Masked (6 page)

“Yeah, and James, don’t be a jerk,”
Rachael added.

At that, we continued to sit in
silence. I glanced over at Sara and caught her as she was looking at me. Her
soft pale cheeks turned a slight rose color. She smiled. I returned the smile
and turned back to the front of the room.  A few minutes later the door to the
conference room opened and Dr. Roberts walked in with two men and a woman
dressed in green military dress uniforms.

“Good morning everyone,” one of
the men greeted us. He stood behind the podium on the wide platform at the
front of the room. “My name is Colonel Caldwell. You all have been waiting very
patiently for us to explain what has happened to you and why you are here now. I
apologize for the information delay and I thank you for your patience. I’m sure
you have a lot of questions for us. Today we will be able to give you some answers
to those questions.”

Col. Caldwell was a tall, middle
aged white man with short brown hair peppered with some grey. His chiseled
facial features along with his large stature helped him present himself to us with
an air of confidence and authority.

The others sat on four chairs set
behind the podium.

“To my right is Lieutenant
Masters.” Caldwell said pointing to the very military looking woman to his
right. She smiled slightly and nodded her head as she was introduced. Probably
in her early twenties, she was athletically built and an average height for a
woman. Her short brown hair rested on top of a pale sculpted face. She continued
to smile at the group as Caldwell continued.

“To my left is Master Sergeant
Batton.” Caldwell said gesturing to the other uniformed man. Batton nodded his
head in acknowledgment with a stoic closed face. He was a bull of a man,
towering over the others on the podium, and his uniform barely fit over his slabs
of arm and chest muscles. He too had brown hair and sharply chiseled pale face.

“And of course you all know Dr. Roberts.”
He continued directing his arm towards Dr. Roberts who was standing next to
Masters. Dr. Roberts nodded with the recognition.

Caldwell remained standing while
the others sat down.

“Let’s start with why you are at
this facility,” he began. He continued on into an hour long briefing,
explaining how we came to be at the facility which we soon came to know as the
HUB.

He explained each of us, along with
thousands of other Americans, contracted a lethal virus that was, at the time of
infection, of an unknown type and origin. After one contracted the virus, there
was only a forty-eight hour incubation period before the first signs of
infection would appear. Visible symptoms started with a purple bruise-like rash
on the abdomen before rapidly advancing across the rest of the body. In a
matter of twenty-four hours the rash covered the entire body. A severe burning
sensation followed the spread of the rash, causing a fierce agony for the
infected, while simultaneously, weakening the internal organs. The whole
process, once the first signs appeared, was only a thirty hour window.

The screen over the podium showed
an image of a bare abdomen with what looked like a small violet bruise just
above the naval. The next image showed the full body of a man, unclothed, lying
on a bed. The rash was now covering his entire abdomen ending just below the
neck and right above the knees. The man’s face was a portrait of intense
suffering. A few seconds later he moved on to a third image that showed the
man’s entire body covered in a dark purple bruise. The man appeared to be
screaming.

 The images were horrifying and
morbidly fascinating. It was humbling to be told that had happened to each of
us. No one said anything regarding the images, but the silence was thick with
shock and horror.

 He explained when the first
cases of infection appeared; no one had any idea what it was. The CDC had never
seen anything like it and couldn’t link it to any other known viral strains. A
national emergency was called and the whole country was put on alert. The American
people were told once they knew of someone who started to show signs of infection;
they immediately needed to contact the CDC. They were told there was no cure
and in order to stop the spread of the virus, the infected needed to be
immediately quarantined. Emergency quarantine facilities were set up all around
the country. The infected were rounded up and isolated in these facilities to
live out the remaining hours of their lives.

The CDC, as well as other governmental
and commercial medical research organizations across the globe, was frantically
working on ways to neutralize the virus. The viral strain was so different from
anything else ever seen and it took some time to develop anything to even try
against it. As these groups worked, new cases of infection continued to be
reported and people continued to die.

There wasn’t a consistent method
of transmission anyone could identify. Geographically, people from all over the
U.S. were infected, but their families and friends who they had contact with
would not be and there were no cases reported outside of U.S. borders. Those
who had contracted the virus didn’t appear to have any consistent traits that
could shed any light on where the virus had come from or who the infection
would target.

It wasn’t until three weeks after
the virus had claimed its first victim that one of the domestic commercial medical
research organizations was successful in killing the strain in an infected
tissue sample. Considering the 100% mortality rate and the short gestation
period, they quickly brought in one of the infected to test the potential cure.
The patient who was brought in had shown the first signs of infection approximately
twenty-two hours prior. The team administered the anti-virus, but it was neutralized
by the active virus immediately.

Dr. Roberts was a part of that
group and led the team who administered the anti-virus. When it didn’t
neutralize the virus in the patient, her team scrambled to determine what was
causing their “cure” to work in a live tissue sample, but not in a live person.
They repeated the procedure several times on their dying test subject and kept
trying up until his organs failed.

They thought their anti-virus was
a bust, but then Dr. Roberts had an idea. She tried injecting the now deceased
test subject again to see what the effect would be on his infected tissue once
the heart had stopped pumping blood through the body. The virus was dead in the
blood sample they subsequently took.

They immediately found another
one of the infected who was right at twenty nine hours. The young woman was in
horrible agony and all they could do was try and make her comfortable, waiting
for her to go into cardiac arrest. Once she did, they immediately injected the
anti-virus in order to give the heart a chance to spread it before complete
failure. Once her heart stopped, they let thirty seconds pass and then began to
resuscitate the woman. They were able to get her heart pumping again and breathing.
She was unconscious, but alive.

Once the patient was stabilized,
they took a blood sample and found the virus in the sample was no longer active.
With this news, they worked to produce as much anti-virus they could and
administered it to the infected as it was ready. They gave the treatment to the
infected in all stages of progression, initiating the cardiac arrest, so that
there would be less organ damage due to longer exposure to the virus.

The treatment worked in about 72%
of the patients it was administered to. For the other 28%, the virus was
neutralized, but they were unable to be resuscitated, their bodies too weakened
by the infection. Most of the patients the treatment was successful with were
younger than their mid-twenties. All of the patients who had a successful treatment
were left in comas.

Almost immediately, after the
anti-virus was first administered, new cases of infection ceased. It seemed the
virus had stopped spreading. The CDC reported there had been over ten-thousand
people infected, all of whom were in the U.S. The virus never spread beyond
domestic borders. Of the over ten-thousand people infected, only the last one
hundred and thirty-four were able to be treated.

To the amazement of the doctors
treating the now comatose patients, they saw the patients bodies begin to heal
and repair the physical damage caused by the virus. He told us we were five of
the only ninety-six people who they were able to treat successfully. Others had
woken before us, but there were still forty-two who slept.

None of us said a word as the
horrifying facts were laid out before us. It was all I could do to just sit and
listen, as they told a story too incredible and disturbing to be true. I’m sure
my jaw was resting on the table.

While waiting, I had played out
different scenarios in my head, of why I was there and what might have
happened, but nothing I’d imagined was anything close to the fantastically
nightmarish tale Caldwell told. It was impossible to believe, to fathom how any
of it could be real, yet there I was.

James sounded unconvinced.  “So you
essentially killed us via heart attack and brought us back from the dead?”

“That is correct,” replied Dr. Roberts.
“Once the body stopped taking in oxygen, the virus completely became inactive.”

“So…, how long have we been in a
coma?” Rachael asked the doctor.

Dr. Roberts looked to Caldwell.
He nodded. “The first person to regain consciousness woke after approximately
two months. The five of you were unconscious for approximately nine months.”

Alex pounded on the table. “We’ve
been asleep for nine months? Why the hell didn’t any of you think to tell us
this before?”

“We’ve really been here that
long? Asleep?” James added, again more unconvinced than angry.

“Yeah, why would you hold this
from us? What the hell kind of people are you?” shouted Rachael frantic and
panicked.

“Where are our families, our
friends, does anyone even know we’re awake? Does anyone even know we’re alive?”
I questioned, anger quickly stealing momentum from the shocked state I’d been
in.

How could I have been asleep for
nine full months? Even though I didn’t remember what I had before, the fact I
knew I’d lost so much time of whatever I did have was extremely upsetting.  Nine
months was a long period of life to sleep through. Did I have parents, a
family, mourning over me?

Sara had a look of utter shock on
her face, no anger, just a sad despair.

After the round of outbursts, Caldwell
patted the air with his palms. “Settle down. Please. I know this news is not
pleasant to hear and is a lot to absorb, but we have more to discuss with you.
Please just settle down.”

“You didn’t answer Michael’s
question. Does anyone know we’re even alive? Our families?” Sara asked in a
quiet, solemn tone.

The room was quiet for several
seconds before he responded.

“No one knows you are here and
there are reasons why that is so. Please, just let me continue to explain.”

No one else responded, but we all
settled back into our seats, showing our willingness to have him continue. He
took our cue and proceeded.

He went on to explain in as early
as the first tests performed, they were able to determine the virus had been
manufactured. A non-stop search began to determine where the source was. All
known terrorist groups, both domestic and international, were under watch. All
government agencies with operatives in the field were looking for evidence that
could link any of these groups to the virus.

Caldwell’s team was the first to
get any lead. They found a trail of documents supporting the purchase of
certain materials needed to manufacture such a virus. The document trail lead
to a minor subsidiary of a large conglomerate, Labyrinth Technologies, which
was mostly involved in consumer technologies research, but also had several
weapons contracts with the Department of Defense. Upon further investigation, they
found a prominent U.S. senator with significant influence in the defense arena had
a controlling interest in this subsidiary.

 Caldwell’s group, for the previous
several years, had gathered intelligence on a group they knew existed, but remained
hidden. They believed this shadow group was masked within the U.S. government,
but operated outside of its laws and governance. Evidence suggesting this group
existed had been found, but there was no tangible proof on who was involved and
what their agenda was.

Based on what Caldwell’s team did
know, the shadow group had powerful people in the U.S. Government involved in
order to have the influence implied. Caldwell’s group could only speculate what
their agenda was. The shadow group was most likely lead by individuals who were
unhappy with the way the country was governed and their ultimate goal was most
likely to first take control of the U.S. Government and then exert their
influence for a more global agenda.

There were leads in the past Caldwell’s
group had followed and they always came to a dead end. One of the leads from
years before was the Senator.  His activities were monitored for some time due
to suspicions, but nothing concrete was ever found against him. Once the
connection was made to the transactions and his controlling share of the subsidiary
of Labyrinth, suspicions rose again.

One of the scenarios worked up as
to how this shadow group might be able to gain control in the government was the
orchestration of a national emergency on a large scale which they could use to
put the final pieces into play for power. Creating a super-virus to unleash on
the country was a likely candidate to cause such an emergency.  With the right
people in the right positions, a large national emergency could give a group
like this the remaining power they would need.