Arisen, Book Six - The Horizon (14 page)

“What?” Predator finally interjected. “You’re kidding. Those dudes are alive? How?”

Ali shrugged. “Alive and operating. As to how – well, basically, they’re that good. Plus they were prepared.”

“And the moppets were with them the whole time?” Henno asked, meaning Homer’s children.

“Yes.”

“…And their mother?” Juice finally asked, his voice quiet and breathy.

He had actually never met Homer’s wife. Then again, he’d never met Homer either, not before the work-up and rehearsals for their North Korea mission, back at Hereford, not long before the world ended. But after thirty months of working together, including fighting off the end of the world, everyone in Alpha felt they knew Homer’s wife – just as they felt they knew everyone important in the lives of their teammates.

Ali shook her head slowly. Her face was so still and composed it looked like a death mask. When she finally spoke, she did so very quietly. “She’s dead. And buried.”

That second thing had to be made explicit. Because, in Homer’s devout Christian faith, he was still married until death they did part. And while death had become a slightly fuzzier concept in recent years, being under the ground definitely qualified.

So, for Ali, this changed everything.

* * *

“What you first have to understand,” Dr. Park said into the quiet air of the lab, “is that this thing evolved…
perfectly
.”

He spoke with a special intensity. Sarah hadn’t seen a whole lot of his face before now. But she’d certainly never seen it lit up like this. There was no question he believed, he
felt
, what he was talking about. Alone now, the two of them leaned against opposite lab benches, bodies angled back, but facing in toward each other.

To Park’s side, his laptop was re-crunching his nucleopeptide analyses. He knew what the results were going to say. But he wanted fresh numbers to work with. So they had a few minutes. He continued lecturing.

“When it first emerged, this virus had one of the deadliest characteristics any new pathogen can have – a long incubation period. That’s what makes emerging diseases so insidious, and what allowed this one to spread globally, before anybody had any real idea what was happening. What a really clever pathogen needs is people who are infected – but who
appear
healthy.”

Sarah nodded. “I imagine that’s the only way it can blast across borders.”

Park nodded, more vigorously. “Exactly. You remember the
WWZ
movie? Where the zombie virus had an incubation period of exactly twelve seconds? How the hell did they think that was going to cross oceans? How would anybody infected with it ever be allowed to board a plane? Not only would they not get through security, they’d already be eating people back at the check-in counter.”

Sarah laughed quietly. “So not so plausible.”

“Not at all. This thing, our virus, Hargeisa, initially had an incubation period of several days – three to four, say the official records from the beginning. But my guess is it was over a week, and maybe even two, at the outset.”

“Why?”

“I’m just following the slope of the line. Because we know the incubation period got radically shorter after that. As I said, this thing was smart – and its evolutionary path was perfection itself. Once it had spread into every continent, into most of the world’s countries, and into all the major population centers… only then did it start to morph, to speed up. Incubation time dropped to hours – with breathtaking speed – and then to minutes. Nowadays, anecdotally, there are reports of cases where time from infection to turning is measured in seconds.”

Sarah nodded. She hadn’t seen anything like that herself. But, then again, everyone in her neck of the woods had died two years ago. And she’d been lucky enough not to witness anyone turn since.

“Now think about what that does for the virus. Once there’s a handful of infected people, or even one, in a populated area, it can rage through like a flash fire. With normal incubation times for deadly pathogens, once people know what’s going on, and know the risk, they can quarantine… isolate… pre-empt the spread of the disease. But, now, with people turning in seconds, it actually was like the opening scene of the same movie, in downtown Philadelphia.”

Sarah remembered it. “Mass panic. And no one able to run ahead of the storm. That much they got right.”

“Yes. And this new type, the one they call the Foxtrot, which just sprints around infecting the living… well, it’s merely the apotheosis of the same behavioral and evolutionary strategy the virus has followed since the beginning.” He glanced over at his laptop to check its progress. “A ridiculously fast-moving zombie is scary as hell, and extremely dangerous – to an individual. But a fast-
incubating
virus – coming off the back of very
slow
-incubating one – is deadly to a whole species. That’s what took us down.”

Sarah shook her head. “That and the fact that everyone already infected relentlessly hunted down those who weren’t.”

“Exactly. You’ve actually drilled down precisely to the unique genius of this virus.”

“How so?”

“Well, start by considering what a human looks like to a bacterial or viral infection.”

“And that is?”

“Food.”

“Okay. But if we’re already their food… then why have they started making us eat one another?”

Park nodded. “Why, indeed? And the answer is pure genius. Look at it from the virus’s point of view. The core challenge it faces is virulence versus contagiousness – that is, how bad it is versus how communicable it is. The Darwinian way to look at it is that it has two distinct reproduction challenges – reproducing inside a victim, and spreading to more victims in a population. It’s a trade-off. Basically, the faster it eats us, the harder it is for it to spread.”

“Why?”

“Well, reproducing quickly inside a single host means growing and consuming as much of our healthy cells and tissues as possible. But of course this wreaks havoc on our systems. And if they go crazy and make us too sick, then we won’t be able to get up and move around and infect others. Plus humans have an evolved aversion to obviously sick people, so we stay the hell away from them.”

Sarah’s eyes narrowed in thought. “So, in that sense, something like Ebola is a reproductive failure. It makes people bleed out from every orifice, which probably doesn’t conduce to attracting new infectees.”

“Exactly. And that’s exactly why there’s never been a really big outbreak of Ebola, or any hemorrhagic fever. But this bug, Hargeisa… what’s its solution to the problem? It’s to zombify the entire host, take control – and program it to go out and hunt down new bodies to infect.”

“Jesus. ‘Zombification’ – you say that like it happens all the time.”

“More often than you’d think. It’s hardly unknown in the natural world. There’s a fungus, for instance, that zombifies ants. It gets into an ant’s brain, makes it climb a tree and latch onto a leaf with its jaws. Then
a long freaking stalk
grows out of the back of the ant’s head – which drops a bunch of new fungal spores on the ant colony below. Those ants walk around picking it up, and the cycle repeats.”

Sarah wrinkled her nose. “Jesus. That might actually be worse than what our virus is doing to us.”

“Maybe. But, as far as a reproduction strategy goes, ours is the clear winner.” Park paused and looked thoughtful. “It’s the superior intelligence of evolution.”

“I wish as much could be said for its morality.”

Park looked at her, and his mouth opened – but then closed again. “Touché,” he finally said. “But the main problem all viruses face is how to hide out from the host’s immune system – which, in the case of humans, is actually an incredibly effective and efficient killer of invaders. And the most deadly weapon they have in that fight is genetic mutation – constantly evolving to find ways around our defenses, constantly shape-shifting so they’re not recognized as a threat. And it is this virus’s extremely fast rate of mutation that gives it a leg-up, helps it stay ahead. And makes it so cursedly tough to beat.”

“It sounds like a hard problem to solve.”

“It’s an incredibly hard problem – harder than more than a handful of people appreciate. Why do you think the one real success story we had with eradicating a viral pathogen was smallpox? It was because of its incredibly slow and limited mutation. Smallpox had so little potential for variation that a primitive vaccine made based on a distantly related virus – made out of cow pus – completely took it out. But I’ve got much bigger problems. And a much faster-moving target.”

Sarah nodded. “Nonetheless, Handon told me you’ve got a workable vaccine – at least for an older strain of the virus.”

“I do. It hasn’t had enough safety testing, or any kind of human trials. But I know it works. The core trouble is, it’s designed based on virus samples from the very beginning of the outbreak. And we know for a certainty that the virus has evolved – a lot. What I don’t yet know is whether the specific genes targeted by my vaccine have changed. I won’t know that until I test it against current samples of the virus. And what I really don’t know is, even if it works against current strains, whether it will keep working against future mutations. And there’s only one way I can determine that.”

“Patient Zero,” Sarah said. “Go back to the start.”

“Exactly. I need a sample from a very early-stage victim. When I look at that, and compare it to one from today, I can see which genes have remained unchanging. And then I’ll have a good sense of which are the essential ones, and are unlikely to change going forward. Those will be our target.” He paused before continuing, and his expression lightened.

“Really, anything I can learn about the origin of the disease is likely to be helpful. Where did it actually come from? Was it zoonotic – transferring over from another species? If so, was it an ape species – one genetically very similar to us – or something else? Or could it even have been man-made? You can see why I’m excited about the possibility of us going straight to Africa.”

Sarah’s response was measured. “I don’t know that there’s going to be anyone alive there to shed any light on it.”

Park shrugged. “You never know. And, anyway, the dead may be as informative as we need them to be.” He stopped and looked around.

“What is it?” Sarah asked.

“I only just realized what it is I really need right now.”

“A current virus sample?”

“Exactly.”

“Ironically, I think the crew just spent a huge amount of effort scrubbing the ship completely free of zombies and zombie gunk. You should have said something sooner.”

Park shrugged. “I think it was probably already too late by the time I came over from the sub. Mass death of the virus begins within a couple of hours of destruction of the brainstem.”

“I’m sure something can be done,” Sarah said. “It’s not like this world lacks for zombies.” She stood up straight, glanced around until she found a wall phone, pulled it free of its cradle, and started dialing.

“Who are you calling?”

“Commander Drake. Handon gave me his direct cell.”

Park nodded, impressed.
It never hurts to be able to go straight to the top.

* * *

The other three in the Alpha team room had finally gotten their breath, after the conclusion of Ali’s story.

Now she felt, for some reason she couldn’t put her finger on, that she had said too much. Or, at any rate, she’d definitely said enough for now.

So, instead, she glided over to the corner of the room, pulled a couple of crates aside, and finally flipped open an oversized Tuff-Box. She then rooted around inside, bent at the waist, and half disappeared into the big expensive shipping crate. When she emerged, she had another expensive box – this time a Pelican case, a long one, rifle-sized.

She laid it down on the deck, flicked the clasps, and swung open the top. Inside was a Mk12 Special Purpose Rifle, a designated marksman weapon – and identical twin of the one she’d carried into Chicago, but had lost in the crash of the B-17. Aside from being zeroed at the range before this mission, this one had never even been fired.

She hefted it and brought it to her shoulder, her perforated and bandaged bicep only complaining a little, then popped the covers on the scope. She took a look through the optic, then replaced the weapon in the shaped cut-out foam in the case.

“Quality,” she said.

When Alpha had first boarded the
Kennedy
, what seemed now like a thousand years ago, they’d brought great heaping bags and boxes of gear. This had included not just everything they might need for any mission profile – but also duplicates of everything critical.

So they actually had replacements for most everything lost on the Chicago mission – with its running street battles and sinking boats and crashing planes. The major exceptions were the rare and precious assault rifles, like Juice’s SIG SG553, and Handon’s HK416 – both of which had been saved, even at the risk of their rescue flight not getting off the ground.

Good ole Chuckie
, Ali thought wistfully, remembering the bomber.
What a magnificent aircraft she had been – even if she tried very hard to kill me
. In the end, it had gotten them all home alive – one last valiant service for the last of her kind from WWII. She was truly of the Greatest Generation. It made Ali sad to think of her ripped apart, wingless, lying at the bottom of the ocean…

But better her than me
.

“Aye, weapons we’ve got,” Henno said. “Ammo’s another tale.” Ali looked up as he handed her a tablet. As she reviewed the numbers in the spreadsheet, the corners of her mouth turned down. Now she remembered they’d jettisoned pretty much everything else from that plane.

Including all the ammo they had on them.

Ali shook her head. “But we brought so much… surely this can’t be it?”

“It was a hell of an intense fight,” Predator said. “A lot of brass downrange.”

“Also,” Henno added, “remember that pallet we pushed out ahead of us? Bottom of the lake now. And that other pallet? For the QRF to bring out with them? That got loaded into the bomber – then all of it shot off, or else jettisoned.” He paused to regard Ali’s look of dismay. “Not good that, is it?”