Genesis Plague (22 page)

T
he eight or so soldiers standing by the trucks weren’t paying
much attention to anything other than their own jokes as Flint, Conny, and I ran
to a nearby hangar building and hugged the back wall.

Three small propeller
planes were parked next to the hangar, each of them unguarded.

“You know how to fly?” Flint
asked.

I shook my head. “You?”

“No.” He turned to
Conny. “You?”

“Nope.”

“Well, shit.”

“You said that
already.”

“I thought it was
appropriate.”

“Shh!” I whispered as
the guards fell silent.

They couldn’t see us,
but they could hear us. I snuck along the back of the hangar, away from the
planes and the military trucks.

“That one’s full of
people,” said Conny, pointing.

Almost to the end of
the runway, one of the hangar doors was wide open. Inside, a group of men and
women sat at round tables, watching a television bolted to the wall.

“They could be pilots.”

“I bet they are,” I
said. “Let’s go.”

We stayed along the
backsides of the buildings, running across the exposed grass between hangars as
we worked our way down the field. Soon the soldiers were far behind, out of
earshot. We approached the open hangar door slowly so we didn’t scare anyone
inside. It was a pointless consideration, since they were so engrossed in what
was on the television that I doubted they would have noticed if a bomb
detonated outside the hangar door.

Flint, Cassy, and I
stood in the doorway as a newswoman spoke solemnly on the TV.

“…and it is quickly
becoming clear that the extent of this infection is far greater than originally
reported. What started as a minor outbreak of a new strand of flu virus in the
Seattle area has quickly become an epidemic of global proportions.”

The screen changed to
show a world map, with the countries shaded white. Small patches of red faded
in across the globe, some darker than others. Most of the west coast of the
United States was a deep crimson, and the color lightened faintly as the blob
stretched inland.

“As you can see here,”
said the newswoman, “the highest concentration of infection has been reported
along the western U.S. seaboard, as far south as Baja. New York, Houston,
Chicago, and Orlando are also showing a high density of infection.”

As the newswoman spoke,
more areas of red showed up on around the globe, at least one spot in each
country.

“Jesus,” whispered
Flint. “It’s everywhere.”

“Many areas affected by
the virus have not yet been reported in. The National Health and Safety
Administration Board is urging everyone to keep out of big cities if at all
possible and to avoid contact with anyone outside your immediate family. If you
see someone showing symptoms of infection, report it immediately. We will put
the preliminary symptom infographic up again so you know exactly what to look
for…”

I glanced over the
people in the room as the newswoman continued. There were about a dozen people
in all, most in their forties, all watching the television with dread in their
eyes. A man and woman huddled close, hands held together on the table, while
the newswoman explained the best ways to avoid infection.

A young man in his
early twenties sat with his arms crossed, a red ball cap clenched in one hand
while he shook his head at the TV.

A woman sitting near
the hangar door turned around and saw us.

“Who the hell are you?”

Chairs squeaked on the
floor as everyone in the hangar looked in our direction. Someone muted the
television.

I was suddenly at a
loss for words, unable to imagine how I could get any of these people to agree
to fly us anywhere.

“Is anyone here a
pilot?” I managed to ask.

Most of them scowled as
they turned back to the television, which someone unmuted on cue.

Conny stepped forward
and cleared her throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen,
I work at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.”

The TV muted again and
the chairs squeaked as everyone turned back.

“We’ve been tracking
the virus since the beginning,” she said, gesturing to me and Flint. “It’s as
real as they’re saying on the news. We need a pilot to fly us to a laboratory
in San Francisco where we can begin mass-production of the vaccine.”

The people whispered to
each other when I held up the plastic tube of orange liquid.

“How do you know it works?”
someone shouted from across the room.

“We’ve tested it in the
lab, and—”

“No one’s flying out of
here, sweetie. Didn’t you see the trucks? They told us point-blank they would
shoot down anyone who tries to take off.”

“We don’t have a
choice,” I said, stepping forward. I stared at the young man with the ball cap,
but he looked away. “The highways aren’t an option, and if we wait to
synthesize the vaccine, more people will die.”

No one made eye contact
as I looked around the room. They mumbled to each other, shaking their heads.
The couple who had been holding hands sat close together, no longer touching.
Instead, they gestured emphatically as they argued in hushed tones. I saw
matching wedding bands on their ring fingers.

“Ignoring the problem
until it goes away is not a possibility,” I said. “The virus is designed so
that the infected seek out people who are familiar to them. You might get a
phone call tomorrow from your son or daughter whom you haven’t heard from in
years. Guess what? They’re coming home for a visit. Or maybe they’ve already
arrived.”

A few of the faces in
the room turned ashen, their mouths partly open.

The woman arguing with
her husband suddenly stood up, her chair squeaking backward.

“We’ll take you.”

“Sherri, no!” said
another woman at a nearby table.

Sherri’s husband
reluctantly stood, his eyes fixed on me, and he nodded.

“No use in sittin’
around here waitin’ for the end,” he said, looking around at the others. They
all turned away, refusing to make eye contact. “This is what it comes down to,
then?” he asked. The room was silent. “I thought I knew you people.”

He and Sherri walked
over to us.

“Buncha geniuses, huh?”
said the man, eyeing us up and down. “Well, brain-trust, how you suppose we
bust outta here?”

The young man with the
ball cap approached us as the rest of the room went back to watching
television.

“Suppose I can help,”
he said nervously. “Make some kind of diversion, or something, so you all can
get off the ground.”

“That’s more like it,”
said Sherri’s husband, loud enough so the others could hear.

“This is Jack
Kitterick,” said Sherri, gesturing to the young man. “I’m Sherri Walker, and
this is my husband, Frank.”

“Nice to meet you all,”
I said, shaking their hands and introducing Flint, then Conny. She didn’t offer
her hand. I turned to the young man. “Jack, is it? What do you have in mind?”

F
lint, Conny, and I followed Sherri and Frank out of the hangar
and around the side of the building, keeping an eye on the soldiers halfway down
the airstrip. They were all on the opposite side of the four trucks and didn’t
look in our direction as we ran to the next building.

Sherri led us through a
side door and into the large hangar. Two planes were parked inside, both with
their noses pointed toward the hangar door.

“It’s the 207,” said
Sherri, hurrying to the larger of the two planes.

Cessna 207 Sky Wagon
was printed on the tail. A broad red strip ran down the length of the plane.
Five small windows lined each side, and the cabin looked slightly bigger than
what I was used to seeing on a private plane.

“Will that hold all of
us?” Flint asked as Sherri opened the door and kicked aside the wheel-blocks.

“We ripped out a couple
seats to make more room for our dogs,” Frank said, “but she’s still big
enough.”

Sherri climbed in first
and moved to the front. Frank went next, dropping into the co-pilot’s chair.

The passenger portion
of the plane had two rows of two seats, and a fifth seat in the back. Conny
took the back as Flint and I sat in the front row.

Sherri and Frank put on
their headsets. She offered him her hand and he kissed her wedding band, then
she flipped a switch with that hand and the propeller started to spin. The
engine noise roared loudly in the metal hangar.

“Paul, the door,” Flint
said.

I leaned out and grabbed
the handle, then slammed the door shut as the plane rolled forward.

“How do we get out?!” I
shouted over the engine noise, pointing at the closed hangar door.

Sherri grinned and
pushed a button on a small device clipped to the ceiling. The door rolled up
slowly.

“Pretty slick,” Flint
said.

I turned around to the
back. “You okay?” I asked Conny.

She nodded and slouched
down in her seat. As we left the hangar and rolled out onto the runway, I found
myself slouching as well, peering out through the window at the military trucks
down the runway.

The soldiers were small
from that distance, but I could see one of them waving his arms as he ran
around the trucks, heading in our direction. Soon his buddies were swarming
behind him, and I was fairly certain I could see a large tube-like weapon on
one of their shoulders.

“I hope your friend
Jack is as good as his word!” Flint shouted.

Sherri gave a thumbs-up
and gripped the steering column. The Cessna swung wide and rolled down the runway,
picking up speed as it headed toward the trucks.

“Do you have enough
room?” I yelled.

Another thumbs-up from
Sherri. Frank grinned.

“Why are you doing
this?” I asked loudly.

“Our daughter lives in
Sacramento,” said Sherri.

I expected her to say
more, but that was it. I guess that was all there needed to be. Sacramento was
near San Francisco. Maybe Frank and Sherri were just looking for that extra
push to get their plane in the air.

The soldiers were
rapidly approaching as we rolled faster down the tarmac. One of them definitely
had some kind of rocket launcher.

“There’s Jack,” said
Frank, pointing behind the military trucks.

A large gasoline tanker
drove out onto the runway and turned in our direction. I could barely make out
a red ball cap on the driver.

The soldier with the
rocket launcher knelt on the tarmac. We were less than fifty yards away.

“It’s gonna be close!”
shouted Sherri.

She pulled back on the
steering column and the Cessna’s wheels lifted off the ground. Bright sunlight
blasted in through the windshield, but I could still see the fireball erupt
from the gas tanker as it plowed into one of the military trucks.

The kneeling soldier was
thrown forward. The rocket launcher bucked as he pulled the trigger.

“Hang on!” screamed
Sherri as she banked to the left.

The rocket swished past
our tail, missing it by inches. We cheered as the plane leveled out. Sherri
nudged the nose higher and we climbed quickly.

I looked out the window,
down at the runway. Jack was standing on the tarmac, a hundred feet back from
the fiery inferno that was consuming the military trucks. He must have jumped
free before impact. He waved his red hat at our plane as the soldiers tackled
him to the ground.

“Nice flying, ace,”
Flint said as he breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

As I settled back into
my seat, my hand brushed against a piece of paper sticking half-out of my
pocket. I pulled out the crumpled wad and smoothed out the sheet.

“What is that?” asked
Flint, leaning over.

“Johann’s vaccine data
on Chimp Two.” I scanned the page quickly, working my way down to the results.

“That’s the chimp that
was infected with Dan’s blood?”

I nodded. “Chimp One
got the original virus, straight from the
Loasis
organisms.”

I read faster and
faster I approached the bottom of the page. You know that sinking feeling you
get when you apply for a job or a college, and you’re reading the letter they
sent and it starts out with “We’re sorry to inform you, but…”?

Well, I felt it at the
bottom of that printout.

Through the mass of
technical jargon and DNA profiling data, I found the seed of doom.

We’re sorry to
inform you, but…

“It doesn’t work,” I
said, lowering the sheet of paper and staring ahead.

“What do you mean?” Flint
asked. “Johann was screaming about how he found the vaccine!”

“It’s only effective in
patients infected with the original virus specimen. Levino and Grayson could
have been saved if we had more time.”

Conny leaned forward.
“Why didn’t it work on Chimp Two?”

“The only explanation I
can think of is that it’s generational from host to host,” I said. “The virus
mutated when it was taken from Dan and injected into the chimp. The vaccine was
tailored to attack the original virus, not the mutated form.”

Conny slowly sat back
and looked out the window.

“Well then, we’re
screwed!” shouted Flint, throwing up his hands. “And not just us in the plane.
I’m talking about the whole damn
planet
. We can cure the people who were
infected by the volcanic fallout, but what about everyone
they
infected?”

“We have to create
another vaccine.” I said.

“If the virus mutates
from host to host,” Conny said, “you’ll be playing catch up the whole time. The
bug will always be one step ahead.”

“I need to find Xander,”
I said.

“What the hell for?!”
shouted Flint.

“He brought something
out of the cave. Something from the rock where the
Loasis
were feeding.
It might be the key to shutting down the virus for good.”

“And it could just as
easily be nothing at all.”

“There’s no other
option. Either he has the answer, or we’re all going to die.”

I leaned forward and
told Sherri my plan.