Nicholas Smith - Extinction Edge

A Medical Corps guard opened the doors and Kate stumbled out into the blinding morning sunlight. Shielding her eyes with a hand, she looked out over the island.

Kate wasn’t the type of person to leave others behind. She never ran from a fight. But the death toll from her bioweapon had taken a piece of her. The numbers were hard to fathom, with billions of losses that produced a constant ache that wouldn’t go away.

She walked aimlessly across the island and paused to study the ocean, wondering what was on the other side. In the end, she’d done her job. She had stopped the spread of the virus but fallen short in eradicating the monsters. Now she could only wonder what the world looked like beyond the safety of the island.

The American military had shared the recipe for VariantX9H9 with their European allies, but the strike on foreign soil had come days after the US operation. Kate hoped it hadn’t been too late to save her parents living in Italy.

Exhaling a sigh, she continued through the hexagonal campus. The white domed buildings rose above her. She wasn’t sure where she was headed; her thoughts were muddied with guilt and regrets. They drifted from Javier, her brother, to her mentor, Dr. Michael Allen. They’d been dead before the missiles descended on Atlanta and Chicago, but if they hadn’t… they would have died from VariantX9H9. From her bioweapon.

Kate choked on the thought.

She didn’t fight the tears that streaked down her cheeks. Everyone had a breaking point, a moment where everything came crashing down. Kate had finally reached hers.

There was only one person left in the world who could make her feel better, and he was in the medical building nearby. For the first time that morning, Kate felt a sudden burst of energy. She finally knew where she was going.

Staff Sergeant Alex Riley couldn’t believe his luck. He’d built a career on his speed and ability to sneak in and out of some of the most secure locations in the world. Now he lay in a hospital bed, staring at his shattered legs and wondering if he would ever run again.

If it weren’t for Beckham and Horn, he would never have made it off that rooftop. Then again, he would never have made it out of Building 8 at San Nicholas Island without them, either. What were the odds?

Riley let out a sad laugh.

The noise woke Horn and Beckham. They stirred in stiff-looking chairs facing the foot of his bed.

“Feeling better?” Beckham asked.

Riley eyed his casts. “I’m happy to be alive. But my legs, man.”

“They’ll heal,” Beckham said.

“I thought you were toast, kid,” Horn said, his voice scratchy.

“Me too,” Beckham said.

“Shit. It’s going to take a lot more than some crazed shithead to take me out.” Riley laughed. “I would have been fine without you guys.”

Horn rolled his eyes. “Right. You had the situation under complete control.”

“Damn straight,” Riley said.

The three men chuckled. It was the first time in weeks that they all had a good laugh. It was like old times, but they knew that things would never be the same.

A rap on the door pulled them back to the grim reality of the status quo, where old times were nothing but memories. Kate waited outside, waving from the other side of the small window in the door.

“Beckham, it’s your girlfriend,” Riley said, jerking his chin toward Kate.

Beckham shot him an angry glare but didn’t speak. His narrowed dark eyes were enough to silence Riley. He knew what Beckham was thinking: Keep your trap shut or you’re going to stay in that bed even longer .

“It’s open,” Horn mumbled, scooting his chair to the side.

“Morning,” Kate said.

Riley picked up a hint of sadness in her soft voice. He watched her walk into the room and stand a few feet away from Beckham. The shadows of the dimly lit space couldn’t conceal her swollen, red eyes. It wasn’t surprising, Riley thought, considering she had killed most of the world’s population.

“How are you doing, Alex?” Kate asked. She hardly made eye contact with the men.

Riley forced a smile. He wasn’t used to people calling him by his first name. “I’m feeling much better. The pain meds here are killer.”

Kate nodded. “You can thank Colonel Gibson for that.”

“How’s that piece of shit doing?” Horn asked.

“He’s awaiting trial,” Kate said. “I noticed Lieutenant Colonel Jensen posted another guard outside his room. Must be worried about the man’s safety.”

Beckham stood and stretched. “I would be too, if I were him.”

“There aren’t enough soldiers on this island to protect Gibson from what’s comin’ to him.” Horn snorted.

Riley shuddered. His friends were right. The colonel was partially responsible for the end of the world. He had earned a spot at the top of the biggest assholes in the history of the human species list.

“Any developments?” Beckham asked.

Kate shook her head. “Not really. We have reports coming in from Europe that VariantX9H9 has destroyed around ninety percent of those infected with the Hemorrhage Virus.”

“And the ones it didn’t work on?” Beckham asked.

Kate’s brittle voice cracked. “Variants.”

“How many do you think there are worldwide?” Riley asked.

Kate rubbed her forehead. “The last projections I put together were from old numbers, but that’s all we have to go with. I estimate about seventy-five to eighty percent of the world’s population has been infected with the Hemorrhage Virus.”

Silence washed over them. No one spoke. Riley did the math in his head—if five and a half billion people had been infected and now ten percent of them were Variants…

“Holy shit,” Riley said. “550 million Variants? There’s one of those things for every three human survivors.” He let out a low whistle.

Kate cupped her hands over her head. “You don’t need to remind me.”

“Sorry,” Riley said. He reached for a pillow and propped it behind his back, wincing in pain.

“You did what you had to do, Kate,” Beckham said. He stood and put a hand on her shoulder. “You saved the human race.”

Kate glanced up, tears sparkling in her eyes. “I stalled the inevitable.”

“What’s that mean?” Riley asked. “We all know the world will never be the same. But even after we kill all of those things, we’ll still have people left to rebuild. Society, the economy, food production.”

Riley searched Kate’s face for an answer, but she pivoted away to stare out the window. She parted the blinds with a finger, letting the sun leak through. “The human race might be the next species on the extinction list after all,” she said with her back to Riley, Horn, and Beckham.

Sandra Hickman and Ralph Benzing looked exhausted. They sat in front of a wall of communication equipment in the command center, quietly skimming the channels for intel.

Lieutenant Colonel Ray Jensen paced behind them anxiously. Both communication officers were in the twelfth hour of their shift, and he could tell that the coffee was finally starting to wear off.

Chatter was coming in from around the country. Jensen hadn’t even started filtering the info streaming in from Europe. There was so much to process, but his priority was Plum Island and keeping his people safe. And there was also a larger mission, a mission that central command was still piecing together.

“Here we go,” Benzing said, cupping his hands over his headset. “I’m picking something up.”