Authors: Michael Bray
Perhaps because stopping had given him the first opportunity to think about it, he started to consider why the city was under attack. The people of Iraq had always been a background element of the war, an inconvenience or a statistic to throw around when news agencies or terrorists were talking about how many were killed, either as a means to gain viewers or to brag about the impact of their most recent attack respectively. Never had such direct action been taken at street level. He wondered how many had lost their lives in the last few hours. Surely many must have been slain before they could escape.
Youness grunted and mouthed half-formed words which to anyone but his brother would be nothing but gibberish.
"I know," Akhtar replied. "I’m hungry too."
Youness replied with more half-formed words which cut Akhtar to the bone.
"I know, I’m scared too. I'll look after you, don’t worry." Akhtar said, giving his brother a gentle squeeze of the hand. "Do you want to rest here for a while or go on?"
Youness replied in his own unique way, and Akhtar nodded. "I agree. We'll stay here for a while and rest."
The brothers got comfortable, Akhtar sitting upright with his back against the wall so he could see in both directions down the tunnel, Youness lying on the ground, head on his brother’s lap. Akhtar stroked his brother’s hair, knowing it helped him to relax. He was surprised when after a few minutes, Youness was sleeping, for the time being free from the fear and worry. Akhtar’s own eyes started to grow heavy, the steady trickle of water soothing him as he let his body relax.
Part of him knew that he too should get some sleep and that his body needed the rest, especially with the uncertainty of what the future held. Another voice in his head reminded him how he was solely responsible for his brother, and falling asleep would put them both at risk from anyone else who had happened to escape the chaos of the streets for the sewers.
It was as he was trying to decide which argument was more compelling that his body took over, and without realising it was happening, Akhtar too drifted off to sleep.
He didn’t dream as such, but drifted between scenes from his life, his subconscious mixing them into a bizarre melting pot of experiences and emotions. He saw his home, a humble apartment in a block of hundreds which looked the same. His father and mother were inside, smiling, laughing. Akhtar saw himself and his brother, only in his dream Youness had none of his mental ailments. He was aware and happy, and the two brothers were chatting, having a real conversation. The joy of seeing Youness happy and normal was overcome by the sound. They all heard it, and as a family walked out onto the balcony overlooking the busy rooftop jungle beyond. On the horizon, a cloud of dust was approaching. They could barely see it from their tenth-floor apartment, but as it always was in dreams, Akhtar knew exactly what it was. The sound of a thousand marching feet intercut with sporadic gunfire. Akhtar watched as his mother and father shared a worried glance as the cloud relentlessly drew closer.
"Don’t worry, Brother," Youness said, grinning at Akhtar. "I'll look after you."
The dust cloud was closer now, and the screams and gunfire were frighteningly real.
"Why does nobody run from them?" Akhtar’s mother whispered.
"Because there are none left alive to run, are there Akhtar?" Youness said, grinning at his brother.
"No, they’re all dead," His dream self-said.
A blast of air hit them, warmer than the baking forty degree heat. No sooner had they drawn breath than they saw them. The plague. A swarming mass of those men in the black uniforms. They were winged, half men half locusts, complete with deformed, sharp-toothed jaws. They decimated everything in their path. The building began to shake and rumble as they swarmed into it, kicking more dust into the air. He saw himself watching from another building in the distance as his own apartment block was devoured and collapsed into its own footprint, leaving nothing but a smouldering cloud of rubble. The dream Akhtar squeezed his eyes closed from the horror, knowing that when he opened them, the entire dream started again, and he was once more with his family on the balcony, impossibly watching his own demise again and again.
"It will go on like this," Youness whispered as the relentless cloud again came towards their building. "They cannot be stopped."
For the second time they came, the half man - half locust cloud, and again the building began to shake as they swarmed inside.
"Please, make it stop," Akhtar gasped, turning to his brother.
But Youness was gone. In his place was one of those black-clad humanoid locusts, saliva dripping from its maw as it hovered next to him, its wings pushing the dry air towards his face.
"It will never stop," gurgled the thing that used to be his brother. Akhtar screamed, and once again was on the balcony, looking across at himself as the building was devoured and the perpetual loop of a nightmare went on, each time slightly different to the last. This time, the locusts were all Youness, twitching and buzzing as they swarmed towards the building. Akhtar screamed and wondered how long he would have to endure this hellish dream when he was yanked into consciousness by heavy hands pulling him to his feet.
He blinked away his dream and began to thrash and kick at the people who had picked him and his brother off the floor and were carrying him deeper into the tunnels. Akhtar caught a glimpse of his brother, who was back to his usual self, frightened and sobbing. It was the last thing Akhtar saw before a hood was pulled over his head and he and his brother were carried deeper into the network of tunnels.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON D.C
PRESIDENT RON FITZGERALD WAS in the middle of his second term in office and was just two days shy of celebrating his fifty-ninth birthday when news of the Apex uprising first broke. The white haired, blue eyed republican walked down the corridor towards his meeting with the vice president; sure it was a case of over cautious national security blowing things out of proportion.
Before he came to office, he had a reputation as a no-nonsense man who spoke his mind, and unlike many of his political colleagues, did everything he could to avoid the tangled spider web of lies and bullshit that came with a career in politics. He had promised his wife, Helen, when he first entered the race for the presidency that he would try to retain his dignity and be a good man no matter who tried to influence his decision making. It was something, that two years after her death from ovarian cancer, he tried to do every day, not only in tribute to her memory but because the country needed stability and a leader who was prepared to do what must be done for the good of the country. Like those who had come before him, the nature of the role meant it was impossible to please everyone and it was something which had taken him a little getting used to. He recalled how during a game of golf with his predecessor, Harold Ramell, he had been told something which had stuck with him. As they teed off on the seventeenth, Ramell had turned to him with a wry smile and told him the words which had stuck in his head ever since.
"Ron, you can be sure of two things if you get the big job. First, that your hair will go grey and go quick. Stress of the job, it’s just one of those things. Second is you better get used to pissing people off. Remember, damned if you do, damned if you don’t."
The words had, for the most part, proved to be true. His hair was already starting to lose its brown hue when he was first sworn into office and now was almost completely white. He had also managed to piss off just about as many people as he had gained the support of. Some of his decisions, like increasing funding for health care and education had been met with praise and support. Others such as maintaining a military presence in Iraq and Syria, and refusing to back down from increasing the pressure on the Koreans and Russians were less popular with some sections of both the public and his own government. According to the latest opinion polls, he was somewhere in the middle of the road as far as popularity went.
Everyone stood as he entered the meeting room, something which he was still embarrassed by even if it was protocol.
"Take a seat, gentlemen," the president said as he took his place at the head of the table. To his left was Eamon Morrison, who was the president’s chief of staff. He looked at the president from eyes which seemed too widely spread across his face. Seemingly impatient, he was rotating his pen through his fingers as he waited for proceedings to begin. To the right was Vice President Paul Carter. Twenty years Fitzgerald’s junior, he was ambitious and didn’t make any secret of it. He was free of the presidential white hair curse and sported a thick mane of jet black hair which was slicked back with enough oil to power a small country. He peered over his glasses with a look of perpetual apathy, and unlike Morrison, was a picture of calm.
"This better be good gentlemen. I was enjoying a much-needed vacation when you called."
"Sir, we have a situation which is escalating by the hour," Morrison said.
"Go on."
Carter slid a document over the desk to the president. "Do you recall the Apex Project, Mr. President?"
"Yes, of course. Genetic enhancement. Cost us a small fortune."
"Yes, well, as you know it was deemed a success and modified agents were sent into the field to start active duty."
"Yes, I recall," The president said as he leafed through the papers. "We sent some to Syria recently, and another group to India on a training exercise as I recall."
"Yes, that's correct sir," Morrison said. "In fact, we had a total of forty-seven agents in active duty across the globe as of two weeks ago."
"Had?" The president said eyebrows raised.
"Yes, sir. It seems something has happened and the teams stopped responding to commands. In fact, they stopped responding at all."
"What happened to them?"
"Well sir, at first, we weren’t too sure. We put together a small team at Homeland security to investigate and report back with their findings."
"Come on Eamon, spit it out for Christ’s sake."
"They've gone rogue sir," Carter cut in, glaring at the less confident chief of staff across the desk.
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means they've gone into business for themselves. We hoped we could keep a lid on it and fix it before things went too far, but the press are asking questions and we can’t hold them off for much longer."
"What the hell's happened for the press to get involved?"
"Sir, we don’t know. Reports are sketchy right now, but there are some alarming consistencies with our intel the world over."
“So why am I only hearing about this now?”
“We failed to see a pattern at first. It started as a few isolated incidents which seemed unrelated. It seems we were wrong.”
"Go on," Fitzgerald said, imagining he could feel a few more hairs lose their hue as he sat there and listened to his chief of staff.
"They're attacking people, sir."
“The Apex teams?”
“Yes, sir.”
"Civilians?"
"And military. It seems completely random right now. We have reports of seventy dead in Baghdad and growing. Similar reports from Paris, London and Germany."
"Wait, let me just take a second here. You're telling me our assets are firing on civilians?"
"Mr. President," Carter snapped, sliding another document across the desk. "I don’t think you understand the magnitude of this. We have new information that suggests these rogue assets are actually incredibly dangerous and should be considered as a serious biological terror threat."
"Terror threat? Are you out of your damn minds?"
"No sir, in fact, we're quite certain."
"Find Genaro, I want him here within the hour to explain."
"Sir, Genaro is gone. His lab was raided by a small group of infected assets and he was taken."
"Taken where?"
"We don’t know sir."
"Well someone better god-damn find out." Fitzgerald raged, scouring the reports off his desk.
“Homeland has an expert sir – a man called Draven who first discovered the species of monkey the Apex virus was taken from. He believes not only are the Apex teams unstable, they are also incredibly contagious. This could be an epidemic if we don’t deal with this now.”
"Why the hell am I only just finding out about this?" The president said, glaring at his chief of staff.
Morrison squirmed in his seat and glanced across the table at Carter, who was looking right back at him. "Sir, Vice President Carter thought it wasn’t something worth troubling you with."
"Is this true?" Fitzgerald said, turning his attention to his arrogant second in command.
"Mr. President, let me explain-"
"Jesus Paul, cut the Mr. President crap and speak freely for Christ’s sake."
Carter looked flustered and shoved his glasses back up his face. "Okay, I'll give it to you straight, if that’s what you want."
"Go on. I want to hear this." Fitzgerald shot back, not sure why he was allowing Carter to get under his skin so easily.
"Well, the truth is, I didn’t want to trouble you with it for two reasons. Firstly because I underestimated the situation and thought it would be quickly fixed. I take full responsibility for that. The second reason is because..."
He hesitated, licking his lips as he tried to find the words.
"Go on, don’t stop now," Fitzgerald said, watching Carter intently.
"Well, the truth is, you've looked tired of late. You looked like you could use the break. After the decision on military funding last month, some people were worried you might be struggling to cope."
Fitzgerald smiled, the rage inside making him tremble. "You mean the fact my decision to scale back on our occupation of foreign countries didn’t suit your idea of what should have been done?"