The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  “Ah, there you are,” Zora said after an interminable three-second delay. “Good to see you. Sorry I missed your call. No doubt you’re all plotting your revenge. Multiple missiles fired our way with the hope that a few will make it past the Las-cannon, wiping out the lunar settlement with one massive nuclear explosion. It’s a good plan, the best we’ve been able to come up with. Curtik articulated it before he began to devolve. But let me warn you against such a hasty strategy.”

  Zora’s gaze swept from left to right as she looked at each world leader. “Our options are not as limited as you might imagine. Although we were engineered to fail, to devolve into unreasoning, berserk warriors, we were not supposed to know that was coming. Now we have time to prepare for it.

  “It’s a brutal, horrifying way to die.” Zora’s eyes locked onto Elias. Rage emanated from her—and implacable will. “Agonizing and without dignity. I wonder if you truly understood how terrible this death is. Are you that much a monster? I wish I knew for certain.”

  Elias blushed. He hadn’t known. No one had. When Dr. Hassan, Dr. Hackett and their team had put together the program, they’d only been able to speculate on possible outcomes. There’d been no opportunity to test the system. The necessity of speed, of creating the cadets while he had the opportunity to do so—before President Hope took office—had forced Elias to approve the devolution of the children, but he’d always regretted the uncertainties it demanded. And now the itching began again, between his shoulder blades. He shrugged, hoping to quell the desire to scratch.

  Zora, who had paused for a moment, continued: “On with the business at hand. You people make certain assumptions about our defensive abilities vis-a-vis the Las-cannon. Were I you, I would not be so convinced of my conclusions that I would fail to consider various unpleasant alternatives. In other words, we might decide to do something unexpected, something similar to what Eli planned when he created us, but different enough to alter the landscape of the world. We might fire a burst at Yellowstone, for example, or Iceland.”

  Zora paused for a moment. “Remember that we have nothing to lose, so we don’t feel the necessity to play by your rules. What started as a compulsive attack on irrational and selfish governments has changed. That goal is unattainable. You will never cede power to anyone else. It’s your raison d’etre. So we’re no longer even going to try to change you. We’re focused simply on survival. You can keep your godforsaken planet, for all the good it will do you.

  “Here’s what we propose. You leave us alone, we’ll leave you alone. If you choose to attack us, you will regret it. When I finish this call, I’ll transmit the facts we’ve gathered so far, including the data that show the inevitability of our devolution, the cruelness of our creation for destructive purposes. Ask yourselves if this is the kind of unification you want. Do you really want to ally yourselves with a regime that would do what Eli and his cronies did to us?

  “One more thing,” Zora said, “and I’ll let you get back to your squabbling. Someone out there may be able to come up with a solution to our devolution problem. Your countries all have advanced genetics and nano-technology programs. If you find a solution for us before we devolve, we will reward you to the best of our ability. If you fail . . . and if we fail . . . well, I can’t guarantee we won’t attack you in our dying rage. Let me apologize for such an eventuality in advance. Sending data now. Toodles.”

  Zora grinned as her place in the holo-projection went dark. The world’s leaders began to jostle for audio. Elias backed away.

  “This is all your fault,” Brazil’s Great Pomposity said. “We should fire a rocket at them just so they’ll blow up Yellowstone and destroy your nation. You deserve to be wiped out.”

  “No,” Cynthia Howard said. “It would create volcanic winter, filling the sky with tons of ash, darkening everything, killing off plant and animal life. The air would become foul—even fouler than it is now—contaminated with fatal levels of hydrogen sulfide. The water would be undrinkable. And the world would become a tremendously cold place—for years.”

  “Exactly,” Pryce-Jones said. “The previous attacks have already started us on that path. If a single massive volcano erupted, billions would die. It would be devastation on a much larger scale. You would not be exempted from the fallout.”

  “Having the Las-cannon trained on us is unacceptable,” Navrakov said. “Though I fear there’s not much we can do about it at the moment. In the meantime, we must exact some measure of vengeance to appease them.”

  “Yes,” the Nigerian Nincompoop agreed. “Your man must be charged with crimes against humanity. And you should be arrested too.”

  General Horowitz lunged forward and stabbed the audio icon. “President Hope knew nothing about this program. It was enacted before she was elected, put in place by her predecessor and this man who was once a trusted advisor.”

  Elias felt a surge of anger and fear rising up inside him. And the itching between his shoulder blades worsened. He watched the faces staring back through the holo-projection, noted the hostility on every one of them. These fools dared to judge him?

  “Give us Elias Leach,” the Great Pomposity said, “and we will see to it that justice is done.”

  “We will arrest Mr. Leach,” President Hope said. “He will be tried in America. We will not hand him over to a lynch mob.”

  She nodded to General Horowitz, who nodded to the Elite Ops trooper by the door. Together they advanced on Elias.

  Elias stepped forward into the range of the holo-camera again. He could feel the nanobots eating away at his skin from the inside. Rage overwhelmed him. “So this is how it ends?” he shouted. “I get arrested, tried and convicted of crimes against humanity, perhaps even executed, all because I tried to save the world from your endless infighting—your stupid wars. You people are cowards. You don’t deserve to live.”

  General Horowitz and the Elite Ops trooper reached down and grabbed Elias’ arm.

  “I never should have tried to save you. You can all blow yourselves up!”

  Together they marched him away. Elias held his head high, righteous anger quelling his fear.

  They escorted him to the room Elias had often used for holding prisoners in the past—an eight-by-ten cell with toilet and sink, and a hard narrow cot. The Elite Ops trooper let go of Elias’ arm and halted outside the door. Elias took a seat on the cot as the metal door shut with a clang, the bolts engaging with a snick. The itching grew worse. It took over his arms and legs. He felt an uncontrollable urge to scratch.

  “Sooner or later,” he yelled at the cameras that monitored his every move, “you’ll need my help.”

  Stay calm, he reminded himself as the itching spread. He scratched the top of his head, then his belly. “You can’t keep me in here forever,” he yelled. “I’m the only one who knows all the details about the project.”

  Even his eyeballs itched. His breathing quickened. He closed his eyes and rubbed his eyelids, then his cheeks. Falling onto his back, he squirmed back and forth on the cot as he scratched his arms and legs. Stop it! he ordered himself. It’s all in your head. But the itch didn’t listen. He scratched and scratched.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jeremiah reveled in his dungeon, free of pain. But something called to him urgently—a warning. He couldn’t stay any longer. Fighting the desire to remain, Jeremiah pulled himself to a fully awakened, agonizing state. Lendra and Zora stared down at him.

  “Thank God,” Lendra said.

  “What happened?” Jeremiah asked as he sat up slowly, the knife-like pain in his joints making every movement torture. He noticed Devereaux, Quark, Dr. Wellon and Dr. Poole. The two doctors were studying a scanner.

  Devereaux said, “We found you unresponsive. Nothing could wake you.”

  “I was in a self-hypnotic state when I felt this sense of danger.”

  Zora said, “Devereaux suggested tha
t Quark tap an SOS on your broken legs in Morse code and after a couple of minutes, you came to.”

  “You scared us,” Lendra said.

  Jeremiah looked from Lendra to Zora, who frowned at him, her hands clenched into fists that trembled. Behind her, Aspen stood in the doorway, a Las-rifle gripped in her hands. “You weren’t coming back,” Zora said. “You wanted to stay there, didn’t you?”

  Jeremiah shrugged, wincing at the movement. “What’s our situation?”

  “Nothing from Earth yet. I had Wee Willie set all the Las-rifles to stun to prevent deadly accidents. Three cadets shot people this morning. We’re becoming edgy waiting for them to attack.”

  Dr. Poole said, “We may need to increase the dosage of euphoramine to keep them calm. But that may hasten the onset of devolution.”

  “How’s Curtik doing?”

  Devereaux said, “He’s still devolving. We gave him a small transfusion of your blood and the good news is that your lymphocytes—part of your white cells—have begun to cluster around Curtik’s nanobots. In particular, your T cells and B cells are interacting extremely well.”

  “What does that mean?” Jeremiah asked.

  Dr. Poole said, “We don’t know whether your blood will prove to be an effective antidote to the devolution, but the fact that your T cells have recognized the nanobots is a good sign.”

  “That’s great.” Jeremiah caught the frowns on the faces surrounding him. “Isn’t it?”

  Dr. Wellon said, “We gave him the last of your pre-infected blood. Since you’re infected with the Susquehanna Virus, a transfusion may not react the same way, and it will definitely infect him if we proceed. Plus . . .”

  She looked over to Dr. Poole, who said, “Your bone marrow isn’t producing white cells efficiently right now, due to the virus.”

  “Surely I’m producing enough to give Curtik a transfusion?”

  “Probably. But our calculations indicate that you would need to provide a lot of blood to achieve measurable results in reversing the devolution—at least half a liter.”

  “And any further blood loss,” Dr. Wellon said, “could result in a setback in your recovery. Plus, if your bone marrow fails to produce replacements, your condition might worsen. The virus could get out of hand, overwhelm your immune system. And if somebody else begins to devolve or if a few cadets begin to deteriorate at once,” Poole’s eyes shifted to Aspen, who twitched, “we would need much more of your blood.”

  “More than you can safely give,” Lendra said.

  “Still,” Jeremiah said, “if it might save Curtik, it’s a chance we have to take.”

  “It’s more than that,” Zora said. “Curtik’s devolution might be too far advanced already. Your blood might not save him. But for those of us who haven’t begun devolving yet, your blood might be used as a preventative. If each cadet received a few hundred milliliters, that could be enough to prevent devolution from occurring at all.”

  Lendra’s mouth dropped. “Each cadet? You’d have to drain Jeremiah of all his blood.”

  Jeremiah smiled. “Killing the goose that laid the golden egg.” He wondered briefly why he wasn’t afraid. Was he that willing to seek release from this painful existence? Or did he believe the cadets wouldn’t actually kill him?

  Devereaux said, “We might not need to go that far. Doctors Nakamura and Srinlangshiran believe they might be able to derive a synthetic or nanotech agent by observing Curtik’s progress during the treatment, studying how your white cells target the nanobots and duplicating that process. We could also transfuse some of your blood to one of the cadets who hasn’t yet devolved to see how that resolves itself and perhaps duplicate that process as well.”

  “Do it,” Jeremiah said.

  “You don’t understand,” Dr. Wellon said. “The important element here is your white cell count. That’s what Curtik needs and that’s what you’re not making efficiently. Your immune system is dangerously close to failing.”

  Jeremiah looked at the concerned faces surrounding him. “I want to save my son.”

  Zora coughed; her face paled.

  “You don’t look well,” Dr. Poole said. “Perhaps your devolutionary process has started as well. She grabbed Zora’s hand.

  “Get away from me,” Zora said. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine,” Dr. Poole said. “None of you are fine. You’re all about to devolve.”

  Zora spun about, flailing her arms. “Get back. Stay away from me or I’ll kill you.”

  Dr. Poole raised her hands and stepped back. “I’m just trying to help.”

  Quark pulled Devereaux behind him, while Dr. Wellon placed herself between Devereaux and Aspen. As Aspen waved her Las-rifle about, Lendra backed into a corner. Jeremiah slid to the edge of the bed and prepared to launch himself forward if anyone attacked. He glanced at Quark, who nodded almost imperceptibly. They needed to make sure both Devereaux and Zora stayed alive and healthy.

  Zora shivered. She went still.

  “What is it, Zora?” Dr. Poole asked.

  “Wee Willie says they’ve gone quiet—no chatter between the big nations.”

  Quark said, “They’re planning something.”

  Devereaux nodded. “They’re desperate to retain their power, and they don’t like having a gun pointed at their heads, threatening global nuclear winter. Already there are signs that the Las-cannon strikes you made earlier have begun to alter Earth’s climate, vastly increasing the amount of particulate matter in the atmosphere.”

  “What are they up to?” Lendra asked.

  Zora scoffed. “You probably know. Maybe we should persuade you to tell.” She shivered again, then sat on the floor. Dr. Poole took a step toward her, but Zora glared at her until she backed away.

  “I don’t know anything,” Lendra said.

  “Let’s kill ’em all,” Aspen said, her hands shaking.

  “No,” Zora said. She continued to shiver. “We need to conserve power in that last Las-cannon. If we lose that, we’ll have no defenses.”

  Dr. Poole removed a blanket from a shelf and draped it over Zora’s shoulders. “No point in freezing,” she said.

  “Don’t touch me,” Zora said.

  “We have to find out if you’re devolving.”

  “Fine.” Zora stood, her blanket falling to the floor. Her whole body shook as if she were having a seizure. When Dr. Poole reached for her, Zora grabbed her hand and threw her across the room. Dr. Poole screamed as Jeremiah launched himself off the bed. He caught her, but her momentum drove them both into the wall with such force that the wind was knocked out of him. Wincing, Jeremiah lowered Dr. Poole to the floor. He spun around to face Zora. But before he could move, Aspen hit him with a blue laser pulse.

  A burst of intense heat struck Jeremiah’s chest. He fell.

  “Quark,” he managed, “the rage.”

  Quark stepped in front of Zora. He made no aggressive moves, simply keeping himself between Zora and Poole. Aspen moved to the side and fired at Lendra, who cried out and dropped. Zora, looking up into Quark’s face, tightened her mouth into a grimace and flung herself at him, her tiny fists blurring as they pummeled his stomach and chest. Quark grunted under the onslaught but held his ground, letting her punch him, protecting his groin and face with his hands while she hit him again and again. Lendra writhed in pain, screaming.

  “Yeah!” Aspen yelled. “Kill him! Kill him harder!” She aimed her Las-rifle at Quark as Jeremiah struggled to his feet. He knew he had to distract Aspen long enough for Quark to calm Zora down. Without Zora in control, the cadets would destroy everyone. He mentally prepared himself for another Las-rifle burst, psyching himself up to withstand a laser pulse long enough to disarm Aspen. After all, he wouldn’t actually be burning alive.

  He lunged at Aspen.

  She fired at him again. It felt like someone
had hit him with a flamethrower. He couldn’t breathe. He tried to focus on anything except the agonizing blaze encompassing him—Zora’s slowing punches; Lendra’s quieting screams; Dr. Wellon shielding Devereaux. Though he knew he wasn’t actually on fire, he felt like he was. He managed to stay on his feet and even take a couple steps towards Aspen.

  Zora stopped punching Quark and turned to stare at him.

  Aspen yelled and took a step forward, jamming the Las-rifle into Jeremiah’s stomach as she continued to fire. That gave Jeremiah the opportunity to yank the Las-rifle from her hands.

  With the laser pulse gone, a cool wave overwhelmed him. All his pain vanished. He began to laugh and realized almost immediately that he couldn’t stop. He felt invincible, dancing on the edge of a cliff, aware of the danger below yet unable to back away.

  Aspen shook her head. “How did you do that?”

  “Whoa!” Zora’s eyes grew wide, her nostrils flaring. “That’s the most amazing . . . nobody should be able to . . .”

  Devereaux stepped around Dr. Wellon, who lifted her scanner and pointed it at Jeremiah. “You continue to astound me,” Devereaux said. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

  Quark gave Jeremiah a little bow, while Lendra brought herself to a sitting position and put her hands on her stomach.

  Dr. Poole said, “What you did just isn’t possible.”

  Jeremiah shook his head as his laughter died down. “I know. But I feel great. I could almost . . .”

  The pain returned, worse than before—totally incapacitating. His body tensed with agony as his chest constricted tightly. He froze, sensing that the slightest movement would cause him to black out. Yet standing still created too much pain. He needed to do something. So he dropped the Las-rifle and sat on the floor, bending over to clutch his stomach. He struggled to breathe, taking ragged gasps of air.

  Aspen retrieved the Las-rifle while Dr. Wellon continued to study her scanner and Dr. Poole checked on Lendra.