by D. J. Molles
He didn’t strike Lee as the joking type.
Something was keeping him from calling. The Internet signal could have been damaged or destroyed where Frank was, causing him to be unable to contact Lee for the past two days. Techs would be working overtime to reestablish contact with the Coordinators so Frank could tell them to hold off on reading their mission packets.
In the meantime, Lee had no idea what to do with himself. He would usually busy himself with a book or a movie, but watching a movie seemed inappropriate and he would not be able to focus on reading a book with his mind running through scenarios of what the hell was happening in the world outside his bunker.
He drank the rest of his water bottle and went to his treadmill. He left the incline flat and brought it up to an eight-minute-mile pace. He needed to waste some time and planned on running for a while.
CHAPTER 2
The Brief
At 1215 hours he stopped running.
The last few miles were mentally excruciating, and several times he caught himself looking over at the computer. It was past the forty-eight-hour mark. He should be reading the mission packet. Every minute that went by he told himself to wait and give Frank a chance to call. At fifteen after, he realized if he waited any longer, he would be deliberately disobeying his standing orders.
He stepped off the treadmill and took another bottle of water from the fridge, then looped around the couch to his computer and sat down. In the time it had taken him to move to his desk, he had become painfully curious about what information the mission packet held.
He placed his thumb on the small black square on top of the box and, after a brief moment, heard the lock click open. He lifted the lid and looked inside. He had never opened his mission box before. This was a first.
The contents were underwhelming. Just a black thumb drive. He plugged it into his computer and let it load. The program it contained took the liberty of running itself. It was a program he had seen before when completing online training courses. It allowed the user to click though screens like a PowerPoint, but it was also narrated and contained bits of video.
The first thing he heard was Frank’s voice.
For a moment he let himself believe Frank had called. He felt a moment of levity, then a flash of anger for being left in The Hole for so long without contact. But the voice was only a recording. Lee noted that Frank sounded relaxed. Not at all concerned. Just going through the motions.
It was at that moment that the knot returned to Lee’s stomach.
“This is Colonel Frank Reid on behalf of the Office of the Secretary of Homeland Security in regard to Project Hometown and to all operatives therewith involved. Your mission has begun.”
The screen displayed the seal of the Department of the Army, which faded to a map of the Continental United States.
“What you will be dealing with topside is what our scientists are calling Febrile Urocanic Reactive Yersinia, or FURY for short. It is a mutated form of Y. Pestis, which was the cause of the bubonic plague and nearly every other European plague for the last four hundred years. Because it is a bacteria and not a virus, our experts are unsure of how it transmits from one person to the next; however, the plague has already shown an extreme propensity for contagion. Full Personal Protective Equipment is advised when in contact with infected or possibly infected individuals, and full decontamination afterward.”
Four dots appeared on the map, one each in New York, Florida, Illinois, and California.
“We do not have a patient zero at this time. However, we can infer that the plague is from a source outside the country, due to the first cases in the US being centered on our largest international airports in New York City, Chicago, Miami, and Los Angeles.
“From the research we have available at this time—June fourteenth—the prodromal stage symptoms of infection are fever, shaking or trembling, overt salivation, diarrhea, extreme hunger and thirst, rash on the torso or trunk of the body, projectile vomiting, some loss of fine motor skills, difficulty speaking, and sleeplessness. As the plague progresses into the illness stage, symptoms include complete loss of speech and understanding, pallor, hallucinations, loss of sensation, hyper-aggression, uncontrollable screaming or yelling, and insatiable appetite—which we’ve seen result in the patient attempting to feed on their own limbs or on anyone within arm’s reach.
“During the late illness stage, the patient will often go into a stupor, walk with an unsteady gait, and display slow reaction time. Respiratory rate declines, and in several cases, blindness has occurred. Not every patient will display all of these symptoms. In certain cases we have observed little to no aggression in the patient, except in cases of hallucinations; however, these are the exception and not the rule.
“The plague acts by infecting the cells of the body and quickly multiplying within the lymph nodes. The bacteria then causes the catabolic breakdown of urocanic acid and spreads to the brain and nervous system, causing hemorrhaging in the frontal cortex of the brain, which stimulates aggression, hunger, and thirst and suppresses the patient’s instincts for self-preservation. It also affects cells of the thalamus and cerebral cortex that perceive pain, making patients unresponsive to painful stimuli. The bacterium appears to eat through brain tissue quite selectively, leaving primary biological functions intact, such as heart rate and respiration.
“Our main concerns with FURY, and the reason you are sitting in your bunker right now, are the incubation period and the fatality rate. As far as we have been able to determine, the bacteria will lie dormant for between twenty-four and forty-eight hours before symptoms even begin to show. In addition to that, we have failed to find a single instance of an infected patient actually dying from the plague. It appears that after the late illness stage, the patient’s vital signs regulate themselves, and the fever will drop off, but the damage to the brain is done. This makes the likelihood of a wait-it-out strategy very limited in its chances for success. It does not look like the plague will burn itself out, but will likely go pandemic if initial attempts to contain it fail.”
The red dots around the four largest airports began to trickle outward. Dots appeared at the locations of other, smaller international airports throughout the country and spread from there. The map looked like a piece of paper soaking through with blood.
“According to calculations, if initial attempts to contain the plague fail, the probability of containing all infected persons is essentially zero, as they are infected for up to two days without showing symptoms. During this asymptomatic time period, they are extremely contagious. We must assume that we will be unable to stop this threat before it affects the entire population.”
Lee leaned forward in his chair and cupped his hands around his face. He found himself breathing heavily and his heart beating a step faster.
Probability of containment: zero.
“Operating as always under the assumption that we will be dealing with the Worst Case Scenario, we set the survival rate at nine percent, at least within the Continental United States. In addition to the lives taken by FURY, there will be widespread rioting and looting, which will lead to more casualties. WCS, we are looking at a complete governmental collapse due to the plague. The power vacuum created by the fall of the institutional United States government will be huge, and there are many crazy people inside our borders who will be more than willing to take control and kill anyone who opposes, should they survive the plague. If WCS occurs, you will be fighting a war on several fronts. You will need to protect yourself and your group from infection, you will need to protect them also from the violent tendencies of those who have already been infected, and you will need to outmaneuver the warlords who will be popping up across the country.
“Tactically speaking, you will need to keep yourself on constant quarantine. No physical contact with anyone at any time. Immediately decontaminate if you are exposed to physical contact with anyone. Prepare your own food and do not share others’ food or water. Wear PPE at
all times when in the presence of others, particularly if you have reason to believe they are infected. There is no known cure at this time, so attempting aid to the infected will be a fruitless endeavor.
“Again, be aware that due to decreased mental functioning, some infected persons will be unable to speak, and most will not be able to reason. Do not attempt to speak with infected persons. If an infected person attacks you, attempt to gain distance. Use firearms to dispatch hostile infected persons and avoid hand-to-hand combat if at all possible. When engaging infected persons, you will find that due to brain impairment, they don’t go down easily. We have many reports from police departments and municipal authorities around the country describing the infected individuals as overcoming apparently mortal bullet wounds and continuing to attack. Bring plenty of ammunition that packs a stopping punch.
“Also keep in mind that even though they have impaired mental functioning, the infected subjects are still human and still have some vestiges of basic predatory instinct. They can even prove to be clever, especially in the early stages of infection before it begins to affect their motor skills.”
Lee’s stomach soured. Was he being told to kill United States citizens because they were sick? Why not hospitalize them and attempt to find a cure? Yes, they were violent, but so were millions of mental patients around the country, and we didn’t go around shooting them in the head.
“This concludes the brief for Project Hometown regarding Febrile Urocanic Reactive Yersinia. Gentlemen, you are all that is left of the United States government. Good luck.”
Frank’s voice was rote. Just reading a script that some scientists had put together.
At the time he’d recorded this message, just prior to Lee’s restriction in his bunker, Frank clearly hadn’t believed it himself. Just more nonsense from the Washington Worrywarts. They always believed the Worst Case Scenario was right around the corner.
“Fuck…” Lee whispered. The screen once again faded to the seal of the United States Army. Lee stared at the screen. He sat motionless, except for the rapid pulsing of his carotid artery. In his mind, he had an image of himself taking out the thumb drive and throwing it against the wall, then stomping it into pieces. Losing control.
But instead, he leaned forward and removed the thumb drive from his computer, moving as though stuck in a tar pit. He placed the thumb drive back in the black box it had come from. He didn’t close the lid. He wanted something to remind him that forty-eight hours had gone by, that he had already opened the mission packet and watched the briefing. A part of him hoped that perhaps he would wake up the next morning and find the box closed again. Then he would realize none of this had ever happened.
A fleeting, pathetic thought.
He stood up from his computer chair and looked at the sealed hatch to the outside world and the plaque that hung above it.
THE ONLY EASY DAY WAS YESTERDAY.
Thank you, Navy SEALs. One of his instructors had been a Navy SEAL, as the Coordinators received cross-instruction from several different Special Ops communities. They never received a ranger tab, or a trident, or any other marker that designated them as Special Forces. But what they received was a vast knowledge of tactics and strategies and, most of all, a drive that never quit. Master Chief Reynolds had successfully beaten every ounce of quit out of the entire group of Coordinators and that was his favorite phrase: The only easy day was yesterday.
Sitting in shocked silence at his computer desk, he thought about the other Coordinators stationed across the country. The last he’d seen any of them was in late January when they had their annual get-together to catch up and drink too much.
Standing orders included that they never communicate with one another while on restriction inside their bunkers. Lee had never tried, but as far as he could tell, there was nothing to stop him. He looked at the bottom of the computer screen and saw that the Internet connection appeared to still be in good working order. Surely one of the others could tell him that this was all a mistake and that Frank had contacted them and there was no violent insanity pandemic sweeping the nation.
He sat back down and opened his e-mail account and found that it appeared to be working fine. He typed in the e-mail address of his closest friend, Captain Abe Darabie. His message was short:
You hear anything from Frank?
He left out the fact that he had already passed the forty-eight-hour mark and had opened the mission packet. He considered the message for a moment. If this was all a big mistake, he would be written up for violating directives. If it wasn’t a big mistake, who gave a shit about directives? And Lee had to know. He needed someone else to tell him this was real, because sitting by himself made it seem like he was just going crazy.
He clicked send. It almost solidified in his mind the concept that all of this was real. Almost. It was too big to just accept. He needed something more than a forty-eight-hour lapse in communication to make him believe that the United States of America had ceased to exist in the matter of three weeks. He waited at his computer for a long moment, then realized that Abe was probably not sitting at his computer, waiting for e-mails. He stood up and walked to the kitchen. He eyed the contents of his refrigerator, paying close attention to the case of Coors Light bottles. He decided now was as good a time as any to have a beer. After all, it was the Fourth of July.
As he twisted off the cap, he heard a tone from his computer.
He sprinted across the den area to his computer and sat in his chair, the beer forgotten. He put it down on the desk so hard it fizzed and overflowed, but he barely took notice.
Abe apparently had been waiting for e-mails.
Neg on coms with Frank. I’m at forty-eight hours… did you open your box?
Lee thought about it for a moment. There was no harm in admitting that he had. In fact, all the Coordinators probably had. He responded:
Yeah, I opened mine. Is this for real?
He clicked send, then waited. He took a nervous sip from his beer after the head had gone down. Cold drips fell from the bottle onto his bare chest. He ignored them. The reply came after about a minute.
I hope not… proly shouldn’t be talking… just keep your head down and wait for them to cancel us… I’m sure they will.
Lee read the message three times. Abe’s confidence that it would all blow over eased the jittery feeling in Lee’s gut. Although they were equal rank, Abe had more time on and more combat experience than Lee. Though Lee had done time as a Ranger in Iraq in ’03 and ’04, Abe had served as a Delta operative for five years in Afghanistan before being looped into Project Hometown. Most of the Coordinators regarded him as their de facto leader.
Lee didn’t respond to the message. He took his beer and left the computer.
* * *
Lee spent the remainder of the day watching a couple movies because he didn’t know what else to do. He went through several beers and carefully lined the bottles in a row on the end table. At 1650 hours the second movie ended and he realized he was hungry.
It was the Fourth of July, so he opened another beer and decided to grill up two porterhouse steaks that he had defrosted in anticipation of being locked in The Hole on Independence Day. He couldn’t grill them outside, so he cooked them in a pan. He cut the bone off one and gave it to Tango, who was waiting ever so patiently at Lee’s side. Tango made quick work of twenty-two ounces of meat while Lee took his time enjoying it.
At 1815 hours Lee was on beer ten and, in a rush of alcohol-fueled energy, decided more push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups were in order. After these he felt better in general. He felt pumped up and ready.
At 2000 hours Lee attempted to log on to redtube.com but found the server was down. He cursed himself for not bringing adult DVDs with him.
At 2030 hours he was on beer twelve and staring at the computer, willing Frank to call and tell him it was over. He would look like shit, unshaven, half dressed, and obviously drunk, but who cared? He was in a damn bunker.
A
t 2100 hours he decided to switch to water to avoid a bad headache. He moved to the couch and decided to try his hand at the video game console he had purchased but never played. He fumbled with the controls for a few hours before passing out on the couch, the game still running. On the screen, his video game warrior stood stoically in one spot while he was assaulted from all angles by a horde of enemies.
Eventually, the warrior collapsed and died.
CHAPTER 3
Thirty Days
Lee spent the next few days doggedly learning how to play the video games. Tango seemed to be feeling left out and spent his time on the floor, looking at Lee and whining when he needed to use the bathroom. Lee would pause the game, then take him into the back room where he had absorbent pads laid out for Tango to do his business. Lee would gather up the soiled pads and flush them. The toilet was like an airplane toilet and would flush almost anything.
The video games were a good distraction.
So distracting that Lee forgot to exercise for two days in a row. He found himself only occasionally glancing at the computer screen to see if Frank was there, trying to communicate with him.
He never was. Lee felt horrible for a few seconds after each time he checked the computer, and then he would refocus on the video game and push everything else out of his mind. Was this denial? Or maybe he was just being reasonable and avoiding panic. If he started to worry about things, then when it all blew over and turned out to be nothing, he would feel awfully stupid.
Eventually he stopped looking at the computer. He beat the first video game on July 10. For the next two days he punished himself for skipping his workouts. He did push-ups, sit-ups, and pull-ups every hour on the hour from the time he woke up to the time he went to bed. The time in between he spent reading a book or exercising Tango.
