by Damon Hunter
Bo’s Quarters - TMRT Checkpoint - Phoenix, Arizona
Ana woke up to the same barking that rousted Katelin. She saw Bo was already awake and dressed. He sat in the sparse room’s only chair. sipping on what was left of the bottle of whiskey.
He said, “It’s just a regular dog. There is a window in the hall. I checked.”
“Good to know,” she said as she sat up and started looking for her clothes.
After she was dressed, she looked over to see Bo still sitting in the chair staring at the wall.
“Are you okay?”
“No, I don’t think I am.”
“Did I do something?”
“No, it’s not you. I just woke up and realized no matter how much I drink, what happened while I was in the Quarantine Zone is always going to be with me.”
“Yeah, I kind of noticed the same thing. I fought like crazy to get out of there, but I think about my friends who didn’t make it and I start thinking I should be back.”
“Exactly. I feel like the kid was my responsibility and I let him down.”
“I’d tell you it’s not your fault, but I know I wouldn’t buy it if we were talking about Lumpy.”
“Lumpy?”
“He died before you joined us. He wasn’t the only one.”
Bo nodded. “I lost someone before, too.” He held up his arm where he had been bitten. “The first day, I was sitting in my apartment trying to think of a way to kill myself. Even when I realized I was immune, I was still thinking about it. Saving Gavin was the only reason I didn’t.”
“Are you back to thinking about it?”
“No. I’ve been through too much shit to off myself.”
“Good. I kind of like you.”
“I kind of like you too.”
“You giving up the sex and alcohol?”
Bo held up the bottle. “No. They don’t make it go away, but they’re the best I’ve got.”
“Good, I was feeling the same way.”
Bo held out the bottle.
“No, thanks. I need a break, maybe some real food. A shower wouldn’t hurt.”
“You may have a point,” Bo said as he stood up. “I could use a shower myself.”
“It would be faster if we showered in our own rooms.”
Before Bo could answer, they heard the sound of the door unlocking, followed by someone knocking on the door.
Bo looked at Ana, who shrugged.
Bo said, “It’s open.”
The door opened. Torrance stepped in and introduced himself as, “Special Assistant to General Dr. Thompson.”
“What can we do for you, Mr. Special Assistant Torrance?” Bo asked.
“First, just call me Torrance, it is what my boss calls me and I’m kind of used to it.”
“What can we do for you, Torrance?” Ana asked. “We were both thinking it is time for a shower and a meal.”
“General Doctor Thompson would like to start the debriefing process.”
“Can it wait?” Bo said.
“Yes, I suppose it can, but he is going to want to see you both soon.”
“Yeah, well we’re easy to find these days,” Bo replied.
“Any word on Vance?” Ana asked.
“Yes, he is recovering nicely.”
“Can we see him?”
“I will look into that. I shall tell the General Doctor neither of you was in condition to be interviewed. He won’t like it, patience is not one of his strong points. Can you be ready in an hour? I can arrange for you to meet in the mess hall, so you can get some food as well.”
“An hour should be plenty,” Ana told him.
“I shall send someone to escort you,” Torrance said. Before Bo or Ana could reply, he turned and walked out the door.
Chapter 14
Holding Pen Storage Room - TMRT Checkpoint - Phoenix, Arizona
Barrington was surprised when General Doctor Carruthers entered the storage unit next to the holding pen. He knew she was arriving today, but did not figure she would show up in the holding area. Like Thompson, she liked her main assistant by her side at all times. Her version of Torrance was a young lady she called Miss Walter. Unlike Torrance, Miss Walter also served as a bodyguard and had the standard issue TMRT sidearm strapped to her side at all times.
Carruthers looked at Katelin’s katana, which Barrington was holding, and said, “Are you taking up sword fighting, General Doctor Barrington?”
“No, I was going to take these to the young woman we have in the segregated quarters.”
“Do you think it is a good idea giving her a deadly weapon? They are still prisoners.”
“It’s a comfort thing. After what she has been through, being unarmed makes her uncomfortable.”
“Did you miss the part where they are prisoners? I agreed to make them as comfortable as possible, but they still aren’t leaving until I say so.”
“Of course, but last I checked, we have guns.”
General Doctor Carruthers looked at Miss Walter, who said, “My recommendation is the prisoners not be armed in any way. If they are having trouble sleeping, we can provide the proper medication.”
“Speaking of medication,” Carruthers said, “who authorized they be given alcohol or allowed two of them to share a room?”
“I did.”
“No more. I did you a favor getting them out of the holding pen, we have cots there just for this kind of occasion. Do me a favor and don’t abuse my kindness.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Excellent. Lleave the swords and come with me, I have something to show you.”
Barrington left the swords and followed Carruthers out of the storage locker.
“We have discovered the means to end this nightmare,” Carruthers said as they walked.
“A vaccine? Or even better, a cure?”
“No. Close, but not quite.”
“Then what?”
Carruthers pointed to a door. The room was not marked. Barrington had never been in there and had no idea what was inside.
Carruthers punched a code into the keypad below the door knob and the deadbolt slid to the unlocked position. The three of them stepped inside. The room was bigger than Barrington would have suspected. He noticed half the room was partitioned off behind thick glass that went from floor to ceiling.
The vampire rotter they had on the other side of the glass saw them enter and flung itself into the glass. Other than a smear of green pus from the sores growing over the infected man in a TMRT uniform, his assault on the barrier did nothing. The futility of his attempts did nothing to discourage him from continuing to ram into the barrier.
“He won’t stop until we leave,” Carruthers told him.
“Is keeping one of these things around a good idea?”
“He can’t get out,” Miss Walter said. “The containment unit is designed for holding this type of infected. If there were a chance it could escape, I would not let the General Doctor be in the room.”
“We’ve thought we were safe before and look how that turned out.”
“This is different, we’ve learned from our mistakes.”
“That’s what we said before.”
“No need to be upset, General Doctor Barrington. As soon as the others get here, we won’t have to worry about him much longer.”
Before Barrington could inquire as to what she meant, the door opened and General Doctor Thompson followed by eight more ranking officers entered the room. A group of military men who were not TMRT followed close behind. Also entering the room was a tall man in a dark suit no one but General Doctor Thompson recognized. Thompson pretended not to know Agent Riley as the man found a spot against the far wall.
Once everyone was inside, Carruthers looked up at a camera mounted in the ceiling and said, “Are you ready, Dr. Guild?”
“Just say the word,” a voice said from an unseen speaker in the ceiling.
General Doctor Carruthers stepped in front of the small crowd, directly in front
of the vampire rotter smashing its body against the glass wall, and turned to face them as the rotter continued its futile assault.
“As some of you know, and many of you don’t, we have been conducting research on the infected at a secure facility in the Colorado mountains. While the TMRT’s main research focus has been cures and vaccines, a small group of us have partnered with other branches of the military to work on improving our offensive capabilities. The research has been very hands on.”
Barrington interrupted, “Does this mean you have been transporting infected out of the quarantine to do this research?”
“Yes, but we have been very careful.”
“It only takes one mistake to lead to an outbreak,” one of the TMRT officers in the room said.
“Yes, and we did not make any,” Carruthers said. “And we won’t, because as of today, the program is being dismantled. The reason for this dismantling is we have done what we set out to do.”
She paused to let that sink in before continuing. “As we know, the only way to stop the infected has been massive physical trauma. For those like the specimen behind me, who are prone to the apex predator, or vampire, mutation, the amount of damage needed to incapacitate one is excessive. Nothing short of paralysis or death can dissuade them.”
“We are well aware of this, General Doctor Carruthers,” another TMRT piped in, “Some of us have been in the field.”
“Yes, you have. The point is we have tried many unconventional ways at the Colorado Research Facility.”
“Are you talking about bio-weapons, ma’am?” a man in an army uniform with stars on his shoulder asked.
“We are. They proved to be immune to some of the nastiest weapons we possess. The specimen behind me could breathe nerve gas the same as we can breathe air. Nothing we had in our arsenal was effective. We, however, developed something new.”
Carruthers looked up to the monitor in the ceiling and said, “Fire away, Dr. Guild.”
A hatch opened above the vampire rotter, who was still flinging his battered and bloody body against the thick glass. Out of the small hatch dropped a small, blue metal canister about the size of a can of hairspray. It hit the floor and both ends opened, letting a grey vapor into the air. The rotter stopped flinging itself into the glass. It seemed confused for a moment, looking around and sniffing the air.
The mist stopped coming out of the canister and slowly dissipated around the puzzled vampire rotter.
The infected man made a strange noise and his skin around his chest began to smoke. It looked down as something burned through him from the inside. Instead of pain, there was confusion on his face as he burned to ash. Within two minutes of breathing in the mist, the vampire rotter was a smoking pile of ashes and charred bone.
“The fire is completely internal, so he does no damage to any structures he may be near,” Carruthers told them.
“But that is not the best part. Are you ready for demonstration number two, Dr. Guild?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Guild said through the unseen speaker.
A door opened on the far side of the enclosure and two TMRT soldiers in full gear brought in an ambler wrapped head to toe in some kind of thick black tape. They set it on the floor next to the remains of the vampire rotter. It saw them on the other side of the glass and struggled against the tape to get at them.
Next, the two TMRT soldiers brought in a man in an orange jumpsuit. His hands and feet were in irons. He saw the infected man writhing on the floor and said, “This isn’t what I signed up for.”
“This is exactly what you signed up for. You didn’t think we would offer to commute your sentence without expecting something in return?” Carruthers said to him, before saying to the ceiling, “Whenever you are ready, Dr. Guild.”
Another blue canister dropped into the room and unleashed the gray mist. The man in the orange jumpsuit held his breath and shuffled as fast as his bound legs would allow to the far corner of the room. The rotter on the floor never seemed to notice the poison until it started to burn from the inside. Unlike the vampire rotter, the ambler was nothing but ash and bones in less than thirty seconds. The prisoner looked terrified and was struggling to keep holding his breath, but was fine otherwise.
“You can quit holding your breath, the gas absorbs through your skin,” Carruthers told him, adding, “It also only affects the infected.”
He didn’t look entirely convinced, but he let out his breath. When he didn’t burn to ash, he said, “Am I free?”
“Not yet, you need an exam, but soon,” Carruthers said to him as the door opened and the pair of geared up TMRT escorted him out. She turned back to the men watching the demonstration and said, “As you can see, we can destroy the infected without damaging either infrastructure or the uninfected. I’m sure you have all heard rumors of the nuclear option being imminent, and I can assure you those rumors are accurate. However, we have a better solution. Field experiments are being set up as we speak. If all goes as well as I think it will, the west coast rot could be a thing of the past by next week.”
“I have a question,” Barrington said.
“Ask away,” Carruthers replied.
“I noticed it affected the ambler differently than the predator mutation, is that normal?”
“Yes.”
“Have you tested it on the dogs or one of the talking predators we have heard about?”
“No, mainly because these two things are as yet unconfirmed. Perhaps we could get closer to confirming this when Vance and his party are debriefed. Either way, if they have the rot, Dr. Guild’s Chemical R will dispose of them.”
“Are you sure? If the effects vary on different iterations of the disease, who is to say how it will affect these two strains?”
“They will burn fast or slow, General Doctor Barrington, but either way they will still burn.”
Barrington did not feel as confident as she did, but he did not see any way he could argue. He did have one more point he wanted to bring up, though. “I’m not sure if everyone is aware of this, but Dr. Talbot believes he is close to a cure and a vaccine. Is there any consideration to putting gassing the entire west coast to death off until Dr. Talbot has a chance to come up with an alternate solution?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Close when it comes to developing medicines is a relative term. It could mean years, and we are only days away from this solution. Besides, even if he has a cure right now, there is a reason the rank and file of the TMRT call the infected brain dead and drooling. There is no proof reversing the rot will bring back a destroyed mind.”
“Doesn’t it seem like we should find out?”
“Given our ability to keep the disease contained so far, I have to lean towards a hard no.”
Chapter 15
Segregated Quarters - TMRT Checkpoint - Phoenix, Arizona
Two TMRT soldiers escorted Gideon to the segregated quarters.
“This doesn’t exactly look like I’m getting set free,” Gideon, still wearing the orange jumpsuit but no longer in irons, said as he saw the heavy door shut behind them and heard the deadbolt slide into place.
“Standard operating procedure is anyone exposed to the rot spend seventy-two hours in segregation,” one of the soldiers told him.
“Exposed?”
“You were in the cage with one.”
“He didn’t bite me.”
“The possibility still exists the disease could go airborne.”
“Airborne? What the fuck does that mean?”
“Like a cold or the flu. No one has to bite you for you to get it.”
“That could happen?”
“It hasn’t yet, so I wouldn’t worry. We are just being careful.”
Gideon saw the back of Ana as she and Bo headed into the mess hall. “I guess this might not be so bad.”
“Behave yourself,” the TMRT guard told him as they reached his quarters. The guard looked at the small monitor above his door and said, “Open nu
mber seven.”
The door opened. Before Gideon stepped in, he asked, “Am I going to be locked in?”
“Yes, but unless we are in an emergency situation, all you have to do to get out is ask.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You can volunteer to go back to prison.”
Gideon stepped into his room and the door slid shut behind him.
He noticed the bed looked nicer and he had his own bathroom, but otherwise it reminded him a lot of his cell back in Buckeye. He almost missed the man sitting at the small desk in the corner of the room.
“I thought I got my own room,” Gideon said.
“You do,” Agent Riley told him. “I’m just here to have a conversation.”
“What if I’m not the mood for conversation?”
“No one gives a fuck what you’re in the mood for.”
“No need to be rude,” Gideon said as he sat on the bed, facing the tall man in a dark suit.
“That’s not me being rude, just honest. Hopefully we won’t get to the point where I have to be rude.”
Gideon smiled as he said, “That sounds like a threat.”
“Take it however you want.”
“You were watching when they gassed the ambler. You got here fast.”
“I know my way around.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“First, we need to establish something. You do realize, despite all the promises, they will never let you back into society.”
“Bullshit, I have it in writing.”
“You’re a rapist and murderer, and a stupid one to boot.”
“But…”
“Think about what the public thinks of the TMRT right now having just lost the world’s sixth largest economy to the rot. They’re not going to risk putting you back outside. For good reason, you will fuck it up.”
“I have it in writing.”
“You have it on you? Anyone know except you and Dr. Carruthers and her flunkies?”
“The warden.”
“He seems like the type to let an asshole like you get out into society on his watch? How would you describe him?”
“He is a hard ass. He openly said he hopes I die.”