It had been such a beautiful, clean, warm day that Bette could not resist taking a walk after work. The azure sky, the perfect amount of afternoon heat balanced by an exquisitely cool breeze- it was a seduction she could not resist. As soon as she left the clinic, she drove the short distance over to Golden Gate Park, disembarking near Lake Stow.
She was not the only Californian determined to enjoy the golden afternoon. Couples and families walked over the emerald grass, some flying little remote controlled planes or starships, the tiny humming contraptions fluttering like small birds in the air above a cluster of eager, happy faces. Out on the water, boats both powered and paddled drifted without destination over the water, some clustered about the waterfall that spilled from Strawberry Hill in the middle of the lake.
A few food vendors were parked here and there, serving up ice cream or popcorn or cotton candy.
Bette had just spotted one peddling brats with sauerkraut, her stomach reminding her she'd yet to eat dinner, when something fast and black spat out of the sky and slammed with an ear-splitting roar into the lake.
It was as quick as a bullet fired from a gun, registered almost after it had occurred. Bette moved by mere reflex, slapping her hands over her ears and twisting away from it, half-dropping into a crouch as she did so by no conscious effort.
Then thought caught up with action, and she turned back, gaping in horror at the sight behind her.
The impact of…whatever it was…had displaced a good portion of the lake. A huge wave of water and dirt, carrying several boats with it and tumbling bodies like ragdolls, crashed over the grass nearly five hundred yards from the shoreline, sweeping into several dozen people in the park, cracking past trees and even toppling a few.
At the place the thing had crashed, a geyser of water and steam was billowing out of the churning surface, rising nearly a hundred feet in the air and emitting a high-pitched sound that reminded her of a massive tea-pot about to whistle. The steam was thick and heavy, misting around and downward, pooling back toward the ground and spreading outward.
Chaos. People were screaming and crying and calling out in confusion. The water was retreating back toward the lake but the mist was still geysering up into the perfect blue. Someone called out, wondering if it was a shuttle that had crashed or part of a plane that had broken up in the atmosphere, and the wail of the wounded and panicked was growing.
Thinking only to help, ears ringing and heart thundering, Bette started toward the lake, walking half a dozen steps before she faltered. That mist was still spreading out, eagerly gobbling up the landscape with glittery off-white. If that was a ship- or part of one- that had crashed, there could be radiation, eezo, noxious gasses that would be the most deadly poison. There was no telling what that mist was made of…and it was closing in quickly, now only a few dozen yards away.
She backed up some more, looking skyward with relief as she saw police skycars already closing in. Unable to run in and help the wounded without entering that increasingly disturbing cloud, Bette reluctantly retreated more. Emergency services would have the equipment to deal with this. One fumbling massage therapist was hardly going to make a difference, and she would only be putting her own life at risk.
Still, she felt horrible as she headed back toward her own car, hands shaking as what she just witnessed really sank in. She got in the vehicle and just sat a moment, covering her face and trying to settle her nerves. The increasing number of sirens illustrated more and more help arriving on the scene, and when she lifted her head she could see that all of San Francisco seemed to be heading toward the lake. The mist was now just a few feet from where she was parked, but people were walking or running into it without seeming concern.
Starting the engine, she carefully maneuvered out of the parking lot and two blocks down toward her apartments, avoiding the curious pedestrians. Several people from her building were gathered just outside, looking toward the park and gossiping in concern. She looked over her shoulder, and even from this distance she could still see the top of the geyser above the trees. It seemed to be slowing, sinking, and a dozen various shuttles and vehicles were circling it like vultures at carrion.
"Bette! Bette, did you see?" Mrs. Juliard, who lived next door, spotted her and grabbed her arm, pointing toward the park. "They think it was some kind of shuttle crash! Made such a horrendous noise!"
"I heard it was a missile, some terrorist attack-" This was from a boy she didn't recognize, a gangly teenager.
"Terrorist attack? From who?" A middle-aged man nearby snorted disdainfully.
"Aliens, maybe-"
"Missile'd never get through the Alliance grid, don't you know that? Terrorist attack…talk about living in the Dark Ages!"
Mrs. Juliard's daughter Monica, also a teenager, suddenly poked her head out the door. "Mama, there's some kind of alert on the vid, from the Alliance!"
The gathering by the door, Bette included, followed her into the lobby. Half a dozen public screens were lit up with the same face, the same uniform.
"If you are in the city of San Francisco, please return immediately to your homes. Do not attempt to approach the impact site or to locate loved ones who may have done so. The city is now under code one quarantine. I repeat, if you are in the city of San Francisco, you may be at extreme risk of exposure to a highly fatal infectious agent released by a missile impact at Lake Stow less than fifteen minutes ago. Please return immediately to your homes. Do not approach the impact site or try to locate loved ones who may have done so. Please stay tuned to the emergency Alliance channel."
"Mama, are we gonna be ok?" Monica asked, pale. Mrs. Juliard took hold of her and nodded.
"We'll be just fine, but we need to do what he said. Let's get upstairs and into the apartment."
"I agree, everyone needs to get into their apartments and lock the doors," Bette said. Spotting the most elderly resident of their building, she hurried over to him. "C'mon, Lewis. I'll help you upstairs. You can stay with me until we get word."
Lewis lived alone at the top of the building, and at one hundred and forty-five, could not always be relied to take care of himself or not become confused. Normally his son was with him but he'd gone away on business two days before. The tenets of the building would often check on him, make sure he was doing ok, but leaving him alone at a time like this was unthinkable.
Once inside her apartment, she locked the door and flipped on the vid screen, helping Lewis to sit down before she started rummaging for her first aid kits…just in case. Finding them, she set them in the kitchen then went to the windows.
For a moment, she paused, looking out toward the park. The geyser had stopped but the flock of shuttles and ships had grown. The mist was visible through the trees, clinging until the park looked like a swamp out of an old bed-time story. As she looked, a woman ran out of the fog suddenly, pelting across a nearby lot and then into the street. She was bolting like her life depended on it.
A man standing on the corner hurried toward her to help but she didn't slow, instead tackling him and throwing him hard to the ground. Bette gasped in surprise. She couldn't tell from here, but it seemed the woman was beating him or flailing at him furiously, the man cringing and doing his best to shield himself. As others started to head toward the pair, Bette shuddered and hit a control nearby. Metal shutters slowly began to lower over the glass, cutting away the still cheerful sunlight inch by inch and replacing it with solemn darkness.
"Attention: a class one device has impacted and detonated in Stow Lake, and an unidentified contagion has been released into the atmosphere over San Francisco. The city is now under Alliance quarantine protocols. Please, stay in your homes. Avoid contact with any bodily fluids of those contaminated or suspected to be contaminated. Evacuation and medical teams are moving through the city and will ferry all non-contaminated civilians out of the quarantine zone. Repeat…stay in your homes. Lock your doors and open them only to identified Alliance officials. Seal all doors and windows. Some of those infected will be extremely hostile. Stay off the streets and remain in your homes until the evacuation teams can reach you."
The message had been repeated so many times that Ashley found herself mouthing along with the words as she leaned over Jura, who was piloting the small shuttle. Alliance evac and medical vessels were thick in the sky, as were heavily armored gunships bearing troops.
It had been just over thirty hours now since the device had sailed out of the late afternoon sky and impacted hard in Stow Lake, in Golden Gate park. Though the Alliance had reacted almost immediately upon impact to quarantine the city, there were still fears that contaminated individuals may have escaped the net in that first critical hour. If so, it would be almost impossible to contain a world wide spread of the PMD.
It had taken that long for the Orizaba and the Aswa, moving at top speed, to return to Earth. Almost immediately Liara had requested a shuttle of Hackett and obtained clearance to go down into the quarantine zone.
The evacuation message had been transmitted via all publicly accessible lines as well as from the loudspeakers of the hovering gunships and evac shuttles ever since they'd entered atmo. At least knowing how the PMD was transmitted was a huge boon to efforts, but the increasing numbers of the mindlessly hostile infected now roaming the streets as they went mad made a search of the city for uninfected and immune a slow and hazardous affair.
Aboard the shuttle were Liara, Ashley, Jura, Sihra, and Sam. The rakir looked a little seasick despite the shuttle's attitude stabilizers, and was masking it with a grimace of irritation, scratching repeatedly at the face-mask strapped around her head.
The mask had been a compromise. Sihra had balked almost viciously at the idea of wearing an actual helmet- apparently, in her culture, using armor on the head was a sign of fear and weakness, and a full helmet actually deprived herself of her most useful weapons- her teeth and her sense of smell. She had to be shown actual footage of the PMD victims before she agreed to wear the mask, built by the Orizaba's engineers for her unique facial structure.
It covered her nose, mouth, and eyes with an air-tight seal, extensions hooking around the side of her jaw to cover her second set of nostrils as well, but it left the majority of her skull and her ears unprotected. The mask was solid, using almost owlish optic-ports with a holographic interface to allow her to see in her proper color spectrum. With it on, Ashley thought she looked rather like one of the old Egyptian gods…a really creepy one.
Besides the mask, Sihra wore cobbled together hard-suit armor that left her arms and lower legs bare. Scalloped plates covered her spine and the first third of her thick tail and allowed the armor to move with the right range of motion. Given that it had all been built in the last twenty four hours, it was rather impressive.
Still, it was not perfect protection from the PMD- even a small cut on her hand or foot exposed to infected blood could prove to be fatal- and while rifles and other projectile weapons had been demonstrated to the rakir, she seemed to have a hard time grasping how truly fast and deadly they were…and from how far away they could kill.
To help make up for this, at her waist she had two barrier generators- one the traditional military barrier that would proof her against bullets, and a medical static barrier that had been tuned to screen against bodily fluids in particular. They all wore these- an extra layer of protection against becoming infected themselves if their suits were compromised.
Liara had done her best to impress upon Sihra the danger of where they were about to go, and the gravity of the situation were she to become infected. She could only trust now, and hope that the rakir actually listened and obeyed and took the threat seriously. Ash had suggested just leaving her on the Orizaba but Liara knew how important it was for Sihra to see this with her own eyes. She needed a full grasp on the PMD, on the weapons wielded here and the type of war that the other citizens of the galaxy were capable of waging. Sihra would be the one to impress such truths upon her Ubuut, and she could not do that without direct experience.
It was some relief, however, to know this was one fight where Shepard would not be tagging along. They'd dropped her at one of the quarantine facilities at the edge of the city with some of the data they'd been able to extract from the black ship. She'd be helping to treat the infected victims brought in, get the Alliance medics up to date on the best precautions and what they knew so far about the PMD and how it worked, and hopefully gather enough information to jump her forward on a vaccine or cure.
"There. That's it," Ashley suddenly said, pointing over Jura's shoulder through the windscreen of the shuttle. Though night had fallen, search-lights still illuminated the landscape, one crawling over a set of apartment buildings just blocks from the impact site. "Sam?"
Feris stepped over to her cousin's shoulder. Her face was grim, professional, unreadable. She nodded. "That's it. Second building just there."
"We have an evac team six blocks away, working this direction," Jura said. "Hostiles are not dense but they are present. It will not be a simple stroll."
"Put us down in the street, as close to the front door of the building as you can," Liara said. "Weapons up and cautious…we do not want to mistake frightened civilians desperate for help for mad infected. Jura, as soon as we are out seal up the shuttle, go to the roof, and wait for our signal."
"Understood, Captain."
Sam moved toward the door as the shuttle started its approach, slamming her helmet down and locking it into place. Ashley did the same, then stepped up to her side, touching her elbow lightly a moment. Feris glanced at her but said nothing, only drew her rifle and primed it.
The shuttle settled, their rifles up the moment the door opened. They quickly cleared the area before stepping to the ground almost as one.
Sihra had not been given a lesson in firearms from the stand-point of use. Her fingers were disproportionately short given the rest of her body dimensions, but they were also disproportionately large as far as width. Even with heavy rifles constructed with krogan hands in mind, she could not get her finger through the guard to pull the trigger.
A trigger guard could be removed, but watching the rakir's irritation, one of the engineers had lit upon an idea…and showed her an omni-bow.
Like the omni-blade, the omni-bow relied on an instant fabricator embedded in the omni-tool to create a razor-sharp weapon. Unlike the blade, which whipped out from the fabricator and could be used to slice and stab, the omni-bow could fire this flash-fabricated weapon at a high speed and fair distance- much as a crossbow shot a bolt. Sihra clearly had some experience with crossbows because she instantly recognized even the holographic version, and more than eagerly and expertly took to its use.
Now, she had one strapped to each wrist. It was her pride and instinct that urged her to move to the front of the pack, but she resisted. She had no doubt battle would be seen, but it was a wise warrior who observed their enemy fight before engaging them, rather than leaping blindly into a fray unprepared. This new 'world' was alien enough to her, and she wanted to be certain how she could move in the environment, and how she needed to fight with unfamiliar combatants, in this odd suit they had made her wear. Everything she learned could be brought back to the Ubuut to help and glorify her people.
So, she stayed just behind the three soldiers as they left the shuttle and headed toward the building.
There was no opposition at first. The street was empty, their omni-lights crawling over the front door of the building. It was locked and sealed, but Sam quickly got it open. Within, only minimal emergency power seemed to be in effect, dim floor lighting guiding the way toward exits. A set of stairs lead upward, a lift on the far side of the lobby obviously out of commission. No one seemed to be around.
"Which floor is her apartment?" Liara asked.
"The ninth," Feris replied, and Liara headed for the stairs. They moved up steadily, Feris and Liara with rifles covering the steps above, Williams and Sihra making sure nothing was coming up behind them.
They made it to the third floor before the cry rang out. Their lights whipped toward the landing and the hall beyond. A middle-aged woman was running as fast as she could toward them, pale and tear-streaked and clutching a small suitcase. She was babbling frantically in Spanish as she hurried their way. The suitcase dropped from her arms as she got closer to them.
At first, Liara thought she wasn't sick, just badly frightened. Then she saw the wound on her arm, still fresh and spilling blood heavily…and in the shadows behind her a man appeared.
The woman coughed and then gasped, falling to her knees only ten feet away from the soldiers. Liara and Sam quickly paced around her, rifles aimed at the staggering stranger at the far end of the hall who was now running toward them in erratic, almost frantic lunges. Liara fired once, his skull came apart, and he dropped.
As Sam cleared the hall further, Ashley crouched by the wounded woman who now lay on the ground, grabbing at the wound in her arm and sobbing around chest-wracking coughs.
"Hey, shh, it's ok," the marine said as she tried to soothe her without actually touching her. The woman didn't seem to understand, just continuing to sob and mutter in Spanish before a final fit of chest-wracking coughs shook her. When they faded, they took the last of her breath with them. She went still, still tearful eyes fixed beyond life.
Ashley lowered her head a moment before getting to her feet. Liara was also regarding the woman silently.
"The contagion is in the building," she said quietly, then looked toward Feris as the marine stepped past and headed back to the stairs. The others followed, Sihra lingering momentarily behind as she frowned down at the woman's corpse. She went to nudge it with her foot, thought better of the action, and growled faintly in frustration that her sense of smell was neutered.
Turning, she followed the others, her longer stride catching up to them quickly as they jogged up the remaining steps to the ninth floor.
They had just reached it when something crashed down below, something that sounded like glass. Sihra and Ashley turned that direction, and when they didn't immediately see anything, Ashley waved Liara and Sam onward.
"Go, we'll watch the back."
Sam needed no second urging, heading down the hall. Liara paused only a breath, nodding at Ashley before she followed the other N7.
Unsurprisingly, the door was locked. Sam set about hacking it open, getting it unlatched before she readied her rifle and took flank. Liara flanked the other side, stretching a biotic barrier over the portal so they didn't get rushed the moment it opened.
Doors in apartment buildings were neither as sturdy nor as sound-proof as doors on starships were, for obvious reasons. Before she reached out to the now green control to open it, Sam lifted her voice and called out.
"Bette? Bette, it's Sam. We're gonna get you out of the city, Bette." She paused a couple of breaths, then shook her head. "Bette? Can you hear me? Are you in there?"
Silence, but in the silence Liara thought she heard something rustle. Her heart went to stone and she shifted her grip ever so faintly on her rifle.
Something was in there…she could hear it moving. If it was Bette, there were no good reasons why she would not identify herself, especially to Sam.
That is, if she is still capable of identifying herself…
"Bette?" Sam tried again. When no response came, she cleared her throat. "We're coming in!"
To her credit, her hand did not shake or pause as she reached out and hit the door release, quickly returning her grip to her rifle.
The door slid aside, and almost in the same motion, a figure lunged out from behind it and slammed into the biotic barrier, snarling wildly. Torn and bloody fingernails clawed against the dark energy, a bruised face wild with madness howling through it at them.
Liara fired.
