by A. G. Riddle
Beyond the caterpillar habitats, along the perimeter, heavy machinery and crews were building the rest of “Fortress Antarctica” as it had become known. Two dozen rail guns sat silently, pointed north, ready for the attack the Immari knew would come.
No army on Earth was prepared to wage war here—even before the plague. Certainly not after. Air power would mean nothing in the face of the rail guns. Even a massive ground assault, with cover from artillery from the sea, would never succeed. Dorian’s mind drifted to the Nazis, his father’s successors, and their foolish winter campaign in Russia. The Orchid Alliance would face the same fate if, or more likely, when, they landed here.
Soldiers greeted Dorian and Ares inside central ops and lined the hallways, standing at attention as the two leaders passed. In the situation room, Ares addressed the director of operations. “Are we ready?”
“Yes, sir. We’ve secured the assets around the world. Minimal casualties.”
“And the search teams?”
“In place. They’ve all reached the specified drill depths along the perimeter. A few had trouble with pockets in the ice, but we sent follow-up teams.” The director paused. “However, they haven’t found anything.” He punched a keyboard, and a map of Antarctica appeared. Red dots littered the map.
What’s he looking for? Dorian wondered. Another ship? No. Martin would have known, surely. Something else?
Ares stared back at Dorian, and at that moment, Dorian felt something he hadn’t in a long time, even in the corridor below, when Ares had struck him. Fear.
“Have they lowered the devices I supplied?” Ares asked.
“Yes,” the director said.
Ares walked to the front of the room. “Put me on base-wide comm.” The director punched a few keys and nodded to Ares.
“To the brave men and women working for our cause, who have sacrificed and labored toward our goal, know this: the day we have prepared for has arrived. In a few minutes, we will offer peace to the Orchid Alliance. I hope they accept. We seek peace here on Earth so that we can prepare for a final war with an enemy who knows no peace. That challenge is ahead. Today, I thank you for your service, and I ask you to have faith in the hours to come.” Ares focused on Dorian. “And as your faith is tested, know this: if you want to build a better world, you must first have the courage to destroy the world that exists.”
5
Atlanta, Georgia
Dr. Paul Brenner rolled over and stared at the clock.
5:25
It would ring in five minutes. Then he would turn it off, get up, and get ready—for nothing. There was no job to get to, no work to do, no list of urgent matters to get through. There was only a broken world grasping for direction, and for the last fourteen days, that direction had nothing to do with him. He should have been getting the best sleep of his life, yet something was missing. For some reason, he always awoke just before five-thirty, just before the alarm rang, ready, expectant, as if today everything would change.
He threw the covers off the bed, shuffled to the master bathroom, and began washing his face. He never took a full shower in the morning. He liked to get to the office quickly, to be the first there, getting a head start on the staff who reported to him. He always hit the gym after work. Ending the day that way helped him relax at home, helped him separate. Or try to. That was tough in his line of work. There was always a new outbreak, a suspected outbreak, or a bureaucratic mess to handle. Directing the CDC’s Division of Global Disease Detection and Emergency Response was a tough job. Contagions were only half the problem.
And then there were the secrets Paul kept. For the last twenty years, he had worked with a global consortium, planning for the ultimate outbreak, a pandemic that could wipe out the human race—a pandemic that came in the form of the Atlantis Plague. All his years of hard work had paid off. The global task force, Continuity, had contained the plague and finally found a cure—thanks to a scientist he had never met, Dr. Kate Warner. So much about the Atlantis Plague still remained a mystery to Paul, but he knew one thing: it was over. He should have been overjoyed. But mostly, he felt empty, without purpose, adrift.
He finished washing his face and ran a hand through his short, black, wiry hair, patting down any signs of bed head. In the mirror, he saw the empty king bed and briefly considered going back to sleep.
What are you getting ready for? The plague is over. There’s nothing left to do.
No. It wasn’t entirely true. She was waiting for him.
His bed was empty, but the house wasn’t. He could already smell breakfast cooking.
He crept down the stairs, careful not to wake his twelve-year-old nephew Matthew.
A pot clanged in the kitchen.
“Good morning,” Paul whispered the second he crossed the threshold of the kitchen.
“Morning,” Natalie said, tipping a pan and letting scrambled eggs flow onto a plate. “Coffee?”
Paul nodded and sat at the small round table next to the bay window that overlooked the sloping yard.
Natalie set the plate of eggs down alongside a large bowl of grits. The bacon completed the buffet. It was covered with foil, keeping the heat in. Paul served their plates in silence. Before the plague, he usually watched TV while he wolfed down his breakfast, but he much preferred this—having company. He hadn’t had company in a long time.
Natalie added a dash of pepper to her grits. “Matthew had another nightmare.”
“Really? I didn’t hear anything.”
“I got him calmed down around three.” She ate a bite of eggs mixed with grits and added some more salt. “You should talk to him about his mother.”
Paul had been dreading that. “I will.”
“What are you going to do today?”
“I don’t know. I thought about going to the depot.” He motioned to the walk-in pantry. “We could run out of food in a few weeks. Better to stock up now before the Orchid Districts empty and there’s a run.”
“Good idea.” She paused, seeming to want to change the subject. “I have a friend named Thomas. He’s about my age.”
Paul looked up. Your age?
“Thirty-five, for the record,” she said with a small smile, answering his unspoken question. She focused on her food, the smile fading. “His wife died of cancer two years ago. He was devastated. He kept the pictures up around the house. He never really got better until he talked about her. For him, that was the key to moving on.”
Did her husband die? In the Atlantis Plague? Before? Is that what she’s telling me? Paul was an expert at unraveling retroviruses, or anything in a lab for that matter. People, especially women, were a real mystery to him. “Yes, I agree. For anyone who has… lost someone, I think talking about it is very healthy.”
Natalie leaned in, but across the room, an alarm rang out, piercing the moment. Not an alarm, a phone. Paul’s landline.
Paul rose and picked up the phone.
“Paul Brenner.”
He listened, nodded several times, and tried to ask a question, but the line was dead before he had a chance.
“Who was it?”
“The Administration,” Paul said. “They’re sending a car for me. There’s some kind of problem in the Orchid Districts. ”
“You think the plague has mutated? Another wave of infection?”
“Maybe.”
“You want me to come with you?”
Natalie was the only remaining member of the Continuity research staff—the team that had coordinated the global efforts to cure the Atlantis Plague. Before that, she had been a researcher working in a lab at the CDC. She likely couldn’t add anything research-wise, but for some reason, Paul did want her along. But there was a more important issue. “I need someone to stay here with Matthew. I can’t ask you—”
“You don’t have to. We’ll be here when you get back.”
Upstairs Paul dressed quickly. He wanted to get back to his conversation with Natalie, but he had to admit: it felt good to be g
etting dressed for work, to be needed, to have somewhere to go. He heard a horn honk outside. He glanced out the window and saw a black sedan with tinted windows, idling, sending clouds of exhaust into the cold, barely lit morning.
At the front door, he jerked his trench coat out of the closet. On the opposite side of the foyer, a small table held a picture frame with a wedding photo of Paul and his wife. Ex-wife. She had left four years ago.
Is that what she thinks? That my wife is dead?
Of course. All the pictures were still up, scattered around the house.
Paul had the irresistible urge to set the record straight before he left. “Natalie.”
“Just a minute,” she called from the kitchen.
Paul glanced at the wedding picture again. The last conversation with his wife ran through his head.
“You work too much, Paul. You’re always going to work too much. It just can’t work.”
Paul had sat on the couch—ten feet from where he now stood—staring at the floor.
“Movers are coming tomorrow for my things. I don’t want to fight.”
And they hadn’t. In fact, he still held no hard feelings. She had moved to New Mexico, and they had stayed in touch over the years, but he hadn’t taken the pictures down. It had never even occurred to him. For the first time, he regretted that.
Natalie’s voice interrupted his memory. “In case they don’t feed you.”
Paul took the brown paper bag. He motioned to the picture on the table. “About my wife—”
The horn rang out, a long blow this time.
“We can talk when you get back. Be careful.”
Paul began to reach for her but hesitated. He reached for the door instead and trudged toward the car. Two Marines exited, and the closest opened the door for him. They were off several seconds later.
Paul turned and looked back through the rearview window at his two-story brick home, wishing he’d had more time there.
6
Orchid District Beta
Atlanta, Georgia
Paul Brenner stared out the window of the fourth floor conference room, trying to understand. Rows of people lined the streets. Medical staff processed the lines, taking readings and directing people to different buildings, where they wandered out exhausted. It was almost as if everyone were undergoing a physical.
“What do you think, Paul?”
Paul turned to find Terrance North, the new Secretary of Defense, standing in the doorway. North was a former Marine, and although he wore a close-fitting navy suit, he still looked like a soldier, his face lean, his posture rigid. Paul had met North several times via video conference during the Atlantis Plague but never in person, where he was certainly more imposing.
Paul pointed to the street below. “I’m not sure what I’m looking at.”
“Preparations for war.”
“War with whom?”
“The Immari.”
“Impossible. The Europeans crushed them in Southern Spain. They’re in shambles, and the plague is cured. They’re no threat.”
North closed the door behind him and activated the large screen in the conference room. “You’re talking about organized warfare. A war that resembles any past war.”
“What are you talking about?”
“A new kind of conflict.” North worked his laptop, and a series of videos appeared on the screen. Armed forces in black with no insignia assaulted a series of industrial buildings and warehouses. Paul didn’t recognize the locations. They weren’t army bases.
“These are food depots,” North said. “They have been under light guard since Orchid governments nationalized the food supply in the opening days of the outbreak. This last video is of the Archer Daniel Midland facility in Decatur, Illinois. Immari militia units seized it and a dozen other major food processing plants a week ago.”
“They intend to starve us?”
“That’s only a piece of their plan.”
“You can’t retake them?”
“Of course we can. But they’ll destroy them if we attack. That puts us in a tough spot. We can’t rebuild the food processing plants fast enough.”
“Can you get people to process the food?”
“We’ve looked at that. That’s not why you’re here.”
“Why am I here?”
“I’m going to lay out all the pieces, Paul. Let you make an informed decision.”
Decision about what? Paul wondered.
North worked the keyboard again. A scan of a crumpled document appeared. “This is an Immari manifesto that’s been circulating. It predicts a coming collapse of humanity. A day of reckoning when a cataclysm will occur. It calls for all those who wish to see the human race survive to rally behind the Immari cause. It lays out a strategy. The first step is the seizure of the food supply—everything from large food processing plants to farms. Second: the power grid.”
Paul began to ask, but North interrupted. “They’ve taken control of eighty percent of our coal reserves.”
“Coal?”
“It still produces over forty percent of American power. Without the coal, the power plants will go dark soon. Nuclear and hydro-electric plants will be online, but taking the coal facilities out will do us in.”
Paul nodded. There had to be some viral or biological component. Power and food… he wasn’t here for that. “Is there a third step in the manifesto?”
“Wait. The Immari promise that those loyal to their call will receive help—an attack on a scale the world has never seen. They promise the Orchid Alliance will be crushed in a single day and night of destruction.”
“A nuclear attack?”
“We don’t think so. Those locations are well-guarded. And it’s too obvious. It’s something outside the box. We have one clue. The satellites. Last night, we lost contact with every satellite controlled by the Orchid Alliance as well as the International Space Station. Private satellites are unresponsive as well. The first satellites entered the atmosphere this morning. The last of them will burn up and crash to the earth by nightfall.”
“Someone shot them down?”
“No. They were hacked. A very sophisticated virus got into the control software. We’re blind. The only reason to do that is if they’re ready to attack. The cataclysm, the Immari attack, whatever it is, begins soon.”
“You think it might be biological? Another outbreak?”
“It’s possible,” North said. “In truth, we have no idea. The president wants to be ready for anything.”
One of North’s staff members entered the conference room. “Sir, we need you.”
North left Paul alone to contemplate what he had seen. If the attack were biological, Paul would be the logical choice to lead the global response. He began mentally preparing himself. Scenarios flashed through his mind. His thoughts went to Natalie and Matthew. He would transfer them to Continuity—
The door opened, and North walked in slowly. “It’s started.”
7
CDC Headquarters
Atlanta, Georgia
Walking the halls of Continuity was bizarre for Paul. In this section of the CDC, he and the Continuity staff had managed a global pandemic that lasted eighty-one days and claimed the lives of almost two billion people. Eighty-one days of sleeping on the couch in his office, drinking coffee endlessly, shouting matches, breakdowns, and one final breakthrough.
The faces walking the halls were different now: soldiers, DOD staff, and others Paul couldn’t identify.
Secretary of Defense North was waiting for him in the main Continuity situation room. The glass doors parted and closed behind Paul, and the two men were alone. The screens that covered the far wall showed the same display they had when Paul had walked out fourteen days ago: casualty statistics from Orchid Districts around the world. They ranged from twenty to forty percent. All except one: Malta. Dr. Warner and her team had found the last piece of the cure there. It glowed green, the text “0% Casualty Rate” floating beside it.
>
North took a seat at one of the rolling tables. “One of my teams just picked up Natalie and your nephew, Paul. They’ll be here soon.”
“Thank you. I’ve contacted the members of my staff—what’s left. Once they’re here, I’ll start making calls to my foreign counterparts.”
“Excellent. I know they’re having similar conversations right now. So, first thing’s first. We need to get your root-level access code to the Continuity control program.”
Paul squinted. “My access code?”
North took out a pen and nodded casually. “Uh huh.”
“Why?”
“I was told only your codes could push a new therapy out to the Orchid implants.”
“That’s true,” Paul said, alarm bells ringing in his mind.
“It’s for security, Paul. You’re a point of failure. If you die, those codes are lost with you—and for all intents and purposes, Continuity with it. The whole system is worthless if we can’t administer a new therapy. We need redundancy.”
“We have redundancy. Two people have the access codes: someone on the team—someone I select—and me. No one knows that person’s identity. For security purposes. Imagine if the Immari were to learn the Continuity access codes. They could wipe us out in hours.”
“And who is that other person?”
Paul rose and paced away from North, whose expression had now changed. The other code keeper was dead. He had died with many of the other staff in the final hours of the plague. Paul had intended to select a new code keeper when the remaining staff arrived, but now he wasn’t so sure. “That’s all I can say regarding the code. But you have my word that we won’t lose access to Continuity.”
North stood as well. “We never finished our conversation at the Orchid District. We’re officially at war. We’re working on ways to communicate with our naval fleets, but they have standing orders to launch an attack if they lose contact with the Pentagon for an extended period of time. The bombs should begin falling on the Immari central headquarters in Antarctica soon. They’ve evacuated their facilities in Cape Town, Buenos Aires, and others, but they will be hunted. Fighting the Immari head-on isn’t what we’re worried about. It’s the coming war here at home. We estimate Immari strength here in the US at forty thousand, maybe a little more, possibly less. It was enough to take our food chain and cripple the power grid, but they can’t do much else.”
