After the standard pleasantries, the general said, “Please, sit down, Laurel. I have very little time at the moment.”
Before she could even begin sitting, the slots in the floor opened and quickly produced the small pieces of metal that joined together with a click and produced a surprisingly comfortable chair. Laurel had been in the facility for a long time, but was still impressed with the adaptive nature of the computer. The chair was the perfect size for her small frame, and it placed her at the perfect height for a serious conversation with the man in charge.
“I know you’re busy, sir. I will keep this brief.” Laurel slid the folder over to the general and he began leafing through it. She knew that he still preferred paper over the regular digital files, but lately he seemed even less trusting of the electronic forms of data. “What you have before you are the personnel sheets for five marines. All five have tested positive for the virus I am working on.”
The general’s eyebrows rose and caused a series of wrinkles to spread across the width of his forehead as he flipped through the pages. “So, did the virus escape your lab?”
“I feared that at first, but I have come to believe they brought it in with them. The final sheet shows a comparison of all my samples and then the samples of the virus taken from the Marines. They are distinctly different, sir.” Laurel was not getting the reaction she expected from the general. “Sir, they brought a new form of the virus into this facility. It may have spread.”
Still, the general sighed as he closed the folder and slid it back to the young virologist. “Are the Marines quarantined now?” he asked apathetically.
“Yes sir, we have them all in quarantine, and I have already begun testing every other person on site. This virus takes time to show up in the body, so it may be weeks before we can isolate it in anyone who was exposed in the last few days.”
“Sounds like you have a good handle on this. Keep it up.” The general stood up, and Laurel recognized it as a sign that the meeting was over.
Growing frustrated, her tone increased, “Sir, I don’t think you understand the implications here. We had reports of one of the Marines getting aggressive with a civilian.” She waited to see if that sunk in with the man, but his expression hadn’t changed. “If the Ice Virus can make individuals more aggressive, we may have a serious problem here. We’re essentially locked inside a vault with a decent number of highly trained fighters; we don’t need them getting angry without reason. I think we should…”
“Ma’am, with all due respect, we have bigger issues at hand right now.” He spoke in a smooth, even tone; it was obvious he was controlling his own emotions as tightly as he could. “I get angry when I’m sick sometimes too. Imagine what these Marines feel like. They are supposed to be the biggest, baddest people on the block, and then they begin getting achy and feverish because of some microscopic bug.”
“Sir, this seems more than that…”
“And on top of all that, in your own reports you describe this as having very few symptoms and not being of serious concern. Not even as incapacitating as the seasonal flu.”
“This virus is altering our DNA sir, it’s changing us somehow. These things usually come back out in the body later, like chickenpox and shingles.” Laurel was growing exasperated now with the casual brush off from the general. She had to make him understand what this was, but even she wasn’t entirely sure.
The general was also obviously growing tired with this conversation. “Listen to me carefully. We are standing on the precipice of a full-scale thermonuclear war. We just glassed over an entire nation for god’s sake. On top of that, we have lost nearly 15% of our nation’s landmass to rising oceans, and that number is increasing rapidly.” His voice was still even and measured, but the volume was increasing. “I’m not burying my head in the sand here, doctor, I’m just trying to confront the most present danger at the moment.”
Laurel’s face had blanched stark white as she listened to the general. She knew the situation was bad, but had been focusing on her own lab’s work for so long that she had blocked out most of the other problems. Still, she knew that she wasn’t inflating the danger of this virus. “All I want is more resources to work on this, sir. We have plenty of people here and as you said, we need to focus on our priorities. This virus should be one of those priorities.”
The general looked her straight in the eyes and she could almost see the thoughts flying back and forth through his head. Finally, he said, “Of course. Take whoever you need that is working on other projects. All of our attention needs to be turned to fortifying this bunker in the event of real war. Keeping everyone healthy is an important aspect of that.” General Bahn paused again. Then Laurel watched a flicker of an expression she couldn’t place pass over his face. “Computer, I need your help. Identify those within the staff who would be more productive working on this virus instead of their current tasks. We need to increase efficiency around here and meet these threats head on.”
“Certainly sir,” replied the computer that had been silently observing the entire conversation. “I will have those lists sent to both of your terminals shortly.”
Laurel counted this as a win, although she knew that the general would pull all her help if it was needed elsewhere. That meant that she had to get to work utilizing everyone as soon as possible. “Thank you for your time, General,” she said abruptly and then turned to leave.
The general spoke up one last time before she could cross the doorway. “Laurel, understand that we’re in uncharted waters here. We all have to do whatever we can.”
She nodded and thanked him again for his support. His final words played over and over in her head; she couldn’t help but sense an ominous undertone to it. Fortunately, she had far too much going on now to give it any more than a fleeting thought.
+++
The general stood and looked at the panel of the Joint Chiefs again. This was one of his now daily update meetings with them. He had come to loathe them.
“Bahn, how is your situation there?”
“We are prepared and ready for anything sir. Some of the Marines have grown ill with the virus. They are quarantined, but otherwise no worse for wear.”
“Good to hear the situation is under control. I need your staff to be ready to accept VIP’s, should the need arise. Until we get the shield array fully functional, we have decided it’s time to send the eagle as well as most of the cabinet and key members of Congress underground.”
The general felt his breath catch in his throat. He always knew this was a possibility, but if they are taking all of them underground right now, then the world was even worse off than he thought. “How goes the progress on fixing the shield?”
“They are working on it round the clock and expect it will be fully operational again very soon. It does seem to be work of cyber espionage. We have tracked the root cause to a small, rural area in the Philippines.”
“The Philippines? What about Unified Korea?” Even as he said it, he knew what the answer would be.
“We don’t think they were involved. We have some evidence that their missile silo site may have been hacked, causing the launch against us. They were patsies, Bahn.”
“But sir, we destroyed that entire country…” The general refused to break eye contact with any of the men, even though several of them had begun fidgeting in their chairs.
“General, you know as well as we do that in this situation it is imperative to show strength. Whoever launched those nukes was watching us to see our response.” He paused to shuffle some papers together. “The perpetrators are now fully aware that we will not hesitate to launch a counterstrike. Sadly, Korea had to bear the brunt of that lesson, but it will still save many lives in the long run. We are confident of that.”
Bahn had grown so tired of people being used as pawns and sacrificed for the ‘greater good’. He tried to keep most of his personal feelings out of his voice, but knew some bled through. “What do the people think of all this?
”
“Suffice it to say, the American people think Korea tried to bomb us and we flattened them for it. For the record, however, you don’t need to concern yourself with the rest of the nation. All you need to do is keep that site fully operational.”
“I understand.” The general sensed the meeting coming to an end. “Sirs, what do our allies know about all this? I have a meeting in several minutes with the other heads of the seed vaults.”
“Of course. This is a complex situation. You are to tell them nothing more than they already know. We still don’t know who shut us down or initiated the attack on us. Until we have this information, we trust no foreign entities.” The words had a cold numbness to them that shook the general.
“You think it might have been one of our allies?” This was not something the general had even considered. His country had plenty of enemies, but he hadn’t thought any of their friends might betray them in such a fashion.
“We don’t know who it was yet. Until then, give them nothing.” The Joint Chiefs all stood and the video screen went blank before slowly melting into an image of a lush and green outside world. The meeting ended abruptly, just like they all did.
Bahn sat back down in his chair and stared at the picture. He was watching the wind blow the tall grass, and it was nearly hypnotic. The image served its purpose; he was beginning to calm down. Still, he wasn’t looking forward to his meeting with the other heads. They tended to rely on him for information about military movements and actions. He had no problem keeping secrets from them, as that was par for the course. Plus, he really didn’t care for any of them very much. No, the problem was that he expected to still need them and didn’t want to burn too many bridges. In the event of a serious worldwide cataclysm, the vaults would still be hardwired together. Even if the whole continent was blacked out with an EMP, the vaults could still get information from each other. They were lifelines to the outside world. It was something he hoped to never need, but had to prepare for.
After careful thought, the general decided to just give them only the information that they might need and nothing more. He knew that there was a cyber-attack that had damaged some of the country’s defenses. He knew that it had been timed to coincide nicely with a nuclear attack. He knew Korea no longer existed and the US was still spun up and ready to fight. Those three things should be enough information to make the other directors want to run and hide.
His mind kept wandering back to the Joint Chiefs words. “Keep the site fully operational” was what they had said several times. Only himself and the Joint Chiefs knew that the seed vault in Montana had one other giant secret. Tucked into the bluffs along the river were a dozen nuclear silos, and he was fairly certain that he had just been told to get them prepped to fire.
12
Kate wasn’t used to wearing a long white lab coat. As she walked around, she kept getting the pockets stuck on the knobs of the drawers inside the lab. She had no clue how Laurel and all the others not only wore them every day, but sped around crowded labs in them. She also wondered why in the world the lab had knobs instead of handles; that would eliminate a problem right there.
She had been taken off her official duties to help Laurel in her lab, along with several others. Kate was given explicit orders that if anyone came to her with an issue, she was to make time for them. It was actually a nice distraction, even if the work was mind numbingly boring to her. Since she had no clue what she was doing, Laurel basically just had her working as a gopher and sometimes a data recorder.
“Hey Kate, did you hear more people are landing today?” Laurel asked excitedly.
“No. They never tell us anything, how did you learn that?” Kate was growing more and more annoyed with the lack of information. She had even begun asking the computer questions about world events, but somehow it seemed to be only giving her guarded answers. Everyone knew that the US had destroyed Korea, but she hadn’t been able to find out any of the news after that event. She knew the general was limiting outside influence, but some information still needed to come through. A total blackout didn’t make any sense.
“Jeep told me. He was told to get everything in tip-top shape because some VIPs were landing today and would be staying for a while. He said they would need vehicles prepped and ready. I guess they get to leave when they want to.” The frustration in Laurel’s voice was evident. “Anyway, since the last group of Marines brought the virus in here, we will need to test all these new people before they come inside.”
“More soldiers, you think?”
“I really don’t know. I’m sure soldiers will be with them, but they said VIPs, so I’m thinking it’s the members of Congress from Montana, probably with their families.” Laurel paused after she spoke and looked down. “Perk of the job I guess.”
Kate realized that even with all the conversations she had had with Laurel, she had never heard a single word about her family. She just assumed that, like most people that signed up to work at the facility, she didn’t have much family. Kate blushed slightly before speaking, “I don’t even know where you’re from, Laurel!”
The virologist grinned while stuffing more samples into the array. “Yeah, I don’t tend to talk much about anything but work, do I? It’s a habit I picked up in grad school, I think. Even when we would go out drinking, the conversations were always about our research. Kind of sad, really.”
Kate walked over and handed her another tray of samples that needed to be catalogued. “I don’t think so, it’s just the way it is. You get so invested in your research, your brain forgets how to interact in other ways. No big deal.”
“I suppose that’s it. Well, that or we’re all just huge nerds.”
“Maybe a little bit of both.”
“Ha!” Laurel put all her samples down and took a seat on the lab stool. “I’m from Chicago originally, but my family runs a small freight yard east of Gary, Indiana, kind of across the lake from Chicago. On clear days you can see the skyscrapers. It’s pretty nice really.”
“Sounds nice, but what’s a freight yard? Semi-trucks?”
“Sort of. It’s where trains go and leave freight cars to be either picked up by other trains or hauled out by semi’s. It’s not very pretty, but my folks love doing it and I guess it pays well.”
“So, you don’t want to take over the family business once you’re done sowing your wild oats with all this disease stuff?” Kate had walked across the lab to get more samples, but she could hear Laurel’s snorting laughter even from that distance.
“No, I think I will keep doing this for a bit longer. You know, I’m the ‘free spirit’ and all that…”
Kate began to reply but was interrupted by the blaring of the alarm. The lights in the lab began flashing to the rhythm of the horn coming through the sound system. Suddenly, she saw a series of arrows light up on the floor, obviously directing them out of the lab. She also saw Bender go skittering away from just outside the lab. His ears were flapping furiously as he ran away from the blaring noise.
“What the hell just happened?” Kate screamed over the obnoxious sounds. “Did a pathogen get out?”
“No, everything is contained. We’re not even working on anything that would warrant this kind of response.” she yelled back. Kate watched her look around the room one time before yelling, “Let’s secure everything, and then follow the lines on the floor, see what the heck is going on!”
Kate didn’t see a need to bother trying to yell again, she simply went back to work getting everything stored away in the appropriate containers and locked cabinets. She had quickly learned her way around the lab and even in the flashing lights she had no problem getting where she needed to be without tripping over everything. The strobe light gave the illusion of stop gap animation, and she was having a laugh watching Laurel move around as if she was actually a character in a flipbook.
Once they had everything tucked in, the pair dashed out of the lab and quickly walked down the hallway, following the lights t
o wherever they may lead.
+++
The indicators on the floor took the pair to one of the largest auditoriums they had on site. Other than during her orientation tour, Kate had never been in that room. Many of the others were already there, but the rest were still filing in. It almost seemed as if the alarms were getting quieter with each person who came through the door.
On the other side of the room, Kate saw Jeep’s unmistakable dark, scruffy beard. He looked to be arguing with Marcus, which was pretty standard for those two. He never looked away, but Marcus glanced in their direction and Kate started waving her arms wildly. The two women quickly crossed the room to them.
“Hey, did either of you hear what’s going on?” Laurel asked excitedly.
Jeep shot a friendly glare at Marcus and said “That’s what we were just arguing about. I think somebody launched more missiles.”
Marcus put his large hand on Jeep’s shoulders and said, “You weren’t even inside that time the DEFCON alarms went off, remember? You were outside with her, doing whatever straight people do when they’re alone in the woods in the middle of nowhere…”
Laurel let out a deep laugh and her eyes squinted shut as she continued chuckling. Composing herself, she looked over at Kate. “Sorry, I’ve just wanted to make that joke since that first happened.”
Kate blushed and wasn’t sure exactly how to respond. Thankfully, Jeep stepped up and saved her. “It wasn’t like that and you idiots know it.” Everyone looked up towards the stage as they saw movement. Then the alarms turned off completely and suddenly everyone in the room was talking much too loud. “Looks like we’re about to find out anyway,” said Jeep.
The general walked briskly over to the podium and set some papers down. His eyes scanned the audience, watching as everyone noticed that he was ready to talk. An ominous stillness swept across the room, and he began to speak.
Finding Their Path (Down The Path Book 3) Page 7
