by Z. A. Recht
“How long will that take?” Rebecca asked. “I mean, a person starves in about a week. The infected people on the other side of that canal have been about for weeks now.”
“Maybe a lot of them starved days ago. Maybe we’re just seeing the new recruits,” Sherman replied.
Rebecca let herself delve into the possibilities.
“Well, maybe it alters their metabolism. Can a virus do that? I really don’t know. I can splint a broken leg but I don’t know thing one about viruses.”
“I don’t know either. We’ve got eggheads who work on that stuff,” Sherman said. “They build the saw and hand it to me. I do the cutting.”
Rebecca glanced askew at the General, who was studiously ignoring the girl. “So you have read Heinlein.”
The General smiled wordlessly.
“General!” came a gruff voice. Sherman swiveled his head and spied Sergeant Major Thomas jogging over to them. The sergeant slowed to a walk and saluted. From the ground, Rebecca smiled and waved at him. Thomas didn’t acknowledge her existence.
Sherman returned the salute. “What’s the news, Thomas?”
“Satcom’s got an update for you, sir. They think you might want to come have a look,” Sergeant Major Thomas said.
“Oh, for Chrissake, Thomas, I don’t need to verify every time a city on the continent catches fire or put my signature on bad weather reports.”
“They strongly recommend you have a look, sir,” Sergeant Major Thomas said, features expressionless. General Sherman had known Thomas long enough to know when he was being deadly serious.
“Alright, alright,” Sherman said after a moment, pulling himself to his feet with a heavy-winded sigh. “Lead on.”
“Have fun,” said Rebecca. She lifted the binoculars back to her eyes as a third shot rang out. The final shambler in the group pitched face-first into the sand. “Oh, got him,” she whispered.
Thomas opened the door to the trailer that held the satellite communication equipment for the encampment and propped it open with one arm, letting the General enter. There was a young lieutenant in charge, leaning over the shoulder of one of his subordinates as they studied a display. As Sherman walked in, the lieutenant spied him and snapped to attention.
“Group, atten-HUT!”
The soldiers began scrambling to their feet, but Sherman waved them off.
“As you were,” he said quickly. “What’s the problem, lieutenant?”
“Sir!” said the young officer. “We’ve got a few interesting images off the continent from one of our spysats. We’ve been working on cleaning it up.”
Sherman pulled up a folding chair and propped one leg up, folding his arms across his knees as he looked at the screen the lieutenant was gesturing at.
“This is the east bank of the Nile near what’s left of Cairo. We’ve been monitoring the delta for the British battle group stationed there, trying to give them advance warning of any ships trying to clear the delta and hit the Mediterranean Sea. We’ve picked up trawlers, tugs, and even one kayak, and that lets the Brits—”
“Get to the point, Lieutenant. I was busy doing nothing when you called, and I’d like to get back to it.”
“Yes, sir. Anyway, our spysat’s delicate enough to pick up a single person from space. We tried focusing on Cairo to test it out, and we got this.”
The officer punched in a few commands and the image on the screen flicked to a closer-in shot of the burned out city. The streets looked strange, as if there were ants crawling all over the pavement. The image zoomed in closer, and Sherman saw that what he had thought to be ants were actually carriers. Thousands of them.
“We backtracked through the spysat memories and found out these infected are the refugees that stayed behind in Cairo after the fires. Morningstar must have reached them. We’re thinking one of the sprinters made good time and started spreading the disease from further south. But that’s not the disturbing part.”
The image changed again. Sherman noticed the timestamp was dated only a couple hours before.
This one showed the multitude of carriers flowing across the bridges, heading east. Heading straight towards the Sinai desert—and the Suez Canal.
“At first we thought they’d actually grouped together, formed a battle plan, and decided to head for us,” explained the officer. “We double-checked and realized there was one more refugee who decided to make a run for it. He’s in a semi trailer headed our way now. Unfortunately for us, half the city noticed his exit and decided to chase him.”
The Satcom image switched to the overhead view of a truck barreling through the desert. It was halfway between Cairo and Suez. The carriers were miles and miles behind, but they had a single-mindedness about them. They’d head in the direction their prey went until they ran him down—or found new prey.
Sherman now knew why Thomas had insisted he see what Satcom had to say.
“How long until they reach Suez?” he whispered.
“The sprinters slowed down once the truck was out of sight,” the officer said. “They’re moving at a nice walk, about two miles per hour. We’ve got some time on our hands. But they’ll be knocking at the door very soon.”
“Where?”
“Suez, down at the Red Sea end. The truck driver’s thinking of using the tunnel, I think. Too bad we blew it up, sir.”
They were at El Ferdan now, north of where the carriers would approach the canal. The soldiers were dug in along the length of the canal, but if there was going to be a duke-out at a certain point, he wanted to be in the thick of it. No, more than that. As the ranking officer present, it was his duty to be in the thick of it. Sherman looked at the images a moment longer before turning to face Sergeant Major Thomas.
“Thomas, let’s pack up. We’re going to Suez.”
Washington, D.C.
January 5, 2007
2045 hrs_
“Is all this cloak-and-dagger stuff really necessary?” asked Julie Ortiz from behind her oversized aviator sunglasses. She was sitting in the booth farthest from the door in a mom-and-pop restaurant. The place was dimly lit and the waitresses were surly, but the food was decent. That was one of the only things keeping her from leaving. The other thing keeping her from running to the nearest three-star establishment was her companion.
“Yes, it is,” said Anna Demilio from the opposite side of the booth, her back to the door. She was dressed in civilian clothes and wore a faded baseball cap. “I already found three bugs in my apartment. They’re really watching everyone who could spill the beans about Morningstar.”
“How do you know they’re not watching us right now?” asked Julie, smirking.
“They probably are. But I wanted to take some precautions anyway,” said Anna. “What have they been feeding you about Morningstar?”
“The usual crap,” Julie replied, sipping on a mug of coffee. “How it’s completely contained now, casualty figures, cost estimates on rebuilding an entire continent once it dies down.”
“Hmm,” Anna murmured, spreading butter across a slice of toast. “Maybe I’m deluding myself with the idea that the virus is going to jump continents. Maybe I’m underestimating the military’s ability to contain it.”
“Now you sound like them,” Julie said, frowning. “It’s a fucking virus. It’s not an enemy army. You can’t shoot a virus or aim a missile at it. You can’t lock your door and hope it’ll knock first. It’ll find a way in.”
“I know, I know! I’m the epidemiologist, remember?” said Anna. “But this virus really needs a host to spread. We’ve been doing experiments. Some species are natural carriers and never develop any symptoms. Remember Reston?”
Julie gave Anna a blank look.
“Ebola Reston?” Anna prompted.
Still, Julie looked blank.
“Ebola Reston is a strain named after Reston, Virginia. A primate house there noticed a few of the monkeys were becoming sick with a kind of hemorrhagic fever. They sent samples to the CDC and USAMRII
D, and it came back positive for Ebola. At first it was completely hushed up, and we sent biohazard teams in to sterilize the facility and quarantine the workers. You media types got suspicious, but all you got were pictures of us in containment suits and a little speculation from onlookers. We killed all the primates inside, disposed of the bodies, and nuked the place with chemicals. For a couple days, the Reston primate house was the only place on Earth where absolutely nothing lived.”
Julie shuddered a little at the thought of the place being completely devoid of any kind of life, even viral.
“Turns out we were lucky. The strain only manifested in certain simian species. The workers in the house contracted the virus, of course, but never developed any symptoms. Today, in the U.S., there are probably thousands of people carrying around Ebola Reston from that one little outbreak. God knows what would’ve happened if it had been any other strain.”
“So you mean there could be monkeys carrying around Morningstar? So what? They’ll stay in Africa.”
“Exactly,” Anna said through a mouthful of toast. “It needs human hosts—the ones susceptible to it—to really spread. So, I mean, theoretically, if we contain the human hosts, maybe we really can contain the virus.”
“Yeah, but if just one of the carriers got past the blockades—”
“Let’s not think about that. But let me say that while the theory of containment is sound, Africa is a huge fucking continent. There’s no way to cover every little egress port without stretching ourselves so thin that the line would become unsound. We do have all the ground routes off the continent covered well, though, so unless a carrier knows how to operate a ship or fly an airliner, we might be okay.”
“Right, right. I already know all this,” Julie said. “We’ve been debating it with the talking heads on all the major networks for weeks now. What’s this big secret you wanted to tell me?”
“Alright. You might want to put down that coffee cup first,” Anna began, nodding at the mug in Julie’s hands. Julie set it down slowly. “Ready?”
Julie nodded, leaning forward in anticipation.
Anna announced in a low voice, “Morningstar reanimates dead hosts.”
Julie blinked at the doctor. After a moment, she chuckled.
“You’ve got to be shitting me. I was hoping for science fact, not fiction.”
“It is science fact,” said Anna, pulling a folded manila envelope from her pocket and laying it out on the table. “Look.”
Julie pulled out the contents of the folder. There were medical charts, x-rays, graphs, and a few glossy black-and-white file photos. She focused on these, setting aside the other items.
The first picture showed a thirty-something man strapped to an examination table. His face was contorted into a feral snarl and he shimmered with sweat. His hair was unkempt, and he was drooling slightly. One of his hands was bloody and his skin was scratched all over as if he had run through a thicket of thorn bushes.
“This is Dr. Klaus Mayer,” said Anna, explaining. “He was brought over by the Air Force from Mombasa hospital in the first days of the epidemic. What you’re seeing here is a man who has succumbed to the Morningstar strain. At this point he was running a fever of around one hundred and six Fahrenheit, his pulse and respiration were rapid and his brain waves were highly erratic. He was openly hostile to anything around him that was alive. We experimented and found he wasn’t just hostile towards human beings. He reacted the same way to lab rats we left in the room—rabbits, goats, anything with a pulse. This is the side of Morningstar you’re familiar with.”
“Yes,” said Julie, scrutinizing the photo. “I’ve seen pictures of other victims. They look just like this Mayer guy.”
“Look at the next one.”
Julie flipped to the second photo. This one showed doctors in surgical gear gathered around Klaus Mayer. Julie recognized Anna in the photo, even behind her protective glasses and face mask. There was a man in the foreground cradling a .30-06 rifle in his hands. Julie felt her stomach knot up.
“We had some new information at this point in the study from a military official who’s rather high-up,” Anna explained, not mentioning General Sherman’s name. “It seemed rather unbelievable, but I trust my source, so we decided to test the theory. Next picture.”
Julie flipped. The third photo showed a close-up of Klaus Mayer on the examination table. There was a bloody hole center mass, and his eyes were no longer hostile—they were glazed over and half closed. His head had rolled limply to one side and his arms and legs no longer fought against the restraints that held him to the table.
“We shot Dr. Mayer through the chest at almost point-blank range,” Anna said.
“I can see why you’ve been keeping this a secret. The humanitarian groups would be all over you for this.”
“No,” said Anna. “I’m not so much worried about shooting Mayer as I am about what happened next.”
Julie flipped to the fourth and final photo. She gasped. Dr. Mayer was struggling against his restraints again, mouth open in a growl at the cameraman. He was no longer sweating, but he was definitely alive and animated.
“Dr. Mayer reanimated a few hours after we killed him,” Anna explained. “He had a pulse and his respiratory system was functioning, but at almost undetectable levels. His brain activity, on the other hand, went off the chart. It’s as if his brain went into hyper-speed when he reanimated, with synapses firing at around six times the normal rate for a healthy human.”
“He’s a zombie,” breathed Julie.
“I suppose by definition he would be,” Anna said. “But we at USAMRIID don’t use sci-fi terms. We prefer to call him a deceased ambulatory viral host.”
“So he’s a zombie,” said Julie, still focused on the picture.
Anna rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
“Are all the carriers like this?”
“No,” Anna said. “Most of them are living victims. They exist in a kind of fever-dream from what we’ve learned. Think rabies crossed with some of the early symptoms of traditional hemorrhagic fever. If they’re killed, they die like anyone else. I don’t think that Klaus Mayer is aware he’s still moving around. Before we shot him, I’m sure there was a shred of consciousness left within him. No, Dr. Mayer is truly dead and gone. His body, on the other hand, is still making the rounds. We think the virus assumes direct control of the host if the host itself kicks the bucket. Sort of like switching from autopilot to manual.”
“Is this why . . .” Julie began.
“ . . . Some of the carriers are so slow? Yes,” replied Anna. “The virus seems to play off the reflex actions of the host body to keep it moving. That’s why they seem so drunken and hesitant in their movements. Also, the body’s dead. It’s beginning to decay. The viruses can still reproduce in the cells that haven’t died and decayed, but the body loses more and more mobility every passing day. We tested Dr. Mayer’s corpse. He still reacts to stimuli as he did when alive, but it’s like he’s really high, or mentally retarded. Just as hostile as ever once you manage to get his attention though.”
Julie said nothing for a minute, then suddenly blurted all at once, “This is beyond amazing. This is the story of a lifetime. No, this is the story of the century—millennium, even! This is the story to end all stories!”
“Be careful what you do with that,” Anna said sharply, nodding at the envelope. “You can do what you want with it. It’s yours to use. But think of the ramifications of publishing that story.”
Julie’s star-struck expression faded slightly.
“Yeah. I see what you mean. There’d be the religious groups who would call it the end of the world, fanatics would snap, people would organize mass suicides . . . I remember what happened when the comet passed by Earth a few years ago.”
“Hale-Bopp,” said Anna. “Organized suicides all over the world. People thought it signaled the coming of the messiah. The morons.”
“Not to mention the riots,” Julie said. “Anytim
e there’s news that even hints at something destabilizing there’s always a rush to the stores to stock up on toilet paper and skim milk.”
“There would be people getting trampled to death, killed for a loaf of bread, shot for a gallon of gasoline,” agreed Anna. “So it’s my advice to you to weigh your options. On the one hand, you can keep this a secret and keep lying to the world about the seriousness of this virus.”
“And on the other hand, I could tell the world and maybe kill thousands in the process.”
“Yeah. Funny how when you finally know the truth, the temptation to keep it secret starts to nag at you. So I guess the question you have to ask yourself now, Julie, is this: how many lives is the truth worth?”
Julie looked down at the manila envelope and photographs in front of her. Her coffee mug sat forgotten on the table, tendrils of steam winding their way into the air. Finally, she looked up and fixed Anna with a stare.
“I guess I really don’t have much of a choice,” Julie said. “I know what I have to do.”
Sinai Desert
January 7, 2007
1302 hrs_
The ancient cassette player duct-taped to the dashboard of the deuce-and-a-half that was rumbling through the desert suddenly died, fading quickly to silence.
“Fucknuts!” swore Private First Class Ewan Brewster, beating on the recorder with the flat of his palm.
“Could you maybe watch the road?” said the man riding in the cab alongside the private.
“What? Oh, yeah, you got it, bro. Got any double-A’s on you? This sonufabitch eats batteries for breakfast,” Brewster said. “You’re a photographer, right, Denton? Don’t you guys have batteries for your flashes?”
Freelance photographer Sam Denton grinned wryly behind his dark sunglasses. He wordlessly reached into one of the pockets of his sand-colored utility vest and pulled out a small plastic box.
“Couple watch batteries and three double-A’s,” Denton said, waving the box under Brewster’s nose. The private flicked his eyes between the road and the box. Finally he made a grab for it. The photographer snatched the box back, shaking his head.
“These go in my expense report. I need to be in the black after this assignment—I’ve got a motorcycle payment to make next month.”