The Last Human (a novel)

Adrian and Lionel turned and started toward the door. They went out and into the darkness. Adrian flicked a switch at the end of the patio and landing lights around a nearby helicopter pad leapt into the dark stillness.

The chopper landed. Adrian and Lionel ran crouching to it. No words were exchanged. They simply climbed aboard, and it took off. When the sound of blades chopping the air sound grew faint, Idris flicked a switch to shut off the landing lights and save precious electricity.

The chopper landed on a pad on a Berkeley campus building rooftop. As they emerged from it they were handed flack jackets and uniforms and quickly put these on. A US Army Humvee waiting below took Adrian and Lionel to a barricade near the BerkeleyOakland city border. The Army had set up a barricade of partly wrecked automobiles and sandbags. Troops in US Army combat uniforms and gear manned it.

It was indeed a war zone, and occasionally shots rang out from the undisciplined other side. Out in front of the barricade was a burned-out vehicle. Beyond it were campfires of the motley opposing forces.

The Humvee pulled up to the barricade. Army searchlights prowled the street. The Humvee stopped in front of a California National Guard general. Adrian and Lionel climbed out. A bullet zinged by and was answered with automatic weapons fire from the general's troops.

The general waved contemptuously out across the barricade toward the opposing side. "Military amateurs. Waiting for daylight to attack." He glanced at his watch. "About an hour."

"Can you hold them?" Adrian asked.

"Can't promise," the general answered. "I've got a thousand troops. That's the whole damn California National Guard. Army can't spare one man from the Washington perimeter.

Whole damn US Army's down to fifteen thousand."

Adrian motioned past the barricade. "How many do they have?"

The general shook his head and shrugged. "Don't know. They're dying like flies. No discipline. Isolation and Containment abandoned." He wagged his forefinger warningly. "I'll tell you this: it's got to be dangerous to even go out there and talk to their head honcho. If he doesn't have it, I can't imagine why not. Sure you want to?"

Adrian sighed, frowned, and scratched his head. "He's probably not the kind of guy to take unnecessary chances. Anyway, we've got to make some kind of a deal. We've got to keep the research labs open."