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“It was a long time ago, Michael. I can’t really explain it. She was looking at me, and it just happened.”
“Not just looking. She was staring. You both were. People don’t look a viral in the eye when it’s about to rip them in half. The natural impulse is to look away. You didn’t. And just like the mirror, it stopped her flat.” Michael paused, then said, with deeper certainty, “The more I think about this, the more sense it makes. It explains a lot of things. When a person gets taken up, their first impulse is to go home. Dying people feel the same way. Sara, am I right about that?”
She nodded. “It’s true. Sometimes it’s even the last thing people say. ‘I want to go home.’ I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard it.”
“So a viral is a person infected with a virus, strong, superaggressive. But somewhere deep down, they remember who they were. During the transitional phase, let’s say, that memory gets buried, but it doesn’t go away, not completely. It’s just a kernel, but it’s there. Eyes are reflective, just like mirrors. When they see themselves, the memory rises to the surface, and it confuses them. That’s what stops them, a sort of nostalgia. It’s the pain of remembering their human lives and seeing what they’ve become.”
“That’s quite…a theory,” Henneman said.
Michael shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe I’m just talking out of my exhaust pipe, and it wouldn’t be the first time. But let me ask you something, Colonel. How old are you?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Sixty? Sixty-three?”
He scowled a little. “I’m fifty-eight, thank you.”
“My mistake. Ever look in a mirror?”
“I try to avoid it.”
“Precisely my point. In your mind, you’re the same person you always were. Hell, between my ears I’m still just a seventeen-year-old kid. But the reality is different, and it’s depressing to look at. I don’t see any twenty-year-olds around this table, so I’m guessing I’m not alone.”
Peter turned toward his chief of staff. “Ford, what do we have that reflects? We’d need to cover the whole gate, and it’s best if we have at least a hundred yards on either side, more if we can do it.”
He thought for a moment. “Galvanized roofing metal could work, I suppose. It’s pretty shiny.”
“How much do we have?”
“A lot of that stuff has moved out to the townships, but we should have enough. We can strip some houses if we come up short.”
“Get engineering on it. We also need to reinforce that gate. Tell them to weld the damn thing shut if they have to. The portal, too.”
Chase frowned. “How will people get out?”
“ ‘Out’ is not the issue right now. For the time being, they won’t.”
“Mr. President, if I may,” Henneman cut in. “Assuming this all works—a big if, in my opinion—we still have a couple hundred thousand virals running loose out there. We can’t stay inside the walls forever.”
“I hate to contradict you, Colonel, but that’s exactly what we did in California. First Colony stood for almost a century, with a fraction of the resources. We’re down to just a few thousand people, a sustainable population if we manage it right. Within these walls we have enough arable land for planting and livestock. The river gives us a good continuous source for drinking water and irrigation. With some modification, we can still run oil up from Freeport in smaller loads, and the refinery itself is defensible. With careful rationing, using all of our refined petroleum for the lights, we should be fine for a very long time.”
“And weaponry?”
“Tifty’s bunker can supply us for a while, and probably we can remanufacture more, at least to last for a few more years. After that, we use crossbows, longbows, and incendiaries. We made it work at First Colony. We’ll do it here.”
Silence from around the table; everybody was thinking the same thing, Peter knew. It comes to this.
“All due respect,” Michael said, “but this is bullshit, and you know it.”
Peter turned toward him.
“So maybe the mirrors slow them down. Fanning is still out there. If what Alicia said is true, the virals we saw last night are just the tip of the spear. He’s holding an entire army in reserve.”
“Let me worry about that.”
“Don’t patronize me. I’ve been thinking about this for twenty years.”
Apgar scowled. “Mr. Fisher, I suggest you stop talking.”
