Nicholas Smith - Extinction Horizon

No matter how he justified the past fifty years in his mind, the irony bled through. The bioweapon he’d ordered Medford to create wasn’t saving American soldiers’ lives—it was turning them into monsters, along with billions of innocent civilians.

The colonel closed his eyes, filled with an overwhelming guilt that tugged at his core. He’d known at the beginning of the Vietnam War that it was lost. Many would call him crazy for his actions, but in reality he was logical. Now he was starting to wonder if this new war was lost too. Operation Reaper had failed miserably. The military had retreated from all major population zones. They were losing the country city by city.

Gibson stepped up to the glass, concentrating on the boy. His pale skin glistened under the lights, clean from the decon shower. As Gibson looked closer, he saw the symptoms of the Hemorrhage virus were already reemerging. Blood oozed from under his eyelids and trickled from his nose. Red blotches lined his naked arms and legs.

It was his fault that the innocent kid had transformed into a monster, but that was never his intention. Goddamnit, he had only wanted to save lives! To protect the country he loved so dearly.

War had changed since Vietnam. Like the boy in front of him, it had evolved. America had new enemies, enemies that were merciless and brutal. Terrorist groups would stop at nothing to inflict harm on the country he loved so much. The military had done everything to take the battle to foreign soil, but the blood of too many American soldiers had already stained the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan. VX-99 was supposed to end all of that. The bioweapon was supposed to be killing terrorists and then fizzling out before anyone knew what had happened.

Instead, Gibson was staring at a child infected with the viral monster Doctor Medford had inadvertently created. Gritting his teeth, he looked away from the glass. It was only a matter of time before one of the scientists on the island discovered the truth. Hell, he would have told them the truth and explained how the virus worked if he had known. But he didn’t. That’s why he had sent the Delta Force team in days before to collect a sample.

Sighing, Gibson forced himself back to the window. Watching the struggling boy, his troubled mind had a second of intense clarity. In that moment he knew one thing for sure. He was responsible for the end of the world, and he could only pray that Doctor Lovato and the other scientists would find a cure before it was too late.

With his head tucked against his chest, Beckham moved at a half-run along the concrete path leading across the island. A steady and cold drizzle beat against his bare face. He yawned, still exhausted from their mission to recover the infected child.

He stopped to take in the view of the two guard towers on the north side of the island. The concrete structures protruded out of the ground, large spotlights sweeping the shoreline beyond. A random flash of lightning lit up the skyline and illuminated the fortress of walls built around the hexagon-shaped base. He suddenly felt like a prisoner trapped inside a maximum-security prison.

But soon that would all change. He was on his way to meet with Gibson and secure their ride back to Fort Bragg.

Thunder boomed in the distance, rattling the ground as Beckham continued walking. He approached a pair of guards standing outside the administration building with his badge at eye level.

One of them, a skinny, dark-skinned man, stepped under the light and studied it. He looked at Beckham’s face, and then nodded. “All clear, Master Sergeant.”

Inside, another pair of guards waited. They repeated the same process. “Follow us, please, Master Sergeant,” one of them said.

Beckham peered into each office as they walked. They were all empty, the lights inside dim. When they reached the far end of the hall, the two soldiers stopped. The smaller of the two gestured toward the last door in the hall; just then, alarmed voices rang out behind them.

The guard unstrapped his rifle. “I’ll check it out,” he said, nodding at the other soldier.

Beckham stiffened and listened.

“I want to see Colonel Gibson.” The raised voice was familiar. Female.

“Kate?” Beckham whispered. He took a step back from the door. There she was, at the other end of the hallway, arguing with the first two guards in her best Don’t fuck with me right now voice. Ellis stood behind her sheepishly, his mouth moving but no words coming out.

“You’re not listening, doctor. You can’t see Colonel Gibson,” the guard on the left said.

“No. You’re not listening!” Kate replied.

Beckham decided to intervene.

“I’m sorry, Doctor Lovato, but—” the soldier began to say when Beckham put his hand on the man’s thick shoulder.

“Let her through,” Beckham said.

The man regarded him with a quick glance and then backed away.

Kate and Ellis shoved past the man. Both of them were breathing hard, like they had run the entire way to the building.

“What’s this all about?” Beckham asked.

“You’re about to find out,” Kate replied. Her face was flushed red. She walked briskly toward the colonel’s office and entered without knocking; Beckham followed right behind her.

Inside Gibson was standing, his arms crossed, his features darkened. “Doctors,” he said in a low voice.

Beckham stood in the doorway, blocking the two guards from entering. He crossed his arms and waited.

“We know,” Kate said. “Did you really think the truth wouldn’t come out?”

Gibson exhaled a deep sigh that sounded like relief more than dread. Then he slowly sat down in his chair and reached for a pack of cigarettes. He jammed one in his mouth and said, “I knew you would find out.”

Kate shook nervously as she spoke. “The Hemorrhage virus is a bioweapon, a weapon that you had designed.”

Beckham stepped forward. “What’s she talking about, Colonel?”

The man held up a hand. “Let her finish.”

Kate glanced back at Beckham with a look of uncertainty. He gave her the shortest of nods and she took a step closer to Gibson’s desk.

“Doctor Medford created a hybrid nanostructure by bonding nanoparticles loaded with VX-99 to a genetically modified Ebola virus. At first we didn’t see them. I suspect that was the point. The weapon was supposed to be untraceable. And with the endothelial cells reacting differently than they do in other strands of Ebola, I was almost convinced he had created a partial cure. I had my suspicions, but I had secretly hoped that the other scientists were right, that he was working on a cure and had created the Hemorrhage virus by accident.”

Catching her breath, Kate shook a finger and then continued, speaking more rapidly. “But what didn’t make sense were the other changes. The sucker mouths, the distorting of the bodies, the vertical pupils, the morphed hands and feet. Nothing made sense. It wasn’t until we sent samples to Toxicology that we discovered the truth. It was then we found the epigenetic changes.” Her hands shook as she approached the colonel’s desk.

“That weapon!” she choked. “Your weapon!” She narrowed her eyes. “It turned my brother into a monster! It killed Michael, and it’s rapidly killing the rest of the world!”

Beckham put a hand on Kate’s left arm. She was shaking uncontrollably now.

“And you!” Kate pointed a finger at Gibson. “You were the one that ordered Doctor Medford to design the bioweapon.”

“I fucking knew it,” Beckham said. He stood by Kate’s side, supporting her like he should have done from the second they walked in the room.