by Rob Horner
Night Zero: Second Day
Rob Horner
Copyright © 2020 Rob Horner
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Enrique Meseguer
Cover design by Tia Fanning
For everyone who loves a good apocalypse.
Other titles by Rob Horner
Darkness & Light: The Richards’ Saga
Brightness
Into Darkness
Death Watch (coming soon)
The Chosen Cycle
Waking Light
Surrogacy
Ascendancy (coming Fall 2020)
The Bechtol Files
The Dungeon
The Fall of Icarus (coming soon)
Night Zero
Night Zero: Second Day
Project: Heritage
Project: Genesis (coming soon)
Contents
A Note About the Timeline
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
A Note About the Timeline
First off, if you haven’t read Night Zero yet, you should.
Night Zero is told from several points of view in three distinct time periods. Some of these story threads are resolved, though most only come to a temporary pause. This was done intentionally. The idea behind Night Zero was to tell a story wide in scope but presented in the moment, with visceral, human reactions and relationships moving the plot forward. People don’t know what they shouldn’t, and that’s important. So, while the narrative bounces between these time periods, they only differ by a day. We needed to meet these people. And hopefully, now that you know who they are, you’re invested and want to continue reading to find out not only what happens to the people, but how the greater conflict is handled.
To that end, here is a brief recap, putting the story threads in their proper chronological order.
Day Zero: The initial explosion in Atlanta. Austin, Carolyn, and Bitsy are exposed. An airport worker named Kim is injured trying to help Carolyn. Jesse Franks is introduced as he rescues Ragan from the airport in Greenwood, Mississippi and takes her to Oklahoma City.
Day One: Austin is found unresponsive in the parking lot of a busy outlet mall in Gaffney, SC. We meet a lot of people in this area, and it’s where most of the conflict for Night Zero takes place. How do emergency medical workers respond to an apparent outbreak of zombies? Day One bleeds into Day Two, where we see Buck, Caitlin, Tina, Jessica, Dr. Crews, Brandon, and Jordyn escape the hospital. The hunter is sent after them. The story ends with Austin emerging into the morning sunlight, ready to fulfill a perceived mission to form a colony of become.
Day Two: Focuses on Dr. Lowman as the Centers for Disease Control Chief Medical Officer becomes aware of the growing epidemic. With transcribed recordings and eyewitness testimony, Dr. Lowman pieces together the events leading up to the release of the Avaxx toxin into the atmosphere. Through Dr. Lowman’s chapters, we learn the infectious mechanism of the organism released and gain a greater understanding of its communicability and mortality. By the end of day two, Dr. Lowman has been invited to join the president and his Chiefs of Staff in a secure underground bunker attached to the White House.
Day Three: Hasn’t been explored yet, but it is the day in which the Public Health Warning is issued, and martial law is enacted.
Thus ended Night Zero.
Night Zero: Second Day is presented in a more linear, chronological fashion. It’s time to bring the people—those who survive—together. Each part represents a day, and it begins at the very beginning. Like its predecessor, there will be some story lines brought to resolution, but not many. This is meant to keep you guessing, keep you wanting more.
Make no mistake, Second Day is very much a middle book.
Without further ado, here is Night Zero: Second Day.
Prologue
Day Zero
“All right, Willie, I’m inside.”
“Just follow the plan,” Willie replied, his voice a thin whisper in the micro-earbud.
“I know,” Michael replied, resisting the urge to push on the earbud with a finger; it wouldn’t make Willie’s voice any clearer. It looked cool when Tom Cruise did it in the Mission Impossible movies, but it wouldn’t do anything except draw attention. Thankfully, Michael’s hair was long enough that it covered his ears.
Shoving his hands into the deep pockets of his white lab coat to keep them from getting him in trouble, the tall man eased along the dark loading dock.
Six weeks of planning and almost sixty thousand dollars in bribes had secured him a working electromagnetic badge. The badge got him through the small employee entrance into the unmarked warehouse on the south side of Atlanta. The headshot on the badge would pass casual scrutiny, but he had to remain anonymous. This was a government facility with strict security protocols. Any indication he didn’t belong would be investigated by the G-Men patrolling the building. And no amount of bribery or computer hackery could provide what Michael lacked.
“I’ve got the layout on my screen,” Willie breathed. “There are two doors leading out of the loading area. As you’re facing, it’ll be the door on your left.”
Easy for him to say, Michael thought. It’s black as Trump’s heart in here.
Pulling his smartphone from one of the pockets, he activated the flashlight.
The employee entrance was a regular-sized door next to one of the large roll-up garage doors. Both opened onto an empty space big enough for a good-sized truck to back into, though not so large that the entire vehicle would fit inside and allow the doors to be closed. The facility did most of its loading and unloading at night, so casual observers wouldn’t be able to see anything inside, nor remark on any company logos on the sides of the delivery vehicles. That most of the shipments came from the CDC and not Amazon might raise more than a little curiosity and concern. The building was unmarked and only a block away from a good-sized, low income apartment complex.
But that’s why he was here.
Ever since Edward Jenner proved vaccinations could prevent disease, the government had partnered with the pharmaceutical companies to create one “miracle drug” after another, all to establish and affirm their control over an unwitting populace. Look how smart we are, the government thought. We are GovCo, and we know how to take care of you and your family better than you do. First Smallpox, then Polio, both of which were, admittedly, horrible afflictions with a high mortality rate and life-altering consequences when they didn’t kill outright.
Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad if the government had stopped with the deadly diseases.
But it hadn’t.
After the killer viruses were all-but eradicated, the government went after less-dangerous illnesses.
Why?
That was the big question, wasn’t it?
It’s to minimize sickness and prolong life expectancy.
&
nbsp; It was bullshit.
Once you kill all the things that need killing, how do you retain control? How do you keep making money? How do you keep a populace dependent upon your guidance?
You find more things to kill. You over-report the threat of something to gen up support for killing it.
Don’t like the fact that marijuana and cocaine sales don’t bring in money to the all-mighty government? Oversell their danger and make their use and sale illegal. Declare a war on drugs, because language has power, and war must mean something is serious.
Don’t like the fact that a large percentage of the world doesn’t believe the same way you do? Fly a couple of drones into some buildings then set off timed explosions in their bases. Target the support struts. Bring down the buildings. And BAM! You get to declare war on a religion.
Got rid of the bad things like Smallpox and Polio? No problem. We don’t like Measles either and Chicken Pox is just so nineteenth century. Let’s oversell their danger and continue making money hand-over-fist while we “work” to eradicate them.
Except.
Unlike Smallpox and Polio, the war on other diseases showed no signs of stopping. We weren’t any closer to eradicating them in the twenty-first century than when the charade started.
Why was that?
Because the government and its pharmaceutical allies figured out there’s no profit in winning a war, only in waging it.
In the meantime, population has boomed to unsustainable levels because the “small percentage” of people too weak to fight off disease has been protected and allowed to live and propagate beyond their allotted time.
It was the same with bicycle helmets, the elimination of Lawn Darts, the push for seat belt use, the ban on texting while driving, the stigma of cigarette smoking, and the thousand other little things the government decided to insert its fingers into.
Simply put, Darwin wasn’t being allowed to work.
So, stupid people who by nature would do stupid things and thus remove themselves from the gene pool were instead allowed to live and reproduce, making more stupid people more and more dependent upon the government to tell them how to live their lives.
It was a never-ending cycle with no hope of correction.
And when one man dared to raise his hand against the push for control by an oppressive government, he was slapped down, silenced, and disgraced.
That man pointed out an unintended side effect of vaccinations, specifically the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella cocktail jabbed into the legs of toddlers all over the world.
A thousand researchers spent millions of hours and billions of dollars trying to repudiate the conclusion of the good doctor from England. In the end, the best they could offer was “there is no proof that vaccines cause autism.”
No proof that vaccines cause autism was not the same as being able to say, unequivocally, that vaccines do not cause autism.
It was the same way with Global Warming. And it was the same sheep-people who pushed that specious argument.
There was no proof that man’s actions harmed the environment, just a bunch of theories. Yet governments around the world were enacting laws to control and restrict man’s forward progress all in order to maintain control over their people.
Michael smiled.
As in all things in America’s history, it was his right, all the people’s right, to stand up to government when it became oppressive.
Beyond the poured concrete area where trucks could sit and be unloaded were racks of shelves running to both sides. Cardboard boxes filled them from top to bottom, their sides emblazoned with names like McKesson, Becton Dickenson, Henry Schein, Baxter, and Medtronic, a who’s who of pharmaceutical and medical equipment suppliers from all parts of the country.
Of course, everyone with a hand in the government cookie jar would want a piece of the action going on in this facility.
Michael was under no illusions about the place.
It was a CDC operation, through and through. Only, instead of studying some new disease like Ebola, or working on a cure for cancer, they were engaged in something far more nefarious. Working under a cloud of secrecy, this installation played with dangerous bacteria in order to find a new vaccine delivery mechanism.
Not a new vaccine.
For all that Michael and his friends hated the pro-vaccine agenda, a place working on something new wouldn’t be a first-line target. Not so long as people still had the right to decline vaccinations.
No, this unnamed building was developing a way to negate the right of refusal, much as the Pro-Life movement sought to limit a woman’s right to choose what happened with her body.
And that work couldn’t be allowed to continue.
Beyond the shelves were a couple of desks with simple computer workstations, binders of paper, and stacks of logbooks—all the accoutrements any good shipping and receiving department might need to track the things coming and going.
The flash of his phone rendered everything in washed out hues and humps of shadow. But it was enough to show the doors. The one on the right was of plain wood. It led to the front offices, a handy facade in case anyone wandered in from outside. Michael had been there a few weeks ago. Motivational posters on the walls and unremarkable furniture ordered out of a Staples catalogue gave no indication to the building’s true design. A beveled sliding glass window showed a secretary hard at work typing nothing and answering imaginary phone calls. If asked, she said this was a warehouse for a local contractor. There were even business cards on display.
Go ahead, take one.
Calling the number on the card got him a different secretary for a legitimate storage contracting firm, one of dozens who’d sold their souls to GovCo and gladly allowed this Edifice to the Downfall of Personal Freedom to advertise for them.
The door on the left led into the laboratory spaces and was secured with a badge reader.
Holding his breath, Michael pulled the laminated badge on its nylon lanyard away from his chest and swiped it through the reader. The little red light turned green and the door unlocked with an audible click. The badge slapped back against his chest as he released it and pushed open the door.
Like a rat’s nest the lab spaces opened in front of him. White tiled walls, floor, and ceiling ran ahead and to the left, long hallways which interconnected at various places and opened into small rooms, each serving a particular function. Windows gave views of white gowned, gloved, and masked fascists hard at work inside. Million-dollar equipment hummed, spun, and genetically spliced bits of one thing with bobs of another, all of which would be fed into a witch’s cauldron whose sole purpose was the eradication of free will.
Michael smiled at his thoughts, visualizing the headlines in tomorrow’s paper. It would never happen, of course. For all their antagonism to the current administration, the media were as much puppets of the government machine as were the drug developers, medical suppliers, and even people like the contractor whose cards sat in the fake lobby.
“Remember, Michael,” Willie said, “all you have to do is place the box on a wall near any large piece of machinery, then space out the power packs. Even if it’s on the other side of the wall, the disruptor will do its job.”
For all his education, Michael had no idea how the little boxes clipped to his belt would do what they were supposed to do. He was a researcher, an activist, and all-around concerned citizen; he had no interest in, or experience with, advanced electronics. He didn’t need to know how a computer worked in order to use it to reach out to similarly minded people all over the country. How the hybrid engine in his Prius worked didn’t concern him, so long as it turned on when he pushed the button and moved when he pressed the accelerator. Tell him the little square clipped to the back of his pants would cause a breakdown in the covalent bonds in any nearby electronic device, uncoupling resonators and reverse-polarizing transformers, and he took it for granted it would work as advertised.
To the far left, near the end of the hall, two
men in the ubiquitous long white lab coats stood huddled together. In the various labs and clinical workspaces, more people bent over machines, or handled tubes inside sealed vats, no doubt playing God with any of a dozen nasty microbes. Straight ahead, down the corridor leading to the back of the facility, more doors led to even more labs where pieces of equipment that no doubt cost more than Michael would make in any ten year period hummed, chugged, and turned pharmaceutical wet dreams into real-life nightmares for the good people of the country who just wanted to be left to their own devices, to vaccinate or not as they chose.
“Straight ahead,” Willie said. “All the way to the back of the main hall.”
“What am I looking for?” Michael asked.
“A door that’ll say ‘utility,’ or, ‘engineering,’ or might not be labeled at all.”
Michael moved forward, hoping he looked like a new employee getting his bearings rather than an activist trying to shut down a testament to government fascism.
The hall ran for fifty yards. The number of labs opening to each side made him doubt, for the first time, that the building was wholly devoted to the singular goal of mass vaccination. With so much space, they must be working on other projects. Not that it mattered. As far as he was concerned, the CDC might as well stand for the Centers for Domination and Chaos.
Other hallways began intersecting in a crosshatch pattern. Little mirrors appeared along the ceiling at the corners, a way for fast-walking people to see if there was any cross traffic approaching and avoid an embarrassing collision.
Probably video cameras hidden behind the mirrored globes, he thought. Michael smiled up at the next mirror, hoping they got a good look at his face. Let the power mad bastards know who fucked their world up.
A pair of scientists exited one of the labs, turning toward him. Resisting the urge to duck his head and hide his face, Michael strolled unconcernedly past them, noting a petite Asian woman and a taller, bustier blond. Both were beautiful and he checked a sigh that such beauty was wasted on people whose minds were so corrupt they would be a part of this project. Lost in their own conversation, neither woman so much as glanced at him.