Pandemic i-3

by Scott Sigler

  Blackmon let out a little puffed-cheek whuff of air.

  “We have a chance,” she said. “Play the video.”

  A paused YouTube page appeared on the main monitor. The frozen image was a blur of blacks and grays. Murray couldn’t make anything out.

  “YouTube?” Blackmon said. “This video is public?”

  Vogel nodded. “Yes, Madam President. It seems Mister Mitchell didn’t fully trust our HAC form. He wanted to make sure everyone saw him, so he couldn’t — I’m quoting from his submission form — just vanish into a secret lab, you goddamn government shiteaters. End quote. The video’s play counter only shows three hundred and one views so far, which isn’t much. We’re still in control of this information.”

  Blackmon nodded. “Play it.”

  The image twitched and jumped, jostled by rapid movement. The face in the video belonged to the man holding the camera — Cooper Mitchell. He looked panicked, had the sunken eyes of someone who had flat-out gone over the edge. A week’s worth of stubble. Skin red and cracked from exposure to wind and cold.

  “It’s me,” Mitchell said. “They come around me and they die. It takes, uh, maybe like twelve hours or so, but they die.”

  He started laughing.

  The sound of that laugh made Murray’s blood run cold. He’d laughed like that once, back in Vietnam, when he, Dew Phillips and six other men had heard the choppers coming to save them. Eight soldiers — all that remained from an entire company. They’d been overrun, covered in mud, fighting for their lives through the night in dark, sandbagged trenches. Murray had known his time was up, known he was going to die, right up until he’d heard those rotor blades slicing through the air. That sliver of sound had given him the strength to fight on.

  The image jostled as Mitchell walked, but stayed centered on his face. The background moved madly around him.

  “Just look at this,” he said. “How fucked-up is this?”

  The image skewed as he turned the camera around. Murray saw a fire pit topped with a pig mounted on a spit. At first, he thought the scene was somewhere outdoors — because that’s the only place one saw fire pits — but then he realized it was inside the lobby of a trashed building.

  Then, he realized it wasn’t a pig.

  “Jesus Christ,” President Blackmon said. Her hand went to the cross hanging from her neck.

  The image whirled to show a man in a red jacket, lying on his back. At first Murray thought this man was also dead, had to be dead from the tacky phlegm that coated his mouth and nose, but the man’s eyes cracked opened. The eyelids looked nearly glued shut by strands of viscous yellow.

  The man looked at the camera for a moment, then coughed hard. Blood bubbled out of his mouth.

  “See that?” Cooper Mitchell said from off-screen. “Fucker is dying, man! Dying!”

  The camera spun again, stopping on a prone woman. Her blank eyes stared out. Dried, bloody spittle flaked from the lips of an open mouth. On the woman’s neck, peeking out from the jacket, Murray saw the shape that had marked the beginning of this horror show…

  A triangle.

  One of the triangle’s slitted eyelids was slightly open — but instead of the glistening black Murray expected to see, there was a sagging, puckered, grayish membrane, like a party balloon that had almost fully deflated.

  The shaking camera whipped around to once again focus on Mitchell. He leaned in close, until the screen showed only his wide, bloodshot eyes.

  “Dead! Dead as fuck! Because of me! Someone come and get me, please come and get me, I make these assholes die! You want to save the world? Then you better fucking save me!”

  The movie ended, leaving a blurred image of the too-close face up on the screen.

  Blackmon looked shaken. Seeing an American citizen being cooked on a spit would do that to a person. She sat on the edge of the table, maybe to keep herself from collapsing. The polished surface reflected the bright red of her pantsuit.

  “So this man could have Montoya’s hydras,” the president said. “Where is he?”

  “Chicago,” Vogel said. “Park Tower Hotel, downtown area.”

  Blackmon slid off the table, stood straight. She gave her pantsuit jacket a sharp tug downward, as if she were just about to go on camera.

  “Admiral Porter, I want this man. What kind of resources do we have around Chicago?”

  Porter shook his head. “We have nothing in that area, Madam President. All of Illinois is a mess. Converted have been spreading out from the Chicagoland area. We’ve got troops positioned at the nuke plants near Rockford and Wilmington, killing anything that comes close. Davenport and Champaign are part of that chain, trying to slow the spread from the suburbs. We could pull some of those forces, but doing so is going to widen the gaps the Converted can get through. Indianapolis is holding strong and I highly recommend we don’t pull troops from there. Once we beat this thing, Madam President, we’ll need those power plants and the industrial base of cities that weren’t overrun.”

  “Screw the power plants,” Blackmon said. “If we don’t get this man, there won’t be anyone left to use power.”

  The idea hit Murray fast, took him over and charged him up.

  “The SEAL team that rescued Montoya,” he said in a rush. “They’re in quarantine on the Coronado. That ship could be off the shore of Chicago in hours, and it has two SH-60 Seahawk helicopters. The SEALs could go in, get Mitchell and bring him back out again.”

  Blackmon considered this. “Admiral? Will that work?”

  Porter nodded. “Maybe. It’s a damn good idea, but the city is overrun — a partial SEAL team probably isn’t enough.”

  “Then get me something to back them up,” Blackmon said. “Admiral, if we have any reserves at all, this is the time to use them.”

  Porter drew in a deep breath. Even at this late stage of the game, he wasn’t going to rush things.

  “We do have a few air-support assets on standby. The crews have been isolated from day one, so we know they’re reliable. As for ground forces, I’ve got a Ranger company at Fort Benning. I was saving them for your security, Madam President. If Air Force One can’t refuel in midair, or you have to land for whatever reason, that company will go to where you are, give you adequate protection.”

  She huffed. “My protection matters even less than those power plants, Admiral. Send the SEALs. Send the Rangers. Will that be enough?”

  “It has to be,” Porter said. “It’s all we have left. We haven’t seen the same organized forces in Chicago we’ve seen in Minneapolis or the New York boroughs, so this could work.”

  “God guide and defend our soldiers,” Blackmon said. She addressed the entire room. “Ladies and gentlemen, I have to get to Air Force One. I have the utmost respect for your dedication and your bravery. The fate of our nation, of the entire world, hangs on us continuing to do our jobs. May the good Lord protect you all.”

  She finally let her handlers hustle her out.

  Murray was sad to see her go. Not long ago he’d hated that woman, but when things were at their worst, President Blackmon was at her best. Now he’d get to see the VP in action — Murray didn’t have high hopes. Albertson had been on the ticket because he could carry California. That, and probably only that, had put him in such a high place of power.

  For now, however, Albertson didn’t matter. Cooper Mitchell did. Murray had one card left, and now was the time to play it.

  “Admiral, Clarence Otto is on the Coronado,” he said. “He’s Department of Special Threats. I think he should go in with the SEALs, manage the biological aspect.”

  Porter nodded. “That’s fine. People, contact the Coronado and have it steam full speed for Chicago. Let’s get the SEALs briefed.” He turned to Vogel. “Show me that video again.”

  Vogel nodded, tapped some keys. The screen refreshed. It started to play, then he paused it. He pointed to view-counter in the video’s bottom right-hand corner. In the time it had taken Blackmon to watch the video an
d approve the mission to Chicago, the view-count had jumped from 301 to 15,236.

  “Oh, shit,” Vogel said. “I think it’s gone viral.”

  VIRAL

  Steve Stanton played the video for a third time. To think he’d actually saved Cooper Mitchell’s life?

  Now, he wanted to kill Cooper. Cut his belly open, pull out his intestines and make the man eat them. Have one of the bulls break his bones, one by one, while Steve danced to the music of his screams.

  Four of Steve’s high-ranking followers — three men and Dana Brownstone — stood before him. They all had the smart strain, like him. None of the four had challenged his leadership; those who had were already dead.

  Although not at Dana’s level, the men were all quite brilliant: Robert McMasters, the president and CEO of the energy company Exelon; Cody Hassan, who had apparently been an up-and-coming jazz musician; and Jeremy Ellis, a young geneticist who held multiple Ph.D.s. McMasters was hard at work on preserving the power grid. Hassan helped craft the messages to send through Brownstone’s network. Ellis was already modifying facilities at the University of Chicago so he could study both the biology of the Chosen Ones, and how to defeat the humans’ inoculation formula.

  All four of them were afraid to make a noise. They all sensed Steve’s fury. That, and their eyes kept flicking to the two huge bulls that stood behind him.

  Three workers sat in front of his three laptops. All three screens showed the same YouTube video. Steve pointed to the middle screen.

  “Cooper Mitchell shot this inside a building. Which building? What floor?”

  Brownstone and the men said nothing.

  Steve drew a black pistol from a thigh holster. The weapon had belonged to a cop. The cop didn’t need it anymore; he had tasted delicious.

  Steve aimed it at Hassan’s face and pulled the trigger. The gun kicked in his hand. Hassan’s head snapped backward. He dropped, probably dead even before his limp body hit the floor.

  Steve holstered the pistol. “I said… what building?”

  Brownstone shook her head. “We don’t know, Emperor! The video quality is terrible. We can’t identify any key structural elements. We think it’s a hotel or an office building, but there’s over a hundred and thirty million square feet of office space in the central business district alone. He could be anywhere.”

  Steve looked down at the man running the middle laptop.

  “Refresh,” he said. “And play it again.”

  The man did as he was told. As the window came up, Steve looked at the number of plays: 132,512. The views were climbing, fast. He didn’t know if that was from uninfected watching it with a final sense of hope, his own kind watching it with a feeling of horrific dread, or a combination of both.

  The video played. Steve wondered what Cooper would taste like. He’d never find out, of course, because Cooper was a walking plague.

  If only he’d just let Bo Pan kill the man…

  “Isolate his face from this video,” Steve said. “Then print pictures. Thousands of pictures.”

  He turned to his four — correction, his three — top followers.

  “Spread the word that everyone is to look for this man. Search every building, every office, every basement. If someone finds him, kill him on the spot, whatever it takes.”

  Ellis raised his hand. “Emperor, the people who kill him might very well contract the disease he carries and transmit it to the rest of us. If it’s as contagious as it appears to be in the video, it could spread like wildfire through the Chosen Ones — it could eventually reach us.”

  That was a good point. Steve was glad he hadn’t shot the scientist.

  “Whatever group takes out Cooper Mitchell is to kill themselves immediately,” Steve said. “They will go straight to heaven. They will be heroes. Now move. And send someone in here to clean up this body. Tell them to bring a mop.”

  ALL THE MARBLES

  It made Margaret’s skin crawl to be so close to them.

  She, Clarence, Tim and Commander Klimas were packed into the same mission module where they had teleconferenced with Murray and Dr. Cheng. Margaret and Clarence sat on one side of the table, Tim on the other. Klimas stood in front of a screen that showed a map of Chicago.

  He pointed out the landing area on the city’s coast. “My team will OTB to Lake Shore Park on the city’s east side and secure it as a landing zone.”

  Tim raised a hand. “OTB?”

  “Over the beach,” Klimas said. “The phrase covers the various methods we use. Sorry, I’ll try to make the rest of this more civilian-friendly. We also have air support from two Apaches, three Predator drones, and — believe it or not — a B2 bomber.”

  “A B2?” Clarence said. “That’s kind of overkill, isn’t it?”

  “Not if we find the Converted gathering en masse,” Klimas said. “It’s loaded with five-hundred-pound JDAM bombs, could take out a lot of them at once.” He paused, cleared his throat. “It’s also got, ah… well, it has a nuke.”

  They would never learn. Margaret knew the nuke had delayed things in Detroit, but the current situation showed that her kind could not be stopped. When the Converted rebuilt, they would just steer clear of any radioactive craters.

  Klimas again pointed to the map.

  “Once my team secures the LZ, Chinook helicopters will deliver the Ranger company, which is under the command of Captain Percy Dundee. We will then move about a half mile west to the Park Tower Hotel. SEALs lead and Rangers support by leapfrogging blocking positions at major intersections. If Cooper Mitchell is at the Park Tower, we grab him and get him out. We’ll have close air support for the entire operation. Apaches will fly low and loud to intimidate the bad guys, and take out any organized force that might come to meet us. Easy as pie.”

  The video from Cooper Mitchell had changed the game. Margaret knew it was the real thing from the moment she’d seen it. He had the hydras — and from the looks of that video, they were far more contagious than she had thought. The Antichrist had risen again.

  She had to find a way to kill him. If Klimas was successful, if he brought Cooper Mitchell out alive, then Margaret had no doubts of what would come next: in a few weeks, she and all her kind would be dead.

  Clarence squirmed in his chair. “Why come in from the water and cross all that territory on foot? Why not take a Seahawk and drop in right on the hotel? I’ve moved through a half mile of urban terrain while under fire — it’s risky, we’ll lose people.”

  Klimas touched icons on the screen, zoomed the view in to a forty-five-degree angle that showed towering buildings. Margaret instantly saw the problem with Clarence’s plan.

  “Skyscrapers make for a lot of places the enemy can hide,” Klimas said. “If the enemy is armed with something big enough, they can hit the Seahawk on the way in or on the way out. Lake Shore Park is a more secure place to land. Trust me, Agent Otto, SEALs and Rangers can get to that hotel in a hurry.”

  Margaret had seen those SEALs in action. Brave, smart, deadly, they moved without hesitation. She didn’t know what type of resistance her kind would put up. Were the Converted in Chicago unified at all? Reports had come in from cities all over the world about organized bands, some the size of small armies, but there had been no such sightings in Chicago. As far as anyone knew, the city was in total chaos. If that were true, the SEALs might very well walk in, grab Cooper Mitchell and walk out.

  She couldn’t let them succeed. She needed to make sure Mitchell died. And while she was at it, she had an opportunity to eliminate another major threat: Tim Feely.

  He was the brain behind the inoculation effort. If not for his work, her kind might already have taken over. Feely was too smart, too creative, and had too much knowledge of her former research. This trip would be the perfect opportunity to get rid of him.

  Margaret stood. “I have to go with you. So does Tim.”

  Tim sat straight upright, looked at Margaret as if she was pointing a gun at his head.

&nbs
p; Clarence stared at her in disbelief. “This is a high-risk operation. We can’t be ferrying civilians.”

  Tim nodded. “Yeah, what he said. Oh, and also? Like fuck I have to go with you. Why would you and I go in, anyway? The SEALs grab this guy, bring him out, we draw the hydras from his blood, replicate them, and boom — we win.”

  “There are environmental factors to consider,” Margaret said. “Mitchell’s video indicates that the infected are dying, but we don’t know that he’s responsible for that. The sickness could be caused by something in that building’s water supply, or in the air. If we bring Mitchell out only to discover that he’s not the vector, we’ll have wasted time and risked lives for nothing.”

  The three men in the tiny room looked at one another. Klimas didn’t seem surprised; he was ready to back almost anything she asked for. Clarence, however, wasn’t buying it.

  “We can’t risk you,” he said. “We’ll keep you in constant visual communication. The SEALs get Mitchell, they get samples from the dead bodies in the video, from the water and air, whatever else you want. Then they get the hell out.”

  She slapped the table. “Don’t be stupid, Clarence. There’s no guarantee Mitchell will be there. If he’s not, we’re left with those bodies. If the cause of death is something other than the hydra strain, tissue samples collected by untrained soldiers might not show us what did the damage. We need to examine the bodies where they died.”

  Clarence shook his head. He looked like he was losing control. “There’s no way I’m letting a pregnant woman go on this mission.”

  Klimas and Tim stared at her. Their expressions changed instantly — with one word, she was suddenly fragile, a thing to be protected. Her strategy to hook Clarence had backfired.

  She couldn’t let him win.

  “My body,” she said quietly. “My choice.”

  Clarence crossed his arms. “Our child.”

  Margaret gathered herself, tried to remember what her weak, altruistic former self might have said. She concentrated hard, held her eyes open until they started to sting… she forced out a single tear.