Siege by Mark Alpert Page A

released them anywhere. So why did it choose Yorktown Heights? If Sigma had released the anthrax in New York City, just twenty-five miles to the south, it could’ve killed a lot more people. Millions would’ve died instead of thousands. So maybe Sigma’s goal right now isn’t killing as many people as it can. Maybe the AI has a completely different agenda.
    I run the question through my logic circuits, contemplating all of Sigma’s possible motivations, and I come up with a hypothesis. It’s simple: the AI chose my hometown because it wants our attention. Sigma wants the Pioneers to come to Yorktown Heights. Which means we’re probably flying into a trap.
    We don’t have a choice, though. The anthrax outbreak has overwhelmed the New York police and the National Guard. All the guardsmen and state troopers are busy organizing the evacuation of the surrounding towns—Katonah, Mount Kisco, Chappaqua—and no one seems to be searching for survivors in Yorktown Heights. The government authorities are just starting to organize rescue crews. And before they can send anyone into the contaminated area, they have to collect enough hazmat suits to protect the rescuers from the anthrax spores floating in the air.
    But the germs can’t infect Pioneers. We’re the perfect team for this mission.
    I fly the V-22 toward the shopping centers and churches in the middle of town, tilting the aircraft’s rotors to vertical so it can hover like a helicopter. I’m still high enough that I can scan the landscape with the plane’s sensors, observing every driveway and backyard. There’s no sign of human life. I can’t peer into the houses, of course, so it’s possible that some survivors might be indoors. The only way we’ll know for sure is to go down the streets and break into each home. And that’ll take hours, even with all five Pioneers working as fast as possible.
    Then I detect signs of movement at the edge of my scan, about a mile farther north. I steer the V-22 in that direction and increase the magnification of my sensors. Someone is stumbling across a parking lot, zigzagging between the rows of cars toward a large brick building. I’m familiar with this particular parking lot—when I was in ninth and tenth grades I used to maneuver my motorized wheelchair past it every day. It’s right in front of Yorktown High School.
    I descend to an altitude of three hundred feet and hover above the lot. The person stumbling toward the school is young and male, a short, dark-haired teenager wearing jeans and a yellow T-shirt. My circuits compare his face to the thousands of faces in my memory files, but there’s no match. He’s probably a freshman or sophomore, someone who started going to Yorktown High after my muscular dystrophy got worse and Dad pulled me out of school. The boy’s face glistens with sweat as he looks up at our aircraft and its thundering rotors. According to my infrared sensors, his body temperature is over 104 degrees. He’s ablaze with fever.
    The V-22 is equipped with powerful loudspeakers. I connect my voice-synthesis software to them. “STAY WHERE YOU ARE. WE’RE COMING TO HELP YOU.”
    The boy doesn’t seem to understand. He stares blankly at the plane, then shakes his head and continues lurching toward the high school. In a few seconds he reaches the front entrance and staggers through an open doorway.
    Because I’m sharing the video feed from the V-22’s cameras with the other Pioneers, they see the boy too. Shannon strides toward the cockpit window and points at the doorway where the kid disappeared. “I know him. That’s Tim Rodriguez. He’s a sophomore.”
    I’m not surprised that Shannon recognizes him. She did everything at Yorktown High—debate team, glee club, student government—and knew everyone’s name. I use the V-22’s sensors to survey the lawn beside