Brett Battles - Sick

“It’s the way the others refer to their different facilities. They each have alpha-numeric designations.”

“Do you know where this place is?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

Ash felt his world start to crumble. He’d been so close. He put a hand over his eyes, and could feel the pressure in his head building. He had to do something, but he didn’t know what.

Chloe touched his back. “Hey. We’re not done yet. There’s someone who might know.”

He looked at her. “There is?”

She hesitated. “Yes. A woman named Olivia.”

“Can we call her?”

Chloe shook her head. “We can’t call. We need to go see her.”

“Where is she?”

“Not too far, I think. Maybe an hour, hour and a half away. Matt’s the one who knows exactly where she is.”

Without even hesitating, Ash pulled out his phone and called the emergency number Pax had given him.

Rachel entered Matt’s office as he was finishing up his call with Ash.

“Did they find the children?” she asked when her brother hung up.

“The place had already been cleared out.”

“Oh, no.”

“It’s not as bad as it could have been. Winger was able to leave a message. They’ve taken the kids to someplace called NB7.”

“Is that on our list?”

“No. I checked while we were talking.” He paused for a moment, then looked at his sister. “Chloe suggested Olivia might know where it is.”

“Olivia?” Rachel frowned. “Even if she does, she might not tell them.”

“You don’t think it’s worth trying?”

Rachel looked out the window. Her history with Olivia was not a particularly pleasant one. “Does it matter? You’ve already sent them to the Bluff, haven’t you?”

He adjusted himself uncomfortably in his chair. “If you can think of any other way to find out in a hurry, I’m more than open to it. But, yes, I’ve already sent them there.”

Rachel stared at the distant hills, knowing her brother had done the right thing, but also not sure if she would have done the same if it had been up to her. Of course, truth be told, if it had been up to her, Olivia would have been dead a long time ago.

Finally, she turned back to him and set the paper she’d been carrying on the desk. “We have another situation.”

Matt read the message. “Damn.”

“I think there’s a better than fifty-percent chance we’re going to have to perform an extraction,” she said.

He glanced through the message again, then nodded. “Keep a close eye on it, and get everything in place.”

“I have a truck already on its way.”

He eyed her suspiciously.

“It’s going in with a CDC pass,” she said. “There won’t be any problems.”

“Still, an extraction’s going to be tricky, given the location.”

“But not impossible.”

“No. Not impossible.”

At Bluebird, a similar high-level conference was being held. The Director of Preparation-who, among other things, oversaw Dr. Karp’s work and the operation Mr. Shell was heading up to keep a lid on things-and two of his counterparts were meeting in a small room specifically designed for these kinds of quick, private meetings.

“It’s getting out of hand,” the Director of Recovery said. “We are dangerously close to exposure.”

“I don’t think we’re even near that point yet,” the DOP said.

“Don’t you? What about that video that the networks are blasting all over the place today? Those weren’t military troops doing the shooting. Those were our people.”

“Yes, they were. And even if they weren’t covered in bio-suits, there would be no possible way for the connection to be made back to us.”

“What were they doing out there anyway?”

“Their job.”

The DOR didn’t look as if he liked the answer.

“Is there a problem?” The DOP asked.

“Given the safeguards of KV-27a, it just seemed…unnecessary.”

The DOP looked at his colleague for a moment. “Are you worried about the deaths of two people?”

“Of course not,” the other man said quickly. “There just seems to be a lot of…glitches with this particular operation.”

“You’re right. There have been several glitches .”

“Starting with KV-27a reaching the public in the first place!”

“True, but I think that has actually been a benefit to us. As have these glitches. They’ve exposed areas of concern that are much better for us to know about now than later, don’t you think? If we had to do it all over again, I think I would have pushed for something like this to occur by design as opposed to by accident.”

“You’ve got to be…” The DOR fell silent.

“What? Kidding? Is that what you were going to say?” The DOP’s eyes cooled to hard steel, his voice cutting the air as he spoke. “The stakes we’re playing with are enormous. I can’t worry about two kids being killed in the desert. They’re not even a drop in the bucket of what’s to come if we’re to achieve what we’ve set out to do. The future of humanity is in our hands alone. That’s the oath we’ve all taken, or have you forgotten? Perhaps you think we need to change the parameters of the entire project. Perhaps you think we need to go easy.” He paused. “Tell me, how are you going to react when implementation day comes? Are you going to raise your concerns then, too?”

The DOR tensed. “Of course not.” He stood up. “Perhaps I was…hasty.”

The DOP immediately became calm and conciliatory. It was one of the abilities that made him an excellent leader within Project Eden. “We’re all under a lot of pressure. Don’t worry about it.” He offered his hand.

The DOR shook it, nodded at the silent third man in the room, then left.

As soon as the door closed, the DOP said, “He needs to be replaced.”

The third man, the Director of Survival, rose to his feet. He was smaller than the others by a foot, and one of the most dedicated members of the project. “Yes, he does. But he also has a point about the mistakes.”

“I know.” The mistakes were good learning tools, but the ones who had made them would need to be dealt with.

“What about the KV-27a safeguards? Any word?” the DOS asked.

“I’m told everything is on schedule.”

“Excellent.” Changing the subject, the DOS said, “Where are we on the vaccine?”

“Almost there. We should have a working batch within a few weeks.”

“Then we’re on to the next phase.”

The Director of Preparation smiled. “Yes, we are.”

By late afternoon it was clear to Martina and the others in the segregated group at Cryer’s Corner that Paul Unger was not just suffering from his wounds, but was also ill.

Coach Delger had said that if he only had the increased fever, then it could have been explained by his injuries. But there was the cough, too, and the growing congestion, all symptoms that had been previously reported in connection with the Sage Flu.

Martina was a smart girl. She knew if things played out the way they had everywhere else, she and the others in the segregated group would all be dead within a day or so. It scared her more than she wanted to admit, but she tried to stay calm because a few of the others were totally freaking out already, and someone had to keep their head.

It didn’t help that the news reported the virus had spread throughout the entire quarantine zone, including their hometown of Ridgecrest. And even though the correspondent had said the new outbreaks seemed to have been contained to a handful of people here and there, the sense of doom that hung over the cafe was stifling.

There was no report, though, on the fact that the quarantine roadblock had been moved from ten miles west of Cryer’s Corner to ten miles east. Perhaps they were the only ones who knew about that. And given the fact that the phones, and therefore the Internet, had stopped working not long after Martina uploaded Paul’s video, there was no way they could share that information.