“All in the name of science,” Dr. Blazer said.
Paul was no longer her boyfriend. No, now he was the head of the robotic research department – married with grown kids. He was also her boss.
“It’s my life’s work,” Eugenia Ray pleaded.
He pressed his lips together in a thin line and nodded. “I’m sorry, I dragged it on as long as I could.”
“You know how important this is to me.” “I know.”
It was all he’d said before he had walked out of the room. She didn’t let it stop her as she took it all the way to the top. For three years she’d worked on finding private funding for her research. Then, with one phone call – it had all ended.
“You’re being pulled onto something bigger and better,” Dr. Blazer said.
“I don’t want bigger and better. This is what I want.” “Yes, you want to create a robotic heart so that other
young girls don’t have to lose their fathers so young like you did. But, it’s over now. I’m sorry – but your project is over.” Eugenia Ray walked out of the lab and never looked back. The journey on which she was about to embark would change the face of the planet forever. By the time she reached the new lab on the other side of the country, her twenty-some odd years in Berkeley were already long forgotten.
Dear Dr. Eugenia Ray Uchida,
We’re looking forward to your work at Kane Laboratory. It is vital that we develop a proper series of immunizations per the enclosed specifications. You have been hand selected due to your robotic and human engineering studies. We appreciate your discretion in this matter.
Eugenia Ray ran her thumb over the Presidential seal, awed by its symbolism. The letter was short and to the point. The final sentence’s meaning was not lost on Eugenia Ray. She read through the attached documents and let out a deep sigh. On the last page was a simple document; if she agreed to the terms, she would need to sign the paperwork. If she agreed to the terms, she would be given private funding to develop her project on her personal time. It was both a nightmare and a dream come true in one simple package.
She vaguely heard the door open and close as she held the pen in her shaky hand.
“Did you already sign yours?” Eugenia Ray asked. “I did.”
Eugenia Ray looked up to a smiling and beautiful Dr. Meredith Berry, her soon-to-be lab partner. It wasn’t fair that she was both gorgeous and brilliant.
“What? You’re not chomping at the bit to spend the rest of your life holed up in a windowless lab deep in the earth concocting drugs for our children?”
Eugenia Ray cringed.
“What? You know that’s why they picked us, don’t you?” “I was hoping it had to do with our intelligence.” Meredith snorted. It still, somehow, came out gracefully.
“Yeah, I’m sure that had some weight. But they wanted doctors that had nothing; no family, no life. I don’t know about you – but that fits me to the bill.”
Eugenia Ray looked down at the paper and signed her name.
“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Meredith asked. “At least this way we’ll do something memorable.”
“If we were really developing immunizations then why is it so secretive?”
Meredith shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe they don’t want contamination?”
For eight years Meredith and Eugenia Ray worked side by side with their team, developing a string of new immunizations that would be administered to infants. Part of the immunizations was a frontal lobe suppression compound that promised to neutralize ‘forward’ thinking, as her bosses – whom she had never met – had put it.
Late one night, over a few glasses of wine, Meredith had said what both of them had been thinking for a long time.
“We’re not creating immunizations.”
Eugenia Ray swallowed hard and looked around. Even though the team had gone home for the night, she could never shake the feeling of being watched.
“We’re dumbing down society.”
“Why would we be doing that?” she asked, watching Meredith carefully as she answered.
“I have a theory.”
Eugenia wanted to laugh, but she didn’t.
“I heard they were developing a serum that would create a lethal infection, something about military protection.”
“Military protection?”
“Yeah, that’s what Harry said.”
“Harry? Is that the politician you’ve been dating?” “Dating?” Meredith laughed loudly, startling the quiet of the room. “No dear, just sleeping with. He’s got a girlfriend.”
“More like robbing the cradle of. He’s twenty years younger than you.”
“Twenty-five,” she said gallantly.
“And he said they’re developing a military defense mechanism with these serums?”
She nodded. “Yeah, making people not have as much of a conscience. But, our immunizations basically dumb everyone down, making us more susceptible to inoculation. His campaign manager asked him if he had a problem with it. When he said no, then suddenly, the funding came in. Anything to get what we want, right?”
“Kind of like the funding for my heart project once I signed the paperwork.”
“We’re all just puppets, Eugenia.
We’re all just puppets,” Meredith said with a dismissive wave.
“We always have been.”
THE END
1949 – Mr. Uchida, Eugenia Rays’ dad, dies of congenital heart failure.
1951 – Eugenia Ray Uchida enrolls in University of California Berkeley.
April 28th, 1978 – Dr. Eugenia Ray’s last day at University of California Berkeley, Robotics and Human Engineering Laboratory
April 30th, 1978 – Dr. Eugenia Ray begins her work in Washington D.C. – Immunization and Genomic Inoculation Division
1986 – Dr. Meredith Berry and Harry Lyle Goodman date
September 30th, 2021 (Doomsday) – Sadie kills her husband and leaves Cold Spring Harbor, New York.
Dr. Lu Zhongyan ships the virus to Adrianna Banks in Washington, D.C. from Suzhou, China. His note reads ‘containment failed.’
Adrianna Banks does not receive the virus as she is already on a plane back to Washington State.
October 1st, 2021 Christoph Sharman encounters the first free Undead, who floats down the river, causing a chain reaction. The drinking water becomes contaminated, spreading the virus throughout Germany and thus infecting all of Europe.
Dr. Danny Ruiz embarks on a Mexican cruise with his sisters and mother.
October 21st, 2021 ‘News goes dead.’ Mallory Goodman and Frank Bianchi have an affair. The President returns to the White House and the executive team leaves for Alaska.
November 3rd, 2021 Lana and Ethan are the last survivors picked up by the military to be taken to safety.
November 5th, 2021 The President of the United States is murdered by the First Lady, Mallory Goodman. Frank Bianchi is also murdered by Mrs. Goodman shortly after.
December 10th, 2021 Marge Bianchi kills herself and her 4-year-old daughter, Emily. They and their neighbor, Patricia Hobbs, were the last known human survivors in the south/southwest region of the United States. None of them make it out alive.
Russian President Uri Ilyushkin, First Lady Mallory Goodman, and Christoph Sharman return to Washington, D.C. to retrieve the FL Gage Virus, better known as Undead Mutilation Stage 2.
December 15th, 2021 Marcus Bianchi and Colonel Richard Tempest return to Dallas to retrieve the last known survivors. The mission is a failure.
December 20th – 23rd, 2021 Marcus Bianchi, Alexander Dunayevsky, Matthew Pillay, and Jamie Choo Uchuda spread the virus through Camp 3.
December 24th, 2021 President Ilyushkin is murdered by Christoph Sharman.
Bianchi, Dunayevsky, Pillay, and Uchuda arrive in Washington D.C. with Dr. Dorsett. They torture Dr. Dorsett until she gives them the formula for the final virus. The final mission is set into place.
January 1st, 2023 “The Day of the Revel
ation” The last known human survivors are annihilated.
The virus mission is complete as the last of the 2nd generation Undead slowly die off.
The third generation of Undead go into the final phase of engineered evolution.
Acknowledgements
My biggest thanks go to my readers who believed in this story so much and believed in my ability to expound on it from its predecessor, the novella.
Big thanks to LepreCon for hosting the book release party for The Apocalypse as well as popping my con cherry. Jamie Butcher, who wears many hats brilliantly, but not as brilliantly as she wears the hat of supportive friend. Thank you for you. Your support in my endeavors, your work, and your friendship means more to me than words can express.
To my beta readers; Veronica Baxter, Terry Lopez (the Montana girl), Carrie Sutton, and Karen Braddish Holt, for being my reading victims and helping boost my confidence when I most needed it.
To Jennifer Armentrout, for being an author inspiration to me (even though she doesn’t know it yet), gracing my radio show with your awesome presence, for being a voice for the little guy, and for loving zombies!
My writing group; Ivy, Debbie, Veronica, and Rebekah – for distracting me when I needed it, getting me in trouble with the cops, and reminding me to kill off the characters that annoyed me.
Final thanks to the best publishing crew there is; Penny Padegimas, Charlene Shotwell, Holly Foreman, Ivy Ames, Jason Vollario, and then to the #1 readers in the world; Christina Landino, Nicole Hunsaker, Allison Dorset, Amelia Drew and Katie Burns who all contributed to the book in some shape or form.
My most special thanks and all my love goes to the man of my dreams, my husband, Larry Williams, who patiently waited when his wife was lost in the writing cave and talked me off the ledge whenever I wanted to throw the book at the wall and most of all, for being my best friend and my shoulder to cry on.
About the Author
T.M. Williams began her writing career by accident when a song inspired a story about a woman named Carter. What started off as a blip of an idea turned into the Bohemian Grove trilogy, a story based on ancient aliens, science, conspiracy, religion, and love.
Soon after, the completed manuscript was picked up by Nightengale Press Publishing. Bohemian Grove was released in early 2013 - just a little over a year after she began writing.
Since then T.M. Williams has gone on to write Undead Win- ter, Sun Gate, the Moonlight mini-series, and is currently work- ing on future projects. She is also a free-lance business journal- ist, copywriter, and blogger.
Originally from Los Angeles, she currently lives in Scotts- dale, Arizona with her husband and son.
Her writing interests include science fiction, horror, adult
romance, mystery, adventure, suspense, and true-crime.
Also In Print:
Bohemian Grove - Book 1 http://amzn.to/1f0bGcN
What if alien life did not contact us? What if we are the aliens?
Meet the Bohemian Grove trilogy.
A woman named Carter discovers that she is an Anunnaki, one of an alien race that the Vaticates, the protectors of faith and religion, are trying to eradicate.
As Carter learns that she holds the key to connect with her ancestors from the planet Nibiru, the Vaticates are successfully annihilating her people one by one – but their ultimate target is Carter.
Jack is in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up tangled up in the chaos and danger that are Carter’s life. As they become drawn to each other, Carter meets another who calls to her in ways she cannot control. Is it because of their celestial link, or is it something more?
Sun Gate - Book 2 http://amzn.to/1iFw6Nc
Carter stared at the dark crimson blood that covered her
palms. The reality was gone. Kneeling on the floor, she stared at his body, which lay motionless and cold—gazing in disbelief as his vacant eyes stared into the distance at nothing, forever. “You killed him,” John whispered.
Moonlight (Melanie King Affair Mini-Series)
Writing with Lisa Sumilhttp://amzn.to/19l5fwt Zachary wants to rekindle his marriage with Melanie, but when he breaks some shocking news she wants to run into the arms of Warren. Yet, things are already taking a turn that she has no control over and she may lose everything.
The Apocalypse Page 12