Nicholas Smith - Extinction Horizon

“This is Patient 14,” Jensen said as they entered in single file.

Kate walked into the observation room in shock, her eyes glued to an infected woman in the holding area behind the wall of thick glass. The girl looked no older than a teenager, maybe fifteen or sixteen. It was hard to tell. The virus aged the host considerably. She lay on the ground, curled up in a fetal position. When she sensed their presence the girl suddenly sat up, her head tilting and nose sniffing the air like a wild animal. Blinking, her eyes darted from Kate to the others.

The bright LEDs revealed fresh wounds on the girl’s arms. Bite marks and deep gouges lined her right bicep.

Kate approached the glass with her hand covering her mouth, her heart throbbing. The effects of the Hemorrhage virus were the most awful she’d ever seen. The symptoms took her breath away.

Reaching for the observation window, Kate pressed her fingers against the cold surface. Patient 14 rotated her head on her neck, pivoting her chin from left to right and scanning the men behind Kate. Then she tilted her head and snarled, bending and jerking until she was on all fours.

In the blink of an eye, the girl jumped to her feet and launched her body toward the glass. She landed with her hands and feet twisted into claws and quickly skittered across the panel like a spider moving across a wall.

“Damn,” Smith said. “Never seen one of them do that.”

“I have,” came a voice from the doorway.

Kate spun to see Beckham standing there, his eyes locked on the girl behind her.

“Saw the entire side of a building crawling with those things,” he said coldly. “They move like insects.” He jerked his chin toward the window. “Check her hands and feet. The only good thing about how they move is you can hear them coming.”

“Disgusting,” Smith said. “The sooner we get VariantX9H9 deployed the better.”

Jensen stepped up to the glass. The girl jumped away and landed a few feet away on the floor, her back hunched and teeth snarling.

The soldier flinched.

“I was told to report to the isolation chamber,” Beckham said.

Kate nodded. “I wanted you here for this.”

“For what?” Beckham replied. He walked past Cindy and Ellis, who were too focused watching the girl to acknowledge him.

“I’ve completed my work,” Kate said. “I’ve created a bioweapon of my own.”

Beckham’s eyes lit up. He looked back at Patient 14. She slowly crawled across the ground, her back still hunched like a lion waiting to pounce on prey. Blood trickled from her face onto the white tile floor.

Jensen punched a red button on a control panel. White gas hissed from vents in the ceiling. The girl screeched and clawed at the chemical cloud.

“What’s that?” Beckham asked.

“They are putting her out,” Kate replied.

Within seconds Patient 14 slumped to the ground, falling asleep peacefully. A trio of technicians moved into the room. They wore space suits modified with combat armor. They looked more like a SWAT team than scientists.

“Can’t take too many precautions,” Smith said when he saw Kate’s reaction.

After restraining the girl, the technicians placed her on a metal table in the center of the room. One of them bent down and pulled a curtain of hair away from her face. Yellow slits stared up at the ceiling. The man held a syringe in the other hand and quickly pushed the needle into one of the blue veins bulging from the girls forearm.

The entire team rushed back to the exit as soon as the engineered virus was inserted. None of them looked back. They moved quickly, anxious to get out of the room.

“What happens now?” Beckham asked. He moved closer to Kate. His shoulder brushed against hers.

“We wait,” Ellis said. Running a hand through his neatly combed hair, he cautiously approached the observation glass for a better look.

Kate could hear the doomsday clock ticking again and thought of her parents in Europe. Every minute that passed was another minute the infection spread outside Plum Island.

Behind her, the ruckus from the other holding cells echoed in the hallway. The victims were suddenly active again, beating on the doors and walls. Their enraged screams were louder. They sounded desperate.

It reminded her of something she’d seen in the forest years ago when her team was searching for the western lowland gorilla in Cameroon. The journey had taken them into a very remote area, but when they had finally located the group, they weren’t able to get close due to the gorillas’ violent behavior. She could still remember their panicked cries. They sounded…

Primal.

Kate couldn’t help but wonder if the same thing was happening in front of her and if the infected patients knew the girl had been given a dose of the synthesized VariantX9H9 bioweapon. She shook the thought away. That was impossible, but then again, this all seemed so impossible.

She waited there for two hours, watching Patient 14 twitch and kick. The technicians reentered the room sporadically to check on her, sweeping flashlights over her body. Another one entered vigilantly, shining his light over the girl. Then he bent down and illuminated a flow of blackish blood dripping into a puddle under the metal table. The technician stood and moved the light over the thin white blanket covering her chest. The cloth moved up and down slowly as blood gurgled from the girl’s bulging lips.

Kate’s stomach rolled at the sight. The virus was once again attacking the endothelial cells and causing massive internal bleeding, and it was doing so very fast.

A few minutes later Patient 14 took her last breaths.

One of the technicians gave a thumbs up. A wave of nausea hit Kate like a freight train. She felt lightheaded. Stumbling, she reached for the glass to brace herself. She knew exactly what she’d done. She’d created a weapon that would kill millions of people infected with the Hemorrhage virus.

No.

Billions.

Jensen chomped furiously on a stick of bubble gum. He’d run out of chewing tobacco earlier that morning and without it he was starting to get the sweats. What shitty timing , he thought as he looked out the observation deck window.

Somewhere out there, hundreds of aircraft were preparing to embark on Operation Depletion—the mission that would take back the United States.

The interim U.S. President had authorized the mission after new CDC Director Jed Frank explained Dr. Lovato’s weaponized virus would kill everyone infected with X9H9. Any survivors inside the cities that came into contact with the bioweapon would see no side effects. Tests on rhesus monkeys had proven she was right. The new President didn’t need convincing. He was desperate, and he was willing to sacrifice many to save a few.

In less than a week, what was left of the military had organized a massive counter strike. Plum Island coordinated the manufacturing of the weapon with two secure facilities across the country. Together they had produced enough VariantX9H9 to deploy in every major metropolitan area. The technology that had manufactured the bioweapon wasn’t supposed to exist, but neither was the secret weapons program at Building 8.

Jensen wasn’t sure exactly how it worked, but he was told that the manufacturing process was modeled after a rapid production system in place for the synthetic influenza vaccines developed in 2013 and early 2014. Plum Island had been built with a manufacturing and distribution center based on this automated process. The result was a rapid development and production of VariantX9H9 that was highly lethal over a significant area.