Extinction Age

-21-

General Kennor studied the picture of his grandkids. For the first four days after he’d arrived at Offutt Air Force Base, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to look at their innocent faces. Every time he did, he imagined them being torn to shreds by the Variants.

That’s why he’d put Colonel Wood in charge of all science operations. No one knew VX-99 better than him—at least, no one living. If anyone could defeat the Variants, it was Wood.

At first, when General Johnson had informed Kennor of Wood’s connection to Gibson, he had considered tossing Wood into a prison cell and throwing away the key. But Kennor was a practical man and saw the situation for what it was—an opportunity. Wood understood the details of VX-99, and his country needed that knowledge.

A rap on the door startled Kennor. He put the picture down and said, “It’s open.”

Wood himself opened the door and strode inside. “General,” he said, throwing up an impeccable salute.

“Colonel,” Kennor replied. He raised a return salute and then gestured to the chair in front of his desk.

Wood straightened his uniform and slid into the chair. “Plans are in motion, sir. We have over one hundred strike-teams from multiple bases participating in Operation Extinction.”

“Excellent news. How is the plan for stage two coming along?”

“Very good, sir. Once we collect the drugs, we’ll ship them to four locations including Plum Island. All of the antibody reactors are on stand by.”

Wood continued speaking, occasionally stroking the fingers of one hand down his pockmarked cheek, but Kennor was hardly listening. He was thinking of his daughter, his son in-law, and their kids. Men like Wood were the reason they were gone, yet Wood had put the pieces in place to avenge their tragic deaths.

It wasn’t ethical. It wasn’t moral. And it wasn’t right by any stretch of the imagination. Yet history proved that wars were started and ended by men who didn’t deserve to breathe free air. Wood was one of those men—and Kennor had become one too. He knew he was no better than Gibson or Wood, but in the end, morality meant nothing if there wasn’t anyone left to judge.

There was a less than gentle knock on the door. Kennor emerged from his thoughts to see Colonel Harris standing in the doorway. His lips were pressed into a thin line so tight they were almost as white as his hair.

“I thought I said no interruptions,” Kennor said.

“You did, General, but we have a problem.”

Kennor folded his arms across his chest. “What kind of problem?”

For the briefest moment, Harris paused. “The Variants, General. They’ve found us.”

Beckham grabbed a handhold and looked out over the open door. The bright morning sun glimmered off the skyscrapers of Baltimore. The reflection of their bird hopped from building to building. They followed Echo 1 over the city with Echo 3 close behind, their troop holds all packed full of weary soldiers.

“Remind me why they don’t just send us to a hospital for the drugs?” Horn asked over the comm.

Beckham pointed to a crater a half-mile away. The burned out husk of a building protruded out of the center. “That’s why.”

“There aren’t many hospitals left,” Chow said. “And for the first time in this entire war, Central Command is thinking with their heads. The FEMA warehouse will have stockpiles of everything from tampons to cancer drugs.”

“I thought the warehouses were just a myth,” Horn said.

“Apparently not,” Beckham said. “Hopefully the fact they’re ‘secret’ means they haven’t been raided and hostiles are at a minimum.”

Lombardi worked his way to the door. “Wouldn’t count on that.”

“You know something we don’t?” Beckham asked. He twisted away from the view to look Lombardi in the eye.

The sergeant shook his head. “Besides what Lieutenant Colonel Jensen already said? Not really. I just know that Site R had a permanent staff of three hundred and fifty with room for another two thousand. I’m glad I didn’t get assigned to Alpha. Mikesell and his team are probably walking into a slaughterhouse.”

Beckham’s earpiece crackled as one of the pilots said, “ETA fifteen minutes.”

The chopper flew over woodland and pasture, leaving civilization behind. The view wasn’t much different than the one he remembered vividly from April, when Team Ghost had taken an Osprey from Fort Bragg to Edwards Air Force Base. The leaves had just begun to come in, and a herd of horses had been galloping through a field of lush green grass, just like the one below them now.

Spring was Beckham’s favorite time of year because it signaled new life. But despite the vibrant colors, there was no sign of life below. No horses, no deer or rabbits. Not live ones, anyway. The bloody carcasses of a herd of cows dotted one field. He turned from the gruesome sight. At first, he’d wondered how animals were surviving the apocalypse. Now he knew that they weren’t. The Variants had eaten most of them.

“Eyes on Raven Rock,” one of the pilots said. Beckham scanned the horizon and saw a cluster of red and white radio towers. A multi-layered fence surrounded the main building and several adjacent structures.

“Make a pass,” Beckham said into the comm.

They circled the area for several minutes, allowing Beckham to sync his mental map with the one he held in his hand. He could see the access roads that connected a series of concrete portals leading into the hills. There were four in total, marked A through D. According to the map, Beckham was looking for portals C and D. The inner road would take his team south, past a ventilation control room, a domestic reservoir, and even a bowling alley. From there the underground passages curved to the west and connected with portals A and B. In the middle, there were two power plants, a second industrial reservoir, and five buildings that included living quarters and the Presidential Command Center.

The complex was essentially an underground city. The thirty-ton blast doors were built to withstand a nuclear attack. Unfortunately, the engineers hadn’t planned on stopping a weapon like the Hemorrhage virus, or the monsters it created.

A red circle on the map marked the approximate location of the FEMA facility Beckham was looking for. It was next to the domestic reservoir. He flicked the map with a gloved finger and slipped it back into his vest as Echo 1 veered off toward their landing site. They set down next to a security building while Echo 2 and 3 continued on another pass.

Beckham scanned the access roads for a second time. There was a mixture of abandoned civilian and military vehicles clogging the pavement. Most of them were parked near the C portal. He flipped his mini-mike to his lips. “Bravo 1, Charlie 1. You copy? Over.”

“Valentine,” came the reply. Beckham wouldn’t waste his time reminding the man he was subordinate, but he’d be damned if he’d call the guy by name.

“Your team takes portal C, we’ll take D. We’ll meet at the domestic reservoir,” Beckham said. “And maintain radio discipline once we’re inside.”

“Roger that,” Valentine said.

Beckham stifled another urge to give Valentine a dressing down. Wood’s man would either help or hinder on this mission, but Beckham was betting on the latter. And if he got in the way of doing what was right, or worse… Beckham shook the thought aside and searched the area for a potential LZ, focusing on an empty stretch of road.

“Put us down in between that Humvee and the semi,” he said over the comm.

The clatter from the final pre-combat gear and weapons checks echoed through the troop hold. Beckham slammed a magazine into his M4 and then performed the most important final preparation by patting the pocket containing the picture of his mom.

“Hope she’s watching over us,” Horn said as he joined Beckham at the open door. “Hope she’s watching over my girls at Plum Island, too.”

“She is, Big Horn,” Beckham said. He watched the concrete rise toward them as the pilots descended over the road. The landing skids connected with a crunch a moment later, and Beckham shouted, “Go, go, go!”

Boots pounded the pavement as Beckham took point and raced toward a green fence. Through the chain links, he could see a massive tunnel cut into the hills. When he reached the gate, Echo 2 pulled overhead and vanished over the wooded bluff above the entrance.

Beckham turned to check on Valentine and his men at the other portal. The sergeant had already breeched the gate, and his team was running through.

The decision to split up wasn’t an easy one for Beckham. A major problem with Operation Extinction was intel, or lack thereof. That, and the fact the medical infrastructure had been all but destroyed during the firebombing of the cities during the initial outbreak. It was yet another reason he was questioning the mission. Coming to Raven Rock seemed more like a rescue op for any surviving political dignitaries or military brass. Beckham was all about saving more souls, but he hated feeling like cannon fodder. If that turned out to be the case, he’d have something to say to Wood—if he made it back at all.

“Looks secure,” Lombardi said. “No sign of forced entry.”

Chow pulled a string of bloody goo hanging between links and held it up under the sun. “No sign, huh?” he said with a raised brow. “Looks like someone or something opted for an alternative route.” He wiped the blood on his flak jacket and pointed at the barbwire lining the top of the fence. Several pieces had been torn away and hung loosely over the side. Dried blood stained the metal.

Beckham banished any remaining hope for a simple mission.

“Let’s go,” he said, motioning toward the gate. Lombardi pulled a bolt cutter from his rucksack and snapped through the locks.

“What about a vehicle?” Horn asked.

“Don’t want to tell anyone we’re coming,” Beckham said. “We proceed on foot until we clear the facility. Horn, you’re on point. The rest of you fall into line and keep combat intervals. If we find Variants, remember your field of fire. Nobody pull any cowboy shit.”

He flashed a hand signal, and Chow pulled the gate back. Horn burst through with his M249 leveled at the lip of the tunnel. As they ran, Beckham mentally identified the escape routes he’d noted earlier on the map.

Ahead, Horn melted into the shadows. Beckham followed close behind, checking the walls, ceiling, and ground for any sign of struggle. He’d half expected to discover a battlefield inside with empty bullet casings and corpses. Besides a few streaks of blood, there wasn’t anything but concrete and rock.

Horn stopped a hundred feet from a gate blocking their entrance into the inner roadways. Weak rays of sunlight leaking into the tunnel confirmed what Beckham already knew: the gate leading inside the mountain was already open.

“Radio discipline from here on out,” Beckham whispered. He pointed to his eyes, then to Horn, and then to the open gate.

Horn acknowledged with a nod, shouldered his M249, and marched ahead, heel to toe, just like old times. And, just like old times, Beckham followed him into the darkness.

“You can’t, Kate,” Ellis was saying. “You’re too important.”

Kate held a syringe of Kryptonite under a bank of lights in the small lab room. She steadied her breathing as she stared at her new weapon. There was no sense of awe that she created something so powerful. In fact, she could hardly concentrate on her new creation at all.

She was focused on the fact her period was a week late.

Kate wanted to tell Ellis, but she couldn’t. Not yet—not until she knew for sure. At first she hadn’t given it much thought, attributing her irregular cycle to the stress. But the more she thought about injecting herself with the Kryptonite, the more she wondered if it was the right move. If she was pregnant, it might cause serious complications.

After several moments of silence, she lowered the syringe and faced Ellis. He was running a hand through his slicked back hair.

“Beckham is out there with the other soldiers, collecting chemotherapeutics that we hope will end this nightmare. We need to ensure it doesn’t have any major side effects on the surviving population,” Kate said.

Ellis held out his hand and let out an exasperated sigh. “Let me, then. You have Beckham, and Horn’s girls have really taken a liking to you. I don’t have anyone. If something goes wrong—”

“Don’t say that,” Kate said. “You have me.”

He twisted his lips to the side and used two fingers to gesture for the syringe. “I’m still a better option. Besides, if we’re correct, nothing’s going to happen. Right?”

Kate nodded without hesitation. She was confident the drugs would have minimal side effects on humans, but they still had to be sure before they deployed it on a massive level.

“Let me help at least,” Kate said. She sat Ellis down in a chair and grabbed his left arm to search for a suitable vein in the crook of his elbow.

Ellis closed his eyes and said, “Make it fast.”

“What kind of doctor hates needles?”

“I don’t mind ‘em as long as they aren’t going inside of me.”

Without warning, Kate inserted the tip of the needle into a plump vein and pushed in the cocktail. She quickly pulled it out again and put a cotton swab over the pinprick of blood forming on the surface of his skin.

“All done,” she said with a warm smile.

Ellis placed a finger over the swab. “Thanks. What’s next on the agenda?”

“I’d like to see how Patients 1 and 2 are doing.”

“But we just injected them a few hours ago.”

Kate disposed of the needle and washed her hands. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and said, “I need something to keep my mind off Operation Extinction.”

“Fine,” Ellis said. He opened the door to the lab and walked into the hallway where Cooper and Berg were waiting.

“We’re heading to Building 4,” Kate said.

“Follow us, Doctor.”

Kate spoke to Ellis openly as she walked. Her fear of Wood’s men was still there, but she figured the best course of action was to continue acting as if nothing was wrong.

“I want to make sure we have the bioreactors online and ready to go as soon as possible,” Kate said. “We can’t speed up cell growth once we start the batches, but we can ensure we’re producing as many as possible by coordinating multiple batches. Colonel Wood has already lined up three other locations.”

“That’s a good start,” Ellis said. “But we’re going to need more than four. What about other countries?”

“Wood said to leave that up to his science division,” Kate said. She recalled the conference call from the night before. The colonel had answered Kennor a little too quickly and smoothly about coordinating the production of Kryptonite. She had been so caught up in the moment that she hadn’t thought twice about it.

Until now.

The mid-morning sun beat down on them when they got outside. Kate felt a trickle of sweat forming on her forehead. She dragged a sleeve across her brow and tried to think. If the first stage of Operation Extinction was successful, they could start the bioreactors immediately. They needed two weeks to expand the cell line and produce enough for deployment. But in two weeks, the human population would have dwindled dramatically worldwide. The thought made Kate stop in her tracks.

“You okay, Kate?” Ellis asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”

“I did,” Kate said. “Billions of them.”

Fitz spat from the side of Tower 3. He watched the glob plummet and then whip away in the breeze. For the past three hours he had been on sentry duty, watching Apollo chase seagulls on the beach.

He brought the scope of his MK11 to his eye and glassed the post, stopping on Building 4. Kate and Ellis stood at the bottom of the steps with two Medical Corps soldiers dressed in all black. Fitz centered his crosshairs on the guards. Both had the same emotionless expressions, and, weirdly enough, the same mustaches.

Why the fuck would Wood’s men be trailing Kate and Ellis? There was plenty of security on the island, but it still seemed like a waste to assign two soldiers to guard Kate and Ellis. Unless that wasn’t their primary mission.

Fitz made a mental note to keep an eye on them. He was bored as all hell anyway, and doing some recon wouldn’t hurt anything.

A yelp pulled Fitz’s attention to the grass below his tower. Apollo glanced up with a ball of fur struggling in his mouth.

“Bad!” Fitz said. “Drop it.”

The dog spat out a live bunny, which darted away the moment its feet hit the ground, vanishing into a bush. Apollo wagged his tail as Fitz pulled a piece of a granola bar from his pocket and tossed it down to him.

Fitz chuckled and maneuvered his rifle back to Building 4. Kate’s group had gone inside, but there were several others on the sidewalk. Riley wheeled his chair down the path with Meg hopping behind him. Fitz couldn’t help but smile. The two made a cute pair. He wished he had someone to share the final days of mankind with, but he was happy Riley and Meg had each other.

Grabbing the bipod of his rifle, Fitz then repositioned the sight and zoomed in on the beach. He didn’t have time for romance anyway—he had a promise to uphold. His job was to protect the island and his friends on it.