Deadlocked 4

by A. R. Wise

  "You're moving them now," said Courtland.

  Gwen listened as Toby's cage and the tarp on top of him shifted. Toby's timid voice said, "I can't feel them moving."

  "That's a shame," said Courtland as if talking about an inconvenience rather than a life-threatening illness. "I guess we'll have to get started on our second trial." He started to move and Gwen heard Kim shift on the concrete floor.

  "What do you want with me?" asked Kim as her chain rattled.

  Gwen blindly grabbed for the chain and missed. Her hands collided with Courtland's arm and the man jerked away. "Don't touch me, lady."

  "Leave her alone."

  "If you know what's good for you and your son, you'll back off."

  "I'm not going to let you hurt her."

  She continued to try and grasp at him and he violently pushed her back. The force of his attack sent her flying to the floor where her butt and back scraped across the concrete until the collar around her neck constricted and she was jerked to a halt.

  "I'm trying to save our lives, you stupid cunt."

  Gwen heard Courtland unlock Kim's chain from the wall and then use it as a leash to lead the little girl away. Kim cried out until he pulled hard enough to choke her and Gwen screamed for him to stop.

  "Shut up!" Courtland yelled out. "You don't understand what's going on here. Your son and this little girl are the keys to all of us surviving this plague. Okay? Do you understand?"

  "No," said Gwen.

  Kim sobbed as Courtland pulled her closer. "I helped design the plague, and I'm the one that can cure it."

  "Bullshit," said Gwen. "You're just a thug like the rest of the pieces of shit in this house."

  "No. They're all a bunch of convicts that were used to spread the disease, and I'm the one that decided to fight against the people that caused all of this."

  "I don't believe you."

  "I don't really give a shit what you believe. I'm the one trying to save the world, and this little girl might be the key."

  "What about Toby?"

  Courtland's tone became slightly sympathetic. "It's a shame about Toby. His body produced the wrong type of antibodies."

  "What do you mean?" Gwen was panicked.

  "The cure's designed to break down the proteins of viruses. The original cure had to be taken constantly to keep it in the bloodstream in order to keep the virus from spreading, but I developed one that could teach a person's immune system to start developing its own antibodies. It works especially well in children. Unfortunately, we've found in some patients that the antibodies start to attack protein structures inside of their body when it's mixed with the plague."

  "What are you saying?" Gwen choked as she stretched the chain that attached her to the wall as far as she could in search of Courtland. "What's going to happen to Toby?"

  "The antibodies are eating away at the protein structures in him. It starts with the myelin sheath on nerve endings and eventually moves on to other, more complicated structures. That's why his fingers are tingling. It's similar to Multiple Sclerosis or a lot of other auto-immune diseases, but it moves fast and doesn't stop with just one type of protein structure."

  "You son of a bitch!"

  "I really am sorry, Gwen. I never intended to kill him. But I'm sure you understand why I had to do it."

  "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!" She continued to scream as he left her behind.

  * * *

  "Who were the cops?" asked Reagan as he tried to keep Covington talking. The old man was being cautious not to drop his guard and Reagan wanted to draw out their conversation until he did. "How were they in on all of this?"

  "They weren't cops, but I'm sure you figured that out by now." Covington raised his left hand and scratched the side of his face. "But that doesn't really have anything to do with why I brought you here. I just wanted to lay out the facts for you and see if I couldn't convince you to see things from my perspective so that I could get you on my side. I'd rather have you willing to work with us rather than force you to." His bushy eyebrows rose as he smiled. "I'm pretty sure I failed."

  "Still though, I'm interested to hear how you planned all of this out."

  "Don't kid yourself, Charles. I wasn't the master architect of all this. I'm just the one they put in charge of this unit."

  "Is that why you've been stationed at a supposedly vacant prison for the past few years?"

  Richard looked surprised by Reagan's question. "How'd you know that?"

  "This office isn't new. There's dust on the picture frames."

  Covington nodded and smiled. "Bravo, Charles. You should've been a detective." He winked and pointed one of his fat, stubby fingers at Reagan. "I could see you as a grizzled old private eye, like Bogey in one of his noir flicks."

  "Why've they had you stationed here for so long?"

  "I was put in charge of training the Strike Team in this area."

  Reagan knew that the Strike Team was made up of men outside of the military. "The ones that went in first? I thought they were part of that private firm we hired in Iraq. Are you working with Mercs now?"

  "Have a drink with me and I'll explain."

  "I quit drinking twelve years ago. You know that."

  "I know, and I've never forgiven you for it." Covington guffawed and his laughter died off awkwardly after Reagan refused to reciprocate. "Come on, Charles, humor me. For old time's sake."

  Reagan had made a promise to his wife and son that he would never drink again. But they were dead now, and if Reagan could get Covington to drink more, it might help him gain the upper hand. "Fine. Pour me a glass, but keep it under a finger's worth."

  Covington stood up and happily walked back around to the other side of his desk. He uncorked the crystal container of scotch and poured more than a finger's worth into two glasses. He slid one across the table and Reagan had to grab it before it tipped over the edge.

  "To happier times," said Covington as he raised his glass with his left hand. He placed the gun on the table, but kept his right index finger perched on the trigger.

  Reagan raised his glass and then brought it to his lips. He pretended to take a sip and the oily texture stung his upper lip. The drink clung to his thick mustache and the fragrance tempted his nose.

  "Where were we?" asked Covington as he sat heavily in his chair.

  "You were going to tell me about the Strike Team."

  "Oh right. They're all dead now."

  Reagan was surprised by the callous answer. "What happened?"

  "Don't worry, they probably deserved to die more than anyone else in this whole mess."

  "Even more than you?" asked Reagan as he held his glass out and pointed at Covington with a cocky smile.

  Richard smirked but clearly didn't appreciate the joke. "After the start of the War on Terror, one of the first things we did was perform psyche evaluations on prisoners across the country. We were looking for personality types that were prone to domestic terrorism. When we found them, we transferred them to new facilities after claiming that they were potentially training other terrorists in the regular prisons."

  Reagan sat back and relaxed in his chair. As he did, he brought the glass of scotch with him and let it drape over the chair's arm as he swung it gently between his thumb and finger. "So you brought them here?"

  "This is one of several different facilities across the nation."

  "And you trained them to kill zombies?" Reagan leaned forward again and brought the glass of scotch down to his knees as he feigned interest in Richard's story. He set the edge of the glass against his leg and tipped it until scotch started leaking out. He was careful to keep the stream slight as it dribbled down his leg. He wanted to avoid letting it make any sound. "That doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense."

  "It was more of an indoctrination system than anything. We used their preconceptions about the government against them and started a program of mental training that eventually turned them into a terrorist militia. You'd be surprised how f
ragile the human mind is, Charles. Given enough time, the right type of personality, and a generous helping of certain chemicals, you can make someone do just about anything you want."

  "It wouldn't be that big of a surprise." Reagan lifted his glass with his hand wrapped around the outer edge to hide the level of scotch remaining. He brought it to his mouth, tilted his head, and allowed the last few drops to dribble down his chin. He dropped the empty glass onto the table and slid it across the mahogany. "Fill it up, chief. You've got my full attention."

  Covington moved his own glass in the path of Reagan's and the two of them crashed together, nearly shattering. Richard smirked and then raised his own glass to finish his drink before he started to pour more. "We had one group focused on training to clear out streets after the outbreak, and the other was in charge of releasing the disease."

  "Is that who the cops were?"

  "Yes. We outfitted them with uniforms and sent them out into the city for a couple days to spread the disease."

  "So what went wrong?" asked Reagan as he brought his glass of scotch down to the side of his leg again. "You had us try and hunt those cops down out there. If we'd caught them, they might've spilled the beans on your little project."

  "They didn't know much of anything. I'm not that stupid, Charles. I didn't go around explaining the plan to anyone that would listen."

  "Just to me." Reagan brought the near empty glass up in cheers and then pretended to take a drink.

  "Stream of consciousness, Charles. If I were a Catholic I guess I could go to a confessional, but since I'm not, I need you." He raised his glass in reciprocation of Reagan's cheer before taking a drink himself.

  "If you're looking at me to save you a seat in Heaven, you can go fuck yourself." Reagan laughed and relaxed back in his seat. "Heaven's sold out."

  "Don't worry, I wasn't getting in anyway."

  "So why were you having us chase the cops? You had us stop everything anytime there was a sighting of one of those fuckers. What happened?"

  General Covington let out a long sigh as he started to swirl his glass again. "You know what they say, Reagan. Every successful plan is one mistake away from falling apart. There was a group of scientists involved with this project that had been working together against us."

  "Sounds like we found our good guys." Reagan slid his empty glass back across the table for Richard to fill again. He slid it hard, as he'd done before, as a way to taunt the General.

  Covington let the glass smash into the side of his own again. He snickered as he poured them both another round. "Hardly. They weren't trying to save anyone. In fact, they wanted to wipe out even more of us. As you know, nothing gets done without money, and this sort of project required a lot of high-powered investors. We skimmed what we could from military budgets, but the majority of our funding came from private sources. The rich and powerful made up the majority of the people that would survive this plague."

  "I thought you said kick-starting evolution was one of the reasons you did this." Reagan watched as the General prepared to slide the glass of scotch back across the table. They'd been forcefully passing the glass back and forth each time, and Reagan knew that the General would do the same again.

  Covington predictably pushed the glass hard and Reagan moved to catch it, but let it slide off the edge. It shattered on the floor and the scotch splashed across the wood.

  "You clumsy old bastard." Richard chided his friend with a wide grin. "I knew you wouldn't be able to hold your drink anymore." He laughed and took the rest of his drink in one gulp.

  Reagan knew that the odor from the scotch he'd been pouring out would've revealed his deception if he didn't pretend to drop the glass. This also gave him a chance to find a weapon as he reached down and picked through the shards of glass left behind. "Pour me another."

  "I think you've had enough."

  Reagan slipped a two-inch piece of glass under his leg as he sat back up. He smirked and shook his head as if embarrassed. "What can I say? It's been a long time since I've had a drink. Anyways, back to the story. So the people that were going to survive this plague were all rich and powerful. Doesn't that go against one of the two reasons you said this whole thing needed to happen in the first place?"

  "That's why the scientists revolted. We didn't find out any of this until after everything was set in motion, and we've been scrambling to pick up the pieces ever since. It's been a real clusterfuck around here for the past few days."

  "So how do the cops come into this?"

  "The scientists that were involved picked which prisoners would be part of the Blue and Green teams. The Greens were placed in the Strike Team program and the Blues were given the role of the police officers. The scientists were supposed to be deciding which prisoners were more apt to which program, but they had an ulterior motive. They were putting people with preferable genes, the ones with the least disease in their families and the ones that had better physical attributes, into the Blue group the whole time. Then they used our indoctrination program to convince the Blues to do whatever they wanted. We think the plan was for the scientists to escape and use the Blues as a security force, and they made sure they picked people that had strong, healthy genes."

  "They were trying to start a eugenics program with convicts? That sounds like the last group of people I'd want to survive if I was going to hit reset on the human race."

  "It worked for Australia." Covington brought his gun up slightly and it looked like he might move it so that the barrel was pointed away from his captive. Reagan stiffened and grabbed the shard beneath his leg as he prepared to leap across the table and take his revenge. Then Richard let the gun's aim fall back down at Charles as he continued talking. "A lot of the details are still sketchy, but we do know a few things for certain. The scientists were the ones involved in replacing Doripenem shipments with the Alpha-77 cure. They flooded the pharmacies with it for months so that they would be well stocked when they initiated their plan. We also know that they're the ones who poisoned the food that was being sent to schools near the epicenters of the outbreaks."

  "Why would they do that?"

  "We're still trying to figure that out. We've got theories, but nothing concrete as of yet."

  "Then what's the theory?"

  Covington shifted in his seat and leaned back. He brought the gun back with him as he crossed his arms. Reagan almost attacked, but Richard had moved further away and he wasn't sure he could clear the table before the General could aim and shoot him. "We were able to find evidence that they'd found a mutation in one strain of the Alpha-77 that caused it to attack the body of the person that used it. They were working on creating a stable version of this strain that, when given to children, could train their immune systems to fight off any virus that got into them. Theoretically, if they were able to mix the zombie virus into a person with this new strain of the cure, they could teach their immune systems to become immune to the disease."

  "And if they couldn't?"

  "That's the problem." A dire expression soured Covington as he continued. "And it's a very, very big problem. We've been doing our own experiments, and from what we've seen, if a person's immune system doesn't produce the right antibodies…" He shook his head and didn't want to continue.

  "What?"

  "They become a carrier of a disease that we can't cure. I think that was their plan all along. They wanted to unleash that version of the plague, and sneak off with a super-cure that only they knew how to produce."

  "You unleashed a monster that you can't contain?" Reagan looked smug as he let go of the shard of glass beneath his leg and waited for a better moment to attack. "Who could've seen that coming?"

  "You can judge me all you want, Charles. Hell, no one's more critical of what I've done than I am. But despite whatever you might think of what we did, right now," he leaned forward and tapped the top of his desk. "I'm the good guy."

  "Don't kid yourself, Dick. Being the second worst piece of shit in the world i
s far from being the good guy."

  "Fine, that's one of the reasons I need you. I need a real good guy on my side."

  "I'm not on your side, and I never will be."

  "Are you going to stand back and watch the entire human race die off? Because if you're not willing to help me, then that's exactly what might happen."

  "Why is it so important that I help you? You're not making any sense, Dick. I thought you just wanted me here so you could get all this shit off your chest before you put a bullet in my head."

  The General shook his head and lowered his gun. "I'm not going to kill you, Charles."

  Reagan pulled out the shard of glass and leaned forward, ready to lunge.

  "I'm not going to kill what might be key to the survival of the human race - especially if he's my best friend."

  Reagan relaxed his stance and temporarily lost his blood lust. "What?"

  "We never gave you the cure, Charles. When you switched out of the Alpha unit that you were assigned to and took a position on the Bravo team, you were effectively signing your own death warrant. Alpha was filled with men whose parents were in on the program. They received the cure before heading out, but your unit was never inoculated."

  Reagan looked at the bandage on his right arm that covered the zombie bite he'd sustained while protecting Billy. "What are you saying?"

  "Did you know that the reason the human race survived the Bubonic Plague was because some people just happened to be immune to it? No one thought people could be immune to this virus, and then people like you started showing up. Charles, you might be the cure."

  Before he could respond, Reagan was startled by a knock at the door. Covington spoke loudly, "Come in."

  Senator Vargas opened the door. He was a tall, thin man with short, blondish grey hair that had nearly receded into a tonsure and sunken eyes that were draped by deep black circles. He had a look of panic and excitement as he glanced between the two men in the General's office. "They found my son."

  "What do you mean?" Covington sounded perturbed.

  "They tracked his vehicle to the bay, where the signal ended." Senator Vargas walked into the room and closed the door behind him.