Extermination Day (13 page)

“Our government and our people are strong,” continued the Aryan General Wang. “We thank you for your offer of assistance, but we are confident that our scientists can devise a vaccine for this horrible virus. We can work together as needed.”

“General, have you been able to determine who may be behind this attack?”

The avatar’s eyes widened in rage. “You have some nerve asking me that, Mr. President.”

“Ah, what do you mean, General?” Paulson asked, surprised at such a strong reaction.

“You know what the hell I mean. All of our analysis shows that the United States is the only one with the technological capability to pull off such an attack.”

“But, General, all our people are dying. Why in the hell would we kill ourselves!” Paulson was livid.

“Yes, so the video stream tells us.” The general stared right into the camera. “But as we both know, the streams have been hacked before. False videos and news reports are simple enough to make that Chinese schoolchildren can do it. For all we know, you stupid Americans are sitting there in the comfort of your homes while the Chinese people are being wiped off the face of the planet!” The general was screaming.

“If anyone has hacked the Stream, it’s you, you dirty bastard!” Paulson was losing his temper now. He’d been through too much over the last few hours to contain his rage any longer. “Americans are dying. I just watched dozens of my own people cough up blood and guts and die in agony. Don’t you fucking try to tell me we’re behind this!”

“General,” Farrow jumped in to try to calm the situation, “is there someone else we can speak with? Chao
Mang perhaps?”

“Chao
Mang is dead,” Wang spat out. “As are millions of others. But don’t confuse this for weakness. China may be hurt, but we are still strong. We are an injured tiger that still has claws and teeth to rip your American flesh from its bone.”

“You’re not going to rip any flesh from anything. Not on my watch,” Paulson replied coldly.

Wang snorted. “I am prepared to use
all
means at my disposal to protect China.”

Paulson wondered if that meant nuclear strikes.

“Is that a threat, General?”

“Take it however you want. Just let me tell you this, Mr. President. China will not go quietly into the night. But if we do fade from this earth, then the United States will go with us.”

The video flicked off, and Paulson and Farrow were left with Wang's chilling threat.

6:15 am local time, January 16, 2038

Project
Chronos

Daniella Ruvstovski stood at the back of the elevator, the breach alarm echoing through the cavern below. She was exhausted but ready to hold her little baby girl Illiana. It was feeding time, and her baby daughter was upstairs in the daycare center. Little Illiana was only eleven months old, and had just recently started sleeping through the night. Daniella knew she’d be waking up hungry, crying, and screaming at any moment. Daniella needed to feed her. Work could wait. The thought of her baby girl crying all alone in the empty daycare tore her apart.

Daniella
had been working on Project Chronos for about a year, in the computer systems design area. The work was challenging and stimulating. She and her husband, Sergey, had immigrated from Russia about ten years ago on student visas and had since become permanent  U.S. residents. Life in the United States had been good for them, much better than Russia, where poor economic conditions still pulled down the once great nation.

She and Sergey had tried for years to have a child, and
Illiana was their miracle baby, their little angel. Daniella loved her so much. Normally she wouldn’t have brought her to work so late, but Sergey was on the night shift at the hospital and their normal sitter was sick. Daniella had last breast feed her daughter just before the base locked down about eight p.m. the night before. This was in between her efforts to finish some programming on the system before the scheduled morning launch.

She'
d been working all night and was exhausted. Her feet felt like lead blocks as she shifted her weight anxiously in the rising elevator. One thing was certain; she never thought she’d be stuck underground. When they sealed the doors to the base to quarantine the area and prevent the so-called virus from coming down and infecting them, Daniella had been cut off from Illiana.

When the reports of the horrible chaos and death around the world started to come in, she couldn’t believe it. So many dead.

She understood computers very well. She'd learned all the ins and outs of complex systems and programming. She was also privy to all the programming and hacking tricks out there on the Stream. And she knew this so-called catastrophe was a trick.

She knew what the Chinese were capable of. She’d seen the mastery of their video simulations and gaming technology. She knew they could hack the Stream and place fake videos out there to make it look like there was a killer virus and that millions were dying. But what was more likely, that everyone on the planet was dying from a virus or that the videos were all fake and part of a sabotage campaign or a hacker group’s sick joke?

She'd spent the last eight hours pretending to work while actually hacking into the base security system. It was a complex, delicate process as the system was one of the most highly advanced in the world. But Daniella was determined. Eventually she had an access code and clearance override for the elevator to take her to the surface. Nothing would stand between her and Illiana.

Daniella
needed to get to the surface. She needed to get to the daycare center and make sure her daughter was okay. She wouldn’t be held hostage by some teenage hackers looking to screw with people’s lives. Her daughter would be waiting, probably awake and crying and definitely hungry.

She could feel the panic and desperation start to build deep down inside her, panic she’d suppressed for the last few hours. Nothing would stop her from reaching
Illiana. Nothing.

#

Jeff, Holly, Chen, and his staff bolted up the stairs from the conference room to the top of control tower to see what had set off the alarm breach. When they arrived in the control room, several other team members were huddled around a screen.

“What’s going on?” Holly asked.

“It seems one of our staff had a breakdown and is trying to get to the surface,” a young man at one of the control stations said. “Daniella Ruvstovski. She was talking last night about how she believed that none of the video images, none of the deaths, were real. About how the Chinese had the ability to alter the Stream and send false images as a form of sabotage.”

“She also said that her baby was up there all alone and she needed to take care of her,” Jing Wei added.

Max continued in a more urgent tone. “Her eleven-month-old baby was sleeping in the daycare on the ground floor level at the time of the lockdown. Daniella was caught down here when the quarantine doors closed. When I saw her a little while ago, she had a wildly desperate look in her eyes. But I didn’t think she would do this.”

“Can she get to the surface?” Jeff asked.

“She works in our systems design area,” Chen said. “A software expert. If there’s a way to override the lockdown, she’ll figure it out. And apparently she has.”

“I have her on video; she’s in the elevator,” Howard said from in front of one of the computer screens. “I’ll put it on the main screen, and we can follow her. I’m trying to stop the elevator, but she patched in a manual override. I have no control over it.”

“If she gets to the surface, will the virus travel down the elevator shaft and infect our air down here?” Jeff asked.

“I’ve sealed the doors at this level,” Howard said. “The air within the elevator shaft will likely be contaminated, but it won’t get in he
re. At least I hope it won’t.” His face was pale.

And he looked too unsure for Jeff’s peace of mind.

He and the others watched Daniella stand patiently in the elevator as it sped to the surface. Jeff felt a deep sadness for her. He knew something of what she was feeling, but the love of a mother for her child went beyond anything he could fathom. She was doing what she felt was right, like any other person in this unprecedented time of crisis. There’d been moments during the last few hours when he’d felt he was walking through a dream and that he was going to wake up any minute. And it was true that they’d seen nothing with their own eyes, only video feeds, which Jeff knew could be faked. Was the whole thing just an elaborate ruse? Nagging doubt tickled at the back of his mind.

The elevator stopped at the ground floor
a mile up and Daniella exited, walking silently down the corridor, still holding her bottle. They watched her from the hallway video feed and then the scene switched to the daycare.

The walls of the daycare were painted with colorful cartoon characters and a mural of rainbows and flowers. Toys and games were stacked in nice orderly little piles on the side of the room. Several cribs were positioned along the back side, near a window. Nothing moved and everything was eerily quiet.

Daniella walked in and called out, “Illiana? Illiana, Mommy’s here. Are you hungry, baby girl? I’ve got some milk for you.” She ran to the crib. When she got there she stopped and looked down. The camera showed only her back, at first relaxed and then rigid with tension. Her bag dropped to the floor with a muffled thud and she stood there, arms by her sides, shoulders slumping.

A low keening came across the speakers, a sound that built until
Daniella was wailing without pause. The sound of unrelenting loss.

She reached down to the crib and pulled out the lifeless body of her baby girl, wrapped in a soft pink blanket, and cradled her, rocking slowly and smoothly as mothers do, as if to soothe her. As if to soothe them both.

And then she turned and carried her daughter out of the room.

“No, no, no,” she kept saying, weeping as she walked.

Jeff’s heart went out to her. Needing to turn away, he focused on the others. Tears were falling down their cheeks.

When
Daniella fell silent, Jeff turned back to the screen.

Head low, she walked out of the daycare center, back down the hallway, out to the main lobby of the facility and right out the front door, still holding her baby. And she just kept moving. The video feed in the parking lot showed her leaving the base and walking slowly, methodically, down the highway and off into the rising sun.

Jeff and the others watched her leave. No one said a word.

7:3
0 am EST, January 16, 2038

Greenbrier Resort

“
Hrumph!” grunted Paulson. “General Wang was direct and to the point. Do you think the Chinese are bluffing?”

“It’s hard to tell with those avatars, sir,” Farrow said. “But I really don’t know what to believe now. If not the Chinese, then who? The Russians?”

“Any thoughts, General?”

Rowan’s torso popped back up on the
holo.

“We simply need more time to figure that out, sir. But now we need to turn our attention toward what we need to do next. And that’s to get this virus out of the atmosphere.”

“And how do you propose we do that?” Paulson asked.

“The CDC believes that they can render the mechanical components of the virus inert using an electromagnetic pulse. The EMP will prevent the virus from communicating and from targeting human DNA. This technique should work on a small scale, but the virus has saturated the air around us. That means in order to truly eradicate it, we need to cover a large area with an EMP blast. The only way to do this is by using multiple high-altitude nuclear explosions.”

Paulson and Farrow looked at each other in disbelief.

“To add to our problems, these detonations would have to take place at exactly the same time and be coordinated at precise locations around the world. If one area were left open, uncovered by the EMP blast, then the virus would still be alive and keep spreading. The supercomputer here
at NORAD is running simulations to determine the best locations, altitudes, and yield level for the nuclear detonations.”

He turned away but almost immediately turned back.

“Mr. President, the other problem, if we decide to go with this option, is the damage that the EMP detonations would cause to our electronics. The high altitude of the blasts would limit the amount of nuclear fallout, but the gamma ray bursts and EMP would be maximized. As a result, almost all electronic devices both civilian and military would be destroyed. Their circuits would be fried. Nothing would work—not cars, planes, factories, not computers, not any type of communication device. We would be blasting the entire planet back to the Stone Age.”

“But we would rid the planet of this virus, and those of us left alive would not be infected?” Farrow asked.

“That’s correct. We’d be alive, those that have been able to survive. But our civilization would basically have to start over. Living conditions would be as they were a thousand years ago.”

“Does the CDC think there’s any possibility of this virus dying on its own over a certain time period?” Paulson asked. Now that he had time to think, the questions were speeding furiously through his mind.

“No, sir, they don’t. They think it’ll be around for centuries, if not millennia. They’ve already started seeing some of their test viruses reverting to the dormant spore stage they were in when they were in the dust cloud in space. In that stage they survived the extremes of a space vacuum and atmospheric entry, which means they can easily survive for a long, long time here on Earth. We can’t wait it out. Our only option to truly eradicate the virus is to use the high-altitude nuclear EMPs all over the planet.”

A nuclear strike of that magnitude would be a horrible and devastating thing, Paulson imagined. Even though Rowan claimed little to no nuclear fallout would reach the ground, Paulson wasn’t so sure. They could just be trading one horror for another. If the virus didn’t kill them, the nuclear radiation would. And then there was the issue of having no working electronics. Paulson could get by without Stream access to reruns of
Bootah Call
, but his horse-riding and sword-fighting skills were a little rusty, as were his farming-with-stone-tools skills.

Then there was the whole issue of leaving the entire United States defenseless. If the Chinese or Russians were behind this whole thing, they would have likely upgraded their electronics to make them less vulnerable to an EMP blast. That would leave them with functioning planes and tanks to invade what was left of the U.S.

“How quickly would we be able to do this?” he asked.

“The nuclear silos are prepped and ready to go, sir,” Rowan replied. “We have more than enough warheads to accomplish the task. As soon as the calculations are complete, we can start the countdown, given your permission, of course. The calculations for the strike are extremely complex. The AI must take into account existing atmospheric conditions, prevailing winds, variations in the Earth’s magnetic field, the expected blast radius and kiloton yield of the various warheads we have in stock, and numerous other factors. If we get this wrong and the warheads are detonated at the wrong altitude or the wrong place and time, then either the virus will survive or virus survivors will be killed by the nuclear blast.”

“What about other governments around the world? Have you been able to contact anyone?” Paulson asked. Before he fired off any nuclear weapons, he needed to get a buy-in from other leaders, if any were left.

“The Brazilians have a remote outpost in the Amazon, where several government officials seem safe for the time being. They agree that an EMP strike is the best option.”

Rowan tapped his screen, leaned close, and then resumed his strict posture.

“Russia has two outposts remaining in the Arctic Circle and Siberia with limited capabilities. We’ve advised them of our planned EMP strike, and they are adamantly opposed. They say they can develop a vaccine for the virus, given time.”

“Of course they can.” Paulson said sarcastically.

“Sir?”

He waved a hand in front of his screen. “Continue, General.”

“The Canadians also have several outposts in the Arctic Circle with limited governmental authority. They’ll support whatever we decide. Also in support are the Norwegians, who have a base at Svalbard, and the Argentineans, who have an underground facility in Patagonia. The Indians and Pakistanis both have bases in the Himalayas, but I’m not sure what type of governmental authority they have. Whoever is in charge there is opposed to any type of nuclear action. I haven’t been able to contact any other governments at this time. Everything is just too chaotic. That’s not to say they aren’t alive, however, and just trying to get organized.”

“So, General, other than the Chinese, the Russians seem to be the greatest opposition to a nuclear strike. Do you think that they can develop a vaccine?”

“I don’t know, sir. They have advanced medical facilities.”

“Have the CDC coordinate with them. I want the entire world working on this. Now is not the time to play territorial politics. If we were to launch the nuclear strike, what will the Russians do?”

“Mr. President, SEER has run prediction simulations which have them launching a low-altitude nuclear strike against us, which would destroy most of the U.S.”

SEER, the computer program designed to predict the outcome of future events, was only in its infancy, but was still surprisingly accurate for many situations. However, it seemed to break down when events became increasingly interwoven and complex. Also, when there was a high level of human involvement, SEER predictions had a much lower success rate. It seemed that people were real wildcards, unpredictable and highly illogical and emotional in their decision-making. Paulson grunted. Big surprise there.

“Sir, the CDC tells me that a cure for this virus will take weeks, if not months, to develop, if we can even develop one at all.” Rowan said. “By that time, everyone on the surface of the planet will be dead. Those few of us in research labs and bases underground or under the ocean will be too few to repopulate the planet. The human race will die off. The EMP strike is our only real option and it has to be done within the hour, otherwise it’ll be too late.”

“I need time to think about this, General Rowan. Please call me again when the strike calculations are complete and you’re ready to launch. I’ll have my decision then. In the meantime, if everyone could please give me some privacy, I have a message to send.”

Farrow looked at him a bit strangely, but left the room without saying anything. When he was gone Paulson said, “Computer, put me in contact with Dr. Patrick Chen at Project
Chronos. Private, encrypted channel, please.”

Paulson had learned about
Chronos when he was Secretary of Defense in the last administration. Paulson hadn’t believed time travel was possible until he went to the base personally and met with Dr. Chen, who showed him what the machine they’d built could do and explained the complex workings of the device. Very few others in the government knew the project existed. Paulson had never mentioned it to President Diaz, so he doubted even he knew about it.

A few minutes later the doctor’s face appeared on the
holo.

“Hello, Patrick. I trust that you’ve received the latest data on the virus.”

“Yes, Mr. President. The hard drive we’re preparing is being updated in real time as the information is collected by the Chronos mainframe. When you give the word, we’ll be ready to send the drive back along with two chrononauts.”

“Good.
Have you decided who's going back yet?

"I have one of the candidates but I'm still deciding on the other."

Paulson nodded his head. "I need you to send something else back as well.”

Chen frowned and pursed his lips.

“I know sending the drive and the people back will give us some warning about this attack, but I feel I need a contingency plan as well. There are too many unknowns with this crisis. So I want you to send one of the latest cutting-edge portables back, complete with a neural AI and predictive algorithms. Then attach that to an auto-drone, one that is capable of flying long distances. I'll send its flight coordinates as well. I have a video that I made on Air Force One that I want played when the portable is first accessed. And I need you to code it to open with my fingerprint only.”

“So you’re sending a message back to yourself. Clever. How far back should it go? We need to make sure we have enough fuel for the next jump
with the other drive and the chrononauts as well.”

“I’m sending you that information now, encoded. We’ve had a security breach here and there may be spies elsewhere, including at Project
Chronos. No one should see it but you, and you must conduct the time jump for the device in secrecy as well. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir. I’ll have it ready to go immediately. When should I send it?”

“Send it as soon as you have enough fuel. Patrick, we’re doing everything we can here, but at this point Project Chronos may be our only hope. Don’t fail us.”

“I won’t, Mr. President. You can count on me.”

Chen signed off, and Paulson spent the next few minutes updating and organizing his video and all of the data they had on the virus and Project Chronos. He also decided to include historical news archives. When he was done, he sent it.

“I hope that works,” he muttered to himself.

“Computer, get General Rowan back.”

Rowan popped up on the
holo.

“General, I want to talk to the Russians and see what they have on the virus. Can you link me in?”

“Yes, sir. I have Sergey Emli . . . ”

The video feed of General Rowan faded and static filled the
holo.

“General, are you there? You’re breaking up,” Paulson said. “What’s wrong with this thing?” He tapped a button. “
Theobald, we just lost the feed in here.”

“I know, sir,”
Theobald said through the intercom from the next room. “We lost the satellite feed. I’m going to reroute through another satellite connection. Wait, what the hell? Mr. President, I think you should come out here.”

Paulson left the private suite where he’d had been talking remotely with Rowan and the Chinese General Jung Wang and entered the main control room of the bunker. Several people were standing behind Chad
Theobald, who was frantically sliding hands and fingers across several windows, opening and closing them in rapid succession.

“We have a security breach here in the base,”
Theobald said, panic rising in his voice. “Someone just broadcasted a coded signal from this location.”

“What do you mean we sent a signal?” Paulson snapped, his worst fears about their spy being alive now confirmed. “Where, what did it say?”

“It was encrypted using some type of code I’ve never seen before. It looks like the signal came from one of these terminals and went up to one of our communications satellites. I just sat down and I’m the only one working here, so it must have been coded to automatically go out at this time. I can’t tell exactly where the signal went after bouncing off the satellite.”

Paulson thought for a second that
Theobald could be the spy. He was an outside government contractor, after all, and could have been compromised. Plus he was working on Air Force One’s servers, giving him security access to areas where a bomb could have been placed.

“Travis, are you confirming this?” Paulson asked the man sitting at the terminal beside
Theobald. He was a Pentagon analyst that Paulson knew was trustworthy.