Anvil (27 page)

“I’m in!”

Jessica
smiled as the screen in front of her refreshed to display a command
prompt.  She was now logged into the system’s server in the building in
Utah, the signal from her terminal being uplinked to a satellite and bounced
back down to a large dish on the roof above the server room.

“You’re
in?  You’ve got control?”

TJ’s voice
over her headset was every bit as excited as hers.

“Yes. 
Don’t touch a thing.  Hold on.”

Jessica’s
fingers flew across the keyboard.  She quickly moved through the system,
identifying the settings she would need to change and the files that needed to
be copied.  Behind her, Lieutenant Hunt stared intently at her
screen.  As he watched he was reminded just how talented the young woman
was.  How she somehow intuitively knew how to make the system do what she
wanted.

“How
long?”  He asked when she paused to watch a file load.

Jessica
jumped and glanced over her shoulder.  She had been so engrossed in what
she was doing that she hadn’t realized he was standing behind her. 
Turning back to her station she opened a new window that showed the progress of
multiple, simultaneous file transfers.

“Probably
seven or eight hours,” she answered.  “These are damn big files.  And
once I’ve got them I have to decrypt, unzip, then load them onto our
servers.  Then mount the virtual discs and install them.  Likely
seven hours if there’s no hiccups and everything works like it’s supposed
to.  Say nine to be safe.”

Jessica had
continued working as she spoke, her fingers typing one thing while her mouth
communicated in a totally different language.

“Are you
through with the tech on that end?”

“Yes, sir,”
Jessica said in a distracted voice.

“OK, I’m
going to take control of the comms.  I need to speak with Major Chase.”

Jessica
nodded and continued working without pause.  The smallest of the files had
completed transferring to Hawaii and she had already made a copy of it and stored
it on a back up server.

Hunt
returned to his station and donned a headset.  He rerouted the comm
circuit and a few moments later could hear the background noise in the server
room in Utah.  There was the normal low roar of all the cooling fans
maintaining the individual servers’ internal temperatures.  He could also
clearly hear pounding of fists on a door and a near constant cacophony of
screams from the infected.

Identifying
himself, he asked that the headset be passed to Major Chase.  Footsteps, a
brief, muffled conversation followed by the scrape of the microphone against
fabric and the Major’s voice spoke in his ear.

“Major,
Lieutenant Hunt.  We’re in the system, but it’s going to take about nine
hours before we have full control.  Are you going to be able to keep the
servers up and running that long?”

“Yes,” he
answered.  “We brought enough fuel for the generators.  Shouldn’t be
a problem, but nine hours is cutting it close.  I’m supposed to be in
Russian hands in less than ten.  Besides, we’re trapped.  Infected in
the building.  We’re not going anywhere.”

Hunt sat
back, blinking.  He didn’t have any idea what the Major was talking
about.  In the Russian’s hands?

“Major, I
think I’d better try and get the Admiral on the line.  Stand by.”

“Copy. 
I got nothing else to do but stand by.”

Lieutenant
Hunt quickly placed a call to Admiral Packard’s office, his aide immediately
connecting the call.  Hunt briefly described the situation before joining
the two calls.

“Major?”

“Admiral. 
Greetings from Utah,” John said.

“I
understand you’ve completed your mission but can’t get out of the building.”

“Correct,
sir.  The infected breached and we’re trapped in the server room. 
We’ve been looking for a way out, but there’s not one.”

“Colonel
Blanchard is only an hour away by air.  I’ll have him send some Marines
your way to extract you,” Packard said, sounding like he was ready to hang up
and start issuing orders.

“Negative,
sir.  Won’t work.  There are several thousand infected in the
building and tens of thousands in the parking lot surrounding us.  There’s
no way anyone is fighting their way in.  Or out.”

The circuit
was quiet for a long moment as the Admiral digested what he’d just been told.

“Sir,” Major
Chase spoke into the silence.  “What does this do to the agreement with
the Russians about turning me over?  We’re cutting it close if the weapon,
or whatever it is, won’t be ready for another nine hours.”

“It’s going
to have to be,” Packard growled.  “Lieutenant, how realistic is that
estimate?”

“Direct from
Petty Officer Simmons, sir.  She’s usually spot on.  She doesn’t pad
or underestimate the amount of time she needs.  But I am concerned that if
there’s an unforeseen problem the timeline could get extended.”

“That’s not
an option, Lieutenant.  Less than ten hours from now, either we’re online
and operational, or Major Chase needs to be in Russian hands.  If neither
of those things happen, the bombs start dropping. 

“You make
sure that whatever the Petty Officer needs, she gets.  Immediately. 
I’m sending my aide over.  He will ensure you get instant cooperation.”

Packard’s
voice sounded tired as he spoke.  He was betting the last remnants of
America on a young woman who hadn’t exactly shown that she had the best
judgment.  But, his back was against the wall and the only other option
was unconditional surrender.

“Yes, sir,”
Hunt said.

“Admiral,
one more thing if I may?”  Major Chase interjected before the call could
end.

“Don’t know
why not, Major.  There’s not a damn thing for me to do for the next ten
hours except wear a hole in my carpet and smoke too much.”

“Sir, I
wanted to ask about Jessica.  Petty Officer Simmons.”

“What about
her?”  The Admiral asked, cautiously.

“What’s
going to happen to her, sir?”

“I’m not
sure that’s your concern, Major,” Packard said, the warning in his voice clear.

“Sir,
begging your pardon, but I’m making it my concern.  She has saved my life
more times than I can count.  And, since she’s still at work, she’s apparently
a very valuable asset to the Navy and the United States.”

“I’m well
aware of her value, Major.  Thank you for bringing the obvious to my
attention.  Is that all?”  Heavy sarcasm was in the Admiral’s voice.

“No,
sir.  It’s not.  You’ve asked a lot of me.  Turning myself
over.  And you’ve already agreed to do a couple of things for me, for
which I’m grateful.  Now, I’m either going to die in this building, or
someone will come up with some way to get me out so I can be executed in
Moscow.  I want one more thing from you, sir.

“Don’t put
the Petty Officer on trial for what she’s done.  She’s a patriot, just
like the rest of us.  Her only crime is that she’s young and made a
mistake.  If you can’t forgive and trust her to continue there in Hawaii,
put her on a plane to Australia.  There’s enough dead Americans, sir.”

Major Chase
finished speaking and went quiet.  He had put it all out there, and
Lieutenant Hunt found himself agreeing.  Jessica didn’t deserve to be
tried, convicted and possibly executed for what she’d done.  Yes, it was
bad, but these were desperate times.  The only problem was the little
matter of her boyfriend.  No evidence that he was a spy had been found,
yet, and murder was still murder.

“I will take
it under consideration, Major.”

There was a
click and Packard was gone.  Hunt took a deep breath, blowing it out
through his mouth.

“Think he’ll
let her go?”  Major Chase was still on the circuit.

“I don’t
know, Major.  I just don’t know.”

“Jessica
told me she was starting to work on activating my wife’s beacon.  Is there
anyone else that can take over while she’s involved with this?”

“No, I’m
sorry.  I was trying to get the satellite to issue the command, and
couldn’t make it work.  Had to turn it over to the Petty Officer.”

Major Chase
was quiet for a moment.  A low sigh was audible over the circuit.

“Very well,
thank you Lieutenant.”

“You’re
welcome, sir.  I’m here if you need anything.”     

There was a
click and the Major was gone.  Hunt pulled his headset off and got up to
check on Jessica’s progress.  He looked around when the door opened and
Admiral Packard’s aide walked in.  Taking up positions behind the Petty
Officer’s station, the two men watched as she furiously worked on her keyboard.

Nicole
looked up when Lieutenant Sam tapped on the window.  She was seated on a
narrow bunk in an isolation room inside the research institute.  She’d
been poked, prodded, stuck with needles, X-rayed, MRI’d, CT’d and ultrasounded
to death.  She didn’t think there was another test known to man that could
be run on her.

The boat
ride from the University had been uneventful compared to the trek from the
nuclear physics lab to the edge of the lake.  The wounded Master Chief had
piloted them, putting on speed as they passed underneath three bridges. 
She had been terrified to hear splashes in the water as they cleared each
roadway. 

Upon arrival
at the institute, she was quickly ushered inside.  Two SEALs were assigned
to watch over her as Sam hustled the Master Chief off to receive medical
attention.  She was handed over to two research scientists. 

One of them,
an arrogant prick named Dr. Kanger, rubbed her the wrong way as soon as he
opened his mouth and began talking about her as if she were something he was
looking at under a microscope.  The other, a younger man who introduced
himself as Joe, had the saddest eyes she’d ever seen.

Neither of
them had offered any theories on her condition and they had finally placed her
in the sealed room.  She was told it was for her safety, but she knew it
was because they were scared of her.  Not that she could blame them, but
she knew she was OK.  She didn’t have the urge to hurt, let alone eat, any
of them.

Well, maybe
Kanger could use a good ass kicking, but she recognized the type.  Working
in the sciences she had encountered many a Doctor of this or Professor of that
who thought they were the smartest person in the room and everyone else was
beneath them.  She didn’t have a problem with that first part.

“You said
you’d tell me your story,” Sam said, smiling at her through the glass.

“It’s pretty
boring,” she smiled back, happy to have someone to talk to that was interested
in more than examining her.

“That’s
OK.  I’ve got time.  One of the guys is outside taking measurements
from several different locations.  Thanks for that suggestion, by the
way.  He’s going to print it out and bring it to us when he gets
back.  So, we can either talk about the weather, or you can tell me how
you wound up locked in.”

Sam looked
around when Joe Revard walked up.  He nodded at the SEAL and smiled at
Nicole.

“I was just
coming for the same reason,” he said.  “Might be helpful.  Do you
mind?”

Nicole looked
at him for a moment, shook her head, took a breath and stood up.  She
found it easier to talk if she was standing.  Too many years in academia,
she mused.  Taking a breath, she began.

Nicole
wasn’t just smart, she was an actual certified genius.  With an IQ higher
than 99.99% of the people on the planet, odds were in her favor that she was
the smartest person in the room.  With dual doctorates from MIT, she had
begun her career at Lawrence Livermore labs in California, working with the
team that was trying to develop cold fusion.

They’d had
several significant breakthroughs and were within a decade of rolling out a
power source that would solve one of the world’s biggest problems and do it with
limitless, clean energy.  After a significant advancement in the
technology, the entire team was given a week’s vacation.  When they
returned to the lab they were astounded to find that all of their work had been
removed.

Loud
protests were met with a visit from a truly frightening man who refused to say
which government agency he worked for.  They were reminded of the secrecy
agreements by which they were bound, and thinly veiled threats of life in a
Super Max prison were made if they discussed their work with anyone.  The
team broke up after that, many of them choosing to retire as they had spent a
lifetime on their quest.

But Nicole
was too young to retire.  Barely thirty, she looked around for something
to do, jumping at an opportunity to teach nuclear physics at the University of
Washington.  It wasn’t MIT or Cal Tech, but the school had a good
reputation and would have the equipment to allow her to continue her
work.  Only she would have to do it quietly.  On her own.

That’s what
she had been doing on the night of the attacks.  Alone in the lab, she was
insulated from the outside world.  She had no idea anything had happened
until the following morning when, bleary eyed, she opened the door to go home
and shower before her first class. 

It was odd
that there had been no one in the upper level lobby when she walked out, but
she was too tired to give it any thought.  Trudging down the stairs she’d
come out into the lower level, again seeing no activity.  Heading for the
door that opened into the security vestibule, she idly wondered if she’d mixed
up her days, again, and it was the weekend.

Opening the
door, she froze in horror.  Gus, the affable man that worked the evening
security shift, turned at the sound.  His eyes were solid red orbs and
black blood dripped from his nose and ears.  With a hiss and snarl he
reached for her, taking a shambling step in her direction.

As his hand
closed on her arm, Nicole snapped back to reality and screamed.  She
pulled back, tearing away from Gus’s hand and slamming the steel door with all
her strength.  The door bounced back, having impacted his head, and she
threw her body against it and pushed until she heard the lock catch.

Dashing back
up the stairs, she noticed the long, bloody furrow in her forearm where one of
his nails had torn her skin.  Ignoring it, she dashed past her lab and
into a large kitchen, fumbling her cell phone out of her purse.  There was
no signal for her carrier.  It was still connected to the building’s
Wi-Fi, but there was apparently no internet connection.

She tried a
hard wired phone on the wall, but when she got an outside line there was no
dial tone.  The TV on the wall only displayed a banner telling her that
the Emergency Broadcast System had been activated.  In a near panic, she
hit the alarm button when the muted pops of gunfire from outside the building
reached her ears.

The alarm
would alert the University Police, the Seattle Police, the Washington State
Police and Homeland Security.  It also locked down the facility, securing
all doors until the authorities arrived with the proper reset codes.  But
they never arrived.  Nicole was locked in.

The day had
passed with agonizing slowness.  Frequent gunfire could be heard, sounding
distant because of the building’s thick, shielded walls.  She knew it had
to actually be just outside.  On campus. 

As evening
approached, hunger drove her to inventory what was in the kitchen. 
Knowing many of her co-workers also kept food in their offices and work areas,
she had begun a search.  Half way through, she had come across a small ham
radio receiver in one of the assistant professor’s desks.  It was about
the size of a brick with a long, rubber antenna.

Turning it
on, she could only hear static.  Her excitement over finding it was tempered
when she remembered the lead shielding that surrounded her.  But it
wouldn’t be here if it was useless inside the building.  She had kept
looking until she found a small antenna mounted high on an exterior wall in one
of the least often used labs.  A cable from its base disappeared into the
wall.

She realized
it was a passive relay for the radio signal.  Taking a seat directly
beneath it, she turned the handset back on.  For twenty-four hours she
listened to descriptions of the horror that had been unleashed on the United
States.  Then the battery died, and before she was able to locate a
charging cable the building’s power went out.

Generators
kicked in, but they were only wired to the security system and a limited number
of emergency lights.  Even if she’d found the charger, there was no way to
power it.  She was cut off from the outside world. 

A few days
later she had gotten sick.  The flu, she’d thought.  At least until
now.  She had been sicker than she could ever remember being.  Body
aches that caused her to pull into a ball and stay there for more than a
day.  A burning fever and associated delirium. 

Now, she
wasn’t so sure it was delirium.  Some of the nightmares she’d had were so
rage filled and dark they had frightened her.  As the fever burned through
her, she tried to sleep, waking several times so frightened of the horrible
images in her head that she cried out in terror.

But the flu
had passed.  She had been keeping track of the passing days on a
whiteboard, but the illness had been so severe she’d lost count.  There
was no way to know how long she’d been laid up.  Recovery had been quick,
then it had been countless hours of tedium until she heard the noise the SEALs
made as they broke in to the facility.

“I was out
of food and almost out of water,” she said.  “If you guys hadn’t found
me…”

“Just how
smart are you?”  Joe interrupted.

“Is that
really important?”

Nicole
didn’t like talking about it.  In fact, she went to great lengths to
disguise her intellect.  She was one of the rare people with extremely
high IQs who wasn’t socially awkward.  And she didn’t like the reaction
she got from people when they found out.  Yes, she was smarter than
them.  Despite what they might think, this didn’t make her look down on
them.

“It might
be,” Joe said.  “We’ve been observing female infected for some time. 
As the virus has mutated, less and less of their cognitive abilities are being
impacted.  At least that’s what we think.  Perhaps it’s not that the
virus is having a lesser impact, maybe it’s the baseline intelligence of the
subject to begin with.”

“The
subject?”  Nicole asked, eyebrows arched sharply.

“Sorry,” Joe
said.

“I’m just
yanking your chain,” she smiled, even though she actually had taken mild
offense to the term.  “I tested at 189 when I was a child.  At MIT I
went through a battery of three separate tests.  The mean result was 194.”

“Oh, my
God,” Joe breathed.

“Is that
high?”  Sam asked.

“One hundred
is average,” Joe said, trying to contain his excitement.  “You seem
reasonably intelligent, so I’d guess you’re around 115 to 120.  I tested
at 123.  Einstein was 160.”

Sam’s mouth
dropped open and he turned to stare at Nicole.  She looked back at him and
shrugged her shoulders.

“This is
amazing,” Joe said excitedly.  “The first thing we have to do is test you
again.  See what you score now.  Determine if the infection has
impacted your cognitive reasoning ability.”

“That’s
going to have to wait,” a new voice spoke up from behind them.

Joe and Sam
turned to see Echo, the SEAL who had been outside sampling the radiation
levels.  He held several pieces of paper in his hand, extending them to
his Lieutenant.  Sam scanned them quickly, grimacing, then placed them in
an open drawer and pushed a lever which slid the mechanism into Nicole’s room.

“Are those
numbers as bad as I think they are?”  He asked as she snatched them up and
moved under a light.

“Yes,” she
said a moment later, looking up from the papers.  “You need to run the
same tests inside the building.  We need to know how well it’s protecting
us, but I’m pretty sure we need to leave.”

Sam turned
to issue the order, but Nicole stopped him.

“Wait. 
Do you know how to check the calibration on the unit?”

The two
SEALs exchanged glances before looking at her and shaking their heads.

“Let me out
of here,” she said.  “We have to be sure we’re getting accurate results.”

Sam stared
at her for a long moment, turning and looking at Joe who just shrugged his
shoulders.

“For
Christ’s sake, I’m not going to hurt anyone!”  Nicole shouted, red eyes
flashing.

After a long
pause, Sam stepped forward and released the lock on the door to the isolation
room.  Pulling it open, he stepped aside as Nicole swept through the
opening and told the SEAL to take her to the equipment.