by Vic Sandel
As there was no formal door, a verbal “knock, knock,” seemed appropriate.
Seeing him clearly, she still responded with the standard, “Who's there?”
“Just thought I'd say goodbye before Tina and I shove off back to Langley.”
“You sure you can't stay?” Robyn asked, clearly wishing they could spend a bit more time together.
“No, I conned my way onto this gig in the first place. My team leaders okay'd it, but it never did go through any kind of official channels.”
“It's a good thing you and Tina were there though! You guys saved us all.”
“Just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.”
“Well, thanking you seems to be getting to be a habit.”
“Thanking me? Hey, you didn't do too bad yourself.”
“My son was in danger so I just acted.”
“I hear they're gonna charge you for cleaning the plane's carpet.”
She laughed, “will I see you again?”
“I really hope so. I really do! Are you sure the vampire thing doesn't bother you?”
“As long as I'm not your main course.”
“That will never happen. You would make a yummy appetizer, though.”
They hugged and she planted a soft kiss on his cheek. Perhaps a promise of things to come. And then he was gone.
When Jessie returned to the main level, he was passing the cafeteria where he noticed Tina sitting and having coffee with a One- Star General and a Bird Colonel.
“Pretty heavy company you're keeping these days, Ms. Pearson,” he said snapping to a loose version of attention.
“Your attempts at military discipline fall sadly short my friend,” she replied.
The General indicated an empty chair. “Please join us, Mr. Porter. Your friend was just explaining to us that you will need some sort of transport back to Langley. I, on the other hand was trying to impress upon her just how greatly your unique services are needed here.”
“I appreciate your respect for what we can do, sir, but we have to rejoin our team. We have a responsibility to them.”
“Please hear me out, Jessie. May I call you Jessie? Back in Virginia, you are important, yes, but you are just two members of a team of thirty. Your group has an important role to play and has also been the leader in our great quest, but it is only one CAG group out of over seventy-five nationwide. I don't mean to minimize in any way your contribution to their efforts, but if I am right and our work here pans out, you will save many of their lives by being right here. Tomorrow, we will be working on a strategy that, if effective, will save thousands of bites when clearing heavily zombie-populated areas. If we are successful, part of your job will be to disseminate the strategy to the CAG groups and make sure they know how to use it effectively.”
“ Sir, I was allowed to come here as a favor. My team leaders will have trouble if we are not back.”
“I assure you that there will be no trouble for anyone. I have already spoken to your Colonel and he has offered me full cooperation in retaining your services. There is just one more small thing. About an hour ago, Dr. James Marco and Dr. Stephan Baldwin arrived here. They are the foremost authorities on unusual physical weaponry. They just happen to be vampires and have requested that we provide them with vampire bodyguards. They have been working alone for so many years, they have no idea of the relationship that now exists between our species. You two just happen to be the only two vampires we've got!”
“Sir, all due respect, I am up for all the other things you mentioned, but we are not here to play nursemaid to a couple of prima-donnas, vampire or otherwise.”
“I understand. Just let them know you are around until they get used to working with humans. Which reminds me; they are beginning a meeting with the entire science staff, in the downstairs conference room right about now. I believe you should be there. When it is over, stop up at my office and I'll have someone assign you both quarters.”
Tina and Jessie were completely confused by what had just happened, but rose from the table and headed below to the meeting.
Chapter12
Think Tanks and Other Stuff
The huge room was full. Some were clustered in familiar groups, while a few were seeking out the new arrivals and introducing themselves. Tomorrow would be soon enough to formally divide everyone by their specialties and organize some sort of chain of command. Everyone knew about the two newest arrivals, at least that they had gotten in, but few had any idea of why they were here or what they were expected to do. The fact that they were vampires was known, but that was pretty much it.
At exactly 20:00 hours (8:00pm), the two vampires strode on to the stage. They were completely dressed in black, with slicked back black hair, red scarves, and red lined, long black capes. It was Bela Lugosi times two.
The gathered scientists didn't know if they were real or an elaborate joke. Marco and Baldwin broke the tension by pulling off their wigs and showing that one of them, was very light brown haired and the other had freckles and very Irish red hair. Then the laughing began!
Dr. Marco let the laughing continue for a bit, then signaled for a quieting. “Well you were expecting vampires!”
This time everyone openly broke out, including the speakers. Their unexpected sense of humor had taken all of them by surprise.
As the audience began to quiet, Dr. Marco spoke for the pair. “ Contrary to popular belief, when a vampire today meets a human, he or she does not hear the dinner bell ring.” Some chuckles and snickers were heard again.
He reached into a shelf under the podium and brought out a goblet filled with a red liquid and containing a celery stick. “Most of the time this is what we eat. It is a true “Bloody Mary”. The blood, you see is from a rather unfortunate pig. We get the blood and you eat the flesh. In fact, I believe the remainder of this animal in on your menu tonight. So I ask you, is there really such a difference?”
It was obvious that most of the audience was in agreement.
“We also use the blood of many common farm animals, although personally, I don't care for goat. Maybe, it's all the cans they eat. Now before someone shouts it out, I'll address the question that is probably most troubling for you. Do we drink human blood?”
“The answer is yes! There are elements of human blood that are essential to our health. While we do not drink it often, an occasional portion is needed. So, where do we get it? These days it is one-hundred-percent by donation. For over one hundred years, people have donated blood. What many don't realize is that whole blood has an extremely limited shelf life. Over seventy-five-percent of the blood that was collected before the coming of the zombies was discarded. Unused rare types are usually turned into plasma, but the common types like O positive end up in an incinerator. We have always had contacts who obtain the overages of these common types before they turn bad. These days, with a lower population and the formation of the World Wide Coalition Action Group, humans have mandatory blood donation quotas. Much of what is collected finds it's way to us, keeping us healthy and allowing us to fight alongside our human brothers and sisters. We will die before forcibly extracting blood from any of you!”
At first there was absolute silence that slowly built to a loud cheer as Dr. Marco's words sunk in.
“Now, many of you have never met one of our species before, but I bet all of you have heard about the incident that occurred earlier today aboard the plane that came in from Langley Air Force Base. Without the intervention of two exceptional people, that flight and everyone aboard would have been lost. Let me take a second and introduce you to them. Jessie Porter and Tina Pearson, would you please stand up and let the folks meet you?”
Amid riotous cheering, Jessie and Tina reluctantly stood and nodded. They waited less than thirty seconds, then sat back down.
“What most of you don't know about these two heroic folks is they are on loan to us from CAG-1, in Virginia. What might seem like amazing bravery to you, is all in a day
's work for them. And yes, they are vampires. They were willing to give their lives to save a planeload of humans. We hold life in all it's forms as precious!”
More than ten minutes passed before the standing ovation died down.
Despite the noise, certain words registered in Robyn's mind. “On loan”, did that mean Jessie would be staying here? Her heart jumped a bit as she contemplated having more time with someone she was developing real feelings for. She knew that important words were coming down from the stage, but her focus at that moment was far from terminating zombies!
Dr. Baldwin had taken over the meeting. “Now that you know who and what we are, it's time to focus on why we are here and what we intend to do. In a word or two, we are here to save lives. To date, any attempts to immunize against the zombie plague has proved ineffective. Neither, the viral, or bacteriological approach has borne fruit. We won't totally abandon these, but our focus will now be two-fold. First, we must make it safer for our teams to engage large concentrations of these biting and clawing monsters, without risking fatal bites. We have several ideas we intend to work on immediately. Second, we must find a solution, that will once and for all, destroy every last zombie without harming humans or vampires. Believe it or not, we have an idea in that regard, but it might be a long time until it is ready to be tried. Working together, we will attempt to make these things happen and return the earth to it's former greatness.”
Several minutes later the meeting was adjourned to allow everyone to discuss what they had heard, among themselves. Both Dr. Marco and Dr. Baldwin left the stage and went into the audience for some personal interaction with the people who would now be their staff members. For the next half-hour, they fielded questions on a one-to-one basis and shook a lot of hands.
***
The senior staff members scheduled an early meeting for seven o'clock the next morning to form the groups they would need to create, based upon their individual specialties.
Robyn was placed in a biological study group, and although it was the area in which she at possessed at least some knowledge, she was not happy. For the present at least, that area had been declared all but dead. She needed to be of use, but her experience was limited. To make matters worse, Maura made sure to inform the other team leaders of the failures in Dr. Rider's research, which brought Robyn down with them.
There was only one thing she could do. Robyn would have to go over every tiny bit of data they had salvaged. Somewhere in all the bits and bytes they had compiled, had to be something of value. She had known Dr. Rider, he was too brilliant to have wasted all of those months and come up absolutely empty. Let the others worship these new “superstars”. She resolved to find something that would both help and salvage the reputation of the man she had respected most in the world. He was the man who gave her self-respect and hope!
She suddenly realized that she would need help. She was no scientist, a good lab assistant, but not a scientist. She would need someone willing to work with her on this task that was already perceived to be useless! She could read the data, re-run the experiments. Where could she find the person who could interpret the results and maybe see something others had missed? At the moment there was no answer.
Chapter 13
Frozen Assets
At seven o' clock the next morning the meeting hall was full. People chatted in their respective groups while they waited for the men to inform everyone the direction they should be heading.
“Good morning. It's good to see so many enthusiastic faces so early in the morning,” Dr. Baldwin said as he mounted the podium. “Hopefully, today we will begin to solve some problems.”
“Since the beginning of our organized attacks on large gatherings of the creeping dead we have followed one basic strategy. Go in, big guns blazing, put down tons of the buggers, and then send teams in to finish off anything that's still moving. No matter how many fall, unless we are lucky and get head shots, there are plenty left that can still kill. We've used guns and every conceivable hand weapon. We have even worn heavy boots, and lately guys have been wrapping their legs in steel cuffs or using old style chain mail, to prevent bites. Unfortunately, on virtually every operation, we suffer fatal casualties due to bites.”
“This has to stop, and stop now! There are two main reasons we can't continue to use this strategy. First, we simply can't afford the losses. There are few enough of us in the fight, and we are facing staggering numbers of the dead. Second, we are using untold tons of ammunition. Since manufacturing these days is non-existent, we are burning up resources that just can't be replaced. In short, we need to find another way!”
He stepped over to a table where a caged rat awaited its fate. “Lest anybody think I'm cruel let me assure you this is not a pet, but a common sewer rat we caught last night by the garbage bins.”
The rat hissed and bared its teeth as Baldwin held the cage up for everyone to see. Setting it back down on the table, he reached down and pulled up a thin hose with a brass nozzle. Donning gloves, he freed the rat which sat for a moment before it slowly began to move across the table. A misty cloud shot from the hose. The dark rat turned white and stopped all movement. A moment later, he tapped the animal lightly with a tiny reflex mallet. It shattered into dozens of pieces.
“Liquid nitrogen. Easy to make, and as you see, the results are dramatic. Douse the zombies in clouds of this, and there should be no movement or bites during the clean-up operation. It is not a final solution, but it will save ammunition, and most important, save human lives. What we need to develop, my friends, are reliable delivery systems that can be used from both air and ground, as well as individual Nitrogen weapons.”
He pauses to look around. “I see a few of you smiling, but don't be fooled by my little demonstration. This is not going to be an easy task. We can't simply spray it down from an aircraft in aerosol form. It will never reach the target. As soon as it hits the warmer air, it will boil off and evaporate. To maintain it's roughly negative three-hundred degree temperature upon hitting a warmer target, it will have to be delivered in a slushy state. That means solid nitrogen mixed with the liquid.”
He stops to think. “Another problem will be containment. Liquid nitro is usually stored in heavily insulated containers that are generally too small for our purpose. Styrofoam is actually a decent insulator, but takes up too much room and allows too much leakage. Brass containers prevent leaks, but are too cold to handle manually. So you see, we need ideas and we need them fast. Somehow, we must make this a workable idea.”
He covered a yawn with his hand. “Now, for obvious reasons I'm not at my best in the morning so I'm going to catch a few z's while you brainstorm. Dr. Marco will join you in a few hours.”
Maura seized the opportunity to demonstrate her leadership and grabbed the mike. “Well you heard the man, lets get busy. Anyone have any ideas right off?”
This got some irritated looks from several of the long-term Wright Patterson people, but the task put before them was too important for petty squabbles. Ignoring Maura, they quietly broke off into several discussion groups. Each group would try to have something for Dr. Marco when he arrived.”
Chapter14
Nowhere
Robyn was not at the morning meeting. Sadly, she knew she wouldn't be missed either. Instead, after a sleepless night, she went to the lab where all the data they had brought was stored. It was all exactly where it had been dropped after a quick review and Maura's explanation of what her staff had found when they examined it all at Langley. “Sad, Robyn thought, it didn't even rate a storage shelf, much less a safe”.
She packed it all in a couple of plastic bags and hauled it down to the empty bacteriological lab. There, she spread it all out on a large, empty table, opened her laptop and began to go over each and every item. Dr. Rider was onto something and she was going to prove it! Something he had found had kept a bitten patient alive for almost six days, rather than the usual maximum of a couple of hours.
He had col
lected cultures from both the bitten, and terminated zombies. At least twenty subjects had been tested and she would review every single result. There just had to be something!
She had been working at it for almost four hours, without a break, when Jessie came into the lab.
“Hey Rob, he said cheerfully, I thought you'd be in the meeting room with everyone else.”
“I just don't belong there. Nothing I can do or say will be of any use to any of them. Here is where I need to be.”
“And what have you been finding out in here?”
“Just like what they said at Langley. I've looked at a dozen subjects and over a hundred test results, every one shows the same thing. Exactly what you'd expect to find on any decaying corpse, plus or minus a few odds and ends picked up as they drag themselves through the dirt.”
“You know Robyn, I'm no scientist but it seems to me that all of you are going about this the wrong way!”
“What do you mean? What other way is there?”
“Look, sometimes when I'm in the field, I know the enemy is somewhere nearby. I absolutely know he's there, but I can't find any sign of him. Everything seems normal.”
“So, how do you find him?”
“By looking for what's not there! Things that should be there, but aren't. The birds aren't chirping, the frogs, and crickets are silent, and the squirrels that are usually running around are nowhere to be seen. You get it? They all should be there and active but they are not! You are looking at what came out on your test data and seeing things you would normally expect to see. What should you be seeing that's not there?”
She just stared at Jessie absolutely dumbfounded. How had they all been so stupid? The answer had been there all the time and she had a pretty good idea of what it might be!