by Michael Bray
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Alan & Family
South Washington Boulevard
Washington DC
USA
After he was left stranded by Kate, Draven, and Herman in the woods bordering the cemetery, Alan Pringle had decided to move his family elsewhere. Packing up their tent and distributing their belongings between himself, his wife Anna and their two children, eight-year-old Jack, and six-year-old Megan, Alan first tried the Pentagon, hoping to convince Draven to allow them to go with him as promised. However when they arrived, the crowd had swollen to enormous proportions, and he knew there was no way he could guarantee the safety of his family in a crowd which was becoming agitated and hostile. Armed soldiers and police ringed the building and looked to be just maintaining control, although it was easy to see it was only a whisker away from getting ugly.
Towards the front of the jam of traffic, with a mostly clear road in front of it, stood a pale crème and blue camper van. He didn’t hesitate to usher his family into it. The van had been abandoned by its former occupants, the door open, keys still in the ignition. In front of the camper, Alan saw the reason for the abandonment. Two cars looked to have converged on the same space and had tangled, leaving them at an angle across the lane where the camper sat. A chrome bumper sat in the road, along with tiny diamonds of broken glass. However, Alan wasn’t looking at the car wreck. He was looking beyond it. With a little careful nudging, he was sure he could get to the road and get his family out of the city. Verifying the van was empty, then ushered his family inside.
"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Anna said, staring at her husband with fearful green eyes. "This is stealing."
"Its fine, honey," Alan grunted, holding the door open for his less conscience conflicted children to climb on board. "We need this. The people who had it have gone. They left it, and now we need to use it."
"But it's not ours," she said, looking at him and hoping for some reassurance.
"We're desperate. Think of the kids. We need to get out of here."
"I'm not so sure," she said, glancing back at the milling crowd around the Pentagon. "Maybe we should wait here and see if we can get some help."
"Like those people in the woods?" he snapped, then took a breath, forcing himself to calm.
Anna looked at him, and he felt guilt. He had made an easy mistake. He had mistaken fear for indecision. "I’m sorry," he said under his breath. "But think of the kids. Doing the right thing hasn’t helped us so far. I’m trying to protect our family."
"Where will we go?"
He hadn’t thought that far ahead. He was working on instinct alone, driven by the desire to keep them safe. "Somewhere remote. In the mountains maybe. Somewhere where nobody can find us. Somewhere we can sit this whole thing out," he said, hoping to convince himself as well as Anna that he knew what he was talking about.
"I’m scared. If the kids-"
"The kids will be fine, honey. We all will."
"How can you be so sure?"
"I have to be. It's my job. Now please, get in the camper, okay? We need to make a move."
Anna did as he asked. They had been married for fifteen years, and as much as he would like to be able to say it had been a dream union, the truth was they had gone through their fair share of ups and downs. Both of them had taken out frustrations on the other over the years and had separated on three different occasions. It looked like a relationship doomed to fail until Anna had fallen pregnant with Jack. He had been the glue they needed to make them both try harder. When Megan followed two years later, the arguments were behind them. Sure enough, they still had the occasional disagreement about finances or big family decisions - after all, a leopard can’t change its spots - but the family unit was strong enough to ride those waves. Love was a word neither of them liked to say, however, they felt it for each other all the same.
Alan climbed into the camper making sure to lock the door. He didn’t want anybody to take his new acquisition. Anna sat at the kitchenette table with the children as Alan climbed into the driver’s seat. He turned the key in the ignition, grinning when it grumbled to life first time.
"Hold on back there. I need to nudge through this traffic,"
He put the camper into drive, half wishing he'd taken a few minutes to try and roll the vehicles out of their path, then dismissing the idea. Even though he had convinced his wife otherwise, Alan thought there was a good chance the owner of the van was somewhere in the crowd waiting to get into the Pentagon. He hoped the sheer volume of noise around the building mask the sound he was about to make. He thought about what he would do if the owner came back, perhaps started to bang on the windows and demand to be let in. Maybe he would have a family of his own, children who, like him, he was desperate to keep safe.
Kill them. You’d kill them like the last one who tried to harm your family.
Alan pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind. He couldn’t deal with that now. He had enough problems of his own without worrying about the theoretical problems of strangers. Besides, if whoever owned the camper was stupid enough to leave it open and unlocked in the middle of such a huge crisis, then they deserved everything they got.
Alan rolled the camper forward, wincing as metal squealed against metal. He teased the accelerator, pushing the converging vehicles aside to make room. He gritted his teeth as the cars scraped the front of the camper, then gunned the accelerator, the camper lurching between the two cars. The rest was easy. He weaved around a pickup, nudged aside a bike, then they were free, the road stretching ahead of them. The relief was a physical thing. It washed over him, and he grinned, unable to help himself. For five miles, they drove without obstruction. He was in the process of trying to decide what to do next and where they could go when a huge explosion rocked the camper. It slewed across the road, tipping onto its side. He could hear the frightened screams of his family as the camper rolled over and over, tossing him out if his seat amid the debris. After what felt like an eternity, the vehicle came to a halt on its side.
Alan lay in the wreckage, hot blood on his face, leg twisted under him. His wrist was alive with pain.
Debris settled.
The steady drip of fluid.
Smoke.
Fire.
The bitter taste of blood in his mouth.
He could hear his wife moaning although he had no idea where she was. More worrying to him was that he couldn’t hear his children. A thought came to him then, one so awful it made his pain seem like a secondary, less important thing.
No seatbelts.
No seatbelts to protect his children from the crash, no seatbelts to stop their fragile bodies from being thrown around the inside of the camper. Desperate, he tried to lift his head and was rewarded with a sharp jolt of agony racing down his spine.
There were other voices now, calling to each other from outside.
Boots crunching on gravel.
White light spilling in as the door was opened.
More voices, the concussion giving him only snatches of words which he couldn’t quite make sense of.
Get this one.
Eve.
Fit for camp.
What about the woman?
One of the kids didn't make it.
What shall we do with the other one?
A gunshot.
A scream from his wife.
He was moving then, hands dragging him into the light of day. Pain exploded, light filled his vision. Then he saw them standing above him. Chiselled faces. Emotionless eyes. Yellow veins pulsing under their skin. He opened his mouth to speak, just a split second before a heavy boot crashed into his skull and knocked him unconscious.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Meeting Room
The Pentagon
USA
Draven had grown accustomed to being ridiculed by his peers, which made the fact that the president and his cabinet listened to everything he had to say with keen interest as surprising as it was elating. Gettin
g assurances from the President that every effort would be made to contact his family had taken a little of the pressure off him, enabling him to deliver the information required to the most powerful man in the world. He finished speaking and waited, taking a sip of water with a hand that was still shaking.
"Thank you, Mr Draven," the President said. "What I need from you are answers about how we can stop these things. This is becoming a pandemic. They’re hitting us on multiple fronts. With them in control of our nuclear arsenal, as far as we can see our options are limited. I hope you can give us something that might bring us hope."
"Yes sir, I can give you my best opinion, but without access to Dr. Genaro, I’m not sure how much help I can be. Anything I tell you now will be theoretical. A best guess, if you will."
"We are all ears, Mr. Draven. It seems you are our sole remaining expert on these things. Anything you can tell us will be helpful."
Draven looked around the table, the surreal nature of the conversation not lost on him. He cleared his throat.
"Actually, sir, I’m not familiar with the men who are doing this. I only learned about them when I was on the flight over from Mexico. What I do know about are the monkeys that the virus was created from.”
“What can you tell us about those, Mr. Draven?”
Draven puffed out his cheeks, exhaling slowly as he organised his thoughts. “Well, they behaved much way you describe these men who have gone rogue. At their most basic level, they are a very aggressive, alpha male dominant species. The healing properties were only the start, just scratching the surface. The real wonder was in the hive mind they possessed."
“Go on,” the President said, leaning closer in his seat.
“After that first expedition where I took a sample of the Tiger monkey, I made two further trips, both observational. I noted that although they existed in significant sized groups, they deferred to one alpha male, much like a pride of lions. The unusual thing is, the alpha wasn’t the biggest or most dominant.”
“I don’t think I follow,” said the man who had retrieved Draven from his holding room. His eyes were cautious as he laid his palms on the table.
“In nature size is king. The biggest and strongest achieve the most success. It's nature’s way of sorting the weak from the strong, and in doing so, extending the survival chances of that species. The Tiger monkeys were different. Their alpha was middle of the pack. He wasn’t big, but even so, the control he had over the others was remarkable. They brought him food, deferred to him, and obeyed his every command without question. I could have spent a lifetime studying those animals if I’d had the money to do it.”
"I’m led to believe there was no mention of this in your report?" the President said.
"No sir," Draven said, taking another sip of water to calm his nerves. "The report I presented to the scientific community was both rushed and based on my initial expedition. I wanted to touch on the key facts with the intention of delivering a follow-up paper at a later date. Of course, circumstances dictated that would never happen. Ridicule, as you might expect, makes a person less willing to share what he has learned."
"Yes," said the man with the roll of fat on his neck that had led Draven to the meeting. "It seems you were ridiculed. In fact, nobody in the science community took you seriously when we made enquiries about you. I wonder if they might have had a point."
"Bill, don’t be disrespectful to our guest," the President said.
“No, it’s okay,” Draven said, staring at the man known as Bill across the table. "You’re right, nobody took me seriously. The fact is that you have these men running around displaying the same traits as those monkeys, which means someone in the government did think it was a worthwhile paper. I like to think that is enough to vindicate me or did you bring me here just to give me the tour?”
"Mr. Draven, we're heading off track here," the President said, "We need a solution to this problem. Do you have any suggestions?"
Draven pursed his lips and drummed his fingers on the expensive oak table.
"Ants."
"Say again?" the President said, a frown appearing for a second on his forehead.
"Ants, sir. When Miss Goodall, picked me up I was studying fire ants in Mexico. Like all species of ants, the majority of the hive are drones, working for a leader, or queen. The queen dictates everything that happens in the hive. She decides which of her colony become workers, which become warriors, and which forage for food. The ants obey without question for the simple reason that their nature dictates that they comply; it’s written into their DNA. Does that behaviour sound familiar, sir?"
"Goddamn, it does," the President said. “The reports of these things say they are acting as one, driven on to do whatever they're doing."
"Exactly. This type of behaviour isn’t new. It isn’t even unique. The vessel is the only real variable that makes it dangerous. My theory is that like ants, these men, these apex soldiers, are driven to do the will of their leader. One sole individual who commands them all."
"So if we wipe him out, the rest will die?" Bill said.
"No, it doesn’t work like that. They wouldn’t die, the virus is too strong. What it will do is cause chaos. Without their leader, they would be in disarray and wouldn’t know what to do. It would give us a chance at least to fight back."
"So we drop a bomb on the White House. We blow it to hell and end this," Bill said.
"I wouldn’t do that," Draven cut in.
"Why the hell not?" Bill snapped, put out by the interjection.
"Because I guarantee they will have a failsafe in place. Remember, superior intelligence, ultimate survival machines. You designed them that way, don’t make the mistake of assuming they are stupid."
"So what do you suggest?" Bill snapped.
"We need to capture one of them. I need to dissect it. I need to find out something about the virus that we can use against it."
"This isn’t a goddamn computer program," Bill grunted.
"Bill," the President said, glancing at his chief of staff.
"I’m sorry sir, but this is ludicrous. We're wasting time here."
"You brought me here and asked for my help. This is my best suggestion," Draven said.
"But you don’t know."
"Nobody knows."
"So you could be wrong?" Bill countered.
"Of course, I could, but what harm can it do? If you can get one for me to examine, maybe I can figure it out. Maybe I can find an advantage, something we can use to develop a cure. Hell, nature includes them in every other species on this planet, we have to assume this thing is the same. We’re not working on absolutes here. Everything is a maybe."
"Mr. President, listen to this. Assume. Speculate. This man doesn’t know anything."
"So what would you do?" Draven replied. “You seem intent on shooting down everything I suggest, so you must have a better idea. Let’s hear it, ‘Bill’"
"We have the finest military on the-"
"I should have known," Draven said, shaking his head. "You know, there are some things you can’t fix with a gun. This is one of them. As good as your forces are, they won’t win. These men are too strong, too fast. Too organised, and based on the way they're expanding, pretty soon there will be too many of them. Warfare isn’t the answer. We have to use this thing against itself. You need to destroy it from the inside. To do that, I need a specimen."
Silence enveloped the room. Nobody, even Draven himself, had expected he would have a near argument with the President’s chief of staff, and now the atmosphere had grown heavy. All eyes looked to President Carter, who was drumming his index finger on the table top, brow furrowed in thought.
"Alright Mr. Draven, We'll give you your chance to examine one of these things and find a way to stop them."
"Thank you, sir. I can be ready as soon as you can get me a subject."
"We already have one. Two in fact.”
Draven glanced at Kate, who was just as surprised as he was.
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“Bill, show Mr. Draven and his team to the lab."
"His team, sir?" Bill said with a frown.
"That's right. As of now, he's project leader on this. Make sure he gets whatever he needs to do his job."
"Yes sir," Bill said, his face screwed up into a scowl. "This way, Mr. Draven," He said as he pushed up from the table and walked to a door at the end of the room. Draven, Kate, and Herman followed.
II
Bill Watson, he with the neck roll and bad attitude, led Draven, Herman, and Kate through the network of corridors in the Pentagon to a silver door recessed against the concrete wall on the inner ring of the building. He scanned his hand on the panel at the side and punched in a number on the keypad underneath it.
"Everybody in," Watson said as the door slid open.
They walked into the tiny space and were joined by the bulky Watson.
"Where are we going?" Kate asked.
"Basement," Watson growled as he once again punched in a sequence of numbers on the panel inside the door.
"The Pentagon has a basement?” Draven said, glancing at Bill.
“Sublevels, five of them. Research facilities, also a nuclear fallout shelter if it’s needed. It seems you people are now cleared to access them."
"Five sub floors," Herman said as the doors hissed shut and the elevator started to move. "I told you man, governments, and their secrets. I'll bet they have aliens and all kinds of artefacts down here. The Holy Grail. Noah’s Ark, maybe even a spaceship or two."
"Is this guy for real?" Watson grunted at Draven, who was spared having to answer by the doors sliding open.
Either due to having watched too many TV shows or maybe just because he had caught a little of Herman’s crazy, Draven almost did expect to see a futuristic underground complex, complete with Bigfoot, a UFO, and Elvis. Instead, they were greeted with red carpet, eggshell walls. Pot plants spaced evenly between the half dozen doors which lined each side of the corridor.
