2022 (15 page)

Closure of the colonies seemed to create a
domino effect in terms of bad luck. A week later, the Europe
village was taken over by the government of the host country. The
government had heard rumors of it being a front for a large spy
operation originating in the west. Richard suspected that the
rumors had been dropped by western governments themselves.

The last piece of bad news involved several
of his television stations having a hard time getting content and
other advertisers. This resulted in a big drain on his capital and
ratings so low that left him wondering if he should sell his
company shares.

This can’t all be a coincidence
.
Someone is trying to shut me down, and I need to find out who it
is.

********************

Spencer rubbed his eyes, tilted his head
back, and closed his eyes.

“Getting sleepy?” Sue asked.

He straightened up in his chair, “No, not at
all. I live to work thirty-six hours straight.”
It is amazing
how things can change in just a few short days
.

A week ago Spencer was looking forward to
having a few well-deserved days off. Olivia was going to fly in to
see him and they had talked about taking a driving tour around the
coast and staying at a few B&B’s. Then she called and said that
she would not be able to make it. Something about being required to
stay at the foundation headquarters. Spencer was about to book a
flight out to see her when wham, all of
this
happened.

“Well, you’d better be ready for at least
another thirty-six.” Sue said, “The recovery from the attack is
taking much longer than I expected.”

The DIR had been struck by two emergencies
within a week. The first was the outbreak of an advanced flu virus
never before seen, and several departments were demanding more
information. The virus was suspected of killing a hundred people in
ten cities, mostly in the U.S. Tensions among governments remained
high and very little information about the casualty count,
symptoms, or the virus itself was being shared.

The second issue was the attack by CURE
directly on the DIR and its corresponding agencies in nine other
countries. True to their promise, CURE posted the results of
consumption from the industrialized countries and punished the top
ten by hacking into their central computers and changing the
host-country codes. In the United States, for example, the DIR
computers thought they were set for China and in France the host
country code was set to Great Britain. When the data customs
challenges were issued, every Internet server within the ten
countries hit failed, and a signal was sent to them to shut down.
Almost immediately, the entire backbone of the Internet
disappeared.

The shutdown was catastrophic to the
countries impacted. Companies were left unable to operate. Social
media, emails, and most phones ceased functioning; all electronic,
debit, and charge-card transactions stopped working. People were
unable to withdraw money from their banks. Even essential services
like hospitals and the police were impacted due to their heavy
reliance on the Internet to transmit their internal data.

The problem was diagnosed quickly but fixing
it was laborious and time-consuming as each server had to be
verified manually, and CURE had craftily put up hundreds of fake
servers that prolonged the verification process.

“You win. I know that I’m a lot younger than
you, but you’re a machine. I don’t know how you do it, but I can’t
keep up and I need some sleep,” Spencer replied.

“I’ve endured many of these sleep-deprivation
experiments. It’s all about conditioning and I am not
a lot
older than you. Why don’t you go home then and get some rest? Is
there anything that you want me to follow up on?”

“You can yell at the CDC lab some more. I
know they’re busy, but they seem to be dragging out that sample
analysis. Hasn’t it been a few weeks since you sent it?”

She agreed it was taking too long but
reminded him that the flu outbreak had added to the lab’s already
constricted schedule. “They also want to be sure that the data is
accurate. You would be surprised at how many phony leads they get.
However, I don’t think this outbreak and what you found at
Percipience are coincidental. I spoke to the director about this a
few days ago, and I think I’ve convinced him as well. But even with
him pressuring them, it all takes time, and it’ll be at least
another few weeks before they’ve completed the analysis.”

“At least we have located the lab that’s
working with the foundation to make the vaccine.”

“Yes, and I have another government
department doing surveillance on it now. If they ship anything from
there, we’ll have a little surprise in store for them.”

Spencer had found the lab using the Dark Web
search engine. He had scanned through all external email accounts
that were accessed from Richard’s mansion or from anywhere close to
the foundation headquarters. He found one account having suspicious
draft messages that were never sent, and after closer examination
found that these messages were related to making two million doses
of a vaccine for the foundation.

More digging revealed that the messages had
been accessed from two locations, one the foundation headquarters
and the other a small, independent lab in the U.S. He also
discovered that the vaccines were to be shipped only after the
complete order was ready, which would be in one month’s time.

Sue brought this information to the director,
and they agreed, given the timeframe, to continue gathering
intelligence on activities within the foundation before carrying
out a raid on either the foundation or the lab.

********************

Mikhail frowned when he saw Richard’s name on
his phone and knew this would be a tough call. He picked up the
handset and greeted him amicably, but his tone was not
reciprocated.

“Mikhail! What’s going on? People are dying
and all of them showed symptoms of Virtuesh.”

“Please calm down, Richard. It’s under
control.”

He shouted into Mikhail’s ear. “Calm down?
First we have a leak about the virus at the CDC, and now the damn
thing is out in the open, and every government in the world is on
alert. And I’m supposed to be calm?”

“This is all to buy us time, Richard. I’m
working on getting the CDC sample switched for something not lethal
so that nothing can be tied to us. We’ll develop a new strain of
Virtuesh to have at the villages. With any luck, the governments
will blame CURE for the outbreak.”

“We haven’t had much luck lately. This is
already too far out of control.”

Mikhail continued to speak in as soothing a
tone as he could manage. “It may look that way, but trust me when I
tell you that in a few weeks it will have been worked out.”

“I don’t have much choice, do I? I’m going to
make some calls and see if I can slow things down at the CDC. Do
you know how the leak started?”

“It can only be one of a few people, and I’m
almost certain that it was Olivia, the lead researcher we’ve had on
the project since the beginning. She’s over at headquarters and I’m
keeping a close eye on her. When she returns to Percipience, I’ll
take care of the problem.”

Richard’s voice was softly threatening. “Make
sure all of the leaks are plugged. We can’t afford any more
mistakes.” The connection went dead.

Mikhail turned the cell phone in his hand
while contemplating the conversation and what his next move should
be. As for Olivia, her usefulness had ended.

He sent an encrypted message to a few other
leaders of CURE. “Do not—repeat—do
not
send out any
communication denying CURE’s involvement in the recent deadly flu
outbreak.”

“I haven’t had this much fun in years!” Hope
said, as tears of laughter ran down her face. She watched with
Diane as Mikhail looked around anxiously to see who had thrown the
snowball at him.

“I don’t think he’s ever even seen snow
before, and for once is a bit out of his element,” Diane said. She
lofted another snowball high in the air in his general
direction.

The snow festival was a reward for everyone’s
hard work and an effort to start building up community spirit for
Percipience. It was only a month until Christmas, and the
Percipience altitude did not allow for much snow. Dozens of large
trucks appeared in the morning filled with snow from the mountains.
By noon, the clearing in front of the town center was transformed
into a gigantic winter play land. Strict orders were given for
everyone to participate in the events or this would be their last
day in the village.

Hundreds of toboggans were provided for
sliding down the newly formed snow hills, and two snow forts were
built on either side. For the brave, or talented, an artificial ice
rink was setup. The entire afternoon was filled with activities
including a continuous snowball fight between the two forts and
snowman-building competitions.

“I’m soaked!” Diane said to Hope. “Let’s go
to the bonfire to dry out and get some hot cider.”

As they warmed themselves by the fire, Diane
reflected on the month since Olivia had left for the foundation
laboratory. The time had sped by with an intensive learning
schedule laid out for residents that covered tasks required to run
the village. She felt, for the first time in her life, that she not
only belonged to something important but that she was important to
its purpose. There was a level of harmony here that was otherwise
unattainable to her in the world beyond this village.

“I’m starting to really like it here,” she
said. “This is the first time in a long time that I feel like I
actually belong to something good.”

“You had better!” Hope replied. “You’re going
to be spending the rest of your life here.”

Diane looked into the fire as if making a
decision. “I’ve not been completely honest with you, Hope.”

Hope didn’t respond, waiting to hear
more.

“I have no intention of staying,” Diane said.
“The only reason I’m here is to find out who murdered my
brother.”

Hope recovered quickly from choking on her
drink. “Murdered?”

Diane recounted the story of her brother and
how she had followed the Virtuesh lead.

“That’s incredible!” Hope said, “Do you have
any leads or suspects?”

“I’m certain that Mikhail is involved, but I
suspect he wasn’t in on it alone. Hopefully, Olivia has found out
something at headquarters. She’s supposed to be returning
tomorrow.”

Hope wanted to appear to help in some way
beyond sympathetic words. ”I work fairly closely with Mikhail, and
I’ll keep my eyes open. Maybe together we can find out who’s
involved and then you can turn them in.”

“Who said anything about turning them
in?”

********************

At the end of the following day, Hope was
nearing the end of her work when she heard voices through her
earbud. She had turned on the listening device that morning in the
trailer. The sophisticated device could be used like a regular
phone, and she had called it when she heard the helicopter approach
indicating Olivia’s return.

The first minutes of the conversation were
not very interesting as Olivia and Diane greeted each other. Diane
stressed how glad she was that Olivia was back. Hope’s attention
increased as the conversation continued.

“So how’d you do with Virtuesh-B?” Diane
asked.

“Very well. I was able to reproduce the virus
quickly—since it’s just a variation of the original Virtuesh and
the printed documentation was very helpful in making the vaccine
from the live pathogen.”

“But were you able to create enough?”

“I didn’t have time to make much, and I
haven’t been able to test it. But I have enough vaccine for about
fifteen hundred doses. I dropped them off at the lab as soon as I
arrived, and I’ll start to inoculate people here in the next couple
of days.”

“But that isn’t enough doses! There are about
eight hundred people at Percipience alone and then there are the
other villages. My God, what about all of the other people outside
of the villages?” Diane said getting more panicked as the reality
sank in of how few people they could save.

Olivia moved towards Diane and gave her a
reassuring hug. “I’ve had the same thoughts myself, but it won’t
get to that. We will make sure that Virtuesh-B does not get
released. But we need to be smart about how these few doses of
vaccine are used.”

Diane nodded and listened as Olivia
continued.

“If for some reason we fail and the release
occurs, the residents of the villages will have the best chance of
long-term survival of anyone on the planet. The builders at each of
the sites will probably have left by the time of release and if
not, most likely do not have the psychological profile to live in
the society that the residents all believe in. If we have to
choose, then the choice, no matter how hard, is obvious. We must
vaccinate all of the residents.”

Diane sat down on her cot and did not say
anything for quite a while.

“Are you ok?” Olivia asked.

Diane started to come out of her trance and
nodded. “You are right. So what’s the plan? Just inoculate the
residents?”

“I was thinking of inoculating everyone.
Fewer questions that way. But we will give the residents the new
vaccine that I made which is good for both strains of Virtuesh.
Everyone else will get the vaccine that we already have on site for
the original Virtuesh.”

Hope removed the earbud. She would catch the
rest of the recorded conversation later, but she had heard all that
she needed. With the new vaccine in the lab, she would have easy
access and ample time to get a few doses.

She picked up her phone and called Mikhail.
She was surprised that he was in Percipience rather than at
headquarters. He said he was in one of the town center offices and
agreed to meet her in his trailer.