Pandora - Contagion

by Eric L. Harry

  Samantha, carrying one of the Nicholses’ hunting rifles, which looked far too large for her small frame, came up to Emma. Dwayne led a group of armed Infecteds off the road to the uphill side of the highway. Three or four minutes later, the woods exploded in shooting. Emma turned back around to those remaining on the pavement and instructed them to breathe deeply in through the nose and out through the mouth. Samantha turned and demonstrated, and ended up leading the breathing exercises. Their agitation remained under control. The rapid firing from the woods was replaced by single killshots.

  Dwayne and the others returned. “Uninfecteds. I think we got ’em all. We only lost one.” Emma led them past the abandoned campsite on the final leg of their journey into town. About a hundred yards past the camp, however, a shot rang out and a woman from their group fell to her knees clutching her throat. Blood gushed through her fingers, and she gasped and coughed additional, copious quantities from her mouth. Dwayne led his war party off without being told what to do. No more shots were heard until there was a cascade of firing. The wounded woman was turning purple from lack of oxygen and had sunk to sit on her heels.

  Emma raised her rifle to put the woman out of her misery, but hesitated. Not because that one bullet was precious. In town, they had an armory full of ammo to plunder. Emma hesitated because she didn’t know why putting someone out of her misery made any sense. The woman wasn’t in misery. She was just dying slowly. Emma also was baffled at why she hesitated pulling the trigger. It shouldn’t matter—shoot, or don’t shoot—but for some reason, it did. She felt…troubled.

  The woman crumpled to the ground dead. Emma shook the strange thought from her head, but something of it lingered. Samantha was staring at her—studying her—looking perplexed.

  At the woman’s side lay a revolver. “If anyone knows how to use a pistol,” Emma called out to the group, “there’s one available.”

  A man stepped forward, took the pistol, and searched the woman’s body for ammunition but didn’t find any. He then counted the bullets in the gun’s cylinder.

  Dwayne returned with his soldiers. “We’d missed one. A kid. He’s dead.”

  The rest of their march into town was uneventful. But they halted at the top of the last rise. There were bodies lying uncollected everywhere. “Where is Dorothy?” Emma asked, searching their group.

  “She went to get a pregnancy test from the drug store,” Dwayne replied.

  “I wanted to ask her this question too. All of these others,” she looked back at her patient army of black-eyed Infecteds, “have just turned, so it’s too soon. But I’ll ask you two. Have either of you recently started hearing…voices? Not out loud, but in your heads?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes.”

  Samantha added, “I thought there was something wrong with me.”

  Dwayne said, “I asked Dorothy about those out-of-nowhere thoughts, but she had no idea what I was talking about. Sometimes, the voice makes me a little sick.”

  “Like when you wanted to go back up to the main house and help out my family?”

  “Yes. Exactly. The voice kept saying I had cheated them. How did you know?”

  “Just a guess. Let’s not say anything about this to anyone. Agreed?”

  Samantha and Dwayne both nodded.

  “Okay, Sam, you make note on your map of where we left bodies for clean-up, and where we find them in town.” The girl immediately undertook the task.

  Emma stopped when they neared the fire station, and Dwayne held up his hand as if the people behind him knew what his commands meant. But they all stopped on seeing the dozens of dead splayed wildly in the street, draped over a bicycle rack, and spilling out of open car doors. “What a mess,” Samantha said, trying to make note of it all with stick figures, arms and legs all akimbo, on her hand-drawn map.

  A man emerged from the fire station and donned a cowboy hat. He carried a shotgun, and wore a badge on his chest. “Stay here,” Emma told Dwayne. The other Infecteds they’d gathered along the way stood still, quiet, staring straight ahead. “But spread them out. They’re packed too close and starting to freeze up. Be ready, however, to crowd them back together again if there’s trouble and we need them ready to fight.”

  Emma walked down to meet the man in the hat, whom she recognized as Sheriff Walcott despite his dark sunglasses. “Sheriff?”

  “You? You said you were passing on through.”

  “I was lying.”

  “You’re infected?” Walcott asked. Emma confirmed that she was. “And they’re all infected too?” She turned to see Dwayne physically separating the group by dragging some across the street and barking orders to the others. Samantha’s head was tilted almost horizontal as she tried to count the tangle of bodies lying behind a burned-out truck.

  “Yes. What happened here?”

  The sheriff surveyed the corpses, which had not begun to smell. “Somebody tossed tainted food into the enclosure where we’d penned up the refugees. They all got sick.”

  “That was us,” Emma confided.

  “Thought you’d hurry things along?”

  “Looks like it worked.” Tendrils of smoke rose from the dozen or so buildings and homes that had burned to the ground. “Are there any Uninfecteds left in town?”

  “A few. They’re hiding. Whatta y’all want?”

  “Can I see your eyes?” Emma asked. Walcott removed his sunglasses and winced at the bright light. Despite his squinting, she could see that his pupils were fully blown. He wore a khaki blouse with its sheriff’s star, but blue jeans. He must have changed after soiling his uniform trousers. “We’re here to form a new community.”

  “The uninfected citizens aren’t going to like that too much.”

  “We’ll deal with them.” She explained her idea for the contract that would bind them all together.

  Walcott raised issues with which he was most familiar. “So who decides on punishments? Judge Parker’s dead.”

  “I do,” Emma replied simply.

  Walcott drew a deep breath, surveyed the bodies strewn all about, and said, “This town could use some tidying up.”

  “You work with Samantha on mapping the occupied houses. Then come with me and we’ll visit everyone who’s left: Infected and Uninfected.”

  “There could be trouble,” Walcott said.

  “We’ll bring Dwayne and his people with us.”

  Chapter 38

  RAVEN ROCK MOUNTAIN, PENNSYLVANIA

  Infection Date 63, 1245 GMT (8:45 a.m. Local)

  The 747 made what felt to Isabel like an emergency descent. The jumbo jet corkscrewed through the darkness in a tight spiral. Her seat fell away beneath her like a ride at an amusement park. They broke through the clouds just above a runway visible only in the flicker of burning barrels that ran down both sides of it. It was impossible to tell where they were, but she’d given up asking anything. Out of her window, however, the dim shapes of wooded mountains rose.

  After a fierce reverse thrust and desperate braking that threw Isabel forward against her seatbelt, the plane came to a stop right at the end of the runway. “Dr. Miller!” called an air policeman who had replaced his blue beret and ascot with a combat helmet.

  Isabel retrieved her gear and was ushered to the forward door. She exited into the fresh pre-dawn air as the first two of the three waiting helicopters rose noisily into the air. Marine One—the president’s aircraft—and an identical green helicopter extinguished all lights upon taking flight. At the bottom of the stairs, a Secret Service agent in a dark suit led her to the third helicopter, which was much smaller and purely military, with a machine gun mounted under one stubby wing and a green cylinder full of what looked like rockets under the other. They stowed her backpack and rifle in a compartment, and she strapped into one of the bucket seats behind the pilots, whose faces were covered by night vision goggle
s. The agent, looking out-of-place in his civilian attire, settled in beside her. “Let me guess. You can’t tell me where we’re going.”

  “No ma’am,” he replied before donning large, over-ear headphones. She did the same, but there was nothing but silence over the intercom. No tour guide narration like, “Out of the left side, you’ll see the mighty Mauna Loa volcano.” At least the headphones dulled the noise as the rotors spun up.

  They leapt into the air with surprising agility, pivoted in a hover, and shot off with nose dipping toward the dimly visible earth below, all of which messed with Isabel’s head and stomach. When the co-pilot punched a few buttons, a large, bright screen on the console between the two crewmen switched from touchscreen buttons to a moving map. Isabel followed its changing display. The agent didn’t seem to care that she snooped. Amid the squiggly contour lines on the map displaying the terrain that slid by in darkness beneath the helicopter was a dot that read, “Hagerstown, MD.” A few minutes later they passed, “Gettysburg, PA.”

  They slowed and began to descend. In the gray light of dawn, the only distinguishing feature of the mountainous, wooded terrain had been the communications towers on a rocky hilltop, painted a fading white and red, and a small, peeling, cinder block building. It could have been some obscure weather or communications relay station but for the double fences that surrounded the facilities, the helmeted heads swinging bright flashlights into the underbrush, and the dogs on leashes rearing up onto hind legs. Their helicopter set down on the “H” of a helipad next to a waiting gray Humvee.

  The Secret Service agent whisked Isabel into the vehicle. Dark mountains loomed all around. The twisting drive through the thick forest was short. They passed an outer checkpoint manned by combat troops behind sandbags, and an inner gate with a guard shack that appeared to be the facility’s original, permanent security. The road ended at a heavily reinforced concrete tunnel leading straight into the mountainside. Above the arch of the tunnel’s entrance was written, “Raven Rock Mountain Complex.”

  Isabel had never heard of it.

  Inside the large blast door were exposed rock walls and the unnatural smell of steel like the musty gust that preceded arrival of trains at a Manhattan subway station. All here was industrial and utilitarian. No effort had been wasted on ambiance.

  The regularly spaced lights on the ceiling of the tunnel went on and on and on. Isabel’s ears popped. There was a growing chill in the cave-like air through the machine gunner’s open, sun-roof perch. They slowed as they entered a large, hollowed cavern, then pulled to a stop. The agent handed Isabel off to a woman in a civilian suit. “Thank God,” she said to Isabel’s Secret Service escort. “They didn’t waste any time. It’s already under way.” Isabel asked what was under way, again feeling under-dressed in her smelly camouflage army uniform amid the business attire of everyone around. The woman introduced herself as “Special Assistant to the First Lady,” which Isabel found odd. “I apologize for the rush, but I’m taking you straight in. They’re waiting.”

  “Who is waiting?” Isabel asked even as she followed the woman toward a metal building erected in the center of the huge, subterranean grotto.

  “The Supreme Court. Their hearing is in session.”

  “What?”

  The door opened to reveal a crowded improvised courtroom. All eyes turned her way as Isabel rested her pack and rifle along the wall just inside the door. People tapped seatmates’ shoulders and pointed at her. Whispered comments rose. At the front sat nine black-robed justices. Lesser cabinet officials and Congressmen lined the walls in the standing-room-only assemblage.

  A lawyer at a podium was saying something about “Section One, Article Two,” until he saw Isabel. “Ah! Our witness has arrived. Professor Miller? Please take the stand.”

  Isabel was in a state of semi-shock as she proceeded to the indicated chair atop a slightly raised platform. She recognized the black-robed man at the center of the even more elevated panel from their one legal briefing in the Situation Room. “Chief Justice,” the placard before his seat read. “Dr. Isabel Miller?” She nodded, but the Chief Justice admonished her to reply out loud. “Yes,” she said as she turned to face the room.

  A video monitor displayed a live image of Pres. Stoddard staring impassively at the camera. His pupils were totally blown and black.

  Oh-my-God!

  In that moment, it all became clear. The president had gotten sick from the vaccine. He was one of the eight—one more than the seven who, statistically, ought to have contracted it. The Chief Justice explained to her that this was a competency hearing. The First Lady, seated at the counsel’s table, held Isabel’s eye, looking tense but hard. An opposing set of lawyers with no obvious client among them sat at a table across the room’s central aisle.

  “Dr. Miller!” the Chief Justice snapped. Isabel turned his way with a start. “These proceedings are of the utmost consequence both to our nation, and to our constitutional system of government. May I please have your full and undivided attention?”

  “Yes…sir,” Isabel replied in a chastened tone.

  “This is an unusual hearing for this Court,” the Chief Justice continued, “in that we’re acting as a trier of fact, not as an appellate body. Therefore, we are the taker of original witness testimony and need to swear you in.”

  A man in a suit approached the witness stand. “Please rise,” he said, then in a lower voice asked, “Christian?” Isabel nodded. He held a Bible out to her, and she placed her left hand on it. A Torah and a Quran lay on a table beside her seat. She raised her right hand.

  The Chief Justice said, “Dr. Miller, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

  “I do.”

  “Take your seat. Given the need for an expeditious ruling, and following prior if begrudging consent by both counsels, I’m going to undertake to determine this witness’s qualifications to serve as an expert.” The Chief Justice asked Isabel her occupation, what papers she had published, and what research she had done on the effects of Pandoravirus.

  He then briefly glanced left and right at the four robed justices to either side before turning to each counsel and announcing, after less than a minute, “This Court accepts this witness’s testimony as expert on the subject of the effects on the human brain of infection by Pandoravirus. Is counsel willing to so stipulate?”

  The client-less lawyer opposite the First Lady’s table rose and said, seemingly reluctantly, “In view of the Court’s stated desire for haste in this matter, and despite the numerous substantive objections we have raised in this…”

  “Might I remind you,” the Chief Justice interrupted, “there is no appeal from this Court, so there’s no reason to preserve your objections for the record.” The lawyer quickly stipulated that Isabel was an expert. “Good!” the Chief Justice replied before turning to the man’s adversary. “You may proceed.”

  Despite the judge’s prior admonishment, Isabel’s eyes kept straying to the monitor on which was displayed the image of a stoic Pres. Stoddard, who seemed to be following the proceedings without any real interest. What are the odds that he would be one of the people to catch it? Isabel couldn’t help but think.

  The First Lady’s lawyer approached Isabel. “Dr. Miller, this hearing will determine whether or not, under Section One, Article Two, of the Constitution of the United States of America, the duly elected president, William Lloyd Stoddard, remains competent to continue in office. Do you understand the question at issue?”

  Isabel glanced at the court reporter, cleared her dry throat, and said, “Yes, I do.”

  Among the few dignitaries who had found seats together were Gen. Browner and Directors Pearson and Struthers of the FBI and CIA.

  “I am counsel to the president,” the lawyer continued, “who is the Petitioner in this proceeding. At that table is counsel to the vice
president, who is the Respondent.” Isabel didn’t know what any of that meant. “You have had the opportunity, have you not, to study survivors of Pandoravirus infection?”

  “Yes.” That seemed too short. “That’s correct.”

  “In fact, the patient you studied most in depth was your identical twin sister, Dr. Emma Miller, former professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University, who was the first American victim of Pandoravirus horribilis after contracting SED in Siberia during her work on the WHO’s Surge Team Two.”

  “Objection,” the opposing counsel said, rising to his feet. “Leading.”

  But the Chief Justice was already directing the man to return to his seat with a patting motion. “Let’s keep the evidentiary and procedural objections to a minimum. This panel is not a jury, but a Court fully capable of assessing the probative value of a witness’s testimony. And I would also remind counsel to the president that opposing counsel has just stipulated to this witness’s expertise, so there’s no need to continue laying foundation.”

  “Yes, Mr. Chief Justice,” the lawyer questioning Isabel replied with a courtly bob of his head. Where did they all find suits? The lawyer turned back to Isabel. “Following your scientific observation, you gave testimony as an expert witness before the District Court for the District of Maryland in your sister’s successful habeas corpus hearing, did you not?” Isabel confirmed that was correct. “And in that hearing, did you express an opinion on the question of whether or not your sister was a person for purposes of that Court determining whether habeas rights lie pursuant to the Constitution?”

  Before Isabel could answer, the opposing counsel jumped up. “I’m sorry, Mr. Chief Justice, but I have to object. The matter at issue before the Maryland Court is inapposite to the issue before this Court. Furthermore, this counsel was not present at that hearing to cross-examine the witness. And the ruling was by a District Court, which of course has no precedential value in the United States Supreme Court.”