by Scott Sigler
But without the Orbital, how would all these strains find each other? How could they work together?
The answer could be some kind of quorum sensing, the method hive insects, bacteria, and other nonintelligent life forms used to make what appeared to be conscious, intelligent choices: a bee colony “deciding” when to split into two smaller colonies and where to build the new nests; ants “deciding” how to best react to a threat; bacteria “deciding” to turn genes on or off based on population density. Chemical and physical cues led many individual organisms to act as a larger whole. The Converted clearly had a way of detecting one another and quickly forming cohesive units.
Maybe the crawlers provided a capacity to identify friend from foe. The best scientists in the world still hadn’t figured out how the Orbital had communicated in real time to hundreds of infected individuals. That ability defied physics, yet she had seen it with her own eyes. If the Orbital could do that, it was reasonable it could also make a “Spidey sense” that let the infected know when they were near their kind.
Scent — could the explanation be that simple? A chemical on the host’s breath, or exuded through his skin. Crawlers modified the host’s brain: perhaps they adjusted the olfactory response, letting the Converted identify one another by smell alone. Maybe that was how Candice Walker had survived as long as she did. If this scent was a by-product of the cellulose, the Converted on the Los Angeles might have thought she was one of them, giving her more time to react, to plan.
Walker… now that Margaret understood a true God existed and guided its followers, she could only think of Walker in terms of another kind of religious figure.
Candice Walker had been the Antichrist.
The other patients from the HAC trial could also be Antichrists, the bringers of a plague that would wipe out Margaret’s kind.
That was humanity’s only hope, because without the hydras it was already over. The math didn’t lie. She’d seen the numbers: millions of infected, millions of Converted. The exponential shift was already underway. In two weeks — three at the most — humans would be reduced to isolated groups, groups that couldn’t trust one another because any one of them might be the enemy.
In four weeks, humans would be outnumbered.
In five weeks, maybe six, the only human survivors would be individuals hiding in the woods and mountains, living off the land.
And to think she’d been upset that she’d lost the hydra samples when evacuating the Carl Brashear.
Yes, God did work in mysterious ways…
She was more than willing to sacrifice herself if it sped up the change, if it brought the Converted to power. But if she was still alive when that change happened? Then she could start taking control. She would gather the most brilliant of her kind — the engineers, the physicists, the astronomers — organize them, figure out how to rebuild industry, how to create a civilization with one, unified goal:
Building more Orbitals, and sending them out into the galaxy.
THE EMPEROR
Steve Stanton’s pencil was a blur as he finished writing his message. He handed the piece of paper to General Brownstone.
“Get that to the people.”
She saluted. “Right away, Emperor!”
Dana Brownstone was a retired four-star general who had once run the U.S. Army Materiel Command. She was smart: a leader, just like him. Steve had big plans for her. She had already organized distribution of cell phones and weapons, created a detailed message-flow structure that improved Steve’s ability to control over two hundred thousand Converted spread throughout the greater Chicago area.
Brownstone handed the paper to a runner.
“Make a hundred copies of that,” she said. “Pass ten copies each to the primary level of cell leaders, have them pass it down to their sub-tens. Go.”
The runner took off down the Institute of Art’s wide steps. Steve would have to change locations soon. Too long in one spot made him a potential target for bombers, helicopters, or even inoculated commandos that might drop in.
Elsewhere in America, other leaders — who didn’t seem to have Steve’s special brand of foresight — were organizing large groups that destroyed everything they could find. The leaders who used the Internet for these “activist” calls to action were opening themselves up to the government’s sniffer programs and computer analysts. Might as well put up a big, neon sign that said ENEMY OF THE STATE! DROP BOMBS HERE.
Steve knew too much to let that happen.
He still used phones and the Internet, of course, but only for messages coded to sound like the natural language of people panicking while the world collapsed around them. By using instant messaging, online forums, social media sites, texts, tweets, blog posts and comments — as well as the “sneaker net” of human feet — he could communicate with all his people while staying well under the government’s radar.
Steve walked to a table where he’d set up his information lab. A follower sat at each of his three laptops, calling up websites, blogs, newscasts, anything that would give him the big picture.
The U.S. government had written off Manhattan. Minneapolis, too, by the looks of things, and — just a few hours earlier — Chicago. Paris was a memory. The British had barricaded London: no one in, no one out. That strategy hadn’t worked in Chicago, and wasn’t going to work there, either.
No info out of China. None at all. That was fine, because Steve could give a shit about China. He’d been born in America, and that was where he’d be crowned emperor.
The U.S. government had yet to pull the plug on the Internet. With several of the major networks down and more soon to follow — CNN showed nothing but color bars, ABC’s feed was a constant hiss of static — the government needed the Internet to spread information to the uninfected: go here to be safe; stay away from these areas; here is your testing center; this place has inoculations available.
And, of course, monitoring the Internet was the government’s main way to track down those large groups of Converted. Steve didn’t mind that at all — anyone who could organize such a group was an eventual rival for power. If someone removed Steve’s rivals for him? All the better.
He heard a cell phone buzz. Brownstone answered it, then held it out to him.
“Your uncle Sven,” she said.
Uncle Sven was one of her names for the scouts who were hunting for higher-powered weapons. Pistols and shotguns just weren’t enough.
Steve took the phone. “What is it?”
“It’s Sven,” said the voice on the other end — a bad attempt to sound panicked, but close enough. “I found out where Nate Grissom is, he’s in town.”
The scouts had found an armory. The “N.G.” of “Nate Grissom” stood for “National Guard.” A simple code, but with the country in a tailspin, no government analyst was going to figure it out — if anyone was even listening at all.
“Awesomesauce,” Steve said. “Do you think you can take my cousins and go get him?”
“Yeah,” the voice said. “I got inside info.”
Inside info: that meant the scout’s group included someone who had served at that facility.
“Okay,” Steve said. “Then go get Nate.”
Steve hung up. It was the third such call he’d received in the last hour. By morning, General Brownstone would be overseeing the distribution of military weapons.
THERE’S BAD NEWS, AND BAD NEWS
The wind had picked up, the fire had died down. The hotel lobby was colder than ever.
Cooper Mitchell lined up the bottom of the fire extinguisher, then jammed it down on the door handle. The metal clinked but didn’t break.
He looked around, seeing if anyone or anything reacted. He remained alone except for the sick people lying around the fire.
He waited a few more seconds, just to be sure, then lifted the extinguisher again.
Clink, the door handle bent.
He drove the fire extinguisher down a third time: the handle ripped free
and clattered against the floor. He slid his cold fingers into the hole, found the latch mechanism and pulled it sideways — he pushed the door open.
Inside was a tiny office, various calendars and work regulation posters tacked to the walls, just one overstuffed desk with a chair tucked under it. On that desk, various family pictures…
…and one black laptop, flipped open and waiting.
The screen was dark.
Cooper pushed the door shut behind him. The tiny room was much like the space behind the Walgreens counter. He thought of his last few moments with Sofia.
But she’ll be with you forever now won’t she because you ate her and you’re digesting her and she’ll be part of your muscles and part of your bones forever and ever and ever…
Cooper shook his head, tried to clear his thoughts.
A phone on the desk: he grabbed the handset, heard nothing. The line was dead.
He sat down in the desk chair. He was almost afraid to touch the computer. If it didn’t turn on, he was out of options — he’d have to risk leaving on foot, all by himself against a city of cannibals.
Cooper tapped the space bar. The computer screen remained black for a moment, then flared to life.
Oh shit, it’s working it’s working…
He searched for a web browser icon. He found one, clicked it. The computer made small whirring noises. The Google home page flared to life. News, he needed news.
He called up cnn.com. The website’s familiar red banner and white-lettered logo appeared. Below that, pictures of horror, of death, of a country on fire. Glowing headlines showed city names that read like a list of tourist attractions if you didn’t count the words next to them, words like ablaze, destruction, thousands dead…
New York City.
London.
Minneapolis.
Berlin.
Philadelphia.
Boston.
Paris.
Miami.
Baltimore.
And, of course, Chicago.
“It’s everywhere,” he said. “Everywhere.”
He clicked for additional news on Chicago. More stories appeared. All roads and highways had been blocked off, sometimes by trenches or collapsed overpasses, more often by miles of burned-out cars.
Cooper finally understood why the military hadn’t come in to save Chicago… because the military had instead blockaded Chicago. At least that’s what the news said. The military wasn’t letting anyone in or out. The story said troops were preparing to reenter the city and take it by force: until then, all citizens were warned to remain inside, to not answer the door for anyone, not even family. Stay off the phones, don’t overwhelm the cellular networks.
He nodded rapidly, yes, yes they were coming in, he just had to stay alive a little while longer…
And then he noticed the story’s date. It was from yesterday. He started clicking through links, found that the entire site hadn’t been updated in the last twenty hours.
Could CNN actually be down? The whole thing?
Cooper tried the Yahoo home page; it came up instantly with a huge, red headline:
CHICAGO: ABANDONED
“No,” he said. He read the story, each word a crushing blow to his soul. “This can’t be fucking happening.”
The U.S. government had written off Chicago. No troops were coming in. Troops weren’t even surrounding the city anymore… too much territory to cover. Those forces had been moved to protect cities that had not yet been overrun.
He couldn’t be alone here, trapped with madmen and monsters.
Cooper kept searching, kept clicking, hitting the track pad so hard the desk vibrated. After five minutes of panicked reading, a story caught his eye:
GOVERNMENT WORKING ON BIOLOGICAL WARFARE AGAINST CONVERTED
(Reuters) — Anonymous sources out of Washington, D.C., are reporting that the government is developing a biological weapon that will target the “Converted” who are raging across the country and are responsible for thousands of deaths worldwide.
An unnamed source said that the new weapon is actually a modified version of the pathogen responsible for creating the violent Converted in the first place. This “disease for the disease” is lethal to the Converted, but reportedly does no harm to people who have not yet been infected.
The modified version originates from people who have had a rare form of stem cell therapy known as “HAC-12b.” When those patients become infected, the modified stem cells alter the nature of the pathogen, turning it into the biological weapon sorely needed to combat the Converted.
Anyone who has had this therapy should contact the government via the attached links at the bottom of this story.
Cooper couldn’t breathe. He stared at the screen until the words blurred, until they moved on their own, jiggling on the screen like wiggly black cartoon worms.
Everything connected.
His stem cell therapy… no way, no way.
This disease began with whatever Steve Stanton pulled up from the bottom of Lake Michigan. Stanton apparently became some kind of Grand Dragon leader or something. Jeff got sick, turned into that thing.
Cooper got sick, too, but then he got better.
He thought back to the hotel, that first night with Sofia. Chavo had come in while they slept. Had Chavo already been sick, or did he get sick because he was in the room with Cooper?
When the Tall Man and his friends first caught Cooper and Sofia at the Walgreens, they’d seemed healthy. Then they’d spent the night in the hotel lobby with Cooper, breathing the same air as Cooper… and now those people were all sick, just like Chavo had been.
Cooper felt at the back of his neck. A shred of hanging skin, still there, left over from the blister Sofia had pointed out the day before. It had popped like a little puffball, squirted out a tiny cloud of white…
He forgot about the icy temperature, tore off his coat and shirt. He examined his body, found a dozen small, puffy spots filled with air, and at least another dozen that had already torn open.
It’s me… I’m the reason…
Cooper rushed out of the office and back into the ruined lobby. He looked at the Tall Man, who was clearly dying. Two of the others were already dead, lifeless eyes staring out at nothing.
“I’m contagious,” Cooper said. “I’m the reason they’re dead.” He looked to the blackened corpse above the dying fire.
“You hear that, Sofia? I got them for you. I got ’em good. I’m real sorry I had to eat you, real sorry. I just have to find a better place to hide, maybe a room upstairs, wait for the government to send people to save me, and then…”
His voice trailed off. Someone would come for him, sure, but what then? Would they lock him up and study him? The government barely gave a shit about civil rights when everything was fine; with the world going straight to hell, they would do anything they wanted with him.
Contacting the government, telling them he’d had the HAC therapy, that was his only chance to live. But he also had to find a way to make sure regular people knew about him, knew what he had inside of him — otherwise, he might vanish at the hands of the good guys just as easily as he could at the hands of the psychotic fuck-stains who had taken over Chicago.
The laptop… at the top of the screen, there had been a tiny, reddish dot…
…a camera.
Cooper rushed back into the office.
DAY TWELVE
YOUTUBE
IMMUNIZED: 84%
NOT IMMUNIZED: 10%
UNKNOWN: 6%
FINISHED DOSES EN ROUTE: 30,000,000
DOSES IN PRODUCTION: 12,000,000
INFECTED: 2,616,000 (15,350,000)
CONVERTED: 2,115,000 (6,500,000)
DEATHS: 284,000 (14,100,000)
The Converted were coming.
Blackmon’s people were trying to hurry her out of the Situation Room, but she was still the president and no one could make her go any faster than she wanted to. The time had long passed for her t
o be airborne, safely away from the rapidly deteriorating situation on the ground.
The army had reported contact with at least five large mobs of Converted in and around the city of Washington, D.C. The mobs seemed poorly organized, poorly armed, but they all had one thing in common: they had been heading for the White House.
Air Force One — known as Air Force Two just yesterday — had landed at Ronald Reagan National Airport, delivering Vice President Kenneth Albertson. The military maintained firm control of that airport. After Fort Benning and Andrews AFB had fallen, the Joint Chiefs had issued “kill zone” orders for all critical facilities. No matter who you were, infected or not, if you came within a hundred yards of a protected area, you got shot.
Blackmon was heading to the airport. Albertson was on his way to the White House to take her place. The American people knew him. With his face broadcasting from the nation’s capital, it would remain clear that America had not fallen.
Not yet.
But Blackmon was a realist, and knew that worst-case scenario might come to pass. Elena Turgenson, the Speaker of the House, was third in the presidential line of succession. Blackmon had ordered her to Sacramento, to set up the next governmental seat in the eventuality that the Converted overran D.C.
Blackmon’s aides were all ready to follow her out. They held stacks of paper, briefcases, and laptops. She had cleaned up for the trip: hair done up right and a freshly pressed red pantsuit gave her that hallmark presidential look once again. She was waiting for Vogel to finish talking on the phone. Someone had submitted info to the HAC site, and apparently linked to a video.
Vogel whispered something, nodded, then hung up.
“Identity confirmed,” he said. “The subject is Cooper Mitchell. SSN and address are accurate. Facial analysis software registers a one-hundred percent match with DMV records. There is no question that this man was part of the HAC study.”