The Final Outbreak

by M. L. Banner

  “Go now!” Deep crackled through their radios. He was obviously following their every move, and was on top of their plan once Flavio had sprung into action.

  Jörgen yanked open the door and Wasano led, followed by Dr. Simmons, Jörgen, and the Germans.

  They raced down the right hallway, only slowing when they’d reached their destination, engineering.

  So far, so good.

  The small and simple placard on the door seemed to belie the importance of this area, especially now.

  Knowing their time was short, Wasano immediately swiped his card and pushed the door open upon its clicked acceptance. He slipped into the doorway first, heavy flashlight raised above his head, ready to strike anything or anyone who rushed him from the shadows. He snapped it on because the overheads were off and the room was murky. While dousing the room with a cone of light, he worked at the switch to the overheads, confirming the lights weren’t working—little on their ship seemed to be working now. At least the computers seemed functional: all the monitors were blinking their minimal light, coating the room in misty Regal European Blue.

  Most important, there were no crazies.

  The room was fairly compact, with one long row of three monitoring stations, crowded with half a dozen flat-screens per station, and a single desk in the left corner of the room, with its own flat-screens. On both sides of the room, connected to the ceilings, but tilted so they were visible to the whole room, were giant flat-screens with multiple views of the ship’s engine room areas, various mechanical areas and the bridge. All the walls were papered over with multiple layers of deck-plans, charts, schedules, and other items Wasano didn’t really understand, nor did he care to. This place was all about utility. There was nothing else to it. Certainly no place for crazies to lurk.

  All three stations were abandoned, their chairs spun around. The butts which had occupied them must have left in a hurry.

  “It’s empty, sir,” whispered Wasano to Jörgen and their group. They all quickly moved inside and clicked the door shut behind them.

  Jörgen immediately went to work on the middle console, thinking if one didn’t work, he’d move over to one of the others.

  “Tell JP we’re here,” Jörgen said while tapping on the keyboard.

  Several monitors sprang to life, blinking from murky blue to blazing white, removing more of the room’s ghostly shadows. Jörgen brought up the Electronic Chart Display and Info System or ECDIS and saw their position: only 8.64 kilometers from the island. A red light flashed its concern about their proximity. Their ETA was still twenty minutes, probably because with the stabilizers out and down, providing maximized resistance, their overall speed had crept down to 14 knots. Their ride was much choppier, but it had bought them time. Just not enough.

  First step was to engage the ship’s rudder and steer them away from Sao Miguel Island. Jörgen brought up the Navigation and Command System or NACOS, which would allow him to steer the ship using its rudder.

  There was a knock on the door, and Wasano prepared to answer it, holding his flashlight up high. He felt a little stupid, because he didn’t see any evidence that crazies would knock first. But he wasn’t taking any chances. Dr. Simmons stood fast, while the Germans shrank back deeper into the room.

  Expecting Flavio, Wasano was startled instead to see a blonde-haired woman, wearing large designer sunglasses, an orange swimmer’s nose-clip, and a crooked smirk.

  “Are you going to leave a lady hanging outside, or do I have to beg to come in?” she said, her arms folded over her chest, acting impatient to be let in.

  Jörgen turned from the keyboard—he had been waiting for the computer’s program to respond to his commands—to take in the woman at the door, whose voice sounded somewhat familiar. “Hold on.” He erupted from his seat. “Theresa-Jean?” he called out. “Is that you? Let her in, Wasano.”

  All eyes watched the athletic woman, clean and sporting a fresh coat of makeup, stride in and wait for Wasano to close the door. Her sleek jogging outfit appeared pressed and perfectly fitted to her form; her ponytail glistened. She looked like she had come from the spa, refreshed after a treatment, and certainly not someone who they had heard had fallen two stories from the zip line and then tangled with a horde of blood-thirsty crazies.

  The oversized sunglasses and the swimmer’s nose clip seemed out of place on her. And other than her sporting a clean bandage covering part of one wrist, she looked good. Really good. She certainly didn’t appear deceased, as they had all assumed, including her husband Ted.

  “Thanks, Captain. Did my husband and JP make it onto the bridge?” Her smirk was gone, crossed arms still in place over her chest, which appeared to be rising and falling rapidly. Her voice had a more nasal quality than usual.

  “Yes, they did.”

  “I must talk to Ted and let him know I’m alive. I lost my radio in the fall.” Her words were rushed and she offered a smile, but it seemed forced. She was not at all like the jovial woman he’d witnessed at dinner. She wasn’t right, even though she more than looked it.

  Jörgen said nothing, and simply beckoned her to the seat beside him, where a microphone telegraphed at an angle, waiting.

  When she sat and rested her elbows on the long counter, Jörgen overtly pressed the transmit switch to the left of the microphone, now a few inches from her lips.

  A cacophony of voices burst from a small speaker in front of her.

  She shuddered slightly and pulled away. But when Jörgen nodded for her to go ahead, she leaned forward into the microphone and spoke.

  “Ted?” Her head remained frozen, her lips closed, as she waited. Then she spoke again. “Ted, are you there? This is TJ.”

  Jörgen, sensing she was done, visibly clicked off the button so she could take over, while he continued with the ship’s controls.

  Radio static bled through the speakers for many long moments. Even the crew who had been just speaking were quiet.

  “TJ?” a shaky voice answered. “Is... Is that really you?” Ted’s voice raised an octave with each word. “My God,” he said, his voice cracking, “how?”

  “What can I say, I’m—”

  Jörgen abruptly put his hand over the microphone and bent the flexible boom in his direction.

  “Sorry, Ted. This is Captain Jörgen. I need the radio back. She looks fine. In fact, she seems almost completely uninjured. Let’s hope you two have plenty of time to catch up. Jean Pierre, can you hear me? We still don’t have any helm controls here. Unless we can discover some other way to gain control or reverse the engines in the next twenty minutes, we will collide with Sao Miguel.”

  64

  Sao Miguel

  São Miguel Island, although the largest of the Azores Archipelago, was still nothing more than a tiny spot on a map of the vast Atlantic Ocean. Its closest landmass, Lisbon Portugal, was over nine hundred miles away. To the Intrepid, it was supposed to be a transitional point on their navigational compass. Almost as if a harbinger of what was to come, São Miguel burst out of the ocean depths from a violent undersea volcanic eruption many millennia ago. Now, the island’s three-thousand-foot high peak filled up the bridge windows from port to starboard, a looming target which grew larger with each eye blink.

  This sub-tropical island had been a growing favorite stopover for Europeans and transatlantic cruise ships. If the Intrepid had intended to port here, its crew would have long switched its controls to manual, slowed its engines to less than ten knots and guided the ship around the island’s southern exposure, and then north into Punta Delgada, the island’s cruise port terminal and the archipelago’s chief port. But that was not their destination.

  Jessica had programmed the Intrepid’s nav computers to take them directly into Nordeste, the easternmost town on São Miguel. Unfortunately for them, Ted heard that Jessica always hit her mark.

  Of course, Nordeste was only meant as a reference point. Several miles back, they were supposed to have changed their course, resetting th
eir heading for Nassau Bahamas. It was all part of the captain’s simple plan to track along the path of the least dense cloud configurations, those coming from the ongoing volcanic eruptions. Because some in the media had suspected the volcanic clouds as the root cause for the Rage disease, striking first the animals and now people, the captain had thought it would be good to stay out of the clouds and have the added effect of keeping their passengers happier by giving them warmer temperatures and sunshine. That was before they lost control of the ship.

  Now, with dark clouds thickening above and around them, and with the island growing closer by the second, the Intrepid crew sounded as if they were in a full-on panic.

  The NACOS had automatically adjusted their stabilizers, and that had slowed the ship somewhat. But without helm controls, they were fast running out of options.

  The team on the bridge and the one in engineering were shooting ideas back and forth over the radio. With staff captain Jean Pierre and first officer Jessica still working on their consoles, Ted manned the radio and repeated their words from the bridge to the captain in engineering. “The staff captain asked if you were able to reach anyone in the engine rooms?” His words were careful and without any emotional inflection.

  Ted repeated Jean Pierre’s words and waited. But he wasn’t really listening.

  Ted was jumping out of his skin. More than anything, he needed to be with his wife, TJ. Besides just the simple desire to see her, a part of him relented that they were probably going to crash. And if that was their fate, he didn’t want to waste any more time being apart from her. He wanted to leave this world holding her.

  But he also needed to confirm she was really all right: his logical mind told him it was impossible, replaying as evidence the scenes of her falling from the zip line and then disappearing into the writhing pack of crazies. There was no way she could have survived this, his mind argued. And yet, he had heard her. And so she did survive, his emotional side debated back. Even with the captain’s confirmation, he still needed to verify this with his own eyes. He just needed her, and he needed her now.

  He beat his fist on the table, demanding his logical mind’s silence. Focus, dammit!

  There was still a chance, no matter how small, that they could come out of this alive. But to do so required that he pay attention and not miss all that was going on. He could play a role in helping their success. But if he screwed up or delayed the crew’s efforts, it could lead to all of them dying.

  Did Jörgen just say, “No!”?

  The captain continued on the other end of the radio conversation, “I’m going to go down myself and hit the automatic shut-off. But we have another problem.” Jörgen paused. When Ted heard nothing but squeaks coming from the speakers, he twisted the volume control to its limit.

  No one on the bridge could see the captain furiously scribbling computations on one of the flat-screen monitors with a wax crayon.

  “Please, sir. Don’t try both shut-offs on your own...” Jean Pierre hollered from the other side of the bridge, in between rapid puffs of air, “...with all the crazies out there...” Ted watched him, as he dashed across the span of the bridge; with Jessica in tow, each clutching paper navigational charts.

  “What problem, sir?” Jean Pierre huffed.

  Jean Pierre and Jessica were now on the port side of bridge, spreading their navigational charts out on the long table. Jessica pointed enthusiastically at some point on the chart. Ted’s heart was racing uncontrollably. For just a moment, he stopped thinking about his separation from TJ.

  Ted had the microphone open, but he feared the captain didn’t hear what was just said. “In case you did not hear that, the staff captain was worried about your going at it alone and attempting both shut-offs, especially with all of the crazies out there. Though I don’t know where those are, I’d agree about the futility of such a lone endeavor because of the crazies. They’re now both examining some paper charts... Oh, and the staff captain asked what was the other problem you mentioned?”

  Ted let go of the button and turned up the volume to its highest level. He didn’t know how much time they had left, but he looked forward out the bridge windows and was shocked at how much closer the island was to them, just in the span of the last minute.

  Two ridiculous thoughts leapt out of Ted’s mind simultaneously: it was so close, they could swim from here. And why don’t they try that?

  He looked back down at the radio, unsure he’d let go of the transmit button, even though he could hear the background sound from the captain’s own microphone being open.

  An echoing voice from he guessed the security director said, “I’ll go with you, Captain.” It sounded like it was meant for the captain and not their consumption. But then Ted heard TJ’s voice. His heart skipped a beat, and he gulped back his breath, as he heard her say in a colder than normal voice, “One officer should stay here; I’ll go.”

  The microphone remained open for several seconds and some hushed words were barked, and then the booming voice of the captain erupted. “Thanks. But even if we’re able to stop the engines, we still need helm control. Otherwise, we’re too close to the island and we’ll have too much speed: at this point, we’ll still hit.”

  Oh shit! Ted thought. Or maybe he said it out loud.

  “We could use the anchor,” hollered Jessica from the opposite end of the bridge. “What do you think?” She said this facing Jean Pierre.

  Ted punched the button. “Jessica, I mean the first officer said we could use the anchor?” Ted repeated, but it came out as a question, even though he knew it wasn’t meant as one.

  “That’s not a horrible idea,” Captain Jörgen answered in a flurry of words. “If it weren’t for the depth... We’ll need all twelve shots just to scratch the surface, and by then, it would be too late, because we’d be too close.”

  Static.

  “But what about the Nordeste Bank?” Jean Pierre barked. A quick glance to Ted told him to repeat quickly. He held up his finger like he wanted to add something.

  Ted kept his eyes on the staff captain, while clicking transmit. “The staff captain wants to know what about the Nordeste Bank? There’s something more...” He waited for his next instruction, still maintaining eye contact and still holding the mic open.

  “Tell him...” Jean Pierre trotted over to the base unit, stopping on the other side of the workstation and leaning over, “Sir,” he yelled, “it’s as little as 245 feet deep nearly two miles offshore. That should be enough, if you can use the stabilizers to nudge us over it. Jessica figures we only need to change our heading by two degrees to starboard, but it must be done right away.”

  Static.

  Jörgen clicked open the mic and mumbled to himself, just barely loud enough that Ted and Jean Pierre could hear. “...if we dropped the aft anchor at the tail end of the Nordeste Bank, assuming the automatic release wasn’t engaged, as it was designed to be, severely damaging the ship... It might be enough to stop us, if we can also cut off the engines...” Finally, Jörgen puffed out a loud breath, his mouth up against the mic. “That’s a great idea. But get someone there right away, and I’ll work on the stabilizers.”

  Ted knew from the All Access Tour that the release was on deck 1, and on the other side of their long ship. It seemed too far a distance for someone from the bridge. Engineering was right there. Someone from their team should be going.

  The radio’s pulsing static droned on while everyone listening waited for some heroic volunteer to go on this newest suicide mission.

  Ted would have volunteered, if only to break the silence, but he couldn’t get there quickly with his bum ankle and he didn’t know which buttons to push; they didn’t tell him that part on the tour. And thinking it through further, that was the key: knowing what buttons to push or levers to pull and when. And other than the captain, no one from their group in engineering would know what to do. It seemed impossible.

  And while Ted waited helplessly, as time raced by, he once again con
sidered belting out, Why don’t we abandon ship?

  “Sir?” pleaded a meek voice from behind Ted.

  It was Ágúst, who’d been sitting on the floor, arms resting on top of his knees. David had been watching him like a hawk the whole time to make sure he didn’t become a threat: none of them still understood why someone infected and symptomatic wasn’t violent.

  The officer shot up abruptly. David countered with a two-step back, taking a defensive posture. Ágúst glared at his staff captain with his odd-colored eyes. “I’d like to volunteer for that.”

  Jean Pierre had since walked around the table and was also now standing beside Ted. Jean Pierre didn’t hesitate. He spun around, punched the mic and stated, “Captain, First Officer Helguson volunteered to go now.” He glanced back around, while touching the transmit button, to scrutinize the Ágúst.

  “Should he go alone?” asked the captain. He asked this, but they knew he wasn’t really looking for an answer. There was no time to question the decision. He would have to depend on Jean Pierre making sure this was the most viable option. And of course they’d all have to stake their lives on Ágúst.

  Again, Jean Pierre didn’t hesitate. “Trust me when I say he’ll be fine.”

  Ted immediately knew this to be the best solution. So did everyone else on the bridge. Ted had explained to them earlier that the crazies seemed to ignore those who were also infected, even those like Ágúst, who were infected but hadn’t become violent like the others. He’d be perfect for this, assuming he remained sane, and they had enough time. He didn’t want to even look out at their looming target.

  They could all feel its proximity.

  65

  Becoming

  Jörgen busied himself on his console, focusing on the only thing he had control over at this moment. He had had an idea. And it seemed to be working. Like other helm controls, he didn’t have manual controls over the stabilizers. They were automatically being controlled by their systems. But he was able to feed false compass data into their NACOS, causing it to automatically adjust the port stabilizers and move them slightly to port. If he’d thought of this sooner, he might have been able to steer them completely away from the island. But they were too close for that now. With a little luck, it should be enough to place them over the Nordeste Bank, a low-lying underwater mountain of sand and rock, barely two hundred feet from the surface. His ECDIS display, as well as movement of the island across their bridge windows, told him this was working. Thank God, at least these controls are still functioning, he thought.