Terry Brooks - The Gypsy Morph

The Gypsy Morph

Book 3 of The Genesis of Shannara

By Terry Brooks

FOR ANNE SIBBALD

Agent and friend, the Queen of the Silver River

WILLS WALKED the empty corridors of Hell, looking for thecode. He walked these same corridors everyday, all day, searching, thinking that there had to be someplace he hadoverlooked and that on this day he would findit. But he never did. And knew in his heart that he never would.

It was over. For all of them. In more ways than one. Theothers were already a long time dead. The entirecommand, wiped out by whatever virus had wormed its way in, sliding downthrough the air vents past the filters andcleaners and medico screens and whatever other safeguards the builders hadinstalled all those years ago. They hadnt alldied at once, of course. Eight of them had, and that was now more than two years ago. At least, thats how long he thought ithad been. Time was uncertain. The rest had diedone by one, some sickening right away, others staying healthy and providingfalse hope that a few might survive.

But none of them had. Only him. He had no idea why. He hadno sense of being different from the others,but obviously he was. Some small genetic trait. Some antibody peculiar to him.Or maybe he was mistaken and it was just plainold luck. He was alive; they were dead. No sense to any of it. No prize awarded to the last man standing. Just a mystery without asolution.

Abramson and Perlo had been the last to go. If you didntcount Major whatever-her-name-was.

Anders, Andrews, something like that. He couldnt rememberanymore. Anyway, there was never much hope forher. She got sick and stayed sick. By the time she died, she had already beendead for weeks in every way that mattered, herbrain fried, memory emptied, mouth drooling. Just lying on the floor making weird sounds and staring at them. Just gibberingabout nothing, her eyes wide and rolling, her face all twisted. He would have put a stop to it if he could havemade himself do so. But he couldnt. It took Perloto do that. Perlo hadnt harbored the same reservations he had. He hadnt likedher anyway, he told them. Even when she hadntbeen sick, when she was normal, she was irritating. So it was easy, putting the gun to her head and pulling the trigger. Sheprobably would have thanked him if she could have,he said afterward.

Two weeks later, Perlo was dead, too, shot with the samegun. Hed decided he couldnt stand the waitingand pulled the trigger a second time. Left the gun with an almost full clip forthe other two, an unspoken suggestion thatthey might be wise to follow him.

They hadnt taken the hint. Abramson had lasted almostseven months longer, and he and Wills made a goodpair in that short time. They were both midwestern boys married young, gone intothe service of their country, officertraining, fast track to promotion, full of patriotic duty and a sense of pridein wearing the uniform. Both had been pilotsbefore assuming command positions. All that was dead and gone, but they liked talking about how it had been when things werebetter. They liked remembering because it madethem feel that even though things had turned out the way they had, there hadbeen a reason for sticking with it, a purposeto their lives.

It was hard for Wills to remember what that purpose was,now. Once Abramson was gone there had been noone to discuss it with, and over time the nature of the reason had eroded inthe silence of the complex. Sometimes he sangor talked to himself, but that wasnt the same as having someone else there.

Rather, it made him think of all the stories of prisonerswho went slowly mad in solitary confinement, left alone with themselves and the sound of their own voice fortoo many months. Or too many years. It wouldbe years for him if nothing changed, if he didnt find anyone, if no one came.

Major Adam Wills. That was who he had been, who themilitary would say he still was, serving his countrydeep in the bowels of the earth, a quarter mile underground beneath tons ofrock and steel-reinforced concrete, somewherein the middle of the Rocky Mountains. Where he had been now for five long years, waiting.

He thought about that word. Waiting. He stopped walking andstood in the center of one of the endless corridorsand thought about it. Waiting. For what? It seemed to change with the passingof time. At first, he had been waiting for thewars to be over. Then he had been waiting for someone to come to relieve those on duty in the missile command center who wereleft alive. Then he had been waiting to be let out because he couldnt get out if someone in authority,someone who could tell him it was time to leave, didnt key the locks to the elevators from the surface.

For a long time after he knew that there might be no oneleft in authority, he had simply been waiting for his transmitter signals to raise a response from anysource. He no longer used a secure code. He simply opened all channels and broadcast mayday. He knew what washappening aboveground. The cameras told himmuch of the story. A bleak, barren countryside, a few wandering bands of whatappeared to be raiders, a handful of creatureshe had never seen before and hoped never to see again, and endless days of sunshine and no rain. Colorado had always been dry, butnever like this. It had to rain sooner or later, he kept telling himself.

Didnt it?

Waiting for it to rain.

The government had been all but obliterated even before hehad been sent to Deep Rock, the nickname givento the missile command complex. He was still on the surface then, stationed ata base in North Dakota, living in militaryhousing with his family. Washington had been taken out in the first strike, and most of the East Coast cities shortly after. Theenvironment was already in upheaval, huge portions of the country all but uninhabitable. Terrorists were at work.Plague had begun to spread. His last orders had senthim here, joining the others who had been dispatched to the bunkers and theredoubts and the protected complexes thathoneycombed the country. A general from the National Command Authority was issuing the orders by then and not just to them but tothe whole country. The orders had been grim andeveryone had known that things were bad, but they had also known that theywould get through it.

There had been camaraderie, a sense of sharing a disasterwhere everyone would have to help everyone else.No one had doubted that they would survive, that they could withstand theworst.

After all, Americans always had. No matter how bad it hadgotten, they had managed to find a way.

They would this time, too. They were infused with pride andconfidence, the certainty that they had the training,the skills, and the determination that were needed. They had even acceptedwithout question that they would have to leavetheir families behind.

Wills smiled despite himself. What blind fools they hadbeen.

He had quit believing when he heard the last radiobroadcasts, heard the descriptions of mass hysteria, and listened to the final pleas and desperate prayers ofthe few reporters and announcers still on the air.

The destruction was complete and total and worldwide. Noone had been spared. Armed strikes, chemicalwarfare, plague infestation, environmental collapse, terrorist attacksachecklist of assorted forms of madness thatproved overwhelming. Millions were dead and millions more dying. Hundreds of millions worldwide. Entire cities had beenobliterated. Governments were gone, armies were gone, everything even faintly resembling order was gone. He hadtried to reach his family at the base in North Dakota,but there had been no response. After a while, he accepted that there neverwould be. They were gone, toohis wife, histwo boys, his parents, all of his aunts and uncles and cousins and maybe everyone else he had ever known.

It began to feel like everyone was gone except for thosefew hunkered down in Deep Rock, waiting their turnto go, too.