Blue Bloods

Walker stirred, the government issue cot beneath him creaking as he did. The smell of chili heavy with meat assaulted his nostrils and eyes, making both runny. Giving up on sleeping, he swung himself upright. The chili sat in the middle of a tray full of food; a ripe banana, a bowl of apple slices, a packet of crackers, and a plate piled high with cubed cheese. The tray itself sat in the little airlock his keepers used to deliver food, books, and even an mp3 player.

He pulled the tray into the room and set it on the table. A few seconds work and he had the table set up to eat, but before he did, he took a second to inhale the mélange of odors filling the room. The spice of the chili, the tang of the apples, the slight yeasty scent of the crackers, and even the strange, light sweetness of the banana all belonged. The bitter bite of medicine had no place in the mix, but it teased at him, nonetheless.

Of course, whatever changes he'd experienced in space had given him one advantage here in quarantine. He spooned up a big bite of chili and tried to ignore the undercurrent of sedatives. Other than the bitter drugs, the chili wasn't half bad. He tried to ignore the unique sensation of his digestive tract ferreting the poison from his food and caching it in his liver. Once it hit a critical mass, something inside him tore it apart, leaving nothing but simple compounds to be dropped back into his bloodstream.

If he hadn't stood unprotected on the surface of the ISS, Walker would have bet he hallucinated the entire thing.

After eating half the chili and all of the cheese, he pressed the call button next to the airlock.

"Yes, Captain Walker?"

"May I speak with the officer on duty, please?"

"Is something wrong, Captain?"

"I'm not sure. To whom am I speaking?"

"This is... Lieutenant Savoy, Captain." Walker noted the hesitation, filed it away with the rest of the anomalies confronting him.

"Last time I checked, astronauts haven't been quarantined since Apollo fourteen."

"Officially, yes." Savoy let the statement hang there, ominous.

"And unofficially?"

"Well, unofficially we can't take any chances when there are bombs dropping out of the sky, and then one of our own space men decides to come strolling into Fort Dix without so much as a parachute." Since he'd been placed in isolation, Walker hadn't been able to confirm his detention. Now his jailer, a junior staffer by his use of the lieutenant rank, had let it slip.

"So... how long do you expect this quarantine to last?"

"Oh, it won't be much longer now. As soon as we're sure you're who you say you are."

Walker nodded; his decision made. The type of mind who thought that way would never be sure. Worse, they'd discount anything he told them about the alien asteroid-ship as enemy disinformation. He had to get in touch with his superiors, let them know how he'd been dumped in a hole. He thought about how he might do that for a moment.

"Could you see about getting me a radio or something? I'd at least like to hear the news."

The response came immediately. "Eh, sure. Why not. I'll bring one in for you tomorrow."

He had a day to get in touch with someone. Laying back down on the cot, he opened himself to the ongoing, chaotic noise of the radio spectrum, listening for someone he could trust.

***

Jack watched the crude lunatic leap out the door, axe already swinging, and knew what he had to do next. He unlatched his five-point restraint and twisted around to climb over the seat. Halfway over, the Skycar tipped backward.

"How far back can this thing tip before you stall?"

"I built it with your weight in mind. Have you got that flying thing down yet?"

"We're about to find out. Flex, you ready?"

In answer, the girl pressed the button to pop the back hatch, slipping out through the crack before it had opened more than an inch. He moved to follow her, trying to put himself in the same state of mind he'd been in when he wound up hovering at the hospital. Before the back door lifted far enough to let him through, Flex stuck her head back in and grinned at him.

"Don't worry, Jackhammer. I'll take care of you if you can't keep it up." She contorted her face into an over-the-top leer, and he couldn't help but smile in return.

"That boy's a bad influence on you." He heard the distinctive sound of metal thunking into flesh, followed by a scream receding into the distance. "Then again, he's got his moments. Let's do this."

***

The moment Jack leapt from the Skycar, it leapt skyward. Angela struggled with the controls, tweaking the four engine throttles individually to keep the 'car upright. After a few tense moments, she got it leveled out, only several hundred feet above the Zoo itself.

Not too bad for a maiden flight, for me or the Skycar.

She spun the car until it pointed toward Boathouse Row. There, illuminated by the hundreds of lights decorating the houses of the row, stood the bear. Rearing on its hind legs, the river barely covered the animal's knees. It clawed at its face, where she could just make out Jackhammer clinging to it and pounding on its forehead. Without taking her eyes off the fight, Angela flicked her smart phone. A few seconds later, as Jack leapt away from the bear's claws, Charlie answered.

"What's up, Angela? It's... God, it's the middle of the night. What's going on?"

"We have a situation. We received a call about an escaped Polar bear exhibiting signs of haemochromatosis. Axeman, Flex, Jackhammer, and I responded in the Skycar." She swooped in until she could focus a spotlight on the bear's face. Faint blue lines traced through the white fur, dribbling into the river below. The bear roared, the sound so loud the fragile glass of the spotlight shattered. "I can confirm haemochromatosis. The bear is," she did some quick calculations based on what she remembered of the depth of the Schuylkill, "approximately sixteen meters tall at the shoulder. At that height it ought to mass around a hundred tons. Nothing that big ought to be able to support itself."

"Angela! You're babbling. Get it together. Where is it?"

"Boathouse Row. Philadelphia. There are a few hundred civilians in various states of intoxication in the boathouses. Axeman and Jackhammer have engaged the bear. Both have been knocked out of my immediate field of view. No idea where Flex is... wait!"

Flex leapt out of the water, growing as she did. Her shoulder caught the bear in its midsection, a perfect lunging tackle. For a moment, Angela thought it might fall, but instead of collapsing backward, it brought both forepaws down, hard, on Flex's back. It sheared through her like she wasn't even there, paws landing in the river hard enough to throw mud across the drunken, screaming spectators.

"Flex down. We need an airstrike. A fuel air bomb might suffocate it."

"Angela! By the time the Air Force mobilizes, half of Philly could be in that thing's belly. Hell, if they drop an FAE in Philly, that's about all she wrote for most of the East Coast." She heard the distinctive shooshing noise of her armored composite weaves, followed by the clicking of quick release catches. "I'll be there as soon as I can. Get the civilians out of the way and try to distract it."

With that, he hung up. Angela glanced from the bear to the boathouses. Half of the partiers were screaming and running, the other half stood shouting encouragement to the tiny blue firefighter climbing up the bear's back leg. She brought the Skycar down above the Row and engaged the PA system.

"Attention! This is not a show! You are in deadly danger! Please evacuate as quickly as you safely can. We will buy you as much time to get away as we can."

That scared off another huge chunk of potential bear chow, but at least a dozen bare chested young men kept trying to get a boat into the water. Shaking her head, Angela did the only thing she could think of. She brought the Skycar down directly on the boat, hard. The armored panels protecting the drive train crunched, and the young men staggered away, a few pulling pieces of broken fiberglass from their arms.

"Get out of here!"

Two of the men ran, screaming. Another one started hitting the car. Angela leaned over to grab her first aid kit, intending to treat the cuts she'd inflicted in the course of stopping the young men's suicide by bear.

When she straightened, all but one of the young men had run, screaming. The last bravo stood, one hand pointing at something behind the car. Angela looked into the rear-view mirror. A pair of giant bear legs obscured everything else.

A curtain of grey slammed down between Angela and the world.