The Virus

by Steven Spellman

  “We are federal agents, Mr. Hanson, and we need to know where your daughter is.” informed the suited man nearest to Lenard. Even as he spoke, other men were searching the house. Two or three climbed up the flight of stairs that led to Delilah’s room. Lenard turned toward those men as they rapidly ascended the steps.

  “Hey, this is private property!” Lenard yelled “You get the hell out of here right…” An excessively painful hold upon the soft of Lenard’s shoulder halted his heated demand before he could finish. He winced in pain as the grip forced him to return to the chair. The agent who had spoken with him loomed over him with his hand still on his shoulder, though he had let up on the pressure.

  “Mr. Hanson, we are federal agents. We need to speak with your daughter, immediately…it is a matter of national security.” The agent drew his face close to Lenard’s as he spoke (as if that were necessary, considering Lenard’s shoulder felt as if it had been all but broken). Lenard, still grimacing from the smarting in his shoulder, opened his mouth, but only he and God knew if he was going to cooperate or if still had enough fire in him to merit another painful hold, because before he could get any words out, his daughter’s ear-shattering scream filled the room. Obviously, the men had found their target. The agent holding Lenard’s shoulder stood upright just in time to watch two specially-trained men restraining a very animated Delilah with a good measure of difficulty.

  They brought her down the stairs with perhaps more difficulty (and certainly more expletives) than would’ve been rendered by a hardened terrorist. She was taken outside to one of the black trucks waiting there. The agent placed his hand again upon Lenard’s shoulder (the very same spot as before, no less) and kindly advised him to remain calm.

  “Your daughter will not be harmed,” was the only consolation he offered Lenard as they both listened to her panicked screams die out behind the thick armoring of specially-plated SUV doors. She yelled for her daddy to help her, but to no avail. All Lenard could do was look on and impudently demand answers that he may never be given from men he had never seen before. Meanwhile, the truck into which Delilah had been loaded, drove off of the Hanson property, accompanied by five or six identical black trucks. Delilah, now in the back seat of the truck, behind a thick iron grating that separated her from the cockpit, was still kicking and screaming—quite literally—for immediate release.

  One of the agents was sitting in the back with her, so naturally, he found himself the recipient of most of her verbal and physical duress. She spat, she clawed, she yelled, she thrashed, and basically did anything that would make this whole fiasco as uncomfortable for the strange suited men around her as it was for her. After sustaining more than one or two bloody scratches from his fiery patron, the agent in the back gave Delilah a single warning that she should calm down or else. Of course, she didn’t calm down, so the ‘or else’ came in the form of device that looked like a very miniature flashlight. The first opening the agent got in between Delilah’s hazardously hysterical thrashing, he pressed the device hard against her neck. Five tiny syringe heads pierced her skin, and almost instantaneously, her limbs went slack. She slumped down with little more than a weak whimper onto the truck door nearest her. Her head bumped helplessly against the window with the truck’s movement for a few moments, until the agent sat her limp body up straight where her head could lay back on the seat, and so, with her head back and mouth agape, she gave no further problem.

  When she returned to consciousness, she was lying on a bed in a dimly-lit white room. Immediately, she tried to return to her screaming and thrashing fit, but somehow, her body wouldn’t cooperate. She calmed down enough to lift her head and see that she was restrained. A thick leather strap bound each of her ankles, another, her midsection, another, her chest and shoulders, and yet two more, both her wrists. The wrist straps secured her arms to what looked and felt like thick, plush armrests one would expect to find on an expensive recliner. Once Delilah got over the initial shock of finding out she had been harnessed like a maniac—which she had been acting like, ironically—she noticed that someone had changed her clothes. When the agents had initially abducted her from her room, she was in a nightgown (designer, of course) as she didn’t want to take any chances that the mysterious infection was clinging to the clothes she’d been wearing, and, more importantly, her.

  Now, however, she was in a white linen dress. The stark realization that someone had disrobed her while she was unconscious, and had seen her without her clothes without her permission, brought with it a fresh fury. She kicked and beat, though ineffectively, against the leather restraints until the bed beneath her sang as if it would soon fall apart. And she sang with it…sort of. The ear shattering screams of frustration that she released would’ve likely caused any glass objects near her, had there been any, to instantly and violently explode into a glistening mushroom cloud. The set of lungs on this young lady was simply amazing. Her angry screech was deafening. It was much louder and of a much higher pitch than any she had ever produced before (she had never had cause to protest like this), and it strained her vocal chords to their very limit. It also gave her a splitting pain just behind her temples in the process. But none of this mattered to her at the moment. The only thing that mattered was that not only did someone have the audacity to come into her home and abduct her, but they also drugged her and stripped her bare.

  Her single-toned, mountain-moving screech continued until a door opened and a man, a doctor of some sort by the looks of him, in a completely white uniform with matching white, bootie-covered medical shoes, entered the room. He had two thick earplugs stuffed snugly into his ears. Delilah was so busy squealing that she didn’t notice his presence for some time. Meanwhile, he took up his position near the head of her bed and waited…and waited. As a medical professional, he could properly appreciate the awesome stamina it must take to sustain such a strenuous note. Every vein in Delilah’s face and neck bulged against her skin. By the looks of things, she could’ve easily given herself an aneurism, but that didn’t seem to matter to her.

  Soon, the doctor became genuinely alarmed that Delilah would do serious damage to herself if she didn’t stop. He was just about to call for more sedative when exhaustion beat him to the punch. Delilah’s bawling dropped one to two decibels at first, then nearly all at once, she was reduced to a very hoarse cough. As everything continued to catch up with her, she found herself so tired that she could hardly move. Finally, she let her head collapse back onto the pillow, and showed no other signs of life beside an exaggerated rising and falling of her chest, her mouth open to inhale as much precious breath as possible. The doctor gazed at her and stroked her forehead gently. She didn’t protest. She had no more energy left for that.

  “Well, while you are a captive audience,” the doctor began. He thought the pun distasteful even before he said it, but simply couldn’t resist, “let me take this opportunity to try and help you understand what’s happening…” The doctor told Delilah that his name was Ian Crangler, and that he was the nation’s top rated specialist in his field of medicine (he was surprisingly mum as to exactly what field of medicine he was talking about). Dr. Crangler told Delilah that she was an extremely important person now, but again, he was mum as to exactly why. In fact, the most specific information that he gave her was that mankind had been infected by an alien virus that made childbirth from this point on, fatal for both child and mother. She was the only female on the entire planet who had not been infected with this horrible virus and in her bloodstream was the only source of a viable vaccine. The fate of all mankind rested literally in her hands.

  Chapter 8

  Geoffrey was still watching Mr. Reynolds from the other side of the large pane of one way glass. He was just about sure that he couldn’t stomach any more of the gruesome sight, when the door to Mr. Reynolds’s room opened and a man in a white overcoat with matching white pants and bootie-covered medical shoes, entered. With his pale white skin, beneath a spotless outfit, in a complet
ely white room, the man looked like an apparition as he strolled almost casually beneath bright white lights, to where Mr. Reynolds lay. Geoffrey had seen his father in medical garb plenty of times, but never like this. If it was possible to add to the strangeness of Mr. Reynolds’s current condition, the man in the lab coat did, and only added to Geoffrey’s struggle to adjust to all this.

  Meanwhile, the doctor hit a button on the underside of the bed. The astronomer’s ankles were bound with white leather straps, and his wrists were strapped with white leather straps to two armrests supporting his arms. He wore loose white plastic gloves on his hands. Slowly, the bed began to lift Mr. Reynolds’s head and torso, while lowering his legs and feet. After a few moments the bed had transformed into something like a recliner. The armrests tilted as Mr. Reynolds was forced upright, his mouth still forming soundless words and his eyes still missing irises.

  The doctor grabbed the stethoscope hanging around his neck—also white—and placed it over the Mr. Reynolds’s heart. After a few seconds of listening, he nodded solemnly as doctors usually do, and raised his hand and gestured. Apparently, he was calling for assistance. Meanwhile, he hit the bed button again and the recliner now raised Mr. Reynolds’s torso and midsection upright. The armrests rotated smoothly into a semi-vertical position along with the transforming divan, until Mr. Reynolds was positioned nearly erect. A few moments later, two men entered the room wearing equally-spotless white uniforms and pushing medical equipment. Even the stainless steel equipment was draped with what looked like thick, white curtains. The two men brought the doctor a small rolling cabinet and quickly left. Lieutenant Dan stood on the other side of the one way glass with Geoffrey, but he didn’t look nearly as confused as the intern. In fact, his chiseled face looked as calm as if all this was standard procedure. Back on the other side of the glass, the doctor worked his hands in a pair of latex gloves and produced a butterfly needle, and a small plastic vial from the rolling cabinet. He drew blood from Mr. Reynolds’s arm into the vial. He then drew another larger vial full of blood, one that already had some other liquid in it, and returned them both to the cabinet.

  After that, he used the machines that were brought in to run some simple tests. He hooked up leads to the scientist’s body from the machines, and situated goggles over Mr. Reynolds’s eyes. Then, he exited the room. The scientist seemed oblivious of anything taking place around him. Geoffrey, on the other hand, was hypnotized by the scene. Moments ago, he hadn’t even been sure that he could continue to look on but now, he found himself enthralled with expectation of what could possibly happen next. Geoffrey was so enthralled, in fact, that the sound of an opening door in the otherwise deathly silent room startled him out of the corner Lieutenant Dan had sat him in when he had taken the wheelchair away sometime earlier.

  The doctor he had just seen with Mr. Reynolds, entered the room. He spoke with Lieutenant Dan briefly, then turned to Geoffrey. His gaze was intent upon the intern’s hands as he spoke. “Hello, young man.” He said “How are you feeling?”

  Geoffrey didn’t answer at first. “I’m doing fine.” he lied, after what felt like a long while.

  “Good.” The doctor answered, drawing closer, but not too close, to him. His gaze never strayed from Geoffrey’s hands (both of which were trembling by this time). “Now, I’m going to ask you a few questions. It is very important, extremely important, that you answer me completely and honestly. Do you understand?”

  Geoffrey’s lips trembled as he answered, “I do understand and I promise I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.” Lieutenant Dan’s formidable presence was a powerful motivation to speak the truth.

  The doctor continued in slow, measured words, as if he could afford to take no chance of his terrified subject mishearing him. “Did you touch the meteorite fragment?” he asked.

  “No, no I did not.” Geoffrey answered quickly.

  “Did you touch that man,” he pointed to Mr. Reynolds, “at all, after he touched the fragment?”

  “I didn’t…I hit him with the shovel, really hard I think, but only because I didn’t know what else to do, but I didn’t touch him at all after that.” Geoffrey answered.

  The doctor exhaled slowly. He seemed to speak with considerably less anxiety after this. He carefully took Geoffrey’s still trembling hands in his own and examined them, turning them over, moving them this way and that, until he was satisfied. He then pulled up a chair and asked Geoffrey to tell him everything that happened from the moment he spotted the fragment to the moment that he and the astronomer were carted off in the chopper.

  The doctor leaned close and looked intently into Geoffrey’s face. “You need to tell me everything that happened. I warn you to not omit the smallest detail. I need to know everything.”

  Geoffrey obliged, telling the doctor absolutely everything there was to know, even about the plot the other astronomers had forged against him. No one in the room seemed too concerned with the affairs or the hypocrisy of the other scientists, but as Geoffrey recounted things pertaining to the fragment and Mr. Reynolds’s subsequent reaction to it all eyes were intent upon him.

  At last, Geoffrey finished his account. The doctor sat up in the chair and rubbed his lower lip, absorbed in deep thought. Lieutenant Dan, looming behind him, frowned as if considering something important. After a while, it seemed like the both men had completely forgotten that Geoffrey was in the room. He looked around. It was painfully obvious that he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Perhaps, he would never see the light of the day in the free world again. If he was ever going to get any answers, it was probably now or never.

  “Excuse me,” he said, or, more accurately, whispered, his voice was so low. He cleared his throat and tried again, this time a little louder. “Excuse me.” Lieutenant Dan was the first to break out of his daze.

  “Yes, Mr. Summons? What is it?” asked the lieutenant general.

  “Well, actually,” began Geoffrey, with more than a small measure of cautious reserve “I was wondering…what’s going on? Obviously, that fragment is more important than I know, but why?” he wanted to ask more, but as everything thing else seemed to be tied to this one inquiry, he waited to see what, if anything, would be answered. Amazingly, the doctor was yet in his daze. Lieutenant Dan tapped his shoulder and he started back to reality.

  “What is it, Lieutenant?” the doctor asked.

  “Mr. Summons wants to know what’s going on. What do you think?” Lieutenant Dan didn’t sound like he was making a genuine inquiry as much as simply jesting. The doctor, however, must’ve not known that, because the tone in which he answered was, indeed, sincere.

  “My vote is we tell him.” He answered. Suddenly, Geoffrey wasn’t so sure that he wanted to know anymore. That didn’t matter of course, because the doctor continued, “First chance I get, I’m going to call my ex-wife and estranged daughter. What can it possibly hurt now? Besides, what information we can get out of him and the comatose astronomer over there may be of some assistance to us. If so, they may be responsible for saving billions of lives, not to mention the future of mankind. Either way, I say let ‘em in on our dirty little secret.”

  Lieutenant Dan looked back at Geoffrey as if thinking this over. Even lost in thought, his face was like his jaw: Hard and firmly set. It didn’t look as if the doctor’s logic was winning out. A terrifying thought entered Geoffrey’s head. By the looks of things, he was already on the wrong end of the whole, ‘I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you’ thing. The doctor had already shared that there was a ‘dirty little secret’ (one hell of a dirty little secret, as far as Geoffrey could tell), that was carefully guarded by the government, so Geoffrey had been effectively stripped of all hopes of maintaining plausible deniability, but he still hadn’t been given enough information to make such a risky position even remotely worthwhile. In short, he had been given too much information for his own good, but not enough for his own welfare.

  The doctor must’ve read the concern on
Geoffrey’s face because he continued to persuade the lieutenant general, “Listen, Lieutenant Dan—that’s what everyone around here calls you, right? Well, look, I’m certainly not trying to tell you how to do your job, as I certainly wouldn’t appreciate you advising me on how to perform mine, but don’t you think this kid has a right to at least know? Even in what you do, even in war, there are rules, aren’t there? I don’t claim to know all the idiosyncrasies of your chosen profession, but if I’m not mistaken, I think one of your men told me something like it’s unlawful to shoot an enemy combatant while they’re parachuting down and can’t defend themselves.” Lieutenant Dan gave a reluctant grunt acknowledging that fact.

  “Well, if the enemy deserves at least some kind of consideration, doesn’t this young man?” the doctor asked rhetorically. “Neither he nor the astronomer in there knew what the hell they were getting into when they started messing with that fragment. That fragment may be the very reason he never sees his family and friends, everyone he’s ever known, alive, again…” Geoffrey’s eyes widened considerably and he stopped breathing involuntarily at the sound of this assertion. Damn, I really should’ve been a doctor like my dad told me! he thought to himself.

  The doctor continued, “The least we can do is tell the poor bastard what’s going on here.”

  Lieutenant Dan looked at Geoffrey, and for the first time, Geoffrey saw his frighteningly-cool demeanor give way to something even more disconcerting; genuine displeasure. Uncomfortable beads of perspiration presented themselves all across Geoffrey’s forehead almost instantly. The lieutenant general looked displeased. He stepped around the doctor toward Geoffrey’s chair, and his (Geoffrey’s) life flashed before his eyes. One of the lieutenant’s deathly huge hands lighted upon Geoffrey’s shoulder. With the slightest clamp of his fingers, he sent a hot jolt of pain through Geoffrey’s arm, elbow to neck. Geoffrey winced but didn’t budge: Not from resilience so much as the fact that the lieutenant general was so strong that he was virtually holding the intern’s entire torso upright with his single vise-like hold.