RAGE (Descendants Saga (Crisis Sequence One)) (18 page)

Patient Zero

Scott Bishop scans his monitors from inside Laboratory One. “They’re not coming,” he says. “I’m not sure they can hear me where they are.”

“What do you mean they aren’t coming?” another virologist named Keigel asks. “I thought you got Holly Tavers to respond.”

“I did,” Scott says with annoyance. “It’s that guy, that same guy. He intercepted them.”

“The agent?”

“He killed the eighth hospital victim when she took off after them,” Scott says, his eyes remaining on four computer monitors he’s working between. His hands move methodically between mouse and ergonomic keyboard. He doesn’t even look down to orient his movements.

Bloody prints and smears remain on the clear Plexiglas windows that surround Laboratory One. The woman did her best to get inside. Being able to see them moving inside in their biological suits with air hoses trailing into their ceiling mounts triggered her need to get at them. Yet, the barrier is too strong. Despite smashing her head repeatedly into the clear panes, she did little more than break the bones of her face in the process.

A moment ago, something caught her attention. She retreated from the place where the virologists watch
ed her, showing up on one of Scott’s monitors. He tried to warn Holly Tavers, Dr. Albert’s assistant and a virologist herself, but they don’t seem to hear.

However, a man dressed as an agent killed the woman before she could
kill Holly’s group. None of them in the lab recognized the agent.

“What’s he doing now?” the third virologist, Asher, asks, looking over Scott’s shoulder. “Did he kill them
, too?”

“No,” Scott says. “He’s leading them away, probably back to the control room.”

“What about our cameras there?” Keigel asks.

“He shot the
cameras in that area, remember?” Scott says.

“What kind of a hacker are you?” Asher asks. “You can’t do this, can’t do that. You can do
something
, right?”

Scott Bishop fumes silently, clearing one screen of camera feeds as he goes to work.

“What are you doing now?” Keigel asks.

“
Something
,” Scott replies angrily, shooting a glare at Asher. “I’m hacking the system and bypassing the security lockdown on communications. We may not be able to do a lot with our own facility, but I can reach out to someone who can.”

Angela Sayers pores over data coming onto the large flat screen monitors in the War Room. This particular room belongs to MI6 as a division of the Government Communications Headquarters, also known famously as the Doughnut. The huge facility resembles a flying saucer in shape and construction, replacing fifty other buildings that previously occupied its location in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.

She watches
, with a stony face, the various civilian and military response units deployed in the city, as they attempt to combat this new threat to the UK. Somehow, and no one yet knows, a viral epidemic was unleashed. What they do know—they being a select few including herself—is very limited.

Two boys were admitted to St. Mary’s hospital fifteen days ago after an altercation near their school—Tom Kennedy and Jonathan Parks. The Kennedy boy sustained the lesser injuries by far. The Parks boy sustained a broken arm and multiple contusions. X-rays of the Parks boy provided physicians with proof that the boy’s arm somehow
healed itself before the break could be set in surgery. A contact on staff at St. Mary’s notified Dr. Albert of the Tombs Laboratory housed in the nether regions of Vauxhall Cross.

The next day, the Parks boy was detained by MI6 operatives and taken to the Tombs for further inquiry to potentially be added to Dr. Albert’s program there. The same day, the Kennedy boy became symptomatic for what virologists at the Tombs have since identified as a new strain of viral pathogen.

Tom Kennedy attacked at least eight members of the hospital staff, killing one. The boy and his victims were taken into custody by a special team, sent from MI6, and detained in the Tombs’ Biohazard Containment Facility. It was thought that all victims of the attack had been found and taken into custody.

However, almost 24 hours later, new attacks occurred in the Tube system on a train bound for
Westbourne Park. Over twenty people became infected and were killed by Armed Response Officers in the terminal. New victims of this attack were not known to be infected and were subsequently transported to local hospitals and a nearby police precinct—a costly blunder. Another attack then occurred, taking many officers and civilians in the precinct. Still more attacks occurred when infected officers from the Tube station incident turned while receiving medical attention. It spiraled out of control from that first missed hospital infection.

The one odd fact in th
is whole unbelievable scenario, however, is that Dr. Albert identified the boy, Jonathan Parks, as Patient Zero. After performing tests, when the news came about Tom Kennedy attacking the hospital staff, Parks was determined by Albert to be the source.

The boy is a carrier, but is not symptomatic. Dr. Albert
believes Jonathan unwittingly transferred the virus to Tom Kennedy during their altercation. And, more importantly, Dr. Albert believes a vaccination based upon special antibodies produced in Jonathan’s blood can provide a cure.

However, there is a newer development. The Tombs is experiencing a
n unidentified containment breach. Communication with their control officer remains unsuccessful. Normally, these situations are related to a viral pathogen loosed from one of the labs into the rest of the facility.

A
n outbreak requires a thermal cleansing to the entire lab and everyone infected inside. Pathogens kept in the Tombs, and labs like it, are too dangerous to be allowed the opportunity to infect mankind. A pandemic would wipe out humanity.

However,
the situation in the Tombs remains unclear. Communication is lost, and SIS doesn’t know what they’re dealing with yet. To send a team inside, without knowing what they are up against, might prove disastrous. Especially, since the Tombs lab holds the eight living victims of the hospital attack at St. Mary’s.

Angela peruses recent footage from the Tombs, particularly files relating to the boy. Jonathan is fifteen years old and
was in the custody of Mr. and Mrs. Harold and Jeanette Lemon, foster parents who cared for him, since the death of his grandfather, but never adopted him. The Lemons have no prior record and seem to be of little consequence.

Still, they are being held in a secure location. Their blood
was tested. The results indicate they are clean of any infection.

Lucky for them
, Angela thinks. She sees images of the creatures, making her shudder. She didn’t attain to this position in Government Intelligence by a weak constitution. She’s handled tough situations before, field assignments where only her and one other agent returned alive. Her employers value her expertise and consider her an essential asset.

The team working under her authority call
s her Medusa—a glare that could turn the most hardened agent to stone. She heard the name used once when people thought she wasn’t listening. Angela Sayers smiled to herself but never corrected them for it. This situation is different—mankind’s survival is threatened.

One of her techs calls for her attention.

“Monitor four, ma’am,” Richards says with a hand pointing, even though she knows already exactly where the monitor hangs upon the wall.

When G
CHQ decided to modernize with a brand new facility, she was the one to design the layout for this division. The War Room is her baby. From here, she spies on groups and individuals who have no idea anyone is even watching. From here, she coordinates the movement of teams all over the world.

A youthful face
, adorned with spectacles, appears on the monitor, looking toward the desktop camera on his end. The man wears a biological safety suit tethered to a ceiling mount that supplies him with oxygen. Angela never met the man, but her photographic memory recalls recent employee files she’s sifted from the Tombs.

“This is Director Sayers, Mr. Bishop,” Angela says through her collar microphone. “What do you have for us?
We lost communication with your facility after the containment breach alarm. What’s happened?”

“Director, it’s the hospital victims,” Bishop sa
ys.

“They’re loose, I presume,” Angela sa
ys, sighing.

If she
wasn’t facing Armageddon in the streets of London right now, she would be shocked. Yet, the matter in the Tombs is hardly a surprise after the past two weeks in the city. The real problem is the boy. Is he safe? Has Dr. Albert produced a vaccine?”

Bishop nods. “They’re loose, all right, but they didn’t escape. They were set free.”

Angela’s eyes shoot up to the monitor at once. “Set free by whom?”

“
Unclear,” Bishop says. “I’m trapped in one of the labs with two other virologists. I’ve been able to hack the network to get word to you. We’re watching a person on our security cameras. He’s dressed as an agent. I think he set the eight victims free and let them tear through our facility. He killed some himself.”

Someone dressed as an agent.

Angela becomes alarmed at this news. Why would an enemy infiltrate the Tombs now, unless—

“What about the boy?” Angela asks sharply.

“Dr. Albert’s Patient Zero is now with the enemy agent,” Bishop confirms. “Whomever he is, he made sure to intercept Dr. Albert’s assistant, Patient Zero and the two kids living in Sector Four. They are together. He got to them and diverted them from coming to help us in the lab.”

Angela worked for years with MI6 as a field agent. She kn
ows reasons why another agent would be sent for Patient Zero. For over a week, the world watched London descending into chaos. Other nations must realize this viral plague will eventually come their way.

If they know about the boy, then
it is because a mole within the organization fed information to those foreign governments. They will seek him for a potential cure.

“I want an image of this agent,” Angela says.

Bishop rolls through a video file on his end, freezes a frame, and sends the image through to Sayers. Half a second later, the image of a tall man with dark hair wearing a dark suit appears on the War Room monitor for Angela’s scrutiny. The picture is a little fuzzy, but Angela knows this man. She has no doubts about his identity.

In a way, she expect
s to see him. After all, the Russians and the Americans are the most likely foreign governments to know of Patient Zero. The Russians, however, are most likely to move quickly to take him. In this situation, only their best will do.

“Vladimir Nesky,
” she says coolly.

“Ma’am?” Bishop asks.

“He’s a
Russian
agent,” Angela says, so that everyone in the War Room can hear her. The gravity of their situation is made apparent just by that statement. “And he’s stealing Patient Zero.”

The War Room staff grows still and quiet, waiting for their director to formulate her plan of action.

“We need a team that can intercept Nesky,” she says. “And we’ll need another team when that one fails. Do we have agents in the area?”

The problem is two-fold. Armed Response teams and military units are busy with the outbreak spreading in
Central London. The streets are chaotic. They’ve already begun shooting the infected in a late attempt at halting the spread of this virus.

Then there is MI6. Its field agents don’t just hang around a water cooler at the
SIS Building waiting for someone to say go solve
this
problem. The agents often work abroad undercover. There are some in England, even some in London, but not necessarily of the caliber necessary to take down Nesky.

“Agent Divine has a team currently working
London,” Richards says down the row. He moves his mouse and looks up. “He was also the agent responsible for taking Patient Zero into custody at St. Mary’s in addition to the other eight infected by the attack.”

“So
, he’s worked the Tombs, and he knows the boy by sight,” Angela says. “And he’s close. Put me in contact immediately.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Richards says, dialing the agent’s cell through his computer.

In seconds, Agent Divine’s face appears on another flat screen, utilizing a two-way link between the War Room and his cell phone camera.

“Agent Divine, Director Sayers at GCHQ,” Angela says. “We have a situation, priority one.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he responds.

“The Tombs Laboratory is compromised. Our eight infected civilians have been set loose in the facility in an apparent attempt by Russian agents to apprehend Patient Zero.
You are familiar with the boy, Jonathan Parks?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he says, his voice concerned now.

“Employees have been attacked in the lab,” Angela continues. “Some are dead, others are likely infected and may currently represent a significant threat. The Russian agent has been identified as Vladimir Nesky.”