Extinction Shadow

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  “The Osprey just landed,” Lemke said. “All wounded are being treated, but we lost a Marine on the flight and another three back at the target.”

  The news stabbed at her.

  “What else do we know?” she asked.

  Lemke shook his head. “Not much, but Captain Beckham and Lieutenant Festa will be here shortly for a briefing.”

  Chief of Staff James Soprano marched through an intersection at the end of the hallway at a brisk pace.

  “The situation room is ready,” he said. “Elizabeth, I could use your help with something.”

  “We’ll be there shortly.” Ringgold halted at the row of bulletproof windows framing the hallway. The view revealed the lawns and the Osprey that had landed on the other side of the gardens. A medical team carried the wounded off in stretchers.

  A pair of Marines hauled off a man in brown clothing, his hands cuffed beyond his back. Lemke stepped up for a better look.

  “That must be the collaborator,” Ringgold said.

  “The team also extracted communication equipment and other intel,” Lemke pointed out.

  She followed his finger toward a group of Marines unloading crates from the troop hold.

  “Maybe something in there will give us the key to how the collaborators and the Variants are connected,” Ringgold said.

  She turned away from the windows and hurried to the situation room, anxious to see what the team had discovered at the caverns. Most of her staff was already at the long table, but Brigadier General Lucas Barnes and National Security Advisor Ben Nelson entered a moment later.

  “Any updates from Operation Shadow?” Ringgold asked.

  “None of the six teams have reported in yet,” Barnes replied. “I’ll be frank. I would have expected one of them to have made it out by now.”

  The door opened again, and a short man in fatigues with puffy thin hair entered.

  “Lieutenant Festa,” she said.

  “Madame President,” he said politely.

  Beckham and Horn followed him into the room, both of their fatigues soiled in blood. She skipped the formalities and cut right to the chase.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  Beckham and Horn both looked to Festa.

  “The collaborators were working with the Variants out of the Luray Caverns,” he said. “But it wasn’t like collaborator dens we’ve discovered in the past, ma’am.”

  “I think we finally know what the red webbing is used for, but we need to talk to Kate to confirm it,” Beckham said. His hard features had new creases, and that made Ringgold worry.

  “See if you can get her on the line,” she said to Soprano. The COS nodded and moved out of the room.

  “We went through some of the intel on the flight, but the collaborator isn’t saying much,” Festa said.

  “Has he said anything helpful?” Lemke asked.

  “Just that the Variants are everywhere and something about a reckoning,” Festa replied. “Whatever the hell that means.”

  Beckham cut in. “We know more about the collaborators from the maps and plans we recovered, and it’s not good, Madam President.”

  “They have been planning all of this for a while,” Horn added.

  “Planning what exactly?” Ringgold asked. “Do you mean the attacks on the outposts?”

  From the looks on their faces, she could tell that was not the case.

  “Hitting the outposts was just the beginning,” Beckham said.

  “The van we stopped outside the caverns was packed with explosives and Variant acid,” Festa said. “We recovered a map that had Outpost Norfolk circled.”

  “That’s where my next rally is going to be,” Ringgold said.

  “Was,” replied Beckham. “We’re calling it off.”

  “Holy shit,” Barnes said. “You’re sure about this?”

  Festa nodded again. “Positive, General. The time and date of the rally was found scribbled on a piece of paper taped to that map. This isn’t a coincidence.”

  Barnes straightened his collar, clearly nervous. “Madam President, if this is true, I would highly advise canceling all future campaign events and going underground until we know for sure what the Variants and their puppets are planning.”

  “Absolutely not,” Ringgold said. “I’m not spending my last few months in office by hiding in a bunker. I will never do that again.”

  She thought back to the Raven Rock complex when she was still Secretary of State. There were days she never thought she would see the sun again.

  No, she would not be going back into a dark bunker to ride out whatever the hell the Variants were scheming.

  “I will not sit by and watch them destroy everything our administration has worked so hard to rebuild.”

  “All due respect, Madam President, but they are already destroying it,” Barnes said. “We need to consider a new strategy, depending on what the teams find…assuming any of them survive their missions.”

  Beckham glanced at Ringgold, fear in his gaze.

  “I will authorize the use of low-yield nuclear weapons before I let this country fall,” she said. “I won’t let the Variants destroy us again, but I’m not ready to make that call. I want an Option B, C, D, E, and so on before nukes.”

  The room went silent.

  The fact she had even considered nukes caught everyone off guard, including herself. She took in a breath, realizing her words equated to a knee jerk reaction.

  “If we use nukes, then we are no better than Cornelius,” Lemke said. “I will not be party to that, I’m sorry Madam President. I won’t nuke our soil. There has to be a better way.”

  “I don’t know,” Barnes chimed in. “I think it might be time to consider making it option A.”

  “I agree,” Festa said. “Especially after what we heard from that collaborator about the Variants being everywhere.”

  “They can’t possibly be everywhere,” Lemke said.

  “No, but maybe there are more than we thought,” Nelson said. “If they’ve all been tunneling and hiding underground, our counts could be wildly inaccurate. Perhaps it’s time to call in help from Europe.”

  “They’re in no position to help,” Lemke said. “Half of the continent doesn’t even have lights.”

  The conversation grew more heated, her staff arguing. Even Cortez was red in her freckled face, clearly wanting to interject her opinion.

  But there was one opinion Ringgold respected more than any. She looked to Beckham who stood in the back of the room, his prosthetic hand at his side.

  “Silence everyone,” Ringgold said firmly. “I want to hear what Captain Beckham has to say.”

  The sudden summoning might have caught him off guard, but he didn’t hesitate stepping up to the table.

  “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I don’t think we should jump to any conclusions yet,” Beckham said. “Let Team Ghost and the other teams do their jobs before we make any rash decisions.”

  Cortez and Lemke both nodded in agreement.

  “What we do know is that red webbing may be part of a biological communication network,” Beckham continued. “We have to figure out a way to disrupt it before the next phase. Before they use it for something worse.”

  “Like what?” Barnes asked.

  “I think the Variants are preparing a full out invasion. Those maps had other outposts marked. Every single safe zone was documented in there. They even mapped out routes into our strongholds. To me, that reeks of a plan of attack. Something we couldn’t have fathomed. And if that’s the case, then nukes won’t stop them.”

  A red phone rang next to Barnes. He picked it up and held up a finger.

  “Okay,” he said. “Thank you, General.”

  Barnes hung up the phone, his eyes going straight to Ringgold.

  “Madam President we just got word from Team Ghost, they discovered something at the University of Minnesota,” he said. “Some sort of mastermind creature.”

  Nelson looke
d at his computer screen. “I’ve got the footage here.”

  “Me too,” Soprano said.

  “Bring it up on the main screen,” Ringgold said, turning around.

  Horn and Beckham both stood for a better look but, before it came online, Barnes added something he had left out earlier.

  “Master Sergeant Fitzpatrick said they found something else out there, Madam President.”

  She narrowed her brows at the General.

  “What?” Lemke asked.

  Barnes swallowed before responding. “Juvenile Variants.”

  ***

  The video footage from Team Ghost had Kate wondering if she was living in a nightmare. It certainly took her mind off Beckham and whether he had returned safely from his mission.

  But it wasn’t just the beast on the monitor, it was the report that the creatures were breeding again. How, she wasn’t sure, but she knew Team Ghost wouldn’t lie.

  She took a step closer to the monitor to study the creature they had discovered. Carr and a couple of the lab techs huddled around her, just as transfixed as she was.

  “You were right,” Carr said. “There was something else sending signals to the Alphas and Variants across the webbing network.”

  Kate could only imagine what General Souza and President Ringgold were thinking. She was surprised she hadn’t gotten a call from them yet.

  “We have two problems,” Kate said. “Now that we know the Variants are breeding and digging tunnels in select locations, there’s no telling how many of them are underground.”

  Carr nodded, still looking sick as the video continued playing over the monitor. Variants climbed around the huge beast connected to all the webbing tendrils.

  “Let’s focus on this new monster first and what we know,” Kate said. “We know that the webbing relays signals much like the nerves in a human’s body. Those signals can be passed directly into the Alpha’s with their spindles. And the Alpha’s can, in turn, coordinate with the lesser Variants.”

  “It’s a complicated hierarchical system,” Carr said. “Just like how a human body functions. The nerves send signals to muscle cells, which then react in kind, propagating signals to other cells and tissues but, in this situation, it’s in the Variant network.”

  Kate tapped on the computer monitor. “It’s like one monstrous brain. The puppeteer behind all the Variant and collaborator attacks.”

  Carr nodded. “A mastermind.”

  “Even the pink folds across the body are reminiscent of a human cortex.”

  “Those would dramatically increase the surface area of the monster if it was in fact some kind of central processing node. Maybe this specimen is like an enormous living computer.”

  “A monster coordinating attacks across the country with Variants and collaborators would definitely need a huge amount of processing power.”

  “If that’s the case, then destroying it will disrupt the entire nervous system,” Carr said.

  Kate nodded. “We need to talk to President Ringgold immediately.”

  She shed her white coat as she headed toward the exit of the lab, hoping to also get word about her husband. Carr tailed her out the door with the techs looking on. They took the stairwell to the command center for the troops stationed on the island.

  Sergeant Ruckley sat with a group of enlisted men and women around a bank of radio equipment.

  “Doctor Lovato,” Ruckley said, turning on her heels.

  “I need to get ahold of President Ringgold immediately,” Kate said.

  Ruckley’s brow furrowed. “I can patch you into someone else at the Greenbrier, but Ringgold’s likely—”

  “Ringgold. It has to be Ringgold.”

  The Sergeant looked ready to protest again, but she must have recognized the fire in Kate’s eyes.

  “You heard the doctor,” Ruckley said “Call the emergency line.”

  The sergeant handed Kate a handset.

  “Talk to me, Doctor,” Ringgold said. “Preferably with some good news.”

  “Madam President, I’m afraid I don’t have any good news. I think this creature is a brain, for lack of a better term, and it’s coordinating the attacks across the country.”

  “I had the same thought, and I’m afraid they are planning something even bigger, especially with the discovery of juveniles,” Ringgold said, pausing before she added, “I take it you haven’t spoken to your husband?”

  Now Kate was thrown off. “No, why? Is he okay?”

  “Yes, he’s fine, but what I’m about to tell you goes no further than this conversation, okay?”

  “Of course,” Kate replied.

  “Operation Renegade uncovered intel that leads me to believe the Variants may be launching a larger offensive. Bigger than anything so far. Possibly an all-out invasion, and I have a feeling this monster is going to coordinate it and send out the juvenile hordes.”

  Kate’s stomach dropped. Her thoughts flew to Javier and Donna and Bo and Timothy and Tasha and Jenny. All the people that had just endured hell only to realize that it might not be long before the world was upended again.

  “Operation Renegade also confirms your theory about the webbing functioning like a communication network,” Ringgold said.

  “After this footage from Team Ghost, I’m even more certain that’s the case,” Kate paused to think, but had no doubt she was relaying accurate information.

  “A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have believed any of this, but…”

  Kate felt the eyes of the men and women in the command center on her, but she kept her focus on the radio equipment, and tried to still her breathing.

  “The studies Carr and I have run are pretty conclusive,” Kate said. “We’re dealing with nerve and muscle cells that replicate at rates exceeding the most malignant of cancers.”

  “So that’s how the webbing grew so fast?”

  “Yes, and we also know from our cellular studies, the growth of the webbing consumes energy at an alarming rate. It requires an enormous amount of food matter to fuel the expansion of the network.”

  “How much are we talking?”

  “I’m not sure, but Team Ghost reported that most of the Variants they encountered in Minneapolis appeared to be starving, despite the number of civilians that they’d kidnapped,” Kate said. “To be able to keep Variants from fresh prey requires a vast amount of control. The webbing and the mastermind must have more power than we could have imagined.”

  “In your opinion, if we kill this brain, will it shut down the entire network?” Ringgold asked.

  The president was a smart woman, leaping to a theory that Kate had just formed herself. But she hesitated, considering her response, knowing what she said next could cause or save countless lives.

  She thought back to the images of the webbing at the stadium in Minneapolis and elsewhere in the country. She had seen so many horrific pictures of humans and animals strung up within the webbing. Many of which were still alive.

  “Unfortunately, without biological samples from this mastermind and some live Variants to test, I’m not sure. If our theory is correct, destroying the mastermind will be like destroying the head of the snake,” Kate said. “Cut it off and the Variants will lose all coordination and everything attached to the webbing will die.”

  “But will it stop the invasion from happening?”

  “I believe so,” Kate said.

  There was no hesitation from Ringgold. “Then that’s what we must do, Doctor. I know this is a longshot, but do you have any recommendations on how to destroy something composed of the tissues you’ve studied?”

  “Again, it’s hard for me to say, but burning that thing to the ground is a surefire way of destroying the tissue,” Kate said. “I wouldn’t delay, either. We have no idea if it can move or if it has detected Team Ghost’s activity in Minneapolis. It may very well be able to use the tunnels to travel.”

  “Understood,” Ringgold said. “We’ll need a confirmed kill. In that case, it looks like
we’ve got only one good option.”

  “Team Ghost,” Kate said.

  “That’s right. We’ll have bombers on standby, but if this thing is half as powerful as you’re telling me, I want hard evidence that we’ve killed it before we can call this mission a success.”

  “And what about the juveniles?” Kate asked. “Team Ghost reported they could be living in the stadium where they discovered hundreds of human prisoners.”

  There was a pause on the other end.

  “My gut says blow it to hell but, I haven’t decided yet, I need to talk to my generals and staff first, and perhaps your husband.”

  “Okay,” Kate said. “I’m sorry I don’t have better news.”

  “Me too, Doctor, but this is the reality of our situation and we must face it head on and not give an inch. Good luck with your research.”

  “Good luck as well, Madam President.”

  With that, the call ended and Kate was left holding the handset while Carr and the others watched her.

  She prayed that she was right about this creature and what would happen if Team Ghost destroyed it. But just like the past, thousands of innocent lives hung on her scientific judgment.

  — 23 —

  Fitz surveyed the dirt- and grime-covered faces of Team Ghost. The group had taken refuge in a building a block away from the Northrop Performing Arts Center.

  Not more than a decade ago, the place had been one of culture and learning. Humans had evolved far enough to appreciate things in life beyond simple survival, valuing things like the arts and the sciences.

  Ways to explore and explain life.

  The Variants had evolved in their own way to destroy those things, but Team Ghost had another chance to turn the tables on the monsters.

  “Ghost 1, you are to destroy the target and confirm it is destroyed,” came the voice of General Souza.

  “Copy that,” Fitz replied. “We’ll get it done.”

  His heart climbed to his throat as realization set in.

  There would be no bombers raining hell down on the Northrop Performing Arts Center. Command wanted Team Ghost to take this beast out and then confirm it was dead.