And that was the optimistic take.
The other take was that there was always going to be a single isolated asshole. Someone who nursed a grudge against the world, or existence itself. Or just somebody whose neural wiring had shorted out. There would always be someone twisted or broken enough to want to flip the off switch for humanity.
And if that were true, it would be enough to explain the Fermi Paradox. Often abbreviated to “Where is everyone?” this was the fact that, with the quadrillions of stars we see in the visible universe, statistically, the universe ought to be abuzz with the activity of untold millions of advanced civilizations.
But we’ve never encountered a single one. Not a whisper.
Maybe nobody made it more than a couple of centuries into technological development – before they killed themselves with it.
Maybe nobody makes it.
Immediate Assistance
BANG!
Something made a sharp noise outside, just the one time. It was out behind the front door, or maybe up against it. Zack looked over to Baxter, but the younger man had nothing for him. He only shrugged. The two of them had been working quietly through the afternoon, speaking only to field phone and radio calls.
The SEALs were still upstairs, manning their OP. Zack hesitated. He knew this kind of thing, investigating strange noises, was emphatically their job. But some terribly English part of him didn’t want to impose, didn’t want to make a scene. So instead he stood up, grabbed his gunbelt again, buckled it on, and wordlessly padded downstairs.
Only when he got there did he remember the front door camera – and that he could have just as easily, more easily in fact, accessed its feed from his desk. But there was also a mini-LCD screwed into the wood frame of the door. As he reached out to press it on, he heard something else. Scratching.
It was definitely scratching now, and pretty definitely right on the other side of the hunk of wood in front of his face. Which also, he remembered with gratitude, had a sixteen-gauge steel gate in front of it. The scratching went on. Zack looked over and realized his hand had stopped short of the LCD power button. He guessed that meant some part of him didn’t want to have this intel. But he mastered that part and mashed the button. The area on the other side of the door flickered to life in the dimness of the entryway.
There was a human figure, walking away. Indig garb. Nappy Afro. Maybe a homeless dude, Zack figured, or a homeless tribal dude. He was staggering more than walking. Getting a head start on tonight’s drunk, probably. Zack watched him totter all the way out of the camera frame. Only then did he realize he had his left hand on the butt of his new pistol. This was a vanilla M9, standard issue, and the only thing going after he lost his beautiful HK.
Still facing the door, his nose a foot from the wood, he let out a long expressive sigh. He gently pressed the LCD power button, and the screen faded back to gray.
And then he jumped as the all-hands buzzer went again.
FUCK…
He leapt up the stairs this time, getting back to the TOC just ahead of the SEALs. Baxter had turned to face the entrance and the three others. He had a headset on one ear, and was still clearly receiving voice traffic at the same time as he gave the team a brief.
“It’s a State Diplomatic Security team. They’re in contact on the other side of town, just over the river, and are requesting immediate assistance. That’s probably us – I think we’re closest.”
In a flash, Zack was in his chair, headset on, logging in. Bob and Dugan leaned over a map display at Baxter’s station, asking questions, then making calm and measured tactical assessments. Zack zoned out on the chatter while he put through a priority call to the Ops Desk at Lemonnier – then conferenced it straight through to the desk at Langley. But the time the other three had worked out a skeleton plan to go get the State guys, Zack had specific instructions from higher up.
“It’s totally up to us,” he said, when they all turned in again. “We’re closest, we’re the ones on the ground, so we make the call.” He already knew full well that giving guys like Dugan and Bob the option to ride out to the rescue was like giving a geeky fifteen-year-old boy the option of going to the cool college party with the drunk cheerleaders. For them, there would be 0.0 seconds of hesitation. They were even already tooled up, from the 11/11 lockdown and pulling overwatch duty upstairs.
All they needed was the keys to the truck.
“All right, then,” Dugan said. “We’ve plotted an infil route, it’s on Baxter’s display. Our plan is to drive straight to the X, though we’ll make a tactical assessment a block or so out, with the option to dismount. We’re on channel two-two.”
“I’ll start trying to get you some drone,” Zack said.
“Check. But we should be back before you do. Moving.” The two hard men headed toward the door.
“Wait a second,” Baxter said. “You hear that?”
“What?”
“Exactly. There’s no gunfire. It should be audible if it’s just over the river. If the State guys are in contact, where’s the shooting?”
“We heard a few shots just before we came down,” Bob said. “Anyway, we’ll ask ’em when we see ’em.”
And with that they were gone.
* * *
“I’m gonna go upstairs,” Zack said, two minutes later. “See if I can see anything. You keep an eye on my request for a drone CAP. In fact, hail them every minute for status updates.”
“Roger, boss.”
As Zack stood, he realized he was still wearing his gun. That was probably about right. He took the stairs in four leaps, came out on the top level. This floor was mostly unused, and normally served as their storehouse. Up against all four walls, pretty much from floor to ceiling, were stacks and stacks of ISUs – square plastic shipping containers. They were packed with food: canned goods, plastic buckets of vacuum-packed grains, oats, and rice, hundreds of gallon jugs of purified water; plus plastic fuel cans filled with gas for the Tahoe, crates of ammunition, and boxes and boxes of spare batteries. Pretty much everything the safehouse might need to remain safe, and shut up, for an extended period.
The Agency generally thought ahead.
Also, the SEALs stowed cargo like sailors, with maximum efficiency. Zack just hoped they put the heavy shit on the bottom, as he glanced at the towering stacks.
Now, as well, the SEALs had repurposed some of the floor space for their OP, essentially setting up a pair of sniper hides facing in opposite directions. Two folding chairs with cushions on them, folding tables as platforms to rest guns on – and, lying around, a lot of ammo, one-liter water bottles, radios… ah, and other water bottles to piss in. Zack could see out the windows that had been unboarded for the purpose of overwatch; but only one direction at a time.
“Fuck it,” he said under his breath. “I need the air, anyway.” He appropriated one of the spotting scopes, darted out, and leapt up the last flight to the roof. It took him almost a minute to work all the bars and deadbolts on the access door. He then shoved it open and stepped out into open air – and what was a pretty good view for north Hargeisa.
He circled the roof edge, getting oriented and looking for the Tahoe. He couldn’t see it. Sirens were floating up from directions he also couldn’t quite audio-locate. He did see some smoke from the east. So he set the spotting scope on its little tripod on that edge of the roof and got down on his belly behind it. Looking down a long west-to-east boulevard, he could just make out human figures at the end. He bumped up the magnification. It was a handful of guys, moving away. They also looked to be moving funnily, like they were wounded. Or drunk. What they actually looked like, it belatedly occurred to Zack, was… ill.
They looked like sick people.
Oh, shit shit shit – not that…
If this outbreak had slipped the bounds of the hospital and somehow gotten out into the streets… then they might be looking at something a lot more serious – more contagious, and possibly more virulent, than anyone h
ad initially guessed. And if that was it, it was happing fast. Zack swallowed heavily, wiped sweat from his forehead, and put his eye back to the scope.
He panned his view farther out, and then over, to the mouth of an alley he couldn’t really see into. Somebody stumbled out of it, looked in both directions, then took off to the east. Somebody else followed. However, when the second one hesitated and looked up and down the boulevard, several other figures fell on him or her from behind. Zack couldn’t see any weapons, but this was definitely violence. Slow-motion violence at first, then speeding up – wild, frantic, mindless. Like a pack of dogs, they swarmed over the victim. This vibe somehow came in clearly through the tiny, silent image in his eyepiece.
What the hell…?
Zack thought about putting in a call to the new police station. But he had other problems. And with this thought, the air erupted with AK fire. Zack stood up, hefted the scope, and hoofed it to the opposite side of the roof. The shooting was still going on. Holding the scope to eye level, he panned it until he found the shooters, below and off in the distance. It was two, yes, okay, skinny black dudes with AKs, both shooting from the hip, while retreating. The distant popping came in a couple of seconds later, like a big engine burbling. Panning around, Zack still couldn’t see what they were shooting at. He heard tires squeal elsewhere, and then shooting from another direction.
And then from several more.
One thing about this burg. Everybody got an AK…
The faint chatter of distant full-auto 7.62 fire floated up from all around. It was strangely peaceful, the way it was muted. And the way it traded off, one to the other, like sections of a chorus. And then, wait – what was that? Yes, like a quiet harmonic counterpoint, here came single, spaced 5.56 rounds underneath it all. Zack could recognize the report of the smaller cartridge. And he was also pretty sure he recognized the fire discipline of his guys.
Dugan and Maximum Bob were engaged out there somewhere.
Zack hefted the scope again and dashed back indoors. As he tripped down the stairs, the image of that pack of attackers, like rabid dogs, stuck in his mind’s eye. And he remembered that one report of the outbreak he’d read that made the illness sound like rabies…
“Sitrep,” he said to Baxter as he crashed into the TOC and dropped into his chair.
“We’ve got a Global Hawk coming on station. Unarmed, but awesome optics.”
“ETA?”
“Two mikes.”
“Dugan and Bob’s status?”
“Last transmission was ‘Approaching target coords. Wait out.’ About a minute ago.”
“Okay.” Zack exhaled, and leaned back. “So we wait out.”
Clorhexidrine
“I’m visual on our team,” Zack said.
He was driving, not the drone itself, but at least the optics, while Baxter stood behind looking over his shoulder. Baxter could have watched from his own station, but it was too much like watching the Super Bowl alone, even if everyone was watching the same game.
They could now see the Tahoe blasting through the streets of Hargeisa at high speed. There was a rifle barrel jutting out of the passenger side window, but it didn’t appear to be firing. The SUV weaved around and past the few other vehicles on the road. Most of the driving going on was panicked – except Dugan’s, which was disciplined and effective, due to the training.
The Tahoe skidded around a turn at speed.
And then the drone camera shot past it as the truck locked up its brakes. Panning back jerkily, Zack and Baxter could see there was some kind of crash, or roadblock, in front of them – a handful of cars and some other debris blocked the road.
Bob now sat half out the window, aiming his rifle across the top of the truck. Zack panned out in the direction it pointed. He could see several figures staggering up the street toward the roadblock. They were unarmed. They started going down, jerkily. Zack panned back, but it wasn’t Bob who was firing… he now had his rifle aimed at something else farther up the street, then pulled his bulk back into the vehicle as Dugan got it accelerating rapidly in reverse.
Zack tracked with the camera as Dugan executed a wicked bootlegger turn, swinging around 180 degrees and taking off forward again without ever really slowing. Zack and Baxter spared a look for each other. What, actually, the fuck was going on? Zack was extremely curious about the shit going down at that roadblock. But he had to keep his optics on his people.
They could hear shooting from inside the TOC now.
“Want me to hail them for a sitrep?” Baxter asked.
“Negative. They’ve got other shit to do, and we can’t help them with it. Go get your side arm.”
“Seriously?”
“Do it now. Those are our brothers, and they’re coming in under fire. Someone’s got to open the door and recover them. Your number’s up.” Baxter nodded once, hopped up, and ran to the bedroom, where he kept his issue. When he returned, Zack realized he’d never seen him wearing it.
“Zack, Bob,” the radio squelched to the room.
“Zack receiving, go.”
“We’ve, uh, had to make a little detour. But we’re inbound, two mikes, over.”
“Copy that. Yeah, we saw your little U-turn. And all the other kinetic shit going on out there. Looks bad.”
“Yeah, well… everybody wants to be a SEAL on Friday. Out.”
“Get to the door,” Zack said to Baxter. He considered getting a rifle and going up to cover from the top floor or the roof. But he decided to stay on the drone view. And there wasn’t time anyway.
He watched the truck take a screaming left turn onto their street. And then he watched it go out of control.
The big SUV jerked sharply left, then right, still moving at high speed. These were not intentional movements. And then its weight, speed, and violent lateral motion took it up on two wheels and over on its side. Still powering forward, it slid heavily through the dust, all of this playing silently on the video.
But Zack could hear the crash outside.
Fuck fuck fuck.
He jumped out of his chair and ran for the door. Before he hit the stairs, he could hear rapid firing just outside – a pistol, heavy .45 rounds. He slammed into Baxter from behind in the entryway.
“Go go go! Out the door!”
Baxter worked the locks with trembling fingers, but he worked them fast. Zack pushed past him and drew his weapon as he hit the street. The Tahoe was immediately visible, lying on its side in a huge dust cloud, not 20 meters from the safehouse. Fast-walking straight at him was Maximum Bob, carrying another man – not a fireman’s carry, but in front of him in both arms.
Four more shots, rifle rounds this time. Dugan stepped out of the dust cloud, from around the opposite side of the truck, his HK416 in the high ready position – then higher, as he scanned the rooftops, as well as the street in every direction, all while catching up with Bob.
The two of them passed Zack and Baxter and hit the safehouse entrance, ducking inside and up the stairs. Zack pointed his pistol outward as he followed and Baxter pulled the iron gate closed, then the heavy door, then worked the locks.
They were safe.
For the moment.
* * *
Maximum Bob powered up the stairs, carrying the man, wounded in some non-obvious way, but still unconscious, all the way up to the top floor, where they had the most open floor space.
“Going for the med ruck…” Dugan said, peeling off a floor below. Zack and Baxter cleared out a space, laid down four of the cushions in the center – safely away from those huge stacks of shit, Zack thought – then made way as Bob put the man down. He then went instantly to work, starting with rolling the man over on his side.
Zack clocked that the man wore 5.11 gear, short-sleeve button-down shirt and cargo pants, a lot like his people here, tan desert boots, and under a light jacket a belt holster which at some prior date had held a handgun and spare mags. This was pretty much the uniform of light-footprint diplomatic security g
uys. And now Zack could also make out bright red arterial blood soaking through the back of the shirt. Dugan raced in, ripped open a large backpack of med supplies, laid it open, and then leaned in to assist.
“Clorhexidrine,” Bob said, ripping open the man’s shirt with hands that looked like they could peel wood.
“Check.” Dugan handed over a fluid sleeve and a four-inch applicator, which Bob used to douse the wound area, in the small of the back. They could all see now that it was an ugly gunshot wound, the flesh both bruised and burnt in a wide ring around it. Zack recognized the powder burns, which meant he’d been shot at close range.
“Run the drip for me,” Bob said. “Get some antibiotics in it.”
“Check.” Dugan started setting up the IV, while Bob investigated the wound. He then pulled a fingertip EKG sensor out of the bag, fixed it to the man’s finger, then powered up the battery-powered device. It started blinking slowly with the shot man’s pulse, and a small digital readout showed 38. This was perilously low.
While Dugan inserted a plunger full of broad-spectrum antibiotics into the port on the IV line, Bob pressed Kerlex into the wound, then taped down a trauma pad over it. Pausing in their labors, the two now looked at each other, both still kneeling over the shallow rise and fall of the man’s breathing.
“Well?” Zack asked, from off to the side.
“He’s shot in the kidney,” Bob said. “It won’t kill him – not for a while. He’s got maybe an hour or three.”
Dugan nodded. “So then we go back out. To the hospital.”
Everyone looked around at everyone else – the horribleness of that idea evident on all faces.
Something outside exploded, loud enough to shake the room.
The unconscious man stirred and groaned.
Survival is Rare
Ultimately, Bob decided they shouldn’t move the wounded man until they were sure he’d stabilized. Thirty minutes with no change in pulse or breathing should do it. Which was good, because Zack told them he wasn’t personally going anywhere until he called Langley on the big red phone and reported in. The shit was seriously coming down in his patch, a major civil unrest and epidemic, and the only possible justification he had for not reporting in already was that he had people in harm’s way.
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