The White Death

by Rafferty, Daniel

  “Death.”

  “Shut up!” he roared, before taking a deep breath. “Please, I need you to be quiet. I need to concentrate, and the less attention we draw to ourselves the better.”

  He’d been trying to piece together what happened in Korea. Obviously, all hell had broken loose since his regiment had been swarmed. A pang of guilt came over him, thinking about his lost comrades. Now, he could only hope to get to China, across the Yalu River.

  “Grrrr,”

  “Look, will you…” Before Rodgers could finish warning her again, a mottled green people carrier sped up beside him.

  “Pull over,” shouted the driver.

  He knew right away they were all reckless drunks, which made them all the more dangerous. Slamming the accelerator hard to the floor, Rodgers began to surge forward as his open-top jeep picked up speed. His attackers kept up, flashing their lights and beeping the horn.

  “Shit,” he cursed to himself as they began shooting at him. A bullet just missed his ear, causing him to veer hard to the right. “Hold on.”

  He was now speeding through fields, the people carrier still in hot pursuit with more bullets hurtling toward him. He couldn’t think what to do and began to panic.

  “Death,” said the woman in white again.

  “Maybe so,” said Rodgers cryptically. He pulled out his last hand grenade.

  He slowed down a bit, letting them come up beside him again.

  “Pull over now!” shouted one of them.

  “Not on your fucking life,” snarled Rodgers. He pulled the clip, steadied his nerves, and fired it through their window. Instead of accelerating more, Rodgers slammed on the brakes, putting as much distance as he could between them. A few seconds later, the grubby van burst into a million pieces, those inside ripped apart.

  “Jesus,” said Rodgers. “That was close.”

  The explosion attracted more infected in his direction. More growls and roars had crept into the air. In hot pursuit were a few dozen infected. He fired the jeep back into gear and raced off. Soon enough, they approached the Yalu River. The bridge into China had been destroyed, and hordes of infected savages swarmed the river line in the tens of thousands.

  “Hold on,” he said. Swinging the jeep left and turning off all the lights, he sped downriver. The infected seemed more interested in those who were trying to escape their clutches across the river. Dodging random sprays of bullets by Chinese forces on the opposite side, he kept up speed until finding a quiet spot a few miles down.

  “Stay back,” he shouted. Grabbing a rifle, he killed a dozen infected before they could get to him.

  “Are you coming?” he asked, checking the surroundings.

  The woman in white didn’t reply, instead chewing her bleeding lip. Her eyes, while present, had no life in them.

  The Chinese kept firing across the river toward the thousands of infected up and down the shore. They were dropping like flies, but more kept coming. In the darkness, every explosion looked worse.

  “Suit yourself then.” Rodgers aimed his assault rifle and started firing at the wired fence. All those years as an avid swimmer might just give him a chance now. The Yalu River may have been deep, but it wasn’t impassable. He hoped to swim across in the darkness of night.

  “Cease your fire,” came a voice.

  “What?” asked Rodgers, not taking his finger off the trigger.

  “Cease your fire,” repeated the voice from the darkness, with a distinct Chinese accent.

  “Who goes there?” shouted Rodgers, swinging around to aim his weapon.

  “Drop your weapon,” another shouted this time. Rodgers watched as six soldiers, dressed all in black and with the latest tech gear and bio masks, came out of the foliage behind the border fence. They had trained their weapons on him, six piercing red beams resting on his chest.

  “Identify yourself,” Rodgers shouted again, hoping the fact they had not fired was a good sign.

  “You’re American?” said the Chinese man, lowering his weapon but not ordering his agents to do the same.

  “Captain Brendan Rodgers.”

  “Good evening, Captain. I’m Special Agent Shu. This entire area is about to be destroyed. My orders are to collect one of the infected and bring them back to base for analysis.”

  “Infected?”

  “It’s a virus,” said Shu.

  Rodgers froze, covering his mouth.

  “If you were infected, it would be obvious,” said Shu. “We need a specimen to know what we’re dealing with.”

  “How bad is it?”

  “I’ll fill you in on the way. First, we need to get our specimen.” Shu wasn’t prepared to leave any man behind he didn’t have to, especially an American who could be a valuable prisoner for information extraction. He may have worked in the underground American lab.

  “I think I have one here, and she’s not as violent as the others,” said Rodgers, pointing to the white-clothed woman.

  “That’ll have to do,” said Shu, raising his rifle. A few hundred infected were running toward their location. “Let’s go.” Within minutes, they had her in a small coffin-like containment pod, and the team, including Rodgers, made their way quickly again across the river and back into China. Gunfire was all around them. More Chinese troops flooded the city, onto boats in the river, going through their ammunition as they fired at the failing border line. Gunships and artillery units blanketed the area in fire, and then the sound of heavy American bombers signaled they had held the line long enough.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Rodgers, looking on from the back of their pickup truck. Fearsome mushroom clouds were forming high into the air, a mixture of black and orange. He felt the heat almost melting him. Waves of smoke and dirt reached the river, crashing into the water.

  “Not nuclear,” said Shu coldly. “Our government asked for help, but not nuclear.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Rodgers, growing nervous. He didn’t want to end up in the fryer now. These were Chinese special agents, after all. The containment chamber, which lay on the floor of the pickup truck, started to shake. She started yelling and smacking the inside walls.

  Rodgers backed off. “Something’s wrong.”

  “You really think?” remarked Shu.

  “I’ve never seen her do that,” said Rodgers as the truck swung sharply right and up a small cobbled street. It lunged from side to side, avoiding civilians and army personnel alike who were running in the same direction, petrified.

  “Shit,” replied Shu. “She cannot die. You two, open the lid slowly.” Two armor-suited agents carefully released the locks and lifted the lid. She looked more frightened than dangerous. Emergency sirens were on loud and repeat throughout the little cramped streets.

  “Give her a sedative,” ordered Shu to the medic in his team. Before the medic could prime the needle, the woman swung her head over the side of the truck and vomited. Chunky gooey green vomit laced the street, with Shu unprepared to interrupt her.

  “I think she’s done,” said Rodgers. They pulled her back down and sealed the latch again.

  “The containment pod has its own battery-operated life support system. It should get her to Beijing.”

  “You hope,” said Rodgers. The mention of Beijing reminded him he needed to escape.

  In the same street, a petite little girl stood outsider her house with a small bag and suitcase. She was waiting for mum and dad to finish packing. They had to leave home.

  “Don’t do that, Sandy,” she said to her little dog. Sandy was licking the vomit, as the girl watched the truck filled with big scary men drive quickly away up her street.

  “Mommy,” she said nervously, as Sandy turned round to look at her, baring his teeth and salivating uncontrollably. Sandy jumped on her. He ripped her neck ope
n, with neighbors rushing around to beat him off.

  Chapter 25

  “The virus?” asked Freda. She took a sip of lemon tea, appreciating the refreshing taste. Her mouth had had a bitter taste of late with the amount of coffee she’d been relying on. It was late Tuesday evening, and no one had gotten much sleep. Fortunately, she could go weeks without sleep. Christopher and Peter were power napping whenever they got the chance.

  “Contained, by the looks of it. Korea’s burning,” replied Christopher.

  “China?”

  “Reporting no outbreaks.”

  “So containment might just have succeeded?” she asked. Freda saw Christopher wasn’t prepared to agree to such a statement.

  “We’ll see,” he said, just as she predicted. They made their way through the corridors of Section 51, Freda on her way to the next meeting. Christopher had joined her en route for a quick update on world affairs.

  “Christopher, if we can hold the line and keep the virus contained, I’m confident we can win this.”

  “Has Captain Grace finished the submission?” he asked, in reference to the Supreme Court.

  “Almost, and it’s very succinct,” she said. They turned towards the research labs, entering Peter’s glass walled white office.

  “And when are the Bernay virologists due to arrive?” said Peter, dispensing with the niceties.

  “They’ve been delayed,” she said. “I know, Peter. Don’t ask…”

  “Surely this takes priority!”

  “They are on their way, but it takes time.”

  “They better get here quick,” said Peter. “I’ll feel much better when we have a working vaccine.”

  “Have you detected any further viral mutation?”

  “We have.” Putting his glasses back on, he activated some graphs showing how the Eugenics Virus had changed compared to the original sample provided by the Council.

  “None of this really makes any sense to me.”

  “What you’re looking at are the changes over the past twenty-four hours in the virus. We’re seeing an increase in its infectious properties. It is now totally airborne, with such a low parts-per-million infection rate that just being in the vicinity of someone infected would cause infection instantly. I’ve never seen something so dangerous.”

  “That’s because it’s designed,” said Freda. “Airborne? Peter, do we need to start looking at weather patterns? Wind speeds?”

  “We already are,” said Peter. A diagram of Asia appeared, with red arrows showing wind speeds across Korea and into China.

  “If you’re going to tell me this virus will be carried by the wind into China…”

  “No, well, not yet anyway. We’d know by now if it was. The makeup of the virus isn’t well suited to wind travel yet, but that might change if it continues to mutate. It’s the other area of mutation that concerns me more.”

  “Which is?”

  “Patients infected with the Eugenics Virus by the Bernay displayed a number of symptoms, but violence and herd mentality was never one of them. Look at this.” A screen appeared, showing one of the video records from the Bernay archives. A male human sat on a chair, sobbing and speaking incoherently.

  “Freda, this male’s neural pathways had deteriorated to such an extent they could never recover, but he’s no threat to anyone.”

  “Now this.” A video image appeared alongside the current one, showing herds of infected humans running through the streets of Seoul.

  Freda felt fear setting in. “What could cause that?” she asked. Her eyes darted, watching survivors fall to the infected. No mercy was given.

  “We don’t know yet. It could have mutated in the body, or with another virus. All we know for certain is the Eugenics Virus is now much more dangerous.”

  “Why do they attack the uninfected?”

  “We don’t know that yet, either. The virus spreads easily, so there are fewer and fewer who are attacked.”

  “How about telling me what we do know?” snapped Freda.

  Peter turned to stare at her, his own temper starting to rise.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just feel useless.”

  “So do I, and I’m the scientist!”

  “Freda,” said Christopher, rushing back in. “Russia has just invaded Mongolia, and in response India has invaded Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh.”

  “Every country between India and China,” said Freda.

  “They think China will succumb to the virus,” said Peter.

  “And they’re invading the smaller countries that share a land border with China and themselves,” said Freda.

  “They don’t trust them to adequately seal their borders with China,” said Christopher. “They plan to do it themselves.”

  “Survival mode is kicking in. Those countries are right beside China,” said Peter. “And if sterilization goes ahead, then civil war will follow. Christopher, can you see any other outcome?”

  “Probably not,” he admitted.

  “Civil war? Really?” said Freda. She thought humanity would come together, to rebuild everything that had been lost.

  “Yes,” said Peter. “It’ll split humanity forever, creating a class-based society again, something we’ve tried very hard to get rid of. We’ve run the sterilization virus against specific sections of the global population. We’re showing a 99.995 percent sterilization rate.”

  “That would match the estimates by the Bernay,” said Freda.

  “It does,” said Peter. “It’ll leave half a million capable of reproducing, but they’ll be scattered around the world.” He clicked a button, and a world map appeared. Countries in the Western hemisphere—UK, France, Germany, Spain, and the U.S.—were all highlighted red.

  “Highly developed counties will be hit hardest?” asked Christopher.

  “There’ll hardly be anyone left in these countries with reproductive attributes. Any country with a highly developed health and social care system is going to suffer a much higher sterilization rate. The Council are leaving nothing to chance. A super race will be born. I’ll give you an example. CIM, show diagram 72A. This shows current research into linking genetics to crime.”

  “I thought crime was because of environmental factors,” said Christopher. “Jealous of your neighbor’s new car, poverty—that kinda thing.”

  “It is,” said Peter, “but not totally. Genetics play an important part. We don’t know many of the specifics yet, but the research is continuing. Dr. Trobin, in Germany, only a few months ago discovered that psychopaths, in over ninety percent of studied cases, share the same genetic mutations alongside the physical ones in the brain.”

  “I wasn’t aware there were any physical signs of being a human psychopath,” said Freda.

  “I thought they were just insane,” remarked Christopher.

  “There are usually physical signs in the brain. Psychopaths tend to have less developed gray matter in the prefrontal cortex of the human brain. Look.” Peter showed them a 3D image of the brain of a psychopath, compared to that of a standard human brain.

  “Wow,” said Christopher. “You can actually see the difference. And it’s caused genetically?”

  “Genetic mutations have been infecting our gene pool for a long time. We’ve reached the tipping point. Those with a less developed frontal cortex tend to show signs of mental illness, criminal intent, and even suicide.”

  “Essentially, everything deemed unacceptable in civilized society,” said Freda. The Council had not foreseen humans becoming such a complicated, self-destructive race when they intervened sixty thousand years ago. “Continue.”

  “It’s that region of the brain that controls things such as guilt, reasoning, learning. It’s actually quite fascinating…”

  “Are you
trying to tell me that crime might be eradicated if sterilization goes ahead?” asked Christopher. “I don’t believe that for a minute.”

  “No, we’ll never totally eradicate crime, considering the environmental factors and the nature of humans, but sterilization will certainly have a massive impact,” said Peter.

  “The more you talk, the more confused I become,” admitted Freda, walking around the room.

  “Freda,” said Peter, dismayed.

  “A perfect world,” murmured Christopher.

  “What?” said Peter, angry.

  “Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that. I mean a world under one government, free of disease,” said Christopher.

  Freda watched the exchange. Christopher was slowly coming around to accept that while sterilization was still something they would fight, it wouldn’t be entirely bad for humanity.

  “Not by the method proposed,” said Peter.

  “But it does cure a lot of problems, without one direct death,” said Christopher.

  “I can’t understand why two intelligent people, sitting before me, can’t grasp the damage this will do,” said Peter.

  “I hear you, loud and clear, but I’m still not sure we have a choice. I’m meeting with the president in five hours,” said Freda. “Unless you’re hiding a massive human breakthrough in genetic manipulation, we have no other options. We’ll have to go through with sterilization, or promote mandatory breeding licenses—try to weed some of this out on our own.”

  The room went silent, with both looking at each for support.

  “But you promised the president…” said Christopher.

  “Which is why I’m opting for breeding licenses,” said Freda. “Time to face the music, gentlemen. Well?”

  “Breeding licenses,” said Christopher quickly. There was no point avoiding the inevitable.

  “It is wrong,” shouted Peter.

  “I know!” roared Freda. “But I’m out of options. So are you. Everyone is.”