The Shift: Book II of the Wildfire Saga (2 page)

"What's going on?" asked Boatner.
 
He couldn't help himself.
 
Whenever he heard of an outbreak of some unknown disease, the old excitement returned.
 
It was both a blessing and the curse of his vocation.
 
When some strange new bug begins to decimate tribal villages or overpopulated cities, it was up to the field virologists to identify, research, and destroy it.
 
Boatner found the process both daunting and invigorating.

"This line isn't secure.
 
I'm sending you a packet of information via courier.
 
He’ll be arriving by midnight your time."

Boatner arched an eyebrow as he glanced over the peaceful campus.
 
The square below, usually packed with students rushing to and fro between classes, lay deserted except for two people casually strolling hand-in-hand in between the glow of the streetlights.
 

"Military courier?
 
This must be serious…"

"I'm afraid it is, Maurice."

He called me Maurice.
 
Albert Daniels was nothing but a perfectionist.
 
Even to his closest friends—hell, he probably called his wife Mrs. Daniels—everyone was called by their title and last name.
 
Daniels had been a perfect fit for the military.
 

The last time you called me Maurice was when you told me about my family...

“—sent you an email with some news reports.
 
Did you read it?"

"News reports?
 
Since when do you guys use the media to transmit information?"

A shallow laugh echoed from the other end of the line.
 
"
Like I said, I can't tell you over the phone.
 
Just check your email.
 
You'll be able to put it together from what I'm sending you if you haven't already
."
 
There was a pause and the sound of papers rustling in the background.
 
"
My courier will arrive at your lab by 2345.
 
Are you able to get there to meet him?
"

"Absolutely.
 
I'm already there."

The tone of the voice changed.
 
“It's Friday night.
 
What's an old man like you still doing at work?"

"Not so old that I can't help out a friend.
 
You remember Taylor Reeves at CDC?"

"Reeves… Hey, wasn't that the microbiologist, the redhead that was in to you?"

Boatner cleared his throat.
 
“That was a long time ago, Albert.
 
Anyway…she has a sample of a possible new strain of swine flu.
 
The interesting thing is we found it in a kindergarten in southeast Missouri—"

"I'm afraid you'll have to put that on the back burner for now,”
the humorless voice said.

Boatner stopped short.
 
This
must
be serious.
 
"You have to give me something more than ominous tones—these are
kids
we’re talking about."

The silence on the other end of the line was telling.
 
"You have access to a TV?
"

Boatner turned and went back inside.
 
"I will in a few minutes.
 
You caught me up on the roof taking a break.
 
I'm on my way back down."
 

"Good.
 
Turn on the news, any of the 24-hour stations.
 
They're all running the story right now."

"What story?"

"Jesus, Maurice, you really do need to get out of the lab more often."

The reception fizzled inside the building and the call dropped.
 
Boatner put the phone away and rode the elevator down to his second floor lab.
 
As the elevator clanked its way between floors, he was occupied by the thought of some disastrous new disease making its presence felt somewhere out there in the world.
 

It must be somewhere close to home,
he mused,
for Daniels to get worked up enough to push aside concern for a class of very sick children.

Another thought struck him.
 
He may not watch the TV news as much as everyone else, but he had noticed an alarming trend in his own lectures over the past week.
 
Dr. Maurice Boatner's class on advanced immunology—taught by the man who helped defeat the Great Pandemic—was not a class skipped often.
 
He'd had a Senator call his office to explain the absence of his son in the past.

As he opened the lab door, something made him check up and down the halls.
 
He was still alone.
 
Daniels' phone call was beginning to make him more uneasy than he’d realized.

He turned on the dusty television in his office and waited for the picture to appear.
 
It was on the Weather Channel.
 
They were talking about some kind of flu forecast—not exactly out of character for mid-November in the northeast—and he quickly changed the channel to CNN.
 
It only took a few moments for him to realize what Daniels had referred to on the phone.

The President was sick with a mysterious flu-like illness.
 
The country was beginning to feel the effects of a seasonal flu that appeared simultaneously on both coasts and had already struck the nation’s major cities.
 
The President's life was in danger, hundreds of people had already died, and fears of the Great Pandemic resurfacing was the hot topic of the day.

Boatner turned away from the TV and closed his eyes as the reporter prattled on about the similarities between the current mystery flu and the early stages of the Blue Flu.
 
He took two steps over to his desk and sat down.
 
The TV glowed on the wall while the smartly-dressed woman behind the anchor desk rattled off facts and figures.

Words scrolled across the bottom of the screen indicating that President Denton, in California for a political fundraiser event, had suddenly taken ill and was in grave condition—after only 36 hours.

Boatner looked down and realized his hands were trembling.
 
Was The Pandemic back?
 
He turned to his computer and found the email Daniels had sent him.

After decryption, the information on his screen caused him open a drawer he rarely used on his desk.
 
Inside was a bottle of whiskey.
 
He pulled it out, blew the dust off the cap, and pulled out a glass.
 
He poured himself two fingers.
 
This he took in one gulp, eyes watering as it burned his throat.
 
He wasn’t a heavy drinker, but the information on his screen gave him cause.

He stared at the magnified image of The Pandemic virus as seen under an electron microscope.
 
It glared back at him from the screen—the organism that he had fought for so long, this thing that had taken his wife and children, most of his friends, and so many millions of people around the world.
 
He was almost hypnotized by the beautifully symmetric structure.
 
The malevolent organism stared back at him, unblinking, uncaring.
 
H5N1.
 
A curse of nature.

He looked from his slightly trembling hands to the computer monitor again.
 
He clicked through the screens, examining the data sent from his old friend.
 
It looked exactly like the virus they had encountered during the Great Pandemic.
 
His scientific curiosity began to beat down the fear that was rising inside him.
 
If it was the same virus, why didn't they just use the same antivirals developed during The Pandemic?
 
They still had a supply from the Source—he was almost certain.
 
No way in hell would the CDC would let their stockpile expire.
 
So what made this strain different?
 
What had Daniels so spooked?
 
More importantly, why was the military involved?

Then he scrolled through to the page outlining the viral RNA analysis.
 
Something immediately jumped off the screen at him.
 
There were two diagrams: on the left, the RNA sequencing of the Great Pandemic strain and on the right was the sequencing of the new mystery strain.
 
The two images were almost identical…almost…except for one particular string of nucleobases.

"Holy shit."

He scrolled further to read the author’s conclusions.
 
Whoever had done the case work on this had completely missed it.
 
He wasn't surprised, honestly.
 
The average government scientist would probably take a glance at the data—no doubt being rushed by military deadlines—and assume the differences to be insignificant.
 

They had already tried the vaccines from the Great Pandemic.
 
He continued reading.
 
Vaccines and antivirals, initially successful, seemed to lose their strength a little too fast.
 
Something was definitely different about the virus.
 
Now he was truly concerned.

Genetic markers that had been changed in the new virus were ordered in such a standardized pattern they could mean only one thing.
 
Well, there could be other explanations,
he told himself as he put on his glasses,
but not likely.
 

He could see the pattern of changes in the RNA source code were regular, ordered.
 
Nature abhorred static regularity.
 
Nature loved chaos, anarchy, and complete mismatches.
 
This then, could only be the work of a machine—directed by a human mind.
 
Humans loved order.

He was staring at clear evidence of viral RNA manipulation.
 
Someone had genetically modified the Blue Flu.

He picked up the receiver to the military-installed secure phone on his desk and dialed a number.
 
The line buzzed once with a completely alien dial tone he had last heard ten years ago.
 

"
Hello?
" asked a voice.

"This is Dr. Maurice Boatner.
 
I need to talk to General Daniels."

"Wait one.
"
 
There was no sound that he had been placed on hold.
 
There was nothing.
 
The line seemed to go dead but for a series of clicks and chirps which announced that someone transferred the line to another secured phone.

"
Daniels
."

"Albert, I just got your data.
 
Is this accurate?"

Daniels sighed.
 
"I wish it wasn't.
 
Unfortunately, everything we've got points to one conclusion.
 
I just needed to hear it from you."

"I don't want to say it,
 
but what I'm looking at is a weaponized form of The Pandemic strain."

"The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs called it an act of war."

That gave Boatner pause.
 
"What do you mean?”
 
He glared at the screen.
 
“Albert, where were the samples collected?"

The silence on the other end told him everything he needed to know.
 
"
That information is classified, Dr. Boatner.
 
Thank you for your assistance.
 
Should we need further assistance, we will contact you.
 
In the meantime, I suggest you take measures to make yourself scarce.
 
Make sure you have enough supplies—
”

The lights flickered in the laboratory.
 
Boatner gasped.

"Maurice?
 
Are you there?
 
You okay?"

"Yes, yes—I’m fine, Albert—sorry, the lights in the lab just flickered.
 
Seems we’re having a power outage here."

"Maurice, it's only going to get worse.
 
Remember—"

“Yes, I remember perfectly well what happened during The Pandemic.
 
No history lesson is necessary."
 

The Great Pandemic—the Blue Flu.
 
The strain so starved the body of oxygen cyanosis often set in and turned people a ghastly shade of blue
.
 
It started with their fingertips and ears, then the skin around the nose and eyes, and in severe cases, the legs and arms.
 
Some victims turned such a deep indigo blue, doctors often mistook a victim as a person of color when in fact they were quite pale.

Boatner rubbed his eyes, trying to force the memories from his mind.
 
But they just kept coming, kept dancing across his consciousness and forcing him to remember the horrible details of the world in the grip of influenza gone wild.

It had raged completely out of control and killed millions around the world.
 
Great cities had been decimated not only The Pandemic, but the opportunistic diseases that followed on its heels: cholera, dysentery, and hemorrhagic fever .
 
Rioting in the streets, looting, the breakdown of law and order…
 

But this time?
 
Would it be any different?
 
Especially now that he knew someone had
weaponized
the Blue Flu?

"General, I could be of a lot more assistance to you if you would tell me where the samples were collected.
 
Did they come from an American?
 
Is this the mystery flu they're talking about on TV?"