by JT Sawyer
Ivins felt his skin crawling as he looked around the room and then back at the suffering girl. “What the hell is going on here? This is like the scene Reisner happened upon at that estate in Savannah. What are these mother-fucking creatures trying to do to these kids? And how did they even acquire the ability to give an IV?”
“My only suggestion—and it’s not a guarantee, as it was formulated strictly for treating the bites of drones—is to risk using one of our personal vaccinations on her.”
Ivins looked down at the suffering girl, whose breathing had become more labored since they arrived. “Do it! Then we’ll get her back to the quarantine area at MacDill.” He opened a flap in his vest and removed his own vial of the serum, thrusting it into Kendrick’s palm. “Take care of her while I get these other kids out of here.”
He swung around and motioned to the other children to follow. He tapped on his ear-mic, alerting the others outside that he would be sending through three kids. When he was done, he heard Murph’s voice ring through his ears.
“We need to stow and go, sir. This area has to be hot with activity, given what I just learned from Chance. This is some kind of staging area for the paras.”
“More like a testing ground of some kind.” He coaxed the first two kids through the opening. Pausing with Tessa, he heard a grating sound emanating from the hallway near the elevators, then saw the emergency exit door to the stairwell open.
The little girl gasped, trying to run back towards the counter. Ivins caught her by the shirt sleeve and spun Tessa around, thrusting the girl through the opening in the lobby door.
Standing up, he saw the silhouette of a ghastly alpha dart between recesses by each elevator. “Contact!” said Ivins into his earpiece. He knew that if there was a single beast like this, there was bound to be an army of drones nearby. “Murph, get those kids to the helo—they’re gonna need a head-start—then circle back in the helo for us.” As he sprinted towards Kendrick, who was carrying the slumped child on his shoulder, Ivins fixed his AR on the hallway ahead. He heard the stamp of feet overhead and saw hundreds of creatures flowing into the halls from the suites above. Their enraged eyes were aglow like crystalline amber from the faint hue of the orange chem-lights.
Suddenly, it felt like the immense lobby was beginning to collapse in on them as he and Kendrick backpedaled towards the narrow opening.
Chapter 9
Aspen Pharmaceutical Distributors
Charleston, SC
Roland sat on the floor of the warehouse, watching in fascination as the images of an impending attack against his brood unfolded inside the lobby of a hotel many miles to the west in a coastal region. He could see two soldiers quickly moving towards a small hole torn in the front door. One of them was carrying a young girl—the same child Roland had instructed his alpha to place an IV in the day before. Like the others in the girl’s group, the transfused blood taken from the alpha there wasn’t being accepted into her body, and Roland knew she would soon perish.
So, the field tests would seem to indicate that transformation from human to our side won’t work with fluid taken from others of my kind either. He heard a volley of gunfire echo through his brain as the first soldier began shooting while the other slipped out through the opening with the girl. He spoke directly into the mind of the advancing alpha in the lobby. None of those things are of any use to us now—kill them all.
Roland withdrew his mind, returning to his present location. He looked back at Katherine, who was sitting on the cold concrete floor, her eyes barely open. He could tell the long walk here had strained her already fatigued body. Since she had suffered such grievous wounds in the battle at MacDill, her physical strength had waned. The burns on her left arm, face, and back made thermoregulation difficult, and Roland knew she was expending more energy than the other alphas in masking her heat signature. He wanted to help her, but his own abilities were strained, and he needed all of his attention for communicating with his alphas.
Her eyelids fluttered open, her mind awoken by Roland’s mental probing of her condition. She glanced up at the steel girders in the ceiling and then around at the pallets of supplies lining each aisle.
Why are we here in this place?
For food—the chemicals and medicinal compounds here will provide us with the hormones we need. He glanced back over his shoulder towards several laptops sitting on a corner desk near the back entrance. And also to find someone.
She leaned her charred head against the bricks, which caused several pieces of crisped skin to flake off like chipped paint. Katherine closed her eyes, her body slumping.
Rest for now, my sister.
He turned his gaze upon the five-gallon glass tank of solution on the counter to his right. An hour earlier, he had filled a third of it with the ingredients for making the precious synthetic hormone solution he and his alphas needed to consume three times a day. Moving closer, he removed the aeration hose that had been circulating the chemicals into their present slurry, then he grabbed a steel scalpel from a rolling tray and sliced open the brachial artery on his left arm. He flexed his bicep, releasing six small parasites. They plopped into the clear broth and began vigorously gulping up the fluid with their tiny triangular heads. Roland felt a burst of endorphins in his own body. He could see the incision in his artery already fusing back together with a thick latticework of worms.
He suspected the reason his previous plan of using intravenous fluid hadn’t worked on humans was because the concoction wasn’t strong enough to destabilize their physiology long enough for the worms to take over without killing the subject. He had kept meticulous mental notes on his experiments, running down the list associated with each category in his trials at the greenhouse, in the hotel lobby, and amongst other alphas around the world. Women who are already pregnant are too immune-compromised and under greater strain than normal, so the body’s network of organs collapses; older adults beyond thirty have a reduced adrenal capacity and do not have nearly enough hormones to supply nourishment to the parasites in their system; very young children haven’t developed their adrenals to a significant degree yet, so the parasites perish, creating toxins in the bloodstream and killing the subject.
Roland suddenly stopped, his eyes flitting about the glass tank as the worms continued their drinking frenzy. He could feel their delight at being cocooned in such succulence, and he suddenly knew the answer that he had sought for so long. Adolescents—those on the cusp of adrenal development. Their vibrant young bodies pump out the precious fluid continually to spur their growth. They might survive the transformation. He balled up his fists and slammed them against the brick wall, causing rivulets of concrete dust to spiral into the air like gray phantoms that he had summoned from their confinement.
He was pleased with his new scheme, and he knew the parasites swimming in the viscous fluid would soon grow large enough to be effective in hijacking the nervous system of a young human. Now, all he had to do was wait for them to grow. He stood over the tank, like a hopeful farmer admiring a healthy crop.
He looked back at Kat again. Yes, rest. We will be here for a while, I think. He sat back down on the floor beside his sister, peering up at the faint sunlight streaking in through a small window in the ceiling. Perhaps, within these walls our race’s future will be secured. He turned around and peered at the voluminous boxes lining the shelves of the warehouse. Most were carefully stacked ninety feet high to the steel girders of the ceiling, and Roland walked slowly down each aisle, inspecting the labels to see if anything else could be of use. He had already discovered sufficient amounts of the raw ingredients for creating enough synthetic hormones to last for a month if necessary, though it was risky to stay put in one region. Ultimately his goal was to reach some place that the U.S. military couldn’t touch and where the bioagent hadn’t gained a foothold amongst the Others. Given what he had gathered from his alphas in the surrounding states, most of the soldiers were focused on sending in scouting teams to the mediu
m- and larger-sized cities in the Southeastern U.S. to flush out his brood, which was why Roland thought it wise to stay in less developed regions, near the vast swamps dotting the Atlantic Coast. If we only had the means of leaving this country; then I could find a secure nest to rule from. If we remain here in this land, we will all surely be trapped, while the lesser members of our brood will face extinction at the hands of that biological weapon. He reflected back on the thousands of lives lost in Florida as the acrid-smelling yellow mist swept over the city of Tampa while the cries of anguish from his dying brood clawed at his psyche. He lowered his head, feeling their deaths all over again. He squeezed his fist, marveling at his physical strength but knowing it wasn’t enough to defeat the Others. I need more like me. He looked back at the vigorous movement in the glass tank. But what if this new plan fails?
As he walked to the end of the aisle, Roland came to a large workstation. On the steel table to the right were a dozen centrifuges and microscopes, along with several mortars and pestles. He found the blend of old and new technologies amusing, and he wondered how many of the drugs that he had used during a lifetime of coping with his blood cancer had been formulated in places like this before being shipped off to his pharmacist. He was taken with the irony that this warehouse was supplying him and his alphas with the needed drugs to sustain themselves, where it had once produced the drugs necessary to keep his frail body from being consumed by the cancer that had slowly ravaged him.
Looking at the company logo for Aspen Pharmaceuticals on the wall above the desk, Roland recalled the charitable fundraiser he did for Aspen’s corporate office, hoping to raise awareness of Polycythemia Vera. His eyes narrowed as he remembered his perfunctory attendance at the event, surrounded by a few dozen people who also suffered from the disease. With the financial support from Roland, Aspen Pharmaceuticals was able to provide the research and development for helping those with the affliction, starting with the individuals present at that first fundraiser three years ago.
He took a step forward, his mind racing back to that day. Roland felt the pressure in his neck increase slightly as a trickle of endorphins released into his veins. Yes, perhaps some of them survived. Besides the products filling the warehouse, it was his sense of hopefulness for another promising option that had brought them here.
He moved with haste towards the desk, examining the closed laptop as if staring at an artifact from a lost age. He sat down, powering on the device. Roland found himself clumsily trying to type search phrases to access the company database, but he only made a confusing mish-mash of words. He found his fingers didn’t possess the fine motor skills necessary to type effectively, so he resorted to awkwardly tapping each letter with his index finger. This lack of manual dexterity had puzzled him since his transformation, and he surmised it was from synaptic connections being short-circuited when the parasites infiltrated the cerebellum. It was also the reason why he had never attempted using any of his previous skills like driving, handling a knife, or shooting a weapon. He had tried to instruct his other alphas throughout the world to perform such tasks but also found they were lacking in the same fine motor skills, which relegated them to their raw strength and savagery for destroying the enemy. But what his body lacked in finesse, his intellect made up for in his ability to analyze incoming data on a global scale and then immediately formulate a strategic plan.
Arriving at a page for the fundraiser, he scanned the media shot taken the day of his attendance with his sister, which showed all of the participants. Roland scrolled down to the caption, studying the names of those present, then he went through the company archives, performing a search on the home addresses of the PV patients. He knew that many of them had to already be amongst his alphas in the outlying regions, but there was no way to sift through their psyches to pry out that information. He only knew whether they had once been male or female, their strength and mental acuity, the number of drones they commanded, and their physical location on the planet.
Roland felt another flutter of excitement in his neck as his eyes settled on one name on the list—a boy named Nicholas Schrade in the nearby city of Jamestown. If it can be called a city. With a former population of ninety-six people, it sounds like a bleak place to have lived.
He wasn’t sure if this Other was alive, but Roland did know that there were no adolescents amongst his brood of alphas in the Southeastern U.S. He leaned back in his chair, staring at the face of the young man. Not yet, anyway.
Chapter 10
After he helped pass the girl through the opening to Kendrick, Ivins locked his AR sights on the hallway by the elevator. He remained in place, waiting for the alpha hidden by the recesses near the elevator to make a move.
“Screw this.” He yanked a grenade off his vest and flung it over the center counter into the hall, then he scurried through the jagged hole in the entrance and flung another one onto the second-floor landing, where the drones were approaching.
Ivins picked up the unconscious girl and put her on his back in a fireman’s carry, clasping her right wrist and right ankle against his chest. Using his rifle was going to be a challenge, so he slung his AR and removed his Glock. From previous battles in large cities, he had come to expect the sound of drones clambering along the streets, so he found himself surprised at the absence of noise. He and Kendrick trotted along the avenue, seeing Murph and the others a quarter-mile ahead.
He kept glancing down the vacant alleys, expecting a legion of drones to be rushing at them.
“Something seem a little off to you?” Kendrick said.
“Was wondering that myself.” He stopped by an overturned ice-cream truck to adjust the girl’s body so she wasn’t bobbing against his shoulders.
He glanced down at the ground, his feet feeling something vibrating beneath the asphalt. The rattling increased, and the bicycles on the sidewalk began shaking, followed by items in some of the intact stores falling to the floor.
Ivins looked at Kendrick, both of them widening their eyes as they began to run. “I guess we found our answer.” A second later, the sewer grates and manholes along each street blew open, and a geyser of drones erupted from below.
Ivins and Kendrick sprinted away like they were competing for a track-and-field event as the limp girl bobbed up and down on Ivins’ shoulders. They both removed two canisters of the bioagent from their vests and flung them into the street behind them as they sped away. He knew from past experience that one canister was enough to kill approximately one hundred drones on a non-windy day with an ambient temperature of eighty degrees, but the increase in sound behind them made him doubt whether any of them had perished. Shit, this city is overrun.
Murph and the rest of the group were already at the park ahead, piling into the Blackhawk. Ivins could hear the rumble of feet continuing to grow and the ground continuing to shake, making him feel like he was back in California during an earthquake. He saw the Blackhawk lifting off and heard the chief’s voice inside his headset. “Commander, we are going to drop our biocanisters on the horde at your six. That should buy you some time to get to the park, after which we will circle back and retrieve you.”
“Copy that,” said Ivins, his voice shaky from his panting. Sounds good in theory, at least.
There were now hundreds of drones pouring in from the alleys on either side of them, flowing into the main artery of creatures at their back. Ivins could smell their musty body odor saturating the air and heard their growls increasing in intensity. Ivins dodged a fallen bicycle in the street, knowing that one trip now would mean certain death.
The Blackhawk raced directly towards them, slowing for a second to drop two dozen canisters. The streets began filling with a fine yellow mist, causing Ivins to cough. He and Kendrick darted around a toppled school bus, then headed for the park as the helicopter circled back. It landed near the playground, and Murph and the other SEALs hopped out with the heavy artillery.
Kendrick had been intentionally keeping pace with Ivins, bu
t now the medic raced ahead, grabbing one of the SAWs and joining the rest of the group. Ivins’ legs were burning, and he used his last burst of energy to push forward. Arriving at the helicopter, he placed the small girl inside with the other kids just as a barrage of gunfire rang out. The roar of miniguns and .50 cal machineguns caused the air to vibrate, and Ivins spun around to see a wall of drones being shredded into limbs, viscera, and flying bone. He removed his last biocanister from his vest and flung it into the growing horde behind the body pile, then yelled at his men to retreat. We must have already killed hundreds of them—how many are left in this city? He and Murph were the last ones on the field as two alphas burst from the heap of mangled corpses and bounded at them.
Too easy, Ivins thought. These things are smarter than that. He glanced to his right and saw two more alphas sprinting at them from the bushes. That’s more like it.
“You got those two?” he yelled at Murph.
“Hell yeah!”
Ivins kneeled and spun to the left, sending a half-dozen rounds into the spindly creature in coveralls on the right. Its scrawny neck and chest blew apart, leaving the head to flop backwards. Precision gunfire from the Blackhawk dropped the other alpha as Lemley sent a shredding volley of .50 cal bullets into the torso, blowing apart the ribcage and hips. The alpha dropped into a bloody heap of its own entrails and bone fragments, still trying to crawl on one arm towards the helicopter. Ivins steadied his scope on the creature’s head, then eased off his sights and turned to follow Murph back to the helo. As it lifted off, he watched an army of surviving drones continue to pour in from the streets and make their way towards the helpless alpha. They encircled it as the creature flopped on its shoulders, staring up at the Blackhawk.
Ivins raised up his middle finger, thrusting it out the open door towards the disfigured alpha. Relay this back to your leader.