Pandemic

  Murray actually let himself believe that, right up until André Vogel rushed into the room. The normally calm, cool and collected Vogel looked anything but. He had a cell phone held against his left shoulder, using his suit jacket to mute it.

  Murray put down the sandwich.

  “Madam President, I have bad news,” Vogel said. “Our embassy in China was just attacked. Ambassador Jane Locker is reported dead, along with seven other staffers.”

  Blackmon’s mouth pressed into a tight circle. “What happened?”

  “We’re not sure,” Vogel said. “A staffer got a call out that they were under attack and that the ambassador was dead, then the signal cut off. We’re unable to reach anyone at the embassy.”

  Blackmon stood. “Attacked by who?”

  “A mob of civilians,” Vogel said. “Enough to overpower the Chinese guards and our embassy security forces. That’s all the intel we have at the moment.”

  Blackmon spread her hands, palms up: are you kidding me?

  “Then get me more intel, Director Vogel,” she said. “I have to know what happened.”

  Vogel took the cell phone off his shoulder, pressed it to his ear. He held up a finger to Blackmon — one moment — then spoke quietly. He nodded, put the cell phone in his pocket.

  “I wanted to confirm it before I told you,” he said. “We can’t reach representatives of the Chinese government. And I mean we can’t reach anyone. China’s communications grid is offline. Broadcast, telecom, satellite — nothing is going in or coming out. They’ve even shut down their part of the Internet.”

  Murray had lost his appetite. The world’s only other nuclear-armed superpower had just gone dark. He waited for the president’s response.

  “There has to be something,” Blackmon said. “I need to speak with them.”

  Vogel nodded. “Of course, Madam President. The NSA is working on it, highest priority, but as of this moment, we have no way of communicating with the Chinese government.”

  Blackmon sat back down. She picked up a french fry, stared at it. She took a bite. Everyone waited as she chewed and thought.

  “Director Longworth,” she said, “tell me again where you think our patient zero traveled to when he left Chicago.”

  Murray pushed his sandwich away. “Analysis shows the carrier was likely in O’Hare four days ago. London is reporting an outbreak, which means the carrier probably stopped there. The itinerary that best fits the outbreak pattern is Delta Flight 305, which flew from O’Hare to LaGuardia, then to Heathrow, then to Beijing.”

  Blackmon turned in her chair, stared at Vogel.

  “You said no foreign power could get to the Los Angeles, Director. Yet here we are with an infection pattern that points straight to Beijing, and that government has just shut off all communication. If an operative got the artifact and took it back to China, and if he showed his new prize to high-level officials, then we could be looking at infected government leaders.”

  Vogel started to sweat.

  “Madam President, as I said, it would be virtually impossible for anyone to reach that artifact, let alone take it out of the country. A more likely scenario is that Chinese leadership sees a spreading, global infection and they’re nailing their windows shut. They want to stop any other carriers from getting in, or make sure the world can’t watch how they choose to handle any localized infection. Probably both.”

  Admiral Porter politely cleared his throat.

  Blackmon spoke to him without taking her eyes off Vogel. “What is it, Admiral?”

  “Madam President, if the infection has somehow taken over the Chinese leadership, we obviously have to prepare for that. However, if Director Vogel is right and the Chinese are isolating themselves for their own protection, they may decide to take preemptive measures.”

  Blackmon spun her chair back around: the admiral had her full attention.

  “What kind of preemptive measures?”

  Porter pointed to the monitor showing the map of America, with its red and yellow major cities.

  “We’re already significantly infected,” he said. “If I were the Chinese, I’m not sure I’d wait for the infection to rage across Europe and America until it eventually reaches my borders. I’d consider surgical strikes to eliminate infected populations while I still could, before the disease spread so far it can’t be stopped.”

  The way Porter delivered it, it made perfect sense. Murray felt a chill in his chest — with the fate of the world on the line, Porter’s take actually sounded like a logical strategy, an almost inevitable one.

  Blackmon laced her fingers together. “Admiral, do you really think the Chinese would nuke us to mitigate this disease?”

  Porter nodded. “I do, Madam President. After all, we nuked ourselves to accomplish the same goal.”

  The chill spread to Murray’s stomach, to his throat.

  Porter stood. “Madam President, we have to assume this is a genuine threat. Whether we’re facing an isolationist China or one now controlled by rogue elements, we have to show that we’re ready to defend ourselves. I recommend we immediately move to DEFCON 3.”

  DEFCON stood for Defense Readiness Condition. The system had been in place since 1959, implemented as America adjusted to the threat of nuclear war.

  DEFCON 5 was the normal level, the lowest state of war readiness.

  With a change to DEFCON 3, the mobilization and response times for select air force units were shortened, often quite significantly. Some combat missions could be launched on fifteen minutes’ notice. Since the end of the Cold War, America had only reached that level on September 11, 2001.

  DEFCON 2 was the step just below nuclear war. All armed forces were ready to deploy and engage on six hours’ notice. The nation had reached DEFCON 2 just one time: during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

  And then the real troublemaker: DEFCON 1, also known as “Cocked Pistol.” It meant nuclear war was imminent, that the end of the world was just a presidential order away.

  The room waited. Blackmon took her time, but she didn’t flinch, didn’t show any sign of the stress overtaking her.

  She turned to face Murray.

  “Director Longworth, everything I’ve been told indicates the infected are mindless killers. Could they do more? Could the Converted actually take over a government?”

  He wanted to say no because he didn’t want to believe any of this was happening, but his job was to tell the ugly truth.

  “Based on what we’ve seen so far, they could not,” Murray said. “However, Doctor Montoya reported there were major changes in the way the disease behaved. I can’t rule out the possibility that the Chinese government is now under control of the Converted.”

  Blackmon put both hands flat on the table. “Admiral, take us to DEFCON 3.”

  FEET

  A gunshot woke him up.

  Cooper Mitchell knew enough not to move, not to make a sound. All he did was open his eyes. The boiler room was even darker than when he’d entered. Another bulb had been broken.

  How the fuck had he fallen asleep? Had he heard the shot, or dreamed it? It had been so faint, probably from somewhere out in the hall.

  There were more noises now, noises he definitely wasn’t imagining, coming from inside the boiler room. Soft sounds of surprise, perhaps of pain.

  Cooper didn’t move. Jeff (and his blanket-buddies) remained on top of him, still breathing, everyone covered by the ripped, tattered brown membrane. Cooper could only see a foot or so above the floor; his view consisted of the dead bald man and some of the far wall. The boiler blocked any view to his left.

  Jeff’s body still felt hot.

  Coop had to pee. Real bad.

  The sound of shuffling feet. More groans of pain. A noise like a yawn, if that yawn came from a gravel-voice demon.

  Something moved across Cooper’s limited field of vision: feet. Walking near the dead bald man. Feet that were too large for their loafers, so big the leather seams had split. What l
ittle light there was showed a glimpse of skin inside those splits … not white skin, not black or brown or tan, but … yellow … the color of bile mixed with sour milk.

  I am so fucked, so utterly fucked.

  And then, something spoke.

  “WHERRRRRRE …?”

  The deep, drawn-out word eased through the boiler room, an audible shadow of blackness. Something about the sound resonated deep in Cooper’s chest and stomach — he felt a fear so primitive it shut down everything, left room for only one thought: to move is to die. He recognized the word, but that voice … it wasn’t human.

  A second voice answered.

  “BASE … MENT?”

  An even deeper tone, somehow more terrifying than the first.

  Cooper’s bladder let go. He was barely aware of the wet heat that spread through his crotch down his right hip, along the part of his right thigh that pressed against the concrete floor.

  “COME,” said the first voice. “FIIIND … SOMEONE.”

  The yellow feet shuffled away. Cooper couldn’t see where.

  He was shaking. His body trembled so bad it made Jeff’s body tremble as well.

  The boiler room door opened, closed.

  Cooper listened as the door’s echo faded to nothing.

  A long-held breath slid out of his lungs. He tried to move, but he could not. He lay there, in his own urine, shaking so badly he could barely think.

  What was happening? What had made those people yellow? Gutierrez’s PSAs about “T.E.A.M.S.” had never said anything about that.

  Triangles, excessive anger and massive swelling.

  Cooper stuck his tongue out and felt it, checking for hard bumps, then yanked his fingers away — those fingers had touched the membrane covering Jeff. He swallowed automatically, before he thought to stop himself from doing so.

  Was some of that shit now inside of him?

  He had to find a place to wash up. He was in a boiler room … there had to be a sink down here somewhere. He could wash his hands, clean up the piss. Cooper slowly slid out from under Jeff. He listened carefully for any sound coming from the hallway, for any hint of sliding yellow feet.

  Nothing.

  He crept to the edge of the boiler, peeked around the curved edge: he saw no one, just the closed, white doors that led out into the hall.

  In the hall, the yellow people could be waiting …

  Cooper quietly walked deeper into the boiler room’s shadows. His eyes continued to adjust. He froze when he saw another unmoving, membrane-covered man. This one was standing, wedged against a vertical pipe. So tall … six-six? Six-seven? Tall, and thick, like an NFL lineman, but also lumpy, just like the cocooned Jeff.

  Next to the encased man, Cooper saw a metal sink, the industrial kind.

  What faint light there was reflected off something on the floor, something wet … water from the sink? A puddle, a thick puddle, running up to the shoes of the cocooned man.

  Shoes … four of them.

  Cooper looked closer. Near the head, a flap of membrane hung down. It was brown, but only on the outside — the inside looked wet-black. Behind the torn membrane, something white.

  Cooper’s eyes finally adjusted to the limited light. He was staring at a skull smeared with globs of rancid black. The white bone beneath the rotted flesh looked pitted and pockmarked, like someone had sprayed it with acid.

  The membrane-covered man had a lump on his left side, below the chest. The lump, it was the shape of a person … a shriveled person, as tall as Cooper but thinner than a death-camp victim.

  This can’t be happening … none of it …

  Cooper moved to the sink. He watched the membrane-covered man out of the corner of his eye as he turned on the hot water. He saw soap on the sink’s edge, used it to scrub his hands until they stung. He pulled handfuls of paper towels from a dispenser on the wall and used them to clean the piss from his pants.

  He finished and turned off the water. He was dabbing himself dry when he heard a metallic click — the sound of the boiler room door, closing.

  Cooper turned quickly, expecting to see something coming down the aisle toward him, but all he saw was the closed door. Had another of the creatures left?

  Jeff.

  Cooper looked left, to the base of the wall, to his friend … …

  the membrane, disgusting and tattered and torn, lay in a rumpled heap on the concrete floor.

  Jeff was gone.

  REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

  “I’m pregnant.”

  The words stunned him. Clarence Otto stared at Margaret, but he wasn’t really seeing her. He wasn’t really seeing anything.

  His lungs didn’t work. The little air he still had in them came out in a single syllable:

  “What?”

  Margaret hadn’t talked to him for almost four days, not since the videoconference with Cheng and Murray. She’d hidden in her private mission module. She hadn’t even come out for meals. The SEALs waited on her hand and foot, bringing her whatever she needed.

  And then, not even fifteen minutes ago, that tall black SEAL, Bosh, had found Clarence up on the helicopter deck, told him Margaret was waiting to speak with him in the conferencing module.

  Clarence had entered. She had pointed to a chair, told him to sit. He had. Before he could even say how are you, she’d hit him with that mind-numbing news.

  “I said, I’m pregnant.” Margaret stared at him. She wasn’t smiling, wasn’t frowning.

  Pregnant. His wife, the woman he still loved, pregnant with his child.

  “That … Margo, that’s fantastic.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Is it? Is it really fantastic, Clarence? Then I wonder why being a single mother isn’t at the top of every little girl’s lifelong wish list.”

  Single mother? What was she talking about?

  “I’m right here,” he said. “This is great. I mean, it’s a shock, but it’s great.”

  She pointed at him. “You’re not right here, Clarence. You left me, remember? And irony of ironies, you left me because I wouldn’t have a kid.”

  Everything he’d ever wanted — the woman he’d fallen in love with, a child, a family — right there in front of him. He’d waited so long for her, then made an agonizing decision. Would he lose his dream because he hadn’t been able to wait just a little bit longer?

  “I know,” he said. “I did leave you, you’re right. But that was before.”

  She smiled. “Oh, before? You mean when I was a total mess? Now that your old Margo has returned, you want a do-over on abandoning your wife?”

  No, that wasn’t what he … well, yes, he did want that. He never would have left this Margaret.

  “Things have changed,” he said. “Think about it — we can be a family.”

  She crossed her arms again. “If I decide to keep it.”

  Clarence sagged in his chair. If I decide to keep it: those six words carved a deep chasm, with her on one side and him on the other. And that decision, the fate of his unborn child … that lay on her side of the line.

  “Margaret, you can’t even think that.” He tried to sound authoritative and conciliatory at the same time. All he managed to do was sound small, weak.

  “Don’t tell me what to think,” she said. “This isn’t exactly an ideal world for a newborn, now is it?”

  Margaret had always been pro-choice. So had Clarence. But now he had no choice. He had never felt so powerless.

  He couldn’t read anything in her eyes.

  “We can make it work,” he said. “We’ll stay together. That’s what you wanted.”

  She nodded. “Right. What I wanted — past tense. It’s only been a few days, Clarence, but maybe me coming back to my normal self happened because you weren’t there to smother me, stifle me.” Her eyes narrowed. “You weren’t there to trap me in that house, to leave me alone all goddamn day, to …”

  Her words trailed off. She closed her eyes, gave her head a tiny shake. Then she looked
at him. Her expression softened a little, but there was still a hardness in there, and also something … vacant.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said. “But it goes without saying that you better take good care of me, Clarence. You’ve got a lot of making up to do.”

  She was going to make him grovel? The proud man inside wanted to turn around and walk out; the father-to-be inside, the husband inside, made him keep his ass right in that chair, made him nod.

  “Whatever it takes,” he said. “Anything you need, Margo — anything.”

  SOFIA

  Cooper Mitchell stared down the barrel of a gun.

  A woman held it. She was twentysomething, young enough to still be called a girl. She’d tied her black hair back in a loose ponytail. A look of anger and pain swirled in her dark eyes.

  The girl’s right hand clutched her right side, where blood turned her yellow shirt a disturbing reddish-orange. She looked pale and weak. She held the black pistol in her shaking left hand.

  “Don’t move,” she said. “Don’t you fucking move.”

  Cooper’s hands came up. He stayed as still as he could. He’d never had a gun pointed at him before.

  He’d waited in the boiler room, hoping Jeff might return, but not for long — not after he found other cocoons in the shadows. Cooper had gathered up Jeff’s coat, then wandered the basement, looking for his friend, looking for a weapon.

  When he’d turned a corner, he’d almost walked right into this gun-slinging girl.

  Cooper bent a little, lowered his shoulders, tried to look as unthreatening as he could.

  “Don’t shoot,” he said. “Please, put that down. I’m not one of them.”

  Assuming she would know what them was, that he hadn’t hallucinated the whole thing, that he hadn’t dreamed about his best friend wrapped up in a membrane, hadn’t imagined strangling a triangle-tongued man to death, hadn’t made up the people with inhuman voices and swollen, yellow feet.

  Her trembling aim stayed fixed on his face.

  “Mister, if you think I’m going to put this down, you’re fucking retarded.”