“Why are you back so soon?” Naomi said. She seemed relaxed leaning up against the large chiller door, with the bleeding girls severed hand just inches from her trainers. She flicked the ash from her cigarette onto the floor. “And what was the exploding sound? A Popper?”
“Yes it was,” Alex said as he leaned on the counter. He was covered in blood. A baseball bat was resting against his leg. Blood pooled around its base, with globs of flesh dripping off it.
“Are you hurt?” Tierra asked.
“It’s not my blood.” He put his face in his hands.
Everyone took a step back when they realized it was infected blood.
“It’s okay; nothing went in my mouth or eyes. I’m clean!”
“Who’s she?” Lindell asked as he knelt down beside the priest, after following behind his brother and double-checking all the exits was secure.
“She was hiding in the walk-in freezer. There was a cabinet across the handle, which must have been knocked over by someone. She was trapped inside. I don’t know for how long? Luckily, the power was out, so she didn’t freeze to death,” Frank stated while wrapping another white sheet around the woman’s stump. The last was already bleeding through.
“However, her three friends were not so fortunate,” Frank said as he turned his head to the bodies under the sheets.
“Fortunate?” Naomi said, “You just cut her fucking arm off!” Naomi laughed.
He ignored her comment.
“As we,” he motioned towards Abigail, who looked pale and shaken, and was being ministered to by her husband, “shifted the metal cabinet out of the way and opened the door to check inside; an arm thrust out and grabbed Abigail’s leg. Obviously, I thought the worst and found a cleaver and sliced the arm in two. That’s when she started screaming, and I realized it wasn’t an infected.”
The woman was very pale and unconscious. She had the priest’s belt wrapped around the top of her arm as a tourniquet. She was petite and childlike. She was covered in grim, and her hair was matted with filth.
“She looks very weak,” Lindell stated. He could see her ribcage through her clothing.
“There’s nothing else I can do for her,” Frank stated, obviously stressed at causing such a fatal injury to another human being. He was about to say, apart from praying for her, but he didn’t say it out loud.
“So the loading bay is compromised, and you obviously ran into some infected while checking the rest of the hotel, so are we stuck here now?” Tierra asked, looking around at the group, waiting for an answer. She rocked the sleeping Dante in her arms. Dante was hot; she hoped it was from all the crying, and he wasn’t about to get a fever.
Terrance was loading cartridges into his shotgun. “We killed all the infected we came across, but it was too risky to keep searching.” He pumped the stock. “I can’t hear anymore banging coming from the loading bay, so hopefully they’ve moved on. We will hold up in here for tonight, and move at first light.”
Suddenly, there was one dull concussion explosion, quickly followed by another.
“Poppers?” Naomi stated while crushing her cigarette butt with her shoe.
Everyone held their breath. They couldn’t tell what direction the sound was coming from.
“Yes, and someone, or something is setting them off!” Terrance replied.
21
Doctor Bachman
Government Biosciences facility
Groom Lake, Nevada
Inside a Boeing C-17 Globemaster
Bachman sat with a plastic container on his lap. Inside were the latest findings, research undertaken within the last day. Research which was redirected due to Doctor Lazaro’s email. Because of her findings, they now had a better understanding of the infection, and had a better chance of creating a blocker.
Around him, the hold was full to the brim with equipment and other scientists. The scientist sat on long benches that ran along the sides, with everything they had grabbed, stacked and held to the floor by webbing down the middle. Everyone also had something on their lap.
The evacuation was timed to the minute. There was infected racing across the sand as the last of the scientists were loaded onboard. The creature’s cries rose, as if angry at the prospect of losing their prey.
The large door at the back was slowly rising, cutting off the view of the desert and runway, and the naked people heading in their direction. The plane vibrated as the large engines powered up, ready to taxi. Sand blew in just before the door was sealed tight. The sound of the powerful engines masked the screams of the creatures. Everyone closed their eyes as the sand and grit settled down.
Banging could be heard, as the infected slammed into the sides of the hull, while still trying to reach the warm meat inside. Then a long barrage, as twenty or so hit at once. Then nothing, as the plane raced down the runway.
Besides Bachman, Doctor Lawrence sat with a cardboard box filled with files on her lap.
There were no windows, so he had no reference as to how fast the plane was moving as the engines revved up a notch and the plane started moving faster.
Bachman had no idea how long it would take the large plane to fly the almost two thousand miles east to Raven Rock Mountain? He just hoped they had the facilities there to allow him to carry on with his work.
He knew that the mountain bunker was also known as the ‘Underground Pentagon,’ and was designed to withstand a thirty megaton nuclear explosion, and was a center for the Army, Navy and USAF, which would keep the country’s military running in case of a war on home soil.
However, what he didn’t realize was billions more was spent, and the whole facility was a front for something else. It wasn’t built, as some believed in 1951, it was started much earlier and for a very different reason.
22
General Lockwood
Government facility
Raven Rock Mountain, Pennsylvania
Half a mile underground
“The scientists and lab assistants are en route General,” a portly, balding man in uniform announced.
“Good. It is about time the scientists were moved to this facility. I never did see the point of two locations.” General Lockwood was a man in his late fifties. His hair was pitch black with no graying at the temples. His eyes were green and sharp. His facial features thin and gaunt. He had the body of a tall, thin Ethiopian long-distance runner. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him anywhere. He stood with his long-fingered hands held behind his back, standing to one side of his desk.
“The facility is now working at full capacity,” the portly man announced. “Two thousand soldiers, all hand picked, have been relocated since the outbreak started. All are picked due to having no family or ties to the dying world.”
“Excellent!” He walked back over to his desk. “Are all the scientists here?”
The man checked a file he was holding. “We have ninety-four on site, along with those arriving from Groom Lake, whom were meant to be stationed here after the infection started anyway. It just means the timeline has changed slightly; that’s all.”
“True.”
“Also tonnes of provisions are arriving hourly, filling our stores.” He seemed to mull something over before speaking again. “However, the civilians are causing a slight problem.”
“How so?” The General turned to look at his assistant for the first time in five minutes.
“They were all picked, as you are fully aware, due to their health and physical characteristics, and then carefully paired up and all having produced one child each...” He let the sentence trail off.
“And?”
“Well, it’s just; some are complete assholes, Sir, if you beg my pardon.” He shifted his weight in the seat. “Some are complaining about the accommodation, the rules, the rations, well, basically, about everything.”
“That’s the trouble with civilians, no structure. Why we can’t fill it up with military personnel; I’ll never know?” Then as an afterthought added, “Do you kn
ow the British have a term for their civilians who will we be living in their Ark, as they’ve named it?”
“I wasn’t aware, no.”
“They call them the Adam and Eve finalist. Strange, yes?”
“A little weird, yes.”
The General continued walking around his large office.
“Have those causing the worst disturbances thrown into the cells; have them stew for a few days. Let’s see if they start appreciating what they have. Not everyone gets a free pass to live in the latest – up-to-date – underground facility for free, riding out the attempted extermination of the human race.”
“Yes Sir, very true, and a good idea I might add.”
The General moved over to look out a large plate-glass window.
Even though the base was half a mile underground, with a mountain resting on top, the view was spectacular. Below, stretching over a mile into the distance was a vast underground city.
The city is sectioned into thirteen areas. At present, the General was staring into Zone 1, the main housing section. Off from Zone 1, another twelve zones spiraled out like spokes from an immense wheel.
The base was chosen because a vast freshwater reservoir was accessible and utilized.
The underground thirteen sectioned base was designed around the same idea as the British base located under Dartmoor Prison, on the large Dartmoor National Park.
After the British explorer, Clarkson found the pod in Tibet in 1898, and the implications were understood, and other references in ancient hieroglyphs, Sumerian tablets, vellum manuscripts, and wall carvings made sense, the British shared their discoveries with their closest allies.
Years of research and study was undertaken, with new organizations created to evaluate the situation.
In 1957, the British started to dig the foundations for what they termed, The Ark – their answer for a secure underground city capable of perpetuating the human species in their corner of the world.
America followed suit six years later, having been closely following the British progress. They also realized their allies had already designed and used the best layout possible, so they copied the design, only on a larger scale.
There is the vast dome of Zone 1, which encompassed the main, largest city section, which holds hundreds of streets, filled with housing complexes and various scientific buildings that are connected by walkways, and surrounded by parks and lakes, filled with as much oxygen producing plants as possible. Even the roofs of the buildings are covered in vegetation.
Zone 1, or The City, is the main living area of the chosen few deemed worthy of perpetuating the human race for America.
The scientific section is also incorporated into the architecture of Zone 1, mingled in between the parks, waterways, and living areas in one vast multistory building.
Zone 2, or The Fields, is the artificial fields, an astonishing five hundred acres of agricultural land inside circular interconnecting domes, or roughly the area of five hundred American football fields in size. Sustainable, cultivatable grains, along with vegetables and orchards, are grown in the artificial fields that are lit twenty-four hours a day by millions of triphospor lights, beaming down with the intensity of the sun. These lights are fitted throughout the underground bunker, although they are regulated depending on the need. In the habitable zones, they resemble a twenty-four-hour light and day cycle.
Zone 3, or The Store, is the food storage area, where enough dried food is stored to last five thousand people twenty years, and that doesn’t include the food grown in Zone 2.
Zone 4, or The Farm, is the live animal section. A large quantity of domesticated animals used for meat and dairy products, and clothing, is kept here, along with some wild animals in a small zoo.
Zone 5, or The Bird Table, is the seed storage area. Every known cultivatable seed, plus every Flora seed, is stored here in a moisture-free zone. There are three hundred and sixty-eight tonnes of seeds.
Zone 6, or The Barracks, is the military zone, where the army is barracked.
Zone 7, or The Garage, is the vehicle storage area. There are army cars, trucks, tanks, and helicopters and planes, along with boats. When mankind returns to the surface, they will need transportation, on land, sea and air. There are also twenty vast two million-litre fuel storage tanks, which have bunding containment dikes around them, to stop leakage. Also equipment to raise large solar panels and wind farms once they return to the surface.
Zone 8, or The Armory, is where the artillery is stored; all known military weapons, including nuclear warheads and uranium and plutonium.
Zone 9, or The Lake, is a vast, deep, natural underground fresh water reservoir. The area was expanded with artificial islands added. It is the second largest chamber in the underground bunker after the fields. It also contains freshwater fish and other aquatic animals that have been added as a food supplement.
Zone 10, or The Pump, is the water purification plant, for filtering the reservoir. It also houses the sewage-treatment plant.
Zone 11, or The Vault, is a massive DNA vault storing all known Kingdom Animalia, or otherwise known as Metazoa – all species of animals and insects that rely directly or indirectly on other organisms for their nourishment. Also Kingdom Monera, which are all bacteria’s and blue-green algae’s. And Kingdom Protista – all unicellular eukaryotic organisms, such as single-celled organisms. In layman’s terms, the vault contained every known living organism’s DNA known to man.
And finally, Zone 12, or The Computer, is where the digital data storage vault is located. It holds every known medical cure and procedure, every known book, document, scroll, movie, and documentary – everything that mankind has ever accomplished, discovered, and created, or recorded since the dawn of man.
Also situated in Zone 12 is Mary, the supercomputer that controls all the information, and runs all the systems in what has been dubbed unofficially as Wonderland.
The supercomputer dwarfs anything on the surface. Tianhe-2 is the fastest known computer at Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China, but even that one is insignificant in comparison.
Mary runs at 38.9 petaflops, which is quadrillions of calculations per second. It is so large it takes up almost eight hundred square meters of space on three floors.
There is only one other computer like it, and that one is called Naamah, which runs the British bunker.
Mary is not named after the mother of Jesus, as some first presume after hearing the name; rather, it is named after President Lincoln’s wife.
Mary is a complex, advanced, artificial intelligence, with face recognition, that can perceive the environment and act accordingly.
The ventilation system is state of the art and colossal. The main industrial elevator has four wide pipes running up the side of each corner, plus each of the other nineteen elevator shafts that joined in a chamber just above Zone 1. From the ventilation chamber, it runs parallel under the ground for over three miles, spraying out like the points on a compass. The exit and intake vents are hidden inside natural rock formations.
All zones are joined by interconnecting tunnels that have roads and underground shuttle trains. And everything is powered by a nuclear reactor six hundred feet below Zone 1.
Also, off Zone 1, from the large six-story Science Block runs a one hundred meter tunnel that connects to another thirty-six level section of the complex that itself is buried half a mile under the ground inside the mountain; the side where civilians were brought in to work, and most knew nothing of the vast bunker nestled beside them. It was run as a separate entity by the military for research. It had its own exits and vast ventilation system.
Wonderland is the height of human achievement; it can self sustain itself indefinitely. Five thousand people can live comfortably for twenty years, and that only applies to the dried food, and doesn’t count on the fields of crops, animals, and fish. It is one of mankind’s best hopes for survival now the pods have released their spores.
23
Alex
, and everyone else.
The kitchen of the Marriott Hotel
New York City – Saddle Brook
Alex lay in one corner. He shoved all the pans, and metal bowls off a section of low metal shelving, which was under a long chrome counter. He set up his bed on the shelf.
He waited his turn and used the toilet to strip down and wash the blood from his body with ice-cold water. He stood shaking in the small toilet and stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror as the light flickered.
So much has changed in just three weeks. He could never have imagined himself stood in a hotel’s kitchens toilet covered in someone’s blood a mere month ago. How quickly the world can turn to shit. All he used to have to worry about was getting to work on time, and not screwing up the post.
Outside he could hear Naomi and Tierra fighting again, and the ever-present crying of Dante. There was so much tension in the air. Everyone being in such close proximity was against their nature. People needed their own breathing space. However, if you wanted to survive, you had to learn to change your view of what was now acceptable. The world has changed – things will never be the same again; it is adapt or die. Or as his drunk father used to say, “If you’re not part of the solution, then you’re part of the problem.” Then he would pass out on the couch.
Terrance and Lindell frequently checked the doors. After an hour of no banging, they even checked the loading bay area. The back door and metal shutter was still intact, but they decided to stay in the kitchen and have one extra door of protection between them and everything outside. They collected the few things that had been left behind in the retreat.
Alex lay in his corner, as far away from everyone else as possible. They were all doing the same – a mutual distancing.
He wasn’t looking forward to going to sleep. He kept having a recurring dream, where people were crawling towards him along a dirty desert floor. They were too weak to stand as the spores ravished their bodies, and they bled from the eyes, nose, and mouth. They called his name repeatedly, with outstretched hands, pleading for his help. While in the background, massive factories poured more black spores into the atmosphere. He had no idea what the dream meant.
The Sixth Extinction: America (Omnibus Edition | Books 1 – 8) Page 8
