The Armageddon Protocol

THIRTY-FIVE

Harry leaned forward in his chair and strained at the roped binding his hands behind him. “Andrej — are you all right?”

The professor had been beaten badly and had two black eyes and a large cut running vertically across both his lips. “I’m… okay, I think.”

Don’t waste your concern on a man minutes from death,” Szabo said. “Anyway, where was I? Ah — yes. The nanodust is programmed to kill its target, and then after death it will exit the dead body via the lungs and hunt down its next target. This will proceed until the population is culled and then we will deactivate it. Think of it as an intelligent, controllable superbug that kills instantaneously.”

“Right now I’m thinking about what size straight-jacket you require,” Harry said, glancing at Lucia in the freezer. She was sitting down now and curled into a ball. “What if this thing develops an artificial intelligence? Who says it won’t come after you next?”

Szabo shook his head. “There is no capacity for AI in its programming. It must be controlled by man — in this case, me.”

“How very reassuring,” Niko said.

“You should be reassured,” Szabo proclaimed. “The Ministry takes its duty to control the human population extremely seriously. After the numbers are culled the nanodust will be destroyed and we will allow life to continue as before — only with a more sustainable population, naturally.”

“Until you decide we need another cull?” Niko said.

“Yes, it has always been this way, as I have already told you. It was this way in the fourteenth century when we engineered the Black Death, and the cholera epidemics that reduced numbers a century later. And again in the eighteenth century when the Ministry’s terrible duty caused it to create and spread the smallpox virus that wiped out sixty million Europeans, not to mention yet again in the early twentieth century when we reduced the numbers by another one hundred million. Sadly, as humans find more ways to live longer and protect themselves from disease, the population will require more controlling.”

Harry shook his head in disgust. “But when you say controlling, Szabo, you mean genocide, of course.”

“What we do, we do for the good of mankind. It has always been this way. If we failed in our duty the population of the world would get so out of control everywhere would look like a turkey farm in a few short decades.” Szabo turned to Harry. “Have you ever seen a turkey farm?”

“No,” Harry said bluntly. “And your comparison between people and turkeys is truly touching.”

Szabo shrugged his shoulders and ordered Aleksi to drag Liška into one of the freezers next to where they were holding Lucia. The Finn placed Liška on a chair, tied him down and slapped a length of black duct tape over his mouth.

Steiner moved forward and pulled the chrome canister from his pocket, loosened the lid and placed it beside the professor in the freezer. He walked out and locked the door behind him, and now the professor raised his beaten face and looked forlornly at them through the chilled glass in the heavy metal freezer door.

Steiner handed Szabo a black Samsonite case and he opened it to reveal a control panel which he began to activate. “People and turkeys amount to the same thing as far as this planet’s fragile ecosystem is concerned.”

He pushed a tiny joy stick forward with his right thumb and a second later the black dust in the canister began to drift from the lid of the container like smoke. “And so now we must do our duty once again, and reduce the population. This is what we call our Armageddon Protocol, and we do not approach the task lightly. There are formulas to ascertain population density, strict rules we must apply and careful safety regulations before the protocol is applied. Only territories with a density over one hundred people per square kilometre will have their populations culled in the first wave.”

Szabo moved the dust into the air and suddenly it vanished right before their eyes.

“It really is invisible!” Zoey said.

“Not really,” said Szabo. “When separated, the dust particles are so small it’s beyond our capability to see them, but when I bring them back together into their home cloud, they reappear.”

Suddenly the cloud of dust particles manifested again, only this time Szabo had moved them much closer to the Czech scientist. In response, he struggled against the ropes strapping him to the chair.

Frozen with horror, she and the others watched as the nanodust buzzed and swarmed around Andrej Liška’s head, surrounding him with its fine black dust. Szabo altered the controls and separated the dust, rendering them invisible again, and then pulled them back together bringing them back into view.

Zoey watched them move as one, and gasped. “They move like a flock of starlings.”

“A murmuration of starlings,” Szabo said. “But yes… aren’t they beautiful — and each one of those minute dust particles is capable of infiltrating his bloodstream and travelling to his brain where it will overtake his critical functions.”

With his mouth covered in the black duct tape, Andrej Liška was unable to plead for his life, but his bulging eyes and sweat-soaked forehead showed the world his terrible fear.

“You can’t do this, Szabo!” Harry said. “This is murder.”

“Is it murder when they kill animals to test the lipstick young Miss Conway is wearing?”

“What?” Harry said in horror. “You can’t compare testing on animals with deliberately murdering a human being!”

“No, I shouldn’t — you are quite right. Testing puerile cosmetics on innocent animals is far worse than allowing this incredible dust to turn on one of its treacherous creators.”

“You’ve made your point, Szabo!” Harry said. “Switch the dust off and let him live.”

A deep smile of satisfaction spread across Szabo’s face as he raised a withered finger and pointed it through the glass. “In terms of both the traitor Andrej Liška and the overpopulated world, it is too late for mercy.” The black metallic vapor drifted into the professor’s eyes and nostrils and he began to judder uncontrollably.

Harry watched as Andrej slumped dead in his chair and then saw the grim, terrifying sight of the black dust emanating from his nose and flying back into the canister.

“My God…”

“Czech-mate Professor Liška,” Szabo said in a mild, businesslike manner. He turned to Steiner. “Secure the canister and bring it with us.” He closed the case and handed it back to Steiner before fixing his eyes on the Swedish woman. “You will stay here in Chamonix and await my return. Your reward for missing the fun is to watch this scum die. Put them all in the freezer with Serrano.”

Under Steiner’s gun, Aleksi untied them and ordered them into the freezer. When they were inside, Szabo slammed the cold room door and lowered the temperature control to the minimum setting. “This commercial freezer goes down to minus twenty degrees. Your deaths will be drawn out and agonizing.”

“Much like one of your dinner parties, I’m sure,” Harry said.

Szabo’s expression of hatred didn’t alter. “There is nothing amusing about freezing to death, Mr Bane. First, the blood flow in your capillaries will constrict in order to increase supply to your internal organs. This only serves to make you feel even colder than you really are. Second, as your nervous system redirects blood to your organs, your heart rate will increase until it is pounding in your chest like a jackhammer, and your blood pressure will go sky-high.”

“Sounds like my first date,” Zoey said.

“Then you will start to shiver uncontrollably as your muscles contract violently and the hypothermia begins. As the blood drains from your skin, you will turn as white as a ghost… they always do… and then your muscles will freeze and you will be unable to move. You will lose control of your bladder. The enzymes in your brain will stop working and you will get confused, and then you will finally stop trying to save yourselves. After that, the end is inescapable — frostbite will turn your fingers and toes black, and then…”

“I know what happens, Szabo,” Harry said. “I was a British Army officer for years. We’re trained. I know about the paradoxical undressing, when people strip their clothes off because in the final stages the blood vessels on the surface start to dilate. How they crawl into a corner and try and hibernate as their brains shut down and how they finally die when their organs shut down one by one.”

“Hell,” Zoey said, giving Harry a dirty look. “And I thought you just sort shivered and fell asleep.”

Szabo smirked. “Thanks to your friend here, you now know different. And now I must bid you farewell. I have a world to save, and you have several agonizing hours inside a commercial freezing unit. No one is immortal.”

“Not strictly true,” Niko said. “I will live forever through a program I have created. I uploaded all my text messages and emails to a chatbot and it’s sophisticated enough to recreate my entire personality,” as he spoke, he wobbled his head with genuine pride. “I even programmed it to learn my voice. After I’m gone you will still be able to talk to me.”

“How regrettable,” Szabo said, turning to Harry. “Aside from your strange friend’s computer program, the rest of you will soon be dead. Your licence to live has been revoked.”

Harry watched as Szabo, Steiner and Aleksi turned up the steps leading back to the hotel’s ground floor. A few seconds later they all felt the drop in temperature. Standing on the other side of the glass was the impassive Swedish woman, her arms crossed over her chest and an emotionless expression on her slim face.

“You can’t just watch us die in here!” Lucia said.

“I bet she can,” Zoey said. “She looks like one crazy bitch to me.”

“How can you watch people freeze to death?” Niko said.

After ignoring all their pleas, the Swedish woman finally spoke. “No, I cannot watch you freeze to death, and I will not.”

Harry and the others exchanged a glance as a thin glimmer of hope flooded back into their world, but then the hope faded when she picked up Steiner’s Mini Uzi and checked the magazine was full.

“Hans and his heavy bolt cyclic rate reducer…” she said. “How very like him.” As she spoke, she deftly converted the weapon to a normal bolt high cyclic rate and smiled.

“What’s she doing?” Lucia asked.

Harry frowned and took a step toward the door. “She’s converting the weapon to make it less accurate but fire more rounds.”

“Less accurate?” Niko said.

“We’re fish in a barrel, Nikky,” Zoey said. “She doesn’t need accuracy. She’s just having fun.”

“Got it in one,” Harry said.

“I think I’d rather freeze to death,” Lucia said, keeping one eye on the matte black barrel at the end of the Uzi.

“Then that’s too bad…” Elsa said, glancing over her shoulders up the steps. They all heard the sound of Szabo’s enormous Bentley fire up and pull out of the garage block. “You are certainly not going to freeze to death.” She extended the collapsible carbine stock and snuggled the weapon into her shoulder, raising the muzzle in their direction and then moved forward to open the cold room door.