by Dirk Patton
In only a few strokes I was beyond the sandy shelf we’d walked out on and was suddenly in the pull of the underground river. The current was strong, grabbing me and sucking me down. Every instinct in my body wanted to fight against it, but I knew this was exactly what I needed. Let the force of the water do the work. The harder I worked the sooner I’d need to take a breath.
There was a time in my life when I could hold my breath for four minutes. I was young, in incredible shape and hadn’t ended most of my days with a margarita and a couple of cigarettes. Not that I wasn’t in good shape now, but I knew I had two, maybe two and half, minutes at the most before I was in real trouble.
Katie, on the other hand, was part fish. She loved the water and could swim circles around me. As we were drawn deeper into the pool, moving faster as the current approached the opening where the water drained, I knew her odds of making it out alive were significantly better than mine. And I was OK with that. If this was where it ended, well, I’d made sure she at least had a fighting chance.
The small pieces of glowing matter were being pulled down with us and I realized they weren’t living in the water but were caught by the current when they fell from the walls and ceiling. Though not much, they continued to give us a little light. Just enough for me to see Katie disappear into a large hole in the side of the pool. A moment later I was swept into the same tunnel.
I accelerated once in the tunnel, shoulders continually banging into the smooth rock walls. The constant flow of the water had smoothed the rock and for this I was grateful, otherwise I’d have been ripped to shreds by rough outcroppings. The impacts still hurt, but at least I wasn’t being torn open, and hopefully neither was Katie who didn’t have any clothing to protect her bare skin.
We rushed along and my lungs began to burn. I didn’t even have a guess how long we’d been in the water, having forgotten to start counting when I took the big breath. At this point I guess it didn’t really matter. I’d hold my breath until I couldn’t, then I’d just be another piece of debris flushed out of the caverns.
It was completely dark now; the water apparently having destroyed whatever biological reaction was in the lichen that made it glow. There was no discernible difference between closing my eyes and having them open. The only way I knew Katie was still in front of me was the tunnel was too narrow for me to have passed her without knowing it. It was like what I imagined being flushed through a large pipe would be like.
Without light I couldn’t see the bend coming, unexpectedly slamming into a smooth wall. Half the air in my lungs was knocked out of me and it took a concentrated effort to not inhale water. I was in trouble and I knew it.
Still being rushed along by the current I couldn’t see anything. I’d lost half of my air supply, and the half I still had felt like it was turning to acid as my body screamed at me to take a breath. It didn’t care that there was only water to breathe; it only knew that it was time for me to exhale the stale air and draw in fresh. Fighting the urge, I registered a moment of pain when my head struck rock as I was shot through another bend, then I blacked out and my body drew in a breath exactly like it’s programmed to do.
I was no longer caught in dark water, hurtling along beneath the Oklahoma countryside. Warm sand was under me as I lay on my back. The sun was bright in my eyes and Katie was leaning over me, kissing me, wet hair hanging around my face. But something wasn’t right. Had I been drinking? Everything was dulled, like I was experiencing it through the fog of too much alcohol.
Then my chest spasmed and I coughed. Strong hands rolled me onto my side and I coughed again, feeling water coming up my throat and being expelled out of my mouth. The coughing intensified, my throat burning as I continued to purge my lungs. After what seemed like an eternity, the urge to choke and cough eased and I rolled onto my back, gulping huge lungfuls of air.
“Welcome back,” Katie said, leaning over me and wiping sand and spittle off my chin.
I looked up at her, then over her shoulder at the moon. It was almost painfully bright after the complete darkness of the underground river, and must have been what I thought was the sun. I was glad to touch the ground beneath me and find it really was warm sand.
“What happened?” I croaked, trying to sit up and sending myself into another coughing fit.
“You drowned,” Katie said when the spasms subsided. “I didn’t think I was going to get you back. You were out for a while.”
“How long?” I asked between gasps of air.
“Don’t know for sure when you got the water in your lungs, but I dragged your big ass out of the river at least five minutes ago.” She said, her hand resting on the side of my face. “How are you feeling?”
“I’ve felt worse, but I can’t remember when.” I said.
“Well, brain damage after drowning is common.” Katie said, looking intently into my eyes. She must have seen the panicked reaction she was hoping for as she began laughing at me a moment later.
“Bitch,” I said in a hoarse whisper.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing!” Katie said, leaning down and pressing her lips to my forehead. “And don’t you dare scare me like that again.”
I pulled her to me and we just rested for a few moments until all my synapses started firing again.
“Where are we?” I asked, sitting up.
“No idea,” she said. “But we’re out of the caverns, alive, and there aren’t any infected around. Well, not that I had time to look, but we haven’t been attacked.”
I struggled with my vest and rifle, finally getting everything over my head. Trying to scan our surroundings, I cursed when I realized the night vision scope was damaged. It had apparently impacted a rock as it was bent at a severe angle, the lens at one end completely missing. Water ran out of it when I tilted the rifle. Great. The one advantage we had was gone.
Standing, I flipped the quick release levers on the scope mount and tossed it away as I surveyed the dark landscape around us. We were next to a small, lazy river, the water gurgling softly as it flowed around the roots of a couple of large trees. We were obviously back on the rolling plains, but where? I turned a couple of circles and was unable to spot the low hills where I’d left Rachel, Dog and Joe. Then I looked down and realized I was a good ten feet from the edge of the river.
“How the hell did you get me all the way up here?” I asked Katie, gesturing at the open sand that showed two clear drag marks left by my feet.
“I just pulled until you were out of the water,” she said, seemingly noticing how far she’d dragged me for the first time.
“Ten feet? You know how much I weigh. How the hell…” I started to ask, then stopped.
The virus? The same way I suspected it was helping her heal, maybe it had made her stronger, just like the infected. Was that even possible? I wished Joe and Rachel were there for me to ask.
36
“Yes, sir. Receiving them now.” Tech Sergeant Zach Scott said.
He was speaking to Captain Blanchard over an encrypted comm channel. Blanchard had been concerned that the Russians would intercept any radio traffic, so before the Bradley had left Tinker he’d had it equipped with one of the FSOC – Free Space Optical Communications – units that the Air Force had at Tinker.
The system uses lasers to digitally transmit voice and data. The unit on board the Bradley had locked onto the orbiting NSA satellite with its laser, as had Blanchard from the secure communications room at the Air Force base. The system was eavesdrop proof, as the only way to intercept the data stream was to physically interrupt the laser beam. If that happened the system would detect the intrusion and shut down.
“That’s definitely her,” Scott said when the image of Rachel taken by the satellite appeared on his screen. He clicked a couple of icons on the display, causing a terrain map to appear, the location of the Bradley and Rachel showing up as blue and green pulsing dots. A fat yellow line traced the system’s recommended route and next to it the distance to target
and several other pieces of data appeared.
“Any hit on the Major?” He asked.
“Nothing so far. I just spoke with the Petty Officer at Pearl that is running the system and she said we got very lucky to find Rachel this quickly. The satellite’s search pattern was only on its third circuit out from the starting point when it found her.
“What she explained to me is that it starts at a central point, in this case the crashed Osprey, and searches progressively larger concentric circles until it finds a match. If he wasn’t somewhere that the camera could see his face when it scanned the area he’s in, we’ll have to wait until it re-scans the same area.” Blanchard said.
“OK, sir. We’re fifteen minutes away from Rachel.” Scott said. “How are conditions at Tinker?”
“The Marines are keeping the infected back, but the numbers are growing. The herds from Texas and Colorado are moving slightly faster than predicted and we’re expecting the leading edges several hours earlier than the original model forecasted.” Blanchard answered.
Scott stared at the screen for a moment, thinking. “Is there anyway for me to access the real time satellite feed?”
Blanchard was quiet for a moment, “Let me see what can be done, Tech Sergeant. I’ll have to call Pearl. I don’t have admin control, just access into the feed.”
“Thank you, sir. Anything further?”
“Negative. Just get a move on. Your window to make it back before being completely cut off by a herd is shrinking fast. Good luck.” Blanchard cut the connection, the system beeping softly to let Scott know the call had ended.
Scott shut down his end of the link and spent a moment looking through the system to find the commands he wanted. Locating what he hoped was the right icon he clicked on it and selected a couple of options from the window that popped open.
“Irina, check your screen. Do you have a map with a route highlighted?” He said over the intercom.
“Yes, I’ve got it. Is that where we are going?” She said a few moments later.
“That’s where Rachel is. We get her and hope the Major is somewhere close.” He answered.
Irina didn’t answer, but almost immediately the Bradley lurched forward as she gave it full throttle. Scott was thankful he was wearing a seatbelt or he would have been thrown to the floor and most likely skidded all the way to the back of the vehicle. He’d ridden with aggressive drivers before, but the Russian woman would put all of them to shame.
“You know this thing has more than two speeds, right?” He called over the intercom.
“What do you mean? There’s another gear?” She sounded hopeful of finding a way to go faster.
“No, thank God. What I mean is we don’t have to either be stopped or at full throttle.” Scott’s voice was choppy from the heavy vehicle bouncing across the prairie.
The ground looked nice and smooth in his periscope, but Irina seemed to have a knack for finding the roughest path possible. Despite his irritation, he couldn’t help but smile as she started laughing at him.
“This is how we drive in Russia,” Irina said when her laughter died down. “Didn’t you ever wonder why we build everything so tough?”
Scott was shaking his head, trying to think of something to say to that when Igor called out over the intercom.
“Zombie!” He sounded delighted and a moment later the motors that rotated the gunner’s turret whined.
“Nyet!” Scott shouted before Igor could start firing. “Irina, remind him to not start firing unless we absolutely have to. We need to save our ammo.”
Irina began speaking in Russian, going back and forth with Igor for nearly a minute.
“He says you are still taking all the fun out of this,” she finally said. “But he agrees with you and will not expend ammo until he has to.”
“Tell him thanks,” Scott said. “And remind him they’re not zombies. There’s no such thing. What’s he going to see next? Bigfoot? Maybe Vampires?”
Irina translated. Igor was quiet for a moment, then said something in a slightly more excited tone. He could see Irina adjust one of her periscopes before answering in Russian.
“What’s going on?” Scott asked, peering through his but seeing nothing.
“To our eleven,” Irina said. “Twenty degrees above the horizon.”
Scott swiveled his scope to slightly left of their direction of travel and elevated the objective. At first he thought it was a dust cloud, but it was moving too fast. The night vision was already activated, blurring then clearing as he spun the zoom wheel. He cursed when he got a clear view of a huge colony of bats completely obscuring the horizon.
Looking down he checked the navigation screen, which displayed a marker to indicate the direction his periscope was pointed. It was directly in line with the pulsing green dot that indicated Rachel’s location.
“Irina, can this thing go any faster?”
37
Rachel sat in the darkness talking with Joe, unhappy that she hadn’t gone with John into the caverns. Not that she really wanted to go underground, and she might not have been any help, but she didn’t like being left behind. She knew how to fight, having proven that time after time, but he had insisted on going in alone. Of course, there was a big part of her that was relieved. Caves didn’t hold fond memories for her.
While still in college a guy she was dating had talked her into going spelunking. He was one of those who was always looking for the next extreme adventure. Rock climbing, base-jumping, snorkeling with sharks; the list went on and on. Rachel had reluctantly agreed and after their last class on a Friday afternoon they’d loaded his Jeep and driven to Kentucky. He had heard of some caves that supposedly had awe-inspiring rock formations deep inside them.
They arrived well after dark, and despite Rachel’s objections he had decided they should make their first venture inside before going to sleep. She had argued that it was night, getting mad when he’d laughed at her that it didn’t matter underground if the sun was shining or not. She almost hadn’t gone in, frightened by the cave and more than a little pissed at his attitude, but she didn’t like to be left behind.
Getting in had been simple enough. A steep cut in the ground led to the first chamber, and they slid down a rope he secured to the Jeep’s front bumper. Once inside, Rachel had to admit the view was amazing. Mineral studded stalagmites and stalactites had met in the middle and created massive columns that supported a roof as high as a cathedral. The translucent calcium glowed under their lights, flecks of what looked like diamonds and gold embedded deep inside and reflecting back at them.
Half an hour after entering the cave they had moved through several chambers, and that was when Rachel’s light went out. Her boyfriend had cursed, suddenly realizing that he’d forgotten to charge them before leaving Atlanta. Knowing it was only minutes before his light would die as well, he’d turned and hurried Rachel towards the entrance they’d used. They’d made it across half of one chamber when his light shut down.
They had continued on in the Stygian darkness. Their progress was painfully slow and soon they were arguing. Distracted, he had stepped without checking his footing. Instead of the expected smooth floor he stepped into a small hole. Rachel clearly heard his leg snap a moment before he started screaming in pain.
“What did you do?” Joe asked.
“I left him there,” Rachel said, scratching Dog’s ears and smiling at the shocked expression on Joe’s face. “I made my way back to the entrance, climbed the rope and went for help. There wasn’t any cell coverage out there and I had to drive thirty miles to the closest town. They finally pulled him up about noon the next day.”
“Was he OK?”
“I guess he’d gotten really scared, trapped in there all night. It took me a long time to make my way out, then by the time I got back with help he’d been stuck for hours. Alone in the dark. He thought I’d deliberately taken my time to punish him and he said some pretty nasty things. So, when they took him away in the ambula
nce I jumped in his Jeep and drove back to Atlanta. Left it outside his apartment and never saw him again.”
“And now you’re mad at John for making you stay behind? I’d think you’d be grateful.” He said.
They sat there for a long time, each of them constantly scanning the area behind the other. Dog lay stretched out between them, seemingly asleep but his ears remained at full attention. Rachel told him her carefully edited story, then watched the pain in his eyes as Joe talked about having to shoot his wife after she turned.
“So, this Terminator virus. You really think that could work?” Rachel asked.
“Yes, I do.” He said.
“How quickly would it work?”
“You mean how fast would the infected die?” Rachel nodded her head. “That I can’t tell you without some testing. It could be as fast as twenty-four hours, or it could take days or even weeks. No one knows how strong these things immune systems are, but I suspect they’re significantly enhanced. Maybe it wouldn’t work because of that? I can’t tell you without being in a lab and having some test subjects.”
“Could this be done at your lab in Oklahoma City?” Rachel asked, forcing herself to suppress the hope that was growing inside her.
“It could, sure. Why?”
“And you could do it?” Rachel asked.
“Maybe. I’ve done some very basic work like this, but nothing nearly as complex. You aren’t thinking about heading to the city, are you?” He said.
“Not without John, no. Is there anyone still at the lab that has done something like this?”
“There’s one guy, Rick Kanger. He’s the one that was talking about it in the first place. He used to be with USAMRIID. Retired and working on a second pension. Most of what he did for the Army was classified, but the stuff that isn’t is scary enough.” Joe was referring to the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases.