind and people shouting, and he heard those voices more clearly when Allison answered on the radio.

Just leave it alone, she said. It doesnt matter.

But it mattered to him. Hed built Greenhouse 3 with his own hands, and now one of his friends was missing inside.

Cam brushed at the ants with his glove, trying to make sense of the swarms direction. He found his clue against another ravaged planter. There was a hairline crack in the floor where theyd bolted the planters sides to the concrete pad, which was only inches thick. That hadnt been enough. One end of the crack was now a ragged hole. The ant colony had scratched through with inhuman patience and strength.

Less than an hour ago, ten thousand fire ants had billowed into the greenhouse, surging through the protected area like a cyclone. The weight of the frantic people inside was enough to topple one wall. Then someone crashed against a support beam. The ants were more interested in the corn and tomato plants, but still they stung and bit. Three people made it out. Eric Goodrich was the only one who hadnt emerged through the two doors that served as an airlock, sealing off the sweet, moist plants inside from the world of the machine plague.

The locusts came after the plastic had ripped. Like the fire ants, the black-spotted desert locusts were nonnative to Colorado, but they were adaptable and opportunistic, filling the gaps in the ecology like so many other species. The locusts were also suicidally ravenous, expending at least as much energy as they gained. They suffered huge losses just to attack the crops and their rival insects, allowing their own numbers to be decimated even as their dead provided more food for the surviving ants.

Cam would have burned them all if he could. The ants came from underneath, he said.

It doesnt matter! Allison was impatient now, even rude. She could be combative when she was worried. Just get out of there, she said. We can salvage things in the morning.

Eric might still be alive, Cam thought, but he didnt want to argue. He simply rose into a clear space and kept walking through the dark maze of lumber and plastic.

He moved with a limp. His hands were bad, too, already cramping on the nozzle of his weapon.

Old injuries. There were few people who didnt bear some mark of the machine plague or the wars that followed, but Cam Najarro had faced any number of hard choices. Sometimes he marveled that he was alive at all. He wanted to share his good fortune.

Eric? he called, forgetting to turn off his headset.

Goddamn it, Allison said. Hes dead. We would have heard something.

What if it was me, Ally? Youd come in after me.

Get out. Idiot.

Cam smiled again. Allison had softened now that she was four months pregnant, although she would have denied any change in her outlook. She was more selfish of him, more protective, which made her a better wife but not such an excellent leader. She no longer put everyone else first.