by JE Gurley
DeSousa’s reasoning didn’t move her. “The sky is clearing. We can shine a light upwards or start a fire with lots of smoke. Maybe they’ll see it.”
Bain, the third member of the small group in the Kharkovchanka’s driver’s cabin, had sat quietly listening to them argue. Finally, he ventured his opinion. “She may have a point, although the wind is blowing much too hard for smoke to rise very high. Waiting a few more hours won’t hurt.”
DeSousa shook his head. “Look, Wilkie has a better chance of reaching McMurdo than we do. The longer we wait, the more fuel and food we use. If the weather turns nasty, we’ll regret the time we lose waiting.”
“Just a few more hours,” Liz pleaded.
At first, she thought DeSousa was going to ignore her request and continue, but finally he relented. “Okay. I’m tired. I’ll sleep a few hours, but then we leave. I’ll hook a spotlight to the battery and shine it upward, but I don’t think it will help. Wilkie would have to be right on top of us to see it and knowing him, he just kept going toward McMurdo.”
Liz relaxed. Her shoulders ached from the prolonged tension. She prayed that DeSousa was wrong about Wilkie, but if he had indeed gone ahead without them, she also hoped nothing had happened to them. She had seen the yawning crevasses and the razor-sharp ice rills around which DeSousa had so deftly maneuvered the ungainly Russian Kharkovchanka. The smaller, more agile Sno-Cat should have had no difficulty choosing a safe path.
She and Bain left DeSousa up front. He had seldom left his seat during the entire journey. She worried that DeSousa’s dogged determination to do all the driving was exhausting him. Tired men made bad decisions. She was tired as well. She hoped her insistence to wait for Wilkie didn’t come back to haunt her.
In the rear cabin, Lester, Reed, Maurice Jernigan, one of the heavy equipment operators, and Lillian Kopenski, a botanist, were all asleep. She eyed the small group with a sense of sorrow and loss. With Wilkie, Mullins and Shimoda missing, and Hughes, Deen and Brad out of communication, they were all that remained of the original forty-eight over-winterers at Amundsen-Scott. She tried to recall the names of the dead – Pirelli, Walls, Menendez, Meyers, Connelly, Singleterry. The litany of the dead went on, but the names and the faces became jumbled, morphing from the faces she remembered to the masks of horror of their zombie counterparts.
Guessing her thoughts but misreading the emotion showing on her face, Bain offered, “None of the dead were your fault. This … disease is beyond anyone’s medical acumen. To be honest, I’m surprised that this many are still alive. Why us? Are we few immune?”
She had often pondered that very question in the weary minutes before forcing her body to sleep and in the hazy, nightmare-ridden moments upon awakening. “I don’t know what’s causing the transformation, so I can’t be certain that we’re immune. The disease has an unusual incubation period. Some people died quickly, but others didn’t fall ill for several days. It’s in the air that we all breathed.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what makes some of us different. I don’t know anything.”
“Perhaps we’ll learn the truth at McMurdo.”
“Yes, McMurdo.”
She poured a cup of hot coffee, clasping the mug tightly with both hands to absorb the heat. The interior of the tractor was not cold. The heater kept it warm enough to shed her heavy coat and gloves, but a chill not being birthed by the freezing temperatures outside or the relatively comfortable interior was steadily growing in her core, as if her doubts and fears were sucking the heat from her body, from her soul. Nightmares plagued her sleep. Her stomach rumbled from hunger. They had begun rationing the food to make it last. She had reduced her caloric intake so that the others who needed it more could eat. For two days, she had been living on coffee, peanut butter sandwiches, and bad dreams.
Sitting at the table across from Bain, she watched as he sipped his tea. He nibbled on a piece of stale Russian black bread they had found in the tractor’s pantry in lieu of scones or biscuits, dunking it in the tea to soften its chewy texture. He looked so prim and proper, so British, that she could almost ignore his disheveled appearance and five day’s growth of beard. He caught her staring at him and smiled.
“It’s not the tea; it’s the idea that counts.”
She smiled back at him while shaking her head. Bain had used his last remaining tea bag for the third time. The tea must have been weak and flavorless, but he drank it with gusto, more for the solace the ceremony provided than for the actual taste.
“You look as if you’re taking tea at the Savoy.”
“I’m certain they would frown upon my present attire. Have you been to London?”
“My ex-husband and I visited London a few years ago, before we were married. They had just redecorated the Savoy. It was lovely.” It saddened her that thoughts of her ex were not as painful as they had once been. There had been good times as well as bad times. She was tired of dwelling only on the bad times. It was time to move on with her life.
He looked pensive for a moment before replying, “Ah, yes, they redecorated in 2010. Alas, I haven’t been in years. I do miss London.”
“You’ll go back.”
He frowned and raised an eyebrow. “Indeed.”
Charles Lester moaned in his sleep, fighting the blanket covering him for a few moments before rolling over and settling down.
“Someone else is having nightmares,” Bain said.
She set her cup on the table. “You too?” she asked.
“I can’t help thinking that I’m destined never to see England again.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Even if I survive, it’s doubtful that long distance travel will be possible. Oh, we might reach Christchurch or Australia, so my accent will be the norm, but reaching America or England will be very difficult.” Seeing her dismay, he quickly said, “But of course there are American Naval vessels in Australia. Perhaps we might hitch a ride.” He smiled again, “Or stowaway.”
“What do you think we’ll find at McMurdo?”
He peered over the rim of his teacup. “I think we’ll find more death.” He noticed her look of consternation. “Don’t pay attention to my prattling. I’m depressed because I haven’t had a decent cuppa in days. No matter what we find, we’ll be eight-hundred miles closer to home. Come summer, we can build a boat and sail to Australia.”
She appreciated his attempt to humor her, but she had read the stories of early polar expeditions disasters and she knew why their reaching Australia by boat was unlikely.
The Antarctic Circumpolar Current encircled Antarctica like a spinning Hula Hoop. Flowing perpetually west to east, unbroken by any continental coastline, the ACC and the upwelling of nutrients from the deep cold currents it caused were the source of the phytoplankton that fed the abundant sea life of the Southern Ocean. This plethora of fish, seals and whales first drew early explorers to the bottom of the world. The ACC could also brew horrendous storms that drove icebergs to penetrate the hulls of wooden ships, or crush unwary ships in a sea of ice, such as Shackleton’s ill-fated Endurance. Large modern fishing vessels and cruise ships weren’t immune to its fury. She doubted a small ship could safely reach Australia. Freezing to death where they were or drowning in the sea were poor choices.
Liz noticed the ripples in her coffee before feeling the almost imperceptible shaking of the Kharkovchanka. She wondered what could move a thirty-ton vehicle. She glanced at Bain and saw that he, too, had felt the trembling. He looked at her questioningly. His look of bewilderment turned to one of horror as the heavy tractor suddenly slewed sideways and began bucking like a wild mustang.
“Ice quake,” he shouted. “Everyone outside!”
People tumbled from bunks, half-asleep and confused, tripping over one another in their eagerness to escape the dancing tractor. Liz grabbed her heavy coat and joined them in their mad rush for the door. Outside, she spotted DeSousa lying in the snow. Thinking he was injured, she ran to help him, but he climbed to his ha
nds and knees and scuttled away from the tractor. The spotlight he had set up to signal Wilkie lay on its side, shattered. She quickly counted heads and saw that everyone was out of the tractor. The ground continued to shake, but the convulsions were subsiding. After another minute, they ceased.
“What happened?” she asked Bain.
“The rapid temperature rise has weakened the ice. It shifted. We were damned lucky a crevasse didn’t open up directly beneath us.”
“Can it happen again?”
Bain hesitated. “I don’t know ice as well as I know the weather, but I would say yes. The air temperature has almost reached the freezing point. That’s unprecedented for this time of year this far inland. That places an inordinate amount of stress on the glacier.”
DeSousa walked up, brushing snow from his anorak and pants. “Glacier, hell. I’m more worried about the ice shelf.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“In ’56, a chunk of ice the size of Belgium broke away. A few years ago, a piece twice the size of Dallas floated out to sea. Recently, a slab three-hundred square miles in diameter broke off the Pine Island Glacier. I’m no glaciologist. I’m more into ice cubes in a tumbler of gin and tonic, but a quake this size means big trouble. We have to cross the Ross Ice Shelf to reach McMurdo.” He looked from her to Bain. “What if we can’t?”
Liz’s heart went cold in her chest at the possibility of not seeing Brad again. “We have to. We just have to.”
1 8
Sept. 14, McMurdo Base, Antarctica
“I knew it,” Hughes said as his eyes bored holes in Malosi. “When I heard about the Providence, I knew that somebody, somewhere, had let the genie out of the bottle.” He slammed his fist into his thigh. “Son of a bitch!”
Malosi raised an eyebrow. “Indeed. Very few people knew of the Providence incident. The government tried very hard to keep it quiet.”
“How do you know about nanites and the Providence?” Brad asked.
“Gentlemen, I’m afraid I have not been completely truthful with you.” Malosi moved his hand toward his coat pocket. Remembering that Malosi had a pistol in his pocket, Brad raised his rifle and pointed it at him. “Be very careful.”
Malosi reached into his pocket very slowly and withdrew a piece of paper. “This is my military security card. I worked on Project Resurrection at Resurrection City. I’m afraid I’m one of the people who doomed us all.”
Deen took two quick steps toward Malosi, yanked the identity card from his hand, and read it aloud. “Bastard’s right. Albert Gregory Malosi, 42, biologist. DOD security clearance Level 3.” Deen tossed the card on the floor and stepped on it. “Won’t be needing this again, will you?”
Malosi watched the card flutter to the floor, and then scowled at Deen. Deen pushed his face closer to Malosi’s. “We ought to kill you.”
“Back off, Deen,” Brad called out.
Deen glared at Brad. “This bastard caused all this shit.”
“Maybe, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. We might need him.”
Hughes added his opinion. “I say shoot the bastard.”
Deen smiled. “Two to one, Niles. We shoot him.”
“Do you know anything about nanites, Deen? Do you, Hughes?” Brad challenged. “If you do, go ahead and pull the trigger. Murder him. If not, shut the hell up and back off. We need him alive.”
Malosi looked at Brad. “I appreciate your intervention, but at the risk of losing my life, I must reiterate my first assessment. There is no cure.”
Deen danced around waving his AK-47. “See! See! He admits it. We’re all screwed and it’s his fault.” He pointed the rifle at Malosi.
Brad leveled his rifle at Deen. “Deen, if you pull that trigger, I’ll kill you.”
Deen looked from Brad to Hughes, who made no move to interfere. “You’re bluffing, Niles. You won’t shoot me.”
Brad put as much strength into his words as he could muster. He fought to keep his hands steady. “We need this man. If you murder him in cold blood, I’ll shoot you where you stand. If you’re capable of murdering one person, you’re capable of murdering another and we can’t trust you.”
Deen chewed on his lower lip as he tried to decide if Brad would really pull the trigger. Brad was afraid Deen would call his bluff, if indeed he were bluffing. Allowing Deen to get away with murder would destroy the integrity of the small group of survivors as surely as the plague. He didn’t want to pull the trigger, but suddenly decided that he could if Deen forced his hand. To his immense relief, Deen lowered his rifle and backed away from Malosi. It was only then that he saw that the barrel of Hughes rifle pointed at Deen. Hughes had decided to back him. That surprised him.
“Calm down, Deen,” Brad said in an attempt to relieve the tension in the room. “You might have your chance to shoot Malosi later.” He turned to stare at Malosi, “If he doesn’t cooperate.”
Malosi dipped his head slightly in a polite bow of thanks for saving his life.
Brad continued his interrogation of Malosi. “Where the hell is Resurrection City? I’ve never heard of it and why the lie about where you’re from.”
“I didn’t know how much you knew about the plague. I wished to know more about you. As for Resurrection City, few are even aware of its existence. It’s a small government facility in Oakes Land leased from the Australian government. It has no true name, simply a DOD designation number. We call it Resurrection City as a kind of joke. Doctors Willis Cromby, John Gilford, and I were working with nanites to reconstruct human flesh, especially nerves, in military amputees. Our benefactor, General Terrence Scott, put pressure on Cromby to test an unstable serum, AR-10, derived from a sailor aboard the Providence, on a second patient. Unfortunately, Scott’s biohazard suit developed a pinhole leak, contaminating all of us. He spread the infection to Washington. From there … well, you understand how quickly it could travel the globe.”
“So you contaminated McMurdo,” Deen challenged.
Malosi shot him a look of disdain. “No, as I said before, an airplane from Christchurch did that. The same happened to all the bases eventually – Vostok, Mawson, Casey, Scott, and your own Amundsen-Scott. They’re all gone. Oh, there might be a few survivors in very remote locations, but they will die as soon as their fuel and food is exhausted.”
“We should kill all you bastards,” Deen snarled.
“I’m afraid you’re too late. Cromby committed suicide. Gilford was still alive when I, uh, departed. In fact, Gilford was busy killing people to assure his own survival. I think he went a little mad.”
“If there’s no cure, why did this Gilford fight so hard to survive?” Brad asked.
Malosi shrugged. “Why didn’t I simply lie down in the snow and go to sleep when I crashed my snowmobile and injured myself? I suppose it is human nature to postpone death for as long as possible.”
Brad listened to Malosi’s glib answer and understood that he was revealing just enough of the truth to allay their suspicions, but he felt he couldn’t help the nagging thought that the biologist was withholding something vital. He decided to probe further.
“You mentioned biohazard suits. Just how did your decontamination system work?”
“No help there, I’m afraid. We degaussed with high frequency Electro-Magnetic waves, UV light, and an antimicrobial fog, but we designed them to eliminate external contamination on our suits and from the air. The frequencies needed to inactivate the nanites inside the human body would turn your organs to mush.”
“Just what did you do for this little group of mad doctors?”
“As I said, I am a biologist.”
“What’s your specialty?”
“Endocrinology.”
“Endocrine … What’s that?” Deen asked.
Malosi favored Deen with a condescending look. “I study the human endocrine system, the organs that secrete hormones – the pituitary, thyroid, and adrenal glands, the pancreas, ovaries, and testes, balls to you.”
> Deen growled and took a step toward Malosi. Brad raised his voice to focus Deen’s attention on him instead. “Is that how these creatures function?”
Malosi smiled. “Very good! Yes, the nanites act upon certain glands, which allow the body to repair itself. Nanites are essentially microscopic robots repairing flesh. Somehow, the mutated serum allowed the nanites to attack healthy flesh rather than repair damaged tissue. They destroy the brain, but leave the truncus encephala, the brainstem, intact. A zombie reanimates, breathes, moves, functions on an animal level, and craves human blood for energy. They are unstoppable, mindless, killing machines.”
“Unstoppable?” Hughes said. “A bullet to the head does a good job.”
“Yes. Severing the brainstem or stopping the flow of spinal fluid will kill the creatures, but their bite, their saliva, or their body fluids will contaminate a healthy individual. The nanites act much more rapidly this way than when introduced through the lungs. The zombies spread their infection as a means of nanite survival and reproduction. That is what I meant by unstoppable. Eventually, zombies will rule the world.”
As he spoke, Malosi’s voice betrayed his admiration for his handiwork. Brad realized that the deaths of billions of human beings mattered little to the man. The science was all he cared about. Such men sickened Brad. They had been the harbingers of death and destruction for decades from Nobel to Oppenheimer, blithely risking the future of mankind in the name of science. For every Louis Pasteur, Jonas Salk, or Albert Sabin, there was a Richard Gatling, Josef Mengele, or Gerhard Schrader, the inventor of Sarin gas. The pursuit of science for science’s sake was to tread a path in a minefield with eyes shut, except that the innocent suffered as well as those stumbling blindly.
“There’s always hope, isn’t there,” Brad said. “We’ll find a cure.”
Malosi’s sneer surprised him. “Hope is a cancer that eats away at you until all that’s left is harsh reality.” He pointed to the floor. “Here or somewhere else, we’re all going to die.”
“Your time may come real quick if you don’t shut the hell up,” Deen challenged, as he jammed the barrel of his AK-47 hard into Malosi’s stomach.