Technosis: The Kensington Virus

by Morgan Bell

  “The chef killer too?” Jamie asked.

  “Both parents were dead before he attacked the chef. Seems no one noticed until the police came to visit the house as part of their investigation into chef’s murder,” Angie said.

  “Five killers. No obvious connections and all of them are now ghosts in the wind,” Dennis observed.

  “So what do you think?” Jamie asked.

  Dennis shrugged.

  “It could be that one of them used the other profiles to bury their erasure. I mean, if we had just one then we’d know, right?” Marshall said.

  “So one wiped the other four off the records so they could hide that they had wiped their own?” Angie asked.

  “Or five of them all did the same thing. I mean we are talking about the entire United States. It’s not like they had to know about each other,” Dennis said.

  The team looked at the five cases on the board. “I just had a very disturbing thought,” Jamie announced.

  “More disturbing than five tech killers who are off the network and wandering around killing people with tech?” Angie asked.

  “What you were saying before, about our assumptions. It got me thinking; how many tech killers have gotten away with it and we haven’t any record of them?” Jamie said.

  Dennis put a hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “This is like the drunk under the street light.”

  “What do you mean?” Jamie asked.

  “The drunk was crawling around under the street light and a police officer came along and asked him, ‘What are you doing?’ The drunk says ‘I lost my wallet and I’m trying to find it.’ So the cop starts to look around with him, and not seeing it, says, ‘Are you sure you dropped it here?’ and the drunk says, ‘No, I dropped it back there.’ He pointed to the end of the block where the light was out. The cop says ‘Then why the hell are you looking over here?’ and he says …”

  “Because the light is better over here,” Angie finished Dennis’ joke.

  “Well, in this case this is where the light is,” Dennis said, reddening at having his joke finished for him. “And we will start with this until someone can show us someplace better to look.”

  There was a knock at the door and Marshall opened it. It was a younger soldier, and his face was pale; he snapped a quick salute. “Sir, the general wants you and your team in the command center now.”

  “What happened?” Marshall asked, returning the salute

  “Sir, I can’t explain it. I just know you have to get over there, now,” the soldier said, then saluted and left.

  “Bring the five files; we might not get back here.”

  ∞

  Brenda was happy to get out of the house and down to the federal commercial center for some shopping. Paul had been working long hours at the federal transportation production facility north of Pontiac. He’d been one of the three hundred federal supervisors retained during the last reorganization. It had meant putting in uncompensated hours and hiding it to meet his efficiency reviews. But that was the price you paid for the federal retirement benefits. Anyone who knew anything knew that. You worked forty hours unpaid overtime, falsified the records and achieved your 72% efficiency rating. Now, with Paul at twenty five years in, he only needed twelve more months to get the full benefits. That was how Brenda finally convinced Paul to take her to the commercial center.

  “We are a year out from your retirement,” she’d said. “We need to start thinking about clothes for our move to Arizona.”

  Paul, who normally used Sunday to catch up on his sleep, saw the futility of arguing with Brenda, and agreed to take her shopping. As long as it wasn’t anywhere that they would face enforcement monitors.

  “We’ll just go to the federal commercial center,” she agreed.

  The afternoon had gone well. Paul hadn’t complained when she stopped to try on shoes. He’d even encouraged her to buy a pair. Then she’d taken him to the federal clothing outlet and had him try on shorts and shirts for their move to Arizona. He was modeling them for her when a communication came through for him. He fumbled with his pants in the changing room to retrieve his federally issued panel to take the message. Brenda didn’t see him for several minutes. He walked out of the changing room, still in the shorts, a loud Hawaiian style shirt and his black socks and black dress shoes.

  “Paul?” Brenda asked, following after her husband.

  “Sir, you are going to need to go back to the changing room,” a clerk tried to intercept him.

  Brenda saw her husband do something she’d never seen him do in her entire life. He struck the clerk square in the face. The clerk folded up on the floor and didn’t move.

  “Paul!” Brenda was now yelling.

  The HDMP officer who was assigned to the federal commercial center first floor had spent most of his shift chasing off students and ticketing non-federal workers for entering a restricted commercial facility. What he’d not seen all day, was a man in his mid-forties, dressed in Bermuda shorts, Hawaiian shirt, black socks and dress shoes. Which might explain why Paul was able to take the weapon from the officer. That event would be the last thing Brenda, the HDMP officer and Paul would ever experience in this life.

  ∞

  In the command center the general was barking out orders as men and women ran talked into headset.

  “Marshall! Baxter!” the general yelled, seeing them arrive. “We are deploying you to the Midwest. Get your kits and be back here in ten minutes.”

  Marshall saluted with a, “ Yes, sir,” and trotted off to his quarters.

  Baxter, still not used to his recent title of “officer,” stood still and asked a question instead. “Why, general?”

  The general’s face reddened but he contained himself and said, “The situation has changed. I will be briefing you when you are back here in nine minutes and fifty seconds with your kit ready to go.”

  “Yes, sorry. Ah, sir,” Baxter tried to do a salute but it became more of a fluttering wave with his hand missing his forehead and drifting off. Then Baxter turned and trotted back to his quarters to pack.

  As he went down the hall he saw Sergeant Rosen coming out of his quarters with his backpack, weapon, bedroll and a case of ammunition.

  “Looks like we’re going back into the shit,” Rosen smiled.

  “Any idea where?” Jamie asked.

  “Midwest is all I know. I expect they’ll tell us when they need to,” Rosen said, and walked down the hall back to the command center.

  Jamie got to his quarters and packed. He had his kit and his machete ready and was back at the command center with two minutes to spare. The general glanced at his watch. He saw that his troop were assembled, and nodded to a sergeant who yelled, “Attention!”

  The troops snapped to attention.

  “Thirty minutes ago we received reports that indicate a new threat. The KV virus has either changed or a new variant has been released,” the general said solemnly.

  A panel in the wall lit up and there was an image of a man obsessively sending messages on his phone. “This man was recorded ten hours ago. Based on his thermal profile he was ten minutes dead and this happened.”

  The man dropped his panel and ran up to a HDMP officer, disarmed him, killed him and then started shooting other people. The man made it down a hall, went into a side room, was out of sight for fifteen seconds and then there was an explosion.

  “We missed three earlier cases of this because two were postal workers and one was a civil servant with the IRS. Those were mistaken for normal workplace incidents. Now we have two hundred fifty seven episodes recorded in the last twelve hours. This isn’t appreciably higher than our normal number of homicides in this country. But one hundred of those happened in the European Union, fifty in Russia, seven in England, five in China and one hundred and forty in the US,” the general explained as a hot spot globe appeared on the display.

  “The distribution of these were in major metropolitan areas. Again, the numbers are lost in our normal homicid
e patterns. Except that seventy percent of these occurred in Detroit and the incidents appear to be accelerating. Based on our best projections, if we do not shut down the Detroit outbreak, we will see Detroit fall in four days.”

  There was an isolated murmur audible to everyone present among the assembled troops.

  “Who was that?” the general demanded.

  A hand went up. “Me, sir.”

  The general narrowed his gaze and the corner of his mouth twitched up perceptibly before resuming its reproachful scowl. “Captain Blaise, why am I not surprised? Please share with us your insight into the present situation.”

  Captain Blaise, a man in his early forties, with a lean, long build and scar extending from his left cheek to the tip of his jaw, said, “Sir, I was observing the fact that Detroit fell in 2014.”

  “That is correct, Captain. Then later, the state of Michigan fell, which is why Detroit is a special case for us. The 2024 Michigan Reorganization Act made Detroit the first city to be fully federally wired with the new tech grid. We suspect this is why it is being targeted; to test the new grid. We believe if the grid can be compromised we will see a ramp up in attacks against the E.U. grid cities and the partially wired Metroplexes of North America. Which is why you, Captain Blaise, and your colleague, Captain Bocholt, will be inserting our response teams into the Detroit red zone.”

  An expanded map of street level Detroit appeared on the panel. “You will be operating under Federal Homeland Domestic Military Police cover. The vehicles, the uniforms and the operations will all appear to be HDMP operations. The civil authority in Detroit is unaware of the situation and is not, I repeat, not, to be informed or otherwise communicated with.”

  “Sir,” Captain Blaise asked, “what are our urban engagement parameters for achieving our objective?”

  “Essentially unlimited, captain. You will be issued general Homeland warrants which will give you access to all facilities, domiciles and buildings under a domestic terrorism event. Obviously we want to limit collateral damage. But we are to aggressively pursue immediate containment. If you fail to do so the kill switch option has been authorized. So, for you, there is no fall back option.”

  Everyone was silent. “Specialists, acquisition of samples is a secondary objective. Tech, live subjects and data are to be captured and preserved when possible. But time is limited and we cannot provide ongoing support for transport for samples until the primary objective is fully achieved. So make your collections with that in mind. Lieutenant Marshall, you and Lieutenant Baxter are being sent with other members of your team to assist and, if the opportunity presents itself, pursue your investigations. Again, let me stress, the containment is primary. Your transports are waiting. Good luck and good hunting,” the general said, and then saluted.

  The body of assembled troops saluted and even Jamie managed to approximate a decent salute. “Dismissed,” the general ordered, and the troops rushed off at a trot to the transport bay.

  A sergeant ran out behind them and caught up with the captains, handing them tablets.

  CHAPTER 9

  DETROIT BRESERKER RESPONSE TEAMS

  By the time Jamie was out at his designated transport deployment assembly point, Captain Blaise was yelling at the sergeant who had given him the tablet. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” he roared.

  “Sir, it’s all right there,” the sergeant said.

  “And you want me to believe this was a random name assignment?” Captain Blaise asked.

  “Sir, it’s what the system generated,” the sergeant explained.

  “Bullshit,” Captain Blaise spluttered.

  “I’m sorry but -”

  “Never mind. Thank you, sergeant, that will be all,” Captain Blaise said.

  “All right everyone, listen up. Some smart ass has given us our official operation name. It is ‘Escape From Detroit.’ If that one doesn’t cause you to bust a gut laughing, we are officially known as ‘Team Lemming.’” Captain Blaise addressed the group. No one laughed.

  “The only good news in all of this is we will be traveling by black helicopter. Which, frankly, is my preference. We will have three hours and thirty minutes travel time. We will arrive at HDMP air base near Dearborn, refuel and immediately deploy in Detroit. Our operation parameters include the eastern and southern suburbs. I will transmit your team data files after we board.”

  “I see several of you whom I’ve worked with before. Lieutenant Fenwick, Sergeant Rosen, Agent Ganos, Agent Drake, good to see you all again. Those of you whom I haven’t worked with, Dr. Baxter, Lieutenant Marshall, glad to meet you. Don’t get yourselves killed. Remember, success requires no explanations, just take the damn bow. Catastrophic cluster fox trots end up in boxes. Everything else involves interviews where the less said the better. Team Lemming, head on out.”

  Captain Blaise led them out to the tarmac where the helicopter was sitting idle.

  “Who’s flying this?” Jamie asked Rosen.

  “Blaise,” Rosen said, nodding toward the captain who was starting his preflight check with Lieutenant Fenwick.

  “He’s the leader and the pilot?” Jamie asked as they got into the helicopter and moved to their seats along the cabin wall.

  “Blaise and Bocholt have been running insertion teams since just after the virus broke out, B & B. Bocholt is by the book, Blaise, not so much,” Rosen said, strapping in.

  “How do you mean?” Jamie asked, securing his own five point harness.

  “Jericho was the first one to develop the head, hands, tech approach.” Agent Ganos said, climbing in next to Jamie.

  “Yeah, he called it lateral thinking,” Rosen sneered.

  “Some lateral thinking,” Drake observed, harnessing in opposite them. “He was cornered with a group of KV’s and said, ‘Fuck this,’ tossed a grenade and went back to see what was still moving.”

  “Well,” Angie pointed out, “it worked. He saw that if you didn’t take out head, hands and tech they kept going.”

  Drake laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Angie asked.

  “Did you look at your assignment tablet?” Drake asked.

  Angie and Jamie both opened their assignment tablet cases and checked the download. A detailed report on the new version of the virus was there with information not part of the briefing.

  “Do you see what they are saying?”

  According to the report the new strain caused the victim to repeat, “Industrial Meat Puppet. Industrial Meat Puppet.”

  “It looks like we are starting to get the designer’s political message,” Jamie said.

  “Yes, I saw that. But do you see what they are calling these?” Drake laughed.

  “KVB?” Jamie asked.

  “Kensington Virus Berserker” Drake said.

  “Berserker?” Jamie shook his head.

  “Berserker. The ancient Norse warrior, Odin’s chosen, Úlfhéðnar. Insane, invincible warriors who worked themselves up into a frenzy and ran into battle without armor and were supposedly unstoppable by fire or steel,” Drake explained. “Someone over in central command is definitely getting whimsical.”

  “Go Team Lemming!” they heard Captain Blaise announce over the intercom. “We will be lifting off. We have Lieutenant Fleming in the left seat. In the event everything goes all brown trousers the lieutenant will be in charge, and what will you do for me lieutenant?”

  “Pack you a bag,” Fenwick said over the communications channel.

  “And?” Captain Blaise asked.

  “Give you a ride.”

  “That’s right, pack me a bag and give me a ride,” Captain Blaise said to Fenwick. Then he turned to everyone else in the helicopter, “Please enjoy your next three and a half hours of flight. I will point out sites of interest as we travel across America’s heartland. There will be no in flight service and there will be no seatbelt sign. If you need to use the bathroom you will find we are equipped with one, please try and time your visit when we don’t have any tur
bulence.

  The helicopter propellers began to spin. “We appreciate you have no choice in your travel arrangements. Which is why we are proud that you’ve been forced to fly Black Helicopter Express, where we’ve been keeping the public guessing since 1996.”

  The helicopter lifted off, rose to 19,000 feet while drifting forward, then suddenly accelerated, and Jamie had the sick feeling of being thrown into a express train three and a half miles in the air.

  “Just like the roller-coasters at Cedar Point!” Rosen hooted.

  “Do they last three and a half hours?” Jamie asked, as another wave of nausea hit him.

  “No, and neither does this. The acceleration kick evens out in a few seconds. Just wait for your ears to sort it out. But don’t close your eyes.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’ll throw up because your ears won’t have a horizon reference,” Rosen said.

  ∞

  Sharon Quaid was sitting in the food court in Canton, Michigan, with her three children. She had them once a month as part of the joint parenting agreement. Philip, Rick and Randy were all demanding that she take them down to the entertainment center on the third floor.

  “You have a system at home,” Sharon said, knowing that this was the standard, “How much do you love me” demand that came with her infrequent contact with her kids.

  “It’s not the same,” Randy, the youngest, argued.

  Sharon looked at Randy; he was the test. Every time the older two would put him up to doing the begging to see if Mom could hold up.

  “Randy, you are getting older,” she pointed out, by way of an opening on the subject of the fact that this wasn’t cute anymore.

  “So are you, Mom,” he countered, taking care to keep his face a picture of innocence.

  “You remind me a lot of your father,” she grumbled, getting a credit transfer stick that she’d brought with her in anticipation of exactly this sort of demand.

  She set the stick on the table and used her panel to load it. “There is enough on there for the three of you to play two games,” she told Randy, and handed it to him.