by A. R. Daun
The Risen Storm
A.R. Daun
Copyright © 2017 by A.R. Daun
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Table of Contents
PART I: INCEPTION
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
PART 2: INVASION
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
PART 3: THE COMING STORM
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
PART I: INCEPTION
CHAPTER 1
What kind of God would leave the fate of the world on the shoulders of those who don't seem to deserve it, or in fact even want it?
- Ammara Lewis
Stop what you're doing right now.
Listen.
Do you hear that deep rumbling? Do you feel the first tremors of a sonorous growl that rolls through the ground like subterranean thunder?
It's the sound of running feet on asphalt.
Now listen closely, because we don't have much time.
You must turn around, and you must flee. And you must never, ever, ever turn your head to look back at what's chasing you.
It's okay to scream, and cry, and plead to God and Jesus and Buddha almighty for your salvation.
Now run.
CHAPTER 2
Our hubris was in thinking that we somehow occupied a special place on this earth, that our intellect made us immune from the ravages of evolution.
- Ammara Lewis
Silence wrapped the Manhattan Cruise terminal like a suffocating blanket.
High above the thinly-carpeted floor, rows of fluorescent lights continued to shine, revealing an eerie tableau of empty chairs and desolate counters.
The man moved silently, flitting from one shadowed pillar to another, his ears highly attuned to the barest creak or whisper.
He saw himself reflected in the banks of monitors along one wall. He cut a tall and wiry figure, his dirty blond hair mussed, his face gaunt, from which sprouted a sharply defined nose that looked slightly askew, as if it had been broken then hastily re-assembled.
As he quickly went past the wall-to-wall windows along one side of the terminal he glanced out at the night with bright blue eyes that shone in the low light.
The skyscrapers of Manhattan rose from the darkness, mountains of steel and glass that lit up the sky for miles, and across the wide lanes of the West Side Highway, past a stoplight that still kept its regular vigil in red, yellow, and green garb, a tall blocky building unashamedly advertised itself as Larry Flynt's Hustler Club. Before its gaudy facade, strewn along both sides of the highway like toys thrown haphazardly by some careless child, were the mangled and tangled bodies of empty cars and trucks and even the occasional motorcycle.
It was the same throughout the entire city. He had been walking for blocks along barren side streets and avenues that were packed with the detritus of a violent end, but one which left no bodies and no clues as to what fate had befallen the inhabitants of the once-bustling metropolis.
It was an event that happened so quickly and completely that the scattered remnants of life's mundane routines were still in paradoxical evidence: plates of food left on dining tables in abandoned restaurants, some still steaming slightly; a chessboard with pieces deployed in complex formations, not one single knight or bishop or pawn in disarray; a street vendor cart by one sidewalk, the hotdog rolling machine still tending to lines of juicy foot-longs; a stroller left unattended by a park bench, a baby bottle half-filled with milk atop a pink blanket; and littered everywhere on the ground the slim metallo-plastic bodies of discarded cellphones.
Suddenly he heard a sound, faint but undeniable. And not from outside, where nothing except the murmurings of the night breeze held sway, but from somewhere inside the terminal.
He froze, willing his ears to identify and pinpoint the source, and after what seemed like an eternity, he realized that it was coming from the Men's rest room across the hall.
It was the clear sound of liquid splashing against porcelain, so shockingly and jarringly familiar that he at first blinked in surprise, then moved instinctively towards it. He covered the distance on legs that felt like stretched taffy, perhaps hoping for a glimpse of at least one other person, and that's when he heard a bestial growl rise from beneath the faint tinkling.
He heard the clickety clack of sharp claws on tile and a soft phlegmy chuckling that raised the hackles on the nape of his neck, and he fled towards one exit, legs pumping and heart beating a loud fast staccato in his chest.
He stumbled past the automated glass doors and into the light. Confusion marked the rough surfaces of his face, and he shielded his eyes from the sullen glare of an overcast morning. Towering above him like a massive fortress was the sculpted hull of an enormous ocean liner.
The Raggedy Man blinked as the sounds of frenetic activity slowly swelled into life around him.
CHAPTER 3
Day -1 A.R. (9 am EST)
Manhattan Cruise Terminal, New York City
Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter with at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometers
It was a gray and dreary morning in New York City the day before the world ended for the cruise ship Coral Odyssey, with fat threatening rain clouds sagging downwards and casting a dispiriting air to the crowded dock.
Rumbling semi-trucks inched their way toward the ship, their bulging bellies disgorging thousands of pallets to dozens of swarming orange-painted forklifts, which then carried the needed supplies into the cavernous interior of the Odyssey like so many mechanized ants.
Inventory Manager Dan Lin checked off items as they arrived, then directed the helmeted forklift drivers along the main throughway that bisected the ship below decks, and which was jokingly called I-95 by workers in reference to the busy American highway. It was only 9 am, and already I-95 was a cacophony of buzzing forklifts nimbly going around each other as they descended into the various storage areas below deck. The ship was scheduled to leave at 5 pm that day, but all supplies had to be checked and stored two hours before.
Dan glanced up worryingly at the dark skies, then let his eyes briefly wander along the ship that towered more than 200 feet above him. As an archipelago class ship with a gross tonnage of 240,000 tons and a displacement of around 100,000 metric tons, the Odyssey was the biggest cruise ship in the world, more than five times the size of the ill-fated Titanic
. It could carry 6000 passengers and another 2000 crew, a total population equal to that of small towns. Its bulk stretched nearly 400 meters, the length of more than four football fields, dwarfing all the other sea-going vessels around it.
“Hey hey, watch it!” He shouted to one forklift driver, who had almost backed into another as he tried to maneuver his pallet of perishables. The driver waved apologetically, and Dan turned back to his checklist.
Provisioning the supplies to feed and care for this mass of humanity at the beginning of each sailing was Dan's job, and it was a routine that never ceased to amaze him. The nine day Caribbean trip would use up truly massive amounts of consumables, from 2.5 tons of bacon, to 110,000 eggs, 60,000 bottles of wine and beer, 62 tons of meat and seafood, and 12,000 rolls of toilet paper. It boggled the mind, and it was a cycle that repeated every seven or nine days. Even as the returning passengers were trundling down the gangways, Dan's crew were already busy furnishing the ship for its next voyage later that same day.
His cellphone beeped a Latin melody.
“Yes?” He answered it, juggling the wide screen Nexus phone as he glowered at a forklift driver who had almost run over another worker.
“Oh Dan!” The voice was low and sultry, the words gushing out like dripping melted butter. “Will I see you before you leave?”
Dan sighed. Angela could be quite persistent sometimes, especially after he had brushed her off earlier in the week in order to spend some last minute time with his wife Maria and their five year old baby girl. The tail end of a seven month long contract gave him some time to connect with his friends and relatives onshore, and he had recently discovered after being away for so long that his family meant more to him than the voracious sexual appetite of his erstwhile girlfriend. Perhaps he was growing older, though not necessarily wiser.
He shrugged. He was 34 years old and had a loving wife, a beautiful baby girl, and a woman on the side who was increasingly becoming an annoyance. There was enough time later to think about the future.
“Listen querida,” he mouthed into the phone, abruptly cutting into one of Angela's self-absorbed monologues about office gossip and her latest trip to the hairdressers.”It's like armageddon over here, so I won't be able to take any time to see you. I'll give you a call at our next port of call.”
He hang up on her complaints, just in time to see one of the pallets drop and crack open, spilling red delicious apples all over the dock and causing several other forklifts to swerve drunkenly to avoid the spill.
“Shit!” Dan muttered under his breath, and as he hurried towards the scene of the accident, the forklift driver standing like some dazed prize-fighter after a particularly brutal round of boxing, he glanced up to see Annika Hendriksen looking down at the commotion from the promenade deck, her thick and wavy golden blonde hair swirling around her face like some an angelic halo.
Dan liked the guest services manager and waved to her in greeting. She waved absently back, although it was clear that she had already dismissed the activity onshore and gone back to tinkering with her tablet.
Indeed, the continuous hubbub as the ship was prepared for its imminent departure barely registered in Annika's mind as she once again checked her email. She had been frantically calling all the nearby specialty coffee stores for a rather rare and very expensive brand of kopi luwak, a type of coffee derived from the excretions of a small civet mammal in Indonesia.
These animals relished the juicy pulp of coffee berries, and prowled the plantations carefully selecting and eating the best fruits, whose seeds were later excreted as part of the civet feces after undergoing extensive digestion in their intestinal tracts. The resulting beans were highly prized by coffee connoisseurs, and commanded exorbitant prices in wealthy circles.
Annika had never heard of this before, even allowing for the fact that she had spent most of her life in icy Norway, as far removed from the tropics as was possible. She also had quiet misgivings about any food or drink that had been a part of something's excreta, but that was besides the point. One of the Coral Odyssey's wealthiest incoming passengers had requested that this brand of kopi luwak be a part of his morning ritual, and now Annika and all the guest services supervisors and associates under her had made it their goal in life to secure a handful of bags of this bean.
Annika's breath caught as she browsed through the website of an eccentric looking little tea shop located in the town of Milburn, almost 30 minutes away in suburban New Jersey. She quickly dialed on her intra-ship IP phone, which connected via wireless access points around the Odyssey to other crew members carrying their own IP phones.
“Edmund? This is Annika,” she spoke rapidly, her fingers tapping impatiently on the deck's railing. “I found that kopi luwak brand that the guest wanted.”
Edmund Gamboa was one of her guest services supervisors, a prim and slight Filipino whose carefully coiffured jet black hair and stiff mannerisms belied a first class brain and a competent demeanor.
“Oh that's great Ma'am!” he exclaimed, his voice still exhibiting the slight lilt that betrayed his origins. “What can I do for you then?”
Annika quickly copied the tea shop address and texted it to Edmund.
“I want you to take a taxi, hurry to that address I just sent you, and buy their inventory of kopi luwak,” she told him. She heard him gulp as he read the address and realized how far it was from the ship, but she knew he was too professional to voice any complaints. The absolute worst misdemeanor for any crew member was to miss the departure of his or her ship, and anyone who did so was immediately subject to disciplinary action up to and including being terminated from the company.
“Don't worry about it,” she continued, trying to calm his unspoken fears. “It's only 10 am and you should have enough time to get there and back here again with time to spare. I'll have Nathan cover for you at the service desk.”
“Of course Ma'am,” Edmund said crisply. “I'll get on it immediately.”
“Thank you Edmund,” she said, closing the connection and making a mental note to include a positive spin regarding today's task in his next review.
Annika smiled, her relief evident to the passing stewards and cleaners who hurried past her on their own frantic errands, as they rushed to prepare the nearly 3000 staterooms that would house the boarding passengers later in the afternoon.
Turnaround days, when the ship disembarked passengers whose journey had just ended and a few hours later took in new passengers for the next trip, were one of the most hectic of times for the officers, staff, and crew of the Odyssey. But Annika loved the excitement of it all, the frenetic pace of everyone around, and she reveled in the sense of purpose it gave her.
She shifted her gaze back down to the docks and for a moment watched the insect-like progress of the forklifts as they continued to shuttle provisions into the Odyssey. Then she turned and started back to Deck 6 and Guest Services, making her way to the midship elevators, and nodding politely to a tiny doll-like cabin stewardess waiting by one elevator door.
CHAPTER 4
Day -1 A.R. (11 am EST)
Manhattan Cruise Terminal, New York City
A molecular assembler is a device able to guide chemical reactions by positioning reactive molecules with atomic precision.
Diwata Vega glanced nervously at the guest services manager as they waited, but the manager's cold green eyes, set in a strikingly angular face with prominent cheekbones, full lips, and a slightly elfin look, were thankfully focused on the elevator doors and not on her. The beautiful fair-skinned woman had a reputation among the lower crew as being reserved and supremely competent, and though no one had ever accused the Norwegian of harassing her staff, she had once berated a receptionist who had shown some irritation at one of the loud boorish passengers who regularly came into the Odyssey.
As one of the cleaning crew, Diwata knew that she ranked among the lowest of the low in the cruise ship's rigid hierarchy, and she was determined to avoid interacting with any o
f the managers and supervisors and officers as much as possible. All she wanted was to do her work, and do it well, and earn enough money to support her extended family in the Philippines.
One of the elevator doors opened, and without another glance the manager walked in and punched the down button. Diwi exhaled in relief and waited for an elevator that was going up. She had just been to the chief steward's office to get pass keys to the twenty state rooms assigned to her on Decks 17 and 18, then detoured to get supplies for her trolley, which was now laden with fresh towels, tiny bottles of shampoo and conditioner, rolls of toilet paper, cleaning buckets, as well as various cleaning material and cloths.
She met her assistant Pablo at the door of the largest stateroom on the deck, and Di hurriedly unlocked the door and rolled her trolley into the opulent interior of the suite.
“Pablo, you start with the master bath on the upper level. Take some fresh towels and supplies with you,” she instructed her young assistant, who was gazing around the spacious room in wonder.
At a full 70 sqm, the suite with its two levels had a living room and dining room with dry bar on the first level and a Master Suite on the upper level. A private balcony added another 40 sqm to the living area. Though only half the size of the largest passenger state room in the ship, it was light years better than the cramped tiny windowless cabins assigned to Diwi or Pablo, who both had to share their rooms with other crew members.
“Madre de Dios! Would you look at this Mami?” Pablo exclaimed, as he caressed the control panel of the enormous flat screen TV that dominated one wall of the living room. “Have you ever seen such a big screen in your life?”
He shook his head again in amazement at the luck of all these rich gringos, then hurried up to the second level after grabbing some supplies. Diwi smiled at him indulgently as she started her own work: emptying the trash, cleaning the drinking glasses, emptying and filling the ice-bucket, checking and re-stocking the mini-bar, and dusting everything. It was a nice familiar routine for her, and her mind started to wander.
