Degeneration Read online

  Lloyd’s eyes trailed down to the oxygen canister attached to the man’s hip; the needle was all the way in the red. He’d rather suffocate then take off his goddamn mask, Lloyd thought. What kind of hell is ‘PT-12’? Without another moment of hesitation, he fired two shots into the man’s forehead. He knew that he couldn’t let the virus make it to the surface.

  “Report!” Cpl. Andrews shouted from the hall, hearing the gunshots.

  “Clear,” Lloyd said as he walked over to the Novell servers.

  “We’re clear out here, too. Plant the thermals and let’s go!” Cpl. Andrews shouted, coughing.

  Lloyd unslung the black duffle from his shoulder. He brought out one of the charges and attached it to one of the servers. He pressed the button on the side of the charge. It beeped and the green digital readout flashed 00:05:00 as it started counting down. Once he activated the primary charge, the secondary charge self-activated.

  He slung the duffle back over his shoulder, ran out of the server room, and joined the others in the hall.

  “Done?” Cpl. Andrews asked, gritting through the pain.

  Lloyd nodded, uneasy.

  “Alright, let’s get the last one planted,” Cpl. Andrews said, clutching his bleeding neck. The blood had soaked through the thick gauze bandage and he was coughing violently.

  The soldiers maneuvered back through the hall back into the laboratory.

  Cpl. Andrews, coughing, pointed at the refrigeration unit that had the metal table rammed through its glass doors.

  Lloyd walked over to the refrigerator and pulled the second charge out of the duffle. He stepped carefully around the metallic table that had been rammed through the fridge and carefully slid his arm though the shattered glass door, reaching towards the back of the fridge, gripping the charge tightly.

  Inside the refrigerator he saw a veritable arsenal of packaged microbial death. He froze as he read some of the labels on the sealed containers inside: Anthrax, Botulinum Toxin, Saxitoxin, Tularemia, A/W-H5N1, A/W-H1N1, Black Rain, PT-13, PT-14, PT-15–

  “Hurry!!!” Cpl. Andrews shouted.

  Lloyd jumped, startled out of his trance, and his right forearm struck against the shattered refrigerator doorframe. A small shard of broken glass that was still stuck in the doorframe pricked him; he felt it despite his thick white-suit.

  “Those goddamn charges have a five minute timer on them, so we really don’t have time for you to drag your ass! Move! Plant the charge and let’s go!!!”

  Lloyd shoved the charge between ‘Anthrax’ and ‘Botulinum Toxin’, turned, and rejoined the group.

  “Alright, fall back to the elevator,” Cpl. Andrews ordered, coughing, gripping his bite.

  They ran past the corpse of their fallen, Patrick. Lloyd glanced down at Patrick as they ran and felt ashamed for his thoughts. Better him than me.

  They pried open the lab’s inner-door–

  “Danger! Inner-door has been forced open. Proper decontamination procedures were not followed. Security has been notified,” the pleasant female voice calmly announced overhead.

  The team ran towards the open elevator with a sudden slight hesitation–

  Inside the blood-stained and bullet-riddled elevator, lifeless corpses with pale faces were slouched against the wall, gazing out accusingly at the soldiers.

  Cpl. Andrews fired a round of automatic gunfire into the motionless corpses for good measure and then stepped inside, dropping his empty magazine to the floor.

  The other white-suited soldiers slowly stepped into the elevator, carefully stepping over the corpse's outstretched limbs.

  Cpl. Andrews pushed the 'L' button, coughing loudly, but nothing happened.

  He pushed it again, frantic.

  Nothing happened.

  “This is Colonel Mathis speaking. Have any of your environmental suits been compromised?” a voice asked from the emergency intercom under the controls.

  The soldiers jumped a little in surprise and looked at Cpl. Andrews.

  Cpl. Andrews coughed, swayed side-to-side, and looked down.

  “Answer me, Corporal, or you and your team will be left down there! Why are you bleeding?”

  The soldiers looked up at the dome camera centered in the lift’s ceiling.

  “It’s nothing, one of the doctors nicked me,” Cpl. Andrews lied, coughing. Droplets of blood sprayed against the inside of his facemask with each cough.

  “You have to leave him. I’m sorry, but he can’t come up. His suit has been compromised and he is highly contagious,” Col. Mathis ordered.

  One of the soldiers shoved Cpl. Andrews out of the elevator.

  Cpl. Andrews stumbled forwards, panicking, coughing. He turned and aimed the rifle at his men in the elevator while sticking his foot in the elevator’s doorway, preventing the door from shutting.

  “You’re going to leave me to die down here!?” Cpl. Andrews yelled, before erupting in a violent coughing spasm. “After everything we’ve been through, you’re just going to toss me out here?”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” one of the soldiers said.

  “He’s infected,” Col. Mathis said from the elevator speaker. “You have no other options, I’m sorry. You saw those people… what the virus did to them. It will do the same thing to him, eventually.”

  “Fuck him!” Cpl. Andrews yelled, waving his rifle towards his men. “What does he know?! He’s not a doctor! Just… just let me come up with you and try to get some help. That’s fair, right? At least give the scientists a chance to look me over!”

  Cpl. Andrews erupted into a violent coughing spasm.

  “If you don’t kill him, he’ll kill all of you,” Col. Mathis grimly announced from the speaker. “That bomb is going off any minute now. Don’t let sentiment seal your fates.”

  The soldiers looked at each other hesitantly.

  “Please move your foot, sir,” one of the soldiers said. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

  Cpl. Andrews started to sob.

  “Please…” Cpl. Andrews begged as he looked over at Lloyd, voice choked by tears. “I brought you in… remember? I’m the one who vouched for you! Don’t do this to me… don’t…”

  “I’m sorry… I really am,” Lloyd muttered, looking down. He pushed Cpl. Andrews’ foot away from the door with his boot.

  “Fuck you and your apologies!” Cpl. Andrews hysterically shouted. He doubled-over in a coughing fit.

  Before Cpl. Andrews could recover, the elevator doors slid shut and the soldiers made their assent to the main lobby.

  Lloyd’s rifle shook in his hands as he stared down at the ground. It had to be done, he thought, this virus can’t be allowed to make it to the surface.

  The elevator reached the lobby and the doors opened. A sealed plastic tunnel had been erected around the edge of the elevator doors and made a path towards the lobby exit. Showerheads ran along the center of the tunnel.

  “Now, leave your weapons in the elevator and slowly walk along the tunnel with your arms above your head,” Col. Mathis said.

  The soldiers looked at each other uneasily, but complied. They threw their M16s on the corpses in the elevator and stepped out into the plastic tunnel. As soon as the last soldier stepped out, the elevator doors slid shut and the lift lowered itself back down to the sub-level floor.

  As the soldiers walked along the tunnel, the showerheads activated and pelted their hazmat suits with a fine blue mist.

  Lloyd felt his arm get a little moist inside his suit. He lowered his arms and looked down at his right forearm; he found a very small puncture in his suit which allowed the blue mist to seep through. His mind went back to when his arm struck against the jagged glass protruding from the frame of the shattered refrigerator door.

  Horror washed over him and made his blood run cold.

  The ground rumbled and the tunnel wobbled as the charges on the sub-level detonated. All evidence of the ‘PT-12’ accident was incinerated in less than a second. As suddenly as the rumbling began, it stop
ped.

  Lloyd pressed his hand against the spot where his suit was punctured as he walked but he didn’t feel a twinge of pain. It didn’t puncture my skin, he assured himself. As hard as he looked, he couldn’t see a single drop of blood; the puncture didn’t even appear to have penetrated through the uniform he wore underneath his hazmat suit. Even though his skin wasn’t punctured, he knew what protocol demanded.

  Lloyd stopped in the middle of the plastic tunnel, arms at his side. The two soldiers following him stopped as well, arms still above his head as instructed.

  Lloyd turned and looked back towards the closed elevator doors in the distance.

  He knew proper protocol called for him to be placed in quarantine and monitored. If he didn’t get sick, under ordinary circumstances, he would be released, but Lloyd knew these were not ordinary circumstances. They were ordered to leave their corporal behind because he was infected. They were ordered to execute staff and incinerate a whole floor just to kill the bug that had been unleashed. Whatever ‘PT-12’ was, it scared the shit out of Washington and it made them take extreme measures. Lloyd’s panicked thoughts raced.

  Who’s to say that they won’t kill me?

  Lloyd bit down on his lower lip as anxiety tightened around his chest. He didn’t get infected and he knew it. After all, his skin wasn’t even punctured! And they said the germ isn’t airborne, right? Right! Lloyd swore that they said it wasn’t airborne in the briefing; at least, he’s pretty sure that they did. Lloyd had two daughters and a wife waiting for him at home in Fayetteville. If he spoke up and told somebody about his punctured suit, would he ever even get to see–

  “Hey, Lloyd, I know that was rough back there, but you can’t dwell on it right now. Let’s get out of here, alright? We’ll have a drink and unwind tonight,” the soldier behind him said.

  Lloyd looked around and saw that all three of the other soldiers in the tunnel had stopped walking and was staring at him, probably worrying about his stability after the ordeal with the corporal.

  “Sorry,” Lloyd said as he started walking again.

  The other soldiers exchanged uneasy glances and continued walking.

  Lloyd kept his gaze fixated on the ground, unable to shake the feeling of guilt gnawing at him inside.

  At the end of the tunnel, they passed through a set of plastic flaps and entered a large white tent. They were herded off by white-suits, stripped naked, and given a cold chemical shower while white-suits scrubbed them with stiff-bristled brushes.

  After getting decontaminated, the soldiers were herded onto a black helicopter en route back to Fort Bragg in North Carolina for debriefing. The helicopter sat on the helipad for twenty minutes and still hadn’t taken off.

  Inside the helicopter, the soldiers were slouched on the metallic benches inside the cabin. The adrenaline had worn off and exhaustion started to kick in.

  Lloyd, however, wasn’t feeling well. He stared out the small window and watched as Sgt. James engaged in a heated argument with one of the white-suits–

  “Look, I understand that, Sergeant, but I can’t let you take off yet! Protocol demands that they all be placed in an observational quarantine for forty-eight hours to see if they exhibit any symptoms!” the white-suit said, pointing at the helicopter. The white-suit slid off his protective facemask and held it under his arm. He looked like he was running off two hours of sleep.

  “Oh, goddamnit!” Sgt. James said, throwing his arms up into the air. “If you people were so safety-conscious then we wouldn’t have to be here in the first place and I wouldn’t be short two good men! I don’t know how many times I have to explain it to you, but my orders are to bring them directly to Fort Bragg for debriefing from the Pentagon! I won’t have my men sit inside a fish tank so you people can feel better about your fuckup!”

  “I understand that, but the risk of–”

  “What risk? None of my men are infected! I told you, there is brass waiting to debrief them. Should I tell DC to pack up and come back in forty-eight hours?” Sgt. James mockingly asked.

  Lloyd watched with tired eyes. I wish I could read lips. He watched as another white-suit ran over to the one arguing with Sgt. James. The new white-suit was holding a satellite phone.

  “Sir, it’s… You should take this,” the white-suit said, handing the phone to his co-worker.

  He took the phone, annoyed, and pressed it against his ear.

  “Flight Operations, go ahead,” he said into the phone. His face sunk and lost color. “Yes, sir, I understand. . . Yes, sir, thank you. And sir, it’s an honor.”

  He disconnected the call and looked over at Sgt. James, still obviously in disbelief.

  “Apparently, the Secretary of Defense himself is waiting for you,” he told Sgt. James. “You’re been given your clearance to go.”

  Sgt. James said nothing, turned, and stormed towards the cockpit.

  The white-suit turned and walked off of the helipad. As he walked away, he gave the control tower a ‘thumb-up’.

  Within minutes, the helicopter was in the air. Lloyd watched the chaos on the compound below as white-suites rushed into the plastic draped building wielding chemical sprayers and flamethrowers. They would have killed me, Lloyd thought. They would have killed me for nothing, just because they are afraid.

  Lloyd coughed, and closed his eyes; it felt good to finally be out of that hazmat suit. He coughed again and drifted into an uneasy sleep, infecting the other soldiers with each breath he took.

  5

  In his office on the fifth floor of the Pentagon, General Falton sat flanked by Lieutenant General Yates and Colonel Mathis. They stared at the laptop in the center of the polished table with pallid expressions.

  Colonel Mathis, head of the 161st Bioterrorism Response Regiment stationed in Fort Bragg, reached a hand across the table and played the digital recording for the fifth time.

  Pilot: “Mayday! Mayday! Eagle One to Hawk Nest [interference] multiple causalities aboard. Requesting emergency landing! [screaming in background]”

  Control: “Hawk Nest to Eagle One what is the nature of your emergency? Are you taking fire?”

  Pilot: “NEGI– [interference] Threat is aboard! Threat is aboard– [interference] [loud banging in background] they’re trying to get in the– [interference]”

  Control: “Break, Break, Break, Eagle One, what is the nature of the threat, over?”

  Pilot: “I don’t fucking know! Sgt. James is dead! He– [interference] Oh God! They’re– [louder banging] [screaming] [gunshots] [heavy interference] [silence]”

  Col. Mathis stopped the recording and looked at General Falton.

  General Falton, a forty-eight year old battle-worn soldier, headed the United States’ secretive bioweapon division since the early eighties. His once proud military physique had given way to a plump midsection and sagging shoulders. Stress had slowly whittled away at him, raised his blood pressure, elevated his cholesterol, and cost him his hair; serving through Regan’s Cold War tensions, Clinton’s scandals, and both of the Bush eras with each of their respective wars came with a heavy price. However, it was a price he was willing to pay for a legacy and a healthy retirement sum.

  And then along came the worst disaster in the bioweapon program’s history, threatening everything that he sacrificed his life for.

  Gen. Falton sighed and contemplated in silence for a moment.

  “That’s it, then,” Gen. Falton finally said. “It came aboard, somehow. Fort Detrick?” He rolled his alumni ring around his finger, thinking. Unbelievable, why did this have to happen to me now?

  “It has been scrubbed,” Col. Mathis said. “Secondary teams have reported no traces of ‘PT-12’,” he said quickly and then gnawed on his lower lip, fidgeting.

  Col. Mathis, twenty-nine, was an ambitious man who was moving quickly up the chain. Unlike most soldiers, he came into the service with a doctorate degree already under his belt and, as such, was the perfect candidate for the 161st. His military future looked
promising, but then ‘PT-12’ came along. What was worse was that he knew he would be the one at the end of the pointed finger.

  “Your team blew it, Colonel,” Lieutenant General Yates muttered in his gruff smoker’s voice. “The 161st are supposed to be the experts with biological weapons, and yet they knowingly breach quarantine protocols to… leave early?”

  Lt. Gen. Yates, a hardened veteran of the Gulf War, stared coldly at the young colonel. In his eyes, the colonel was a boot-licking schoolboy who was too focused on ass-kissing his way up the food chain. He knew the most wartime action the boy saw involved a video game controller, and yet here this young–

  “I never gave any clearance for them to leave!” Col. Mathis defensively said, face flushing. “In fact, the Fort Detrick incident commander told me that somebody called and gave the team authorization to leave without my knowledge or–”

  Lt. Gen. Yates’ face contorted and his chest tightened.

  “First off, I remind you, Colonel, to mind your tone! Second, you’re in charge of the 161st, so nobody should have made a move without your knowledge! When the investigation is over, this will all fall on you! Your mistakes have cost the–”

  “I went to Fort Detrick to personally oversee this mission! I cannot and will not be held responsible for the inept actions of–”

  “Enough! Enough, damnit,” Gen. Falton said, waving a dismissive hand at both of heated men.

  Col. Mathis and Lt. Gen. Yates glared at each other with their fists clinched at their sides and their mouths clinched shut.

  “It’s too early to start pointing fingers,” Gen. Falton grumbled, knowing full-well that he was the one who made the call that gave the helicopter clearance to take-off. After all, William T. Hart, the Secretary of Defense, was waiting, and you do not keep a man in that position waiting. How the hell was he supposed to know someone on the flight was infected? No, if anybody was to blame, it was the careless people who did the decontamination procedure, he reasoned.

  “Is there any hope for clean containment?” Gen. Falton asked, looking over at Col. Mathis with fragile expectation.