The War Within #1: Victims

by Rodham Perry, Marcus

  “And...?” The director asked, visibly impatient.

  “Michael Cussler was on his way to find Luther and inform him of Polansky’s findings when he was contaminated with the Plague. There is nothing new about it, with the exception of that this wasn’t the first time he left the facility to take a trip.”

  Desmond opened the envelope again and got a sheet with a list and a few dots marked with red. “This is a record of the scientists working on Blue House, with their entrances and exits from the facility in the last six months prior to the outbreak. The red points are the absences of Michael Cussler. To a scientist working on isolated facility, he left the lab too many times.”

  This time Bosworth took the list with his hands and read it again and again. “How did you get this?” he asked. “Luther bombed the place after the outbreak and erased all the files.”

  Desmond shrugged. “I think we’re still the CIA, sir.”

  The director just shook his head, approving the answer. “Okay, what is your theory? And how does this help us now?”

  “I don’t think he was leaving the lab just to relax, sir.”

  “Selling secrets, then? Contacting terrorists?”

  “No. At least, that’s not what I discovered.” Desmond opened his envelope again, taking another picture. “A few months before the outbreak, Cussler made several trips to San Francisco. Every time, he had a license for just 24 hours. I checked his background. His ex-wife lived in Los Angeles, his parents had long passed away and he has no siblings. Cussler had no girlfriend or other acquaintances in San Francisco — no one, but Antoine Polansky’s family.”

  “You still haven’t told me your theory, Desmond.”

  “Sorry, I’ll try to be brief,” One more picture was taken from the envelope, this time the portrait of a dying boy on a hospital bed. “This is Antoine’s son, sir. He was a sick boy, to say the least. Thomas spent almost his entire childhood in a clinic. Cussler’s travels to San Francisco began when the boy’s condition reached a critical point. After investigating his past, I discovered that Michael Cussler wasn’t just a very intelligent scientist working for the government. In fact, he was also Dr. Polansky’s right hand. They had worked together for almost ten years, and they were almost like father and son. If there was anyone Polansky trusted, it was Cussler.”

  Bosworth was looking at his watch. Desmond needed to get to the point now.

  “The wife and son of Polansky lived in San Francisco,” he said quickly. “And the good doctor’s son was sick. More than that, he was going to die. In the last days, his parents took him home so he could pass away in peace, so to speak. Cussler started traveling to San Francisco and...” Desmond took another picture of the envelope, “This one was taken a week later by the boy’s mother, and posted on Facebook.”

  It was the same boy, but now playing on the beach with his mother. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that it was practically another person. There was color on his face and muscles in his arms. He didn’t look ready to die — he looked like a child whose life was just beginning.

  Bosworth gritted his teeth and scratched his chin, beginning to understand where Desmond’s theory was going. Despite his bitter voice, it seemed the ant had something of value to the king.

  “What the boy had?”

  “Batten disease, sir.”

  The director whistled loudly. Desmond struggled to don’t let a smile appear on his face. “I believe Cussler began experimenting with the boy, under Dr. Polansky’s advice.” Desmond knew how the director was going to react and he took a step forward, “A desperate man does anything for his son. I checked Polansky savings and I found out he spent a fortune trying to keep the boy alive. When the situation got to a critical point, I believe he decided to test something developed inside the Blue—”

  “Polansky was working on a weapon,” Bosworth said. “His work would kill people, not save them. Moreover, miraculous recoveries aren’t so miraculous anymore. We’ve heard about it all the time.”

  “Not from Batten,” Desmond replied, lifting the envelope. “I have over 30 medical reports here, all saying that the boy’s situation was irreversible. He couldn’t even get out of the bed anymore. However, after Cussler’s visits, the boy’s doctors realized, and I quote, ‘an amazing recovery’ and ‘an impossible and rapid motor restitution’. Cussler did something to the boy, and whatever it was, it was developed inside Blue House.”

  Desmond paused, trying to sort out his thoughts. He always had trouble explaining to other people the things that went through his head so they could understand and achieve what he had seen.

  “I can see where you want to go with that, so I’ll ask: do you think he was able to create a vaccine against the Plague?” The scorn of Bosworth’s voice was barely covered up. “Do you know what the Initiative was about, right? What sort of substance they used on the experiments?”

  “Yes.”

  The silence seemed to fill the corridor at the end of his sentence, and that made him uneasily uneasy. The director just stared at Desmond with his cold eyes. Desmond had no idea what was going on inside Bosworth’s mind, so he cleared his throat and kept talking.

  “I believe that, somewhere between his child’s illness and the creation of the Plague, Polansky developed a kind of serum that could save him, a... I can’t explain... A sort of derivative of the original strain, something that didn’t kill or turn his son into a psychotic monster, something that did just the contrary! And I believe that, if that serum does exist, it may be the key to our salvation. It can contain the answers we need to win this fight.”

  “It’s a good story, I must admit,” Bosworth said. “But as far as I know, it’s just a story and a completely useless one. The Blue House was destroyed, bombed by Luther on his foolish attempt to cover his tracks. Plus, our doctors said that the Plague’s changes are irreversible at this point. There is nothing we can do to save the infected; they aren’t human anymore, and our only option it’s to finish them by going old school, with a bullet in the head.”

  “Yes, sir, our researchers indeed said that Plague effects on the human body were irreversible. But what if Polansky has developed something else that could prove to be the antithesis of the Black Initiative? Maybe the key to eliminating all the monsters once and for all rests in this—”

  “Luther bombed the place, did you forget? If such thing ever existed, it’s no more than ashes now.”

  And once more, the envelope was opened and a photograph was taken: Cussler was packing a parcel in the mail from San Francisco.

  Desmond said, “At some stage in Cussler’s last visits to Polansky’s family, the boy had already been living with his mother. When he went to see them for the last time, however, Cussler didn’t find them at home. For some reason that wasn’t clear, Antoine’s wife, Sarah, had left the town with the boy. Not finding them, one of the cameras recorded Cussler putting a package in the mail. After that, Cussler stopped visiting the family, although, I should say, the licenses of Polansky itself doubled of quantity.”

  “And you think the ‘serum’ was in the mail?” This time the mockery was loud and clear in Bosworth’s voice. “Ok, I will bite. Why did he not go after them? Or rather, why Cussler, and not Antoine? If it was his son who was dying, why let his assistant handling the situation, huh?”

  Desmond shrugged. “Antoine was too busy taking care of the biological weapon and Cussler’s license was only 24 hours and... I don’t know...” Desmond stammered and then took a deep breath. “Sir, I know it’s too much to assume. Yeah, maybe there’s no serum, no cure, but what if there is, sir? What if? I mean, we detained terrorists with far less evidence than that.”

  “And we made big mistakes because of that.”

  Desmond cleared his throat. “Sir, I am aware that the military has developed a plan to deal with the Shades…”

  Bosworth didn’t carry out more than a grunt. On the new scenario, the military was retreating from their own homeland, toward the sea, and g
etting ready for a counterattack. General Walker was gathering the remaining of their armed forces into a massive coordinated attack on every major city to destroy the enemy.

  Walker’s strategy relies on the idea of brute force to defeat the Shades and rescue any survivors in the mainland. The acting commander in chief and also the mastermind behind Operation Blood Hammer, Walker would assault their main cities with everything the military still had in their pockets — artillery, tanks, bombers, mechs and what was left of their infantry.

  That mission would be the most important in the history of the United States military ever since the D-Day. And the CIA was entirely against it.

  The United States Armed Forces had the most advanced weapons at their disposal, but right now the CIA’s analyses said that they didn’t have the soldiers necessary to secure a victory. Walker had built an aggressive strategy that was delusional, in Bosworth’s opinion. The Shades weren’t stupid zombies. They were strong, fast and were evolving. the Shades represented an enemy they couldn’t afford to underestimate. One error could send humankind on the no-return road to total eradication, and the director was pretty sure that Walker was making an error.

  It didn’t mean that Bosworth would buy that shit idea of his analyst, however. The director growled and went in silence, just looking at Desmond, analyzing the craziest, stupid theory he had ever heard. Then he asked, “What did you say about Polansky’s licenses?”

  “They doubled, sir. As soon as Cussler began spending more time in the lab, the roles reversed and Polansky began to travel more. And here’s something curious, nobody knows where he was going. There are simply no records of his travels, and one more thing, the photos that his wife posted on the internet? They stopped...”

  “I see…” Bosworth glanced at his watch and sighed. “Dammit, I’ll be late for the meeting. Give me your files.”

  Desmond put all the photos back in the vanilla-colored envelope, closed it and offered to Bosworth. An assistant came out of nowhere and snatch the envelope from his hand. The convoy of servants surrounded their king and they began to walk away.

  But then the director stopped and looked back at Desmond. “Just one more question, son,” he said. “Let’s suppose you’re right about all this crap. Where’s Polansky’s family?

  Desmond smiled nervously and put a hand on his neck. Even if everything had gone well and Bosworth had bought his story, things would be complicated in this part. “Yeah, about that… I tracked his wife’s credit card and saw that she bought two plane tickets. I searched if they had relatives or residences outside the country—”

  “Outside the country?” Bosworth made a face. “Christ, where are they?”

  Desmond quickly said, “São José dos Campos.”

  The director blinked. “Come again?”

  “It’s a city in the State of São Paulo,” Desmond said, smiling nervously, “in Brazil.”

  I AM

  Twenty-Seven Days After Ground Zero...

  “Wake up.”

  The sound of the waves, the melody of the ocean, ringing in his ears…

  The sea breeze blowing hard over his body...

  The warm sand beneath his back...

  The water wetting the toes of his boots...

  The right side of the head, seeming to melt, so hot it was…

  These were the first rudiments he felt, announcing that he was alive. They came to him slowly, separately, shaping the world around him like blocks of a single, extraordinary structure. They circled around him and engulfed him warmly, carrying a message.

  “Wake up.”

  He tried to open his eyes, but the sunshine blinded him, seeming to stab his skull. As he regained consciousness, the rest of his body began to scream in pain. His breath came in jerks. For some time he just lay there, breathing, the seawater slamming against his feet, the sun heating his face, his body slowly stopping from throbbing.

  Then a shadow covered his face. He opened his eyes just in time to see the woman standing beside him. “You’re hurt,” she said.

  He looked beyond her, to the surroundings. A desolate beach, and beyond the waves, all that water, that unfolded eternally before him. All of a sudden he felt dizzy as he tried to assimilate the landscape around him. What place was that? How had he gotten there?

  “You don’t remember,” said the woman. He looked at her, numb, and then at himself. In his arms, there were red marks of badly healed wounds, and he could feel more wounds beneath his clothing.

  By the way, he was fully clothed in a black uniform. He had a watch, and it was marking 06:23. He stared at the clock for a moment, and then glanced at his clothes. There was a badge on the shirt — it was written “BOPE”, with the design of a skull pierced by a dagger over crossed pistols. He stared at the emblem for a while.

  “‘Caveira’…” the word simply came to his mind. BOPE — Batalhão de Operações Policiais Especiais. The black uniform was used for night-time operations — police operations. He was a police officer — a military police officer, right? Otherwise, why would he wear that uniform? During the day? On the beach?

  Nothing makes sense. He concentrated. The head ached, but worse than the pain was the feeling of fear — a deep, cold and rational terror, warning him that something had happened, something extremely shocking.

  He tried to get up, legs shaking. The sharp pain in his head almost knocked him back. He touched the side of his head, discovering an ugly injury that ran down his scalp and to the back of his head.

  “Every now and then a bullet skips off a skull,” he heard the woman say.

  Pain cleared his mind, but only slightly. “W-what?” he mumbled and turned to her.

  The woman shouldn’t have more than thirty-five and had a sweet face. Her hair was an exquisite gold, loosely over her shoulders. Her blue eyes sparkled with cunning and her lips were curved into a soft, enigmatic smile. She wore a simple dress with a denim jacket. Her pink sneakers were shabby and old, and there was a silver watch on her right wrist.

  Despite all her beauty, to look at her was to feel that something terrible had happened, but he still couldn’t tell what it was. Disturbed, he looked away, seeing a pistol, a knife, and a book half-buried in the sand. Moved by some irrational instinct, he took the gun and the knife. The pistol was a .45, and there were only five bullets in the magazine. But how did he know that just by looking at the gun?

  Because it’s my gun¸ he told himself, feeling the certainty of these words. He put the knife in his pocket and stared at the pistol, the questions flooding his mind. His head hurt. He gripped his face in despair, hands brushing the beard, questions assaulting his mind.

  How?

  Where?

  Why?

  When?

  Who?

  Who...

  “You don’t remember,” said the woman. He dared to look back at her, not knowing what to say, as the woman surrounded him like a lioness, that sly smile turning into a small laugh.

  “Who are you?” he asked, surprised at the deep sound of his own voice — even this seemed strange and new to him. The woman only shrugged, with an exaggerated movement and a terribly false look of pure innocence.

  “The most important question,” she replied, “it’s who are you...”

  He opened his mouth to answer, but then clenched his teeth to keep from screaming. He shook his head and stared perplexingly at the sea. Hysterical fear began to pick up again when he realized he couldn’t remember anything.

  “I… I don’t know.”

  The woman said nothing. She put her hand to her chin, thoughtfully. Then her blue eyes went down to the book lying on the sand. “This is yours?”

  He hesitated a second before following her gaze, seeing the book. Slowly, he bent down and picked it up, shaking it off the sand. It was a science fiction book, a copy of I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov. The pages were stained, torn, and wet with seawater. On the back cover, someone had written a name, but it was almost unreadable. He could only disc
ern the surname of the owner.

  “Magnus,” he said aloud.

  “Sounds familiar?” the woman asked, over his shoulder. “Magnus? It’s your last name, isn’t it?”

  “It is?”

  The name rumbled inside his mind like a thunder within a bottle, making him ramble — he allows any images or thoughts that that surname carried to shoot freely inside his head. There was nothing substantial, but he could feel that there was something — there had to be. Because such name was no stranger to him; there was a sound too familiar to be ignored. It was comforting. A surname might not be much, but it gave him a focus, something to hold onto. He nodded, not 100 percent certain of it, but with a desire to believe that yes, that was his last name.

  “Very good,” said the woman, “now you only need a first name.” She closed the book in his hands and looked at the author’s name. “Isaac Asimov…” she repeated slowly, and then smiled slightly, “I like that name. Asimov... Yeah, it matches your face,” she paused, getting to observe the reactions of the man. “Speaking of which, have you seen your face?

  “My… face…?” he questioned, but the woman’s eyes already looked something beyond him.

  “There’s a car down there,” she whispered, passing by him and walking on with accelerated steps. “Come on! Do you want to see your face or not?! Oh, and put that gun down…”

  Only then did he realize that he had the pistol on hands all that time. He put it in the empty holster that was around his waist, and then, holding the fiction book, followed the woman. His body ached with every step he took. His eyes were watching over the surroundings, but he couldn’t find anyone on the beach.

  Where was everyone? Where was he? Questions, questions! He could hear his heart pounding, the deafening vibration in his ears and the pain in his head sharper.

  “Magnus,” he mumbled slowly, trying to remain calm. “I am Magnus...”

  The woman didn’t slow down and, although he was bigger, she wasn’t easy to follow. They seemed to have run a mile around the shore before he could finally see the car. It was an old silver automobile. It was practically destroyed, with the tires blown and the windshield shattered. That was his car? Why had he stopped in the middle of the beach?