Torn (43 page)

He reached
for the phone when he heard the screaming outside.

Not just one person screaming, but many. What was going on? His window was
directly behind his bed. No
sooner did his arm
reach for the blind, he
hear
d
the screeching of tires, followed by one
crash
, then another.

Sirens.

Eye shifting to the alarm clock, Armando noticed the
time
.

He
had been passed out for more than an hour.

Audible
pandemonium
flowed to him, and with his forefinger and
thumb,
he parted
the blinds
.

Armando gasped.

The phone toppled from his hand.

People
ran
amuck
,
a
rms flailing, legs kicking. From them snakes hung,
clinging
with their
fangs
;
some
had
slithered
up
their
bodies
.

They ran, but to where? Covering
every
thing
, every
inch
of grass and
pavement
,
were snakes. Black, brown, green. Snakes.

Like thick, black tar th
at
rained from the roofs.

Still not understanding where the people were running, Armando
praised
the safety of his home.

But that was short
-
lived.

No sooner did he sigh out in the thought of his household
sanctuary
, he hear
d
the loud
orchestra
of hissing.

Slowly
he turned from the window to see that he was no better off than those outside.

Snakes had taken over his room.

The whisper was so soft it was barely
heard. But Darius knew what Colin said.

“
Snakes
?”

“Snakes,” Darius replied
,
s
h
owing him the text message.

Immediately
Colin’s
eyes shifted forward, even though he leaned sideways in his stadium-style seat.

Forward to the presentation on the floor.

They sat in the back of the auditorium in Washington. The
first speaker was at the table on the floor
before the panel of experts.

He didn’t look at the experts
;
he looked at the speaker.

Not ten minutes earlier, he and Darius were making fun of the speaker.

Doodling notes.

Poking fun at how the presenter was going to present his solution.

It was going to be interesting, considering he believed it was God’s end.

God’s end.

If that were
true,
then there really wasn’t a solution and the presenter was wasting the time of everyone in the room.

But the text from Bret to Darius saying
‘
Snakes invaded Las Vegas
’
caused a bit of a cringe in Colin.

It was biblical.

And it didn’t take long for the ‘snake’ news to reach the panel.

He only hoped that the snakes were
n’t
going to be a
deciding
point
for the
panel
. If they decided it was all God’s end, then they would take no precaution
s
.

And that wasn’t good.

Something had to be done. Colin hoped it was his idea.
He
was certain it would work.

And he
wasn’t
that far from
the time
to present
his report.

He
shifted his eyes back to Darius who was in a teenage text
ing
frenzy with Bret.

Then Colin listened, watched the panel for
what
worked, what piqued the
ir attention
, and Colin learned more on what he should do.

What was he like before
hand? Martin wondered as he peered
through the observation window
of the sick bay. Inside the medical room a man,
estimated
swollen twice his normal size, lay
labor
ing
in his breathing. A nurse
in
a
biohazard
suit took his blood.

Carefully. Martin saw her apprehension, eve
n
th
rough
the window.

The nurse wasn’t experienced in it.

Martin wasn’t ready to fly immediately to the special facility in Nevada. But when it rained snakes or rather, the gr
ound erupted
with
snakes, he had to
go. As the observer.
Despite
how much he had to get ready.

The events unfolding in the world were making people antsy.
He
had hoped the conference would settle things. But with odd things like the snakes, people would panic. Put
pressure
on the system.

God help everything if it got out
that
the world was faced with extinction.

What was he like? Martin wondered again.

“He’s one of many,” the male voice spoke from behind him.

In
the glass, Martin caught the reflection of Ben King, chief virologist on board.

Martin turned
around
.
“Excuse me?”

“H
e’s one of many
. Anyone that was bit, got this.
”

Shaking his head slowly,
Martin
mustered
up a confused look. “How? Why? Are the
re
unknown
viruses carried by
snakes
?”

“
There are many viruses that
snakes
carry
, but
n
one to my knowl
edge that they transmit. Hantavirus
they help to control. This is showing signs of this, but
it’s
different
.”

“What is God’s name?”

“
Exactly
,” Ben said. “Exactly.”

Martin wanted to scoff.
Was Ben getting religious? Was he joining the masses on the Book of Revelation train
?

“Nature’s going crazy
.
” Ben said. “New virus
es
we
re born every
day before all this insanity
.
Now
the
heated temperature
is
just a
fertile
ground for them.”

“Is
he going to die?” Martin asked.

“Look
s
like Armando
Gonzales
, at the rate his vitals are dropping, will
not make
it through the night. We have about ten percent of the people bitten that are recovering.”

“Everyone bit
ten
is infected?”

Martin nodded. “Ten percent beat it.”

“Holy shit
,
a ninety percent
fatality
.”

“Good news
. . .
”

“Good news?”

“Good news, we don’t think it’s airborne. It’s a level four though. And contained.”

At that Martin did scoff. Contained? He turned and looked at Armando in the bed. How in the world could Ben
declare
the virus contained?
Maybe
in that one
incident
. But if the
snakes
in
Nevada
carried it, then chances are others did too. And
maybe
it wasn’t just
limited to snakes.

That thought scared Martin.

Grace yammered in the background while Bret tried to talk on the phone to Virginia. But it was a fitting topic that Darius’
mother brought
up.

Food.

She was preaching to the kids that they were too thin and had to learn to eat other foods
besides
r
amen noodles.

Bret didn’t want to be the one to break it to Grace that the
y had in storage 3200 packs of ramen noodles,
i
f not more.

“Rob’s on the phone with the company now,” Virginia said. “Do we know why?”

“All I know is Colin ordered the rest of the warehouse emptied and the supplies will be
en route
to you by midnight.”

“C
an we trust the drivers?”

“What do you mean?”

“Everything is going to shit;
can we trust the drivers to get us our food and water
, o
r at least the
rest
of it
?
”

“Absolutely,” Bret assured. “Bruce got the drivers
,
a
ll fifteen of them. That
should
be the last of the trips.”

“Good. Good. Rob said it’ll take him forever to keep up with the stock that arrived.”

“At least we’re ahead of the game.”

“All
that’s
left is the
personal
effects.”

“Which
we really
don’t need if it came
down
to a rush move,” Bret said.

Virginia
sighed out heavily. It carried over the phone. “I feel tense. I’m glad we decided to move everything here now instead of
in
September like originally
planned
.”

“It costs a lot to do so, but
. . .
I agree.”

“With this conference, and snakes, people are gonna panic. It’s only a matter of time before hoarding laws
go
into effect and bottled water will be ten bucks a bottle.”

“If we stick with the seventy
or
so people as planned, we’ll be good until the
seedlings
take
hold.”

“Invites?”
Virginia
asked.

“Colin said not yet. They are ready to go. One mass email.”

“I guess we don’t want it
to get out what we’re doing or
. . .
”
she paused.

Over the phone Bret heard it, a series of beeps. “What’s that?”

“Shit. It’s my friend Lin sending me an emergency signal.”

“Lin? Why?”

“I think we have another
flare
.”

When the word gigaton was
spoken
by
Darius
, there was a gasp amongst the scientists, and even though the senator covered the microphone, it was very evident he didn’t understand.
That simple word was more reaction than the complete silence following his mini
-
movie.

“What the heck is he talking about?” the senator asked.

A whisper in his ear, and the senator’s eyes widened.

He balked and Senator Harrington asked his advisor, “How much is that?

Immediately, papers shuffled as if every scientist in the world was trying to
figure
out
the equation.

Darius
leaned into the microphone, “That would be
three trillion, nine-hundred
s
ixty-nine million, nine hundred
tons of TNT or about fourteen thousand 300 KT bombs.
Which is about half the world
’s
arsenal
.
”

“
You’re
serious.
Half the world’s arsenal?
Do you realize how big of a hole that would
cause
?
”

“They,” Darius corrected. “I want to set them off at opposite ends of the world. Now I realize that many of my
colleagues
would argue that
such an explosion could ignite
a fireball that would rip
through
the sky
and
burn out our
atmosphere
,
but
I don’t believe that
to be
the case.
At
most,
the negative effects
would
be a nuclear winter for about 18 months
brought
on by
debris
in the
atmosphere
.
We are experiencing a magnetic
reversal
;
the
devastation coming our way
is nothing compared to
that
. The ice age to follow is nothing compared to that. We
pick
the less
er
of the evils. Two
years
of cold with a little radiation.”

The
senator
mouthed the words “A little
radiation
.”

Darius
continued. “Or a thousand years of frozen
tundra
. Which most of us wouldn’t or
shouldn’t
worry about, because we’d more than likely die before the ice hits.”

Senator
Harrington
cleared his throat. “We have all your research, figures, data, and information. Thank you, Professor Cobb.”

Darius
turned to Colin, knowing Colin was next.

Colin
raised
his
eyebrows
and whispered to
Darius
as Darius gathered his
things
,
“A
little
radiation.”

Darius
shrugged then he and Mark stood.

“Professor Cobb,” Senator Harrington spoke up.

Darius
paused. “Yes.”

“Although we are impressed with your research and presentation
,
i
n the future, to drive home a more effective case, you may want to try
P
ower
P
oint.”

Colin
snickered
.

Darius sho
t him a glance
and then
spoke
.
“Thank you
,
Senator. But I don’
t think that’s a problem. Cave m
en have no
need
for
P
ower
P
oint.”

“What do you mean?”

“If we don’t do something, t
here is no technological future. Those who remain will revert to cavemen days.
Drawings
on the wall, sticks and stones, and uga-uga-uga
-
chug
-
a.”

The Senator cho
ked out a
cough
. “Thank you.”

A
nod
and Darius turned to Colin who was staring. “You’re next. Good luck.”

“I can tell
you, after the lack of
P
ower
P
o
int and that uga
-
chugga comment,” Colin winked. “You set my
stage
.” He smirked. “Uga
-
chuga.”

Darius watched from his seat
as
he bit his nails, tiny bites so they
lasted
.

Colin had them. The attention of everyone in the room.

“High
Frequency
Active Aural Research Project,” Colin explained. “
Or
HAARP.” His
P
ower
P
oint display showed on the projection screen as he spoke. “Magnetic reversals are causing massive destruction. Can this be stopped? Although some of my
colleagues
believe it can be, I do not. The worst destruction will come from the final outcome. We as a people can bounce back from explosions,
tidal
waves, earthquakes, volcanoes and attacking Chi
huahuas.
…”