The Zombie Plagues Dead Road: The Collected books. (144 page)

REX34T could easily take care of a
large outbreak. REX34T took it all back to normal. The doctors had
nicknamed it Rex. Rex, like a trusty dog that could get the job
done, but what sort of job did Rex do? He didn't know. Rex seemed
to reverse the process that V2765 started. It could not undo the
cell changes, but it did not leave a single trace of the V virus
when it was finished. The dead died. According to this report,
there was a counterpart to REX34T that was meant specifically for
the living. Release it in the air, same as Rex, and it affected
only the living, reversing the changes that the V virus had made,
and the living went on living, maybe. The testing insinuated that
the longer the process that V2765 initiated had gone on the more of
a shock to the human body it was when it was removed. It suggested
that some might not survive the withdrawal of the V
virus.

He glanced down at the two vials that
sat on the edge of his desk. Evaluation units. Below, in one of the
storage areas, there was enough of each to reverse the entire world
population ten times over if need be. If, he reminded himself, if.
He looked down at the two vials where they sat on the desk. One
small vial filled with dark red liquid. The other a small aluminum
canister that reminded him of the canisters that held the V virus.
They looked so innocuous, so everyday ordinary. He beat out a
nervous tempo with his fingers on the desktop and then picked up
the two vials and slipped them into a plastic bag. He set the bag
on the desktop, withdrew the test results from both Rex drugs from
the thick file and then placed the bag into the file itself. A
second later he placed the file into his personal file cabinet and
locked it. He called up the same report on his monitor, excised the
three pages of reports, and then saved the file. He pulled a fresh
file folder from his cabinet before he closed and locked it, then
dropped the pages into the empty folder. He hesitated and then fed
that smaller file into the shredder too.

No problem, no liability, because if
there was an acknowledged problem that was preexisting in this
lawyer happy atmosphere every ex-soldier would be suing when the
first x-ray showed the alteration in brain cell structure. No
higher climb up the ladder for Major Dick Weston, and probably
General whoever he was too. And that would be a long stop from
where either of them wanted to be.

“
Alice?” He looked over at
his secretary.

“
Major?”

“
I want you to take this
out and burn it.” He pulled the wastebasket free and slid it across
to her. “I guess I've thought it out. Those two fools who took the
overdose on morphine?” He waited for her eyes to meet his. “I think
it was a mistake to try to save them. I would like you to take care
of that personally, Alice... Doesn't matter how. Let me know if you
need anything.” He held her eyes for a moment. “That will be all,”
he finished.

“
Sir,” Alice said. She
picked up the wastebasket and started to leave the
office.

“
Oh, Alice?”

She stopped and turned back.

“
Have that med closet
removed. Stupid to put it in an interior control room... Have it
moved to the very outside. From now on when they need something
like that they can damn well get it walked in by our
boys.”

“
Sir,” Alice nodded. She
turned and left the office.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING

ONE

March 1st

Project Bluechip: 3:00 P.M.

Richard Pierce

Far below the small city of Watertown
New York, Richard Pierce sat working before an elaborate computer
terminal. He had just initiated the program that managed the small
nuclear power plant hidden deep below him in the rock. A small
handset beside the computer station chimed, and he picked it up and
listened. He did not speak at first, but as he listened a smile
spread across his face. “Very good,” he said happily, when the
caller was finished, “keep me advised.” He set the small handset
back into its cradle and turned his attention back to the screen in
front of him. The plant had powered up just as it was supposed to,
no problems whatsoever, and that made Richard Pierce extremely
happy. Two more days tops, he thought, and then maybe I'll get out
of this dump.

He supposed he should feel honored that
he was even here. It was after all one of the biggest projects in
the country, albeit top secret, but he could not help the way he
felt. He was close to a mile underground, totally cut off from
everything and everyone, and he hated it. If he had a choice, which
he had not, he would never have come at all. But he had written the
software that handled the power plant, as well as several other
sections of the underground city, and that made it his baby. There
were a couple of small bugs, mainly due to the fact that no one had
been allowed to know what the entire program was supposed to do.
The way the rewrites were going however, it looked as though he
would not be stuck here anywhere near as long as he had originally
thought, and that was something to think about. He had begun to
feel that he would never leave this rock bound prison, and wouldn't
that be a real bitch?

Blinded by the Bullshit

New York: Rochester

John Simmons

The sidewalks below him were crowded.
John stood at the apex of the steps that led up to the old court
house. It was impressive. He looked down at his hands, shifting the
small silver canister from hand to hand, rolling it across his
palm, treating it as though it were just a small fascination to
occupy his mind, when in fact he knew it was something more. He
didn't know what, exactly: He wasn't paid to know what. Maybe
someone up the ladder knew what, he didn't, and it was likely he
never would, but it was something more than just a shiny little
object to occupy his mind.

He had done hundreds of these small
jobs. Little things. Little things that probably meant nothing in
the scheme of things, at least that's what he had always told
himself. A little mental salve to prevent an infection of the
larger truth. Little things he never heard a single thing about
later on. Little things, but he suspected this time, this job was
not a little thing at all. He suspected this was a big thing. He
suspected he would hear about this one down the road. He suspected
this one would come back to bite him in the ass.

The trouble was, in for a penny, in for
a pound. It all mattered. He had taken job after job where he might
leave an item on a park bench. Drop off a set of wheels in the
middle of the desert. Switch a suitcase at an airport. Little jobs.
Little jobs and he had never said no. Never complained about them.
Never turned one down. And so here he was about to press the
activator on a small, silver canister that might do anything.
Anything at all. And was he worried about that? Yes, he
was.

It was not so much worry for himself.
He didn't really believe the thing would blow up. He didn't truly
think they would take him out that way, if there was ever a reason
to take him out, that was. He quickly shut down that line of
thought. He had too much to worry about right now without starting
a whole new avenue of doubt.

So, no, he did not believe it would
blow up. He believed it would hiss and release a giant cloud of
some sort of toxic gas: Gases even, he amended. Waste, poison,
something, but if that were the case how could he safely set it off
and not be contaminated himself?

The instructions were to walk to the
top of the courthouse steps, depress the red button, and then toss
it away. No specific direction, just away. It apparently didn't
matter. And, he thought now, wasn't this exactly the way some
terrorist would do it? Do an attack? A poison gas attack? An
unclassified viral attack? He had seen a few movies, this was the
way he would do it if he was writing the script. The girl beside
him spoke.

“
If this is going to take
much longer you're gonna have to pay more. I know I said I would be
cool, a fifty, I mean, but standing around here is wasting my time.
I got places to be. I got...”

He cut her off. “And you ain't got no
money yet. And if you do want the money then you need to shut the
fuck up.” He went back to his self observation. A second later he
looked back at her. “Hey, hey,” he soothed. She had begun to pout.
Just another street girl with a habit and too much time on her
hands to feed it.

“
Look...” He waited for her to look at his hand. He held the
small vial upright. “Do me a favor, okay? I was looking around
because, well, because I want a picture right here. Now all you
have to do is push this little red button... Aim at me, it's got a
little camera in there...You can't see it, it's one of those new
ones...
Like them spy ones?
So all you got to do is point it at me and then
press the button.” He held the canister and looked around. She
tried to take the canister from his hand and he snatched it
away.

“
Goddammit, Dude, You want
it or not?” She stamped her foot exactly like the spoiled child she
was and was destined to always be.

“
Yeah... Yeah I do. Just...
See that corner over there? The top of the stairs? That little
what-do-you-call-it hollow between those two pillars? Wait until I
get there and take the picture.” He handed her the silver canister
and started away.

“
Hey! How the fuck am I
spos'ed to tell? There ain't no screen thingy,
what-the-fuck-it-is?”

He turned back and smiled. “Just face
it to me and do it. It's not supposed to have a thing, screen, just
do it.”

She turned the canister to her face. It
was only about four inches long, maybe an inch thick. It didn't
look like a camera at all. She turned it back to John and clicked
the button. Nothing, not even a click. It didn't work. It was
bullshit just as she had thought.

John froze when he saw her push the
button, but nothing happened. Nothing at all. She had pushed it
just a few inches from his nose. No odor. No vapor he could see. No
anything. He pulled it from her fingers and flipped it back and
forth. The red button was depressed now and although he tried to
work a thumbnail under it to pull it back up he couldn't do it. He
bought it closer to his nose, nothing. No odor. He pressed it to
his ear. No hissing. It was dead. A dud. Whatever it was it did
nothing at all. Maybe it had even malfunctioned. He hefted it a few
times and then let it drop from his fingers. It hit the stone step
below him with a small metallic clink, and then rolled away to the
edge. It dropped to the next step, but it didn't have enough
momentum to find its way across that step to the next. He turned
back to the girl.

“
You broke my camera,” he
told her.

“
Did not, and that ain't no
fuckin' camera anyway. You think I'm just stupid?”

“
I do think you're stupid.
You broke it. You broke it and so I ain't paying you. In fact, you
should pay me for breaking my camera! Besides which, you pressed it
before it was time. You fucked the whole thing up. I shouldn't pay
you shit. Not a fuckin' dime.”

“
Yeah?” she asked. Her eyes
were wet, but they were also hard. She looked around at the crowd.
“That's okay, because you know what?”

“
What?” John asked. He
smiled. She was stuck and he knew it.

“
What
is, I'm fourteen. Fourteen. And I bet you if I was to start yelling
right now, oh, something like rape. If I was to say
Rape!
” She raised her
voice a little and a nearby couple flashed their eyes at the two
and slowed.

John flinched and drew back from
her.

“
Yeah, see? So, now if I
was to do that I bet your tune would be different. I just bet it
would.”

“
Twenty,” John said. His
smile was gone.

“
You
said fifty. Fifty is what you said, and it should be eighty.” She
picked eighty out of a hat. It was three more dimes, and three more
dimes was a lot better than five. “It
is
eighty. It's eighty because you
tried to
rape
me!” She raised her voice once more and John's hand plunged
quickly into his back pocket. He flipped a fifty and three tens at
her from the wallet he had quickly pulled free, and she had to
scramble to catch the money. Two of the tens fluttered to the stone
step below her and she flashed a hard smile at him. The couple that
had cut their eyes at them were now stopped and staring at the two
of them. A cell phone appeared in the woman's hand and when John
met her eyes there was something there he didn't like at all. The
girl scooped up the money, muttering as she did, and John headed
down the stairs two at a time. A few minutes later he had blended
into the crowd and was making his way away from the downtown
area.

Watertown New York

Project Bluechip

6:20 PM

Major Weston found himself sprawled on
the concrete of the long hallway. One minute he had been walking
along, Alice beside him, and the next he was on the floor trying
desperately to hang on as he bounced across the concrete corridor
and slammed into a wall. The ceiling began to come apart and chunks
of rock, concrete and duct work began to rain down into the
corridor.