There Where the Power Lies (Monster of the Apocalypse Saga Book 2)

by C. Martens

  Informed by comlink with Abdiel, Viper buried its mentor in the fashion best suited to her religious preferences. The three bots took the bodies of their teachers and placed them in a new cemetery on the slope of a low hill out of view of any buildings. A quiet and beautiful spot, the humans would have thanked their mechanical companions if they could have.

  The robots went back to work. Their task was not ended, and the deaths were nothing but a minor interruption. After all, their purpose and the priority of that purpose had been made clear by those that had just succumbed.

  Caged animals need care.

  §

  Facial recognition made many things possible, and one of those things was controversy. Besides the usual factors having to do with secrecy and personal rights, the animal rights groups became embroiled in an argument over how facial recognition technology was being used.

  The avian populations of North America had been decimated by the introduction of a foreign species, and the interlopers were moving south rapidly. Soon they would be invading South America, and the endangered inhabitants there would be dealt another blow. The European starling was on the move.

  A bright team of ornithologists had devised a stop gap measure to prevent, or at least slow, the southern movement of starlings through Central America. Their idea was inspired by the electric barriers employed to keep the Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes, and it mattered little that the lakes were now infested. The idea was employed before it could be discussed, before politics got in the way, and the project worked better than expected.

  Overhead utility lines in remote locations were strung with a bimetal tape that exposed both surfaces intermittently in gaps of an inch. Attached to each end, a small, inexpensive facial recognition analyzer profiled any silhouettes that came within range. A charge generated from leakage through the wires and stored in a capacitor waited for release. When the outline of a starling was recognized, a timer waited for the optimum amount of time to fill the wire from end to end, and the tape was energized. Flocks of starlings dropped to the ground and became fertilizer. Where there were scars on the land from power structures being erected, lush vegetation sprang up.

  Proven to be of use in a short time, the idea was brought to the United States and Canada. Politics reared its head, and the process was argued over. Canada approved and implemented the technology in a couple of years, but the U.S. became locked in a mire of competing interests. The people interested in reestablishing the natural balances in avian populations vied with those who sympathized with all life and wished to protect even the destructive starlings.

  Time was running out. The solar industries were becoming more and more viable, and the carrying capacities for the high tension power lines were diminished. Obsolescence meant that the lines critical to implementing the avian weapon could start to disappear.

  Suddenly there was an inducement for the government to act. An extinct species became viable. The passenger pigeon was brought back from extinction. In order for it to be reintroduced and successful in the wild, competition must be minimized. The only serious impediment to their plan was the small, dark, European starling. They were egg and young eaters, preying on other birds, as well as forcing them from nesting sites. The once extinct pigeons would suffer, and they would probably fail to make their hoped-for comeback.

  The screams of the “protect all life” contingent diminished with the idea that a species could be brought back from the dead. The plan was finally approved almost unanimously over small opposition.

  In the meantime, Canada was having well established success. There were cries of other birds being killed, and they were proven to be true, but the benefits to other species were quickly realized to far outweigh anything detrimental. For the first time in decades, songbirds rarely seen were heard in towns that no longer remembered their music. Where dead pines stood, ravaged by beetle infestations, woodpeckers were heard. Much like the return of the wolves to Yellowstone in decades past, there were benefits that were not even realized until they showed up.

  Many of the locations in the United States that were made available were dead wires. Transmission of great volumes of electricity had lessened to the point that lines were shut down. Nevertheless, the program was successful. The technology had already been modified as Canada’s use of high energy lines diminished, and solar panels were installed to charge the capacitors.

  The first flock of passenger pigeons, five thousand strong, was released into the wild. Expected to take some heavy losses, they were tracked by drones flying within the flock. Initial indications were better than expected. The birds learned to feed on what was naturally available, just as any poultry would if denied commercial feeds. Raptors took some, but after a full year the numbers were judged to be slightly increasing. Reproduction was keeping up with natural mortality.

  The true test of the program came when a press conference was called by PETA, one of the organizations most vociferous in denying the use of facial recognition to end the reign of the starling. Although they admitted there were holdouts within the organization, the present leader announced to the world that she had changed her mind. They were now officially supportive of the starling extermination.

  Privately, the PETA leader had been convinced by her children more than anything else. When a small bird appeared in their back yard, singing a song not heard in decades, and her daughter moved to the window to be mesmerized by its sweet and varied song, calling her siblings to listen, the woman finally understood. She contacted several of her colleagues and found that they were of like mind but had been hesitant to bring their change of heart forth.

  The trick was to exterminate all of the starlings, but that turned out to be easier than expected. The way they flocked and utilized high wires for perches, their behaviors became their own worst enemy. By the time the twentieth mass release of pigeons was made amid mild fanfare, there were no starlings in the New World.

  Chapter 13

  Squeezing through the window took some effort. Forcing the window up and open with a nose was not easy, but Sparky’s dog, an Australian shepherd, finally made it budge just far enough. Mattie wanted to stay with her master, but no amount of gentle licking seemed to rouse him. The dog food spilling from the bag would have lasted for some time as she was one of few dogs that understood portion control, but the water dish and then the toilet went dry.

  The two cats followed her out the window after overcoming their paranoia.

  The small community of Fort Jones, California, was well known to the smart little Aussie. She was one of the lucky ones that got to go on walks regularly. Her master knew almost everyone, especially the dog owners in town.

  As people died, Sparky had begun a circuit of homes and yards in order to care for as many pets as he could. He turned cats loose to fend for themselves, placing food out on steps, but the dogs he gathered into homes and yards. Often he would take an animal from one location to another so that no one was alone. Besides, caring for them was easier if there were fewer stops to make.

  When the pet food started to run out, Sparky cranked up the old Chevy pickup he had parked behind his house. A little fresh gas down the carburetor as he jumped it with a battery charger got the old beast to turn over and catch.

  The fuel tank was almost empty, and the gas had gone bad, so the truck sputtered and belched as it approached the one place in town that still had gasoline. Sparky had already ransacked the farm supply shelves for any pet foods. He emptied the sealed and fortified fuel canisters into the tank until it was full. Not having to pay for the gas was fortunate. A month of social security would not have covered it.

  The road to the big city of Yreka was clear of traffic, and the old Chevy purred with the fresh fuel. The huge discount stores were locked and abandoned. He chose one and rammed the doors to make an opening. Several trips inside resulted in a truck that sagged low on its springs.

  Thinking about the kids in the Jeep that had passed through town ear
lier in the week and then moved on, Sparky made his way back along the winding road at a sedate thirty miles an hour. There was no hurry. He would get back and park the truck under cover, then unload it in the morning if he felt like it. The cold that stuffed his nose since this morning was getting to him, and he wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  The next morning, Mattie crawled up on the edge of the bed that she had been trained was out of bounds and nudged her favorite person. He seemed so still, and he smelled funny. There was something about the odor, like some of the fresh road kills she remembered as she and Sparky walked the roads outside of town. The ones that were not all bloody, but unmoving.

  Now, out of the house and touring the neighborhoods, Mattie touched noses with dogs behind fences. She cruised the streets and visited each yard as though on her leash, sitting before crossing each street just as her master had insisted. Doing her duty, she had no idea how to feed and water. That was not her job. She checked each location and occasionally barked encouragement as she went. Late in the day she approached the house out in the country behind the old barn.

  The barn was where she had been born. Her five littermates had been scooped up by owners willing to pay for pretty puppies, but she remained. She was drab compared to the rest. Her eyebrows were dim, as were her stockings, and she even had grey salt on her muzzle like an old dog. Even though she was the smart one, the others found homes. Sparky showed up just before she was scheduled to go to the county shelter.

  The old dog that greeted her was a longtime friend. They swapped scents as dogs do, both wagging furiously with nonexistent Aussie tails. Seeing no reason to go home, Mattie bunked next to the old codger in the entryway of the house that night, sharing warmth.

  On the crest of the ridge across the road, a large male coyote considered the situation. He had a grown litter of pups to train in the arts of finding food, and the old dog he had been observing for the last several weeks would be an easy meal. But now there was another dog. Maybe it was time to introduce the pups to something that would fight back. He would have to think about the situation.

  §

  Working at the CDC was a dream come true for many of the employees. They were educated in vast numbers at colleges throughout the nation, and even the world, for limited positions. Much like many of the educated nowadays, competition for jobs took the cream to the top along with those that could pull strings. The government took most of the cream and the string manipulators. The rest became employed in the private sector in even fewer positions, or they became fast food managers, sales people, or unemployed recalcitrants. There just were not enough jobs to justify the output of the centers of higher education.

  In the shadow of the St. Louis arch, the new national offices for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sat in an ugly building designed by the Senator’s son that facilitated the move from Atlanta. The only thing good about the building was that it was so large, they would have plenty of room to grow.

  In the early days of the plague event, those working within the walls and their snug, little cubicles felt so secure in their abilities that no efforts were made to control access to the massive structure. There were always celebrations within the office complex, as the director embraced the idea that everyone working was family. Birthday parties, anniversaries, and even baby showers were given space and time during business hours.

  One of the employees in the higher pay grades had a husband with a bottled water company, and she made sure that any celebrations were supplied, gratis, with anything that the company produced. It was “good business,” she said.

  There always seemed to be plenty of containers. As the prices for bottled waters continued to climb, the overflow from the parties found their way into the handbags and coat pockets of employees as they departed to go home. Some of the smart ones found enough diverted into their own resource stream that they could sell some and pocket the money.

  Deaths began two months after the Arab flu was identified. By that time several of the executive layer knew that most of their employees were living on borrowed time. No one was informed of their breathalyzer results. The higher ups did not want a panic.

  When the rest of the country found out that bottled water was involved, the waters of the city were tested. The company supplying water to the CDC facility for free turned out to be a source of contamination. The wealthy man that owned the company was out of the country, but his wife worked in the building. Strangely, she died during questioning. No one ever found out that her husband had died several days before she did. Those who discovered the connection between the female CDC employee and the water company died with the suspicion that she may have been murdered by her husband, and some even speculated that all of the rest was just collateral damage.

  §

  A calm and beautiful day presented itself to Salt Lake City. Cooler than average, with only occasional whispers of air brushing the cheeks of people too busy to notice, the weather went underappreciated by most. Certainly, Orem in his NSA cubicle was unaware of the supreme beauty he was missing.

  The great bustle of the city lay indoors. Even in the sprawling shanty towns wedged between metro areas in the expanding megalopolis, people stayed indoors playing with their electronics.

  The crisis was not over. Far from it. Main arteries were road blocked, and mandatory breathalyzer tests were still being enforced. Businesses administered their own. Teams moved about the alleys of the cardboard slums, knocking on corrugated doors.

  The citizens obeyed. Mormons were used to following the direction of their leaders, and by their example the rest submitted with little resistance. The few that did were forced, and the majority saw it as appropriate. They were winning.

  High above, so high that human sight could not perceive it nor human ear hear it, a black aircraft circled. The single pilot had been waiting, waiting for a confirmation. It came, and the man made the sign of the cross on his chest, even though he was officially an atheist, just before he released the package. Then, immediately, he kicked in the afterburners and fled. He was escaping not only the devastation he knew would be wrought, but also the guilt and regret that he now felt. Heavy acceleration and massive speed helped, but not entirely, and he knew he would have to slow down soon and deal with his thoughts.

  A couple sitting on a bench in Fairmont Park, central to the population of the area, was out enjoying the day. The man had a small box in his pocket and was busy trying to get up his nerve. The object of his affection was snuggled under his arm as tightly as she could be and was trying to be coy in her expectation of what she knew should soon happen. The young man looked to the sky in a silent prayer and noticed a small bright light momentarily streaking to the west. He thought it a good sign, assuming it was a shooting star.

  The most powerful weapon ever used had just been released. The device was designed for minimal structural, but maximum organic damage. Still, when the bomb detonated there was a blast radius directly underneath and surrounding it. Fairmont Park was vaporized as the center of the blast, and the damage diminished as it spread out. By the time it reached Temple Square, the impact had lessened to the point that vehicles remained intact as they flew through the air. One hit the top of the Temple spire, just below the golden statue which tumbled to the lee side and nestled amongst some foliage that would soon die.

  The very real impact of the weapon was to the biologicals. The radiation spread west past Tooele, north to the shantytowns south of Ogden, and south below Payson. Roughly sixty miles in every direction was blanketed with a killer that would leave buildings intact but obliterate everything of flesh and bone, chlorophyll, and single cell life.

  The Danites’ plan, possibly justifiable and the last real chance of civilized man, was brought to ruin by a man holding a grudge over childhood slights.

  §

  Once it was apparent to the President that the plagues had infiltrated the protected space, he suggested to those with him that they should vacate and challen
ge their own fates as they saw fit. The security team, Secret Service gleaned from the best that the military had to offer, had other ideas.

  The medical team agreed with the President on a personal level, but they were professionals just as the security team, and dedicated to protecting the integrity of the Presidency and the nation. So they had a quick and intense meeting.

  The bunker had levels as well as airtight doors between many of the rooms. Built and upgraded continuously since inception by the lowest bidding contractor, the facility provided some marginal possibilities.

  First, all personnel were prioritized. That made the President unhappy, as his wife was moved to a different part of the vast compartment. The Secret Service made clear to the Commander in Chief that he was not in charge within the walls that surrounded him. The Secret Service was. The security people allowed the President his powers of command in any comlink contact he made with the outside, but they were in charge within the security facility in this crisis.

  The doctors set up a system to determine who was in contact with whom while they searched for the positive vector. They grouped people by probability of acquiring contagion and then split them up even further as availability of space dictated. Essential persons were isolated in solitary confinement but were allowed access to their work terminals as needed. Everyone was tested twice daily, including the President.

  Another person died suddenly, blood streaming. Then another.

  They were from opposite sides of the complex and not in any contact.

  People who are expectant of danger in violent situations prepare themselves mentally. No different from the military in that regard, the Secret Service personnel were prepared for physical pain, gushing blood, chunks of flesh flying through the air. But an invisible enemy that crept silently along the surfaces of commonly used items unseated their courage. Paranoia thrived.