Yocto

by Timothy Jon Reynolds

  Pakistan had openly claimed that if any Indian Nationals tried to invade their country, whether civilians or the military, their response was going to be nuclear, because as far as Pakistan was concerned, the plague had been isolated to India and Pakistan was not going to tolerate any breach of its Sovereignty in this manner. In Karen’s mind, they had a volatile situation that was destined to explode. When Pakistan abruptly closed their border, they locked over a thousand Indian Citizens inside their country, who they then quickly quarantined.

  The Pakistanis were setting up internment camps, but someone was able to get a cell phone through the personal item confiscations. The subsequent video that was released went viral and sent shockwaves through India, as the Pakistani mistreatment of their citizens was so atrocious. The video showed rough behavior, even physically abusive at times, and quickly spread worldwide. These actions immediately resulted with India responding by arresting and detaining eight hundred and forty-six Pakistani Nationals that were trapped inside of India.

  Karen thought of Harshal’s stoic face as he uttered his last words of the day, “I have never seen, nor heard, the rhetoric ever become this pointed. It is to the point where war is unavoidable, but what kind of war is what also worries me.”

  Harshal’s mother and father were in the United States, but all the rest of his large family resided in Amritsar, which was the first major city you came to in India coming from the Wagah Border. Apparently, Harshal had heard of this type of escalating rhetoric before, in his history books, and it had always led to war between the two old foes.

  Karen could see Harshal look as if he were carrying the weight of the situation like a two-ton bolder on his back. She tried to project how she would feel if they had a nuclear showdown with Mexico, but the image wasn’t working for her. Karen was a big believer in the concept that unless you were actually living someone else’s reality, then you could not possibly know how that individual was truly feeling. So, no matter how hard she tried, there was no knowing what Harshal was going through, watching the situation seemingly escalate by the minute down there.

  Karen sat and looked out over the immensely lit and most hotly contested border on the planet at the present time. To her, the brightly lit area spoke volumes. These two countries really did not like each other; it wasn’t just grandstanding. And one of the morbid thoughts in her mind was that she could conceivably, at any moment, observe a very blinding flash that would be the start of a nuclear exchange between the two countries. In the pit of her stomach, she knew that if she sat here long enough, she would either see it happen, or its aftermath, depending on their orbital position at the time.

  Karen prayed she was wrong, and that this would pass over, but the side of her that had witnessed death as a parade that marched right along with her, year after year, thought differently. Maybe her going up into Space made her a death transmitter, broadcasting down to Earth with greater range and power? The scientist inside of her wanted to kick this superstitious, whiney, doom and gloom part of herself to the curb, dismissing it as the idiotic ramblings of a scared ten-year old girl. But truthfully, she had never recovered from losing her dad in the midst of this odd coincidence of death that had followed her year to year, so science or no science, Karen believed that there was more than science to explain things. Then she thought about her favorite magician, David Blain, to accentuate that thought.

  For too many years movie after movie had been made about the end of the world, the end of humanity in every fashion imaginable. Karen considered, maybe Hollywood cursed us somehow. Or, Karen figured, maybe we are all aware, somewhere deep in our hearts, that some madman would eventually release a plague to wipe us all out. Of course, she thought of the most prominent front-runner in The Stand.

  It had been over the twenty-four hour mark, so speculation was that the Pakistani border move contained the epidemic, or attack, or whatever this was. China soon followed suit, as did every country all the way down to Burma. Each made sure that all travel, trade, and commerce was suspended with India. Indian officials had been very open about the extent and impact of this catastrophe on their land. For a poor country that garnered much food from the cow, this was an especially horrible fate.

  Of course, the religious impacts had been brought up also, as the five byproducts of the cow were intrinsic to the Hindus’ Puja (prayer) ritual every morning. Aside from being the revered family pet, every farm was going to have to deal with the absence of the multitude of products that were derived from the cow, including fuel for their lamps. All in all, India had to deal with a new reality that even in their worst nightmares they could not have fathomed.

  Karen stared at the starlit abyss of Space and had a final thought before changing channels in her head. It was safe to say that no one saw this coming.

  3 – Incredulity

  Jack could see all the big players were here now. Once David’s theory hit Washington, a whole lot of people got on board. Now there were four teams in the U.S. that were all on the same page, and each one had a couple of new visitors. The CDC (Center for Disease Control) and DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) were there to support and aid their efforts with portable labs and teams of their own.

  David Ho was no fool though. The second that any evidence appeared that this was a transmittable disease, and this would become a power grab with the USDA being offered the supporting roles, not the CDC. It was 5 am in the Central Valley and no one had gotten any sleep, nor were they trying to.

  The owners of Harper Ranch closed their local restaurant and truck stop, putting up signs reporting a major plumbing problem that would have them closed for a week. As Harper Ranch also supplied finer meats throughout the region and beyond, this was as good a place as any to call ground zero for California.

  The last twenty-four hours had been very tense. Most of the world was bracing for another Indo-Pakistani War. This time it was almost a forgone conclusion that the weapons on the table included nuclear, especially if Pakistan felt India was purposefully spreading this horror to bring them down. David expressed serious concern about that reaction while they were talking over dinner, which was a chicken salad for both of them.

  Sunrise was at 6:24 am PDT, and both David and Jack were relieved to see it, although neither knew why, as it meant nothing scientifically. Yet somehow, making it past the twenty-four hour mark and seeing the sunrise gave them hope that whatever this was, it was contained inside of India.

  Harper Ranch held over a hundred thousand head of cattle, although the area they sectioned off had only twenty. The ranch had a fenced staging area, which had a ramp at one end. That ramp led to a lowered driveway, so a truck could back down it and the steer could be loaded right on. They had numerous vehicles staged on the perimeter and several work stations set up inside the enclosure, waiting for the event that didn’t happen.

  The sun had come fully out over the Sierras and cast it’s first warming rays down on the men and beasts that had come together. Jack walked up to David and handed him a coffee, two cream, two sugars. “How long before we hear word back from Asia?”

  David took a sip and stated, “I just heard from Washington. No new cases have been reported, and no one knows how to assign this, so the boys at CDC are taking over Jack. Unless we see a case break out here, this is no longer our ballgame.”

  Jack was about to answer when he looked over at the small herd of cows huddled in an enclosure, sectioned off by a small divider fence that had been brought in so they didn’t wander over to their portable lab stations. Jack could see one of the smaller cows was being backed against the outer fence and was protesting at the pushy treatment. Then his blood ran cold, as another cow started doing the same kind of protest.

  Before any of them had time to process the escalation in symptoms, all twenty of the herd were doing it, and like the Earth’s Suidae population, the cows were soon all laying on their side, convulsing in a twisted dance of death. Just like the one billion pigs that died be
fore them, every head of cattle on Harper Ranch was dead in a matter of sixty seconds.

  David Ho immediately began barking orders. He didn’t give a damn if the CDC was on hand or not, this was his idea and it had to be implemented now! He was determined that they would find the culprit here, and then they would have the answers they needed to cure this deadly epidemic.

  * * *

  Sid Langston was President Walter Kessel’s Vice President. When he announced to his team he wanted Langston to run with him, there was a loud chorus of “NO” from his people. Sid Langston was a Democratic Senator from Colorado, and he was a curmudgeon, no doubt about it. Initially, Walter chose him as kind of a gimmick, as he was known to be the opposite of the type of man Walter Kessel was known to be. But then they got to know each other and Walter learned something—Sid Langston was no curmudgeon. He was simply a straight shooter who was always being misquoted as an endgame to have him dismissed as near senile, mostly out of fear that if he got loose, he would enact changes that would not be welcome by the establishment.

  Walter Kessel had a wonderful staff that he was very thankful for, and his Chief of Staff, Gary Salisbury, tried as hard as any man on the planet to be great at his job. The problem with all of them was they didn’t have enough years under their belts. Walter was also criticized for choosing a man so old, as Sid Langston was seventy-five years old, but Walter soon learned that time equaled wisdom.

  His detractors were right—he was too soft for the job at times. But Sid was his backbone, and oftentimes, in a fatherly manner, he would have to send Walter in directions he did not want to go. Which made it the biggest secret of his Presidency, the fact that Sid Langston was his real Chief of Staff, and he rarely went against the impassioned advice of the man if he thought the President was heading, or being steered, in the wrong direction.

  Regarding his upcoming conversation with the Russian President, he asked his Vice President, “Could this all be some sort of covert act of war by an unknown party? How do we know it’s not?”

  Sid thought about it, “Because, Walter, it’s going to be coming to them too, imminently. Or it had better, because if it doesn’t, then we have a real problem. Let’s pick up the phone and inform our Russian friends what has happened here.”

  After reconvening in the Situation Room, Walter was connected to the Russian President with all the pertinent players listening intently. “This is Grigory, how are you Walter?”

  “I’m afraid there is no time for congenialities, Grigory. The cow plague has hit us one hundred percent. After the Indian incident, we took some livestock into super protected areas underground. They’re all dead, Grigory, every last one of them. It happened here right after sunrise on the West Coast.” After a long silent pause, Walter added, “We had teams on hand, we have all the data and we are linking it to your scientists now, not later. On my orders, you will receive it unabridged as quickly as possible.”

  Grigory was reserved in his next words, “Words cannot express my horror at your words, Walter, but I also cannot stop my mind from thinking who would profit the most from this?”

  The U.S. Commander in Chief spoke, “We are thinking along those same lines, as it seems your people have ruled out natural occurrence, as have mine. So we need to find out who benefits from us all fighting?”

  The Russian President spoke thoughtfully, “Speaking of that, very good job, Sir, of setting those two straight earlier, but I thought you didn’t use force like that to achieve your goals?”

  Grigory was commenting on the five-way summit that took place not three hours before. China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and the United States all talked it out, but once Pakistan mentioned the nuclear option, Walter Kessel let them all have it. He stated without reservation that if that option was even mentioned again, that he was pulling the United States out of any alliance being built here, and he was going to impose economic sanctions on the guilty party. He chided them like disobedient children for not grasping the bigger picture in all this, and in doing so, stepped so far out of his known character that it kind of stunned everyone into submission.

  Walter answered honestly, “Fortunately, Grigory, the press does not get to position my occupancy in the annals of history, as only time can do that. Time is the ultimate vetting of a man’s public life. All the pundits, all my naysayers, and all the people who will never give me the credit I deserve—they will one day be proven wrong. It is true that I am not a man who likes to resort to arm bending, but when the danger is imminent, and the parties involved display such a high level of ignorance, well, then a staunch stance is just what the doctor ordered. That’s really me in a nutshell, Grigory, as I will do what I need to do, when I need to do it.”

  Changing channels a bit, Walter mentioned, “Enough about me, Grigory. Chairman Yu was very quiet almost the whole meeting, right after he set the record straight that China did not start this madness. What is your take on that?”

  “It is as it always is with them, they are a secret society, but I believe he spoke the truth.”

  “As do I, Grigory.”

  The Russian President had to ask, “Are you sure your event killed all of your country’s cattle?”

  Walter stoically answered, “Yes, and what is worse is we hadn’t been able to control the first die-off. We recommended rural people burn their pigs immediately, and not to consume the meat, but we have received word that that did not happen. Some people even stored the diseased pigs and tried to sell them on the open market for huge prices. It is madness Grigory, and now it’s going to be explosive on many fronts.

  “Word is just now spreading to our population, so we are bracing for the worst here, Grigory, as I do not have to explain my country’s infatuation with beef. I, myself, fancy a good steak every now and again, or should I say, I used to.”

  The Russian President seemed so open with President Kessel now, and maybe it was like he said before, that he appreciated the fact that Walter had been steering his country away from being the policeman to the world. Regardless, and it happened without fanfare, the two of them bonded. They were both resolute that the other was not culpable in this epidemic of sorts.

  Walter broke Grigory’s thoughts before he could reply. “I was just handed a note from Sid Langston, Grigory. It now appears that Mexico has also fallen prey to this as well. We will have to pray that it does not reach you.”

  President Yeshevsky reached out to his American counterpart with a bit of a tremor in his voice, “Walter, could you elaborate more on when exactly you took your cattle into protective cover?”

  Walter actually looked to his Vice President for approval, which Sid Langston gave him with a nod from across the desk, “We feared that if this was a bio-attack on our livestock, then we had to take precautions early, or risk the kind of catastrophe that has already befallen us. So right away, Grigory, as soon as the news from China spread, we saw the potential of this jumping species.”

  The silence on the other end had taken an inordinate amount of time, so Walter inquired, “Are you there, Grigory?”

  When he answered, he was distant, “Yes, Walter, I am here. Unfortunately you have forced me to face another reality. What if this jumps species to us?”

  The U.S. President wondered when that topic was going to be broached, and it looked like the time was now, “We both have contingency plans for these types events, Grigory, and we also both know a very small percentage of the world will survive such an event. Although my people are telling me to brace for such a situation, our biggest worry at this moment is civil unrest. I would think that your people are telling you similar things?”

  “Let’s just say the grain concessions you made on the last call are going a long way, Walter. Believe me when I tell you this, it was a prescient move on your part.”

  They left the call with hope, yet everyone in the world was waiting to hear the news that they feared was coming. Within the next hour, that reality was beginning to sink in, as news reports worldwide had
confirmed. All the cattle in world had perished.

  * * *

  Anatoly was looking over the data once again. It matched, as it had the first time. This was his most recent task, which was ensuring that planetary alignment data from Earth matched that of the Space Station. They were double checking everything nowadays, as it had been three days since the last cow walked the earth. Not just cows either, but subspecies perished, too. In Africa and Asia it was the water buffalo that suffered the same fate. In America, it was the Great Plains buffalo.

  Anatoly recalled pictures of America’s history, and he remembered the piles of bones and pelts amassed by shortsighted people who were oblivious of the fact that they were exterminating an animal that the native people had sustained themselves on for ten thousand years or more. Now, somehow, this unknown pathogen had done what mankind was not even able to do with the Bison, completely exterminated it.

  Down on Earth, the food hoarding had started. It wasn’t pandemonium yet, but it was close. Like when the pigs died, everyone ran out and bought the meat that was already processed, worldwide. Unlike the swine event, however, unless you were a known and trusted butcher or wholesaler, no one was buying nor eating any beef. So all the people who had gone from Pauper to Prince on the sale of their pork did not get so lucky this time. People were suddenly taking this far more seriously than they had before.

  Not everyone thought the swine kill off was a bad thing, as Muslims believed that God was definitely done talking to people now, and he was taking action, which was okay with them, as good Muslims were positioned to be in line with God.

  Israel thought the same thing, that God was coming to take action, but against the Muslims. But now, the rhetoric had changed, and people everywhere were getting on board that this was an event bigger than anything the Earth had witnessed during Man’s rule. Of course, the scientist and world leaders did not believe these were Acts of God and they were trying to prove it as fanatically as possible, which was why Anatoly was poring over this data; because there was also a sect that believed this was a cosmic thing. There was a growing voice from the people of the Earth saying that this was what the Mayans had been warning future generations about.