Nicholas Smith - Extinction Horizon

“Change of plans,” the pilot said. “Command says Astoria is too hot. Plan B is Times Square.”

Beckham exchanged glances with Riley and Horn.

“Copy,” he finally replied.

They pulled away from Astoria and moved over the Upper East Side. The forest of trees in Central Park jutted out of another layer of smoke haunting the district.

A few seconds later they were hovering over the iconic Times Square. The billboards were dark, the electronic images absent. The scene made his stomach sink. Times Square was the symbol of American culture. The dark screens seemed to warn Beckham about the country’s future.

He forced himself to look toward the streets below. They were clogged with the burned hulls of vehicles. The charred remains of refugees trying to escape the city were all that remained. Beckham had seen similar scenes in the past. Iraq and Afghanistan. These had been desperate people trying to escape with their lives.

Looking closer, he saw there was something else down there, something that Beckham couldn’t quite make sense of at first. The street looked like it was glistening and wet.

“Get us lower,” he shouted.

As the chopper descended the view came into focus. And it took his breath away. The blacktop was peppered with puddles of blood. Mangled bodies lay in every direction, some even on top of one another.

“My God,” Riley choked. “There have to be hundreds of them.”

Twisted lumps filled every city street, blood seeping from the corpses and pooling on the pavement. VariantX9H9 had worked after all. Jensen didn’t need to send Beckham and his team into the field to see that. He could have simply had a pilot do a fly over.

“Get us out of here,” Beckham shouted. “We need a new drop location.”

“Copy that,” the pilot replied.

Beckham kept his gaze glued on the street. There wasn’t a living thing in sight. No loose pets or random survivors. Nothing but blood and death.

A few minutes later they were hovering over a ten-story building that had survived the bombs. The foundation was unscathed and Beckham authorized a landing. Riley secured the rope and they slid down to the roof.

Beckham was moving as soon as his boots hit the gravel. He swept his weapon side to side looking for targets.

“Clear,” he shouted, and waited for confirmation from Horn and Riley that their zones were good to go. It was hard to hear under the whup-whup of the blades. A second later, as the chopper pulled away, Horn and Riley called in a clear AO. Squinting, Beckham watched the bird ascend and race across the skyline, leaving them alone in a city that had hemorrhaged life.

Kate wasn’t sure what time it was. She could hardly think. Patient 12 was driving her nuts. She simply couldn’t make sense of the man’s recovery.

The questions just kept coming.

Had she somehow made a mistake? They hadn’t had the time for multiple tests, but those they had performed had worked perfectly. Her mind spun out of control. She was looking for a complex answer to a complex question, but maybe the answer was simple.

In that moment it hit her.

VariantX9H9 attacked the endothelial cells that made the Ebola virus lethal. The end result was the death of the host. Except in the case of Patient 12. In the chaos of the past few weeks she’d failed to remember that Ebola didn’t have a one hundred percent fatality rate. It didn’t kill all of its victims. The mortality rate was high, but there were always survivors. And Medford had weakened the fourth gene making the virus even less effective. So what if?

Kate gasped. The simple answer was right in front of her. Patient 12 was part of the small pool of survivors.

An anomaly, considering there were less than twenty patients at the facility.

Kate brought a hand to her mouth when she realized what had happened. The epigenetic changes from VX-99 remained. They were unchanged. The man was still a monster. From the observing technician’s reports, Patient 12 was still fast, agile and powerful, but he was no longer infected with Ebola. He’d recovered from the virus.

The implications were startling. Her synthesized virus was designed to attack the endothelial cells in the monster, causing massive hemorrhaging and death. That’s what should have happened, but in this man’s case he had survived the assault. Now he was more dangerous than ever.

Kate sprung from the lab station and hurried across the room. She had to warn Jensen so he could get a message to Beckham and his team. Her heart fluttered as she ran. Beckham had no idea what lurked in the smoke-clogged streets of New York. He was heading into a trap.

Beckham stood at the bottom of the fire escape from the building they landed on. He tapped his helmet, cursing. His radio wasn’t working. For whatever reason, the channel had cut out shortly after their insertion. He could get messages through to his team, but the connection to Plum Island had been severed.

Taking a step back, he made room for Horn and Riley, who jumped onto the concrete. They took up position with their backs to the walls and waited for orders.

Twisting around the corner, Beckham checked the street. The metal cart from a street vendor had been toppled over, the contents spilled over the concrete. Beyond were bodies and more bodies. Some were slumped against vehicles. Others were curled up on the sidewalk.

Nothing moved.

“Horn, you take point. Riley, you got our six,” Beckham said. He flashed an advance signal and Horn jogged onto the street with his rifle shouldered.

Beckham took off after him. As they moved, Beckham flicked his gaze high and low. If any infected had survived Operation Depletion, he knew threats could come from anywhere. He sidestepped around the body of a woman, her hands reaching toward the sky in a twisted curl. Her eyes were wide open and wild. She’d suffered a painful death.

Keep moving , he told himself. There wasn’t anything he could do for these people, but there could still be survivors.

They patrolled the street for the next fifteen minutes. The view slowly sunk in. Death surrounded them. There was no escaping it.

“Regroup,” Beckham said at the next corner. They met at an overturned squad car and crouched into a huddle.

“Looks like we’re going to get wet,” Riley said. He pointed toward a set of storm clouds rolling in from the west. Lightning flashed on the horizon, the distant boom of thunder ringing out a few seconds later.

“Shit,” Beckham muttered.

The rain fell slow at first, but grew heavier quickly. The street rapidly turned into a river of blood flowing into the storm drains. He’d never seen so much in his life. As he stared he mentally calculated just how much he was looking at. Assuming each victim bled out half of the blood in their body, they would each produce about five pints. Combine that with hundreds of dead and you had a shit ton of blood.

“Boss,” Horn said. Beckham caught Horn’s worried eyes. “I can’t stop thinking about my family, man. My little girls and Sheila,” he paused and looked around the corner of the car. “I keep picturing them bleeding out like that.”

“Don’t,” Beckham said. He reached over and put a hand on Horn’s shoulder. “They could have survived. You can’t lose hope, man. I haven’t.”

Horn gave a small nod. “I want you to know something.”

Beckham halted.

“I don’t blame you. You were right. My family was safer at Fort Bragg. If they are gone, I don’t want you to blame yourself.”