Impetus (5 page)

CHAPTER
6
 

Phillip sat in his office and stared at the abstract oil painting on his wall. Contorted shapes and exaggerated swishes fought each other for space on the small canvas. He loved abstract art. Abstract allowed him to view the work in the way he wanted. Other types of art seemed more rigid in their meaning. And he did not like to be told what to think or do. This particular painting happened to be his favorite. As with most things Phillip admired, this was done by his own hands.

He
leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head and his feet up on his desk, and he admired his work. He vividly remembered the day he’d created this masterpiece. It was two years before Colossus. He was working tirelessly for the Department of Defense on a new strand of airborne bacteria that would render whoever breathed it unconscious for anywhere from eight to twelve hours. It worked instantly, was odorless, and only known by a select few because of its top secret designation.

A colleague of his
at the University of Massachusetts who was constantly pestering him to get out of the lab and “back into society” invited him to a party. Phillip initially dismissed the idea. He did not have the luxury of personal time. There were far too many important things to do. And he valued his work over anything those of lesser intelligence could offer. That was until he discovered that Lucy would be going. The party then became of interest. He figured it couldn’t hurt to take an hour or two out of his busy schedule to socialize.

Lucy and Ph
illip started as colleagues, but became something more. The flirting ramped-up the night of the party, especially after Phillip had a few vodka and tonics. They talked about many things, but mostly about work. Phillip was attracted to intelligence above all else; it was his weak spot. And Lucy had copious amounts of it to go with her curvaceous body. It did not take long after that for the two to become one. Their relationship was a sweet crush that quickly soured, lasting for less than six months. It was all Phillip’s fault. They both knew that. He chose his work time and again over her. Having never been in a relationship for longer than a minute, and usually with a snooze-worthy medical book, he’d doomed their relationship from the start.

He painted
this picture during one of his dates with Lucy.
Date with Paint
was the name of the place. He had never been much of a painter, aside from the careless smudges he made as a child. But there he was, a celebrated pathologist with a PhD in microbiology, dressed in a goofy art apron two sizes too large, swooning over a woman he knew in his heart he had no way of keeping.

T
he painting reminded him of her, of that night. Most of all, his picture reminded him that his work should never come second to anyone or anything. Since then, it never had.

There was a knock on the glass door to his office
. Phillip looked over and waved him in.

“
Dr. Jones,” said the man who entered. He was dressed in a dark-blue jumpsuit, tight around the waste, with a gold shield emblem on both shoulders and over the right breast. The words
Initiative Security
were emblazoned above the shields, with the word
Captain
below.

“
How did it go, Jon?”

“
Fine, sir. We distributed all twenty test kits without incident.”

“
Were you seen?”

“
Yes. But we needn’t worry about her.” Captain Jon Teague moved closer to the desk.

“
How so?”

“
She was in the late stages of CV-1. Maybe a week or so left. Limb paralysis had already set in. And her corneas were blackening.”

“
What do you mean
was
in the late stages?”

“
We did the humane thing. She was in pain. We ended that pain.”

Phillip soaked in the information.
“And you made sure the kits would be seen?”

The
captain said, “Yes, sir. We painted the boxes bright red as requested. There is no way anyone is going to miss it out there. It might as well be a friggin’ rainbow.”

Phillip
paused for a moment, caught in his thoughts. He then looked back to Captain Teague. “Well done, Captain. Let’s hope this leads us to the answers we desperately need.”
 

**
 

Sid
sat on his bed and bounced a tennis ball off the far wall. With each bounce he thought of all the experiments he had run on the virus’s makeup. He would throw and then catch, pausing in between the routine as he thought. The virus had been broken down, diluted, spliced, heated, frozen, and everything in between. It seemed impervious to anything they knew or had: a true enigma. All the tools and instruments that they had packed into The Facility before Impact made little difference. Hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of medical equipment: CT, genetic splicers, nanobots. They had it all and more, and none of it mattered. And that was what worried Sid the most. There may be no answer to the question the virus posed.

The fact that they had yet to put a dent in the virus kept him up at night. But it was what they were doing now, the testing
outside the doors, that gave him nightmares. What they were doing went against his Hippocratic Oath. The respect for life seemed to be uncaringly brushed aside. Now he simply felt like a hypocrite. On more than one occasion, he brought those feelings up. His peers quickly reminded him that the oath they all swore was to a world that no longer existed. The rules had changed, they said. But he did not see it that way. These were the same people he’d sworn to protect. The same lives he’d vowed to respect. It was nothing more than convenient to ignore all that under the premise of change. It served
their
purpose. It helped
them
sleep at night.

But he was not
sleeping. All he could do was think of what they had just done.

The door
to Sid’s quarters slid open automatically as Alex entered from the hallway.

“
Hey, bud,” Alex said. “I hope you aren’t mad about yesterday’s meeting?”

Sid
shook his head. “I’m not mad. I’m disgusted. What we’re doing isn’t right, Alex.”

Alex
sighed and then sat at the end of Sid’s bed. He put his back to the wall and held out his hands, requesting the ball.

Sid tossed it to him and
Alex began bouncing it on the opposite wall. “I hope you know that I’m not fully on board with what Phillip is doing, either.”

Sid looked at him, raising his right eyebrow.

“Don’t do that. You’ve known me a long time, Sid. I don’t want to fool these people any more than you do. But what choice do we have? If we don’t do this, then we all—”

“
We may die regardless of what we’ve done,” Sid said, sensing what Alex was about to say. They had been through this countless times. “I feel like we are getting off course. The Initiative was created to rebuild what the meteorites destroyed. It doesn’t feel like we are rebuilding anything. It feels like we are helping to destroy more lives.”

“
I know,” Alex said.

“
Then why not say something, Alex? Why am I the one that always has to play devil’s advocate? At this point I wouldn’t be surprised to wake up outside the doors one morning. I think Phillip is getting fed up with my bleeding heart crap.”

“
Stop it.”

“
I’m serious, Alex. Phillip isn’t going to put up with it much longer. Especially when everyone else simply agrees with his plans. I seem to be the only one who disagrees on a regular basis. Remember when Shaker started showing signs of infection?”

Alex
nodded. It was hard for any of them to forget.

“
His symptoms came out of nowhere. Much quicker than we had seen in the others. It was like he drank a gallon of liquid virus.”

“
Of course I remember, man. I liked Shaker as much as you did. It wasn’t easy on any of us watching him die like that.”

“
It doesn’t seem strange to you how quickly he came down with the virus?”

Alex
shook his head slowly while thinking. “Not really. He dealt with the virus in its raw form. He was the one breaking it down every day. Out of all of us, he was the one with the most daily exposure to it. It was probably just a matter of time before he had an accident.”

“
What if it wasn’t an accident?”

“
Oh, come on, Sid. You don’t really believe that someone here sabotaged his work, do you?”

Sid remained quiet. He didn
’t know what to believe anymore. But he’d known Dr. Shaker well, from his early days working for the CDC. Dr. Shaker was many things, but careless was not one of them.

“
Sid, I don’t necessarily agree with how Phillip is going about—”

“
Then speak up,” Sid interrupted. “How can you sit there while he puts this into motion? These people are all going to think once they inject themselves that they are safe. That the virus can’t affect them any longer. But in reality all they are being is unknowingly tested without consent. What happens if one of those people has an adverse event to the serum? What if they die from it?”

“
They are going to die regardless, Sid. We didn’t cause the virus. Remember? We are simply trying to eradicate it.”

“
But at what cost, Alex?”

“
What are our alternatives, Sid? Please. Let me know. Because I’m all ears. If you have something else, then let me know. I’ll march down to Phillip’s office with you right now.”

Sid said nothing. He knew, despite his strong reservations, that
there were no alternatives. He had worked tirelessly in the lab to find one. Night after night, and typically into the early morning hours. There had to be something else they could do. Some miniscule speck of hope that he had missed. Something so elusive that once found it would be a eureka moment for them all. That was what he searched for. If found, they could cure those inside The Facility without having to hurt those that had already been hurt so much. He had never felt easy about living at The Facility while so many others suffered. And he worked to make sure it was not in vain.

“
You’re a good man, Sid. Better than the rest of us. But you know this is the only way. We’ve both spent every waking hour in the lab trying to find something to beat this thing. You don’t have to like it. Hell, I don’t like it, either. But this is where we are.”

“
Who’s to say this works? It’s nothing more than a needle in the proverbial haystack. And we don’t even know if the immunity exists.”

Alex
stopped throwing the ball against the wall. He eyed it a minute before tossing it back to Sid. “We have to believe it exists, Alex. If we don’t, what else do we have?”

Sid stood from his bed. He walked over and placed the ball on one of the three shelves in the back of his room. He then picked up a picture of himself, one taken the day he
’d graduated from medical school. A beaming smile cut his face from ear to ear. That was back when his purpose was defined, his future determined. Now it all seemed so worthless.

He turned to
Alex. “I don’t mean to lash out at you. I hope you know that.”

“
I know,” Alex said. “To tell you the truth, though, if you didn’t get all heated over this, then I’d be worried. You have always been the voice of reason. You kept me grounded in medical school and pushed me through some long nights during our residency. I take what you say very seriously. Just try to remember that I’m on your side. Just because I don’t go against Phillip doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with his methods. Remember Professor McKay’s first rule?”

Sid thought and then said,
“Of course I do. It’s not like he would let us forget it. ‘Wasted energy is the direct result of disagreements without solutions.’”

“
That’s the one. Trust me—I’d love nothing more than to find a different solution to this thing. But this is all we have. You never seemed this concerned when we tested on the dogs in the lab.”

“
Those were dogs, Alex. These are humans. Different reactions. Different meaning.”

“Same principle. Same morals. I know dogs are not humans, but if you had no compunctions then—“

“It’s not the same and you know it, Alex. It’s just eating me up.”

Sid turned and put the picture back down on the shelf.
If the virus did not get him, his own conscience would.

CHAPTER
7
 

“Please,” the elderly woman begged from down on her knees. “We have nothing.”

King stared past her, toward what remained of Boston Harbor.
The water moved like the sands of a desert, covered in ash and dust, swaying in place just enough to reveal it was not solid land. He took a breath and looked down at the woman with disgust. To him these people were no different than cockroaches; pains in the ass that stole what was left of the world’s supplies.
His
supplies. And from
his
land.

“
And now you have even less,” King said. He motioned to Clyde with nothing more than a quick glance of his eyes. It was a look he had given more times than he could remember. It always meant the same thing. Something he trained his son to do at his unspoken command.

The
woman said nothing. Nor did her husband as he knelt beside her. They simply looked at one another in fearful confusion. It was only moments ago that they had been dragged from their own shelter: a small apartment atop the charred and empty remains of a once-thriving convenience store in what used to be one of the busiest sections of the city.

The couple
’s shared look was quickly interrupted.

Clyde reached down
without so much as a word, and, in one swift motion, he cut the old woman’s throat from ear to ear with a dagger he had stealthily removed from his boot. The woman gasped, which quickly turned into a gurgle. She instinctively reached up to her throat, blood seeping between her fingers. She then fell face-first onto the pavement. A small clap of dust wafted around her as her body thumped down, dead.

Her
husband’s face turned white in horror. “No!” he screamed. Then his eyes burned red with anger. Instinct and rage took over. The old man sprang to his feet in a manner that seemed unfitting for such aged legs. He turned to Clyde. And that’s when Clyde stuck him in the gut with the same blade that had seconds ago taken his wife’s life.

“
Till death do you part,” Clyde said, smiling crookedly.

The ma
n did not look away until the last breath escaped his now lifeless body. He fell beside his wife, his hand coming to rest atop hers.

King
did not look. He kept his eyes on the harbor, never turning his attention to the vulgar matters that had transpired a mere three feet from him. Clyde was good at what he did. Like father, like son. He’d been trained by King himself. He lacked the finesse King had, of course. Clyde was brutish in his ways. Like a child first learning to color inside the lines: sloppy and rough. The end result was the same, though. And that was really all King cared about. His will would be done.

Boston Harbor was
where King had moored his yacht, back when people strived to have such things. He went looking for his once-prized possession a year after Impact.
In the Shadows
was the name he’d chosen for her. The yacht was the only “female” he ever treated with an ounce of respect; in his darkly twisted mind, she was the only one that deserved it. His own father had taught him early on that women were to be subservient. If they did not obey, then they were to be punished.

Toward the end of things
, his work had run him ragged. Long flights coupled with longer nights had worn him down. His work situation had neared a tipping point a few months before Colossus, and King had strongly considered leaving it all behind. He had enough money to last the rest of his life. And to him money was nothing more than a pleasurable by-product of a job he loved. Those were the days. Patiently waiting for his mark. Methodically planning his kill down to the last detail. And when the time came, he was always precise. He considered himself the brain surgeon of killers. It was an art form to him. And that was why he could not be bothered with amateurish killings such as Clyde’s.

“
There ain’t nothing in there,” said one of King’s men as he stumbled out of the broken glass and metal structure of the old convenience store. He looked down quickly at the two corpses at his feet. “Oh,” he said.

King
took a large breath and then exhaled a larger sigh. He turned to the ragged man, Richard, he thought. Though it did not really matter what his name was. Only that he was loyal like the rest of the dogs that obeyed him. Once the loyalty was gone, then so was the dog.

“
You searched the entirety of the building?” King asked.

The man nodded u
nconvincingly. The longer he nodded, the less sure he appeared. “Let me take another look, King.” And with that he turned and shuffled back into the dilapidated structure they had come to pillage.

Nowadays
King did little killing. He had Clyde for that. And if not Clyde, then he was sure he would be able to find a suitable replacement. The meteorite seemed to have spared many terrible people’s lives. Either that or the new world had created them. Either way, finding people lacking in morality was as easy as finding dust. Clyde was his son, but only because it was convenient for King at the time. Ever since he’d rescued him from that terrible life within the orphanage. Granted, he had been the one who’d abandoned Clyde at that orphanage in the first place. He felt like a good person for taking him back out after the Earth fell in upon itself. In his mind, King was nothing short of a saint.

His sea
t in life was that of a ruler. And before Impact that would have been an impossibility. He would never had been president. After all, “killer for hire” would have been frowned upon as his previous employment. But now that a government, or a president, or really anything that once was, no longer existed, he was free to make his own kingdom. And that is what he did. One built on fear and death, atop the bodies of many a man.

The same ragged man again appeared from within the dark
store. “We searched again. There ain’t nothing in there, King. The store ain’t got nothing in it but dust and some rat skeletons.”

King
said, “And what of the upstairs?”

The man
’s eyes widened. It was readily apparent that he lacked the intelligence to realize there was an upper level. King did not fault him for that. He knew surrounding himself with neophytes had its disadvantages. They were grunts. He was the mind.

King
walked past the man and inside the store. His men scurried around like ants, turning and tossing anything not nailed down, searching for anything useful. The floors were more clutter than anything. And the entirety of the inside reeked of decomposing organic material. The dead rats they had failed to find yet, he figured. Unsurprisingly, the rats had seemed to fare better after Impact than almost anything else. But he realized the stench may have been from his own men. He was not entirely sure if some of them showered even when it was available.

There was no basement that he could see, so he
pried open a metal door on the far side of the shop that had been haphazardly hidden behind an old wire rack. The handle was clean and dustless. It had been used recently. He figured by the two dead elderly people outside.

King
climbed the short flight of stairs that had been hidden by the metal door. The old wood creaked and moaned with every step, announcing his approach. He exited the stairs and stepped directly ahead into a small bathroom. The room was empty. When he turned to leave, he was faced with his own reflection in a well-preserved mirror that hung over the bathroom’s sink, or what remained of it. He wiped a bit of dust off his bald head and stroked his goatee. It was a rare occurrence to see an intact mirror. As fragile as it was, glass did not fare so well in the world’s current state. His own appearance had not changed much. He always kept a cleanly shaved head. A throwback to his working days. It made disguising himself in wigs much easier. He figured a mirror would provide quite the sight for some that still imagined themselves as close to who they had been and not as who they had ultimately become—the dogs that served him, for instance.

Aside from the bathroom there ap
peared to be two small bedrooms, one in each direction. He went right out of the bathroom.

King
had his minions as any reputable king would. But he also had a network of eyes and ears scattered throughout the city; those that were not privileged enough to live directly in his castle. They were probably more valuable to him than the dogs he surrounded himself with. Those on the outskirts were the ones that pinpointed his next conquest. They were the ones who kept a lookout for things he may need. People had become so desperate to survive in the post-Impact world that they aligned themselves with whoever helped them do just that. King spared most of them. He even protected a few. It was good to be in King’s company, if for nothing else than to live one more day.

O
ne of these people had told King about the food stash here. So far the information had proven fruitless. For the informant’s sake, King better find fruit soon. He did not like to be jerked around.

The first bedroom was clearly not the one the couple used. The room was empty as empty could be. Nothing. Not even a closet to search. The walls and ceiling were pr
eserved well and solid-looking.

He left and walked the short distance down the hall and into the second bedroom. Pushed into the far corner was a mattress. A holey
green comforter neatly covered it. Aside from that the room was sparse. It did have a closet, however, and that was what interested King the most. People tended to hide things in closets. Closets held their secrets and skeletons until someone looked hard enough to find them.

King
pulled the handle. Locked. The door looked weak. Not one of the solid doors, but one with a hollow center like himself.

He brought his knee up and then thrust his booted foot into the door, breaking it in on the first kick.
King grabbed the splintered remains and pushed them aside. A small chest, a hope chest he figured, lay on the floor. It, too, was locked. The man or woman must have had the key for it. But that would take more effort than he wanted to waste. So he reached into his waistband and removed a 9 mm handgun. He fired a single round, shattering the lock to the chest.

“
You all right, King?” said someone from downstairs.

“
Of course I’m all right,” he replied. The last thing he needed was his gang of goons thinking he needed protecting.

King
holstered his gun and opened the chest. Mostly empty, it contained a few pictures of the couple throughout their lives. They must have been together for a long time judging by the assortment of years between them. There was no food, however. In fact, there was nothing but the pictures and a couple of trinkets. Nothing to make this trip worthwhile.

He slammed the lid of the chest down.
When he looked up, he noticed a clean spot on the wall. He leaned in closer. An old knot in the wood was gone, leaving a smallish hole. After reaching in with his index finger, King pried away the loose board. He stared in. While he couldn’t see what it was, he knew it was something. And that was better than the nothing he thought they had a moment ago. He pried another board off and then another. With each new board, the hidden contents came more into view.

Here
was the food and supplies he had been told about. His minion on the outskirts had done right by him this time. He’d make sure he received a percentage of the loot. He was, after all, a civilized man.