And Thy Mother

by John Bromley

  “Can’t you countermand those orders, sir?”

  “Parker, I may not be sure which officer issued the order, but this letterhead lists eight names, all beginning with the title ‘General.’ Not ‘Brigadier,’ not ‘Major General’—just ‘General.’ That means whoever it is, he’s got it all—four stars. I’ve only got two. At this level, quantity wins.”

  Parker grudgingly conceded the point.

  But, that’s assuming ‘whoever it is’ has any stars at all, his doubting mind insisted.

  “Besides, this says Jansen’s going to be doing something with Special Ops. You had him tracking down folk tales. Sounds like a no-brainer to me.”

  As Jim hung up the phone Mike, who had heard the entire conversation, shook his head sympathetically. “It just ain’t your lucky day, I guess.”

  “Yeah… so much for evidence.”

  It was getting late when Jim’s phone finally rang and displayed what they had come to expect as their daily geo-caching coordinates. This time, though…

  “This is going to take us into Manitoba, Jim.”

  “Haven’t been to Manitoba in quite a while, Mike,” Jim said casually.

  “I mean, if we keep going off-course like this, we’re going to be late for our assignment.”

  “Then we’ll have to be late!” Jim said forcefully. “Look—you wanted factual evidence to back up what we’ve heard. Unfortunately, my best chance to gather any just got pulled off the case. Sorry about that—but my gut tells me that this story… something about it… just rings true, and I’m inclined to go with my gut, even without hard facts. That’s always been the big difference between me and you, Mike. You tend to be more cautious, more ‘by-the-book’—I’m more of a risk-taker. ‘Playing hunches’, if you want to call it that, has worked for me, so far. It’s gotten me where I am today.”

  “Hunches can be useful at times,” Mike allowed, “as long as they’re not suicidal, like… oh, I don’t know… ripping pages out of an un-Treated book—nothing ‘suicidal’ about that.”

  “OK, I’m not usually suicidal. Be that as it may, right now I have a hunch that the guy on the other end of this phone, whoever he is, has something on me that could put me—us—in front of a firing squad in nothing flat.

  “Being late for an encounter with foreigners who may or may not exist—that I can talk my way out of. Summary execution—not so much.”

  Jim wondered if Mike felt insulted by his comments, but not for long.

  “So, is ‘going with your gut’ what it takes to be a national hero?”

  Jim looked at his partner and saw the smile on his face. No harm done.

  “Now don’t you start that shit.”

  “At least he’s nice enough to hide his stuff someplace where we can check it out in comfort,” Mike commented as they arrived at their destination and found it to be near another small town, complete with motels and places to eat. Even in the gathering dark, Jim had little trouble finding this cache’s hiding spot. This time, though, Jim took not only the memory stick but the red satin ribbon that had marked its location. Acting on a hunch, as he would explain later—he thought it might possibly come in handy at some point.

  They got more sandwiches and soda, without having to put up with the “recognition factor,’ much to Jim’s delight. After this, they adjourned to Jim’s room to view their latest acquisition.

  CHAPTER 12

  Parker and Wilkins received a very pleasant surprise when the video began. This time, there was no table, no paper with text on it, no background voice. Instead, two people stood in a room facing the camera. The brunette spoke almost immediately.

  “Hello, Colonel Parker. I am Angela, and this is my associate Cynthia,” she said, indicating the only-slightly-shorter blonde person next to her. The camera lingered for a moment so that Parker might become acquainted with the women’s appearance.

  Jim wanted nothing more than to hit the ‘Pause’ button and let that image sit on the screen for the rest of his life.

  Even people living outside of Jim and Mike’s world, people who are used to the sight of women, would have considered these two nothing less than ‘stunning’. Both were in their mid-twenties, in excellent physical condition, with flawless skin and large, expressive eyes. Both were full-breasted, with beautifully-muscled legs and rounded hips. In short, absolute feminine perfection—times two.

  Jim and Mike were shaken out of their trance by the realization that Angela had begun to speak again.

  “…will be seeing another video, which was shot at the time by those involved. They wanted to record, for posterity, their response to the developing situation, so that no one could later say they had left any stone unturned. This, then, is what happened next…”

  Weeks had passed, and all that had happened was that the body count continued to spiral upward. Fortunately, at this point the virus seemed to be confined to the Phoenix area. Tourism in the region, not a big factor in the summer months, dropped well below normal levels as the national press had a field day with what they were now calling the “Gender Murders”.

  The President at the time was Jeffrey Winslow, who is mentioned in history books as being one of the weakest U.S. presidents ever, though of course, no reason for that opinion is ever given. It was primarily because of his handling of this crisis that he was unfairly branded with that label. He was notified of the dilemma by the Phoenix authorities as soon as the CDC was called in, but to the public it appeared that he offered no leadership. In fact, the course of action he wanted to take was sound, but was thwarted at every turn by one member of his Administration. Although it was not generally known at the time, there were people in Winslow’s inner circle who knew what was happening, but whatever they knew or suspected, they said nothing—because they were told not to.

  When the death toll approached fifteen hundred, the mayor received a mysterious call from someone who would only say that he might have some information about the “epidemic.” On a rare rainy summer evening, the authorities met with this man, whose name was...

  “Dr. Russell Norman, from the U. S. Army Special Weapons Group at Los Alamos,” said the mayor of Phoenix (as the video began). He introduced the guest to his police chief, the county sheriff, the head of the City Council, and the mayors of the surrounding towns.

  “Dr. Norman,” said the mayor, after pleasantries had been exchanged and everyone had taken their seats, “I don’t mean to rush you, but we need to act as quickly as possible. Time is definitely not on our side. If you know anything at all about this virus, we need to know now.”

  “Well, I don’t know how much help I can be with your specific problem, but from what I’ve heard in the news media, this virus reminds me of something that certain colleagues of mine told me about years ago—”

  “Who are these ‘colleagues’ of yours, Doctor?” asked the sheriff.

  “Other members of the Special Weapons Group, stationed... elsewhere.”

  “Where, exactly, is ‘elsewhere’?” the sheriff pressed.

  “Fort Detrick,” Norman said after a pause.

  “The chemical-weapons development center?”

  “I take it you’ve heard of it. Yes, but... from the way my friends talked about these ideas, I gathered that they were just notions that were too wild, even for them.”

  “Are you saying that people in the military actually contemplated engineering a virus anything like this?” asked the mayor.

  “Yes, someone may have suggested it, if you can believe it, but I don’t think...”

  He broke off as the police chief reentered the room, carrying a bag. Norman had not noticed him leave.

  The bag was placed on the table. “These are some of the more unusual items recovered from the Hamilton house, which is believed to be the first case where this phenomenon was a factor. Since this guy was building a bomb, some of these things are items you don’t normally see in the average home.”

  He emptied the bag. In addition to combs, b
rushes, and various personal effects, it also contained a sizable quantity of fuse cord, black powder, even some plastique, along with—

  Norman’s eyes were immediately drawn to a metal cylinder about ten inches long, sealed at one end, open at the other. It was empty.

  “Where did this come from?” he asked the police chief.

  “That was found at the scene, among the rest of the bomb-making equipment. We think he was planning to use it in his device, perhaps—”

  “No, I mean—how did Hamilton come by this tube in the first place?”

  “I think I recall Sharon saying that her son found it on the outskirts of town earlier that day. Right about here, I think,” he answered, pointing to the spot on a map.

  The sheriff watched with interest. “That’s right about the place where that military convoy came through a few months back. I remember because one of my deputies called in a report about a bunch of trucks stopped in that area for several hours. They said one of their trucks had broken down, but that didn’t explain why they had soldiers spread out all over the countryside. That struck me as odd.”

  “I think it’s safe to assume that they were looking for this,” said Norman, indicating the metal vial.

  “Why do you say that?” asked the sheriff.

  “See these codes on the side? They’re used by the Special Weapons group to label chemical-biological weapons containers.”

  “So, this is a CBW vial? You mean to say this city’s been hit by a biological weapon?”

  “I can’t say for certain, but if I had to guess, I’d say so, yes.”

  “All right, let’s not panic just yet,” the sheriff commanded the others in the room, sensing the rising tide of whispers around him. “The big question now is: what exactly was in it, and what happened to the contents?”

  “I can—maybe—find out what was in it,” said Dr. Norman. “I have a computer with me, and I might be able to access the necessary data bases, but it’ll take some time, because finding out where to look for something like this won’t be easy. Even if I do find it, I can guarantee I won’t be able to read it without approval from some of the top government brass. I may have to get authorization from the President himself.”

  “Well, we may not know what it is, but we do know where it is,” said the police chief. He produced the bag that had lined the trash can in the Hamilton house, and inside was the purplish gel. They all looked at it with interest, and fear, including Dr. Norman.

  It was some hours later, after a late dinner at one of Phoenix’s finer eating establishments, that they reconvened in the mayor’s office. (The video itself continued with barely a pause, but an alert Captain Wilkins noticed that the wall clock had advanced). Dr. Norman, who had worked the whole time, looked worn and miserable.

  “Since I’m not even supposed to be here officially,” he began, “it took some doing to get an approval from the President to look at these data. I had to call in some favors, pretend to be someone else calling from somewhere else about something else. But I got the security codes and found the answers. Now I almost wish I hadn’t.”

  “I don’t think I’m going to like this,” said the mayor of Tempe, an acknowledged master of understatement.

  “Do you remember earlier today, when I said that my colleagues at Fort Detrick had some ideas for new chemical weapons?”

  “The ones that were too ridiculous to get any serious consideration?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yes, them. Well,” Norman said, looking at the tabletop, not meeting anyone’s eyes, “it turns out that when I said they were too off-the-wall, I… was wrong.”

  “Don’t tell me—let me guess. The Detrick guys did have these ideas, they were given serious consideration, their designs were approved and...”

  “... built,” the Phoenix mayor finished the sheriff’s thought. His face was ashen.

  Norman, without looking up, nodded silently.

  “God Almighty—and now we’ve been hit by one of them.”

  Another nod.

  The police chief jumped in. “Which one? What’s it do—no, strike that; we all know what it does. How can it be stopped? What’s the antidote, Doctor?”

  They all looked at Dr. Norman expectantly.

  “There were three weapons in our CBW arsenal,” Norman said slowly. “Two were developed fifteen years ago. The third, infinitely worse, was just added to the stockpile under the last Administration, five years ago. More than a year after he took office, President Winslow finally got wind of these things, was horrified, and ordered them all destroyed, which was an unusually bold thing for him to do. And so they were... all, it seems, except for one vial.”

  “So is it...?” the sheriff started to ask.

  “... the third one that got loose?” Norman finished. “Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

  “How does it work?” the police chief asked. “Maybe we can—”

  “This organic compound, a proto-virus if you will, uses nitrogen from the air to complete the virus creation process,” Norman explained. “This gives it a plentiful fuel supply, since air is seventy-eight percent nitrogen. Once created, the virus is transported in the bloodstream and collects in the adult female brain, as you’ve found in the women of this city.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” offered the mayor of Tempe, Mr. Understatement.

  “I say ‘adult female’ because it cannot take hold in a child’s brain, due to the absence of certain chemicals released during puberty. But if it can accumulate, it begins to perform its function immediately. The virus is programmed to detect the presence of any Y-chromosome bodies that come in contact with it—”

  “‘Y-chromosome bodies’? You mean, men,” the sheriff said for clarification.

  “Males of any age, yes,” Norman answered. He was beginning to sweat. “It detects them, then it instantly releases... well, the technical name is about forty letters long—something that acts like adrenaline in the bloodstream... a flood of ‘brain-adrenaline’, for lack of a better term, to... destroy the Y-chromosome ‘invaders’. Moreover, this flood blocks any other sensory input and all other brain functions, except those needed to repel the ‘enemy’. This is why the flesh wound that the deputy inflicted on Mrs. Smith killed her, and why the woman having a blood sample taken died when she struck the wall. These injuries normally shouldn’t have been fatal, but that additional sensory input—the pain—literally overloaded their brains, causing them to shut down permanently.”

  “The virus floods the brain with chemicals, forcing the women to destroy men?” asked the police chief doubtfully.

  “That’s it, in a nutshell,” Norman agreed. He was nervously playing with the pen in his hands, and sweating more profusely. “I told you those boys had some weird ideas. But that’s not the worst of it.”

  “What could be worse than that?” the mayor wondered.

  “The women who are infected must physically touch a male to start this reaction. It could be by fingertips, or a kiss, a bump—anything that provides skin-to-skin contact. In the next generation, the women will only have to be within a few inches—”

  “The next generation?” the mayor shouted. “You mean that this horrible plague could be passed on to our daughters?”

  Dr. Norman was furiously folding and unfolding his paper, working his fingers, trying to release nervous energy. He nodded.

  The mayor pounded the table in frustration and looked away.

  “But that’s still not the worst of it,” said Norman, almost in a whisper.

  They looked at him in total shock. The sheriff spoke first.

  “What more could there be? What could possibly be worse than a man-made disaster that might extend over generations, if we don’t do something?”

  “Looking on the bright side—and there might be one,” said the mayor of Mesa, quickly adding the qualifier when they all looked at him in disbelief, “so far this thing’s been contained to the Phoenix area. Granted, it’s been bad for us, real bad, but if we c
an keep it from spreading any further—”

  “The virus is airborne,” Norman spoke again, and they all turned their attention back to him. “The reason it has affected only this region is because of your valley’s ‘inversion effect’, like the one in Los Angeles. It’s the same phenomenon that makes your atmosphere so polluted—it keeps the air pretty much isolated. However, with tonight’s storm...”

  “The wind and the rain will clean the air,” the sheriff finished the thought, “and also drive it out and draw new air in.”

  “That’s just great,” said the mayor in dismay. “Then we’ve got to do something about this right now. Dr. Norman, how can we stop it?”

  Norman answered in a very small voice.

  “That, my friends, is the worst of it. No one can stop it.”

  Each man was silent with his own thoughts for a long time. The sheriff finally spoke.

  “How is that possible, Doctor? There must be a way to kill it.”

  “There is no antidote to this virus,” said Norman. “They never developed one.”

  “Why not?” demanded the sheriff.

  “For two reasons: first, the Army never seriously expected to have to use this thing...”

  The police chief, a former Army man himself, interrupted. “I can’t think of any wartime scenario that would require an army to unleash a weapon like this. It’s like a doomsday machine—it will eventually destroy both sides.”

  “Excellent point, chief,” the mayor responded. “So, Doctor, what was the second reason?”

  “That most famous of all government excuses for not doing something—budget cuts. They ran out of money before they could devise a cure.”

  “I don’t believe this,” fumed the mayor, pacing the floor. “The entire human race is at risk of extinction because some Pentagon bean counter couldn’t find a few extra bucks.”

  “Probably had nothing left over after paying for all those twenty-thousand-dollar toilet seats,” added the police chief in disgust.