The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  But more than that, if someone somehow hacked into the nanobots, he might be compelled to do anything—his will no longer his own. He might be like the cadets he created, just a tool performing a task for a puppetmaster far away.

  Elias wanted to live, but not with the nanobots.

  He opened his mouth to inform Dr. Hassan he wasn’t willing to accept the nanobots when Jay-Edgar, his technology assistant, entered the room and said, “They just hit the Toninato-Huxley facility in Nevada.”

  “What?”

  Jay-Edgar projected a vid onto the wall. One moment the facility stood in the desert, looking like some insignificant factory; the next it was bathed in red light. Seconds later the cluster of buildings exploded, leaving behind a jagged crater.

  No! How had Zora even known of the XV4 program? Clever girl—so unpredictable—so dangerous. They were supposed to attack dysfunctional and hostile governments, then threaten the rest, not take out America’s most advanced rocket facility.

  “Get me to my offith,” Elias said.

  Jay-Edgar and Dr. Hassan helped him up. His left leg didn’t work right. It wouldn’t hold his weight. And his left arm was numb. But with a man on either side of him he managed to make it down the hall to his office. He slumped onto the sofa and watched other attacks follow. Reports came from Russia, China, India, Brazil and dozens of other countries. In every case, the facility destroyed harbored a secret military program. Elias had known about them, of course. But how had Zora found them? Elias’ stomach roiled. This was all wrong.

  But was it a bad thing? Ultimately these children wouldn’t be able to take over Earth. All they could do was cause massive destruction—more than Eli had intended, and to different targets. But the plan wasn’t necessarily ruined. The three Las-cannons orbiting the Equator would run out of fuel eventually. And the cadets themselves couldn’t succeed over the long-term. Elias had made certain of that. Still, the world needed to see that a future of ever-escalating violence awaited unless people changed.

  “The President’s calling,” Jay-Edgar said.

  “Put her through,” Elias answered.

  Angelica Hope’s image appeared through the holo-projection, her coiffed blond hair surrounding her head like a halo. She sat at a large conference table with General Horowitz, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs on her right, Secretary of Defense Raskov on her left, and National Security Advisor Epps beside Raskov. The walls around them contained a bank of screens showing the same scenes of devastation Elias had witnessed via holo-projection. He could tell they were in the command bunker deep beneath the White House.

  Elias said, “Madam Prethident.”

  “He’s suffered another stroke,” Dr. Hassan explained.

  President Hope said, “I’m sorry. But I warned you this would blow up in our faces. Secret programs destroyed, foreign governments accusing us of instigating the destruction. And what can I tell them? They’re right. This is your fault. Do you know how many people are dying as we speak? Not to mention that we’ve lost our most secret rocket base. What were you thinking?”

  Elias’ heart began to race. “I don’t know how that happened. Thereth no way Thora could have found out about that program.” It came out as an indecipherable mess of syllables.

  President Hope stared at him. General Horowitz shook his head. Raskov lifted his hands to indicate he couldn’t understand. Cursing silently, Elias used a tissue to wipe the saliva from his lips and nodded to Jay-Edgar, who translated for him.

  “And yet she did.” The President glared at him. “She also destroyed similar programs around the world. Was that part of your plan too?”

  “Abtholutely not,” Elias answered. His breath came in gasps. “I didn’t—”

  “So it’s out of control.”

  “Temporarily.” Sweat formed on Elias’ brow. He wondered if the air conditioning was working. “But . . .”

  “You don’t have any way to stop this madness.”

  Dr. Hassan handed him a small cup. He swallowed the bitter liquid and struggled to keep it down.

  President Hope looked at Horowitz and Raskov. “So what do we do now?”

  Raskov said, “We still have plenty of firepower. And our deep-space program hasn’t been hit yet. Nor have the Russian or Chinese LTV programs.”

  General Horowitz said, “Those aren’t military options.”

  “We could load an LTV with nuclear weapons,” Raskov said.

  “And wipe out everybody on the Moon?” Epps asked. “Maybe destroy the Moon itself?”

  “Would you rather have them wipe us out?” Raskov sneered.

  “What about the Las-cannons?” President Hope asked. “How do we regain control of them?”

  Everyone turned to Elias. He stared back, waiting for his racing heart to slow, his breathing to return to something approaching normal. He felt himself thinning—that was the only word he could think of to describe it—stretching into vapor. Becoming lighter. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “Itth pothible my people could figure out a way to do it, but it would take weekth, maybe month.”

  Again they failed to understand him. Jay-Edgar translated for him once more and flashed the emergency signal. Elias glanced over to see what was so important. More attacks—Elite Ops Bases 1 and 2; Britain’s Ultra Fighter Academy; China’s Future Warrior Group; Russia’s Great Soldier Program. Elias couldn’t help but feel a little delight at those losses. Just thinking about Elite Ops troopers and other countries’ equivalents made him shiver. Then came a direct hit on Singapore and another on Istanbul. Why those cities? Did they have secret programs he didn’t know about? The President and her advisors looked on, stunned into silence. President Hope was the first to recover.

  “Singapore and Istanbul. How many millions is that?”

  Elias shook his head as he watched two more holo-projections. All he could see was scorched rubble as the satcams pulled back—huge craters in the ground that extended for blocks. Only a few square blocks in each city were completely destroyed: a million lives? What could Elias say that wouldn’t set the President off?

  “This program of yours, Elias,” President Hope said, her cheekbones flush with anger, “is a disaster. We have to find a way to stop those kids. What are our options?”

  Her four companions swiveled around to Elias.

  A terrible headache suddenly struck him, then numbness in his face. General Horowitz snorted and said, “Any bright ideas?”

  Raskov said, “I think we have to load an LTV with nuclear weapons, launch it at the Moon and take out the entire settlement.”

  Elias blinked several times. So tired. So hard to see clearly. Everything depended on Lendra. He remembered that. But he couldn’t let anyone know about that option or it could leak to the cadets, who then might be able to stop her. He tried to say, “What’s to keep them from blowing the LTV out of the sky? All they have to do is train the Las-cannons on it. It’s got no evasive ability.”

  Jay-Edgar translated for him.

  “What about taking out the Las-cannons?” General Horowitz suggested.

  “How do we do that?” Epps asked.

  Raskov said, “Particle beam cannons.”

  “Insufficient range,” Horowitz said. “We have a few dozen XV4 rockets remaining. Fortunately they were shipped out before the attack on the Toninato-Huxley facility. We could modify them. It’d be a long shot trying to evade the Las-cannons, but I’m afraid it’s the only thing that has a chance of getting through.”

  “Hot air balloons,” Elias said just as an explosion shook the building, rattling the plas-glass windows. It felt like an earthquake. The image of President Hope and her advisors vanished into blackness.

  “The White House,” Jay-Edgar spoke calmly.

  “Madam Prethident!” Elias said as a holo-projection came up showing the hole where the White House had stood. A black
crater fifty feet deep replaced it. Elias tried to get to his feet and failed. “Jay-Edgar, whatth going on over there?”

  “Switching to backup,” Jay-Edgar said. “Oh-oh.”

  “What?”

  Jay-Edgar flushed with embarrassment or anger. “That last transmission was monitored.”

  “How?”

  “A decoder piggybacked onto the scrambling program—very clever. Must have been the cadets. I’m reconnecting, running my new hexi-algorithmic scrambler program. Let’s see them tap into this.”

  Jay-Edgar worked his controls while pain filled Elias’ chest. Suffocating pain. He closed his eyes. How easy it would be to just give up, let the darkness come, make someone else handle the world’s problems. No, this was his mess. He had to handle it. When he opened his eyes, Dr. Hassan stood beside him, passing a med-scanner wand over his head. Elias heard explosions via holo-projection and saw corpses littering burnt craters. Smoke filtered the images, hiding details. Elias could almost smell the fires burning. The thinning became more pronounced, but the pain receded.

  Fog enveloped him. An Elite Ops trooper somehow appeared and picked him up. He tried to scream but nothing came out. The trooper carried him down a hall and placed him on a bed. He felt a hypo pad against the back of his hand. A tingling spread across his chest and face. He had an almost uncontrollable urge to scratch himself, as if the nanobots were itching the inside of his skin, tormenting him. He screamed again but heard nothing. The room went dark.

  He awoke some time later—no fogginess in his brain now. An intravenous tube ran from the back of his hand to a large machine at the side of the bed. Electrodes had been placed on his head and chest. Near the door, huddled in close conversation, were Jay-Edgar, Dr. Hassan, President Hope and General Horowitz. Two Elite Ops troopers flanked them, their armor making them look like shadows in the dim lighting.

  “Are we alive?” Elias asked.

  “Yes, we are,” President Hope replied.

  When Elias looked at Dr. Hassan, the doctor answered his unspoken question: “Yes, Elias we’ve hooked you up to the rejuvenator/amplifier. How do you feel?”

  Elias lifted his arms and moved his head. No pain, no discomfort for the first time in years. “Very good,” he said. “I feel . . . young.” No slurring to his voice. “So I’m full of the little things?”

  “Yes. Thousands of nanobots are cruising through your bloodstream even as we speak, repairing damage, restoring youth and vitality to your vital organs.”

  “I never gave my permission,” Elias said.

  “You’re alive. We can probably remove them later. You should have a few days before they integrate fully.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Elias said. Almost against his will he smiled. He didn’t want to feel this good. It was wrong. And yet he wanted to live pain-free for a good many more years. Perhaps privacy and self were overrated. And what were the odds someone would be able to hack his nanobots? He looked at President Hope. “What’s happening out there?”

  The President shook her head. “There’ve been hundreds of attacks on military facilities by the Las-cannons and a dozen attacks on cities. By conservative estimates, there are at least thirty million dead worldwide. In addition to the White House, 10 Downing Street and a dozen other official residences are gone—all allies of America. Fortunately, most had been evacuated as a precaution upon hearing from Zora that attacks were coming. But our ability to respond militarily is pretty much gone. The only good thing is that China and India have ceased hostilities for the moment.”

  General Horowitz nodded his agreement. “They’re focused on the Moon instead of each other. But nobody has the capability of attacking the Moon. We’ve got plenty of Las-rifles, shields, troops. But no way to get to the Moon or the Las-cannons.”

  “What about the hot air balloons?”

  “What hot air balloons?”

  “We could use three of them—one from Asia, one from Europe and one from here. Coordinate their launches so they reach the upper atmosphere just as the Las-cannons are passing by. Put an Elite Ops trooper in each balloon. When they get to maximum height, they can take out the Las-cannons.”

  “Hmm.” General Horowitz nodded slowly. “Interesting. Low-tech—might give us an element of surprise. Still, there’s no guarantee it would work and we might not be able to send up Elite Ops troopers.”

  “Why not?”

  “Those kids have locked on to our satcom technological weaponry. They reprogrammed the Las-cannons to target high-value military and energy components. An Elite Ops trooper might draw too much attention to himself.”

  “Not if he wasn’t armored up.”

  General Horowitz shrugged. “It’s possible. If we send someone up without the particle beam cannon converter loaded, it might escape detection.”

  “What about packing an emergency LTV with nuclear weapons or sending up the XV4s?” President Hope asked.

  “LTVs are too slow,” General Horowitz said. “We could use them for an attack against the Moon after we destroy the Las-cannons. But with the Las-cannons orbiting the Earth, sending up an LTV would be suicide. However, we might be able to use the XV4s as decoys.”

  “I agree,” Elias said. “The XV4s aren’t fast enough to evade the Las-cannons. Zora would destroy them before they got anywhere close to detonation range.”

  “Do you think these hot air balloons could work?” Hope asked.

  “They’re low-tech, as the General said. I don’t know what made me think of them. But Zora won’t be expecting that kind of attack. They’ll be so far beneath the Las-cannons she probably won’t even see them if they go up without the converters loaded.”

  “Any chance they’ll succeed?”

  Elias looked at General Horowitz. They both shrugged. “I think they’re all we have,” Elias said.

  President Hope took a deep breath and stared at the far wall. For the first time since she’d arrived, Elias noticed the dust on the shoulders of her jacket—leftovers from the attack on her bunker—the lines on her face and the darkening of the skin under her eyes. When was the last time she’d slept? After a moment she said, “Who can we send?”

  “I know just the man,” General Horowitz said. “Our most experienced Elite Ops trooper.”

  “Major Payne?” Elias said with a glance at the Elite Ops troopers by the door. Were they standing up just a little straighter? They looked huge, almost too large to fit through the doorway.

  “Captain Payne now. No one’s better with a particle beam cannon. And that business in Minnesota wasn’t his fault. Carlton programmed him the same as the other Elite Ops troopers. Plus, he’s eager to atone for his misdeeds.”

  “He’s too dangerous,” Elias said. He turned to the President. “We retired him from active duty last year, cut off communications between him and his fellow Elite Ops troopers. He’s been serving as a weapons instructor for special forces ever since.”

  “And from all reports,” General Horowitz said, “he’s been doing a fine job.”

  “He damn near took over the government.”

  “We both know that was Richard Carlton’s doing. The programming and conditioning made him Carlton’s pawn. That’s all been corrected. And we don’t have to worry about him organizing another coup because his communications implants have already been removed. That’ll save us a lot of time.”

  “I don’t think we have any choice,” President Hope said. “If he’s the best man for the job, we have to use him. You’ll have to accept that, Elias. Oh, and one more thing. I’m taking over your office for the time being. I need the communications access.” She turned to the door. “You can join us when you feel up to it.”

  Elias glanced again at the Elite Ops troopers beside the door. His pulse had quickened, he noticed—his breathing too. Once again he felt the urge to scratch himself, to get at the nanobots inside his sk
in, pull them out before they took over his mind, his soul. He nodded. “I’ll be there in a moment.” He lifted the tube connected to his hand and looked at Dr. Hassan. “Take this off.” The President and General Horowitz left, trailed by the Elite Ops troopers; Dr. Hassan removed the intravenous tube; and Elias beckoned Jay-Edgar over. “I need a summary of what’s happened while I’ve been out.”

  “I’ve got it,” Jay-Edgar said. He projected another vid onto the wall and began manipulating the feed. “This is just a sampling.”

  Images appeared from around the world: a Chinese Air Force base loaded with jet-copters lit by red light, then a massive hole where the jet-copters had stood; Britain’s newest nuclear submarine, the behemoth Dreadnought, shown cruising the North Atlantic, the picture taken by another vessel, turning red as the water around it began to boil, exploding outward as the image went black; CIA headquarters at Langley, where people could be seen running, replaced by the familiar red light, which filled the projection for a few seconds, after which the buildings blew apart, leaving behind a massive crater. More images followed—rocket bases in Korea, Pakistan, Iran, South Africa. About every tenth attack was on a populated area—a city or a landmark. One attack hit the center of what Jay-Edgar noted was Syracuse, Sicily. Another struck Pascagoula, Mississippi. Strange.

  Millions were dying—most of them instantly, mercifully. The plan was a total disaster. If only Curtik had taken charge like he was supposed to. Or would that have been even worse? Would he have avoided attacking governments and gone after civilian targets? Eli had to stop thinking that way. He had a job to finish. He’d set the wolves loose among the sheep because that was the only way to save the sheep—only now he had to figure out a way to stop the wolves.

  “There’s something missing,” Elias said as he stared at the holo-projections, a numbness spreading over him: a numbness that wasn’t physical.