Extinction Age (19 page)

Apollo darted after the stick Beckham
had tossed onto the lawn outside Building 1. Fitz snatched it up and tossed it
to Riley, who wheeled down the path. Riley reached down to get it, but Apollo
beat him there, grabbing the stick loosely in his jaws. Riley bent down to
wrestle it away when the dog suddenly backed up.

“Crap!” Riley said, losing his balance and toppling over.

Horn’s daughters chuckled from the landing of Building 1, but
their father bolted down the steps. Beckham heard Meg gently chide the girls
for laughing as he rushed to Riley’s side.

“You okay, kid?” Beckham asked.

Riley lay on his back, looking up at the sky, surrounded by
his friends. “Yeah, I’m okay. Everything but my pride, that is.”

“This coming from a guy who danced onstage at the Bing in his
underwear,” Horn said with a laugh. 

“What’s the Bing?” Fitz asked.

A grin broke across Riley’s face, and Beckham realized then
the kid was fine. The only thing bruised was his ego.

“The Bing is a strip club in the Florida Keys, and one of the
best places on Earth,” Riley said. He reached up, and Horn grabbed him under
both arms. Beckham picked up his legs, and together they hoisted him into the
air.

 The front door to Building 1 creaked open as they
carefully put Riley back into his chair. Beckham turned to see Colonel Wood,
Major Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Jensen, and four other men step onto the
landing. Meg moved to the side to make room, herding Tasha and Jenny out of the
way.

“Come here, girls,” Horn shouted.

They ran to their father, and he wrapped his thick arms
around them. Beckham steadied his breathing as Wood stopped on the front step
and scanned the lawn. Families were camped on the lush green grass. Red, Donna,
and Bo were enjoying a picnic of MREs under a tree not too far from Beckham and
his men.

Wood scowled and yelled, “Everyone, this is not a park! This
is a military installation! You’re supposed to be in your designated areas!”

Beckham swallowed hard, preparing for a confrontation. Wood
loped down the stairs and onto the pathway in front of Team Ghost.

“Master Sergeant, I expected more from you and your men,”
Wood said.

Beckham clenched his jaw and bit back a retort. After a brief
pause, he replied, “Sir, we’re waiting for your orders and I thought everyone
could use some fresh air after being cooped up all day.”

“You will have orders sooner than you think,” Wood said
dryly. He snorted and continued down the path, walking fast and leaving Beckham
to contemplate the words.

Team Ghost stepped up to flank Beckham. “I’m really starting
to dislike that guy,” Chow said.

Beckham let out a low whistle and motioned for Apollo and his
men to follow. “You heard the colonel, everyone. Let’s get inside. Sounds like
we’ve got another mission to prep for.”

-19-

K
ate rushed into the lab and took a seat at her
station. She keyed in her credentials and then moused over to a video with the
USAMRIID symbol.

Ellis pulled up a stool as the black-and-white video popped
onto the screen. “What are you doing?”

“Research.”

Lieutenant Brett’s naked frame came into focus a second
later, his body stretched into an X by chains attached to the ceiling and the
ground. Kate clicked the fast forward button and stopped as the camera angled
toward the three uniformed men that were studying the mutated prisoner.

“Can we zoom in?” Kate asked.

Ellis motioned for her to scoot over and then dragged his
chair across the floor. “This is one hell of an old video, but let me try
something.”

He punched at the keys and drilled down on the grainy feed.
Lieutenant Brett was looking up at the camera in the frozen frame, his eyes
crazed and bloodshot.

“Fast forward a bit,” Kate said. She turned up the speakers
and listened to the rattling of chains as Brett thrashed against his
restraints.

“Lieutenant Trevor Brett,” Colonel Gibson said. “Can you hear
us?”

“Keep going,” Kate said. The video sped up to the point that
it looked like Brett’s body was being warped. He jerked violently against the
chains. Then a second voice crackled over the audio so fast she couldn’t make
it out.

“Go back,” she said.

“What are we looking for exactly?”

“Focus on that man next to Gibson,” Kate said, pointing.

“Calm down, Lieutenant,” the man said. His bored, flat voice
was terribly familiar.

“This guy?” Ellis asked as he zoomed in further.

“Oh shit,” Ellis said as Kate’s suspicions were confirmed.

“Shit is about right,” Kate said. The footage was grainy and
pixilated, but there was no mistaking the hardened, pockmarked features or the
name Corporal Wood on the man’s uniform. He had been there from the very
beginning of the secret VX-99 project with Gibson.

The realization sent a chill through Kate. Somehow Wood had
slipped under the radar, his connection to VX-99 hidden until now.

 “I don’t suppose there was another guy named Corporal
Wood back then, right?” Ellis asked. “I don’t know much about ranks, but going
from a corporal to a colonel…Can you do that?”

“Obviously,” Kate said.

“We have to tell someone.”

“And say what? This is the only evidence we have of him being
associated with the VX-99 program. We can’t prove he was ever at Building 8 or
even knew about the development of the Hemorrhage virus.”

Ellis looked like he was about to protest, but then dropped
his gaze toward the floor. “How can we trust a man like Wood?”

“We can’t,” Kate said. “But we also can’t say anything right
now.”

“So what do we do?”

“We keep working.”

“What if we sent this to General Kennor?”

Kate almost laughed. “I have a feeling Kennor already knows.”

“Jesus, Kate. Do you know what this means? Kennor’s like the
Emperor and Wood is his Darth Vader,” Ellis said.

She couldn’t help but laugh at Ellis’s
Star Wars
metaphor.
She hadn’t felt much like laughing for the last month.

Ellis cracked a smile that vanished a moment later, his eyes
locking on the observation window behind them. The chirp of the wall comm
alerted her to the two Medical Corps soldiers, outfitted in all black, standing
on the other side of the window. Berg and Cooper had returned, and while the
glass separating the rooms was thick, she feared they’d overhead her
conversation with Ellis.

One of them—Kate didn’t know or care if it was Berg or Cooper—announced
that they were there to supervise all of the lab activity from here on out.
Kate felt her heart kick. The twins had already been monitoring her work, but
their brazen admission of their orders sounded almost like a threat.

“We’re heading next door in a few minutes to observe Patient
3,” Kate said, trying her best to control her breathing.

“We’ll escort you there.”

Kate nodded and turned to face Ellis, her back to the
soldiers. “Say nothing,” she mouthed.

“Ready to go?” Ellis asked brightly. “Got a lot of work to
do.”

Good, he understood
.

They quickly changed out of their suits and followed the
corporals. Kate glanced at her watch as they walked through the hallways of
Building 1. It was already eight o’clock. That meant they had only an hour to
spare before their call with General Kennor.

Cool night air washed over the lobby as Cooper pushed open
the front doors. Kate scanned the base for any sign of Beckham or his men as
they continued across the campus. Besides the heavy machine gun nest in the
center of the lawn, the grass was empty. Two bands of Wood’s men patrolled the
walkways.

Wood’s men were everywhere, monitoring everything. Kate
cursed herself for not being more careful in the lab. She’d been sloppy today,
and the truth she’d uncovered was as dangerous as any Variant. If she wasn’t so
valuable, she would probably have already been shunted off the island—or worse.

Now she had two of Wood’s henchmen flanking her. She eyed
their scoped guns, trying her best to remain calm. The only relief was the
sight of Sergeant Lombardi waiting for them at the steps of Building 4—although
she wasn’t even sure she could trust him.

“I was just about to radio you,” Lombardi said. “There’s been
a development.”

Kate didn’t bother asking what development. A high-pitched
shriek reverberated through the atrium as soon as Lombardi opened the doors. He
halted and glanced over his shoulder.

“Steel yourself, this ain’t pretty,” he said before heading
inside.

When they arrived at the main isolation chamber, Kate nearly
tripped over her feet. The Variant strapped to the metal gurney hardly looked
like the creature she remembered from earlier. She took a step closer to the
glass, her eyes falling on open sores peppering the creature’s jaundiced skin.
Swollen veins snaked across its body like rivers that were surrounded by lakes
of rosy rashes.

These were advanced symptoms of immune system shutdown. The
chemotherapeutics were working faster than Kate had ever imagined.

“Jesus Christ,” Cooper said. He picked at his mustache
nervously. “What the hell is wrong with it?”

Patient 3 let out another shriek and flexed every lean muscle
in its body, straightening like a board. Vomit dripped down the sides of the
creature’s mouth. It choked and coughed out a spray of pinkish blood.

Kate cupped her hand over her mouth as she watched.

“What’s happening to it?” Lombardi asked.

“Multi-organ failure,” Ellis said.

The sergeant jerked backward as the Variant suddenly broke
through the restraints covering its chest. Like a snake, it slithered out from
under the torn straps and dropped to the floor.

Lombardi cursed. He reached for his sidearm and hurried over
to the door.

“No!” Kate shouted. “We can’t risk that thing getting out.
Besides, I don’t think it’s going to last much longer.”

The other two soldiers fell into line behind Lombardi, their
rifles aimed at the glass. The Variant jumped to a crouch and scratched at the
sores on its belly. Its talons drew fresh blood. Instead of coagulating in
seconds, the blood flowed in a steady stream and began pooling on the floor.
The monster puckered its sucker lips and let out a raspy screech. It went back
to tearing at the rashes, but the monster’s one remaining eye kept searching
the room around it.

Hunting. Always, hunting.

Patient 3 stared at the glass. Before Kate could react, it
dropped to all fours and used its back legs to spring forward. It threw itself
against the glass, sucker mouth sticking to the window. Kate crouched down for
the perfect view of its wounds. Nearly every inch of its yellow skin was
covered in open sores or rashes.

The new weapon worked.

The Variant suddenly stopped trying to chew through the glass
and tilted its head to the side. Kate realized it wasn’t looking through the
glass but rather at its own reflection.

Letting out a melancholy whimper, the Variant slid down the
window and collapsed to the floor, leaving a streak of blood behind. It lay on
its stomach and continued to gaze at its reflection. Despite the monster’s
awful transformation, Kate recognized the flicker of sadness in its yellow eye.

Kate and the others watched for several more minutes as
Patient 3 took in shallow, raspy breaths. They came in increasingly shorter
intervals, slower and weaker, until it gasped one last time.

The Variant’s eye met Kate’s, and then the final spark of
life left its grotesque body. Kate pulled her hand away from her mouth and
placed it on her chest, her heart pounding. It had worked better and faster
than she had imagined, but unlike VX9H9, this weapon would kill every last one
of the creatures.

General Kennor sipped a cup of
lukewarm coffee on his way through the narrow concrete tunnels leading to the
command center. Pedestrians flowed in both directions. Everyone moved with
urgency, as though whatever task they were focused on was the most important in
the world. In Kennor’s case, his task
was
the most important.

Minutes earlier, he’d been informed that the scientists had
made a breakthrough on Plum Island. Whatever decision he made in the coming
hours would determine the direction of the war—and the fate of the country.

“Sir,” a pair of guards said in unison as Kennor approached
the massive steel doors leading to the command center. Kennor gulped the last
of his coffee as the doors screeched open.

He crumpled the Styrofoam cup in his hand and tossed it into
a wastebasket as he entered the dimly lit room. The three monitors mounted on
the front wall emitted a ghostly green glow. Five officers huddled around them
and watched a live feed from drones surveying several abandoned cities.

As Kennor worked his way through the stations, the officers
on duty stood at attention until he passed. He paid them little attention. When
he got to the monitors, he said, “Which cities are we looking at?”

“LA, Chicago, and New York, sir,” said a woman with short
black hair. She looked like she had just graduated from high school. Kennor was
accustomed to working with men and women who had experience under their belts,
not kids with pimples. It was yet another example of how strained their
resources had become.

Kennor watched the screens for a moment. They showed only
destruction and death. With a shake of his head, he continued to the conference
room, where he was relieved to see his confidantes. Colonel Harris, Lieutenant
Colonel Kramer, and General Johnson stood as he entered.

He took a seat and looked to Harris first. “Colonel, let’s
get started.”

“Yes, sir,” Harris said. He switched on the wall-mounted
monitor and then pressed the conference call button on the phone in the middle
of the table.

“Colonel Wood, can you hear me?” Harris asked. “Are Dr.
Lovato and Dr. Ellis with you?”

“Roger that,” Wood said. “I’ll let them explain what you are
about to see.”

A female voice crackled over the speakers. “General, this is
Dr. Lovato. We’re sending you a video of Patient 3 here on Plum Island.”

Harris clicked the remote again and the video flickered to
life. It showed a Variant lying on a metal gurney.

“The Variant you see was injected with our new weapon. The
results happened in a span of seven hours,” Doctor Lovato said.

Kennor pulled his glasses from his chest pocket for a better
look. The monster was covered in rashes and open sores that stood out brightly
against its skin. Vomit trickled from its swollen lips. He leaned in closer and
flinched when Patient 3 broke free of its restraints and leapt to the window. A
few minutes later, it was dead.

Dr. Lovato briefly explained the medical science behind her
latest breakthrough. Kennor understood less than half of it, but he did grasp
one thing: the weapon worked.

“Dr. Lovato, this is General Kennor. I have a few questions.
First and foremost, will this weapon affect humans?”

“Not like this. The antibodies attach to proteins only
expressed in Variants. The chemotherapeutics will have minimal if any side
effects on normal humans.”

“You’re sure of this?”

There was a slight pause before she said, “We haven’t had a
chance to test it on humans yet. However, since normal humans don’t have the
Superman protein, the drugs should mostly pass through their bloodstream,
although some might be passively absorbed.”

Kennor folded his hands together and examined his staff. “What
does that mean, exactly?”

Her reply came across muffled, but Kennor heard every word.
“It means it
might
weaken the immune systems of humans who come into
contact with the weapon, but it shouldn’t cause more sustained and permanent
damage like in the Variants.”