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Battle of the BERTs

MIKE MASSA

“Chomp!”

Colleen’s brother-in-law bred Presa Canario mastiffs just outside Austin. On her last trip to visit her sister’s family, she had fed the dogs and noted that when they snapped a thrown treat out of the air they made a distinct chompf! sound. The suspected H7D3 victim that she and Larry were struggling to control was making the exactly same chomping noise as it fought to close the distance imposed by their field expedient lasso and stick arrangement.

The electrically insulated capture stick allowed them to control the likely zombie at a safe interval while the third member of the team disabled it with a taser. That was the theory at least, and it had worked so far. The captured man slumped to the ground as the repeated current overloaded his nervous system.

A banker, she judged from the tailored suit, and a recent turn. His shoes were still polished and his clothing clean. Usually, the detainees were naked, or mostly so. Her bank’s team of lab types explained that an early symptom was profound skin sensitivity. However, some infecteds turned so fast that this step seemed to be skipped occasionally.

Once the potential infected was on the ground, the team was ready for phase two—getting a photo of the detainee and then bagging his head with a Kevlar snake sack order to prevent bites. She spied a human bite mark on one scrabbling hand—the probable infection site.

“Hold onto the stick, Lare,” she instructed. “Let me run a patch test.”

“Why bother? He is infected, plainer than shit. You’re wasting a kit.”

“One, that’s the procedure we agreed to when we started harvesting these poor fuckers. Two, there is a tiny chance that he is a vanilla EDP who is hopped up on bath salts or something and three, I am the team lead and I fucking well said so.”

Larry was a few years older than her twenty-eight, and like many in the corporate security world, had spent time in the military and later as a contractor. His second guessing wouldn’t be acceptable in the long term under normal circumstances. In the current circumstances of a slow moving zombie apocalypse, it was potentially lethal, right now.

Larry levered the capture stick down and put his weight on it, pinning the suspected infected if he should try to rise and placing the captured man in easy reach for administering the test kit. He didn’t otherwise reply.

Colleen prompted, “Larry, I need a clear affirm before I get within grabbing distance of this guy, or you are going to be kneeling on that stick for a long time.”

“Clear,” he replied curtly.

“Crystal, boss.” That was Solly, unbidden. Solly was a comfort. An Army lifer who’d retired to Long Island, he ended up driving for MetBank executives during the days of Occupy Wallstreet. He was a professional driver, easy going and the primary operator of their snatch truck—a panel-sided six-pack dually, complete with light bar and Biological Emergency Response Team labels on the front, side and rear. Solly was a huge add to her snatch team, the second one that MetBank had put together in order to accelerate the collection of the raw material needed to make a vaccine that would protect the critical staff who, in turn, kept the bank running. Each BERT member was promised a vaccination, another for the person of their choice, a seat on the bank’s extract craft and a cool half million in specie and/or bullion, their choice. Most of the marrieds had already bailed out of the detail so her teammates were the bitter divorce survivors, the adrenaline junkies, and the unmarrieds. Solly seemed to be a mix of the first two, but his calm, cheerful manner under extreme stress over the last two weeks had reassured her as much as Larry’s pushback was pissing her off now.

The BERT detail could sense the increasing apprehension in the city. Pedestrians were getting scarcer. Infecteds were easier to find. They had gotten both of their confirmed “donors” halfway into an eight hour shift. Her boss didn’t ask any questions about the captured “stock” and the cops—the cops weren’t even checking the test results anymore when the BERT truck cleared checkpoints on the way back to the bank. In the early days they carefully matched IDs to the capture picture to the test kits in order to maintain a paper trail and verify that the detainees were actually infected. The corporate BERT teams were careful to follow the protocol that had evolved out of the Bank of the Americas initiative, and eventually had been blessed and copied by the NYPD. Now, there was a palpable change to the feel on the detail. Sooner or later the rules of engagement on infected was going to change, or evacuations would start. Maybe both.

She glanced at the test strip after completing the jab through the potential infected’s suit jacket. Red. Make that confirmed.

“Okay, this guy is infected. That’s makes four and we are now full up. Bag the head, zip-tie the feet and hands and let’s load him up.”

They were closing up the back of the truck when Colleen glanced up when at the sound of brakes squealing.

“Boss, company,” called Solly.

The truck that stopped was a converted moving van and was accompanied by a chase car. She recognized the driver.

Ramon Gutierez had left MetBank for a bigger and better deal from a new competitor. That wasn’t unusual on Wall Street. That the new outfit was the largest importer of recreational pharmaceuticals in the tristate area was a bit…unexpected. Based across the East River in Queens, their leadership had first struck an informal deal with the local PD in that borough. The unis had been taking the casualties in higher numbers and some cops were deciding to stay home. As the Blue Flu spread, the 125-odd precincts that policed the city were forced to consolidate, and entrepreneurs like Ramon’s boss filled the vacuum. In exchange for “policing” their areas and suppressing any incipient panic, they were allowed to “harvest” their own raw materials.

Colleen’s duties included vetting the deliveries that kept the bank running late into the night as the various desks reconciled their trades. Like their competitors, MetBank paid for whatever it took to broaden their profit margins, and that meant keeping staff onsite and working: dinner if you worked past eight pm, a black car home if past nine pm, and access to pharma based “help” if you were there all night. Therefore, she knew Ramon’s organization at retail level. One large entity that followed the rules was much easier to manage than dozens of small time hustlers. Certainly the PD had thought so during normal business times and tolerated the limited distribution of stimulants in the financial district—after all the business of New York City was money, and like everyone else, the PD wanted business to be good. Now however, the tolerated “entrepreneur” was a potential competitor and an even more necessary evil.

Colleen had heard that Ramon’s boss had expanded into the Bronx. She didn’t know that they were this close to Manhattan.

“Hey chico, we got this,” she called to the familiar face.

“Yeah, I see that. You a little far from midtown, aren’t you?”

Three men had exited the car and truck. All were armed with holstered pistols and tasers and had the bright orange BERT creds issued by the PD hanging from neck straps. Two were wearing their hair with the signature tightly braided mini-dreadlock that so many in Big Mac Overture’s gang affected, but otherwise, their appearance was anything but uniform. Big Mac wasn’t big on a dress code, just results.

“Just leaving. Plenty more where these came from,” Colleen replied, hooking a thumb towards her truck. Her glance took in Solly, now with a shorty AR hanging on a friction strap, calmly backing her up, and Larry, ostentatiously repacking a large gear bag, with both hands out of sight.

Ramon followed her glance.

“Sure, plenty more. Still, maybe we should cooperate. We can watch this bit around the Queen’s Tunnel and you stay over on the island? We have plenty of manpower and you guys at MetBank, you have just the one truck, no?”

“More all the time Ramon, more all the time.”

In fact, MetBank had exactly two trucks. The two teams each averaged four infecteds per day. Eight “donors” meant two hundred or so doses of vaccine, under perfect conditions. MetBank had thousands of critical personnel and family to cover. Colleen wasn’t sure of the math, but she guessed that they weren’t more than halfway to the number needed to protect everyone while maintaining operations at either the main bank location or the primary Disaster Recovery, or DR, site.

“Ramon, let’s talk about this later. We can talk during a break at the meeting at Goldbloom’s, okay? If you need help, just come up on the BERT channel and we can roll a truck, like when your boys got stuck last time.” She laughed easily, deliberately. “Next time, maybe don’t try for so many infecteds at once, right?”

Colleen wanted to remind him that she had saved his boys recently. It is harder to force a confrontation with someone to whom you owed a favor.

Ramon grimaced. Colleen’s team had helped one of his. The dumbshits had elected to leave their siren on while making a snatch. In the middle of bagging and tagging, another infected had appeared, and then another, and his assholes didn’t hear them over the sound of their newly purchased cop siren. Colleen’s team had arrived just as Ramon’s crew had exhausted their taser cartridges and were preparing to start shooting. Even now, the police would have an issue with openly shooting infecteds. No shooting meant no cops. No cops meant that they could keep collecting infecteds, unpoliced. Good business.

“Sure, sure, chica.” Ramon gestured to his team, who mounted back up.

She watched for a moment and then moved her hand in a circle over her head, still watching Big Mac’s team get situated.

Turning around, Colleen glanced at Solly. Still perfectly composed, he slid behind the wheel and slipped the weapon into the rifle sock that had been bolted to the interior door panel. Larry was in the rear of the cab, visibly tense.

“Home, James,” she said to Solly. “Let’s dump these four at the lab. Then, I need to get ready for the pow-wow.” She waved good-bye out the window to the other team.

Solly got the BERT unit rolling, turning south.

Larry asked, “Are we gonna jump soon?”

“Nope. We still need more vaccine,” Colleen replied.

“Chill out, Larry. No need to be nervous yet.”

“Fuck you, Solly, I don’t have a death wish. I don’t want to get infected and I don’t want to square off against a big shot narco like Big Mac Overture. I just want my vaccine, my money and I’m good.”

“I’ll tell you guys when it is time to jump. You know that,” Colleen tried to reassure her two teammates.

“All good.” Solly’s hands were steady on the wheel, and Colleen saw him smiling.

“Sure,” replied Larry. “But who’s going to tell you?”

They drove down Second Avenue in an uncomfortable silence.

* * *

Most New Yorkers never gained access to the fancy buildings that dominated the Manhattan skyline and didn’t really know what went on in the various luxury skyscrapers, let alone appreciate just how amazing the view was from some of them. At this point, luxury views weren’t the first thing on the famously insouciant New Yorkers’ agenda. Pretending that they weren’t fighting a deadly plague was.

Since she had to stand behind her boss at what promised to be a long meeting to divide up the management of the five boroughs of New York, Colleen appreciated the distraction of the view beyond the boardroom window, only slightly marred by the occasional plume of smoke from a car fire. The first gathering of its kind since Boss Tweed met with union representatives in the aftermath of the Draft Riots of 1863, this get-together had been organized in order to carve up the policing of the city, and the management of certain “assets.”

The boardroom the meeting was held in was carpeted so deeply that it swallowed all sounds of footsteps as well as the bottom half of the soles of Colleen’s tactical boots. The rest of her attire also clashed with the framed original art and wood paneling. The usual Herman Miller synthetic chic was not in view; rather, the room had honest-to-god wooden antique chairs with actual gilt, complementing the long bookmatch walnut conference table. She enjoyed the view north across the Hudson into Jersey from the top floor of the Goldbloom building. The newest headquarters among the major banks, it had been built after 9/11, and no practical expense had been spared to make it as secure as possible against infrastructure failure and kinetic attacks. Colleen suspected that “hardened against zombie attack” was not on the official specs, however. The city paranoia about weapons persisted too. All the non law enforcement attendees had obvious holes in their various rigs. Batons, tasers and firearms were all checked downstairs in what was ostensibly a city meeting.

She was covering her principal, the Chief Security Officer or CSO, of MetBank, despite the hosting bank’s security assurances. Colleen was dressed to impress downtown, zombie apocalypse style. Her bank’s executives were concerned about staff security looking too much like the military contractors made famous during the late Middle East war and had sprung for what they considered to be tactical attire. Both the rugged but stylish trousers which looked like dress pants and her matching business jacket were by Elite Sterling, incorporating Kevlar throughout and plenty of hidden pockets. Those were topped by a tailored blouse and a functional but insanely expensive Jaeger LaCoultre watch (thank you annual MetBank bonus!) which matched the richness, if not the tone of her surroundings. The effect was spoiled by the newly mandatory plate carrier, and Danner boots, added since the bank went to high security protocols following the May breakout of H7D3—the zombie virus.

Colleen thought she looked faintly ridiculous. Whatever, it was still more comfortable than perching upright on her four inch Laboutins for four hours while waiting for Mrs. Managing Director (fourth of her line) to spend her husband’s money at Bergdorf-Goodman. Having suffered through several details where she was both expected to “blend” as well as be able to accompany either the one female member of the Regional Board or more likely the spouses of the male cohort, Colleen knew well the agony of designer heels matched with long hours on her feet. She kept the smile off her face. The new daily wear wasn’t just more comfortable, it was also a lot easier to get the stains out of after a long shift performing her newest duties.

Topping off her rig were her security credentials issued by NYPD, clipped to a MOLLE loop under which the legend NYSI was printed in four inch tall white letters. The New York Security Initiative had grown out of the original Lower Manhattan Security Initiative post 9/11. Banks, DHS and the NYPD began sharing the video take from their various systems, as well as the local intelligence from an informal network ranging from building guards and street cart vendors to the local field office of the biggest “Other Governmental Agency” or OGA, of all. LMSI had successfully maintained a high level of situational awareness through lower Manhattan at first, and gradually expanded that northward across the island and then the other burroughs. That success was the genesis of this meeting. Some of the bigger banks and re-insurance corporations as well as the Police Commissioner, the NYC detachment commander for the New York National Guard and now some…irregular forces were meeting. The unofficial goal was to share intel on the number and location of recent H7D3 outbreaks. In reality, this meeting would formally establish the boundaries of territories, within which each group would harvest infecteds in order to manufacture the vaccine.

It had been several weeks since the initial reports of H7D3 appearing on the West Coast were officially acknowledged. Business in the City was proceeding, if not quite as usual, then at least it was lurching along.

The initial lack of information from higher authority gave way to reports that teams CDC and WHO were working on a vaccine and presumably a cure. Three weeks into the growing crisis however, the precinct system that was the NYPD had started to visibly fray due to attrition—between the increasing number of cops who were not showing up to work and their casualty rates, the NYPD had been taking it on the chin. So in addition to the large banks and insurance houses, some of the larger entrepreneurs, for values of the word “entrepreneur,” that could afford to maintain a security infrastructure were increasingly policing their own “neighborhoods.” These internal turf teams initially responded by capturing the infected and isolating or killing them. However, once the CDC bright boys had figured out how to make a vaccine and distributed the instructions, that changed. That vaccine depended on access to a supply of raw material—the spinal tissue from infected victims. Lab monkeys being in short supply and the banks being possessed of a proven ability to relabel their liabilities as assets, they had decided that infecteds were assets—just so many vaccine doses running around in precursor form. The “entrepreneurs” simply followed suit.

One of those entrepreneurs was making his entrance to the board room at that moment. The flashiest attendee yet merited a double take. Big Mac Overture was a figure best known for beating a racketeering rap six months earlier, only a few months before the world began to end. He was routinely cast in the role of Public Enemy Number One, New York style, in every free paper that littered the subway. Everyone just knew that he ran the Dominican mob that was competing with the Chinese and the Mexicans for the drug trade that came up from the border, across the Gulf and into Port Elizabeth just across the river in Jersey. Apparently, “everybody” was right, because here he was at the meeting that was going to formalize the participants as a sort of city council for addressing the increasing number of infected New Yorkers. And sharing them. His detail actually looked about the same as Colleen, gear wise, right down to the NYSI badges. Big Mac flourished his walking stick and swaggered over to group of bank representatives to say hello while his security man greeted Colleen.

“Hey chica, how they hanging?”

“One higher than the other, Ramon, same as always,” Colleen knew that the gangs from the DR operated on a level of machismo that wasn’t exactly Wall Street style. Or maybe it was, come to think of it.

“Look, I’m sorry about rolling up on you earlier—I see that it could look a little aggressive. But there is something else.”

“No worries about today. No blood, no foul, right?” Colleen waited the other shoe to drop.

“Thing is, some of our boys saw your truck out the other night, well past Tunnel. You know that we take care of Midtown East and Murray Hill, right?”

“Maybe. So?”

“You know that those ‘zombis’ are ours, right?” Ramon finally got to the point. “You are over the line.”

“I know that we’re not gonna wait for you to get around to responding to some EDP call when they could start making new zeds in the meantime. You know the deal that the cops set. The closest Biological Emergency Response Team responds to any call. If you can bag it and tag it, your BERT keeps the asset. Speed of response first, everything else second.”

Colleen wasn’t the CSO, but she knew the ROEs and the policy. If anything, the fact that it wasn’t yet “shoot on sight” was crazy, but the Commissioner wasn’t ready to go that far yet, and her boss was still making nice with the cops. It was an open question if her boss would make the final evacuation call off the island to the DR site before or after such an order was promulgated by the PD. Colleen had been told that she was on the evacuation list, but she knew that when the wheels came off there would be little warning and the first casualty would be their careful plans. Until then, vaccine manufacture was the priority. Keeping the rate of infection as low as possible in order to buy time was the utmost priority.

Ramon laid a little “street” on her, “Hey, I like you, chica, you did good work when we needed help a couple calls ago. But you got to stay out of nuestro barrio—my boss ain’t gonna sit for you taking what we need to make our own medicine.”

“Ramon, you know and I know that the only reason that you are hot to get more infected is because the street price for a unit of vaccine is actually twenty times higher than the price of street cut heroin, or a hundred times as much grass. At least we aren’t selling it to the highest bidder.”

“Sure, sure, and maybe we are making money off the people now. We like, have something in common with you banks, no?” Ramon was unflustered that she knew of their own processing for profit operation. “I’m am giving you a, what you say, professional courtesy. But listen, chica, you roll up in that fancy BERT truck in our neighborhoods again, and you might come across something special, like we used to find in Najuf.”

Colleen frowned. The threat was no joke. Plenty of the demobbed soldiers that had been riffed from the Army during the current president’s “peace dividend” knew enough to cobble together an IED like the ones that they had dodged in Fallujah or Helmund. Or Najuf. Plenty of those vets had returned to their neighborhoods to find legitimate work scarce, and “entrepreneurs” interested in adding their experience to the portfolio.

“Look—” she began, only to be cut off as the meeting was called to order.

“Look, we can talk later, right?”

Ramon looked at her steadily. “We can always talk as long as you stay out of our turf.”

“If we could all take seats now, please ladies and gentlemen,” called the Goldbloom managing director. “We have a quorum of interested parties and can start.”

“Later, chica,” Ramon waved over his shoulder. He wasn’t making a threat, she knew. He was just relaying his truth to her. “Come into ‘my’ areas and there is going to be a problem.” Colleen was a first-generation, American-born Chinese—she understood tribes and community obligation. She also understood fair warnings.

There were many new faces at the table, most of the city and police representatives appeared to be deputies, or newly promoted. The meeting proceeded along the usual lines. Introductions between the various groups were standard at first, but the police delegation visibly grimaced when Big Mac genially waggled his skull-topped walking stick as his name and organization was called out. They didn’t change expression when the Triad representative, predictably impassive, was named. Their scowls deepened for the Italians. Previously shrinking in relevance, Franky Matricardi’s network, affectionately named the New Thing, or Cosa Nova, had been bolstered by recent infusions of cash from a desperate but well heeled group of re-insurance firms. Recognizing that covering the data centers and vaults that were underground in Piscataway was beyond their capabilities, the company had funded Cosa Nova’s newly established effective control of much of Newark, Red Bank and Jersey City. Matricardi pulled it off by resurrecting a combination of ferocity and a reality based willingness to work with some of the existing gangs, including the ones in uniform. It also helped that the Jersey police and state troopers were, if anything, catching the Blu Flu at rates exceeding NYPD’s problems. Newark was nearly empty of cops, creating what the Cosa Nova cadre laughingly called, “white space.”

The first documented instance of a disease response independent of the NYPD had been the Biological Response Teams or BERTs that the Aussie head of security over at Bank of the Americas had pulled together. This, in short order, turned into broader recognition of the need to discreetly harvest “assets.”

Thus the current get-together.

Anyone who had lived through Katrina, or Sandy, or Irene knew that waiting for FEMA and the CDC to start shipping a vaccine was a forlorn hope. Anyone with a tearing need had either prepared for the worst by maintaining a large investment in security and awareness, like Colleen’s employer or the German investment bank, or had enough funds to improvise a solution as they went along, absorbing the higher cost of buying what they needed at the last minute. That meant keeping “their people” safe, their businesses running and now, making their own zombie vaccine. The truly prepared were balancing the opportunity to really pad their profit margin with the belief that a cure would surely be found and if not, their preparations would get them out of the City if needed.

Even on the precipice of a world-ending disaster, bureaucracy proceeded in an orderly way. The meeting agenda points quickly devolved into why certain groups should have a greater amount of territory to patrol for infected. The banks were determined to have enough donor volume to reach their minimum safe dose levels. The police seemed torn between a relief that they didn’t have to do it alone and a deep resentment that anyone else could do what they did and baldly asserted so. The deputy mayor, filling in for his increasingly absent boss, sparred with the leadership of various city special interest groups. Their political leaders sensed opportunity to assert more independence as the city services suffered from the disease. The commercial entrepreneurs, such as Big Mac and the Jersey crowd, were united in insistence that they could take on more than anyone else, if only others stayed out of their way.

Colleen tuned back into the previously droning remarks as someone raised their voice. Big Mac’s deputy was losing his patience for this kind of protracted talk-talk.

“I don’t care that you are cops and we aren’t. I don’t care that ‘the public’ isn’t comfortable with my teams coming into their brownstone neighborhoods. What I care about is that we have the most trucks, that we can handle the most volume and we are. Getting. It. Done. Unlike your precious police who are quitting because it’s too dangerous.”

The precinct captain from the 10th stood up, red faced. “You already got all of the Bronx, most of Queens east of the 678 and now you want to take everything north of 116th? Fuck you!”

Big Mac’s belly laugh was more shocking than more yelling. It quickly overcame the angry responses that were starting from half a dozen mouths. He motioned casually to his deputy, shutting him up.

“Mon, I don’t have to ask you for ev’ting above hunned and sixteenth. I already got it. You can just smile and make it official. Sho, Big Mac is already protec’in da Bronx, and let’s face it, most of Queens too. Why? Because no one else is.”

“That’s absurd! We have patrols all over Queens, keepi—” another city official tried to inject.

The Dominican kingpin shut that down.

“No, no. Your ‘patrols’ look good. Hell, Big Mac like your patrols. Keeps the civilians calm, makes them feel safe. My boys, we really be keeping dem safe. You know how many trucks I running? Fifty.”

Gasps from around the table revealed that most had no idea of the scale of the operations that Big Mac ran. Colleen kept her mouth shut, even though she was as surprised as everyone else. Ramon looked a little smug.

“We taking more dan hunderd fifty zombis off the street every day. More dan I can, heh heh, process into da special medicine. We are holding back monsters, see? Maybe you think we are bad, maybe we are too dangerous, right? Well, sometimes little monsters that you know are better than big monster dat ends world. I running de trucks wherever I have to, keeping zombi from getting too big, too fast.”

He paused to let the others absorb the size of his “take.”

“You doan unnerstand. Big Mac’s grandmere, she come from old school DR. She unnerstands about zombi—zombi is old news in Carribean, mon.”

Big Mac looked around the group at the conference table.

“We comfortable with a little zombi. You all done made da big mistake, inventing way to make even more zombi. Now old school from the DR is gonna help put da zombi back in box, maybe find a cure, see? So know you know what Big Mac really want? Really need?”

The deputy major was getting over being gobsmacked, even if the police chief was still visibly stewing next to him.

“Okay. I give. What do you really want?”

“Big Mac want a hospital. An doctors. An techs. An equipment. I make all da medicine that everyone needs. You doan worry about how I get the zombis, or where I get the zombis. Big Mac do a better job than Eli Lilly, or J and J, eh? Do it quicker, quieter, that for sho’. Docs I try to hire, dey a little nervous about working with da Big Mac, maybe get dirty, maybe worried about how it looks be turning ‘patients’ into medicine.”

He looked over at the groups of bank representatives.

“My friends from da banks, they unnerstand, they make their own medicine, a little bit. So. Maybe I help. Maybe after, we talk about a little IPO for da best newest, biggest pharma company, da one that saves world.”

Colleen wasn’t surprised that some of the bankers actually looked like they were taking it seriously.

The cops were having none of it. The acting police chief stood up, and his immediate staff with him.

“No. Hell, no. We’ll get more cops. We will process the infected humanely. We will keep order, we—”

His strong voice was drowned out by a very high pitched, piercing scream.

“No, no, no, no get it off, off. Get it off meeee!”

Colleen as well as everyone in the room snapped their heads around to look at a younger admin, part of the bank contingent’s support. It appeared that she had been trying to make it to the bathroom as the first sensations of the disease manifested. Consequently, she was between most of the meeting attendees and the door.

There were two immediate surges of movement in the room. Most of the principals at the table jumped away from the woman, some pulled by their details, some moving with an alacrity belied by rich suits and doughy bodies. A few circles of relative calm remained, including the detail covering Tom Smith from Bank of the Americas and guards for Big Mac, headed by Ramon. Colleen’s principal was already standing and she moved forward between the still-screaming admin and her group.

“No shooting!” Colleen wasn’t sure if the police chief was talking to his men who had already unholstered, or to the group at large. “Don’t just stand there, just immobilize her, quick!” No one moved forward. There didn’t seem to be a lot of enthusiasm in the room to wrestle with a zombie.

As far as she knew, none of the contractors had been allowed to carry firearms or tasers into the room with the mayor’s staff and the police chief present. Everyone had accepted the pre-gathering blood test screening as the primary protection mechanism. So much for that.

She cast about for some way to keep the zombie at a distance, or chivvy it away from the anteroom doors. The chairs looked likely…

The infected was starting to snarl and was tearing off the remainder of its clothes. Colleen noted the La Bruna bra. Nice taste, bit overpriced. Who has six hundred dollars for lingerie?

“Solly, do you have a holdout?”

He pulled out a large folding knife. “Just this.” He seemed as relaxed as ever.

“Well, fuck me.”

Colleen made a double plus promise to never, never ever not carry again, and damn the rules. If that zombie started getting bitey, it was going to be a combination PD shooting gallery and aerosolized blood spatter zone. Not good. She also didn’t particularly trust that the only armed people were nervous cops who (a) weren’t known for their shooting accuracy and (b) already didn’t like that the bank security contractors and “entrepreneurs” were doing their job for them.

A loud crash across the table got her attention. Ramon had just smashed a priceless antique chair across the table, producing some serviceable lengths of wood. The cops had formed a cordon across the back of the room and screened most of the attendees, but otherwise were holding in place.

“Okay, Solly. Smash me this chair and then we can go help Ramon move this zombie along, while the boys in blue admire our style, okay?”

“Sure thing, boss,” he replied, hoisting the chair overhead.

“Hey, Ramon!” she called across the table, where Big Mac’s crew was cautiously spreading out between the infected and their principal. Ramon glanced over.

Colleen added, over the sound of another antique being literally smashed to kindling, “Wait a sec, and we will come give you a hand.”

She reached back for a sturdy if gilded chunk of chair leg and added with a smile, “Again.”

* * *

Colleen walked west to Rector Street and hopped the 1 subway line to Christopher. Even on her salary, she couldn’t afford the rent in the Village. Sarah could. She ran the agriculture commodity desk at JP Morgan. They had met earlier in the year while Colleen had been on a detail covering a meeting at the midtown offices of JPM. As a rule, she never rubbernecked the attractive people at the meetings. A short, pert blonde had caught her eye and discreetly slipped her a business card. A month later, Colleen moved in, and a year later they were still together. Amazing.

She had tried to convince Sarah to leave the city, without success. Her parents had a place in the Finger Lakes—not too many people, good defensible terrain. Sooner or later, it was going to be time to boogie, and Colleen was terrified that she would have to choose between her duty and trying to find Sarah if panic really took hold in the city. There really wasn’t a choice, Colleen knew. She wasn’t going to protect the suits if it meant leaving Sarah alone.

However, Sarah had just as much steel in her as Colleen, damn it. And she was still working.

The apartment was a fourth-floor walk-up and needed a remodel. The street noise was clearly audible inside, though it usually wasn’t too bad. There was also an amazing bakery not even two doors down. Everything is better when you can enjoy a fresh palmiere over your paper. Sarah liked coffee.

And cooking. The smell of the pasta sauce bloomed across Colleen’s face as she swung the door open, reminding Colleen that her last meal had been a late breakfast. The adrenaline from the way the meeting dissolved had masked lesser things, like fatigue and hunger.

Sarah looked up from the large pot that she was stirring. She wore a bright neon green strapless sundress. The thing practically glowed, but set off her tan.

“My favorite eighties dress!”

“Hope that you are hungry! I made the traditional amount!” Sarah replied.

Immediately Colleen’s edgy feeling came back.

“What are we going to do with two gallons of pasta sauce? It takes us weeks to eat that!”

Sarah’s face fell. “Are we going to fight about this straight away? Can’t we eat first?”

Colleen closed the door and struggled to stay calm, the frustration of the day just below the surface. “Look, I love you, I worry about you, and I don’t understand why you don’t just go now. If things get bad, I can get out alone and come up to your folks’ place. If it gets bad there won’t be time to find each other and then…”

“I know you care. I know that you worry about me. But one, I am not leaving here without you and two, my job is actually more important than you think.”

Colleen tried to hold her. Sarah moved a little, her face set.

“I am not a doll. I am not leaving alone. Are you ready to leave now, right now? I’ll leave if you go, if you think that this is the right time. Right now.” She looked steadily at Colleen.

“What? No. No, I need to stay longer in order to get the vaccine for us. Things are still pretty steady, we are staying ahead of the number of infected. I mean, there are more than there used to be, but nothing we can’t handle, so far.”

“Where are the clothes you left with this morning?”

“Um, in decontam. I got a little splatter at the meeting.”

“Splatter? What the actual fuck, Colleen! You didn’t say anything about zombies at Goldbloom!”

Colleen tried again to hold Sarah, who was even more upset. “I’m okay, it worked out. The entire crew is fine, none of our people were hurt. There was a leaker at the meeting. Somehow she bypassed the patch test and then turned during the actual meeting. Some of the suits panicked, and it was exciting for a moment, but nothing happened. I’m fine.”

Sarah let herself be held, and put her face against Colleen’s breast.

“You know my job is actually more important than you think, right?”

Colleen was a little whiplashed.

“Huh? I mean, what?”

“Do you know why there is no panic in the streets right now?”

“Well, sure. We are a visible presence. The civilians see us catching the infecteds. The National Guard has flooded the subways with troops to catch any infected down—”

“Gas,” said Sarah.

“Huh? I mean, what, again?”

“Gas. And taxicabs. Fresh food and flowers. Using your credit card and the ATM. Hitting the invite-only sample sale at Chanel. Keeping your plans to hit the Met. Climbing the Cat’s Eye in Central Park.” Sarah liked to boulder on the weekends.

“No idea what you are on about.”

Sarah, pulled back a little in Colleen’s arms and looked up. “I’m serious. The reason that there is no panic is because except for the stupid zombies, everything is mostly normal.”

“Well, sure, but…”

“No. The reason things are normal is money. Lots and lots of money, flowing through all the usual places, in the usual ways, to the usual people, in all of the expected amounts. That liquid money, literally spending cash, it what keeps everything mostly normal.”

“Okay.”

“No money, means no normal life. That leads to fear. That leads to panic in less than a week. Are your scientists going to have enough vaccine for the bank in a week?”

Colleen thought for a moment. “No. Depending how many we decide we want to vaccinate, we still have only the first three thousand units of the vaccine ready. Also, it is a multi-part course of injections. Our spoilage is off the charts. You have to get the radiation just so in order to damage the virus enough to make it harmless and yet keep it sufficiently intact to instigate the immune response.”

She added, “I get it, I do. We need the banks to keep running in order to keep all the businesses open long enough to let us finish the vaccine.”

Sarah waited.

“Dear heart, it is more than that. The banks don’t just have to keep running, everything has to look so normal that it stifles any panic. The biggest enemy we have now isn’t the disease per se. The biggest danger is that some event, some unexpected unknown which we could otherwise adjust to creates an irreversible erosion in the huge distributed consensual and shared hallucination that ‘This Is All Going To Be All Right.’ Do you see?”

Colleen replied, “I think that we are saying the same thing, actually.”

“Not entirely…” Sarah tried again. “When things are going well, there is a sort of shared inertia—we all participate and keep working and playing as though things are normal. This is a strong societal defense against shocks. The more normal things are, the harder it is to ‘break’ a society. You know, the whole ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ thing.”

Colleen nodded, so Sarah continued.

“Our country, and this city in particular, have endured a serious shock. We are starting to consider that maybe, just maybe, this time is different, that things aren’t going to snap back to normal. We are trying like hell, but collective determination is wavering. The government, the CDC, all the usual actors are working to reinforce our determination, but I can see that the money patterns are shifting. The biggest players that buy and sell government paper are shifting their spend. This is spooking the rest of the market because it is unexpected. We are getting really large, ahistorical intraday swings and rumors—each sparks a short run, and then gets reversed. Today was fucking crazy like that. The Fed had to suspend the rules about slowing trading when volatility is too high. Hell, some bond desks are doing it on purpose to make the market move up and down like a seismograph. They trade what are normally outrageous puts and calls on every jiggle. It isn’t new, but the levels we see now are self-destructive—and everyone can see it building. They are doing it because if there is no long run to worry about, being destructive doesn’t matter.”

She was getting visibly agitated. Colleen tried to hold her closer, but Sarah moved back to the stove and reached for a spoon.

“So that is why my job is actually important. There is no more room for shocks. If the system breaks, even a little bit, the underlying infrastructure that we need to sustain the tech and talent to fight the disease will fall apart, and fast. Have you noticed that the Internet is a little slower than usual? That cell calls are dropping a little more often?”

“Not really, no,” Colleen replied.

“Well, they are—we see all the data on major infrastructure providers because we need that to keep trading—it is a big circular cycle and it is coming apart. If people like me leave, even a little, it will come apart faster, maybe forever.”

Sarah was crying quietly now.

“Baby, I am sorry for—”

Sarah interrupted Colleen. “No. I am not fragile. I am scared and that is okay. But I need you. I need to be with you. If I leave, you are coming with me. So no, I am not going to my parents’ house up north, not unless you come with me. So, do we jump together, now, tonight?”

Colleen looked at her.

“Or do we make a shit ton of delicious pasta that we can’t possibly finish in just one sitting and keep pressing on?”

Colleen wanted to reassure her, wanted things to be “normal” too. “You know, when we eat pasta we drink wine, right?”

Sarah smiled a little.

Colleen walked over to the wine rack and selected an Argentine red. “And you know how you get after we split a bottle of wine…”

“Why, Colleen Chang, are you hitting on me?”

Sarah was starting to smile even wider when there was scream from outside the window.

Colleen lunged for the kitchen light switch and looked outside.

There was a BERT she didn’t recognize, bagging a man who was lunging about and snapping. Another man was continuing to scream hysterically and was edging closer to the two BERT techs who were starting to muscle the potential infected into the truck.

“No, he’s fine, you don’t have to do this. It’s fine, don’t take him, no!”

One of the techs hit him with a taser, and while Colleen watched from the window, bagged the second man’s head as well.

Sarah started to open the window. “What the hell, that’s Joey from the bakery, what are those men doing! Call the cops, Colleen.”

Colleen snatched Sarah back from the window. “Don’t open that, just leave it alone, we can’t do anything.” She saw that one of the techs was sporting the dreds that were popular in Big Mac’s outfit.

“But Joey isn’t a zombie, he was just trying to help…”

“Doesn’t matter, babe. We don’t know what the call is, and the first guy was definitely showing symptoms. If we go down there, we become part of the problem. We could even become part of the ‘solution.’”

They watched quietly as the second man was loaded, twitching, into the back of truck. No cops, no one else came out on the street to intervene or ask questions.

Sarah was staring. “But they loaded Joey in the truck. Where are they taking him?”

Colleen hugged her.

“Better not to overthink it. Let me hold you.”

“But…”

Colleen stroked Sarah’s hair. “It’s okay. Things are pretty normal.”

* * *

A few weeks after the bakery on her street closed, Colleen was leading her snatch team on a routine patrol on the Upper East side. MetBank’s regional board had elected to add a third BERT. Each of the existing teams had to give up one person in order to ensure some continuity of experience for the new group. Colleen had not been sorry to second Larry to the new team—he had a shot at the lead role there, and wouldn’t be aggravating her. She had been training up Erich, the newbie, a transfer from the executive protection detail. Many of the executives had decided that working remotely from their estates on Long Island a few days a week beat driving in, freeing up trained drivers. Erich was competent behind the wheel, though the inertia of the big truck still tended to surprise the driver who had spent the last year in a S600.

Around the City, conditions had become even more tense, though Colleen couldn’t put her finger on it. Sarah kept her up to date on the financial markets situation. After some spectacular gyrations, the markets had steadied a bit. Money continued to flow into, around and out of the city. If Colleen squinted her eyes some, and kidded herself just a little bit, she could pretend that the City was reaching an equilibrium. The subway was running without drivers now, and although there were fewer trains on the tracks in order provide a safety margin for the automated systems, there were fewer riders too.

All that aside, the city felt somehow different to Colleen.

The number of infected that they found hadn’t gone up materially. Overture’s crew continued to spread across the city. They were policing nearly all of the Bronx and Queens now. They had also ruthlessly absorbed all of the Triad’s area. There were whispers that many of the Triad’s gunmen simply went missing. Matricardi’s crew owned everything south and west of the City, which they had effectively ceded to Overture. The PD continued to roll units, but the conditions in the “Afflicted Temporary Holding Facilities” were so bad that the cops were ceding nearly all the infected detentions to the nearest BERT. Since numbers weren’t up, there was increasing competition for the raw vaccine “ingredients.”

Colleen yanked herself back to alertness when Solly called out a possible infected.

“Heads up, left side, looks like a runner.”

Sure enough, there was a single person running from a possible zombie, right down the west side of Second Avenue. Joggers had become increasingly scarce as the summer wore on, but this person wasn’t jogging, he was sprinting ahead of another man. This one was naked, visibly bloody and slowly closing.

“Erich, get turned around and get us in front of those guys, Solly, get ready to unass the truck as soon as we stop.”

“Got it, boss.”

Colleen released her seat belt and checked her rig. Sidearm, capture stick, taser, bite bag—all good. Her new tactical jacket and gloves were bite resistant and she had gotten N95 respirators and face shields for her teams. After the close call in the boardroom where the infected secretary sprayed her with blood, she decided that more protection was in order.

Erich reefed the big truck around at the next intersection, foiled by the large concrete planter than ran the length of the median on every block. Colleen saw the infected sprint around the corner on East 96th. Despite being in a vehicle, they were actually well behind in the chase now.

“They’re heading towards the park. Hook right and gun it.”

Colleen didn’t think that you could drift a ride as large as their BERT truck. Erich proved her wrong, buffering their turn by using a parked limo to stop their lateral movement. Knuckles white on the dash chicken bar, she looked in the mirror to see Solly grinning, imperturbable as ever.

“Are we making this too boring, Solly?”

“Hell, Colleen, this ain’t nothing. I’ll let you know when it gets exciting.”

On the straightaway, the BERT closed the gap to the runners rapidly and Erich braked to stop on Lexington, just ahead of the pair.

Out of the car, Colleen already had her taser in hand when the runner blew past her and she shot the infected. He stumbled, clipping Colleen and driving her to the ground. She kept the power on and was levering herself to her feet when Solly yelled.

“Boss, another one!”

She locked the taser on and dropped it, hoping that would keep the first infected down.

The second was a truly large man. Wearing the ragged remains of a Yankees sweatershirt, he was lunging at Solly, who was trying to get the capture stick cinched down on his neck and arm.

“Erich, a little help,” she yelled, as she drew the second taser from her belt.

“Erich…” Her second shout was drowned out by a very loud siren as two Suburbans squealed to a halt. Members of Big Mac’s crew starting piling out.

“No, we got this,” Colleen started to yell over the siren, which was still going, when an Overture tech casually shot her first zombie in the head.

Solly and Erich spun around at the sound of the shot, never seeing the movement of a third zombie emerging from the subway entrance on the corner of Lex and 96th. It was rapidly followed by two more, then three after that.

“Behind you!” she yelled as loudly as she could, trying to be heard over the sounds of the other BERTs. Her manner caused an Overture tech to turn around just as the first infected to reach him got its teeth well into his neck. His screams were actually audible over the ringing in her ears from the shot and the sound of the sirens. Nonlethal ROE was now officially out the door.

“Solly, go hot!”

He didn’t bother to answer as he drew his sidearm and dropped the infected on the capture stick and then spun to engage the mass of infected lunging from the subway.

Colleen had never seen so many infected at once. There were at least ten now. The Overture techs were all shooting, mostly with pistols but at least one carbine barked as the infected dropped, one at a time. Body shots accomplished nothing unless they hit a spine.

More screaming, this time Erich was down, clutching his side. There wasn’t a zombie anywhere near him. Colleen guessed that he caught a ricochet from the Overture guys. Two of theirs were down, covered in infected and the rest were slowly retreating the short distance to their trucks.

Solly started dragging Erich by his plate carrier while Colleen tried to make head shots. Except for the few on the two strange techs, the only surviving zombies were the ones still emerging one or two at a time from the subway entrance. She nailed her mag change, her hands steadying out, and started to heel and toe backwards to where her own truck sat idling.

The rate of fire picked up from the Overture people as the survivors pulled more carbines from their trucks. The zombies in the subway entrance were not gaining any ground and the growing pile of corpses was impressive and horrifying.

Erich was moaning in the rear of the vehicle.

“Solly, are you seeing this!”

“No likey boss! This one gets all my nopes,” he replied cheerfully.

He attended Erich in the back, and was cutting his plate carrier side straps with a set of trauma shears.

“Hold still and stop freaking out, man!” he said without sounding more than a little excited. “Let me look at this scratch and get a dressing on it. Okay, now give me your hand and push on this.”

He guided Erich’s hand against the dressing to keep pressure on the gunshot wound. Someone mercifully turned off the siren in the other trucks.

Colleen was trying to line up a shot on the last zombie who was still mounted on the form of a prone Overture tech, but hesitated, worried about hitting the downed man.

The fire was slackening as fewer zombies appeared at the top of the subway stairs. Then the prone Overture man stirred, and got to his knees.

Overture’s men started yelling at him to come back to the safety of the trucks. Colleen could see the bite marks on his face and hands. His wide open eyes and jerky motions were a plain diagnosis. He turned and started moving more rapidly, straight for the MetBank team.

“He is infected, don’t get close!” She couldn’t tell if anyone could hear her, especially if their ears were ringing from the gunfire as much as hers were.

Solly had their carbine out and was right on target. She distantly heard the yelling from the other teams.

“Boss?”

“Do it.”

Solly dropped the new zombie with a single round.

“Motherfucking bitch! That was Manuel!”

She turned to see one of the Overture techs, a team leader judging from the radio and the jewelry. He was stalking towards them with a pistol in hand.

“He was infected, you saw it as well as me,” Colleen answered. “Who was the genius who decided to try to take our assets? You! Who shot my guy first? Your assholes! Step off!”

The other two surviving Overture team members were tense, covering their boss from their trucks.

She heard police sirens approaching. This amount of shooting was a first, as far as she knew, so it wasn’t too surprising that someone had called it in.

“You hear that, jackass? That is the cops. You might want to holster that before they get here unless you want to see them really excited. You know the ROE, and you shot first.”

“Stupid puta, I don’t care if Ramon likes you. He tell us you are competition now. I don’t care about the fucking cops either. Overture is gonna end up running this city. After that happens, I will get back to you for shooting Manuel, bitch!” He holstered his pistol and spun on his heel.

“Load these guys in the trucks. We can still get some spinal tissue and make quota!” he yelled at one others.

Colleen slowly relaxed her white knuckle grip on her pistol, just becoming aware of how hard she was squeezing the grip.

“Erich, how are you doing?” she called.

“Been better,” he coughed. “Can we get to a hospital sometime? Today is good.”

The police sirens grew closer.

“First we deal with the cops, and we call another truck to come get you.”

She turned to Solly. He had let the carbine hang from the friction strap and was calmly checking Erich’s dressing. “I’ll call it in. Then we can see if any of the dead zombies that those assholes are leaving are worth bringing in.”

The first black and white pulled up and killed the siren. The cops got out, guns drawn and looked at the bodies piled up at the subway and all the spent brass.

“That is a fucking lot of zombies.”

One yelled at the BERT techs from both companies.

“Who is in charge here?”

Without breaking a beat, Colleen and her opposite number yelled back, “They are!”

* * *

This time the conference wasn’t held at Goldbloom. No one particularly trusted them despite the reality that the safety procedures anywhere are usually followed with exquisite perfection right after an “incident.” The Chief Security Officer at Bank of the Americas had suggested that they meet outdoors in the gardens of the Elevated Acre located well below midtown. It had the virtue of taking advantage of both the warm August weather and the large number of exits from the conference dais area. The setting was less luxurious, but after the shock of seeing so many zombies in one place, Colleen really appreciated the longer sight lines and multiple exits.

The evening after the mass zombie attack and confrontation with Overture’s BERT, Colleen’s MetBank CSO had shared the information about their experience using NYSI. Reactions ranged from disbelief to near panic. The after-action pictures, as well as the eighteen dead zombies that their BERT, reinforced by the other two teams, returned for processing, forestalled most of the disbelief though not the fear. Larry’s team had been first to respond after the cops, and Colleen had to tell him to snap out of it—his palpable fear had plainly affected the other two in his truck. It took several minutes of reassurance before they would approach the pileup at the top and along the steps leading down into the Green line.

Sarah had been ready to leave town that night, and Colleen almost agreed. She was torn, feeling a compulsive need after she led them one more time, and give them her own jump order. The exaltation she felt following the fight, when she realized that she and her team were alive and victorious, was headier than wine. She understood a little better about what her dad had tried to tell her about his experiences fighting in the Army. The profound sense of duty to her little team was amplified beyond reason when the doctors pronounced Erich’s bloody wound mostly superficial—staples, a dressing and some T4 and he said that he felt good as new. There wasn’t another driver available, so she planned to keep him in the truck for future calls.

The fallout from Overture’s group was scarier, in a way. Ramon didn’t respond to any calls. She saw him in Big Mac’s group as the different BERT teams, law enforcement and the city government mingled prior to the meeting. The portable tables and A/V system delineated the meeting space, but multiple layers of security faced outwards from the group. Once her CSO’s check-in was complete she started to head towards the Big Mac group for quick word but was forestalled by Ramon’s look and headshake.

“All right everyone, take your seats,” called the Smith, the BotA CSO. He had a no-nonsense look about him. “I have talked to His Honor the Deputy Assistant Mayor Sphalos, and he has graciously allowed me to expedite this meeting. There will be only two agenda items, a summary of the MetBank and Overture BERT response on 96th and Lex and a discussion on what we are going to do differently to ensure further safe operations.”

Yelling threatened to drown out the end of his remarks, when Smith moved a microphone near a speaker to produce ear splitting feedback long enough for the yells to die down. “There will be a complete discussion of the tactical situation, the Rules of Engagement and discussion on asset territory. There will not be a general yelling match.”

He looked around the open table. “As the largest BERT operator here, I will confirm that this agenda suits Mr. Overture. Sir?”

“Sure, sure. As long as you get clear on why da fuck there so many zombi and why my boys got shot!” Big Mac’s statement had the flavor of prepared outrage.

More yelling yielded to the requisite audio feedback. “Fuck, stop yelling already!” Overture commanded once Smith stopped the feedback. Instantly his large group quieted.

Colleen swallowed. She knew that a lot of the hostility was directed towards MetBank. Okay, nearly all of the hostility. And most of it was aimed squarely at her, easily recognizable as the only woman attending in a security role.

“First item,” Smith continued. “Between MetBank and Overture, a total of thirty-seven infected were recovered. This represents the largest group of zombies, by a factor of ten, recorded anywhere.”

“In the U.S.?” asked the Cities Bank rep.

“Anywhere,” Smith replied. “Anywhere that we have access to data that we trust. Second, a thorough reconnaissance of the immediate subway platform at the scene showed evidence consistent with the number of dead infected recovered.”

“What the hell?” came from down the table.

“What he means is that the amount of crap and trash at the station matches the number of zombies we killed, shithead!” This from the team lead that confronted Colleen.

“Thank you,” Smith injected. “This number is not by itself the total issue. That we didn’t know that infected could gather, and in effect, coordinate a response however automatic is as significant as the number present. It appears that loud noises in certain frequency ranges serve to strongly attract infected. There is general agreement that the sirens on the BERTs, left running, served to stimulate the emergence of the infected group. We have tested this in a limited way by testing sirens and other loud noises near subways. In most cases, no infected appeared, but in two cases since yesterday’s incident, a single infected has appeared if the sirens were left running for more than one minute. More complete testing is precluded by the limited number of assets available to respond.

“I have asked MetBank’s CSO to present some additional details.” Smith gestured at Colleen’s boss, who stood and started talking.

“My team brought back some more useful information. You need to make head and spine shots in order to instantly incapacitate an infected. In this urban environment, you have to be certain of your backstop in order to prevent ricochets from striking friendly personnel. This is especially true for carbines and rifles. One of my drivers caught a bouncer from the only carbine in use at that time in the engagement, operated by Overture’s BERT.”

“BULLSHIT! I call Bull. Shit. We didn’t shoot nobody but fucking zombies! It was this puta bi—”

Overture’s BERT lead stood up, drowning out the MetBank CSO. This time Overture didn’t intervene, but Ramon stood and put his hand on the shouter’s shoulder.

“Easy, Emmanuel. Let me.” He gently pushed the man back from the table.

“We are sure sorry that one of MetBank’s people got shot. I used to work there, I know those guys. But you know, I am even sorrier that I lost two good men because the MetBank BERT couldn’t and wouldn’t coordinate their operations, although I tried to talk to their lead several times.” Ramon’s English was precise, perfectly suited to his audience.

“I am sorry that their team lead, standing right there, had one of her boys, also standing right there, put a bullet in the head of one of mine, without checking the diagnosis of infection. I am sorry that their lack of capacity placed everyone at risk. The good news is that we are ready to completely coordinate and deconflict the city-wide BERT management.”

Colleen had flicked her eyes around the key players near her as Ramon spoke. Smith was listening intently, and seemed to be making small hand motions behind the podium. Solly had a slight grin, but his light windbreaker was unzipped and his right hand empty. Her boss was openly pissed and getting ready to jump in. Looking over her shoulder, she could see multiple pairs of Big Mac’s people with clear sight lines to the conference group. Counting under her breath, she realized that there were as many of Big Mac’s “security” as the rest of the PD and BERT tactical personnel combined.

Several people, including the MetBank CSO, stood and tried to talk.

Smith held his hand up. “No, please let him finish. Everyone just hold on for the moment. Mr. Gutierez, please continue.”

Ramon looked startled for a moment, expecting more argument from Smith. Colleen blinked. How the hell did Smith know the name of a mid-level guy like Ramon?

“Like I was saying, we are a family. Any of us could have lost these people today. If we work together, it is avoidable. We don’t have to have poor communications and competition. This tragic loss of personnel doesn’t have to be repeated. Our organization will oversee and coordinate all the BERT efforts. We can embed NYPD observers from the NYSI into our operation center to provide top oversight.”

The acting Deputy Police Chief appeared to perk up.

There is a shot…Colleen thought.

“We recognize that we have been harvesting more, heh, raw materials for the critically needed medicines that all of our organizations and indeed the entire city must have. We propose to sell your companies up to thirty percent of our total production at cost if we can directly manage all of the BERTs and are given access to the facilities and staff at Mt. Sinai Hospital.”

…and that is the chaser, she finished silently.

Murmurs, then louder conversations spread throughout the meeting. Colleen met Ramon’s eyes. He looked directly at her without expression. The BERT team lead, Emmanuel, smirked greasily over Ramon’s shoulder. Overture still sat, lighting a cigar and looking supremely at ease.

Smith spoke again. “That is a very interesting offer, and provides a lot of things for us all to think about. However, speaking for the financial services groups now present and for those whose proxies we hold, I think we need a day to confer with our regional officers and respond authoritatively.”

Overture waved his cigar expansively, while keeping a grip on his walking stick. “Sure, mon. Tomorrow is good.”

“Wait a minute, I want to respond!” Another bank rep stood up angrily.

Smith easily deflected the comment. “Joe, not a problem but can you table this just for now? Let me talk to you right afterwards. We can get a sense of how all the banks are feeling. Bear with me, okay?”

The plainly aggravated speaker looked less than sure, but subsided.

Overture turned to the small group of city officials. “Mr. Assis’ Mayor, would you like to be talking after this? I can tell you more details. ’Course, your police are welcome to join.”

Colleen saw Smith gathering up his opposite numbers by eye, so she was ready when her CSO waved her towards the entrance. Solly coolly brought up the rear.

Smith and CSOs from half a dozen banks, all of them running their independent collection teams, were gathered on the landing.

“Gentlemen, I don’t know how far you have made it towards your minimum required dose stock for the critical staff that you need to run operations outside the City. Bank of the Americas has not completed its topline requirements. Nonetheless, I very much doubt that maintaining operations while being under the city-approved oversight of Big Mac will yield much further progress,” he said.

“First things first! Why the hell did you close debate up there? You don’t speak for all of us!” Colleen’s boss replied.

“Item the first: I hope that you all got a good look at the number of men that Overture brought along. I have been looking into the spread and martial capabilities of his group since he told us how many trucks he was running,” Smith started. “Item the second: do any of you really think that the city staff and PD are hearing this proposal for the first time today, at this meeting? I don’t, and I think that it is nearly all wrapped up. Pushing back now could lead to a…less advantageous negotiating position. If you are certain that you want to work for Overture, your best chance is to get clear of this meeting now, consult with your boards and then decide.”

“What about you?” asked Cities Bank.

“We’re still twenty percent short on primary personnel and fifty percent short on likely dependents. We need a few more days of collection, and we may take them up on the offer to buy the balance, if quality is high. I don’t see us working for them under any circumstances. If we jump, we have to move our processing area to a jurisdiction that might not be as…flexible. So we collect as long as we can. Gangs I understand. Zombies are the larger unknown.”

A few other banks’ representatives nodded.

“We’re similarly situated at Goldbloom,” the CSO there stated. A thirty-year gold shield from the NYPD, he looked stunned at the turn of events. “But we already shifted half of our key personnel from the West Street trading floor across the river to the Jersey City secondary. I am not confident that we can predict when the bridges and tunnels will become…a problem.”

Colleen looked across to Brooklyn. She saw the Staten Island ferry still plying its route, outbound from Manhattan. There were no tour boats to Ellis or Liberty Island visible, or much other river traffic for that matter.

Her boss spoke again. “I can’t see our management ceding control of our BERTs to a known criminal. How long before the Overture gang has some sort of quasi police status?”

“It’s worse than that,” Colleen spoke up in front of the assembled leaders of the New York City BERTs. “I think that I saw one of their teams snatching a possibly uninfected person. We have all heard rumors about what happened to the Triad BERT. Big Mac has many more teams than we do. If the police give them legitimacy, there isn’t much margin for our teams’ safety. Problems could find themselves becoming…vaccine.”

Grim looks answered her statement.

* * *

Colleen readied her crew for the night patrol. Officially, ROE was unchanged.

“Okay, guys, I know that you know official ROE. Here is the No Shit ROE. No sirens. No subways. No Central Park. No parking garages. If we get stuck in, and we see more than two infected, we go hot. We avoid any confrontation with other BERTs. If Big Mac wants our infected, we give them up. We will respond to direct threats defensively.”

She looked at Erich. “Erich stays in the truck with one of the rifles. Clear?”

“Clear.”

She was relieved that he didn’t try to argue.

“Solly, you and I move as a team. We stay close to the truck. If we have relocate, the truck comes with us. No chances, minimize risk. Do you guys have any questions or comments? No? Good. Mount up.”

Their radios were tuned to the PD and Guard channels. The Army had pulled most of their people out of subways after the shoot. They had positioned several eight-wheeled armored trucks at key points, to what purpose Colleen couldn’t say.

As they drove north along Broad, poking into the side streets that meandered unpredictably, south of Canal, Colleen tracked her surroundings while Solly scanned his side.

Was it time to jump tonight? Bring back a load. Tell her guys, and then demand her vaccine and money from the CSO? Would he accept her departure? Could she convince him? Was it worth it to risk staying too long?

Outwardly she was calm, like her rock, Solly. Inside, she was starting to squirm.

The radio started to chatter about the crowd at Sheep Meadow in Central Park being larger than usual, some band or other. Solly called out a possible infected a few blocks later. Female, black, stripping her clothes off haphazardly and screaming. By now the signs of infection were familiar. In a minute or less she was going to start getting bitey.

A screech of brakes and Erich neatly stopped right next to her.

Like a machine, Colleen and Solly dismounted.

“Ma’am?” Solly called. The infected looked up, eyes wide and bright. A low growl replaced the earlier screams.

“Tase her,” Colleen said.

They shot the infected simultaneously, and smoothly bagged and zip-tied her. As they maneuvered the infected to the truck’s rear gate, the bank’s BERT radio relay on Colleen’s shoulder sounded.

“Any units, this is MetBank Zero Three. We are at Union Square with three infected in the back. We have three Overture trucks boxing us in, and lighting us with spots. Need immediate support!”

Larry’s voice was clear. Colleen’s guts churned as she heard the fear in his radio call.

“Zero Three, Zero One enroute. Four minutes. Lock the doors, don’t get out. If you can ram clear do it. If they ask for the infected, say yes and kick them out the back and leave. How copy?”

There was no reply. Colleen repeated her call, struggling to modulate her voice.

“Zero Three, Zero Three, acknowledge!”

She switched to the all bank shared channel.

“Any BERT, this is MetBank Zero One. We are responding to a help call at Union Park. Reports that contractor BERTs are confronting one of our units. Request support.”

A moment later two radio calls stepped on each other. All she could make out was, “…Golf Actual…”

She broke in. “Break, break—station Golf you are go, all other stations wait one, please.”

“MetBank, this is Two Golf, Golf Actual with you.”

Colleen checked the call sign chart. She was talking to the CSO from Goldbloom.

“Golf, Zero One, can you support our unit at Union Square? They are not answering calls at this time. We are several minutes out. Ouch!”

Erich had driven over a tall curb to bypass a light and Colleen smacked her head against the passenger window. She missed the next couple calls.

Then she heard: “Zero One—yeah, we are about to turn into the square. We see three, four, five trucks. Looks like they are loading…fuck! They are loading BERT personnel in the back of their truck!”

“Golf, can you engage?”

“Shit, shit—taking fire! Joe turn le—” The Goldbloom transmission stopped.

Solly didn’t need to check the GPS. “Two minutes, maybe less. Are we doing this alone?”

Colleen though furiously. If her guys were alive, they weren’t going to stay that way. But they were her guys. Five to one odds were bad—but if she shot first? She couldn’t just leave them, could she? A little voice in the back of her head started whispering “I told you so”s.

“Okay, here is the deal. If we just drive in, we are toast. We stop at the edge of the square, no lights, no siren. We see what we see. If we spot the container truck with our guys, we disable it, buying time for more help to arrive. The cops gotta be enroute with all the shooting. Got it?”

Silence answered her. Solly looked at her, his hands tight on a chicken bar, braced against the movement of the truck. Erich kept his eyes on the road, but didn’t respond either.

“Hey! Got it?” Colleen yelled.

Erich said, “Yeah. Edge of the square. No lights, no siren.”

Solly slipped the M4 from the door sock and checked the mag, then looked back her silently. His eyes were calm, but his fingers were white against the black rifle.

What the fuck? thought Colleen.

There was no time; she could see the landmark Washington statue and the open MetBank truck nose first into its pediment, doors open and lights on. Steps away she could see a trademark Overture Suburban and in its headlights, the open back end of a Hyundai lowboy trailer. Bodies were stacked neatly, bare feet and boots both clearly visible.

“Oh, this is not on. Erich, stop where you can hit them with the highbeams when I say. Solly, priority to anyone you see with a long gun, then everyone else. If I shoot, or they shoot, don’t wait for my call to light them up.”

Erich eased to a stop, engine running. Solly opened his door, aiming towards the scene. Colleen did the same on the front passenger side. She spotted Emmanuel, that prick, talking into a cell phone and waving his arm. She’d ask him nicely. Once.

Aiming carefully, she said, “Erich, lights, now!”

As the headlights and cab-mounted spots blindly lit up the Overture crew, Colleen used her weak hand to key the bullhorn.

“Hey, Emmanuel. Don’t move. You really don’t want to even fucking twitch. Tell all your men to stop moving, and we can have a little talk.”

He couldn’t see her, Colleen knew. He knew the voice apparently.

“Hey, puta, that you? You want some zombies. Come help yourself! Plenty here!”

Colleen saw his men dodge behind their trucks, leaving their lead pinned in the light.

“Next man moving gets shot, Emmanuel. No warning.” Colleen wasn’t feeling calm. She unkeyed the bullhorn. “Solly, be ready.”

“C’mon, MetBank. Come get your zombies. You might recognize some!”

Colleen knew at that moment that she wasn’t getting her team back. She knew that cocksucker was waiting for any opening to add her, Erich and Solly to his take.

Aiming with exquisite care, she shot him in the mouth, snapping his head back and crumpling his body to the ground. She heard Solly shoot, and then a heavy, persistent chugging and muzzle flash appeared from behind the Suburban.

Solly yelled, “That’s a fucking machine gun, we can’t fight that! Move!”

Colleen yelled, “Get in, get in, Erich go gogogogo!”

The truck lurched backwards, gathering speed and Colleen heard bullets striking her vehicle. The windshield fractured. She gave up trying to close her door and held on, looking over her shoulder.

Erich tried to pull a Rockford, banging the front of the truck across parked cars, but getting the vehicle turned around.

“Head south, keep going,” Colleen yelled. “Solly, you okay?”

She looked in the rear. Solly was belted in and bleeding from small cuts on his face, changing his mag, and looking at her evenly. “I’m good.”

“Erich?” Colleen asked.

He didn’t answer, but drove with one hand and held his head with the other. Blood streamed down his arms.

“Erich!”

“He might not be able to hear you,” Solly said.

The truck lurched as they turned right and then left again, throwing them around the cab. She tapped Erich’s shoulder to get his attention and pointed south. He nodded.

Cops, call the cops! she thought.

She transmitted on the bank channel.

“Any station, this is MetBank Zero One. Our Three unit is gone. The other guys have machine guns and shot us up. We’re hurt and running south. Recommend that all BERTs disengage. Request call to law enforcement.”

A few responses, including one “Holy fuck!” from someone holding the transmit button down inadvertently, were plain.

“MetBank BERT, this is the NYPD, pull over and stop.” A loud speaker sounded behind them. Erich looked in his rear view at the same time and spotted a blue and white with its flashers running, but no siren. He took his foot off the gas.

No siren. Huh, smarter cops than average, Colleen thought. She looked closer. The driver wore his hair in braided dreds.

“Erich, punch it, that isn’t a cop. Go!”

He didn’t respond. She punched hard in the shoulder and pointed forward screaming in to his ear, “Go!”

The truck accelerated again.

Solly was looking left and right behind them.

“Two cop cars. Three. I don’t think we can outrun them.”

The BERT was blowing down Broadway, coming up on Houston, when more cop lights showed in front of them. Colleen punched Erich again and pointed right. He reefed the truck towards the Hudson at the next block.

Solly yelled over the windroar, “Where are we going? Bank is the other way?”

“Overture has the cops in his pocket. They aren’t gonna arrest us, you understand!?” she yelled. “We have to go around, we can pick up West Street, or the Greenway and get past them. If you haven’t figured it out, it is time to jump!”

Solly nodded, but the fingers on his right hand, holding onto the bar between the front and rear, started tapping.

The truck started lurching more, and side swiped a parked car, nearly spinning them. She looked at Erich. He was starting to sway.

“Solly, shoot the cop cars up, get us some room. I gotta drive!” Colleen yelled.

As soon as the fire started, the blue and whites fell back more than a block. Colleen recognized the neighborhood; this was the West Village. She was only blocks from home.

She started tugging on the wheel to get Erich’s attention. Solly’s rifle popped consistently as he peppered the cop cars, pushing them further back.

She pointed left towards Seventh. The truck slowed as Erich turned. He looked more ghastly than the yellow street light glare warranted, Colleen recognized. She had to switch places. She looked back after the turn.

“Do you see them?”

“Naw. They dropped back too far. Maybe they’re giving up?”

Colleen wasn’t feeling that lucky. She motioned to Erich to stop and hopped out to get in his door and push him over. The front of the truck was heavily damaged from gun fire and the reverse turn. The sides of the truck were scratched too. She had good tires, it appeared, and the engine roared when she goosed the accelerator. Erich sort of slumped against her now closed door.

Could they make it all the way to Tribeca on 7th? The streets were empty of all traffic. She spotted runners—pedestrians maybe, but infected probably.

Sarah—I have to get to the bank, then get Sarah and go! Her gut burned with regret and fear as she remembered her decision to make it one more night. Stupid stupid stupi—

She never saw the blue and white that perfectly crashed into her truck, punching them diagonally across Seventh. The blue and white took the brunt of the collision, and swerved crazily, hitting a building wall, the driver buried face first in an airbag.

She shook her head, seeing more lights behind her again. No headlights. The brake pedal felt weird, spongy. Her door was slightly dished in.

She tested the gas and the engine responded as she aimed back onto 7th. A loud scratching and rubbing sound accompanied her efforts to push the truck past thirty-five or so. She wasn’t going to outdrive the blue and whites.

She spotted a narrow loading alley next to a street side restaurant and turned into at speed. The truck ground into the alley, striking sparks and making even more noise.

She turned to get Solly and Erich. Her driver’s head was laying past a right angle on his back. His neck was clearly supported only by muscle.

Solly looked back at her, his jaw muscle jumping.

She keyed the radio mic. Dead.

“C’mon, get out through the windshield!” Colleen said. “We can try to find another car while they work to get around the truck.”

He pointed silently ahead of them. There was nothing but a blank wall, not even fifty feet away.

“Well, fuck. Fuck fuck fuck and more fuck. With little fuck sprinkles.” Colleen wasn’t thinking too straight. Her left arm was really starting to hurt too.

She could see the flashing cop lights reflecting in the alley.

“Hey, Colleen, that you?” a loudspeaker sounded behind her.

Ramon. Perfect.

“Fuck you, Ramon.”

“What?”

She screamed, “Fuck! You! Ramon!”

“Colleen, let me help you; we got an ambulance. We can get you out. All you have to do is chill out. We just want to talk.”

“Fuck you, Ramon,” she whispered.

Solly limped back from checking the walls of the alley. He shook his head.

“Solly, you there man?!”

Solly jerked his head up, eyes wide.

Colleen shook her head.

“Solly, don’t be stupid, man.” Ramon went on, “You can live through this. I remember you from before, I know you and Colleen roll together, big man. Tell her that she has to chill out!”

Solly looked at her, his eyes still wide. “We are out of rounds for my rifle. I don’t see yours in the truck, must have lost it somewhere. We got two mags of pistol each. This is not going to end well. Maybe…”

Colleen shook her head again. “Do you want to be vaccine?” She leaned back through the windshield. The engine was still idling but was suddenly drowned out by the BERT truck siren.

“What do you think you are doing?” Solly demanded.

“Siren. We’re a couple hundred meters from the Canal Street Station.” Colleen was feeling even more dizzy and her entire left side throbbed. “All we gotta do is keep that asshole Ramon from comin’ over the top of the truck long enough for the fucking infected to show up.”

Solly looked at her. “You are fucking crazy, you know that? Give me your pistol; you aren’t in shape to shoot. I’ll watch the top, because those Big Mac assholes are going to figure this out quick.”

She could hear the loudspeaker over the siren, barely.

“Nice play, Colleen, but it’s no good. We got enough firepower for a few zombies!” Ramon’s voice was faint, but clear.

She heard some shots strike the back of the van. Much good that will do them, with a locked armored panel between the cargo and the cab. She laughed to herself. She must be getting really loopy and felt even dizzier.

The siren kept wailing. She could hear steady gunfire now, but nothing striking the truck. It sounded like a machine gun was shooting without stopping. Good way to get a jam, she thought. The firing went on for minutes it seemed, then tapered.

She could hear screams over the siren, faintly, but the firing stuttered and ended. A little while went by. The siren suddenly shut off and she looked up.

Solly sat down heavily next to her, with an angle to see under the front of the truck.

“I want to hear what is happening before I poke my head over or under,” he explained.

Her ears rang. Her vision seemed bright but blurry. It was too bright. She tried to marshal her thoughts. The bank. Vaccine. Sarah.

Solly fired a few rounds at a scrabbling form under the truck. Then he fired a few more. “I think that was your friend Ramon.”

“Did he say anything?”

“Well, if growling is saying something, sure.”

Huh. Near instant karma. Nice…thought Colleen.

Solly stood quietly, but jerkily. “I’m going to listen at the panel.”

He came back some time later.

“It’s quiet. I peeked through the spy hole. No movement, no infecteds in view. No cops. No one. If we move quietly, we can try to get to a car.”

Solly sounded a little jittery. “That’s weird—if the bad guys are gone…” Colleen tried to focus. “You think?”

“Sure. Let me help you.”

Slowly, with Solly helping, they crouched through the armored divider, then slowly eased the rear door open. Colleen noted that their sole infected capture of the night had been shot.

The street was clear of any living thing. The yellow streetlights didn’t show blood well, but dark puddles collected near scores of corpses. Most were naked, or nearly so—infected that had attacked from the subway. A few bodies wearing uniforms were visible, but were hard to make out, being mostly disassembled.

They stumbled south a few blocks along the Greenway, dodging the ever present NYC construction debris, traffic cones and orange plastic fencing. The West Expressway, normally busy with traffic, was empty. They turned east towards the 9/11 memorial pools.

Solly stopped in his tracks. Colleen looked up. For at least a block in every direction, there were groups of infected. They were congregating around the edge of the memorial.

She jerked reflexively. Solly’s grip on her arm tightened.

“C’mon, turn around!” she whispered urgently.

Too late. Loud growls rose from the groups nearest them, not even a hundred meters away.

Solly turned to her. “Sorry, boss. One of us is going to make it.” He shot her leg, making her drop into a shallow hole at the edge of the Greenway construction. Colleen could see him as Solly turned and half jogged away as the growling grew in volume.

Motherfucker…thought Colleen.

A bright neon green shape drove Solly to his side. The pistol sounded, futilely. Solly screamed briefly.

The growling was closer and Colleen looked up.

She did like that green dress.


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Framed