The differences between revins and animals were forgotten. Revins still stood upright, although they would amble awkwardly without shoes. They bled often. In the Sonoran sun, they burnt and cracked. When they fell, they would most certainly have something rip open. When they were wounded, revins would attack each other, but stop short of killing their fellow unreasoned. Sometimes the revins would drag wounded adolescent revins by the legs, crushing their heads with a rock when at the onset of death — but they would not cannibalize. Some packs of revins established dens — ghastly stations filled with misery and collections of things that fascinated them. Revins were the new man — a pathetic and sinister helghast. Apes, in the limited habitats they had remaining, were the old world. An irony of being on top of the food chain for so long was that this virus only attacked prefrontal cortex. Only affected humans. Nature was getting a break.
DDC39 scanned the periphery of the park, zooming in and out on infrared optics. There were some tattered nylon tents still bolted to the desert floor in the evening shade of the peak’s face. No sizeable thermal indicators, but the calculation put it at as “check” in any case. Small thermal beats appeared overhead and then faded into the distance — a flock of wrens heading south. The temperature was starting to dip in the evenings. The sentinel made its way around the broken trail and to the tents. Abandoned. There was a fire pit, a Coleman, and radio. DDC39 spotted a blood trail and followed it around to a wash. In the bottom of the wash was the decomposed body of a man — its head bashed in and evaporated brain matter scattered about the ravine. The body of a female was wrapped around the man, also decomposed, but apparently free of injury.
The sun was beginning to sink into the horizon now. The Sonoran sky lit up in reds and yellows. A Zane Grey palette. DDC39 initiated the evening run-time maintenance operation. Its solar collection, dropping to 35%, set in motion the shelter/hibernate process. It scanned the periphery and found an attainable peak, 300 yds out. Its tri-axle stiffening up, the sentinel sprang forth and darted across the desert floor for the peak. It would run through its shutdown operation perched, with relative safety, in the altitude above the desert floor. It reached the incline and hit the higher gears, motoring silently up the face — the only sound being the spinning of gravel outside of the three-toothed tread tires. At the top, it pinged the desert three more times, 360 degrees, for signs of life. Nothing big. Nothing moving. Nothing good and nothing bad.
Atop the peak, as the sun set, DDC39 locked its tri-axel in place and shut down for the evening. The stars came out overhead — a crescent moon lighting the creosote shadows of the neverwinter basin. It would ping the periphery throughout the night, keeping a sole vigilance on the deadlands. One watch to keep hope for a cerebral light, and one watch to keep wary of the revin blight. It ran its hibernation cycle and routine maintenance:
• Solar power cell — 35%. Solar armor — 100%.
• Drivetrain — operational
• Visual/cortico/thermal/radar optics — operational
• HD/Comms — operational
• Water — 100%. Napalm — 100%
• Railgun — full capacity
• JE — situation normal; no signals, little hope
• Shutting down core operation and initiating stand-by mode
2. Siege in the Catalina Valley
Hope arrived at Bio3 one early morning on the front seat of a self-driving car. A brief letter was taped to a metal crate on the seat:
In this case are experimental, recombinant vector vaccine vials. This variant showed promise in simulated trials conducted in Phoenix. We now know the virus is aerial. It is believed to have originated from atmospheric degradation. We are losing our ability to do further research. There will be no further contact from us. Hope rests with you. — College of Medicine
For the vaccine shipment to enter the facility, it had to be “locked” through a succession of decompression chambers over a month. There could be no chance that the package transferred any contaminants along with it, or the whole salvation effort was lost. After a series of intensive air sample checks, the final chamber door was opened and the occupants received their vaccine. Dr. Erwin Stadler took the first vaccine. The only way to test it would be for Stadler to venture out into the desert, outside the air locks, and spend the minimum amount of time needed to surpass gestation period, at which point he could test himself. 90 days.
Stadler walked out into the dry air with a breather on and, after a nervous pause, took the breather off and inhaled deeply. So began his isolation in the desert. No burning bush, but a plague did surround him. In those 90 days, Stadler mainly stayed close to Bio3. His team would send out food, grown from their own self-sustaining crops within the Bio3 walls. He had enough water, pulled from aquifer wells in the heart of Bio3. And he had his remote. But Stadler was being watched. High in the Santa Catalinas was a pack of revins. Maybe they had been watching Bio3 all this time, scheming a way to get at the food inside. Maybe they smelled Stadler. They would venture down in the evening, surrounding the makeshift tent Stadler set up next to the observation windows. Stadler would talk to his team through an intercom. They would creep around the rocks and listen to Stadler as he talked, watch him as he stoked the fire. Once, Stadler thought he heard them — he shone a light on them and they scattered. It was day 45. Stadler got nervous and spent the rest of the time huddled in his tent. The pack got bolder and bolder, creeping down during daylight. They would throw rocks at Stadler’s tent. They would run up to his tent and scream at Stadler, shake his tent, and he would scream back at them. They would cackle and scatter. Stadler ran out of his tent and to the intercom. He shouted to his team:
“This could be it! They’re coming after me. I haven’t been able to test it yet. Stay away until they’re gone. Don’t come out till you know!”
Stadler looked behind him. They were watching quietly as he talked, listening to him with an almost latent curiosity — some sort of echo from deep within. They hung on his words and cocked their ears in the air. After he stopped and stared back at them, one by one, they tried to mimic his voice. Garbled sounds — some almost words. Like children barking to TV sets before they know how to speak. As they did this, Stadler walked slowly to his tent and grabbed his test kit. He dove the needle deep in his arm and drew blood. He deftly tucked the sample into the cold storage kit, and picked up a rock nearby. The revins quieted down now, watching Stadler as he backed closer to the intercom. Stadler’s team, hearing his shouts, came down to the observation window and pounded on the glass:
“Get out of there! Run!”
The revins came off the rock, walking slowly down to Stadler, who stood still by the intercom. It was as if Stadler wasn’t there. They weren’t afraid anymore. He was a mystery to them before, and now he wasn’t. They went into his tent and pulled out his food and water. One revin held some beets aloft and cackled. Then pandemonium. They beat and pummeled each other, scratching and gouging. Stadler just stood, petrified, as this violence broke out in front of him. They consumed his whole stash, ignoring the cold storage locker. When they were done, they sniffed around Stadler. His team watched. He tried talking again. They were entranced by that earlier, but no longer. They were annoyed now. One pushed him into the glass. Another walked up and looked at him in the eyes. This one, a male, had on a t-shirt, and nothing else. Its genitalia was bloody. Sallow skin, as if drained of blood. Half its scalp was pulled back off its cranium, hanging by a long flap, and a fresh scar split across its brow. This one went up to Stadler and plunged its arm down deep in his throat. Stadler screamed a muffled plea, a revin’s arm deep in his esophagus. It punched Stadler in the stomach and Erwin fell to the floor, gasping. Stadler began to vomit and was choking on his own bile — the revin intent on pulling anything out of Stadler’s stomach that he may have just eaten. A whirled gulp and hocking. The revins whooped and pounced on Stadler, who fell over, frothing. Stadler’s team watched in horror, standing behind the glass, as he was quartered. He reached an arm out to motion to them as the nails and teeth closed in on all sides. Soon, he was a mess of red stained cloth whipping into the air. The revins consumed him.