The marketing team was long gone now, defunded and devoured. But Harris continued the show.
The building in Seattle acted as a joint DoD/CDC headquarters, as both of the original locations had been overrun with the infected. The top three floors of the building were devoted to military operations; the pandemic had, in some areas, swelled to such an extent that bombing the infected zones was the only functional method of containment. The five floors below, even more heavily secured, housed the research labs where the nation’s best scientists studied the disease and attempted to design a cure. The researchers worked sixteen-hour days, only taking occasional breaks as was necessary for their sanity. There was nothing else to do. The first four floors of the building, unoccupied, acted as a buffer zone. The ground outside swarmed with the infected.
The staff were a skeleton crew, ever dwindling as researchers themselves contracted the disease. This concerned Harris. Many of the research assistants were immature, barely out of college, and acted it. Several had deserted over the past few weeks, simply disappearing without notice. The scientists weren’t much better—brilliant men, supposedly, but prone to odd ideas. People Harris would not have hired if he’d had any other option.
At the moment, he was being briefed by the diminutive and snivelling Dr. Bradley Tanner, who was scuttling sideways like a crab to keep up with the colonel’s long stride. “ … it’s confounding! Outbreaks scattered across the world with no rhyme or reason and spreading, it’s absolutely–”
“Stop it with this ‘no rhyme or reason’ stuff, Tanner,” Harris snapped. “This isn’t a horror movie, it’s a … a biological phenomenon.”
“Yes, yes, of course, but–”
“It’s a virus,” Harris repeated. “Or bacteria, or what-have-you. The point is, we can find a cure. We just have isolate the cause.”
“But that’s the thing, Colonel! There is cause to isolate, at least as far as I can tell.”
Tanner pulled out a roll from under his arm, and, still scuttling, unfurled a topographic map of Africa, the Americas and Europe. He indicated a section of the northern United States, which had been marked with an X.
Men like Tanner grated on Harris. Ivory tower scientists who spent their days dissecting cadavers and compiling second-hand accounts, disconnected from the war on the ground. Not quite as soft as the president and the defense secretary, but close. It was perhaps a fate he feared for himself; as a preventative measure, Harris allowed himself the occasional nightly excursion outside, unaccompanied and armed with a single rifle. His routine was to slip out at two in the morning, after lights-out so he would not be seen by staff, and wander around for an hour or so, shooting any infected he saw. It was reckless and increased his chances of contracting the infection, but a part of him felt it was preferable to be out-of-action than out-of-touch.
Gnat-like beside him, the scientist continued.
“ … if you’ll recall, we initially thought this all began in Pennsylvania, when that radioactive satellite made contact, but we later found evidence of earlier outbreaks in Haiti, Louisiana and Cambodia. We tested radiation levels in these areas and found nothing abnormal, however we did notice that these outbreaks all seemed to occur in conjunction with a sort of ritual practice–”
“Are you talking about voodoo?” Harris demanded.
“Well, urm …”
Harris clenched his fist. “Drop that line now, Tanner. It’s a load of horseshit.” He unclenched. “So you’ve ruled out radiation as the cause, I gather; have you looked into biological warfare?
Tanner gulped. His right eye twitched involuntarily. “We’re sure beyond any doubt that the outbreak in Europe was the result of biological weapons testing—a lab in Belarus had a leak and the infection spread like wildfire from there—but that doesn’t explain how it was able to spread to the United States, England, Haiti–”
“What are you saying?”
“What if, Colonel–” Tanner stopped in front of a discarded table, swept some pens and post-it notes onto the floor, and spread the map. “What if there isn’t a common cause?”
Harris reluctantly halted. “What are you talking about, Tanner?”
“Allow me to explain.” He jabbed his finger into various locations on the map as he spoke. “The London outbreak appears to be bacterial, and the Belarus infection is viral. We haven’t yet determined the nature of the Pennsylvanian disease, and other than ritual possession no explanation has been suggested for the Creole outbreaks.”
Harris bent over to examine the map. Its pencil markings meant nothing to him. “I’m not quite sure I’m following.”
Tanner seemed flustered. “I’ll explain again. Suppose, for a moment, the Pennsylvania outbreak was caused by radiation. The European pandemic, therefore, is a unique disease with a different cause but similar symptoms. Then the London outbreak is its own virus and–”
Harris cut in with plainly visible contempt. “And the Louisiana cases are voodoo.”
“I don’t think you’re listening to me.”
“Next you’ll be telling me you actually believe those stories of the dead rising from their graves.”
“Well–”
“Tanner, you’re a man of science.”
Tanner blushed. “Well, there is evidence of it. Just in Pennsylvania. And possibly Kentucky.”
“This is ridiculous. The whole bloody world’s going mad and the brightest minds left in the country are turning into a bunch of superstitious children.”
Harris was a man of science himself, with a degree in biology from University of Maine. But first and foremost, he was a man of order. Stability was, to Harris, the natural state of things. Governments changed, policies shifted slightly rightward or leftward depending on who was in power and what lobby groups they were in the pocket of, but working simultaneously underneath it all was a set of rules, written or unwritten, that kept the world functioning as usual. The Constitution, for one. Barring that, society’s collective norms and mores. And when even those broke down, you could at least rely on the laws of science to be constant.
And here was Tanner, supposedly America’s finest scientist, throwing science itself out the window.
A research assistant whizzed by pushing a gurney, almost colliding with Tanner before forcing an abrupt stop. Tanner jumped. The gurney shuddered and the sheet cloaking its occupant shifted. A writhing, rotted arm, dirt and blood congealing under its fingernails, wormed its way out from under the sheet and started scouring the air for something to grasp.
The assistant smiled sheepishly. “Sorry about that. Had to get this one to the lab.”
“By wheeling around the hallways like a darned schoolchild?” Harris snapped. He stepped toward the assistant, his index finger raised. “You’re supposed to be a professional–”
“Colonel Harris.”
“Just a moment, Doctor.”
Tanner rolled his eyes while Harris continued to ream out the assistant. Finally the boy managed to squeak out, “I’m … sorry. Please.” Harris looked down and realized that at some point in his tirade he had shoved the assistant against the wall, and was currently grasping him by the throat. The young man’s face was starting to turn red.
Harris glanced at his fist for a moment, as if unsure how to control it, and slowly released his charge. He stepped back to let the boy catch his breath. “Have some respect, is what I’m saying.”
“Of course, Sir,” the assistant stammered, grabbing the gurney again, tucking the hand back under the sheet and rushing off toward the lab before he could be subject of further abuse.
Harris turned to see Tanner watching with an inscrutable look. “Maybe we can take this to my office,” the scientist suggested dryly. “Where they will be fewer … distractions.”
“Of course. Lead the way.”
Tanner pulled ahead and strode down the hall, with Harris reluctantly following. As they walked he chided himself. You’re a rational man, Harris. If you lose control you’re no better
than one of them.
He puzzled over his final words to the assistant. “Have some respect.” Respect for whom, exactly? His superiors, Harris decided. His coworkers. The other personnel trying to do their jobs. Certainly not the infected patient on the gurney. Respect for the dead and dying was one of the societal mores that Harris had always been loath to forsake, but he’d seen firsthand that any sympathy for the infected led to trouble. When Harris had taken over Defense operations (as the secretary of defense was currently holed up in Nevada with the other “essential personnel”) he had laid down the law early—the infected were irrational, unintelligent, and unfeeling (he would have added “inhuman” if he hadn’t thought it potentially provocative).
The researchers had yet to determine the exact nature of the pandemic, but they had been able to define enough characteristics of the disease to formulate rules of engagement. Firstly, while the root cause of infection was unknown, they knew it was spread through bites, scratches and exchange of fluids. Symptoms were rapid decay of the flesh and complete mental deterioration, with patients exhibiting high levels of aggression and cannibalistic psychosis. Physical contact, therefore, was to be avoided at all costs. Infected or bitten individuals were to be immediately terminated, unless “live” subjects were required for research.
Secondly, the infected did not appear to respond to pain or other external stimuli and were hard to neutralize—thus, headshots were the only way to go in terms of combat.
Finally, it was firmly established that patients lose all mental coherence within hours of infection. They cannot be reasoned or communicated with. They have no conscious or unconscious memories of their previous life and feel no emotions. So when dealing with an infected patient, no mercy should be extended.
These rules were not exhaustive, but they were sound and kept people safe. Anyone who harboured any doubts as to that were to be relieved of their duties and released into the land of the dead.
Once the two men entered Tanner’s office and closed the door behind them, the little scientist went about dismantling the foundations every guideline had rested upon.
Tanner’s office was a reflection of the man—beige, squat, and somewhat scattered beneath the veneer of order. The drop ceiling, consisting of cracked and stained white tiles, seemed lower than in the rest of the building, giving the room a claustrophobic feel. The paint on the walls was chipped and the metal desk tucked neatly in the corner was dented, as was the gray filing cabinet. Tanner owned a reasonably organized filing system, but at some point had run out of space and resorted to tacking documents directly to the walls. The only chairs in the room were a desk chair, the kind issued to elementary students, and a tattered off-pink armchair that barely fit behind the desk.
Harris took a seat in the desk chair while Tanner remained standing, using what looked like an old pool cue to gesture to the various photographs and documents lining the wall. He was in his element here, Harris noted. Tanner had been a university professor in his previous life. He seemed to relish the opportunity to lecture again.
“My belief that the pandemic consists of several similar but distinct afflictions is corroborated in part by the divergence in symptoms we’ve seen in various geographical areas. For instance, although conventional belief is that the infected are mentally incapacitated, some accounts suggest that they still have a great deal of strategic mental capacity.”
Harris cut in. “That’s a crock of shit, Tanner. I was in Pennsylvania at the height of the outbreak, and whatever else they may have been, ‘strategic’ they were not.”
Tanner bit the left side of his lip. “That may be so in Pennsylvania, Colonel, but the Kentucky specimens showed clear evidence of planning abilities and a certain level of cunning. Some eyewitnesses even claimed that the infected patients spoke to them.” He saw Harris’ eyes raise in skepticism and added, “Of course, this conflicts with our previous belief that the fully infected are completely nonverbal.”
“I think that’s another urban legend, Tanner. Like your corpses digging themselves out of graves.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“And what point is that, Doctor?”
“That we have been looking at this pandemic the wrong way.” He used the pool stick to point to the 16” X 14” poster advertising “Harris’ Rules of Engagement,” which Harris had ordered displayed in every office. “These rules were written before we’d had opportunity for anything more than cursory research. At that time, we still believed the infected couldn’t travel faster than a lurch; of course, the latest round of sprinters proved us wrong.”
Harris stiffened. “These rules have served us well.”
“The point of science is that our conclusions shift as new evidence arises. These rules, they keep us tethered to your dogma.”
So Tanner was showing his hand. “I could have you written up for insubordination for that,” Harris cautioned, his voice rusted steel. “And I’ll have you know, objective fact and dogma have one thing in common—they don’t yield to contrarianism. Don’t confuse one with the other.”
A tentative smirk crept up Tanner’s face. “The objective fact is, there is no consistent set of rules governing the infected. Their characteristics vary wildly from case-to-case.”
Harris stood up. He noticed what appeared to be some sort of voodoo doll on Tanner’s desk, leaning against the computer monitor. “This conversation is a waste of my time. Next you’ll be telling me they retained all their human emotions.”
“Actually …”
“Tanner. You can’t be saying–”
“I am. The patients in London, while lacking self-control, retained remnants of muscle memory and even elements of their pre-infection personalities. And the ones in Willard have been known to form emotional attachments to other people, even sometimes to individuals they’d had no pre-infection contact with. They’re still cannibalistic, but they’re docile; local officials are even discussing their possible use for menial labor.”
“That’s poppycock,” Harris said. “It’s relatives and friends romanticizing them, seeing affection and emotion that isn’t there anymore. You can’t exactly blame them for deluding themselves, but if anyone in an official capacity is encouraging this, they should be insane. And if anyone is seriously suggesting any alternative to immediate termination of infected individuals, they’re crazy, and will have a lot of deaths on their hands.”
“That’s what I believed at first, Colonel,” Tanner said slowly. “But we’ve had enough evidence that I can’t help but believe there’s truth to it. You can’t let your own personal biases get in the way of the facts.”
“What are you implying, exactly?”
Tanner hesitated. “What I’m suggesting is that your whole strategy—suppress the outbreak by whatever means possible, even if it means killing patients and bombing highly-infected areas—rests on the assumption that patients lose all humanity upon infection. But we now know that’s not true, and people around the world are starting to realize it. In order to rebuild, we have to face the fact that the infected aren’t just mindless … well, zombies.” His pace increased at this; Harris feared the man was becoming hysterical. As he elaborated Harris found his pulse accelerating as well. “They may not have a lot of self-control or rationality, but they are still human, and even without a cure there’s still hope for them. They’re capable of recalling elements of their previous lives, recognizing their families, feeling anger, fear, even love–”
“Ridiculous!” Harris kicked his chair aside. It clattered across the white tiles and stopped at the wall.
“Are you doubting my interpretation?” Tanner asked, calm and suddenly very cold.
“No. Yes.” He hesitated a second, let his breathing resettle. “I’m not doubting your interpretation; I’m doubting the veracity of your evidence. Infected individuals cannot talk. They can’t think straight, and they can’t feel emotions, not like we do. This isn’t me being small-minded, it’s me being scientifi
c. Intact mental processes are incompatible with the disease.”
Tanner was unreadable. “Let me see if I understand you. Logic and emotion prove that a given patient hasn’t, in fact, contracted the disease. Is that what you’re trying to argue?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Tanner shook his head. “That’s what I suspected you would say.”
Harris’ stomach dropped.
“I’ve been worried about you for several weeks, Colonel. To be honest it was your nighttime outings that first peaked my concern—oh, you didn’t think those had gone unnoticed, did you? Tell me, is that when you hunt, or do you just like being with your own kind?”
“What exactly are you accusing me of?”
“I don’t think ‘accuse’ is the correct word in this context; denotatively yes, but I’m not sure I support the connotation of it. ‘Accuse’ applies a measure of blame, and I don’t blame you for concealing your condition. I daresay I’d do the same thing, to save my own life.”
He got up again and began pacing around the office, pretending to admire the materials affixed to the walls. “I too was once tethered to Harris’ Rules. ‘He can’t possibly be infected—he’s rational, he’s upright, he’s still himself, to an extent.’ But these recent cases, where the patients were communicative, comprehending, loving, even, but equally blood-thirsty—they opened my mind to the possibility.”
“You’re deluded. And you have no proof of any of this.”
Tanner pretended not to hear him. “If I’ve learned anything about you, Colonel, it’s that you’re a man of constants. Now, there are just two common characteristics of all the patients I’ve come across. Firstly, increased aggression, which is undoubtedly present in you. We’ve seen several examples of it today. And secondly, the insatiable hunger for human flesh.” He looked up at Harris. “As for proof, I suspect if you allowed me to inspect your person I’d find a bite mark somewhere. And of course, while I can prove nothing regarding the disappearances of our research assistants, men you have no excess of affection for …”
Dark Horizons Page 30
