“Yes,” Holly continued. “A midnight snack, breakfast, whatever you want to call it. I was hungry.”
Her stomach growled as she thought about her last meal. It’d been a while since she’d eaten. Mattie, as if reading her thoughts, asked, “Hungry?”
She nodded, and he pulled an MRE from the pack on his back. He pressed a button on the top to heat it up, then opened it and handed it to Holly. A delicious aroma filled the room.
Mattie smiled.
“I hope you like meatball subs. These MREs have actually gotten better the longer I’ve been in the service. Or maybe I’ve just gotten used to the taste.”
Holly grabbed the sub and took a huge bite out of it. As she was chewing, she thought back to that meal she’d had with Conner, Howard, and Jing Wei.
“Security was looking for Dr. Howard Nichols,” she said, mouth full of delicious sandwich. “He took off in a hurry just before they got there. Do you know what that was about? Could he have received the data from the drive?”
“It seems that Dr. Nichols had received unauthorized encrypted data from the future. Last week in fact. Whether he was the recipient of the last communication, we haven’t yet determined. “
“What? How?”
With all the security protocols they’d set up and the checks and verifications on objects and people coming through the vortex, Holly didn’t see how it was possible to get anything unauthorized through without everyone knowing immediately.
“He managed to piggyback the encrypted data on top of another signal. Quite ingenious, but not smart enough for your mainframe not to eventually pick up on it. That’s why the security team was after him.”
“Do you know what he sent?”
Mattie grinned.
“He was foolish enough to send back the results of this week’s sporting events—all of them—to last week. Looks like your man Howard was trying to make a quick fortune. We’re still tracing the money he took in from his bets, but it’s a sizable amount. I guess he was hoping for an early retirement if the world didn’t end today.”
Holly was surprised Mattie knew so much already. He obviously had extensive computing and analytical support. She thought back to the discussion she and Conner had about Howard’s gambling problem. But having money problems was one thing; sending a nuclear bomb back in time to kill thousands and destroy the Chronos base was quite another.
“Do you think he could have been responsible for the bomb?” she asked.
“I haven’t ruled out that possibility,” Mattie said, scratching his head. “Dr. Nichols has already left Holloman and, along with the other transferees, is en route to meet Paulson at another base. We’ll hold him for questioning when he arrives.”Mattie paused before adding, “You had another breach as well.”
Shit! What the hell had Chronos security been doing, sitting around with their thumbs up their asses? Holly thought they had had the situation under control, but apparently not. Then it hit her again—all of the lives lost that day—her friends and coworkers, her entire life's work destroyed, their only hope to save humanity if all other plans fail. This time she couldn't hold the tears back.
Mattie reached out and touched her shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Holly. I know this day has been horrible for you. It's more than anyone can take. I'm doing my best to help. Together, hopefully, we can get to the bottom of this and prevent any other attacks."
Holly looked into Mattie's eyes wondering just how much she could trust him. He was right though. There would be time to grieve later. Right now she needed to get through this crisis and stay strong. Most importantly though she needed to find out who was responsible for the attack. Her despair slowly began to morph into hatred and a desire for revenge.
"Tell me about this other breach," she said, wiping tears from her cheeks.
“This one was much harder to weed out. Someone sent news data from yesterday back three days ago. Again, it was buried under another transmission, so it was hard to detect. It was mainly general headlines, celebrity fluff pieces, local news, things of that sort. Claire is sorting through it now to see if there were encrypted messages hidden in the data, plus she’s checking for ties to anyone from Chronos.”
Mattie held up his finger. “Wait, that’s her now.”
Mattie closed his eyes.
Yes, run it by Claire, Holly thought. Everyone loved Claire. But Holly didn’t trust her. In her first timeline, during her graduate studies, Holly had been involved with designing some of the earliest predictive AIs to help with her black hole stabilization theories. She always found them to be problematic, sometimes making leaps in logic when presented with incomplete information. Of course they had to do that to be predictive, but sometimes those leaps just didn’t make sense.
Claire was the latest generation of those AIs, complete with an intuitive learning algorithm. She’d been created by military brainiacs, and her level of sophistication was far beyond any machine ever created. And that had been nearly five decades ago. During the time since, Claire had learned and evolved. Into what, Holly wasn’t quite sure.
Mattie opened his eyes.
“Hmm . . . ” He gazed thoughtfully into the air. “It seems there was an obituary in the news linked to one of your senior staff members. A Dr. Charles Zhang was reported killed in a car wreck yesterday morning. Do you know him?”
“Of course. That’s Jing Wei’s husband.” Holly glanced away as the information sank in. “But he’s sitting downstairs with her right now.”
Mattie tapped his ear.
“Sergeant Miller. Can you bring Jing Wei and her husband, Dr. Zhang, up here, please? I’m sending you a picture. And, Sergeant, use caution.”
Mattie listened for a few seconds, then glared at Holly.
“Jing Wei and her husband have gone missing. They won’t get far in this storm; we’ll find them.”
Mattie stood up. Holly wondered which other of her colleagues might have used Chronos for their own selfish reasons. Perhaps the temptation of using a time machine to rewrite personal history was too tempting to resist.
“Why would they mess with time, especially now, knowing how critical every action is?”
Mattie stopped before leaving, but not to answer her. He tapped the back of his ear again, and listened without moving
When he was done, he met Holly’s eyes.
“That’s not the only thing,” he said, frowning. “Claire extended her investigation of Jing Wei in light of this new information. Apparently her deception is more extensive than trying to save her husband. Claire found video footage showing Jing Wei in recent contact with a suspected Chinese spy. It seems she may have been passing along Chronos secrets to the enemy.”
Chapter 23
1:45 a.m. Local Time, January 16, 2038
Chronos Two, Hillah, Iraq
Thirty minutes before the Global Meteor Shower
Jeff stared at the floating 3-D holo of deep space sent directly to them from a MadisonTech surveillance satellite. He was in the main command center at Chronos Two. Standing beside him were the President of the United States, Martin Diaz; Vice President Paulson; Franklin Whittenhouse; Secretary of Defense, David Calhoun; several generals and other military brass; and Claire. On various other holos and video projections around the room were military commanders and world leaders.
The witching hour was at hand, and the room was tense with anticipation.
Whittenhouse moved his hand across several projections of data hovering in front of his face. Others in the room were logged into the neural net, seated comfortably while their minds worked diligently in virtual reality.
“There, I think I see it.”
President Diaz pointed at the image of deep space.
Jeff reached up and expanded the view, zooming in on one area. It was barely visible, but sure enough, something reflected the sunlight ever so slightly, like sparkles with tiny trails of light flowing out behind them.
“Wow, it looks huge,” Secretary Ca
lhoun said, sounding shocked.
Jeff tapped the image and pulled up distance measurement.
“It’s about ten thousand miles in diameter, easily large enough to blanket the entire planet.”
Several people in the roomed gasped in astonishment.
"No chance of that thing missing us," one general said.
“Everything is ready,” Whittenhouse said as he stepped back from his holo. “There’s nothing else I can do until the earth passes through that cloud.”
Jeff glanced around at the world leaders hovering and peering down from the walls around them. Most were allies, including the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the President of the European Union. Even the President of the Russian Federation was there. Notably absent were the Chinese. Paulson and Diaz had never been able to convince them of the threat. It didn’t matter, though. What they had planned would move forward without Chinese participation.
Jeff and the other leaders watched as the vast meteor cloud inched closer and closer until it filled the screen. Soon everyone had ceased what they were doing and simply stared at the cloud.
Tiny particles hit the satellite camera lens, ricocheting off the glass, flying closer and closer to Earth.
“Just a few more minutes now,” Jeff said quietly.
“Switching to surface cameras,” said a technician seated nearby.
The scene changed from deep space to the night sky from Earth. The lights of a major city were off in the distance, over the horizon.
“This scene is from Northern Virginia, just outside of D.C.”
Quite fitting, Jeff thought.
The first time he saw this meteor shower was forty-six years ago—a lifetime. He wondered what his other self, the one from this timeline, was doing right now. The young Jeff Madison from the present day had not been at Chronos One as a designated survivor. Through some twist of fate he’d chosen not to go into politics. He was still an attorney in Virginia Beach and still married to Sarah. He hoped they were happy. He’d check periodically, out of curiosity, but he thought it best to just let the other him live his life out in peace. Maybe he’d find the happiness that evaded Jeff in his past life.
As for the State of the Union address, it’d been scheduled for next week. President Diaz had more pressing matters to take care of today. He’d ordered the entire Congress gathered up by the military earlier in the day and brought in to Chronos Two. No one was told details on what was going on, only that some terrorist attack was planned. So for now the government was secure. Jeff imagined the other world leaders had taken similar precautions in their respective countries.
“I must say, I didn’t completely believe it would happen, not until now, not until actually seeing it with my own eyes,” Diaz said, staring at the holo as the first of the meteors began falling.
“We’re reaching atmospheric saturation,” one of the technicians said.
“Initiate Phase One,” Paulson ordered.
Holos flickered around the room as technicians returned to their screens and virtual environments. Jeff knew what was happening. Slowly, miles above the earth, satellites were turning and focusing on specific points all over the planet. Relay stations on the ground were waiting for signals. And monitoring stations were tracking the spread of the meteor dust.
“Virus detected in the atmosphere,” a technician said.
“At these levels it will take approximately twelve minutes forty-eight seconds to reach full saturation,” Claire intoned.
“I hope this works,” Whittenhouse muttered.
They’d run simulations, but they had no true virus samples, just virtual representations, so this was their first and only field test. Jeff didn’t like leaving so much to chance, but they had no other choice.
The minutes ticked away slowly and painfully as they all waited. On the surface people were just starting to breathe in the virus-saturated air. It was filling their lungs and soon would be attacking their bodies.
“Full saturation in eight, seven, six . . .” Claire counted the seconds. “ . . . three, two, one.”
“Now!” shouted Paulson.
Fingers moved and eyelids jumped as the control room crew burst into virtual action.
Jeff felt a tingling just behind his ears, then suddenly deafening static filled his head, reverberating from his audio nerve. The room went dark for a half second as his vision faded in and out, his optic nerve connection to his brain momentarily disrupted. He knew above, on the surface of the earth, everyone on the planet was experiencing the same sensation.
“It’s working,” Whittenhouse said, pounding on a table.
The man was a genius. This whole plan was his idea from the start.
“Active viral levels in the atmosphere are dropping exponentially,” Claire said.
Almost everyone on the planet had a com-link surgically implanted beside their audio nerve in the inner ear. And most also had optical nerve implants. It was a simple procedure, done using Med bots at most retail stores selling com-link plans. Upgrades were simple to install as well. Those who didn’t have the com-implant had old-style portables. MadisonTech and its subsidiaries controlled about twenty-five percent of the com-link and portable markets, but they supplied one hundred percent of the motherboards used in all the devices.
What no one outside of a small group knew was that Whittenhouse had designed a tiny electromagnetic pulse generator to fit on every motherboard of every com-link and portable on the planet. Seconds ago they’d sent a signal out over the network for the EM pulse generators to activate.
Deep inside everyone’s skulls, tiny EM pulses emanated outward, hitting and destroying the microscopic mechanical parts of the techno-organic nanovirus. The same pulse also came out of old portables. If everything worked correctly, then the virus would be rendered inert and harmless. The worst symptoms anyone would feel would be similar to those from a minor cold.
As for other electronics, they’d been shielded from EM pulses. Congress passed several laws mandating EM pulse shielding following the nuclear detonation over Stillwater, Montana, thirty-six years ago. Other countries followed suit. Now all electronics, from computers to car parts, had pulse shielding.
“Initiating second pulse,” Whittenhouse said calmly.
This second pulse was designed to catch those sparsely populated areas of the world and places where people were unable to afford com-links or portables. For those areas they’d integrated EM pulse generators onto the tops of cell towers, disguising them as communication arrays.
A map of the earth appeared on the main holo. Red circular pulses began popping up all over the globe, indicating where the pulse waves were being generated. First there were just a few, then hundreds and thousands sprang forth, like popcorn.
“Atmospheric active viral counts still dropping,” Claire said.
President Diaz patted Paulson on the back.
“Looks like things are going as planned.”
Paulson wasn’t smiling and showed no signs of relief.
“For now,” he said. “Let’s check in with Bellany at the CDC.”
The doctor’s face flashed up.
“Good evening, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President. Test subjects are showing complete viral breakdown. The EM pulse has destroyed the mechanized components of the virus, just as the simulations showed.”
“Any signs of the virus repairing itself?” Jeff asked.
“Not at this time. I can’t rule it out, however. This virus is particularly strong. Yet by rendering it inert as we have, the human body’s natural defenses can take over and completely eradicate it, just like with an inoculation. Of course we’ll need to study this one in detail for many years to understand it better.”
“Doctor, I want you to know that we’ll be keeping only a small sample of this virus and safely under government supervision,” Diaz said firmly. “All other batches are to be completely destroyed. Do you understand me?”
Bellany looked for a half second like he migh
t protest, but he simply said, “Yes, sir. I agree that this virus is far too dangerous to have around in significant quantities.”
“Keep us posted if anything changes,” Paulson added, then turned to Diaz.
“We’ll need to monitor the atmospheric levels as well. If this virus survived in space for any length of time, then it may have some resistance to electromagnetic radiation. In which case we’ll need to hit it with several more EM pulses before morning. Then hopefully Mother Nature and the elements will finish the job for us.”
Paulson, ever the firm Navy SEAL commander, turned to General Thaddeus Rowan’s holo from NORAD.
“Are we ready for Phase Two, General?”
“At the president’s command, sir.”
“We’ve got a few hours yet,” Diaz said, glancing around the room. “I need to consult with some of the other world leaders to be sure everyone else is making it through this. Let me know if anything changes.”
He glanced up at Paulson and put his hand on his shoulder.
“Excellent work, Buddy, Jeff . . . Whittenhouse . . . You too, Claire.”
Diaz raised his voice and addressed the room.
“Everyone . . . Excellent work on Phase One. But, as you all know, this attack is not over yet. Let’s all show courage and we will defeat these attackers.”
With Diaz leaving, others in the room started to shuffle out as well. They still had several hours before the first wave of the expected nanobot swarms hit. But if their enemy changed tactics they were prepared as well. Their offensive and defensive arsenals were at full alert. If the assailants revealed themselves in any way, Jeff was sure the generals were looking to take this fight to their mysterious enemy and move away from their defensive posture. All they needed was something to aim at.
But let the military guys handle that. It was time for Jeff to check on Holly again. He patted Paulson and Whittenhouse on their backs and walked out to the hallway. As he moved out of the tense command center he finally let out some air. He felt like a small weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Just a little bit though, the bulk of the pressure was still there. There was much to be done and this nightmare was far from over. But, he could just barely see the light at the end of the tunnel. And he was running toward it as fast as he could.
NanoSwarm: Extermination Day Book Two Page 19
