Nicholas Smith - Extinction Horizon

Horn slowly sat up, running a hand through his messy hair. He wiped his forearm across his face.

“Let’s go,” Beckham said.

The barracks slowly emptied as the other men and women left for the briefing. Beckham watched a group of Marines file out the front entrance and wondered what news Jensen had in store for them. He knew it couldn’t be good.

Horn stood, grumbling something to himself that Beckham couldn’t make out.

Putting a hand on his friend’s back, Beckham followed Horn out of the room in silence. There wasn’t anything Beckham could say to alleviate any of the man’s pain. His family was likely dead. He needed time to grieve.

The cafeteria was swollen with staff by the time they arrived. Men and women representing every branch of military and mixed in with them were the scientists that Colonel Gibson had helped collect from around the country.

He scanned the crowd and found Kate toward the center. Slowly, he pushed his way through the collage of color. When he got to Kate he tapped her in the shoulder.

The woman that turned to face him looked like a former shell of herself. Dark bags hung under dark blue eyes.

“How are you doing?” Beckham asked.

“Hanging in there,” she replied solemnly, “How about you? How’s Horn?” She glanced over his shoulder to look for him.

“Not good. He took the news pretty hard. We all did.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. After a brief pause she said, “I just found out that the Hemorrhage virus has spread across the globe. My parents are in Europe.”

“Shit,” Beckham mumbled, his eyes falling to the floor. “Are we any closer to finding a way to stop it?”

“I think so,” Kate said. “But I need more time.”

Noise from the front of the mess hall pulled their attention to Lieutenant Colonel Jensen. He entered with Major Smith and a trio of soldiers Beckham didn’t recognize.

Jensen wasted no time. He grabbed a mic and walked to the head of the crowd. “Good morning, everyone. I’m going to cut right to the chase. As you all know I’ve lifted the communication cloak. For the past twelve hours my staff has been working on figuring out what’s going on outside.”

After a brief pause, Jensen continued. “POTUS is dead. Every major city has been overrun by infected. The world we all knew is gone. X9H9, or what scientists are calling the Hemorrhage virus, has spread to all corners of the globe. No continent has been spared. In less than eight days, the pandemic has infected over half of the world’s population. Projections show that in another two weeks over eighty-five percent of the world’s population will be dead or infected.”

Several gasps echoed through the room as the crowd digested the news. Jensen waited for it to sink in and then continued.

“Operation Reaper was launched to stop the spread of the virus. As you know, this meant the military targeted high-density population zones. The mission was simple. Bomb these target areas and send boots in to clean up the mess. Unfortunately, Operation Reaper failed and now only a handful of military installations remain active and secure.”

“What about Camp Pendleton?” yelled a man somewhere behind Beckham.

“And Fort Bragg?” asked a Marine a few feet away.

“Please. Hold your questions,” Jensen replied calmly. “We’re still processing the information and will get it to COs as soon as we can.”

“This is fucking bullshit! You kept us all in the dark while the world was collapsing around us!” a woman barked from the front of the crowd.

“Colonel Rick Gibson believed this was the only way to keep you all busy on finding a cure.”

“I heard there is no cure. I heard this thing is a bioweapon,” came another voice.

Jensen clenched his jaw, sucked in a breath through his nostrils and then raised his left hand. “What you’ve heard is correct,” he replied. “X9H9 was designed in a lab. In one of our own. Colonel Gibson has been arrested for his crimes and will stand trial. I assure you. He will pay for—”

Chaos erupted. Angry shouts filled the room as the crowd swelled and inched forward. Beckham grabbed Kate and pulled her away from a shouting Marine.

Jensen held up his hand and shouted into the mic. “Please calm down! You are men and women of the United States Armed Forces! Stand down! That is a direct order!” A vein bulged from his forehead as he screamed into the mic.

The room instantly quieted. Beckham had never seen the officer lose control like that. But everyone had a breaking point, and after discovering his CO was behind the virus destroying the world, Beckham couldn’t blame Jensen for his outrage.

After the mess hall had quieted he continued, his voice raspy behind his tightened jaw. “Believe me, I know what you are all thinking. But in the end it doesn’t matter where this virus came from. We all still have a job to do. We may be humanity’s last hope. Several of our scientists are working on a new bioweapon, one that will destroy those infected with X9H9.”

“So there is a cure?” Riley shouted.

Jensen paused and collected himself as he searched the room. “Doctor Lovato, are you here?”

Kate raised a hand. The officer narrowed in on her and waved her forward. “Would you please explain your theory?”

Making her way through the crowd, Kate grabbed the mic.

“I’m Doctor Kate Lovato with the Centers for Disease Control,” she said in a low, apprehensive voice. “I understand that we aren’t all scientists in this room so I am going to explain this in the simplest way I can. The Hemorrhage virus was lab engineered. It’s the marriage of a chemical weapon called VX-99 and the Ebola virus. The infection sweeping the country is a result of the worst of man and the worst of Mother Nature. Those people outside,” she pointed toward the door, “they aren’t people anymore. I know this is hard to accept because I had to accept this myself when my brother turned into one of them. Those things are monsters. There is no cure. There is no bringing them back. The changes caused by VX-99 are irreversible epigenetic changes. The only way to stop this virus is…”

Kate lowered the mic and scanned the room. She found Beckham and he offered her a reassuring nod, adding a smile when he saw her lift the mic to her mouth again.

“The only way to stop this virus is to kill the infected. That’s what my staff and I are working on. A bioweapon that will destroy the host.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Jensen said. He placed a hand on her shoulder and then took the mic.

“As you can see, we are doing everything we can to stop the outbreak. We have the most capable scientists in the world on the island and the communication cloak has been lifted, so I will keep everyone updated as we receive information.”

Jensen’s words struck a chord inside Beckham. They may have shared a moment back in Gibson’s office, but his gut told him not to trust the man. Not yet. He could have been kept in the dark about Gibson’s work, or he could have been involved. If Beckham found out the latter he was going to make sure Jensen paid the same price as his CO.

Still, Beckham couldn’t help but see a decent man standing at the front of the room, a leader that the men and women of Plum Island so desperately needed. Only time would tell if Jensen lived up to his word.

Finding a cure for most diseases would take months, if not longer, but designing an experimental weapon had only taken Kate five hours. Understanding the Hemorrhage virus had allowed her to design a synthesized virus of her own that she hoped would attack the endothelial cells and cause massive vascular damage to anyone infected with the Hemorrhage virus.