Altered Genes: Genesis (21 page)

As they took off, he caught a glimpse of Raine standing by the side of the humvee, his arm extended with a pistol in his hand.

Gong threw the car into gear and mashed his foot down on the accelerator. The first bullet struck the rear window.

“Get down,” he yelled at Simmons and Emma.

They both dropped to the floor and covered their heads with their hands. The second and third bullets struck the window, spraying the passengers with safety glass from the quarter-sized holes the bullets punched in the window.

Seconds later, they were gone from the base. A few minutes later the car screeched to a stop in front of a closed Seven-Eleven. Lucia rolled the van’s window down.

“Follow me,” Gong yelled at her. “They’re coming.”

The two vehicles squealed out of the parking lot and headed for the highway.

T
he knock
on the door was businesslike, two taps followed by a brief but respectful pause. The door opened and a man in a suit with no tie stuck his head in and spoke. “We found him, Sir.”

Raine looked up from his desk and smiled. “That was quick. Where and how?”

“US-15, heading north. We put a priority request into the NSA as soon as you called from the gate. Their systems grabbed an eighty-five percent facial recognition match from a traffic camera on the highway. I checked it personally after they flagged it—it’s definitely him.”

“How stale is the intel?”

The man looked at his watch. “A little under three hours. He’ll still be in the general vicinity.”

“Have you sent a team?”

“No, Sir. Not yet, I wanted to let you know first. There’s something else.”

“What?” Raine asked impatiently.

“The people you saw with him—the Asian guy and the young woman. We don’t know who the girl is but we matched the Asian’s photo to an entry in the ICE database. He arrived from China just before the borders closed—he’s a ghost.”

Raine’s eyes widened in surprise. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, Sir. Chinese Ministry State Security. His cover is good, really good, but the Brits ran the photo for us. He popped up dirty in their systems. Do you want him too?”

Raine tapped his fingers on the desk as he thought about it.
Just another loose end.

“Get rid of him.”

If the man was surprised, he didn’t show it. “What about the woman?”

“Is it the doctor from New York?”
Even if it was, it didn’t matter.
“Get rid of her too, the only one I want is Simmons and I want him now, clear?”

The man nodded and shut the door, leaving him alone with Alice.

He turned his attention back to her. She looked haggard, worse every day.
He knew she wasn’t infected, just stressed from the knowledge Simmons was loose. And from the relentless search for a vaccine.
It wasn’t his fault they needed it. The original plan—his plan—would have worked perfectly if she and the asshole scientists at the Defense Intelligence Agency hadn’t screwed up the kill switch.

He smiled at her as warmly as he could muster. “I told you we’d find him, Alice. We’ll get him—probably in a couple of days, okay?”

She looked through him, her eyes distant and lost in whatever she was thinking about. He leaned forward and shouted, “Alice!”

Startled, she jumped back in the chair.

“Have you packed your stuff?”

She shook her head and stared down at her lap. “I’ve been busy…distracted.”

“When you leave here, go pack.” He spoke gently and waited for her to nod. “We’re leaving tonight. We’ll catch a flight out of Andrews to McConnell. You’ll be in the new lab by tomorrow morning.”

He glanced around the make-shift office that Young had assigned him when he arrived at Fort Detrick. Its puke-brown walls and office furniture looked to be right out of the 70’s. it was functional—barely. In a few more weeks, maybe a month or two, it wouldn’t be safe here. The lab was too close to the big cities on the east coast.
Thank god for Kansas.
He chuckled at the thought.
With just a few million people, spread out over thousands of square miles of empty space, it was one of the safest places to be.

“You’ll like it there, Alice. The new lab has everything you asked for and it’s only a few miles from McConnell. You’ll be able to pick up right where you left off.”

She smiled weakly.

His laptop chimed, announcing the arrival of a new email and he glanced down to see who it was from.
Lexington…the President’s lackey.
He opened the message and gave it a quick read.

“Seems like we’re not the only ones traveling tonight. The Vice-President is going to Raven Rock and the President and Congress to Cheyenne Mountain.”

“Do they know?”

Confused, he peered at her over the top of the laptop.

“Who?”

“The President…the Vice-President.”

“No. I told you that already. As far as they’re concerned, it was just a vanilla strain of C. diff that mutated. They approved the plan without knowing anything about the little tweaks we made. It’s our secret—you, me and that bastard, Simmons. Everyone else has been taken care of.”

He pushed back his chair and walked to the other side of the desk. “Once, I find that prick, all the loose ends will be tied up. I’ll take care of it—just like I always do.”

She tilted her head and fixed her eyes on him. “I know you will…but maybe he’s dead already. Besides, who would he tell? Colonel Young is dead. You killed him.”

His face hardened.
Young was collateral damage.

“I’m not taking the risk. Simmons is a threat.” He put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed.

“Family looks after family.”

M
ei sensed
the change in movement and woke from an uneasy sleep. She blinked and took a bleary-eyed look at her mobile phone—5:37 am.

To her right, a blush of soft orange light crept into the sky.
They were heading north.
They pulled off to the side of the road and parked behind Gong’s car. The van rocked from side to side as a transport truck zoomed past.

It had been hours since they last stopped, a quick in-and-out at a gas station outside of Gettysburg. That stop had cost them half of their remaining cash, and the ATMs weren’t spitting out anymore.

“Where are we?” she asked Lucia

“Don’t know.”

She looked out the front window of the van. The fields on both sides of the highway brimmed with spring crops. A worn billboard sat in the middle of the sea of green. It’s faded red paint announced, Bandit Truck Stop - Fuel and Food, 2 miles ahead - exit 45.

She watched Simmons climb out of the passenger side of the car in front and walk back to the van. She rolled the window down.

He smiled at her. “Good Morning.”

“Morning,” she answered back, “Where are we?”

“On our way to the Michaux State Forest.”

“Where and what’s that?”

He shrugged. “I don’t exactly know—somewhere in Pennsylvania.” He tilted his head towards Gong and the car. “He thinks we should find somewhere to wait things out for a few days, somewhere off the beaten track.”

“Why?”

“If they’re still looking for us—for me, they’ll focus on the major highways. After a few days, they may stop looking—focus their resources on other things.”

“Okay, and then what?”

“I don’t know, but first things first.” He leaned in through the open window and spoke to Lucia. “Stay close. We’re going to pull off up ahead and then turn onto a logging road.”

She nodded and he turned to Mei. “See you in a bit.”

She waved goodbye.

Hiding out for a few days was probably a good idea. Any doubts she had his story were gone the minute she saw the car riddled with bullet holes.

Twenty minutes later, they were on the logging road.
Road was too kind
.
It was more like a trail.
She ducked and cringed as they drove through a cluster of tree limbs. The broom-handle-sized branches smacked against the front window and scraped along the side of the van as they passed.

The road ended at the edge of a clearing that bordered a small lake. An outcrop of granite weathered from the elements and glaciers that had passed over it millions of years earlier ran from the water up to a meadow of knee-high field grass. Gong parked the car at the base of a giant Oak tree. Lucia pulled in next to him.

Simmons was the first out of the car, followed quickly by Emma and Gong. Saanvi climbed out and looked around, seemingly bewildered. She and Lucia joined them.

“We will stay here for a few days,” Gong said, “But others will come. We must remain alert.”

“What do you mean,
others?”
She asked him.

He pointed towards the forest and the lake. “People will come looking for safety from the pandemic. Perhaps not today or tomorrow, but they will come.”

Their mood dampened by his somber warning, they stood in silence and warily searched the tree-line and surrounding forest. Simmons walked to the edge of the lake, crouched and dipped his hand in the water. He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the granite rock face.

“Tony, what are you doing?” Mei shouted to him while the others watched.

He turned back to her with a mischievous look on his face. “Washing up. I spent two days in a garbage dump. If we’re having guests, I want to be clean.”

He stripped down to his underwear and lumbered into the water, whooping and yelling before he dove in and disappeared. His head broke through the surface ten feet away. “It’s a bit chilly,” he shouted, “anyone want to join me?”

Emma was the first and then Lucia and Gong. Mei looked at Saanvi who stared blankly at the group as they fooled around, splashing each other with the ice cold water.
I’ll help her wash up afterward.

She ran to the van and returned with a bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. She felt her cheeks blush as she took off her shirt and pants. She held them in front of her for a moment.
No one was paying any attention
. She dropped them and threw the shampoo and soap into the lake. The water was cold from recently melted snow and ice. It numbed her muscles and froze her brain.
It felt good. She felt alive.

They finished bathing and sat on the rock outcrop around a small camp fire Gong had built. The dry pine crackled and burned with a ferocity that quickly warmed them.

The remainder of the day was spent exploring the surrounding area. A marshy swamp on one side of the lake stopped their progress but at the other end, they found narrow deer trails that meandered through the forest. When they returned, dinner was freeze-dried Beef Stroganoff and the last of the stale crackers.

Emma finished first and took Saanvi to help her set up the small tent she had packed. It was barely large enough for the four women. Simmons and Gong would sleep in the van.

“What next?” Mei asked when the two girls were out of ear-shot.

“I’ve got to get to the authorities and tell them about Raine and Mayer,” Simmons answered.

“Which authorities do you wish to tell, Professor?” Gong asked. “Assuming you are able to find a voice that is sympathetic to your accusations—which I doubt, you will still be jailed until an investigation is completed.” He paused and added. “Assuming an investigation is even undertaken.”

Mei caught Simmons’s eye and nodded. “He’s right and if you go to jail, you’ll probably become infected.”
And die there.
She didn’t need to tell him that, he knew.

“What then?” he asked in a strained voice. He picked up a stick and poked at the fire. “Mistake or not, they committed genocide.” He threw the stick into the fire and looked at her. “They need to be held accountable.”

“They will be,” she said, “but we need to stay alive long enough to ensure it. How do we do that?”

She watched as he closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around his knees. He began to slowly rock back and forth on his butt. Fifteen seconds later, he stopped and opened his eyes.

“It’s simple. We need to avoid people.”

They listened as he told them about the CDC models and the government’s plan to quarantine any location with a large number of cases. “Just like the hospital,” he said and looked at Mei. “Only on a much larger scale. If you’re inside a quarantine zone, you’ll die—sooner or later.”

Gong spoke. “It is the same in China. That was the government’s plan—their last resort.”

Mei looked at him.
His daughter must be in one those cities.
She couldn’t imagine what he was going through knowing that.

“Where do we go then?” she asked Simmons.

“I don’t know,” he said in a troubled voice. “There aren’t a lot of options. During one of the briefings, they showed us a color coded population map of the United States. Red was the worst, green the best. The entire eastern seaboard, from Minnesota to Louisiana was shaded red. Where we are right now, the northeast‚ was dark red—the absolute worst.”

“What about the rest of the country?” Mei asked. “Where was it green? What about California?”

“Red—there are forty million people there. The only states that were green were in the northwest—Idaho, Montano, Nevada, Wyoming—and Alaska of course.

“And Nevada and Alaska are out.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Alaska’s too far and Nevada’s too dry. Over time, the basic infrastructure—water, power, sewage, communications—will collapse. A lot of the systems are automated but people are still needed to do the maintenance, flip the breakers when things reset, stuff like that. The Department of Energy showed us a model that predicted total failure of the electrical grid in less than a year under a worst-case scenario.”

“Do you think that could happen?”

“No idea…probably not, but why take the chance?”

“Where then—Idaho?”

“Maybe, but it’s more than two thousand miles from here. That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

She blew on her cup of coffee and took a sip. The wisps of steam reminded her the evening with Barb and Don. She swallowed the coffee and reached over to grab his hand.

“What about Canada? It’s closer—maybe five hundred miles from here at the most? Other than a few big cities like Toronto, Montreal…Vancouver, the population is spread—”

Gong interrupted her. “All of the borders into and out of the United States are closed.”

“He’s right,” Simmons agreed with a nod. “But it’s also a long border and at some point, they won’t have the resources to protect it. During the briefings, most of the discussion was about the southern border. What are you thinking? Where we would go?”

She smiled at him. “I have an idea.”