The Susquehanna Virus Box Set

by Steve McEllistrem

  He slipped inside the CEO’s office, where Tompkins and Wilson stood beside the commander of the Elite Ops, Major Payne, who wore no helmet. Tompkins looked afraid, Wilson furious, Major Payne resigned. They faced a set of screens that showed the various entrances to the facility and turned to face him, moving in normal time. Major Payne aimed his Las-rifle at Jeremiah’s chest.

  Jeremiah stood still, ready to spring away should Payne fire, but almost immediately he realized that the major wouldn’t.

  “Shoot him,” Wilson said.

  “I couldn’t hit him if I tried,” Major Payne said.

  “I’ll have you stripped of your rank. You’ll be a buck private when I’m through with you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Give me the gun.”

  Major Payne smiled as he held out the Las-rifle for Wilson to take.

  “Seriously?” Wilson said.

  “You asked for the weapon, sir.”

  Jeremiah waited while Wilson took possession of the Las-rifle. Tompkins backed away. When Wilson swung it in his direction and fired, Jeremiah dodged sideways, easily avoiding the pulse. He dove at Wilson’s legs, knocking the man to the floor and disarming him.

  Getting to his feet, he tossed the Las-rifle to Major Payne. “Watch the door,” he said. He offered Wilson a hand but the man shoved it aside and got to his feet on his own.

  “I’m sure you gentlemen know why I’m here,” Jeremiah said.

  “You may have co-opted Major Payne,” Wilson said, “but there’s no way you’re getting out of here alive.”

  “He doesn’t care,” Tompkins said. “Can’t you tell?” He took a step forward and tapped his interface. “You don’t need to threaten me or use truth drugs or whatever. I’m disclosing my part in all this right now.”

  “He’ll kill us,” Wilson said.

  “No he won’t.”

  “Well, I won’t tell him anything.”

  Jeremiah stepped forward and placed two hypo-pads on Wilson’s neck. “Yes,” he said, “you will.”

  He waited a few seconds, then directed Wilson to broadcast everything he knew about the project. Yet even with a double dose of the truth serum and compliance drugs, Wilson fought to keep his secrets. Glaring at Jeremiah, his face turning beet red, the muscles in his neck twitching, his body shook with effort.

  Jeremiah pulled out a third hypo-pad.

  Major Payne said, “It might kill him.”

  “It might,” Jeremiah conceded. “But sometimes people have to die for the sake of a greater good. At least, that’s what Wilson would say. Right, Scott?”

  “You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into,” Wilson said as Jeremiah slapped the third hypo-pad on his forehead.

  His eyes rolled back in his head as he fell forward. Jeremiah caught him and lowered him to the floor.

  “Is he dead?” Tompkins asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jeremiah replied. “Why don’t you check and see?”

  As Tompkins bent over Wilson, Jeremiah slapped a hypo-pad onto his neck.

  “What was that for?” Tompkins said.

  “Have you broadcast every file associated with the virus?” Jeremiah asked.

  Tompkins hesitated, so Jeremiah placed another hypo-pad on his neck. “I want you to broadcast everything you have on the project, and I want you to do it now.”

  Jeremiah turned toward the door.

  “How did you know he lied?” Major Payne said.

  “He made a fortune on the dispersal of information,” said Jeremiah. “There was no way he wasn’t going to keep something back. Plus, he gave in just a little too easily.”

  “I can’t order my men to stand down. They’re tracking your every movement. They’ll attack when you try to leave. And they’re shooting to kill.”

  “I know. And the drones?”

  Major Payne nodded. “They’ll be here any second. In fact, I’m surprised they’re not here already. More than even you can defeat.”

  Jeremiah smiled. “I warrant the big guns?”

  His smile was returned, but Jeremiah detected the sadness behind it. He held out his hand and the major took it. “Good luck,” Major Payne said. “I’m sorry it came to this.”

  Jeremiah released the major’s hand, then opened the door and ran.

  Chapter 38

  Standing beside Lendra, Taditha Poole watched the developments at White Knight Security. Jay-Edgar displayed it on the screens in front of him. However, the cameras had only recorded blurry images of Jeremiah as he sped to Wilson’s office. That was the most amazing thing Poole had ever seen. Almost as if Jeremiah had moved too quickly for the cameras to keep up, and yet that wasn’t possible. Could these God hackers have been involved somehow?

  The screens displayed the information Tompkins had sent. Wilson was either dead or unconscious; they’d received only a trickle of information from him before the connection severed.

  As Jeremiah left Wilson’s office at a dead run, the security cameras tracked him. No blurriness now: he sprinted down the hallway to the stairs and leapt down to each succeeding landing, bypassing the steps completely. What he couldn’t see were the forces congregating against him on the stairway and the roof of the parking structure, hundreds of men and drones. Did he know just how many were waiting for him? Did he care?

  She had never suspected cancer. She’d assumed Jeremiah’s miraculous immune system would keep him going for decades, but from the data scans Devereaux had provided, the cancer was quite advanced, spread throughout his body, and it mutated with every treatment Devereaux had given him. That was why Jeremiah hadn’t given them any blood samples recently. He’d known that doing so would have exposed his disease.

  Poole returned her focus to the screens. Hathaway’s wife and daughter had been pulled clear of the jet-car and escorted to safety while Elite Ops troopers and White Knight security guards formed a semi-circle facing the door. Poole counted at least twenty men waiting on the roof for Jeremiah to appear. She couldn’t count the number of drones. The stairway below the exit to the parking structure’s roof contained another dozen men and twice as many drones, while down at ground level another mass of armed forces gathered.

  “Can’t we get some sort of warning to him?” Lendra asked.

  “I’m trying,” said Jay-Edgar. “I’ve sent alerts to his PlusPhone but he has it shut off and I can’t get it to turn on.”

  Poole said, “What are those weapons the security guards have? They don’t look like Las-rifles.”

  “Oh my God,” said Lendra.

  Jay-Edgar zoomed in for a second. “Infernos.” He zoomed out as Jeremiah burst through the door.

  The screen took on a red hue as laser fire pulses were sent his way, too many to count, a cascading flood of lethal projectiles. She found it difficult to even see Jeremiah as he dodged and weaved.

  He’d gone no more than a few feet when the first pulse hit him in the chest. Lendra gasped and Poole reached for her hand. The blow slowed him for less than a second, just long enough for another pulse to strike him, and then another. Pulse after pulse hit him, slowing him as he made for the jet-car. Lendra squeezed Poole’s hand.

  No man could survive what he was enduring. Poole wanted to turn away, to avoid watching this vital man being cut down, but she owed it to him to watch.

  Jay-Edgar zoomed in on Jeremiah’s face, contorted in agony, his mouth open in a scream. Poole issued a silent prayer of thanks that the sound was muted. She had no desire to listen to him dying.

  Somehow Jeremiah kept his feet. He should have died after the first pulse hit him, certainly after the second or third. Yet he stayed on course, propelling himself toward the jet-car, absorbing dozens of red laser pulses, some of them fired from Infernos. His face blackened as if he were being cooked. Tendrils of smoke wafted off his head as he pressed on.

/>   When he reached the pair of Elite Ops troopers standing before the jet-car he pushed them aside, diving into the vehicle as pulse after pulse hit him in the back. He fell forward as the door closed on him. How had he managed to close the door?

  The jet-car took off under heavy fire, its shield activating as it rose into the air, laser pulses now bouncing off the shield or dissipating into the energy field.

  “I can’t believe it,” Lendra said. “Maybe he’s going to make it after all.”

  Poole said nothing. No living creature could have survived a barrage like that, not even Jeremiah. And maybe it was a blessing for him to go out this way, with no one knowing the truth.

  As the jet-car accelerated away, the two Elite Ops troopers who had been pushed aside reached for their particle beam cannons and fired. The first one blew apart the shield. The second one struck the vehicle and sent it spinning out of control. It fell toward the ground in a spiral, black smoke trailing from it as parts fell away.

  The screens went black.

  “What just happened?” Lendra asked.

  “Everything’s offline,” said Jay-Edgar.

  “The God hackers?” Poole said.

  “I think so.”

  Lendra turned toward Poole. “Can he be alive?”

  Poole squeezed Lendra’s hand in what she hoped was a reassuring gesture. “I don’t know,” she lied. “He wouldn’t let me put any tracking sensors on him.”

  “He must be alive,” Jay-Edgar said. “He managed to take off. Did you see how he absorbed those laser pulses? He’s like a God.”

  “Get me Major Payne,” said Lendra. “Now.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  For long seconds Jay-Edgar worked the comm unit, trying to establish a connection. Poole used her interface to contact every member of the Analytical Department, ordering them to set aside whatever they were working on and devote all their efforts to finding Jeremiah.

  Zora and Curtik hobbled into the office, wearing hospital gowns and expressions of rage that reminded Poole of her time on the Moon, when Zora and particularly Curtik planned their attacks on Earth. They leaned on each other, looking ashen, Curtik obviously trying to avoid putting pressure on Zora’s injured shoulder. Thinking they might fall over at any moment, Poole rushed forward to help them.

  “Is he alive?” Zora asked.

  “We don’t know,” Poole replied as she put a hand under each cadet’s arm and guided them toward the sofa, sparing them the inevitable truth as well. “We’ve lost contact. How did you see what happened?”

  “God showed us,” Curtik said.

  “Sit down,” said Poole. She lowered them to the sofa, where they sank into the cushions.

  “We have to find him,” Curtik said.

  “We’ve got everyone working on it,” said Lendra. “Jay-Edgar, I need Major Payne now.”

  “Still being jammed,” Jay-Edgar said. “I’ve got a comm drone heading that way. Should be there in a minute. Hopefully, that will allow us to contact him.”

  They waited. Poole took out her med scanner and examined the cadets. Curtik’s scan showed the poison spreading at a rate that was likely to be fatal in a few days, while his pain readings were in the agony range. As for Zora, Poole couldn’t determine how quickly the cellular degradation would spread. But she also was in great pain. They tried not to show it, their faces grim with determination.

  Poole opened her bag and placed a QuikHeal bandage on each cadet’s neck, adjusting the flow of anesthetic to maximum, and the pain readings dropped slightly.

  “Thanks,” Doc,” Curtik said, sounding so much like Jeremiah that Poole couldn’t help but smile.

  “Got him,” said Jay-Edgar as an image of Major Payne appeared on a screen. He wore no helmet, his enhanced eyes seeming too large for his face as he stared off into the distance.

  “What’s happening, Major?” Lendra asked.

  “I thought I saw something flying off to the west,” Major Payne replied. “It might have been him. But by the time I got here, it was too late to be certain. Most of our electronics are fried so it’s going to take a while before we can regroup. It’s almost like we experienced a mini EMP event. I didn’t know that was possible.”

  “This God hacker seems able to do things we can’t.”

  “So it was him?”

  “We assume so.”

  “Yes,” Curtik said. “It was God. She told me it was her doing.”

  “She?” Lendra said.

  “God has been appearing as my mother lately.” He turned to look at Zora, raising an eyebrow.

  “He’s been appearing as Devereaux to me,” Zora said, disgust evident in her voice. “And he also claimed he assisted Jeremiah’s escape, but he refused to explain why he didn’t step in to prevent Jeremiah from being shot in the first place.”

  “I think I know why,” Curtik said. “She told me she didn’t know if I was going to die because it was a human problem that required a human solution. Maybe she thinks the same way about Jeremiah.”

  “Then why help him now? Why take him away from us?”

  “Maybe to prevent us from using his body,” Major Payne said.

  They all turned to stare at the screen.

  “Think about it,” Major Payne said. “All the advances we’ve made against the virus and with genetic enhancement—most of those have come from being able to use him as a guinea pig.”

  “That’s true,” Poole replied. “Even Devereaux used Jeremiah’s tissue and blood samples in his work. Without them, we wouldn’t have made anywhere near the progress we’ve made.”

  “But why would God,” said Lendra, “if this is God, and I seriously doubt it is, want to take that away from us?”

  “I don’t know,” Curtik said, “but I’m sure she or he or it has reasons.”

  Poole received an incoming message from Analytical. She shared it with them: “The jet-car has vanished. No satellite or drone imagery exists. It’s as if someone put a scatterer and dampening field over it. They found some of the remains of the jet-car where the Elite Ops shot it. From their projections, what remains of the car ought not to be able to fly, but there’s no sign of it or Jeremiah. They don’t know where to look next.”

  Zora said, “So we don’t know if he’s dead or alive or where he is or how to find him.”

  “That pretty much sums it up,” Lendra said.

  Poole let them have the illusion that he might have survived. There would be plenty of time for them to absorb the truth later.

  “At least there’s some good news,” said Jay-Edgar, pointing at another screen.

  Two robots stood outside the door of CINTEP. Poole recognized them as Devereaux’s assistant robots. They looked at the camera and the gray one said, “Devereaux programmed us to come here after we disposed of his body. He thought we might be able to help find a cure for Curtik and Zora.”

  “Let them in,” Poole said. “We’ll take all the help we can get.” She turned to the cadets. “Meanwhile, you two need to get back to bed. We’ll let you know if we find anything.”

  Curtik nodded. “I’ll see if God will tell me anything.”

  “I might believe it’s God,” Zora said, “if it saves Jeremiah.”

  “I might too,” Poole added, recalling the numerous pulses that had struck Jeremiah: dozens of strikes blackening his skin, burning him alive. Somehow he’d managed to keep moving, to get inside the jet-car and take off. Had that been pure adrenaline? A last heroic action, freeing himself so he could go off to die alone, like so many animals? Or had it been this God, assisting his remains, propelling him away from the battle even after his death? He could not possibly have survived. And yet, she hoped.

  Chapter 39

  Where were you?” Mei-Xing asked as she shifted the Las-rifle away from Addam and Kammilee, pointing it squarely at Aspen.
Her fierce glare made Aspen nervous. Chu Chan and Yu Huan continued to work, seemingly oblivious to what was happening around them.

  “We were in the hold,” Aspen replied, trying to stay calm, “putting together a healing paste for the organic computer that runs the ship.”

  “Yes, so they said. But you were not to leave the bridge. You had my orders, WT-916.”

  “Your orders were contradictory,” Lulu said. “The cadets could not both repair the ship’s brain and stay on the bridge. I deemed it more important to get the ship’s brain functioning again. And I wish to be called Lulu. Also, WT-934 wishes to be called Chu Chan and WT-935 wishes to be called Yu Huan.”

  Mei-Xing went still for a moment, then said, “Nevertheless, you should have checked with me first.”

  Addam and Kammilee lowered their hands. “Is that going to work?” Addam asked, pointing at the paste.

  “Not in time for us,” Aspen said, “and probably not in time for the ship’s computer either. Right now it looks like the process will take sixteen hours. The ship has less than two remaining.”

  A hint of a smile touched Mei-Xing’s face before the robot returned to a stoic expression. Aspen felt a chill run down her back.

  “You want us to die?” she asked.

  “It would solve certain problems,” Mei-Xing replied, “though I do not actually wish it.”

  “Can’t you put us into cryo-sleep?” Addam asked. “I mean, if we can’t save the ship’s brain?”

  “Good thought,” Kammilee said.

  “There isn’t sufficient power,” Mei-Xing said.

  Aspen said, “We need to get back to work saving the ship’s brain. Here’s the paste.” She held it out for Mei-Xing to take. The robot only looked at it.

  “We need to work on it immediately,” she said.

  “I’m not convinced this is best for the ship’s computer.”