Ana

CH 15

Weeks after his trip to the moon, Tom sat nervously in Ana's ship looking down at the ground as they flew over the reddish brown deserts of New Mexico. He had spent the time learning everything he could about the Traveler's and felt he was on the right track now to make a difference in this world. His heart still hurt for Naomi but if he had to change the world all by himself, he would.

The trails of erosion across the rocky landscape formed a mosaic of harsh beauty. It wasn't the fantastic speed of the craft that worried him. Rather, it was the purpose of this trip that gnawed on his nerves.

Unlike his trip to the Philippines, he was well aware of the dangerous reason they were heading to San Jose. The bomb in the van was only the first part of a multi-pronged attack by a group that called themselves "God's Messengers". Their next phase of forced enlightenment involved hiring an American named Michael Rodriguez to travel to Turkey and bring back a small, but deadly package.

Michael, or Mike as his friends called him, was a petty thief trying to make a big score. Mike assumed the package he was going to pick up contained drugs and that was ok with him as long as he didn't get caught. He considered it a small risk for the crazy amount of cash he was getting for this job, fifty thousand for pick up and another fifty thousand for delivery.

What Mike didn't know was that the package was only a decoy to keep Mike in the dark. The true reason for the trip was that the leaders of God's Messengers planned to infect him with a mutated variation of the Bubonic Plague, making him a walking biological weapon. By the time Mike arrived back in the States he'd be highly contagious with a deadly virus for which no known vaccine yet existed.

Tom had learned that Mike supported himself mostly by stealing cars and selling them to a chop shop. Also, Mike had been recruited for this mission not only because he was willing to break the law without question for that large sum of money offered, but also because he was involved in an illegal dog fighting ring. The bubonic plague is spread by fleas drinking the blood from a person or animal that is infected. Once the infected person dies, the fleas move on looking for fresh blood and taking the plague with them.  Mike's contact with a large number of flee ridden dogs would be the breeding ground for a new epidemic as fleas spread the plague to the rest of the underground dog fighting organization and then to the general populace of San Jose.

To stop him, Tom and Ana devised a way to eliminate the threat in a simple and clean way. Tom would transport small, nearly undetectable nanobots on his shoe that contained microbes produced by Ana that would attack and kill the new plague virus.

All Tom needed to do was touch his shoe to Mike's long enough for the nanobots to jump off his shoe and climb into Mike's. Ana said that it would only take a few seconds but not to move while that was taking place. The small bots would administer the microbes once inside his shoe so that Mike would be immune to the virus on his trip to Turkey.

Tom was very pleased with the plan but was still uneasy about the execution. He needed to get very close to Mike while he was standing still and hope he stayed that way long enough for the bots to get on his shoe.

The first step was to follow him from his home the next time he went out. Timing would be important because if he followed too much he would become suspicious. So, Ana would do most of the tracking with her probes allowing Tom to stay out of sight until Mike was in a good spot for the transfer.

For fifth time in the past five minutes, he checked the map to see how much further they had to go. "Ana, how close to the city do you plan on putting us down?"

"I can set us down on Cedar Mountain. It isn't far from San Jose and will provide excellent cover. From there you'll need to take other transportation the rest of the way to the city."