Enter the Apocalypse

by Gondolfi, Thomas

  "Bill, you have a private message,” said Ammad Suliman, the Pakistani mission geologist. Ammad sat in the dim glow of an LCD computer monitor. The elegant curve of Arabic script scrolled across the monitor.

  "Thanks," said Bill.

  Ammad's hair was thinning out and he had stopped shaving every day. He had the grizzled look of a man on a four-month alcohol binge.

  "I'll take it in the office," said Bill.

  Bill climbed the three-story ladder to the office, the cockpit of the ERV, the Earth Return Vehicle. He stopped on the second deck to catch his breath.

  Dr. Jessica Harrison sat at her electron microscope.

  "Bill, how are you doing?"

  "Jess, fine. I got a message. I need to go up. Just taking a breather," said Bill.

  As the ship's doctor, she knew exactly how poorly he and the other two crewmembers were doing.

  "Are you sure you're feeling okay?" asked Jessica.

  "Not as good as you, but all right," he explained.

  Other than a little weight loss and pale skin she was the picture of health. He’d slept with her almost a month ago and suspected that she had slept with Ammad and Landon also. He didn't care.

  She turned back to her work, looking for proof of life, past or present. Bill didn't care if she found it or not. He was simply the captain of this particular ship of fools and only needed to get them home safe to be successful. If life was discovered she would be the famous one; who remembered Captain Robert Fitzroy, Commander of the H.M.S. Beagle?

  He resumed his climb, entered the ERV, and closed the hatch. He settled into the command chair, tapped the receive icon on the glass panel display with his fingertip, and waited.

  "Bill, this is an Eye's Only message, enter your encryption code," said Mitchell Devry, Flight Operations Director.

  ***

  Mitchell Devry took a seat in the secure conference room. He tapped his ring against the desktop like a metronome. As he looked at his watch his mouth drew into a frown and the brows of his forehead wrinkled.

  The heavy door opened and Gary Schweizer, NASA's administrator, walked in. Two others followed. The first was a severe bureaucrat-type who looked somehow familiar though he couldn't quite place the face. His dark pinstripe suit and a red power tie screamed Washington beltway or professional assassin. The other was a short, balding man in a white button-down shirt that stretched over his paunch. All three men arrayed themselves on the opposite side of the table.

  "It's that kind of meeting?" said Mitchell.

  "Mitch, it is good to see you again," said Gary.

  Gary extended his hand and Mitchell shook it.

  "Mitch, this is Mr. Dennis Cole, Director of Homeland Security, and Dr. Howard Nguyen, Centers for Disease Control."

  Mitchell reached across the table and shook Dennis Cole's hand. Yes, I do know who he is, thought Mitchell. Seeing the man in person was like finding an alligator in your pool. You know what the creature is, it just takes a moment to squeeze it into context.

  He reached to shake Dr. Nguyen's hand, but the man just looked momentarily uncomfortable and nodded his head in acknowledgement. Dennis Cole took a matte black device out of an inside jacket pocket and placed it in the center of the table. A green power indicator light glowed like a reptilian eye.

  "A scrambler," said the Homeland Security director. "It's just a precaution."

  Mitchell sat down and leaned back into his seat. He kept his face carefully neutral.

  Dennis with his power tie began. "How well do you know Dr. Jessica Harrison?"

  "Well enough, I imagine. On a professional basis. We've worked quite closely for the last five years since her selection for the mission. She has multiple doctorate degrees. She's a competent pilot, and nationally ranked in Tae Kwon Do," said Mitchell, just a bit surprised where this was starting. "You probably already have her resume if you're asking about her." He thought for a moment. "She is the smartest woman I've ever met, probably the smartest on the planet."

  "As I thought," proclaimed Dennis. "That is why she needs to die."

  He looked to Gary.

  "Really? Gary? What the hell is this about?" said Mitchell.

  "Prior to launch did you notice any suspicious behavior?" asked Dennis.

  "We don't send suspicious people to Mars," said Mitchell.

  "Did you screen everything in her personal allotment?"

  "Everything on that ship was inspected, but there is a certain degree of trust among astronauts. It is an exclusive club, once you're in, you're in. She probably wouldn't even need to smuggle anything, she designed the medical and scientific equipment manifests."

  “Mitchell is correct, Mr. Director. Beyond mission safety we don’t interfere with our people,” Gary offered.

  "Mr. Devry, Are you familiar with REAPER?" asked Dennis.

  Mitchell recognized a code word when he heard one. More than few NASA projects brushed awkwardly against military or intelligence requirements.

  "No, I’m not. I am busy managing manned space flight operations," said Mitchell.

  "An admirable devotion to duty," said Dennis with equal sarcasm. "What I am going to tell you is code word specific and goes no further than this room."

  "Don't you want me to sign something?" asked Mitchell.

  "No. Let me explain," said Dennis. "The National Security Administration's REAPER program is a counterterrorism signal intelligence gathering program. It is a decentralized computer network running adaptive pattern recognition software that scans telecommunications for security threats and then forwards suspicious activity to a human analyst for action."

  "What does that have to do with my Mars mission?" asked Mitchell, exasperated with the conversation.

  "REAPER detected a data compressed email with very sophisticated encryption from Mars. I understand all of your communications are routed to your mission servers and then the astronaut's private correspondence is split off to administrative servers for routing to their ultimate address."

  "That's true," Mitchell agreed.

  "We've checked your system and you don't scan private email," said Dennis.

  "Well, no, they're astronauts. We trust them," said Mitchell.

  "Unfortunate," said Dennis. "This email was routed to the Centers for Disease Control from a dedicated channel from your aerospace medical servers. Two weeks later, the process reversed and she received the results of her program. She was able to backdoor your system because she was a trusted user."

  "She was doing sanctioned NASA research on advanced cellular senescence in space environments with the CDC's whole human modeling programs," said Mitchell.

  "Of course, but in this case, she didn't want you to know what she was doing because she was running these very powerful simulation programs for her own purposes," said Dennis.

  "What was she simulating?" asked Mitchell.

  "Herself," Dr. Howard Nguyen interjected. "Specifically, she was simulating the effect of an artificially created virus on her own body. We've been briefed on the crew's medical status. When exactly did Dr. Harrison’s condition begin improving in relation to the men?"

  "I would have to consult the mission flight surgeon for an exact date but about two months ago she spiked a severe fever and then she began to improve dramatically. We had hoped she was just the first to improve, but the men just continued their gradual deterioration," said Mitchell.

  "Have you eliminated all Earth-borne pathogens or toxins?" asked Dennis.

  "We can't test for everything. Obviously, we were not quite as prepared to go to Mars as we thought," said Mitchell. "We are calling it Mars Syndrome."

  "The timing is right. It just might be when she beta tested her virus," said Dr. Nguyen to Dennis.

  "Are you telling me she brought a virus to Mars?" snapped Mitchell. "What the hell for?"

  Dr. Nguyen looked at Dennis Cole for permission to explain. The potential use of biology for a terrorist attack had grown exponentially and as a result the CDC had virtua
lly become a branch of Homeland Security.

  Dennis nodded, granting permission.

  "She has created a synthetic anti-agathic, a viral rescriptor that stops cellular senescence.”

  “Excuse me, Doctor, but I hold three PhDs and I didn’t understand what you said,” Gary interrupted.

  “In short, Administrator Schweizer, Dr. Harrison has invented immortality."

  "That's impossible," Mitchell retorted.

  "I assure you it is not," said Dr. Nguyen.

  "Why go to Mars to test it?"

  "Mars is the perfect place. There is no danger of accidentally releasing a flawed virus into the wild; she has ready access to the most powerful computers ever lifted into space for her basic research, and a secure dedicated back channel into the CDC whole human model," said Dr. Nguyen. "I would wager she has been working on this for quite some time and Mars gave her the opportunity to take her research to viable prototype without any of the oversight that she would be subject to in a level five bio-containment facility."

  . "Is this virus contagious?" asked Mitchell.

  "Our interpretation of her computer modeling shows that in its current form the virus is not contagious. It has to be tailored to the patient and then directly injected," said Dr. Nguyen.

  "Which is the only reason we are even having this conversation," said Dennis.

  "You should nominate her for the Nobel Prize," said Mitchell. "Imagine what it could do for the entire human race?"

  "That is exactly why we are here," replied Dr. Nguyen. "Our simulations of premature human immortality result in total collapse of the biosphere."

  Dennis spoke next. "We need to reliably access the resources of the solar system to even have a chance at surviving immortality, and even then it may not be wise."

  "Mortal creatures retain the ability to evolve and adapt. They out-compete immortal creatures. Immortality is synonymous with stagnation," said Nguyen. "But of course, that’s just theoretical."

  "This is too much to process," said Mitchell, “and it still doesn’t say how this impacts my mission.”

  "You don't need to process. That is why I am here," said Cole. "For the sake of argument is it possible for us to terminate the mission without attracting undue attention?"

  "What do you mean by ‘terminate’?" asked Mitchell.

  "Is it possible for us to kill the astronauts while they are on Mars?"

  Mitchell looked to his boss.

  Gary nodded, indicating to give the Homeland Security director a straight answer.

  "Anything is possible, it's just not likely, and we have a small army of very smart people dedicated to bringing them home," said Mitchell.

  "What about a software attack?" asked Gary.

  Mitchell shook his head. Gary was a smart man, but a political appointee. No one achieved his level of success in government bureaucracy without having a reputation for competence, but his area of expertise was politics. His job ensured that NASA's programs survived congressional space and not outer space.

  "The Beagle is the most sophisticated and multiply-redundant vehicle ever developed. Its software has been run for tens of millions of virtual hours without a single glitch and its backbone OS is smart enough to defeat any attack we could generate. Even if you worked around those issues, then you would need to manufacture a problem plausible enough to convince Major Whitaker to permit a software update," said Mitchell.

  "I see," Dennis mused, his eyes focusing elsewhere.

  Mitchell thought otherwise. Dennis Cole probably didn't "see" because it wasn't necessary for him to. Cole was at least three times removed from the tactical level where things got done. Like most high-level bureaucrats, he was a big picture person concerned with the broad sweep of history. He had people to manage people and their people managed the nasty technical details.

  "Mr. Devry, my personal preference is to destroy the entire mission and be done with it.” He held up his hand, staving off Mitchell’s angry rebuttal. “But in this case, my personal preference has been overridden by politics. The president has invested a substantial amount of political capital in the success of the mission, and he wants options. He would like someone to make it back. It's the only reason we are even having this conversation."

  "If you want to minimize collateral damage and maximize operational secrecy, then the best way is to convince the other astronauts to kill her. The conspiracy would be limited to us and the three male astronauts," said Mitchell. He was shocked at how easy the words came out of his mouth.

  "That just might be a workable solution," said Dennis.

  "I imagine you came to that solution before you even stepped into the room," said Mitchell.

  "I did. I need your expertise and your cooperation. Major Whitaker will trust you. He won't trust me," said Dennis.

  "Both Major Whitaker and myself need a much better reason to commit murder than an unauthorized medical experiment that most would consider a boon to humankind," said Mitchell.

  "Boon," said Dennis. He laughed. "If it was just immortality we might have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving immortality, but Dr. Harrison has thrown us a little curve ball."

  He looked to Dr. Nguyen.

  "I've run the effects of Dr. Harrison’s virus on generic male and female modeling platforms and I've concluded that her anti-agathic only works for women; for men it is fatal."

  ***

  "Thank you," said the computer after the major had entered his credentials. Mitchell's image formed again. He sat next to the Secretary of Defense and two others that Bill did not immediately recognize.

  "Bill, this message is self-erasing. There will be no record of this conversation and it will play once, so please pay attention. You know the Secretary of Defense." Mitchell gestured to his left. "To my right is Mr. Dennis Cole, the Director of Homeland Security, and to his right is Dr. Howard Nguyen, head of the Centers for Disease Control. NSA has intercepted an email message from Doctor Jessica Harrison containing digital data of an artificial virus. The email evaded our scrutiny and was forwarded to the CDC where it was run through a computer modeling process. The results were sent back to her in the body of a personal email. We have a high level of confidence that she has successfully designed, constructed, and tested a virus on herself. Our simulations indicate that her treatment is a grave threat to stability and human civilization. For women her virus produces effective immortality. Her virus doesn't work for men; it will kill you.

  “Bill, I'm your friend so I am giving you fair warning. Don't be clever and try to fool me. If you leave the surface of Mars with her onboard there are contingency plans to destroy your ship. You're a military officer and I am going to leave the operational details to you. You have no choice in the matter and there is no option on the table for discussion. I am sure your initial reaction is to be a bit confused, I know mine was. Get over it.

  “You are authorized by executive order of the president of the United States to ensure that Dr. Jessica Harrison does not return home and you have full latitude to execute your orders in any manner you deem appropriate. I'm sorry, Bill."

  The screen went blank and Bill stared at it for the longest time in disbelief. At first he thought it was a sick joke or a really good hack, but Mitch never joked and the validation codes on the message were correct. He checked the message log. Like a snake that successfully swallowed its tail there was no record that a message had ever existed.

  ***

  Bill and Rob Landon, the lander pilot, spent their shift cleaning out the inertial particle separator. Bill pulled his intercom system cord from the tensioned reel and jacked it in Rob Landon's input to bypass the radio intercom which was subject to eavesdropping from the ship.

  "What's with the James Bond shit? Radio is working," said Landon. He opened up the access plate for the inertial particle separator. Martian dust clogged it again. The machine sucked in Martian atmosphere and centrifugally separated the dust and ejected it out the exhaust port. The carbon dioxide was
mixed with hydrogen in a Sabatier reaction to make methane for the ship's engines. When the tanks were full they could leave.

  Bill was tired of Landon's smart mouth and crappy attitude. If they were anywhere but Mars he probably would have gotten a fist in the mouth. He wasn't sure when he started disliking Landon but suspected it correlated with the onset of Mars Syndrome.

  "We've got a problem," said Bill.

  "No shit, this thing is jammed up again," said Landon. He swept out handfuls of dust as fine as baby powder.

  "Will you just shut up for a second and let me talk," said Bill.

  Rob plastered on his innocent look and waited.

  "I got a call from Mitchell and we have to kill Jess," said Bill.

  "Hey, count me in," said Landon sarcastically.

  "I'm serious. Haven't you noticed that she doesn't have whatever the hell we have?

  "Yeah," said Landon. "So?"

  "She's prototyped a virus that will keep her healthy," said Bill. "Forever."

  "She needs to give it to us," said Landon.

  "It kills men and makes women immortal. Homeland Security figured it out, and if we don't kill her on Mars then we all die. They won't let us come home," said Bill.

  "You're serious, aren't you?" asked Landon. He looked around his commander at the miserable Martian wasteland.

  "Deadly," said Bill.

  "Does Ammad know?" asked Landon.

  "Not yet," said Bill.

  "I need confirmation," said Landon.

  "You'll get it tomorrow at your scheduled personal time," said Bill. He was stunned at how fast Landon had accepted the idea of murder.

  "Fine, I'll talk to Mitchell then. As much as she pisses me off and as much as I'd love to kill any one of you for a decent hamburger, you had better hope you’re not screwin' with me."

  ***

  "I understand there is a plan in place to deal with the situation," said Dennis Cole from behind another power tie.

  "There is. Major Whitaker hasn't informed me of the details. He will tell us when it's done," said Mitchell.