Extermination Day

by William Turnage

  In the meantime he’d enjoy the perks of the job, which right now included a glass of wine, a couple of Secret Service agents guarding him, and a private plane ride back to Washington tomorrow morning. Jeff pictured the flight attendant who’d waited on him on the way to this base. Not more than a seven, but she had a killer body and she’d been quite flirtatious, leaning over him when she served his food and touching him on the arm and shoulder frequently. Jeff knew all the cues. On the way back, he’d definitely see if she wanted membership in the exclusive Jeff Madison mile-high club.

  Well, not all that exclusive, Jeff thought, chuckling slightly.

  He wished he was in Washington today, but this was his day in a secure location playing “designated survivor.” To maintain continuity of the government in case of a disaster or terrorist attack, one member of the government was sent to a secure location and given the full protection of the president. It should have been the vice president here today, but a member of his staff asked that Jeff switch places with him. So that made him kind of the backup designated survivor. The VP had more pressing issues to take care of, so Jeff was left with this year’s short straw. Of course nothing exciting ever happened.

  The secure location seemed pretty secure to Jeff, to the point of overkill. The secret base was located just outside of Carlsbad, New Mexico, near the Carlsbad and Lechuguilla caverns. When he’d arrived at the base around two p.m. this afternoon, he’d been taken underground at least ten floors. They told him the base had been built into the cavern system of the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. What they used the base for, he had no idea. It was curious, though, that they built a base this far out, basically in the middle of nowhere, and buried it deep in a hole.

  Jeff finished reading the news and had started loading a movie from NetCloud onto his portable when his attention was caught by odd noises from the House chamber.

  One of the distinguished gentlemen in the audience was coughing obnoxiously loud, disrupting Diaz’s speech.

  How rude.

  Jeff didn’t agree with the president on every issue, but he’d never dream of interrupting a public speech. He had too much respect for the office, if not necessarily the man in that office.

  What started as a single cough progressed into a cacophony; another senator or congressman chimed in with outrageously loud coughs.

  “What the hell is going on?” Jeff said. “A ploy to direct attention away from the president’s message?”

  The president stopped talking and grabbed at his throat. The camera wobbled as Diaz started coughing up blood. Then it was running, almost gushing, from his nose and mouth.

  The news anchor raised his voice to say, “There appears to be an attack of some type, invisible gas, we can’t make out . . . Oh my God!”

  Jeff leaned forward as the scene played out on his portable.

  There was a long pause and then the anchor screamed, “Get them out of there!”

  With cameras rolling, everyone in the House chamber started to drop, kicking convulsively, blood streaming from their faces. Secret Service agents tried to help the president, but they too collapsed and fell helplessly, grabbing their throats in the throes of death.

  Jeff sat watching in disbelief. Someone had to do something! Do something, he silently urged.

  The door to the room where he was waiting burst open.

  In rushed two of the Secret Service agents who’d accompanied him to New Mexico.

  “Congressman, we need to move you immediately,” said the younger of the two agents. “There’s been an attack,”

  “What’s going on, does anyone know?” Jeff asked, panic rising in his voice.

  “We don’t know, sir. We were just given orders to take you deeper into this facility.”

  “We’re already ten floors underground; how much deeper does this thing go?” Jeff had assumed they were at the bottom of the base.

  “Quickly, sir.” One of the agents grabbed him gruffly by the arm, and they all headed into the corridor. Down the hallway was the elevator where another man, in a white lab coat, was waiting, holding open the elevator door. The guy seemed to be late sixties, bald, with a thin build. A gold cross dangled from his neck.

  Jeff ran with the agents to the open elevator. After they were inside, the man in the lab coat placed his hand on a scanner by the elevator panel and said, “Research level, Dr. Abraham Conner, alpha nine nine eight five.” Then he typed something into the keypad on the wall and turned to Jeff.

  “Congressman Madison, I’m Abraham Conner, assistant director of this facility. There’s been an attack of some type, as you’ve seen on LiveStream. None of us know what’s going on, but the facility director said we needed to take you deeper until we understand the extent of the attack.”

  “Just point me where I need to go. How deep is this place; are we safe?”

  “The main facility is located in a cavern about a mile down or in structural terms, four-hundred-stories down,” Dr. Conner said.

  “Jesus!” Jeff’s breath caught. “What the hell do you do down there?”

  “I’m sorry, sir, that information is classified. The director, Dr. Patrick Chen, may be able to give you more information.”

  As they descended deeper and deeper into the bowels of the research facility, Jeff wondered what was happening above. He pulled out his portable and immediately logged on to the Stream to get the latest report. The LiveStream from the Capitol was still running, but there was no movement from the House chamber. It had been maybe five minutes, five measly minutes, since the attack had started, but there appeared to be no survivors, at least from what he could make out on the feed.

  Jesus! He couldn’t believe this was happening.

  The newscasters were trying to get information from a reporter on the scene outside the Capitol. She broke in with a panicked voice, saying, “Brian, it looks like there’s been a vicious terrorist attack inside the Capitol, maybe focused on the House chamber. We’re flying a camera drone in to get a better picture. Let’s head over to that feed.” She turned her head to sneeze.

  She continued to sneeze and seconds later started to cough just as deeply and horribly as the president had moments earlier. She stared at the camera, eyes wide with horror, and coughed up thick, deep blood right into the lens. As the blood dripped down, obscuring the view, the reporter fell to the ground, clawing at her throat.

  Behind the reporter, the typical large crowd of protestors had gathered to promote their various causes. People in that group started to bend over, choking and coughing horribly as well. Soon they were jerking in convulsive fits. The signs they’d been waving dropped to the ground like a forest of fallen trees. Some of the protestors tried to crawl when they hit the ground. They didn’t get far and collapsed in bloody messes.

  It was the most horrible scene of gore and agony Jeff had ever witnessed.

  Finally the cameraman succumbed, dropping his camera but leaving it running. Soon all was quiet and there was no movement at all.

  They were all dead.

  Jesus.

  Dr. Conner, his breathing rough, watched from over Jeff’s shoulder. His face was pale. The Secret Service agents had pressed close, and their faces held the same shock Conner’s showed. Jeff imagined he was just as white.

  Conner started mumbling to himself. “It’s actually happening,” he said.

  When he repeated himself, louder, and backed away. Jeff asked, “What do you mean? Did you know about this threat?”

  Conner looked down for a second. Then his eyes went wide and he pulled out his own portable and frantically yelled into it, “Call Gwen!”

  A woman answered, and Conner said, “Honey, remember what I told you last night? Get down to the safe room right now. You need—” He collapsed against the elevator’s wall. “Why are you in the car? I told you to stay there the whole night.” He was screaming, his face turning red and his eyes getting wider and more desperate.

  “I can’t hear you . . . What wreck? Just s
low down. Where are you? Honey, where are you?” He started to cry. “No, honey, don’t help them. Just turn around and get out of there! Gwen? Gwen!”

  Rasping coughs spewed from the phone.

  “Gwen, Gwen!” Conner screamed louder and wilder. He dropped his portable and reached over to the elevator pad. He tried to hit the button for a return to the ground level of the facility, but one of the Secret Service agents grabbed his arm and pulled it away.

  “But I have to get my wife. I need to save her!” Conner screamed, tears flowing as he struggled with the agent.

  “We have our orders,” the agent—Tom—said. Jeff thought the agent’s name was Tom. “We need to get the congressman to a secure location.” Tom spoke sternly, but he was clearly shaken; his voice was cracking.

  Conner made a sudden lunge for the agent’s gun, but Tom was too quick and smacked his hand away. Then the other agent grabbed Conner from behind, putting him in a full nelson submission hold. Conner slumped down, still struggling. Then he started kicking and fighting violently.

  Jeff moved to the far side of the elevator.

  “No, no, let me go, you motherfuckers!” he yelled. “I need to get to the surface!” When he couldn’t free himself, he spat furiously at the agents.

  The elevator continued its smooth descent. Jeff tried to stay out of the way as best he could, but he easily understood why Conner was distraught. Jeff had no way of knowing if his own ex-wife and his son and daughter were okay. Virginia Beach, where they lived, was about four hours from Washington, D.C. It wasn’t that close, but he didn’t know the extent of the attacks. He didn’t know where Dr. Conner’s wife was driving, but he assumed she was nearby, probably right in Carlsbad. If they were being attacked here, then it could very well be happening all across the country, including in Virginia Beach.

  Could it be that widespread? Why would terrorists target Carlsbad?

  More unsettling was Dr. Conner’s knowledge that something dangerous was going to happen, today specifically, and that he’d apparently had built a safe room for his wife to hide in. Jeff needed to find out more, but first he needed to call his ex-wife and check on Amanda and Aiden. His hands shook as he called her portable, but it went straight to voicemail.

  What the hell was going on out there?

  He tried to make eye contact with Tom, but the man was busy with Conner. The other agent stared at the wall, eyes unblinking. The elevator stopped and the doors opened to reveal a long hallway. They all stepped out and the elevator slammed shut behind them. As they walked forward an alarm began to sound.

  “What about him?” Jeff asked, gesturing toward the doctor.

  Tom said, “I’m going to let you go now, and you can do whatever you want. Just don’t go for my gun again, or I’ll take you into custody.”

  Conner’s head tipped forward and his shoulders slumped. “There’s nothing I can do now,” he said in a soft, defeated voice. “The alarm has sounded, so the facility is in lockdown. The elevators no longer work; no one can go in or out.” He inhaled a long breath and lifted his head. “Let’s find Dr. Chen. Perhaps he can tell us more.”

  They walked the length of the hallway and opened the doors at the end. As they entered, Jeff was overwhelmed. Spreading out as far as he could see was a sprawling base built under a cavernous dome of smooth rock. He couldn’t take it all in immediately, but it looked to be the size of two or three football fields, with a roof rising several stories.

  The base—what he was looking at had to be the main base, the heart of the facility—was mostly quiet. There was activity, however, centered on a large white dome in the middle of the cavern where welding sparks were flying. A variety of metal tubes, pipes, circuits, and other pieces of plastic and glass protruded from the dome, and trails of steam hissed out from the bottom. The dome was connected to a metal pipeline that extended around the entire underground structure and outward, into the rocky cavern that surrounded everything. Around the center dome were several smaller buildings and one three-story tower that looked like a command center.

  As they walked, men in white coats sped by in small golf carts and on Segways.

  It was an amazing sight this deep underground, cut into the limestone cavern in New Mexico. Jeff didn’t know how much more he could absorb.

  Dr. Conner gestured at the huge development before them. “Mr. Madison, welcome to the Chronos Project. We should find Dr. Chen in the control tower.”

  As they walked, mobiles began pinging like a symphony orchestra as techs and scientists and whatever else they were started getting messages from outside. Shocked looks spread from face to face. A woman screamed. Several people ran for the closed doors leading to the elevator. An argument broke out between two men in white coats and two security guards who’d apparently recently been stationed at the elevators.

  Jeff could feel the tension and panic spread as he, Dr. Conner, and the two Secret Service agents hustled toward the control tower.

  “Are we locked in here?” Jeff asked.

  “The facility is designed to go into automatic shutdown in case of an outside emergency,” Conner said. “We have our own fuel source and enough food and water to last for up to a year. We also recycle our own air using the hydroponics lab we constructed in an adjacent chamber.” He had himself under control, at least momentarily, and was acting more rationally now. But his voice was still rough, and his eyes were glassy.

  “I hope your Dr. Chen can shed light on what’s happening. Otherwise he’s going to have a riot on his hands with people trying to get out of here,” Jeff said. “If you guys knew something was going to happen, and from what I’ve seen and heard, you did, why didn’t you warn the rest of us?”

  “Dr. Chen mentioned a few days ago that there was the possibility of an attack, but we had no idea of its nature or scale. The terrorist attack on Washington caught us by surprise.”

  “Right . . . So what about the safe room you had for your family?”

  “I tend to worry more than most people. And I like to be prepared for any contingency. Even the remote ones. My wife, on the other hand, thinks nothing could ever happen to her and that my prognostications are just fairy tales.” He paused to press his hand to his heart. “I should’ve done more to convince her.” His voice trailed off, a tear rolled down his cheek, and he looked desperately to the cavern’s roof, as if pleading with the heavens to roll back time.

  They finally reached the tower and entered an elevator. The smell of fresh paint was still in the air as the elevator gently rose from the ground floor. The busy sounds outside were closed off and they were all left with their own thoughts until a man greeted them when the doors opened.

  “Abe, thank God you’re here and safe.”The speaker was a tall, wiry, olive-skinned man with thick white hair. His accent was slightly British. He had western European features, with a thick jaw and long face, but his eyes were slanted and dark, declaring his Asian ancestry. He looked to be about seventy. “And this gentleman?” he asked, pointing rudely at Jeff.

  “Congressman Jeff Madison at your service,” Jeff said, extending his hand, pressing his lips together, and nodding in acknowledgment of the gravity of their circumstances.

  In return, he got a glare rather than a handshake.

  “I thought the vice president was going to be here. What the hell happened?” The man actually yelled at Conner.

  “I don’t know. When I went to the waiting room, he was the only one there.”

  Tom, who’d followed at Jeff’s heels the whole way, said, “Dr. Chen, I presume?”

  “Who else would I be?”

  “The vice president had a last-minute change of plans and is currently on Air Force Two being taken to another location. We were sent here to guard Congressman Madison. We don’t have knowledge of the vice president’s current location.”

  Dr. Chen snorted. “Last-minute fuck-ups.” He turned abruptly and marched over to the bank of computer screens and started giving orders to the scientists and
technicians in the control room. Then he pressed a button and leaned toward a microphone.

  “Men and women of Project Chronos, I’ve sure you’ve all seen the news on the Stream by now. We’re closely monitoring the situation. I will be talking with Defense Command momentarily to find out more information. In the meantime, do not panic. Return to your duties. Final preparations need to be completed very quickly now, and I need everyone to focus. Remember, the work we are doing could save everyone. I’ll keep you posted as I find out more.”

  Down below, on the other side of large glass panels, a dozen or so people looked up at the control tower as if God himself had just spoken from the clouds. After Chen’s speech, a few of the scientists were still sobbing and milling around; however, most folded away their portables and shuffled back to whatever tasks they’d been working on.

  “I think it’s time you told me what the hell this project is and how Dr. Conner here knew that something horrible was going to happen today.” Jeff was pissed off, and the tension of the last few minutes was wearing down his patience.

  “I’m sorry, Congressman, but you don’t have clearance to know any more, and you’ve already seen too much as it is,” Chen replied, thrusting his hand dismissively toward Jeff. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got a lot on my plate. We have a conference room downstairs where you can wait until things settle down.”

  Jeff had no intention of being so cavalierly dismissed. He’d just watched the entire Congress and the president die horrific deaths. He couldn’t get in touch with his ex-wife and son and daughter. People were dying outside the Capitol building and around Washington. He didn’t want to be stuck in some damned conference room while the action was clearly centered right where he was now.