The man finally broke the stare. “My name’s John Rickard,” he said.
“I know you,” Wilder said. “We’ve met before a long time ago.”
“That’s very possible,” Rickard said. “I’ve been to many places.”
“Mr. Rickard,” Josef said, “is the member of a powerful…”
“Think tank,” Rickard said before Josef could finish. “I was one of the charter members of what used to be an important think tank. I was sent here to try and help Josef and the other scientists figure out how to stop the infection.”
“So tell me,” Rickard asked Wilder. “What made you think the EMP bomb would kill those things out there?”
Wilder explained that, since the infection was essentially technology-based, that he and Butsko had planned on frying the nanites.
“Ah,” said Rickard. “So you know about the nature of the infection, then?”
“Of course we do,” Wilder said. “The damn thing started in military labs. Butsko was originally brought in to discover what the infection was and how to stop it.”
“We also figured out how the infection manipulates the brain,” Cheryl said. “At least Walt did.” Cheryl went on to tell the Josef, Rickard, and the scientists Walt’s theory on how the nanites manipulated the dopamine levels in the brain. Cheryl finished by telling them about Walt’s antipsychotic drugs and how they worked on the creatures without the yellow eyes, but how they were useless against the new yellow-eyed creatures.
“You’re a smart bunch,” Josef said as his eyes narrowed. “I guess you’d have to be to have survived all this time.”
“Yeah, well, we all didn’t survive,” Cheryl said.
“I think it is time for you to fill us in on what you know,” Wilder said. “I get the feeling we’ve missed an important piece of the puzzle, and you’ve all been sitting on it down here.”
Josef and Rickard looked at each other.
“Yes, yes,” Josef started. “You have indeed missed an important piece of the puzzle.” Josef walked over to one of the computer consoles and inserted a CD-ROM disc. Wilder, Cheryl, and Steele watched as the monitor came to life.
17
Undisclosed Location
Pacific Ocean
1979
John Rickard jumped from the helicopter as it touched down on the oil tanker. There were no numbers on the side of this vessel, and it didn’t even have a name. The tanker belonged to The Council, and as far as the rest of the world was concerned, neither it, the ship, nor The Council itself existed.
The oil tanker looked like an old, rusted bucket of bolts to any observer, but inside the ship were state-of-the-art research labs and all the equipment necessary to execute search and rescue missions.
“You’ve located it, right?” Rickard asked the man who greeted him at the helicopter.
“We’re literally floating over it as we speak,” answered the man.
Jim Dolenz and Rickard had been recruited into The Council around the same time. They each possessed different skill sets The Council valued. Jim was older, in his late forties, with a shaved head, and always seemed to have a five o’clock shadow. Just like Rickard, Jim had an icy stare and more battle scars than most people have had hot meals.
“Two of the submersibles have already located it and are keeping watch over it,” Jim said. “The info we’re getting back from the submersibles says the object is dead.”
“There’s no sign of activity or life at all?” Rickard asked Jim.
“None at all,” Jim answered.
“Well, that is a shame,” Rickard said as he looked out at the water.
The huge cranes already had thick, unbreakable cables around the object. They’d gotten lucky when the object had come to rest on a shelf. Below was a chasm of unknown depth.
“Sir!” a man yelled over to Jim. “The submersibles are in place and have connected the cables!”
“Bring it up!” Jim yelled back.
The man gave the thumbs up sign toward the crane operators and they pulled some levers and began to raise the object from the ocean shelf. The crane effortlessly brought the object up.
Everyone on the tanker saw the two submersibles first. A large door on the side of the tanker silently slid open as the submersibles navigated into the tanker.
The cranes continued to lift the object up through the water, and as it broke the surface, everyone’s eyes were fixed on the sight before them. The smooth black metallic object was oval shaped with no discernible edges.
And it was large.
Rickard figured the object was at least five times larger than the space shuttle Enterprise.
As the object was lifted from the water, everyone could hear a creaking sound. Before Rickard could say anything, a large section of the object broke off, splashed back into the ocean, and immediately sank. What was left dangling from the cables was brought up to the tanker.
“Get those submersibles back in the water immediately!” Rickard shouted. Within seconds the side of the tank opened, and the subs were on their way.
After a few minutes, Jim got an update from the submersibles.
“Dammit!” Jim shouted into the handset. “Are you absolutely sure?” Jim turned to Rickard to update him. “It is lost. The object that broke off fell into the chasm. We have no idea how deep it is, but the subs chased it as far as they could.”
“How disappointing,” Rickard said as his eyes narrowed. “Mark this spot. As soon as the technology is built, we’ll go after it. For now, let’s go take a look at what we have.”
Jim and Rickard turned and watched as the object was lowered inside the tanker into a sterile room.
“We may not have gotten the grand prize,” Rickard said, “but we sure have one helluva parting gift.”
The two men walked off the deck of the tanker.
18
Inside the Sub-Level Facility, Schoepke Springs
Present Time
Wilder, Cheryl, and Steele watched the monitor as the video ended and the screen went black. They looked at each other with many questions.
“What the hell was that?” asked Steele. “We ask you what the hell is going on down here and out there, and you show us James Cameron’s latest film?”
“In early 1979,” Rickard began as he ignored Steele’s questions, “something crashed into the Pacific Ocean. As you just saw, it was big, very big, and it wasn’t ours.”
“The Russians?” asked Cheryl.
“When I say, ‘wasn’t ours,’ I meant it wasn’t human,” answered Rickard.
“Wasn’t human?” Steele asked. “Well, that means…”
“Exactly,” Rickard said as he cut him off. “It was of unknown origin.”
“It was a UFO?” Wilder asked.
“By definition, it was indeed an unidentified flying object,” Rickard explained. “The organization I work for,” he continued, “was most interested in acquiring that object.”
“The ‘think tank,’ right?” Wilder asked.
“Who I work for is irrelevant right now,” Rickard said. “What matters is that you only have a small piece of the puzzle as to what’s going on out there.” Rickard nodded toward the monitors as they displayed the entire Schoepke Springs property overrun with the yellow-eyed creatures.
“Wait,” Cheryl interrupted. “You mean to tell us that this infection is alien?”
“Mr. Rickard and his organization contacted me,” Josef said. “They wanted a safe place to store the object, and they needed a place that had the advanced technology to examine it.”
“Answer Cheryl’s question,” Wilder said as his voice lowered.
Josef and Rickard looked at each other again.
“Yes,” said Rickard. “The infection is alien in origin.”
“Inside the object, we discovered the nanites,” Josef said. “They weren’t that alien to us. The idea of microscopic machines was something hypothesized decades ago, but the current state of technology couldn’t support our
curiosity.”
“But when you found that object, it changed the game, didn’t it?” Wilder asked.
“It didn’t just change the game,” Josef said, “it created an entirely new sport. We examined and studied the alien nanotechnology for decades. The alien samples proved everything we hypothesized about nanotechnology. They could self-replicate, cure diseases, be used to clean up messes in hostile environments. Anything.”
“You didn’t think it was odd that everything you wanted those things to do they did?” asked Wilder.
“Those nanites were the start of a new age of technology,” Josef said as he ignored Wilder’s question.
“This place is pretty secure-looking,” Cheryl said. “So how the hell did this nanotechnology escape?”
“It didn’t,” Rickard said. “We decided that it was the right time to finally use this technology in human trials.”
Wilder, Cheryl, and Steele stood there silently as they all realized that the outbreak wasn’t an accident that had occurred from a military-based lab. The outbreak was knowingly caused through the introduction of alien nanotechnology.
“My organization heard that the military was searching for ways to save the lives of soldiers injured during combat,” Rickard said. “So we provided the military with a sample.”
“You gave the military a sample of essentially unknown alien technology without telling them?” Wilder asked. He could feel his body temperature rising as he clenched his fists.
“We knew the military would begin their tests on animals,” Josef said. “We tested on animals here, and nothing bad happened.”
“So what are you saying?” Wilder growled.
“Not what you’re thinking,” Rickard answered for Josef. “We don't think the military weaponized this technology or anything like that.”
“Then what the fuck happened?” Steele asked.
“We think the alien technology was playing possum,” said Howard.
“We think the technology was dormant,” Rickard said as he shot Howard an icy glance.
“For over twenty years the alien nanotechnology laid dormant?” Wilder asked, obviously not believing a word of it.
Josef started to answer, but was cut off by Wilder.
“Actually, I’d like to hear from Howard over there,” Wilder said.
Howard looked at both Josef and Rickard who looked at him expressionless.
“Well, um… Sir… um… we think,” Howard stuttered and then cleared his throat, “we think that the technology wanted to get out of this facility.”
Rickard turned as he slapped the palm of his hand to his forehead.
“We’ve never proven that, Howard,” Rickard said as he raised his voice.
“The technology sat around here for twenty years doing exactly what we wanted it to do,” Howard said with more courage. “If we wanted it to clear a clogged artery, it did it. If we wanted it to remove an oil spill from a body of water, it did it.” Howard stood and walked closer to the others.
“It never mutated or even slightly changed any of the animals we tested it in,” Howard continued. “It was the perfect find—the discovery of the century.”
“But you thought it was too good to be true?” Cheryl asked.
“Wouldn’t you?” Howard asked. “This miracle technology literally fell from the sky and behaved exactly as we wanted it to. You bet your asses we were concerned,” Howard said as he pointed his thumb over his shoulder to the other scientists.
“The alien nanotech remained separate from the animals we used,” continued one of the other scientists. “I’ve been here for over a decade studying this thing, and Howard is absolutely correct when he said the tech was the perfect little subject. It never once reacted negatively to any of our experiments.”
“What Stacey means,” continued Howard, “is that we were always able to extract the nanites from the animal subjects. We’d inject it into the animals, the nanites would perform the tasks we programmed it to, and then we’d remove the nanites, and the animals were healthier than ever before with no negative effects.”
“From the info we received after we leaked some of the nanotech to the military,” Howard continued, “it appeared the alien tech changed.”
“Wait,” Wilder interrupted. “You were spying on above top secret military facilities?”
“Oh please,” Josef said. “I knew what was going on in every military top secret lab across the globe, no matter the security level.”
“That’s not what’s important,” Howard continued. “Once the military started testing the tech in animals, the alien nanites fused with the biological systems of the subjects and couldn’t be separated.”
“And soon after that,” the scientist named Stacey continued, “the nanites took over the animals. They were in complete control over every aspect of the organism. What they thought, when they slept, when they ate… when they attacked.”
“That explains how all the labs testing this technology seemed to fall at the same time,” Wilder said as he connected the dots.
“Exactly,” said Howard. “This alien nanotech played us like Keyser Soze. It was a great informant in the lab. It gave us all the information we asked of it. But as soon as we released it from the lab, it turned into a murdering, zombie-making infection.”
Rickard stepped forward to say something, but Wilder spoke first.
“So this technology has intelligence?” Wilder asked.
“Not just intelligence,” Howard answered. “It has an agenda. We think all the nanites somehow communicate with each other. We think the millions of infected humans are linked through the nanites to a central intelligence hub.”
“Son of a bitch,” Wilder said to no one in particular. “Melvin was right.”
“All the infected are working towards the same goal,” Howard said.
“So why are there two different kinds of infected?” Steele asked. “What the fuck are those yellow-eyed creatures?”
“An upgrade,” said another scientist. “Hi everyone, I’m Stefan.”
“An ‘upgrade?’” Steele asked.
“Yes,” continued Stefan. “I believe for the last two years they’ve been killing, infecting, and studying us as well as themselves. These ‘yellow-eyed creatures,’ as you call them, were upgraded to become impervious to the weapons you’ve used against them.”
“That’s why the antipsychotic drugs stopped working on them,” Cheryl said.
“Exactly,” Stefan said. “That’s also why the EMP blast worked at first.”
“So there’s no stopping them?” Steele asked.
“At first,” Rickard said, “we didn’t think there was. But when you set off that EMP blast, we got a huge spike on the equipment monitoring the object upstairs.”
“What are you talking about?” Wilder asked.
“You woke it up,” Rickard said matter-of-factly. “We now know what it wants.”
“It wants to take over the world,” Josef said.
Everyone suddenly jumped at what sounded like an explosion near the hatch. Howard, Stacy, and Stefan ran back to the monitors.
“Uh, Sir,” Howard said, “I think they want to get down here.”
“What the hell was that explosion?” Josef asked.
“They’re using the weapons we left up there against us,” Stefan answered.
“So what’s your fall back plan?” Wilder asked.
The scientists, Rickard, and Josef all looked at each other.
“We don’t really have one,” Josef said. “We’ve been safe in here for the last two years.”
Another explosion rocked the hatch, and they all watched as debris fell.
“How big is this sub-level, Josef?” Wilder asked.
“We’ve got almost 700,000 square feet of usable space down here,” Josef said as he kept his eyes on the hatch. “There’s more labs down here, living quarters, exercise rooms, a huge food storage room, and garage.”
“Wait,” Wilder said as he h
eld his hands up. “You have a garage down here? Do you have functioning vehicles?”
“Of course,” Josef said. “My Grossvater taught me to always be prepared. Heinrich always had an escape plan that he could swing into motion at a moment’s notice.”
“Then why the fuck are you all still down here?” asked Steele.
“Where the hell is there to go?” asked Rickard.
“I designed the space down here in sections,” Josef explained. “Each section can be locked down and cut off from previous ones.”
“Then what the hell are we waiting for?” yelled Wilder.
Just then, another explosion rocked the hatch. It loosened the heavy metal door enough that it fell to the sub-level floor.
“Move!” shouted Wilder. “Let’s go!”
The nine of them ran past the wall of monitors and down a long hallway, but the yellow-eyed creatures were fast and flooded into the room. The mutated creatures raced toward the retreating humans. A creature grabbed onto one of the scientist’s shoulders and tackled him to the ground. Within seconds, the scientist was torn apart by the creatures. The others ran faster and saw the next hatch a few feet away.
After they ran through the hatch, Wilder slammed the thick metal door closed, severing a creature’s arm at the elbow.
“Now what do we do?” asked a panicked Howard.
“We keep running through this sub-level and close every hatch and security door behind us,” said Wilder. “That will slow them down a lot.”
“And then?” Stefan asked.
“And then we get the hell out of here,” Wilder said.
“Where the hell are we going to go?” asked Stacey.
“We travel southeast,” Rickard said without any doubt. Everyone looked at him. “We need to head southeast because we might be able to rendezvous with more people from my, uh, think tank.”
Outbreak (Book 2): The Mutation Page 31
