Fade to Blue

by Jeff Hall

part 2 of 3

Brent sat at a folding camp table with the two officers while the remainder of the soldiers squatted in small groups off to one side. Official introductions were made over a sparse supper of field rations and soon Lieutenant Bud Vance regaled them with obviously exaggerated stories of his exploits. He talked at long length about what was evidently his favorite subject — himself — so much so that Brent was caught off guard when the lieutenant suddenly turned to him and asked him a question.

“So, what do you do city-side when yer not out here bustin’ up crawlers and such?”

Brent hesitated a moment before responding. “Dentist. I’m a dentist.” It was the first thing that came to mind.

Lieutenant Vance snorted. “Hey boys, we got the friggin tooth fairy with us,” he yelled over his shoulder. Several of the soldiers snickered.

“Speaking of teeth, let me tell ya about the time I lost all my front choppers in a bar fight in Singapore...” On and on it went late into the night.

Finally, around midnight, the lieutenant began winding down. The other soldiers had dispersed to their tents, with the exception of one poor unfortunate who had been assigned sentry duty.

Lieutenant Vance stood and yawned. “Love to tell you boys a few more but I need my beauty sleep. G’night.” So saying, he tramped off to his tent.

Colonel Foster retrieved his flask and turned it up. A bare trickle, then nothing. He held it at arm’s length. “Damn. I knew that was going to happen sooner or later.” He tossed it aside and propped his elbows on the table. The skin of his face was pale and splotchy in the wan light of the electric lantern. His eyes were bloodshot and unfocused. “That stuff is getting harder and harder to come by.”

Brent stared at him across the small table, breathing in the sweet stench of whisky that oozed from the old man. He needed information. He had to be sure.

“Wait here one moment,” he whispered to the Colonel. He jogged to his jeep and pulled out something he’d been saving for a special occasion. When he sat back down at the table he pushed an unopened bottle of bourbon toward the old man.

The Colonel’s eyes lit up. He snatched the cork out and turned the bottle up.

This is the Army? What have we come to?

After swigging down a third of the bottle the old man relented and set it back on the table. He wiped his lips with the back of his sleeve and sat back in his chair.

“Many thanks, son. I think they quit making this stuff after the Change. Damn rare nowadays.”

Brent coughed nervously. He had his opening. “Yeah, I guess you military guys have had your hands full since the Change, eh?”

The Colonel rolled his eyes. He flicked the bars on his uniform coat. “Military? I’m a scientist, not a soldier. You’ve seen the respect I get.” His speech was beginning to slur. “And these goons with me are just contractors. The real Army is doing its job in the cities.”

That explains a lot.

Brent leaned forward and tried to sound conspiratorial. “So, it’s biological, right? Some kind of terrorist attack?”

The Colonel’s muddled face took on a look of exasperation. “Terrorist attack? Hogwash! You’ve been listening to the news too much.” He crossed his arms, a sullen look on his face.

Brent tried to keep him talking. “It’s got to be biological. The animal mutations. The plants and trees. And how else can you explain the Blues? What else could it be?”

The Colonel shook his head. “What about the non-biological changes? The rocks and buildings and mountains? What about the rifts? Giant craters all over the world that spew all manner of friggin... nightmares!” His voice had risen to a level that Brent worried might wake the sleeping soldiers. He waited a few moments before he continued his surreptitious interrogation.

“So, you guys don’t really know what happened, then?”

The Colonel took the bottle and turned it up again. After a few more gulps he set it down and peered at Brent through half-closed lids for several long moments before he answered.

“Imagine two trains traveling on the same set of tracks, headed toward each other on a collision course. One of ’em is painted a pretty red, like a fire truck. The other is, what the hell, we’ll say green.” He sat up and leaned forward, a new intensity creeping into his voice. “Now, these two trains hurtle toward one another at break-neck speed. Then, inevitably — boom!” He clapped his hands together. “They crash into one another with incredible force.”

He sat back, a crazy, drunken smile pulling at his sallow cheeks. “Now you’ve got just one train. One end is red, the other is green. But in the middle, where the collision occurred, you’ve got a mangled, twisted fusion of the two.” The Colonel lapsed into silence.

Brent shook his head, confused. “What in the hell do trains have to do with the Change?”

The Colonel’s grin widened. “Don’t you see? Our universe,” he held his arms out in an encompassing gesture, “has collided with another universe. The rifts and the areas immediately around them are the points of collision where the two universes have fused.”

Brent shook his head. It couldn’t be. He felt a coldness growing in his gut. That sounded too permanent. “But how — what happened to the Blues? I mean, the people who became Blues? It has to be biological — an infection of some kind? Something that can be treated.”

The Colonel shook his head. “Why would homo sapiens be exempt from the Change? Blues are merely the percentage of humanity that was changed along with every other domain of life. It’s a fundamental rearrangement of DNA. There’s no way to ‘treat’ a Blue. Although...”

But Brent could barely hear him now. His thoughts had drifted back three years prior to the days right after the tumultuous Change.

He had been out of town when it happened. As soon as he had arrived in Charleston he went straight home to check on Haley, his wife. At first he hadn’t been able to find her. He’d thought she might have gone looking for him. But then he’d heard the water running upstairs. He’d found her curled in the bottom of the shower. No telling how long she’d been there — trying to wash it off — rubbing and scratching at the blue until her new skin had bled.

The Colonel’s voice drifted to him as if from afar. “We’ve done quite a lot of experimentation on Blues,” the muffled voice intoned. “There is some indication that their bodily fluids can have an... effect on normals. Trigger a version of the Change in an otherwise unaffected human’s DNA...”

Frustration and guilt fought inside Brent, feeding a desperation that threatened to push him over the brink into insanity. What have I done?

He slammed his fists onto the table. “Why are they being treated like animals, then? If the government knows they are just harmless victims, why do they round them up like criminals and send them to transition centers?”

The Colonel appeared to sober at Brent’s display of anger. “Who said they were harmless?” He tried to force a smile and failed miserably. “You know how the government is. Once they realized the Change wasn’t a terrorist attack, they decided it was an invasion. A threat to be dealt with. Action had to be taken. Some things were inevitable — the past replaying itself over again. Registration. Isolation.” His eyes narrowed. “Elimination...”

Brent shook himself and looked at the Colonel. “What?”

“Come now, Peters, you know how the military machine works just as well as I.”

Brent tried to give him a blank stare.

“I may be an old drunk but I’m no fool.” A knowing smile lit the Colonel’s face. “Earlier tonight, you addressed our esteemed platoon leader as lieutenant before anyone told you his rank. You see, a civilian wouldn’t have had any idea what that silver bar he polishes every night means. And you’re carrying an M4 — standard issue for special ops outfits, I believe.”

He leaned back and placed his hands together. “So, I ask myself, what is a special ops guy doing solo in the interior? Looking for something, most likely. Or someone...” The Colonel’s eyes widened. “Not a Blue?”

Brent was wound as tight as a coiled spring. His pulse quickened as he sensed the growing tension. His eyes cut to the trailer and back to the old man. The Colonel’s bloodshot eyes followed his gaze.

“Don’t even think it, Peters. Vance’s men are cold-blooded killers. They’ll cut you down where you stand and kill all the Blues just for kicks. Or worse.”

Brent tried to contain himself. Guilt and self-loathing had built to a boiling point that had him teetering on the edge of a violent rage.

“They’re females, aren’t they?”

The Colonel nodded. “We keep them separated by sex. So they don’t procreate. This is the last shipment from the Charleston transition center. We’re taking them to Atlanta where they’ll be processed for research purposes.”

An awkward silence hung between them, during which time the Colonel’s expression changed from irritation to fear. He suddenly paled.

“The other convoys — the ones before us that went missing — they weren’t attacked by Blues or crawlers or some other nightmare from the rift zone, were they?”

Brent shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“You son-of-a-” The Colonel tried to tug his pistol from its belt holster.

But he was a tick too slow.

Brent leaned across the small table, his left hand closed upon the Colonel’s throat. His right arm rocketed forward, his palm striking the Colonel’s nose with a meaty crunch. The old man convulsed as bone fragments speared into his brain. Brent eased the flopping body to the ground. “I’m sorry.”

He relinquished his grip and climbed unsteadily to his feet. For several moments all he could hear was the sound of his own heart pounding. Gradually, the myriad sounds of the night filtered back through to his consciousness — insect and bird calls interspersed with the cries of other creatures not so easily identified. He listened for several moments to make sure that his struggle with the Colonel had not roused the camp. His gaze fell upon the trailer. The pale, blue ‘X’ painted on its side glowed faintly in the dark.

Got to think. Got to do something. Now!

He looked at his watch. 2:27 a.m. In a few hours the soldiers would awaken and discover the body of the Colonel.

Got to think!

He crept between the vehicles, past the snoring sentry who lay against an outside tire of the big rig, until he reached his jeep. He sat down, put his back against the front bumper and wrapped his arms around his knees. The back of the trailer was a mere ten meters from him.

They must be packed in there like cattle. Exhausted — starved — barely alive.

A spasm of guilt shot through him.

Haley. Are you alive? She had to be in this one. She had to be. If this was the last of the Blues from Charleston she had to be in there or... or else she was dead. He couldn’t bear that thought. Not the way they had parted.

He dropped his head in his hands. The memory still ached like an unhealed wound.

When he had discovered her condition he’d panicked and called his CO. They told him to bring her in — that they’d take care of her. She didn’t want to go. She pleaded with him not to take her. In the end he’d had to practically force her to go with him to the base.

At the base his CO told him they had created a transition center for her and others like her. They were working on a cure. When they came to take her away, she begged him to stop them. Their eyes met one last time and he saw the hope she had placed in him wither and die. He knew in that moment that she had recognized the horror in his eyes, horror not for the situation but for her condition. Revulsion. Rejection.

He had forsaken her in her time of greatest need.

A guttural moan in the distance startled him from his reverie, causing the hackles on the back of his neck to rise. He shivered. These soldiers were fools to camp in tents. They had no idea what horrors the rift zone held.

In time, a terrible thought came to him. For a moment, he wondered at his ability to entertain such an idea, but only for a moment. Soon the image of his wife crammed in the trailer, tortured and destined for worse, drove him into the night.

* * *

Proceed to part 3...