by Lee Emerick
Sydney examined the recovered sample and began extracting what he needed. He inserted a long needle and removed a milky white substance. He then mixed it with various chemicals and placed the result in a centrifuge.
"I hope this will be enough material," he said aloud as he removed a transparent fluid from the broth in the centrifuge.
Further chemicals were added and it was spun again. The resulting liquid was placed in several glass vials. A lab technician collected the vials from Sydney and strapped them around the exposed warhead.
The General stood at the barrier. He looked through binoculars at the crowds below. The infection had reached them. People screamed and choked as the cloud of spores engulfed them, flamethrowers streaked out keeping the populous away from the barrier.
In between, he could here sporadic gunfire. It was a massacre he thought. A tear came to his eye, which he hastily rubbed away. How could this happen? It was horrific!
Cries and screaming spread around the crowds as the infection moved on, infecting everybody indiscriminately whether young or old, male or female. They would all be infected.
"General" said Lieutenant Laraine as she snapped to attention. "Professor Trent is on the phone sir." She passed him a secure cell phone.
"Professor Trent, please tell me we have a solution!" the General sounded quite anxious.
"We do General, but I am not sure you are going to like it." Sydney paused. "Please come down to the lab and I will show you what I have got."
Sydney waited patiently for the General to arrive. The work crews had mostly left now apart from people clearing away hazardous materials.
General Virgil walked in and was greeted by Sydney.
"So what do you have for me Professor?" he asked anxiously.
"From the samples obtained I have managed to isolate and reverse engineer a hormone which is essentially a cellular self destruct mechanism. It would have developed to kill off old or deceased cells in the fungus."
"The whole thing is a disease professor," said the General.
"It appears that its ability to function has been removed through evolution. That is why it spreads out of control. The old or diseased are not killed off, they continually spread and mutate. I have managed to reprogram and synthesize the hormone, which we can use to kill off the fungus itself on a cellular level. The main problem though is how you effectively deliver it over such a wide area."
"Please tell me you have a method for this," asked the General.
"My solution is to use a thermonuclear weapon as a catalyst. The detonation will vaporise and spread the agent over the city area via an airburst. The hormone has been treated to be protected against the high heat and radiation. Effects should be noticed fairly quickly as the process will be quite violent. Of course, no one will be able to enter the city again. It will need to be permanently quarantined."
The General thought over what the Professor had explained but he had little choice. The situation had to be resolved at any cost. As for impact on the population, they were hopelessly lost anyway.
The General walked over to the wall and lifted a telephone handset
"Put me through to the airfield," he said. After a moment the phone was answered
"This is General Virgil. I need a jet prepared for a bombing run. The payload will be delivered to you shortly. Handle with care, it is radiological." He placed the handset down and looked to Sydney. "We need to pray this works; we can't hold them off any longer."
Chapter 15
There was lots of commotion in the Temporary Command Centre. People rushed around preparing an evacuation of the city perimeter. Non-essential personnel were first moved to a safe distance soon to be followed by everyone else.
The General had asked for volunteers to occupy the barrier to the last moment to keep the infected back. He was overwhelmed by the amount of people that said they would stay. As a result, lead blankets were issued out to defend against x-rays and radiation from the blast, which they could use at the moment of detonation.
The solution was hastily delivered to the airfield for deployment. Guards surrounded the device and escorted it from the lab to the airfield as it was moved. It was then loaded into a Fighter Jet ready to be scrambled.
Weaponry continually fired now, attempting to keep the infected at the barrier at bay. Ammunition was running low. The situation had to be resolved now. They could not wait any longer.
The General was escorted over to a Jeep along with Sydney. There they were met there by Lieutenant Laraine and Shaun Irvine who were to escort them to safety.
"Shaun!" the General eagerly greeted him. "Good to see you made it out alive."
“The next time you want something messy sorting I might have to decline,” laughed Shaun.
"Although I got to admit, I do miss the buzz and excitement."
"Would welcome you back any time Shaun, always best to have good men around." The General took a seat in the front of the Jeep. Lieutenant Laraine took the drivers seat, Shaun and Sydney sat in the back. Sydney turned to Shaun.
"So I take it you're the person I need to thank for my samples? Tell me, what was it like at the epicentre?"
Shaun smiled "It was like a winter wonderland, except the trees try to eat your face."
The General chuckled.
"Seriously though Shaun, good work out there!"
"Any news about my wife General?" asked Shaun, clearly concerned.
"She's fine Shaun. I got her out of there when I found you at the briefing." The General turned and smiled.
"So you can sit back and enjoy the firework show the Professor has planned for us."
"Fireworks?" asked Shaun. Sydney looked sombre.
"I don't think joking is appropriate but it's going to be a hell of a blast."
Lieutenant Laraine frowned, the conversation was entirely inappropriate. Many people had died today.
The Jeep came to a halt outside of a hotel that had been commandeered as a new command centre. They all entered through the front door flanked by guards.
Inside a large screen had been positioned on the wall with a live feed from several positioned cameras. People rushed around planning rescue and aid efforts for after the threat had been eliminated.
The jet was visible on the runway, it engines running. It was time to call it in.
The General picked up a phone that was already connected to the airfield.
"This is General Virgil, deployment is authorised", he replaced the phone and turned his attention to the large screen.
With a roar, the Jet’s engines were increased to full power. It tore down the runway, its wheels screeching as they left the concrete. The landing gear retracted as it climbed to the required altitude and set its course for the city.
The warhead was low yield to keep the damage minimal but was enough to level most of the city. The bomb hung under the jet in the darkness of night. Water streamed across it forced out of the clouds condensing on the cold metal. Over a static hiss came a message from the Jet Pilot.
"Directly over target, weapon set to arm at one hundred feet. Bomb away!"
Under the Jet, the restraining clamps opened. The device freely fell towards the ground unrestrained and unhindered. Inside the altimeter monitored the air pressure, which rapidly increased. As the altitude reduced to one hundred feet the arming mechanism triggered, power surged to the detonation plates triggering the primary explosive. As the weapon detonated the glass, vials shattered. The liquid that was contained in the vials turned to vapour and rapidly spread across the city.
The explosive blast ripped through buildings and cars. The town centre was levelled in the initial blast.
From the barrier, a bright flash shone out from the town centre. All the personnel hid under lead blankets, protected from the deadly X-Rays of the blast.
The following shock wave spread out across the city levelling everything in its path. A thick cloud of rubble engulfed everything visible as it spread towards the barrier. Th
e infected were knocked off their feet by the explosive force. As the explosion subsided, the vaporised agent settled across the city eating its way through contaminated flesh. On contact, the fungus abruptly terminated itself. Creatures let out howls as they fell to the floor and withered as they were destroyed.
After half an hour there was no movement, the city was finally dead. Smouldering bodies were strewn across the streets. Fires broke out in destroyed buildings.
The air slowly cleared revealing the true devastation of the city. The threat and the city itself had been eliminated.
Chapter 16
Sydney sat in a small cubicle by a table. His was the last of a line of twenty cubicles that had been assembled to provide a safe environment for vaccinations to be conducted. Waiting to be vaccinated a line of people patiently waited their turn.
Continually more and more people joined the end of the line. All of them survivors from the city outskirts. In total there were twenty volunteers including himself working hard to administer the vaccine Sydney had developed. As a vaccine, though it would only work on the uninfected.
His team from the lab had been returned to him to help him create and administer vaccine. One by one people received the vaccine and were then released into a medical assessment area behind the cubicles to have their injuries seen too.
"Next!" Sydney shouted as he awaited his next patient.
An elderly gentleman walked through the door towards him. Taking a seat, he rolled up his sleeve and presented his arm. Sydney took a syringe and filled it with the vaccine. Holding the needle up he ensured there was no air bubbles.
"This shouldn't hurt too much" he reassured the old gentlemen. As he brought the needle down, he noticed the arm looked red and blistered.
"What's wrong with your arm?" asked Sydney.
"Nothing's wrong with my arm, just burnt it that's all" the old man said gruffly. Getting his words out took its toll. He began to cough loudly into his handkerchief.
Sydney reached under his table and pressed a button. Within moments, two large military guards ran in and dragged the old man out kicking and screaming.
"Nothing’s wrong with me arm. I'm not infected!" he screamed as he was dragged away from the cubicles. Sydney thoroughly washed his hands and sterilised the seat the old man had used. Unfortunately, there were still sporadic signs of the fungus but the large-scale vaccination project was keeping it manageable. As Sydney washed his hands again in hot water, he wiped steam away from the mirror. He had large bags under his eyes. He was so tired. As he had been vaccinated himself, there was no chance he could now contract the fungus. There were unfortunately still those unknowingly or deliberately carrying it, which ran the risk of spreading it into the un-vaccinated population.
Sydney looked to his feet as he heard a single shot from a rifle ring out. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could have done for him. He was infected after all.
The vaccine contained the same hormone Sydney had extracted from the sample, which was used in his bomb. All though the vaccine would only remain active for several weeks, it would be long enough to prevent the fungus from developing in a new host. Thousands of people were lining up for treatment. It was going to take a while to attend to them all he thought.
General Virgil and Shaun looked out across the city. They both found it difficult to take in the level of devastation. Smouldering remains littered the streets for as far as the eye could see.
Teams with flame-throwers scoured the city suburbs torching everything insight. Jets flew overhead napalming the rest of the city, burning way every last aspect of the outbreak. Fires burnt fiercely through the human remains and rubble. Nothing was spared.
Taking a break from the mass vaccination Sydney wandered over to General Virgil and Shaun to view the destruction. He passed several deep pits that had been dug to destroy any infected individuals. Soldiers poured gas over a fresh dug hole that had reached capacity of human remains. He noticed that on top of the remains the corpse of the old man who had seen him to be treated a couple of hours ago. The face stared into oblivion, shock clearly showed on the old face. As he looked at the body, a soldier ignited the pile. With a whoosh, the pile in the hole erupted in flames destroying the remains of the poor infected people.
After a moment of contemplation, Sydney continued towards the General.
"Quite a day we had" said Sydney whilst mopping his brow. It was mid morning now and the sun was shining brightly.
"Do you think that's the end of it?" asked Shaun.
"I wish I knew. From my current research and theories, it has happened numerous times in the ancient past, linking in with mass extinctions. Could it happen again? Possibly, it is hard to say. All I know now is hopefully we have managed to avoid another mass extinction.” Sydney looked over the devastation. The loss of life was incalculable.
"All those innocent people, families and friends" Sydney wept. The last few days had taken a heavy toll on him.
"I've lost everything!"
"Thanks to you Professor Humanity has a future. You literally saved the world. Don't ever forget that," the General said quietly.
Shaun picked up a piece of rubble and threw it as far as he could.
"Looks like I need a new job General. Are you hiring for a clean up operation?"
"Be good to have you back on board," the General said.
"I need someone I can trust to oversee the clean up."
The General turned his attention back to Sydney.
"At least you have the evidence you need to finalise your research paper Professor," the General said.
"Yeah but it was not quite the way I had imagined I would prove it. I think I will skip practical applications of theory in future." Sydney paused in thought.
"Still one thing that has gone unanswered, where did it come from in the first place? I know it was found on the Lazarus but how did it get there in the first place?"
The General shook his head.
"Wish I knew Professor. The main thing for us now is that the threat has been removed. As for where it came from, we may never know".
With a smile, the General left Shaun and Sydney to admire the view. Huge plumes of smoke from the burning city rose into the air blotting out the sun.
"Was there no other way Professor?" asked Shaun.
"I wish there was. However, it was the only way I could be sure we got it. Anything less and we would run the risk of another outbreak."
With that Sydney walked back to resume his vaccinations leaving Shaun alone.
Looking at the devastation Shaun shook his head. There was more behind this than what he had been told he thought to him self.
Epilogue
General Virgil entered his new temporary office. He would be stationed here for a while now to oversee the clean up operation until a new facility could be prepared. Looking around he admired the décor of the acquired office. It was very smart. Pulling out the chair at his desk, he sat down. Reaching up with his right hand, he undid the top button of his shirt and poured a large scotch. It was dark outside now. Fire could still be seen raging over the city. It would eventually burn out he thought.
The General felt so tired but he still had a few things to do before he could settle down for the night. Lifting his glass, he took a large gulp of his drink and set the glass back down. No point putting it off any longer he thought to himself as he got to his feet. He had to speak to them sometime. He slowly walked over to a wall monitor and switched it on. Quickly he tidied up his appearance and redid up his top button before pressing a button on a control.