Extinction Age

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  Jensen hesitated. “Sir, we are having a service for our—”

  “Now, Lieutenant Colonel,” Wood said. He turned away and flashed a signal to his men. They circled around and waited for Jensen to fall into line.

  It took everything in Beckham to watch Colonel Wood and his team escort Jensen away.

  “Reed,” Kate said. She placed a hand on his back, helping calm the anger that threatened to boil in his gut.

  “He didn’t deserve that,” she said.

  “No,” Beckham said. “He didn’t.” They walked over to the graves in silence and found a spot at the back of the crowd. Beckham saw the fresh dirt of an unmarked grave he’d missed before. It was on the north end of the others, about ten feet from the white crosses.

  “Who’s buried there?” Beckham asked.

  “Gibson,” Kate replied. “I guess they figured it was better that way.”

  Beckham scratched Apollo behind his ears and stared at Gibson’s grave. The chapter on Gibson was closed, but Wood had worked with the man. Somehow Beckham had a hard time believing that a high-ranking officer like him hadn’t known about the work going on in Building 8. Then again, he’d mistrusted Jensen just because of the man’s association with Gibson, and Beckham had been wrong.

  But while Jensen had proved himself as a man Beckham could trust, he had little—if any—faith left in Central Command or the colonel they had sent to take over. Not now, after they’d all sacrificed so much. Beckham silently vowed that if Wood turned out to be another traitor like Gibson, he’d take the colonel out himself.

  General Kennor sat in his office with the lights off. It was a guilty pleasure he’d developed over the years. No one ever seemed to knock when the lights were off. Not unless there was a war.

  A rap on his door came a few minutes after he’d closed his eyes. He recognized the brisk, efficient knock.

  “Flip the lights, will you Colonel Harris?” Kennor said. “I was trying to get some sleep.”

  The glow from a bank of lights over his desk spilled over the room.

  “Sorry, sir. Thought you would like to know that Colonel Wood has touched down at Plum Island. He’s relieved Lieutenant Colonel Jensen of his command and has taken over the post.”

  “Good,” Kennor said. “Jensen’s a damn fool. I should have known I couldn’t trust him after New York.”

  Kennor cursed himself for giving up so much control. He was already retreating from the cities. He would not allow himself to lose places like Plum Island. It was a vital piece of winning the war.

  Kennor repositioned a picture of his grandkids on his desk. It was the only personal item he’d managed to take with him before he had been evacuated from the Pentagon. But there had been no armed entourage to take his family to an underground bunker. They had been lost in the madness of the outbreak.

  “Sir, is there anything else?” Harris asked. He clasped his hands behind his back.

  “Yes,” Kennor said. He ran a finger over the picture and then leaned back in his chair.

  “Tell Colonel Wood I want him to oversee Dr. Lovato’s work. Everything goes through him. If she wants a goddamn test tube, she needs to get it approved.”

  “Understood, sir,” he pivoted away from the desk and walked to the door.

  “Oh, and Harris?” Kennor said, stopping him in mid-stride. “Tell him to monitor Jensen’s men. After that stunt they pulled on the Truxtun, I have questions about their loyalties.”

  The next morning Beckham and his team gathered on the lawn outside Building 1. Fitz, Horn, Chow, and even Riley trailed him across the grass. Colonel Wood and an entourage of his soldiers waited for all of the enlisted men and women to report for a briefing. More troops had arrived under the cover of darkness. Beckham counted a dozen of them, all wearing the same black fatigues with the Medical Corps insignia. There were more on the towers and more patrolling the shoreline and wooded area around the buildings.

  With a square meal and a decent night of sleep under his belt, Beckham felt the most refreshed he’d been since the outbreak. Alert and on edge, he was ready to hear what Wood had in store for the island.

  Jensen and Smith stood behind the colonel. Neither of them showed any emotion. Beckham suspected Jensen was doing the exact same thing he had done when they met Lieutenant Gates back in NYC—he was waiting for Wood to lay the cards on the table and then act accordingly. Beckham would do the same damn thing in his position.

  “I’ll keep this short as we have a lot of work to do,” Wood said. He shielded his face from the bright morning sun with a hand. “As many of you already know, I’m Colonel Wood with USAMRIID. Under orders from General Kennor, I have officially taken over this post. I will be splitting my time between this facility and several other top-secret locations as we pursue a weapon to destroy the Variants. You will all be assigned a new CO during this time. I don’t care what branch you are from or what you did before. You will report to your CO at 1000 hours to receive your new orders. Some of you will be deployed to other locations. Make no mistake: this is war, and as soldiers we will do what we have to.”

  Beckham clenched his jaw as if he were bracing himself for a blow to the face, but Wood stopped there. He turned to Jensen and Smith, exchanging a few words Beckham couldn’t hear.

  “That is all, dismissed!” Major Smith shouted.

  Jensen caught Beckham on his way out. He waited for most of the men to disperse and then said, “You better steel yourself, Beckham. Things are gonna get fucked.”

  “Figured as much,” Beckham said. “Wood talks a big game, but—”

  He felt a nudge on his shoulder. “Boss, shut up,” Horn whispered.

  Beckham turned to see Wood standing there.

  “Master Sergeant, I’d like to have a word with you,” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” Beckham replied, trying to conceal his surprise.

  Wood waved off the two soldiers flanking him and continued across the grass. “I’m told you’re the best soldier we have on the island.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Beckham said as he followed Wood. “But I have seen what the Variants are capable of. In fact, I saw where this all started.”

  Wood stopped, keeping his back to Beckham. “Building 8, I presume?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “The Hemorrhage virus should never have escaped the facility.”

  The top-secret building was no longer a secret, but Beckham still found it interesting the colonel would bring it up. It confirmed his suspicions that Wood might have known what Gibson was doing all along.

  “I’m flying out to one of our other locations in the next couple of hours,” Wood said. “But I wanted to talk to you before I leave. I’ve assembled a strategy that puts Plum Island on the offensive. That requires recon missions. I’ve done my best to keep you and your men together. Horn and Chow will be assigned to your team, but I’m keeping Fitz on the towers. Your CO is Lieutenant Colonel Jensen.”

  Beckham considered protesting but stiffened instead. “Understood, sir.”

  Wood nodded and let out a low whistle. His entourage followed him toward the command building. Beckham watched them go and then glanced at the blue sky framed on both sides by swollen storm clouds. There was no question in his mind that this was Wood’s attempt to keep a tight leash on Team Ghost and Jensen. The colonel didn’t trust them, but that was fine because Beckham didn’t trust Wood either. He would keep his head down for now, like he always did, and wait until the truth revealed itself.

  With the wind picking up, Beckham turned back to his team to give them the news. The storm on the horizon wasn’t the only one coming, and he was going to be damned if he let anyone—human or Variant—destroy everything he had worked so hard to build here.

  -15-

  Kate was doing her best not to think about anything but work. By mid-afternoon she’d already logged seven hours in the lab. She’d spent most of the time studying the new glycoprotein expressed by the Variants.

  “W
e’re really calling it the Superman protein?” Kate said, glancing skeptically at Ellis. “How’d you come up with that?”

  “Take a look,” Ellis said. He swiveled his monitor in her direction and pointed. “The beta sheets in its tertiary structure look like a cape.”

  “So?”

  Rolling his eyes, Ellis said, “The Variant Superman protein is attached to oligosaccharide chains. Remember? The sugars?”

  Kate nodded, leaning closer.

  “The protein enables better, quicker interactions with the biochemical cascade associated with wound healing. It’s why the Variants heal so quickly. Get it?”

  She cracked a half smile. Ellis was a nerd, and a brilliant one at that. In the past she’d heard of scientists naming proteins Sonic Hedgehog and Pikachurin. She also vaguely remembered one called Superman. She asked just to be sure.

  “Isn’t there already a protein called Superman?”

  “Yeah, but that’s just for plants,” Ellis said. “I’m calling this one the Variant Superman Protein, but we can still call it Superman for short.”

  “It’s settled then,” Kate said. “Let’s start the sequencing.”

  “On it,” Ellis said.

  They spent the next few hours sequencing the peptides corresponding to various sections of the protein. When they were finished, Ellis synthesized a string of peptides for immunizing the animal subjects Kate was prepping. With the extermination of the Rhesus population, she was forced to use mice.

  “I’ll be back in a few,” Kate said. “Gotta get the rodents.”

  “No problem. I’ll have this completed in fifteen minutes.”

  Kate left Ellis to his work and crossed the lab, weaving her way through the compartments. Motion-activated lights flickered on as she entered the empty labs. The only other scientists at the facility were all on-call now, waiting in case Kate needed them, but the labs were deserted.

  She hesitated outside of the observation window to the animal testing room, remembering the Rhesus monkeys she’d infected with the Hemorrhage virus weeks earlier. She could still imagine their crimson eyes and their clawed hands rattling the cages.

  The door beeped as she waved her keycard over the security panel. She pulled the door open and continued inside. Shelves stacked with the remaining rodent populations stretched across the room. There were rats, mice, a few guinea pigs, and even a ferret. Most of them were frail from lack of proper nutrition. Others were missing large patches of hair from stress and the constant tests the technicians had performed. Only a few were in decent testing condition.

  Kate picked the plumpest mice she could find and put their cages on a cart. She pushed them quickly back to her lab, trying not to look at the animals. Their suffering would be over soon.

  “Almost set,” Ellis said when she returned. “Got us our specimens?”

  “A dozen,” Kate said. She positioned the cart near a clear lab station and waited for Ellis to finish prepping the adjuvant solution. It contained the peptide sequences that would be used to incite an immune response from the mice. In turn, this would create antibodies targeting the Superman protein in the Variants.

  When he had finished with the prep, he swabbed the base of each mouse’s tail with sterilizing solution and then injected the solution into their veins.

  “All done,” Ellis said, taking a step back and standing by Kate’s side.

  “How long should it take before we can perform a bleed?” she asked.

  “Normally ten to fourteen days. There’s no way to speed up the animals’ immune system to make antibodies faster, but we could always perform a bleed earlier. That would just mean we get a lower concentration of antibodies.”

  “We’ll have to start in the next day or two,” Kate said. “General Kennor is going to want this done as quickly as possible.”

  Ellis let out a sigh. “I think I can make that work. Question is, what do we do while we wait?”

  “We think long term.”

  “Right,” Ellis said. “We still haven’t determined a way to deliver the weapon.”

  “I’ve been trying not to think about this, but we may not have enough time to manufacture a weapon that we can use on a worldwide level before…”

  Ellis nudged the bottom of the station with his boot. “Before the Variants wipe every last man, woman, and child off the face of the planet?”

  Kate nodded grimly. “I read a study on endangered species in my undergrad. Scientists found that in order for the human race to survive, they would need a minimum healthy population of two hundred and fifty adults in a single location.”

  “Like the two hundred and fifty at Central Command?” Ellis said.

  “In theory,” Kate said. “There are other places, too. China, North Korea, Russia, Austria, and a host of other countries built these underground cities during World War II and the Cold War. Places that humans could survive in case there was ever a post-apocalyptic event.”

  “Austria was supposedly the most prepared country a few years ago. They drilled into the mountains and built bunkers that were stocked with enough supplies to last years,” Ellis said. His eyes suddenly brightened under the lights. “The cities may be gone, but there still have to be pockets of resistance, right? Places like these underground cities.”

  Kate nodded uneasily. She wanted to believe that, but everything Beckham had told her said otherwise. Most of the human race had been forced into shelters underground, and like the caged mice in front of her, they were trapped.

  “We can still stop the Variants, Kate,” Ellis said. “We have to stop them.”

  “I know,” Kate said. She watched the rodents with a hopeful eye. Inside these tiny creatures, the antibodies she needed to build her new weapon would soon begin to seed.

  Lieutenant Colonel Jensen had done some things in his career that he regretted, but never in all of those years had he done anything that kept him up at night. Not until the Truxtun. Nothing he could do would bring his men back or relieve the pain he felt for taking Timbo’s life. He could only pray that God would forgive his sins and give him strength to continue fighting. He doubted, however, that God would forgive Colonel Gibson or Colonel Wood.

  Jensen’s gut told him that Wood had known what was going on at Building 8. Gibson and Wood were like brothers and had worked together since Vietnam. Though Jensen knew better, you could at least make the argument that Gibson possessed a moral compass. He had designed VX-99 in hopes that other parents wouldn’t have to lose their sons on foreign battlefields. The result was disastrous, but a part of Jensen understood why Gibson had done what he did.

  A very small part.

  Wood, on the other hand, had no morals. He didn’t even understand the concept. Referred to as “The Snake” by his fellow officers, he was known for his cutthroat tactics. There were rumors that Building 8 wasn’t the only top-secret biological warfare program Wood had worked on. Some of Jensen’s colleagues had hinted that Wood had his own hidden facility focused on weapons of mass destruction.

  As much as Jensen wanted to bury Wood next to Gibson, he had to carry on with his duty. The military still had rules and protocols, even at the end of the world. Jensen had sworn an oath and he still believed in his country—although he was starting to lose faith in those that protected her, especially after the disaster known as Operation Liberty.

  Jensen buried any thoughts of mutiny as he jogged toward the tarmac. He had new orders—a recon mission to Connecticut to observe the Variant migration patterns. Command had sent word through all channels that the creatures were leaving their lairs and traveling farther afield for human prey. His job was to document their behavior and look for anything that could help win the war, but he doubted a flyover would tell them anything they didn’t already know.

  When he passed Building 1, he glimpsed Kate and Beckham embracing on the steps. Jensen slowed, hoping to catch the operator’s ear before they departed for Connecticut.

  “It’s just a recon mission, Kate. I won�
�t even leave the chopper,” Beckham was saying. He caught sight of Jensen, kissed Kate on the cheek, and then loped down the stairs. “Good evening, sir,” he said.

  “Is it?” Jensen said. He waved to Kate and added, “Let’s take a stroll.”

  Jensen led Beckham away from the building in silence. He checked the path for any of Wood’s men. The last thing he wanted was for any of the soldiers to eavesdrop on their conversation.

  Ahead, a patrol marched in the opposite direction. When Jensen rounded the corner, the crackling of leaves and snapping of branches commanded his gaze to the trees behind Building 1. A trio of soldiers in black fatigues had just emerged from the thick canopy.

  “How’s Kate doing?” Jensen asked casually in case the soldiers were listening. He continued forward, using the glow from the industrial light poles to guide them toward the tarmac.

  “She’s hanging in there. Sounds like they’re making some headway with their experiments. She says they identified a protein only expressed in Variants, but I don’t really understand all the science mumbo jumbo.”

  “Don’t know what that means either, but it sounds promising. My first CO told me that if you don’t know what someone’s talking about, you just nod and grin.”

  “Mine said the exact opposite,” Beckham said. “Told me not to react at all.”

  They shared a laugh as they reached the concrete barriers on the edge of tarmac. The black silhouettes of Echo 1, 2, and 3 rested ahead. The pilots were starting to warm the birds up.

  A dozen soldiers flocked around the Blackhawks, stacking gear and loading weapons. Half wore the black fatigues of Wood’s men. The other half sported tan camo and body armor. Among them were a few Marines and Rangers from Fort Bragg and the last members of Delta.

  Just a recon mission.

  After everything they’d been through, Jensen wasn’t going to underestimate a mission ever again.

  “Beckham,” Jensen said quietly. “We got to watch our backs now more than ever.”