Extinction Horizon (The Extinction Cycle Book 1)

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

  He should have known. Plum Island, Building 8, they were never to help find a cure for Ebola—they were built to produce a bioweapon that used Ebola as a vehicle to spread. In the end, Jensen had been used, too.

  And now he was in charge. He needed to start thinking that way. Tucking another wad of tobacco against his gums, he listened to the crickets one final time before waving his badge over the security panel. It clicked, unlocked, and he left the chilly night and thoughts of conspiracy behind him.

  Inside, Major Smith sat massaging the scar on his cheek, staring intensely at the security feeds from cameras around the island. The room stank of sweat and cigarette smoke.

  Jensen regarded him with a nod and then moved toward the wall of communication equipment across the room. Corporal Hickman and Corporal Benzing sat there waiting, their eyes searching him for orders.

  “First things first,” Jensen said. “It’s time to let everyone on this island know what’s going on outside.” He reached toward the PA. With a single push of a button, every scientist, soldier, and support staff would hear his voice.

  His finger hovered over the button while he pondered all of the things he should say. Every man and woman on this island had family out there. He did too, a brother and sister in New Orleans. Last he heard they were evacuating the city. That was days ago, and he knew the chances they were still alive were slim.

  With a measured breath he punched the PA to broadcast. It was time to take responsibility for the atrocities he had inadvertently helped to create.

  Static cleared from the PA speakers hanging from the ceiling and then came the muffled sound of his own breathing. He grabbed the mic and brought it to his mouth.

  “All personnel, this is Lieutenant Colonel Jensen. As many of you know, Colonel Gibson has been placed under arrest for his involvement in the creation of the Hemorrhage virus. I have taken command of the island. My first order is to lift the communication cloak. I know you all have family outside and I know you are all wondering what their fate is. I will give a full briefing at 0730 hours in the mess hall.”

  Clicking the PA off he said, “Corporals, see if we can figure out what’s going on beyond our little island.”

  “On it, sir,” they both said. They grabbed headsets, activating their stations with a few keystrokes.

  Jensen paced behind them, waiting anxiously. Sitting in the dark for days had eaten at him like it had everyone else. Everyone on the island was feeling the overwhelming dread of being boxed in, cut off from the outside world. This time the wait wasn’t long.

  Benzing pressed his headset over his ears. “Most of what I’m picking up is automated. Emergency broadcast signals. Evacuation routes, sir.”

  “Same here, “ Hickman added. “Wait…” She scrolled her frequency dial, stopping on one of the channels she’d passed over.

  “I've got something, sir,” she said.

  Jensen looked for Major Smith, gesturing for the man to join them. Seconds later a panicked voice bled over the channel. The speakers crackled as white noise surged over the line.

  “Does anyone copy?” came the male voice. “Is anyone out there?”

  “This is Plum Island, we read you, over,” Hickman replied.

  “Thank God,” the man said. More static broke over the channel. Hickman twisted the knob slightly and the line cleared.

  “This is Marine Staff Sergeant Bell. 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marines. Reporting from—” There was a pause, followed by the sound of distant gunfire.

  “Shit, shit. They found us,” Sergeant Bell said, speaking more rapidly. “Ferguson! Where are they coming from?”

  Jensen flinched as more shots rang out.

  “Fuck. We need evac!” Bell said.

  “Sergeant Bell, where are you? What are your coordinates?” Hickman asked.

  “New York!” Bell replied.

  Hickman frowned. “We need your coordinates.”

  Another round of gunfire cracked in the background, the deafening noise filling the CIC with the sound of war.

  Before Hickman could respond the line cut out. She glanced back at Jensen for support. Her eyes swelled with fear.

  “I had no idea it was this bad,” Smith added. He shook his head and walked away from the monitors.

  “This is only the beginning,” Jensen said grimly. “We need to keep trying.”

  Hickman nodded, slowly. There was a deep sadness in her features, and it was motivated by fear. He’d seen it in the faces of so many others. Hickman was young, probably only twenty-two or twenty-three years old, and Jensen knew that her training had done little to prepare her for the horrors they would face in the coming days.

  “Sir, I’ve just intercepted several messages intended for Colonel Gibson. They’re all encrypted. Looks like they were sent over the past seven days.” Benzing scooted his chair closer to his computer monitor.

  “Can you open them?” Jensen asked. He continued pacing behind the two officers, his eyes darting from screen to screen.

  “Working on it now, sir,” Benzing replied.

  A few moments later the man smiled. “Got it.”

  Jensen swallowed and took a seat next to Benzing.

  “Looks like the first two are from Deputy Director of the CDC Office of Infectious Diseases, Dr. Jed Frank.”

  “Bring it up,” Jensen replied. He repositioned his chair to face the right monitor where an image of Deputy Director Frank appeared. The video was dated 22 April. The man looked exhausted, his eyes both rimmed with purple bags.

  “Colonel Gibson, we have grave news. The virus is at pandemic levels and has reached Europe, South America, and Asia. Due to the rapid speed of the infection, our initial projections were off considerably. Here is a new and more accurate depiction of what we can expect if you are unable to develop a vaccine in the next week.”

  Jensen watched as a map of the world emerged on the screen. A caption at the bottom showed the date of 22 April. Red dots illustrated the infection. The United States was already peppered with red blotches. Europe, South America, and even Asia had small clusters of the virus showing up in major cities. As the time lapse began to work, Jensen watched in shock as the entire world hemorrhaged red. No corner of the globe was safe. It all disappeared under the shroud of red within a two-week time frame.

  “Jesus,” Smith said from behind them. He was pacing back and forth nervously.

  “Move on to the next one,” Jensen ordered.

  Benzing clicked on another video and activated it on the right monitor. This was from one of the Joint Chiefs, a general named Richard Kennor. He was old, nearing seventy-five, and it showed in his wrinkled face.

  “Colonel Gibson, we have deployed all of our resources to the outskirts of every metropolitan area in the nation, with the National Guard supporting active military units. Bombing runs will commence through 23 April. Hospitals and areas identified with major infections will be strategically located and eliminated. Our troops will then move in to clear out remaining cases.”

  Jensen swallowed a mouthful of chew, his throat catching on fire as it trickled down into his gut. He coughed and tears filled his eyes. He’d stood by and watched the chopper full of refugees explode over the island, and he’d heard the bombs going off in New York, but he still couldn’t believe that it was happening worldwide.

  A sudden moment of fear paralyzed Jensen. What had Colonel Gibson done?

  Feeling the sensation of being watched, he snapped from his trance. His staff was all staring at him, scanning him for support or strength or God knew what. Jensen felt sick.

  “Keep playing them,” he mumbled, his world spinning around him as everything sank in.

  The next video was dated 23 April. It was taken in what looked like a bunker. Concrete walls surrounded a small command center that appeared to be staffed by officers from all branches of the military. Deputy Director Frank emerged on the screen seconds after the video started.

  “Colonel Gibson, we need to know the status of your w
ork. Things are collapsing out here. The military has started retreating from major cities; their perimeters aren’t holding. The infection is spreading faster than we ever imagined. Those that aren’t sick are on the run. The military simply doesn’t have enough troops to destroy the infected. They just keep coming.”

  The next videos were much of the same. Explaining how the military was withdrawing and on the run. Europe, South America, Asia, it was happening everywhere.

  Hearing just how grave the situation was hit Jensen harder than he thought it would. Shit, it hit everyone in the room hard. The other three officers were quiet, waiting for his orders.

  Crossing his arms, Jensen walked to the window overlooking the ocean. “I’ve heard enough. I want to meet with Dr. Lovato before the briefing. Hopefully she can give us some good news.”

  The moon vanished behind a cluster of dense clouds as he spoke. A spotlight from one of the guard towers swept the skyline, illuminating angry storm clouds rolling in. Jensen closed his eyes. The irony wasn’t lost on him. The Hemorrhage virus was a combination of Mother Nature and man—the perfect storm—and he doubted there was anything they could do to stop it.

  -21-

  April 25th, 2015

  DAY 8

  There was no cure.

  Kate cupped her helmet in her hands and peeked through a fort of gloved fingers at her computer monitor in the lab. She’d worked through the night. Testing several rhesus monkeys infected with the Hemorrhage virus.

  Finding a cure in the past would have meant simply dealing with the virus, but there were two parts to the microscopic weapon tearing the world apart. The VX-99 hybrid nanoparticles had resulted in permanent epigenetic changes. And with the nanoparticles self-replicating they were spread every time the virus was passed to a new host.

  A flashback to the creatures in Atlanta reminded her that the infected were no longer people. They were monsters, and there wasn’t anything she could do bring them back.

  The sound of crunching plastic pulled Kate away from the results on her computer.

  Ellis stood a few feet away, stretching in his space suit. “What are we going to do?”

  Kate blinked, trying to focus on her colleague. Her eyes were glazed, her vision blurry. She was tired and tense. Her thoughts were a muddled mess of potential theories. And they all circled back to the one she didn’t want to admit.

  “In order to kill a monster, you have to create one,” she muttered.

  “What do you mean?” Ellis said.

  Pulling her gloves away from her visor, she stiffened. “Maybe Michael was right,” she said. “Maybe there is no way to cure the Hemorrhage virus. Maybe we need to create a monster of our own.”

  “I don’t like where you're going with this,” Ellis said. Dark bags rimmed his exhausted eyes. He brought a finger to his visor and rubbed the panel, like he was trying to scratch a phantom itch.

  “A bioweapon,” Kate whispered. “If I can create a viral vector system to target the endothelial cells in the infected, then perhaps we can find a way to stop the virus after all.”

  Ellis stared back at her with an incredulous look. “You’re talking about a weapon that will cause the victims to bleed out? To hemorrhage internally?”

  Kate pursed her lips to respond, but instead bowed her helmet to the floor and nodded.

  “I better tell Lieutenant Colonel Jensen,” Ellis said. “He wanted a progress report before the briefing.”

  Kate nodded, but she was hardly listening. “A monster of our own,” she whispered. “A monster of our own.”

  Beckham sat across from Horn and watched the man’s chest move up and down as he slept. He’d taken the news of Fort Bragg much like Beckham thought he would—by punching the nearest wall. It had taken Beckham and Riley's combined effort to restrain Horn from going apeshit and waking up the entire room of sleeping soldiers.

  When Horn had finally calmed down it was close to midnight. He’d woken up several times during the night, leaning over to Beckham and asking if the news about Bragg was really true.

  Beckham felt the overwhelming sadness trickle over him as he thought of Horn’s two daughters and his wife. He’d told Horn they would be safer at Bragg, and now he was responsible for their fate.

  But he wasn’t going to give up on them yet. Maybe by some miracle they had survived and escaped Fort Bragg. If they were alive somewhere, Beckham would find them.

  At 0715 the PA system barked to life.

  “Attention, all personnel. Please report to the mess hall for briefing.”

  Beckham poked Horn in the arm. He grunted and shooed Beckham's hand away.

  “Horn, briefing,” Beckham said.

  Riley jumped out of his bed a few feet away. “We’re going to be late.”

  Beckham hesitated, knowing that Horn was not in the mood for an argument, but he wasn’t going to let the man just lay there either.

  “Horn, get your ass up,” Beckham said sternly. “Your family could still be alive. Sitting around moping isn’t going to help them.”

  Horn slowly sat up, running a hand through his messy hair. He wiped his forearm across his face.

  “Let’s go,” Beckham said.

  The barracks slowly emptied as the other men and women left for the briefing. Beckham watched a group of Marines file out the front entrance and wondered what news Jensen had in store for them. He knew it couldn’t be good.

  Horn stood, grumbling something to himself that Beckham couldn’t make out.

  Putting a hand on his friend’s back, Beckham followed Horn out of the room in silence. There wasn’t anything Beckham could say to alleviate any of the man’s pain. His family was likely dead. He needed time to grieve.

  The cafeteria was swollen with staff by the time they arrived. Men and women representing every branch of military and mixed in with them were the scientists that Colonel Gibson had helped collect from around the country.

  He scanned the crowd and found Kate toward the center. Slowly, he pushed his way through the collage of color. When he got to Kate he tapped her in the shoulder.

  The woman that turned to face him looked like a former shell of herself. Dark bags hung under dark blue eyes.

  “How are you doing?” Beckham asked.

  “Hanging in there,” she replied solemnly, “How about you? How’s Horn?” She glanced over his shoulder to look for him.

  “Not good. He took the news pretty hard. We all did.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. After a brief pause she said, “I just found out that the Hemorrhage virus has spread across the globe. My parents are in Europe.”

  “Shit,” Beckham mumbled, his eyes falling to the floor. “Are we any closer to finding a way to stop it?”

  “I think so,” Kate said. “But I need more time.”

  Noise from the front of the mess hall pulled their attention to Lieutenant Colonel Jensen. He entered with Major Smith and a trio of soldiers Beckham didn’t recognize.

  Jensen wasted no time. He grabbed a mic and walked to the head of the crowd. “Good morning, everyone. I’m going to cut right to the chase. As you all know I’ve lifted the communication cloak. For the past twelve hours my staff has been working on figuring out what’s going on outside.”

  After a brief pause, Jensen continued. “POTUS is dead. Every major city has been overrun by infected. The world we all knew is gone. X9H9, or what scientists are calling the Hemorrhage virus, has spread to all corners of the globe. No continent has been spared. In less than eight days, the pandemic has infected over half of the world’s population. Projections show that in another two weeks over eighty-five percent of the world’s population will be dead or infected.”

  Several gasps echoed through the room as the crowd digested the news. Jensen waited for it to sink in and then continued.

  “Operation Reaper was launched to stop the spread of the virus. As you know, this meant the military targeted high-density population zones. The mission was simple. Bomb these targe
t areas and send boots in to clean up the mess. Unfortunately, Operation Reaper failed and now only a handful of military installations remain active and secure.”

  “What about Camp Pendleton?” yelled a man somewhere behind Beckham.

  “And Fort Bragg?” asked a Marine a few feet away.

  “Please. Hold your questions,” Jensen replied calmly. “We’re still processing the information and will get it to COs as soon as we can.”

  “This is fucking bullshit! You kept us all in the dark while the world was collapsing around us!” a woman barked from the front of the crowd.

  “Colonel Rick Gibson believed this was the only way to keep you all busy on finding a cure.”

  “I heard there is no cure. I heard this thing is a bioweapon,” came another voice.

  Jensen clenched his jaw, sucked in a breath through his nostrils and then raised his left hand. “What you've heard is correct,” he replied. “X9H9 was designed in a lab. In one of our own. Colonel Gibson has been arrested for his crimes and will stand trial. I assure you. He will pay for—”

  Chaos erupted. Angry shouts filled the room as the crowd swelled and inched forward. Beckham grabbed Kate and pulled her away from a shouting Marine.

  Jensen held up his hand and shouted into the mic. “Please calm down! You are men and women of the United States Armed Forces! Stand down! That is a direct order!” A vein bulged from his forehead as he screamed into the mic.

  The room instantly quieted. Beckham had never seen the officer lose control like that. But everyone had a breaking point, and after discovering his CO was behind the virus destroying the world, Beckham couldn’t blame Jensen for his outrage.

  After the mess hall had quieted he continued, his voice raspy behind his tightened jaw. “Believe me, I know what you are all thinking. But in the end it doesn’t matter where this virus came from. We all still have a job to do. We may be humanity’s last hope. Several of our scientists are working on a new bioweapon, one that will destroy those infected with X9H9.”

  “So there is a cure?” Riley shouted.

  Jensen paused and collected himself as he searched the room. “Doctor Lovato, are you here?”