“Mr. President?” Jason called. “This is Lieutenant McPherson, we're coming in, sir.”
There was no answer, but Daniel would have been surprised if there was one. They walked into the main room and began to look through the other doorways. One led to a formal dining room and probably to a kitchen beyond, but they did not check that room. There were two empty bedrooms, but the master bedroom was occupied. The president and first lady lay side by side in the bed; they looked peaceful, almost serene, as if they had just lain down for a quick nap.
“Why does everyone have to be dead?” Lana said through clinched teeth.
Daniel put his arm around her and she cried quietly into his shoulder. There was so much death that it had made him numb to the loss of it. Yes, the president of the United States was dead, but for Daniel that was merely an answered question. He had wondered if the most powerful man in the world, with all necessary means of evading the deadly plague, had managed the feat—now he knew. He did not grieve or wish that things had been different. He merely noted the fact and began calculating his next move. The only thing that troubled him was the lack of smell or any sign of decay. Why did the people who had died from the plague or virus or whatever the spheres had done seem to be showing no signs of normal tissue breakdown. It was odd, but he didn't have time to worry about that right now.
“McPherson,” Daniel said, breaking the silence that was either born out of reverence or shock, “what are your procedures for disposing of bodies?”
Lana stiffened but said nothing. Dakota looked at Daniel with a strange expression, either disgust or newfound admiration, he couldn’t tell which.
“We have an incinerator on the same level as sick bay,” he answered.
“Alright, our first task is to dispose of these bodies. Do you think you can fire that incinerator up?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you going to cremate the resident?” asked Lana, her voice shaky.
“No, at least not yet,” Daniel said. “Let's leave him and the first lady here for now, and seal up these quarters. We need to get rid of the bodies in sick bay and search those self contained labs down below.”
“I'll do that,” Dakota said. “It should be interesting.”
“Okay, Lana,” Daniel turned to her, “do you think you can go up and retrieve our walkie-talkies?”
“There's no need, sir, we've got plenty in the fire room.”
“The fire room?” Daniel asked.
“The armory, where you found me.”
“Alright, I want Lana monitoring the security feeds from up top in case anyone else arrives while we take care of the bodies. Let's go get those radios and then we can get busy.”
“But it's getting late. Shouldn't we rest first?” Lana asked.
“No, I want to get this over with as quickly as possible,” Daniel said. “McPherson, you up to it?”
“Sir, yes, sir,” he said, smiling.
“Dakota, do you want to take a rest?”
“No, I'm good.”
“Alright, let's get to it then.”
Jason led the group back to the armory and handed out radios to everyone. They switched them on and then split up. Jason and Dakota headed back down to the lower levels, while Daniel and Lana made their way to the security room.
“I don't like this,” Lana said. “You'll be all alone with that guy and we don't even know him.”
“I don't think I have anything to worry about.”
“I used to think that way. I used to take risks without even thinking about them or even recognizing them. But then I ran into the wrong people, and I won't ever make that mistake again. You're taking that kind of needless risk now and you're not only risking your own life, but all of ours.”
“Lana,” Daniel took hold of her shoulders. “I know that you have a perspective that I don't and I appreciate that. I realize it may look like I'm taking risks, first with Dakota and now with McPherson. But we've got to secure this place, and we've got to stick together. If life is going to continue on this planet, it has to start with us.”
“I don't understand it,” said Lana, tears beginning once more to stream from her eyes. “I'm so tired, Daniel. I hate crying, but it's all I can do not to cry constantly. I'm so scared and I don't think I'll ever feel safe again.”
“I understand. Listen, I promise I'll be very careful. You sit right here.” They had made their way to the security console. He punched up a multi-vantage point screen and selected several camera shots from around the White House. It was dark out and he switched the view to night vision. “If you see anyone just call me on the radio, can you do that?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And if you get sleepy let me know that, too.”
“Alright.”
“And Lana,” he drew close to her, his face only inches away from hers, “try not to worry.” He kissed her tenderly, and she let him, but there was no enthusiasm in the display of affection.
Chapter 11
By the time Daniel made it back down to the sick bay level, Jason McPherson had started the incinerator. He was now busying himself pulling IV tubes and sticky monitors with wires running to complex machines. There were close to a hundred people in the sick bay, over half of them soldiers. It would take quite a while to get this job done, but it had to be completed and the quicker the better. Daniel found McPherson and began helping him prepare the bodies.
“It shouldn't take too long to get the incinerator up to the proper temperature,” the soldier said, his voice steady but toneless, as if the task at hand required that he lay down his humanity to complete it.
“Good, I’ll feel so much better about this place once we're through.”
“Yeah, well, I've always seen the Bunk, that's what we call it, as a place of life. If something bad ever happened, people could survive here for a long time—I'm talking decades before the supplies ran out. Now it feels like a giant tomb.”
“Well, perhaps after tonight's work the air will clear,” Daniel suggested.
“Yeah, I hope so,” he grunted as he pulled a plastic tube from a dead man's throat. “Speaking of air, have you noticed that it doesn't smell down here?”
“Yup, that's a strange thing indeed.”
“There's no lividity either.”
“What's that?” Daniel asked.
“Lividity is the bruising that occurs when a corpse has sat in one position for a while after death. The body fluids pool up at the lowest point and cause discoloration of the tissue. Come on man, didn't you ever watch those forensic science TV shows?”
“No, I'm not really into mysteries.”
“Well, we're in the middle of the biggest one in history. Forget who built the pyramids or the statues on Easter Island or the Nazca Lines. That stuff is all just speculation, but this is real.”
“The Naz what?”
“The Nazca Lines, you know, those pictures that are so huge that they don't seem like anything up close, but from the air you see that they are remarkable pictures. Mostly they're of animals and stuff, but they're incredibly precise. And one does appear to be a runway, perhaps for interstellar crafts?”
“Come on, you don't really believe in that stuff, do you?”
“Well how do you explain it? How could ancient civilizations create such huge drawings that they couldn't even appreciate? They wouldn't even know if the drawings were accurate, yet you don't see any half-finished drawings, or what would amount to giant scribbles.”
“Give me a break, solider,” Daniel couldn't help but laugh. “So the rock lines survived, but the wooden towers they erected to view their work didn't. That makes perfect sense. They were made as an offering to gods or something weird like that.”
“You could have made that argument two weeks ago, but not now. It's pretty obvious that the spheres were from outer space.”
“How do figure that?”
“Come on, man, you were the one who said this was a worldwide phenomenon. If the Chinese ha
d made the spheres then why wipe themselves out, huh?”
“It was probably an accident,” Daniel said. “In fact, it was probably our fault. Who knows what the U.S. government has going on in chemical warfare these days.”
“Alright, I'll concede that our hands are as dirty as anyone when it comes to germ warfare, but if this was a chemical or biological weapon, then why was their no cure produced? I mean, who is going to unleash this kind of thing and not at least save the president.”
“Perhaps they made it but couldn't unmake it?”
“No way,” Jason said. “You can't make a weapon without knowing its fundamental parts, even a biological one. If we had made it, we could kill it or cure it, you can count on that. Besides, I'm fourth generation military. My brother's a test pilot for the Air Force. We've got some amazing stuff going on in Nevada at the testing grounds, but nothing that can move like those spheres.”
“You're telling me that it's impossible that those spheres where man-made?”
“Nothing's impossible, but the odds are so great against it that it's unbelievable. There's no way a person could survive the kinds of g-forces those things pulled.”
“Why? I've seen remote controlled cars do things that no real car can do. Why couldn't they be drones or something?”
“I'm not saying they couldn't, but I've never seen or heard of anything that moves that fast and can stay powered that long, not in the air.”
“Okay, so where does that leave us?” Daniel asked as they rolled their first body toward the incinerator. “You're talking about an alien attack, right?”
“That's the ten million dollar question, isn't it?”
The incinerator had a massive door that slid on a track. A digital display registered the temperature just above the door.
“It looks like we're green to go, sir,” McPherson said, using the standard term for a superior officer without really thinking about what he was doing.
They opened the incinerator door and were greeted by a puff of hot air, but it was no hotter than a standard kitchen oven. Daniel looked in and saw that this door was merely an outer door to an interior antechamber. There was another door beyond that that also slid on hinges.
“Let's lift him by the sheet,” Jason said. “Slide everything in, got it?”
Daniel nodded. The incinerator door was exactly the same height as the gurney they had used and even though it took some muscle to slide the man into the incinerator, they had no problems. It probably helped that the man was as stiff as a piece of wood.
Jason slid the door closed and pushed a large red button. A signal light flashed orange, on and off, on and off. Daniel assumed it was a warning light to keep people from opening the door prematurely and getting burned by a blast of superheated air. They rolled the gurney back to its place in the room they had come from and went on to the next one.
“It could have been contamination,” Jason said, resuming their conversation. Now that the first body was being destroyed, it seemed imperative that they keep their minds on other things.
“No way,” Daniel argued. “Either they gassed us on purpose or they vented their spacecraft, which to me seems like the most moronic thing anyone could do. Surely they would have realized the danger of sharing germs with us?”
“Maybe, but that takes for granted that these civilizations have dealt with life-threatening illnesses. It could be that they've never been sick. What if their germs are beneficial to them and deadly to us?”
“Well, then I hope our germs kill them all,” Daniel said vehemently. “I think the chances that they wouldn't have considered the danger are astronomical. There's no chance any germs survived the flight through space, much less atmospheric entry.”
“Not if they've never considered illness,” Jason said.
“Oh, come on. If they were aware of us, then they've surely been monitoring our radio and satellite transmissions. They'd have heard of our battles to cure cancer and heart disease.”
“You assume they've learned our language.”
“Sure, how many times have you heard of people learning English by watching television? Shoot, they could even download language training from our very own world wide web.”
“Okay, I'll give you language, although if their communication was fundamentally different, they probably wouldn't be able to.”
“So they can travel through space at least dozens of light years, if not hundreds or thousands, but they can't learn English?”
“I'm giving you translation,” Jason replied. “I already said that.”
“So what they did was exterminate us, like termites in the woodwork. You set off a pesticide bomb, go away for the weekend, come home and no more termites.”
“You think that's what it is, aliens returning to our planet?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, perhaps they left millions of year ago and we are the weeds that grew up in their absence. Maybe they're ready to reclaim Earth and so they're cleaning house.”
“I guess that's possible,” said Daniel. “Why is it that war seems to be so low on your list of possibilities? After all, you are fourth generation military, right?”
“Yes, and I've considered it, but it just doesn't make sense. Why would another sentient race just arbitrarily wipe us out? Wouldn't they work together with us to make the world a better place?”
“Now you're assuming,” Daniel said smugly. “First of all, what makes you think that our conception of a 'perfect world,' where everyone loves everyone else, is universal? If anything, they may be lovers of war. Their own moral code, if they have one at all, may be completely opposite to ours. Or maybe they think we're beyond hope of ever living in peace.”
“I just can't think so abstractly about something that would mean the extinction of an entire species.”
“Maybe it doesn't, maybe they just wiped out 99 percent of us so that we could give civilization another shot.”
“That's a hell of a deal,” McPherson said. They sat down heavily on a bench near the incinerator. They had managed to clear the first ward, even lifting the bodies from the floor. It was clear that it was going to be a long night.
“I guess the ultimate question,” said Jason, “is what do we do now? I mean, do we prepare for war, or do we try to rebuild, what?”
“Only time will tell. What we do now is survive.”
“That's a pretty jaded view of things.”
“Oh great,” said Daniel jokingly. “Lana thinks I'm too naïve, you think I'm too jaded. The truth is, not everyone is ready to make a better world and not everyone is as selfish as Lana believes.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the plague hit and I didn't get sick, I went to the one place I expected to find help.”
“The White House?”
“Yep, unfortunately everyone upstairs was dead. The place was deserted, but it seemed as logical a place to stay for a while. I assumed that other survivors would make their way here like I did. My first visitors were not what you'd call cordial.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they showed up with guns in the middle of the night: two men, one drunk, the other crazy. They had Lana trussed up in the back of their hummer like a victim in a horror movie. When they couldn't get in, they started shooting at the doors and windows.”
“What happened?” Jason asked.
“The drunk took a ricochet in the leg and bled to death on the front porch of the White House. The other...” Daniel was suddenly feeling sick, as if the memory of seeing the man's muzzle flashes was happening in slow motion all over again. He suddenly needed to pee and could hardly hold his bladder in check.
“That's okay, I understand,” Jason said. “If it helps any, it does fade a bit with time.”
Daniel nodded, his eyes suddenly watering and his throat burning. It was like a flood of sorrow and grief were heaving on the damn of his resolve. A part of him wanted to let it out, to cry and cry. Jason was a soldie
r, he would understand, he thought. But he was afraid that if he let himself go there, he would never return, so he swallowed the fear and guilt and anguish by gritting his teeth and forcing himself to calm down.
“I got Lana settled down alright, and we found Dakota yesterday in a department store downtown.”
Jason swore for several minutes, then finally said, “I figured it was bad. The network news going off the air about the same time that everyone was down in the sick bay was an obvious sign, but I've been telling myself ever since the appearance that things were going to be okay. I've got good friends down here, and the president, but still, even though I knew I was alone, I just couldn't believe it was that bad.”
“I'm sorry, but it is.”
“I know…” He thought for a moment. “I guess I always knew.”
They stood up and resumed their dreadful task. The going was easier in the second ward, the bodies were those of government officials, not soldiers, and they pushed on into the third ward.
“Oh my God,” said Jason. He stood over the bed of a soldier with striking features. “I'm sorry,” he said to Daniel. “I'm not sure I can do this.”
“Why don't you take a break and let me cover them so you don't see their faces.”
“Alright,” Jason said. “I'll run up and get us something to drink.”
“Oh, wait, I don't think Lana's ready to be alone with anyone yet,” Daniel said.
“Oh, okay, I can wait if you can.”
Daniel made quick work of the ward and then went on to cover the remaining soldiers. It was horrible covering the faces of the women; they seemed so alive, as if they were merely sleeping. None of the bodies, male or female, had the waxy look of the dead relatives Daniel had seen growing up, but he was no expert. So he finished up and went looking for Jason.
The hardened warrior was sitting by the stairwell, his eyes puffy and red. It was obvious that he had been crying, but Daniel could certainly understand that. He was getting numb to the death of people, but they had all endured unimaginable horrors that could drag any of them into debilitating grief or fear. Still, even though his body was beginning to ache with fatigue, he knew they needed to finish.
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