Plague War Read Online Free PDF Page A

in mind, and Ruth was too driven to say no. It had to be Cam who protected her.
    “What if we ‚nd a boat,” he said. “A motorboat. Every other guy around here was a ‚sherman or something. We could cut straight across or even go upriver.”
    “Mm.” Newcombe turned and Cam followed his gaze to the submerged homes and wreckage.
    “We have to try,” Cam said, rising to his feet. His back hurt and he had ant bites down his neck and shoulders, a pinched nerve in his hand, but he bent to help Ruth anyway.
    * * * *
    They fell into a familiar rhythm, Cam in front, single ‚le with Ruth between him and Newcombe. They went south, drifting back the way they’d come but off the highway.
    The new shore was ‚ckle. In places the water stretched inland, ‚lling the streets—and everywhere the houses and fences were a problem. They wanted to look into yards and garages, but each neighborhood was its own trap, either dead-ending in the water or choked with debris from the larger †ood or both. Several times Cam dodged around ‚elds of spiderwebs. Once he saw ants. Everything took time. They needed food and cautiously entered a house that looked normal except for the dry band of muck wrapped around its foundation. They wanted to siphon gas into a few extra canteens and Ruth immediately sat down as Newcombe stopped beside a small Honda, shrugging out of his pack.
    “You okay?” he asked.
    Ruth bobbed her head, but Cam wondered what she looked like behind her goggles and mask. Her twisted posture wasn’t right.
    “I haven’t seen any reptiles,” she said. Typical Ruth. Sometimes it was hard to know what she was thinking, only that she’d de‚nitely latched on to something.
    “Me either,” Cam said.
    “But you did in the mountains,” Ruth said.
    “Yes. Not at the top, but we saw way too many snakes and whole ‚elds full of lizards at eight thousand feet. Seven. Six.” That was as far down as he’d gone. “They were de‚nitely below the barrier.”
    “Maybe the ants are attacking their eggs,” she said. “Or their hatchlings. The bugs might be getting to their young before they’re big enough to ‚ght.”
    “I can’t ‚gure out why there’s anything alive down here at all,” Newcombe said.
    “They don’t get as hot as people,” Cam said.
    “But they do,” Ruth said. “Sometimes hotter. Cold-blooded things aren’t actually cold. They just don’t generate their own body heat, except from running or †ying. Basking in the sun. They can be very precise. I think most reptiles keep themselves between seventy and eighty degrees, but insects are usually about the same temperature as the environment.”
    Cam nodded slowly. The machine plague operated on a heat engine. When it hit ninety degrees, it activated. And yet in his experience, the plague took as long as two or three hours to power up after it was absorbed into a host. At midday, in summer, the nanotech might begin to decimate the bugs—but as the day cooled, so would these creatures. Obviously enough of them had survived, and they would breed uncontested in autumn, winter, and spring.
    Fish and amphibians were safe in rivers and lakes. He’d seen it himself. They remained below the critical threshold, and at altitude it was the same. Lower temperatures protected the reptiles and insects in the foothills and mountains. They must have continually repopulated the world below in haphazard migrations.
    “My guess is they’re always on the edge of disaster down here,” Ruth said, “but it makes me wonder if the whales might have survived. Dolphins and seals.” She shook her head. “We looked sometimes. Up in the space station, I mean. They’re insulated in a lot of fat, but if they stayed cold enough... maybe way up in the Artic or down at the South Pole...”
    It was a nice thought. “I hope so,” Cam said, trying to encourage her.
    Then he leaned back to stare past the houses. Cam had grown accustomed to the feeling of being watched,