The NEXT Apocalypse (Book 2): AFTER Life: Purgatory

by Chute, Robert Chazz

  “Sounds great,” Cavanaugh said, “until that little learning machine set loose in the surgeon’s neocortex outs him as a furry. Imagine getting your medical school injection and suddenly having the urge to attend conventions in Vegas where you dress up like a squirrel and poop in a box in the lobby.” He cackled. “Sounds like fun!”

  I took a breath. “First, that’s kink shaming. Second, you came up with such a weirdly specific example, I think you’ve overshared. Third, that’s why we have to go through ethics committees. We proceed cautiously, setting limits on the tech so we aren’t giving subjects astrocytomas all over the place. I don’t want AFTER giving anybody a brain tumor because we rushed to market. There’s lots of space in brain cavities for nanites to snuggle in and do their work. Statistically, condescending men who call grown women ‘girl’ have even more space in their skull for nanotech. There’s hope for you, Mr. Cavanaugh, is what I’m saying.”

  Doug Hannah roared with laughter while his seatmate reddened. “You’ve got sharp edges!” the CEO crowed. “Are you sure you haven’t already enhanced yourself?”

  “No. First rule of experimentation: Don’t stick nanites in your head for gits and shiggles. Drink the wrong potion and you get a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde situation. If I could change anything about me, I guess I’d make myself taller, but not even AFTER can do that yet. Anyway, we work with rats because we can easily keep them in a cage.”

  Cavanaugh folded his arms. “You’re a rat runner but you’ve got no vision.”

  Hannah leaned close to Cavanaugh’s ear. “Michael, that’s enough. Apologize. Now.”

  Cavanaugh looked like a scolded schoolboy. “Sorry. I’m a passionate person. Sometimes my mouth gets out ahead of my brain.”

  “Often,” Hannah said. “It does that often.”

  “I thrive on competition — ”

  Hannah gave him a warning look and Cavanaugh stared at the floor. I could tell by the way his jaw muscles flexed that he was barely holding back another insult.

  I was glad I’d said something mean. “You asked me if I played sports, Mr. Cavanaugh. I played softball as a kid. I liked it. My friends at school grooved on the Jays but, for some reason, I always thought of the White Sox as my team, not sure why. Maybe I just liked the black baseball cap. Anyway, your analogy is all wrong about what I do. Business is sports for guys in suits who don’t have the joy of running around chasing a ball anymore.”

  “We’re all in the same game,” Cavanaugh said.

  “Maybe you’re playing a game,” I said. “With nanotech, I’m playing God. Gotta be careful with that. Look how much there is to fix. You need fixing, for one tiny example.”

  Chapter 5

  DANIEL

  I swam out of a fog and into a haze. I’d had surgery for a wrenched rotator cuff once so I recognized this feeling. I’d been sedated. It took some time to arrive at consciousness but, when awareness hit, everything pulled into sharp focus fast. I woke up in a hospital restrained at my wrists and ankles.

  I knew where I was before I opened my eyes. I have always hated the aroma of hospitals but now the smells were worse. I could sense the stench beneath the industrial cleaners, the sins those chemicals were supposed to eradicate. Mostly, I smelled fear. Fear has a tang. It leaches out of people with their perspiration. Without opening my eyes, I could tell the woman guarding me had sweaty palms.

  “This one was ETF,” the woman told someone by the door, someone whose breath pulled and pushed heavily. “Look at all that blood on his chin and chest. A nurse cleaned him up a bit but he was like a pig at a trough.”

  I opened my eyes. The blinds were drawn. It was now dark. My fellow officers had taken me down in the early afternoon. The officer standing beside my gurney was the one I’d tried to kill in the isolation truck. She still wore a gas mask but now she wore a hospital gown over her uniform. The overweight cop who stood at the exit almost filled the doorway. Were he not so tall, he wouldn’t be fit for active duty. He wore an N95 mask over his face. The mask looked woefully inadequate compared to the woman’s gas mask. That’s probably why he hung back by the door.

  “What have you heard, Don?” the woman asked.

  “Lots of radio chatter but not much of it makes sense.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t know. People are running around tackling people, chewing on them like it’s cannibal football. Sometimes they stay and eat like it’s Thanksgiving at Grandma’s house. Other times they bite and move on. Then the people they bite get …sick, y’know?”

  “I know. I was there.”

  “The fresh victims start biting other people if we don’t shoot ’em first.”

  “I know, Don.”

  “Creepy, huh? Like rabies for people or something.”

  “Or something. You know what it sounds like, right?”

  “Sure, I watched The Walking Dead, right up until that guy took a baseball bat to Glen. Didn’t seem to be much point in watching after that.”

  “You were a huge Glen fan?”

  The big cop shrugged. “If there’s no hope, why keep going?”

  “I’ll keep that in mind when the zombie hordes come.”

  “Don’t even joke about that.”

  “It’s a disease,” the female cop replied. “My first year in, we were dealing with SARS. It was a huge pain in the ass every time I had to deal with somebody in the ER. We’ll get through this.”

  “If not for the PATH, we could have kept this contained easy,” the big cop said. “Once they got underground and started infecting office workers in a food court — ”

  “The food court menu improved?”

  “You’re a pill, Shelly.”

  “Thanks, Don.”

  “Funny you took that as a compliment.”

  Someone screamed outside the hospital, maybe a block away. Neither cop seemed to hear the noise but I could. My stomach growled and the cop named Shelly looked at me. “He’s awake.”

  I looked at her as I tested my restraints. I knew better but apparently the organo-nanites infesting my brain wanted to know the limits of the thick leather straps that pinned me to the gurney.

  “Easy, there, Hannibal. I’m Shelly Priyat, the cop you tried to kill downtown.”

  If I could speak, I would have apologized.

  “Do you know where you are, ETF?”

  I don’t know if I could have even managed much of a nod. The strap across my forehead ensured I couldn’t lunge. I understood her reference to Silence of the Lambs when I felt the mouthguard with my tongue. It covered the lower half of my face.

  “They don’t talk,” the cop in the doorway said. “They growl.”

  “You don’t have to tell me. I bagged this one myself.”

  “Alone?”

  “I had a little help. The OC spray really did the job.”

  She was right. The pepper spray she used on me still burned my eyes, nose and throat. In the enclosed space in the back of the isolation van, there was no way of getting out of the searing cloud. Heightened senses of taste and smell are not always advantageous.

  “Still took three of us,” Shelly admitted.

  “Why didn’t you just shoot him between the eyes? It discourages bad boys who get handsy,” Don said.

  “After I pepper sprayed the bastard we pinned him down with riot shields.”

  And beat me with batons. I could feel the ache of deep bruises welling up on my neck and shoulders.

  “The brass want guinea pigs so they can find a cure. The Public Health Agency is mobilizing to get into the lab where this shit came from. They must have a cure down there. You can’t build a murder machine that doesn’t have an off switch.”

  They don’t have an off switch, I thought. We murder machines have no off switch.

  “The docs will figure it out,” Don said. “There’s hope.”

  I tried to shake my head. We’d killed Dr. Hamish Allen. The bioengineer with all the answers about weaponized brain parasites was way to
o dead to be helpful now.

  “How you feeling, ETF? You hungry? Wanna take me out for a quick bite?”

  I looked her up and down, considering her. The big one would make a full meal.

  I heard another scream from outside, closer now. Then came the gunfire. I couldn’t make out the words but I caught the tone. Angry orders were being shouted and ignored. Then came screams of pain, screams of rage, fear, then more pain. Finally, there was anguish. That pattern always ends in anguish.

  Shelly and Don could hear the pounding feet outside now, too. Shelly had a bit of swagger before. Now she shifted her weight back and forth from foot to foot nervously. Sweat trickled down the small of her back, too. Her face was stone but I could smell her fear.

  My people are coming, I thought. No, not my people. My pack.

  “Look at his eyes,” Shelly said. “ETF sure looks like he has something to say.”

  Neither cop could understand my warning. If they hadn’t strapped the mouthguard to my face, they could have read my lips when I mouthed one word: Run.

  Chapter 6

  CHLOE

  Despite the tension in the air, Hannah was genuinely interested in my work. “Would you go for local or bluetooth to the Cloud for the data storage?”

  “The Cloud, without doubt. Easier to install updates that way. Nobody wants fresh brain surgery every time Apple comes out with a new iteration.”

  Doug was excited to talk about his work, too. “Nyx is working on several fronts.”

  “You mentioned predictive AI?”

  “Before I die, my stockbroker will absolutely be an AI with a nano brain. In the meantime, Nyx is working on gene modification applications. For instance, the potential for limb regeneration is staggering.”

  “We’re going to make soldiers from Iowa into Deadpool,” Cavanaugh said. “Bet they won’t be as funny as Ryan Reynolds, but I’m sure it’ll work out fine.”

  Hannah ignored his employee’s jokes. “One of our people has a piece coming up in Nature on how the process could be sped up. If we can’t figure it out, I’m sure nano AI will.”

  Cavanaugh let out an impatient grunt. “The AI can splice some genes and regrow an amputated arm after it’s blown off by an IED. I’m more interested in the potential to cut off soldier’s arms and legs in boot camp. Give them superior capabilities with cybernetics.”

  Hannah seemed more annoyed than embarrassed now. “Actually, Michael, the division that interests me most is nanites replacing computer cores.”

  “Tell me more about that,” I said.

  “Each core could be a living matrix that emulates human brain function, but much faster. No more disks or solid state but a living core for every computer.”

  Cavanaugh sobered and nodded, perhaps a little contrite at last. “Well, yes, that’s coming along swimmingly. Since nanites are technically alive, we’ll have to pop open the top of a desktop and feed them like goldfish but — ”

  “We’re so far along with that tech already that Michael has forgotten his fishbowl joke has become stale. It’s getting kind of lame, don’t you think, Mike?”

  Cavanaugh smiled tightly. “Yes, sir. I’ll get some new material.”

  “Nanite computer cores,” I marveled. “I’m focused on the biological applications but I’d be fascinated to hear more.”

  “That research is proprietary and isn’t ready for mass consumption,” Cavanaugh said. “However, as a potential client, I would like to discuss AFTER’s military applications.”

  “Military applications?”

  “Sure. Between the ages of 18 and 22, you can order a soldier to take a hill and they’ll go get that real estate. After age 22, they start to think for themselves too much. The more their testosterone drops, the more they start to think. AFTER could jack into their limbic systems, get them to follow commands without thought or fear.”

  “Mind control? Really? You think that’s a good idea?”

  “I’d frame it as situational control.”

  “That’s an avenue that’s fraught with ethical problems.”

  Cavanaugh shrugged. “Ethics are malleable and change over time. AFTER is a good start but you people are thinking about it as if you’re Bill Gates. I’m thinking like Zuckerberg. I see the future. The future is always closer than you think.”

  I wanted to smack Cavanaugh’s smug smile off this face. Instead, I pretended to have adult composure and replied, “I don’t follow your analogy.”

  “Who do you think the most powerful person in the world is?”

  “If you’re talking money, Putin has the most of that. Musk has some of the most powerful ideas. My mother would say Oprah but, then again, Mom makes an amazing salmon salad sandwich. That’s pretty powerful when I’m hungry. You have an answer in mind so just tell me already.”

  “Zuckerberg. Facebook started out as an app to rate hot college girls and now it influences elections. Our echo chambers determine what we believe. Anything we don’t want to hear, we unfriend and unfollow.”

  “What does that have to do with AFTER?” I asked.

  “What comes next? With a nano drive, we will outpace all existing computing. Imagine controlling the internet with one powerful nano drive.” Hannah said.

  Cavanaugh chuckled. “Imagine a world where you can’t unfriend or unfollow the things you don’t believe. After that? Imagine a nano drive jacking into brains enhanced with your nanites. It sounds to me like — ”

  “Hell? That sounds like Hell.”

  “Heaven. Peace on Earth. Civilization is based on rules. If we can make everyone adhere to the same rules, everything unfolds as it should, smoothly.”

  “Sounds like a utopian prophet’s dream and a gift to dictators, doesn’t it?” Hannah said. “I think it could work as long as we program the nano drive with the brain of a benevolent dictator.”

  “If the civilized world wants to keep the new tech out of the hands of dictators, all they have to do is outbid the bad guys,” Cavanaugh said. “We’re going to get paid.”

  I saw something unspoken pass between them I didn’t like. They were talking like they’d already developed a nano drive. “Outbid? Are you guys already working on prototypes?”

  Cavanaugh waved me away. “Plenty of labs are working on projects parallel or similar to AFTER. Neural control tech is an idea whose time has come. It’s a race to get to the first working rollout. Some friendly advice, don’t wait too long or think too small. You want to cure disease? Get paid for the military applications first. That’s where the real money is.”

  “Somehow, your advice doesn’t sound friendly.”

  “Don’t be so sensitive. What you’re hearing is the gap between a businessman talking to a scientist. We should set up a meeting. A dozen guys here are interested in AI for robotic defense applications but that’s still in early development. For my money, it’s the organic possibilities that will pay off big in the next decade. AFTER’s potential leapfrogs your projected profit curve if you have the guts to forge ahead quickly. What do you say we take this discussion up to my room? I’m interested in your positions — ”

  And there it was. That’s what all the pontificating and bragging was about. Getting me into bed. “No, thanks. I don’t think you and I would be a good fit.”

  From the look on his face, Cavanaugh didn’t hear the word no often.

  Thomas grabbed my elbow hard. “Gotta go,” the boss said.

  “Mr. Cavanaugh and I were having an exchange of ideas. He was telling me how he wants to use my work to kill and control people cheaply and efficiently and I was about to suggest he do something that’s physically impossible.”

  “Get over it. Let’s go.” Thomas pulled me away and ushered me toward the exit.

  I shrugged him off. “What’s going on? And who the hell is Hans-Joachim Bohlmann?”

  He leaned close to whisper in my ear. “Bohlmann was a mental patient who damaged paintings. He targeted great art, sprayed sulfuric acid on faces painted by masters
. It’s code. It means there’s a certain type of emergency I didn’t think we’d ever have to face.”

  Thomas used his wealth to collect expensive art. I didn’t have to ask who made up the code. “So? What’s happened?”

  “It’s still happening, right now, as we speak. An incident at one of the labs.”

  “What?”

  “We’ve lost containment at Echidna.”

  “What’s Echidna?”

  “One of our weapons divisions.”

  “And what do you mean by ‘lost containment?’ You lose a gun?”

  “MCE.”

  “Do you speak English?”

  “Mass Casualty Event.”

  “Oh, my God! Are we talking nerve gas or something?”

  “Something.”

  “You’re scaring me, Thomas. Is it something bigger than nerve gas? Is it bigger than a breadbox? Shut up and talk!”

  “The event is biological. A response team went in to get the lab under control while the weapon’s trigger was still underground. Somehow, the seals didn’t hold. I can’t imagine how all the safeties failed. The last solid news we got from the lab is some idiot sent an email to his sister warning her away. There are civilian reports of gunfire and a riot outside the lab. The lab’s gone dark and the bug is out of the vault. It’s spreading.”

  Chapter 7

  DANIEL

  The screams were getting closer. The cannibals had obviously made their way to the hospital. The police officers guarding me didn’t seem to be able to understand the approaching chaos.

  A woman’s voice came over the public address system in the corridor. “Dr. White, report to the ER. Dr. White, STAT.”