Androcide (Intel 1 Book 5)

by Erec Stebbins

  “What the hell is this? What did you do to these men?”

  Dyer turned to him, peering through the plastic sheet of the suit, his blue eyes cold.

  “It’s a bit technical. The short version is that I’m not really a serial killer.”

  “My ass you aren’t.”

  “I have serially killed many, it is true. But only as a byproduct.”

  Stall. “By-product of your psychosis.”

  “Perhaps. But not in the way you think. These unfortunate souls, and the evil men I killed before them, are part of an experiment, detective.”

  “An experiment.” He dialed it to Full Sarcasm.

  “Yes, indeed. An experiment in which I used my old lab’s vectors as a springboard to design a most specific and terrible virus. A virus to wipe out mankind.”

  Sacker whistled. “Delusional and psychotic. You fuck.”

  “I don’t expect you to believe me. Why would you? But the truth remains.”

  “Wipe out humanity?”

  “No. Please pay careful attention to the vocabulary. I said mankind.” Dyer chuckled. “Part of the problem, isn’t it? So easily we assume humanity is covered by the word man. Part of our unconscious misogyny. But the truth is that my virus will kill only men. Like those victims you investigated. And it will spread across this earth soon. With it, I will remake intelligent life and civilization on the planet.”

  “Jesus. Please don’t say you’re going to kill me. I’m not going out at the hands of a total fruitcake. Help!”

  “I’m so close, Detective Sacker. These men are my final experiment. Well, the last you and whoever else is chasing me will give me time for. If the infectivity is sufficient, I need only turn several like them loose at moderate stages of infection. The virus is highly contagious. It will only take weeks for the spread to get out of control.” He exhaled. “World without men.”

  Meet him in his obsession. Delay. “You delusional psychopaths can’t think out of your box. Kill all men? Really? Let’s say you aren’t just kidnapping and emasculating some poor bastards. Let’s pretend for a minute that you’ve really got some Armageddon virus to wipe out every last man. How is your world without men going to function? It’ll collapse in months.”

  Dyer drew his shoulders back. “Unusually thoughtful for a detective. Certainly for a man in your current position. You surprise me.” Dyer moved several items from a table to the tray. “Yes, it’s a significant danger. One I have of course considered. But our disease is too advanced. The patient, the entire biosphere perhaps, is threatened. The cancer must be cut out. But the tumor is very large indeed.”

  He came to a stop, gazing down on Sacker.

  “If my virus succeeds, that may well be it for humanity. Not necessarily intelligent life—dolphins, other primates might get a shot when we’re gone. And that’s why the risk must be taken. Either we go extinct and save another chance for intelligence in this corner of the cosmos. Or women make it, and themselves become that force. This is my hope. My dream. The future of humanity is female. The only other option, the option with you and me, is extinction. And extinction, as it stands with our technologies, could be the death of most life. Certainly all intelligent life on earth.”

  Sacker shook his head. “You’ve made your point. You killed the rapists and other evil men. Turn yourself in. Let me go. End this.”

  “Now you disappoint me. I didn’t figure you for a coward.”

  “I’m trying to save lives.”

  “You aren’t listening. I don’t want to save men’s lives.” He gestured to the dying bodies. “I want to take them. All of them. Millions. Billions.”

  “You’re insane. You’re going to kill me and serve my dickless body to New York. That’s all this is. More delusion.”

  Dyer pulled the tray beside the gurney. He lifted several crimson vials and held them over Sacker’s head. It looked like blood.

  “What’s that?”

  “Virus, Detective Sacker. Fresh from the juicer.” He twirled the mixture inside. “I don’t have time to verify the titers now, but it’s been like clockwork for some time. This is as potent as it gets.” He smiled from inside the suit. “And this one’s for you.”

  Sacker’s throat went dry.

  “For me?”

  “I’ve decided you’ll make a perfect patient zero. Well, one of my several patient zeros. Seeding a virus artificially requires changes in terminology.”

  “Seeding?”

  “Yes, you and several others I’ll infect will spread this virus worldwide.” He sighed. “As will I.”

  Dyer loaded the viral solution into a plastic cartridge, placing it into a giant injection gun.

  “I will be the last to be infected. I’ll travel with anti-virals to slow the progress, maintaining my contagiousness. My journey’s planned in detail. Several key population centers and travel hubs.”

  He raised the injector and set it against Sacker’s arm. Sacker squirmed and yelled, trying to free himself from the gurney. The restraints held.

  “You’re helping to make a better world.”

  There was a hiss and a sharp pain in his shoulder.

  64

  Quarantine

  “We’ll start with Frank Richard in the next room, dump him in a homeless shelter.” Dyer replaced the injection gun on the tray with a rattle.

  Stunned, violated, imagining a poison flowing through his body, a violent anger coursed with Sacker.

  “You motherfucker.”

  The monster ignored him. “Greg Maynor we’ll let get pretty sick and send to a hospital. Best place to start an outbreak, you know, a hospital. And you, detective, we’ll get you good and producing viruses into the air, then return you to NYPD. Unconscious, of course. Then I’ve only to let myself wander the metros of New York, London, Tokyo, and Shanghai.”

  The cavalry arrived thirty seconds later. One moment the upbeat architect of an androcidic nightmare monologued about his ghastly plans. The next came a rush of air. Dyer spun toward the tent exit. Plastic ripped with the clank of metal canisters around them.

  “No, no, no! Not yet!”

  But it was too late for Dyer. Too late for his master plot of gendercide. The canisters erupted with a stunning sound and light. Sacker, his head trauma an agony, blacked out.

  When he came to, an army of orange space suits surrounded him. They toted automatic weapons. Dazed, he watched in the third person, a bodiless viewpoint. They released his constraints, helped him sit up. The sounds around him came delayed, underwater and distorted. His eyes moved to a shape on the floor. A red circle, wet and reflective attracted his attention like a bullseye. A large body was sprawled over it.

  Dyer.

  His eyes focused. Dyer was dead. Shot, holes riddling the lab coat. Sacker scanned the room. Special forces in biohazard suits from some unknown agency buzzed like bees. They patched holes in the plastic, installed new equipment, and moved the corpses into protective bags. He marveled at the invasion force, military-grade skills and energy while imprisoned in BSL4 gear.

  “Detective Sacker, can you hear me?”

  “Yes. Sorry. I hear you.” Barely. What is wrong with me?

  “You’re hurt. What’s the nature of your injuries?”

  A loaded question.

  He stared into the plastic suit beside him. A young woman, black hair, deep-set brown eyes. Indian? A medic. A soldier. Special forces. Special biological attack forces.

  “My head. Bad cut. Son-of-a-bitch hit me.” He looked down to his left shoulder. His mind cleared. “And a doomsday injection.” He gestured to the bleeding patch of skin from the injection gun. “That’s what he said anyway. I’m patient fucking zero.”

  The young soldier’s eyes narrowed. She turned away and to a microphone inside her suit. He couldn’t catch her words. Sacker leaned back down on the gurney and closed his eyes. It wasn’t hard to guess what was coming.

  Quarantine.

  “You know a Grace Gone?” The soldier agai
n.

  Sacker’s lids flicked open. “Yeah. We work together.” His head turned. “Is she okay?”

  The soldier spoke again into her mic. Two broad men in suits moved past her to the zippered entrance. Moments later a small figure in an ill-fitting yellow suit limped into the room. He didn’t need to see into the mask.

  “Gracie,” he said, smiling, turning his head toward the ceiling. “Glad you could make it.” He coughed a laugh. “Old Sacker sure screwed the pooch this time. Should’a waited for back up.”

  Gone reached the gurney, joined by two other figures. They fumbled around in the suits as well.

  Savas and Cohen.

  “You’ve been infected,” said Gone, looking at his shoulder.

  “Yeah. How about that?”

  “We don’t know yet,” said Cohen, her voiced raised. “You might not have caught it from the other victims.”

  “You don’t understand, Agent Cohen,” said Sacker, sighing. “He shot me up with the shit. See the gun on the tray? Full of virus.”

  Savas and Cohen locked eyes through their suits. Gone reached out and took his hand. The plastic felt cold.

  “This won’t do,” she said and moved her other hand to her face.

  “Gracie, what are you...”

  “Shhh.”

  A soldier shouted across the room. “Ma’am! Stop! If you—”

  She removed her face covering and dropped it to the ground. Gone took a deep breath of the air in the room and scowled. Activity in the room ceased. She removed her arm from the suit and touched his hand, flesh to flesh.

  “God, it smells like festering death in here,” she said, her other hand to her mouth.

  Sacker shook his head. “You goddamned fool. Now you’re stuck with me in quarantine.” He squeezed her hand. “But, thanks.”

  “Could be worse.” Tears filled her eyes.

  Cohen put a gloved hand on Gone’s shoulder. “You sure you want to be here for this? You know what’s coming.”

  Gone smiled, drops falling from her face. “Susceptibility to illness varies across a population. Dyer hoped he’d decimate most of the male half of the species.” She squeezed his hand. “But I believe detective Sacker will prove unusually resistant.”

  Sacker’s eyes went wide. Cohen’s mouth tightened, but she said nothing.

  “Just a hunch,” Gone said. “Maybe just a wild hope.”

  She smiled down at Sacker.

  “Sometimes you have to hope.”

  FOUR MONTHS LATER

  65

  Scandal

  CHAOS IN WASHINGTON AS INDEPENDENT COUNCIL REQUESTED: Bipartisan Demands on Eunuch Maker Case

  Margareta Sorenson, Kelly Dwyer, and Anita Ramnarain reporting for the New York Times

  Congressional leaders of both parties released a rare joint statement today demanding an investigation into last November’s Election Night events that culminated in a still classified raid in Long Island. The House and Senate were unified in a rare show of bipartisanship seeking answers to the apprehending of the so-called Eunuch Maker, a serial killer of men who had left a trail of mutilated victims across New York City. In explosive revelations, several sources have leaked that the killer had plotted international terrorist actions with a biological agent.

  “Unacceptable,” said the House Speaker. “The York administration lost the public trust with this cover up. Congress has been kept in the dark about far too much in a case of flagrant executive overreach. She shouldn’t expect immunity from investigation. There’s a new sheriff in town.”

  Confidential sources at the CDC and several academic institutions, including New York’s Columbia University, have confirmed that they were involved in work to identify a novel virus of the Ebola family that was detected in the bodies of the Eunuch Maker’s victims.

  One researcher who has gone on the record is Professor Lapin I. Kin of Columbia’s Center for Infection and Immunity. In an exclusive, Dr. Kin told the Times that he had been contacted by governmental agencies and had even taken a direct call from President Suite following the Inauguration.

  “I’m not here to contribute to a scandal,” Dr. Kin said, “but as a scientist I believe in complete transparency. For reasons of national security, the former administration leaned hard on us to keep everything confidential. But this goes beyond national security. Deadly microorganisms do not respect borders or ideologies. The world has to know.”

  Dr. Kin would not yet reveal more details, but confirmed that the Eunuch Maker victims had been infected with a deadly virus. “It’s a relative of Ebola. And it’s synthetic, engineered by man. Most likely by this killer, but this is currently only speculation.”

  When questioned by the press last night, Dr. Kin refused to deny or confirm that there were human DNA elements in the virus or that the illness was designed to strike only men, much like the Eunuch Maker himself.

  “While I want everything to be made public, as a scientist I also believe in careful procedure. Researchers around the world are confirming our results, which will be peer reviewed, and published in reputable scientific journals. We’re going to get this right.”

  In the meantime, Dr. Kin said that he was working with law enforcement and the federal government, as well as Congressional investigations into the matter.

  “The truth of this will come out, and it’s going to be much bigger than just one mad terrorist killer,” said Senator Brian Young of Arizona. “We have it on very good sources that President York, in violation of numerous laws, was running a clandestine special forces and espionage agency, unknown to anyone in Congress or the federal government.”

  In what was supposed to be her lame-duck period, York has become the focal point of a national political crisis. Already a controversial figure for her leadership during the Anonymous Event, she has fought claims that she engineered a coup and then covered up its ensuing collapse.

  “Finally, maybe people will start to believe what we’ve been saying about York,” said Congressman Bob Child of Florida. “She is a dangerous figure, a budding tyrant who nearly brought down our democracy. Now she’s trying to run a shadow government from the sidelines. That’s not going to happen.”

  President Suite was quick to comment on Twitter in his famous confrontational style.

  “York a tyrant! Secret police! Was there a coup? We need a trial for treason. Lock her up!”

  Senate Majority Leader Williams took a more cautious tone while still calling for an independent investigation.

  “And so, despite government claims, a lot of people are asking, what is the real story? What are they hiding? The American people want answers. And we’re going to get them.”

  Meanwhile, as the smoke clears, a local girl has found her hour in the spotlight. Private investigator Grace Gone of New York was catapulted into the national scene when her name was found on leaked NYPD reports on the Eunuch Maker case. Lead detective Tyrell Sacker, injured and hospitalized after the Long Island raid on the home of Thomas Dyer, listed Gone as a consultant on the case, using unusually strong language to credit her with solving the mystery of the Eunuch Maker killings.

  “Yes, he was very complimentary,” said Ms. Gone as she was swarmed by reporters outside her small office in Queens. “It was an honor to serve this great city and stop a monster.”

  Since the report was leaked, Gone says that her phone won’t stop buzzing.

  “I’ve got a growing list of unread messages I’ll never get through. Success is a double-edged sword,” she said, waving off clamoring reporters in the doorway of her office. “But I’m thrilled for the new clients.”

  66

  Sacked

  Detective Rick Snyder beamed, standing at the front of a large conference table in the 12th Precinct, gesturing emphatically. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His tone was triumphant and he glared at Sacker like a trophy hunter would a downed kill. Detective Kathy Hill scowled and shook her head. At the other end of the table the hulk of Captain Lander slumped with
exhaustion.

  Sacker ground his molars.

  You’re welcome for the training, Snyder.

  He touched his left temple and winced. The close encounter with Dyer’s two-by-four still caused headaches months later. His left eye struggled to focus, the retina partially detached. Flashbacks from Dyer’s basement horror show interrupted his daily routine without warning. Nightmares of claustrophobic spaces, plastic prisons, and bleeding bodies haunted him.

  Thank God for Gracie staying with me.

  Some thank you he’d given back. Avoiding her like the man-plague after their release, he kept trotting out a list of excuses. A mess at NYPD did need cleaning. The 24/7 infotainment machine tried to swallow her whole. She built her new business. He fought to keep his job. They’d been busy.

  But that wasn’t the whole story. Not even the main story. Police or new found fame, trauma, the need to decompress—they ran from something else.

  No, I’m running from something else.

  At least he was still breathing. Defying expectations, the virus spared him, producing not so much as a fever. Despite constant monitoring, his blood showed no signs of viremia. His immune system remained calm. Baffled researchers scratched their heads. Was Dyer’s man-plague a dud after all?

  He knew better. And Gone sure as hell knew better. Afterward, they both made sure the right people knew better, too. But that came later. Once he was out of government hands.

  They’d have figured it out anyway.

  He’d proven immune. Permission or no, ethics and statutes be damned, the government scientists were going to sequence his genome. In the face of a national security risk—a risk to the survival of mankind, anyway—such niceties as rights took a backseat. When they did, his secret was out.

  Count your lucky stars you’re out, Tyrell.

  He should be happy. Joyful to be alive and free and not some long-term lab rat. Ecstatic to stop a killer and terrorist. Singing damned hymns to be out of quarantine and back at work.