The phenomenon, p.7
The Phenomenon, page 7
She clipped her gear into place, took a look around the basement, and with one last glance at Emil, she turned to leave.
"Take Sarya with you."
She wheeled around and nearly screamed at him "What?"
"Take Sarya with you."
"What!? Why would I do that? Why would you want me to? She's your daughter; I mean, what the hell?"
"I’m not as capable as you are. I'm not strong like you. I'm not going to be able to keep her alive. You could. You could keep her alive, see her through this until you both find a group of survivors who can be trusted, a community. I have no chance of doing that, of giving her a future. Take her with you."
"And what would you do?"
He shrugged.
"I have no idea. Continue as I am for as long as I can. until I run out of supplies. Until the murderers down in the subways rise up and take what I've got left and my life. Perhaps take a walk outside when I get hungry and desperate enough."
Sharon looked around again at the basement that had been her prison for a month. The stinking drain they used to relieve themselves. The piles of rags and furniture. The workbench she'd idly considered trying to get to and use the tools to escape.
She made up her mind then.
~
Day 55
Glasses clinked as the seaman took away the remains of the meal. Longmire wiped his face with a napkin and look across the table at Commander Peprichek. The meal had been a surprisingly unassuming but delicious steak and baked potatoes loaded down with bacon bits, sour cream, & cheddar, with coleslaw, Coca-Cola, and a dessert of blueberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream. They'd spent dinner and dessert discussing the differences between Australia and the US, both western democracies, but with distinctly different takes on government and its role in society. Longmire found Commander Peprichek knowledgeable, but naive, like some kind of walking talking encyclopedia. He lacked the depth and awareness, the humanity and emotion, to properly put all his knowledge into context and use. Still, it had been an interesting conversation, but it was now time to get down to business.
"So tell me Commander, what exactly do we know about what's going on out there?"
"Let me counter with a question of my own. What have you been told so far by your own government?"
"Very little. We know there's been some sort of global event. We know we can't expose ourselves or even look anywhere exposed to sky except with IR or UV vision, we know we're in radio silence, even had us disconnect the antennae we use to listen in on civilian frequencies when we surface. What we don't know is why, just what is it about this event that requires us to isolate ourselves like this."
"Well then I'm afraid I've got some rather bad news Captain. The reason you've been isolated is for your own safety."
"How so?"
"These things, this... Phenomenon... is lethal. On sight lethal. It doesn't have to touch you, or hit you with anything."
"Radiation?"
"No sir, it's too damn quick. And as long as you don't attract their attention with heat, sound, or movement, you could hang around outside all day and night so long as you keep your eyes closed. It's not... it's not like anything we've ever encountered before."
"And how has the civilian population fared? I mean, if this thing is lethal, literally, on sight, then...?"
"Unfortunately Captain, not well. Exact figures are... well, they're damn right impossible. But, based on residual cellular usage in the first few weeks before most power grids failed, we think at least 85% of the civilian population didn't make it past the first day."
Longmire felt the news hit him like a punch in the gut. He suddenly couldn't draw breath, sounds echoed, and were distorted. He himself lacked any ties. Never been married, his parents were both dead, no siblings. The Navy had been his family for nearly a decade. But his crew... half of them were freaking kids barely into their twenties. They had wives and girlfriends, small children, siblings, parents and grandparents... holy shit. This was going to throw morale into the bilge.
"Shit... and... how much of the Government has survived?"
"Yours or mine?"
"Either."
"Tough to say. I know here in Oz there's contingencies, lots of our government goes into lockdown and doesn't communicate except upwards, so there's no way for a bloke like me to tell. As to you yanks, well... I know there was enough left of your government to contact ours and put in a request for us to get this pen back in order as quick as we could, for you. We're to take any extraneous personnel you can spare and give 'em safe harbor until this thing blows over, and to pass on an orders packet too large to send you through the VLF."
"Orders packet? Any idea what's in it?"
"I was told it was above my paygrade. I'm a delivery boy, not a messenger."
"Well then, can I have it?"
"Thought you might want it."
With that, Peprichek waved over one of the seamen who’d waited on them, who promptly pulled a large manila envelope from a drawer in bureau against the wall. He briskly walked it over and placed it on the table in front of Captain Longmire. He opened it and leafed through the official bullshit to get to the meat of it. First thing he looked for was the Classification, what he could and couldn't tell his boys on the Oregon, and... it was left to him. Whether or not he could tell his crew that in all likelihood everyone back home was dead was left to his discretion.
CHAPTER 9
Day 55
"Oh come on! There's gotta be someone here!"
The sound was beginning to get on Jesse's nerves. The constant clicking and rustling of the "critters" on the outside of the Centers for Disease Control was disconcerting. He expected them to be there; hell, he expected the building to be jumping. If there were going to be anyone left alive, anyone who had any idea what the hell these things were or how to get rid of 'em, it was gonna be here. But they weren't.
"I can't believe this. I mean, it ain't dead. The building ain't chock full-o-corpses like all the other hospitals and shit..."
The weight of the IR goggles and the full body armor he wore kept him hot, sweating. The cloth under layer was beginning to chafe the longer he wore everything. Still, he was grateful for the cover. Some of the Army radio bands he'd been listening in on had mentioned that the critters were lethal on contact as well as sight, and that if they couldn't get to your skin, if you kept 'em off of you, that you could maybe survive. There were even rumors of soldiers who'd gone out in full body armor covering every inch and getting covered, lying still for a few hours, and coming back inside after they got bored. Of course, there were just as many rumors that people had done that and ended up covered until they died of thirst because their breathing was enough to keep the damn things attention. But, better safe than sorry.
So, he wore the armor, and he wore the goggles, and he waited before every move out of doors between his truck and any buildings, he played by the rules, and he stayed alive. And he'd made it all the way to the CDC in Atlanta, where he was now endlessly frustrated by the fact that all the outer offices were full of corpses and all the inner offices were completely empty. He spoke to himself in a low whisper, a habit he'd picked up after being too alone for too many weeks.
"One more sweep, maybe we missed somethin’."
As Jesse made his way from floor to floor, he kept a careful ear out for the sound of wind. The building was without power as far as he could tell, so there was no air conditioning, but a single broken window could mean a sudden and (he was betting) unpleasant death. As he came to the doorway from the stairwell to the next floor, he was hammered by the sudden smell of rot.
"I’m starting to think this whole trip was a waste of time. We're gonna have to find a hotel or somethin', somewhere with an underground garage we can siphon gas out of parked cars to get home."
"...Is there... is there somebody there?"
The voice from the dark was frightened, desperate, and weak.
Jesse ran down the corridor and turned a corner to find the source of the voice. The wraith of a man was hunched over, clinging to a rolling chair for support as if it were a walker. He was rail thin, Latino features, brown skin, dark hair peppered with grey, wearing a stained white tank top and dress slacks, penny loafers and a lab coat. Most notable, however, was the bloodstained bandage wound around his head and eyes. He stood in the hallway intersection with rows upon rows of cubicles down one way, a break room and bathroom down the other. He'd come hobbling out of the break room at the sound of Jesses voice, where it was obvious he'd been hiding, eating whatever he could find, and going back and forth to the bathroom for water.
"Gat-dang, son! You look like you've got a tale to tell."
"Yes, yes I do... but first, who are you? Are you military? Agency? Who sent you?"
"Aw hell, ain't nobody sent me, Doc. I just came here to see if there was anybody doing anything about them things in the sky."
"So, you're a civilian? How'd you get here? How'd you avoid them? How did you survive outdoors?"
"Got a truck."
The man’s voice fell and a note of suspicion and incredulity came into it.
"A... truck."
"Yeah, big old armored truck, like they use for bank deliveries and all that? Got it at auction when they upgraded their fleet. Repainted it, stocked it up, parked it in a hanger that I put up over m’bunker. When the alert went off, I got down in to the bunker and hunkered down, listened to reports, police scanner, military radio, the EAS, all of it. Then I prepped my trunk and came here."
"Ah, I see, and, uh... you haven't, uh, haven't made contact with anybody in the government?"
"Oh hell no! For all we know they made the dang things. The ultimate way to wipe the slate clean and leave all the material goods untouched. Better than the neutron bomb."
"Um, yes... I suppose that would seem possible..."
"Anyways, so what's your story? How'd you get up here? How long have you been there? What'd you do?"
"My name is Doctor Warren Rafei, and I am, or was, an Exobiologist with NASA on loan to the CDC. Anytime there's a question of a contaminant with possible extraterrestrial origins I'm called in."
"So these things really did come from outer space?"
"Most definitely."
"Aw dang, I was bettin' on escaped government experiment myself..."
"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you. Can, can we get out of here? This place is a bit... exposed... I think, for my tastes..."
"Oh hell yeah, I'm sorry Doc. Stairs are this way, c’mon..."
"You'll have to guide me."
"Huh?"
"I'm blind. I was blinded... it's a long story."
"Aw hell, I'm sorry. I can't tell; I'm looking at ya in infrared."
"Infra-!? That's brilliant. Lead the way."
"You got it, Doc, I'm right here, let's go."
Jesse reached and took Dr. Rafei’s outstretched hand, acting as cane, walker, and guide as they made their way to the emergency stairs. As they slowly made their way down, Jesse looked quizzically at Rafei, in spite of the fact that body language and facial cues were completely ineffective.
"So what's the deal, huh? Whatcha doin' here still?"
"I have duties, assignments. I have to stay here."
"Well jeez, what kind of assignments? I mean, pardon me if I missed something, but I don't exactly see a whole bunch of things to accomplish by a blind man sitting around an empty building, even if the building's the CDC."
"There are sub basements, levels below the ground, that still have supplies, power. I'm supposed to stay here; there are people coming for me. I can't be sure they'll know of the sub basements, so every day I go upstairs and wait quietly. So long as I keep to the center of the building, near the elevators and stairways, away from the windows, then I'm relatively safe from harm."
"Who’s coming for ya, Doc?"
"I can't be sure. I'm a member of a specialized organization, or project. I've received my evacuation orders, and my procedure was to remain here, to await rescue."
"Are we talkin' thin gentleman in black suits with bland features, pale skin, and dark sunglasses here?"
"I'm not sure. Might be, could be military, or something else entirely, I'm not sure."
"Alright, we'll stay put. I gotta be honest wid'ya, I ain't exactly looking forward to meeting the folks coming for ya. Always been mighty suspicious of figures in authority and the folks who kowtow to 'em. But, er, considering the circumstances..."
"Better the government than the loneliness of a dead world?"
"I wouldn't'a phrased it quite like that, but, pretty much, yeah."
"I figure we've still got a few hours; do you have anything to eat?"
"Oh, dang, heck ya, hold on, you stay right here, I've got plenty of food in the truck."
"Don't leave me alone, please..."
"Oh, okay, alright, well, let’s get going. We got a few floors of stairs, and then a quick trip through the garage, but when we get to the garage we'll have to be quiet. There’s opening to the sky in there and we don't want to attract nothin’."
"I think you could leave me at the end of the stairs in that case."
"That sounds like a good idea."
As Jesse led the blind Dr. Rafei down the winding staircase to the garage level, they spoke of the researchers who'd staffed the building before the end of the world, their initial efforts to survive it, their dwindling numbers, and isolation limiting their previously presumed research capability. As they approached the lower levels, Dr. Rafei held up a hand, signaling Jesse to halt his line of questioning. As they listened to the silence, the sound of an idling diesel engine could just be made out coming from below.
~
Day 55
A little more than 30 miles north of Krasnoyarsk, and twenty feet under the ground, in a bunker lined with concrete and steel, wired to an antennae farm on the surface, Timor idly chewed a piece of jerky as he watched the counter click down until George came back on. A small piece of jerky flecked off and got caught in his beard. He'd get it out later. Just like he'd shower later. and cut his hair later. He had time now, time for everything. For all the books, movies, video games...
"Timor! Timor are you there?"
He threw himself forward in his chair, crumbs and caked debris falling to the floor off his growing belly in his rush to key his mic.
"Yes, yes, hello George, did you have a good rest? You've been off the air for nearly eight hours; I was beginning to get worried."
"Yes, Timor I'm here, of course. Where else would I be?"
"Of course, of course, sorry..."
"It's alright. Um... we have a bit of news from the Japanese."
"Yes?"
"They've had a bit of an earthquake. No warning. Tokyo is a wreck. There's no contact from the government anymore, just the engineers at the tracking station. They... they think... they think the entire metro system collapsed."
"So... that's it then? Do we consider the Japanese government gone? Is that it? Our last official link gone?"
"I'm afraid so Timor. And, you know what today is."
"I do."
"This is our last communique."
"Have the Americans calculated a landing site?"
"They think so. They've calculated a trajectory that'll put me off the coast of France in the channel. The French are going to try and pick our escape capsule up, but it's going to be a long shot. They've been making their way to the coast for a few days now, but they're not sure if they'll find a ship, much less figure out how to get her running or find us."
"So how long?"
"We've already fired the retrorockets. This is the ISS' last manned orbit, friend."
"And my last contact with anyone on the outside."
"You'll survive. You'll be found or make your way outside eventually. I believe in you, Timor."
"I wish I had your courage, friend."
"We're about to get ourselves into the escape capsule. Not too long now before we have to separate from the station."
"I understand. Fly safe, my friend. I hope you have clear skies and a soft landing."
"Ha-ha! Clear skies would indeed be a welcome sight! Goodbye, Timor."
"Goodbye, George."
~
Day 55
A middle aged man peered over his glasses at his much younger compatriot, a half-gone cigarette smoldering between his fingers as he carefully nuanced his speech with the proper inflections.
"Are we sure they've accepted our explanation?"
The younger man switched off the satellite radio he'd been using and leaned back in his chair, pulling his own cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lighting one. He responded with the first exhalation of smoke billowing into his elders face.
"They have no reason to doubt our word. All civilian communication lines were severed per procedure. We're the only voices out of Nipon they're getting."
"But do they believe us?"
"They show all signs they do. I'm not psychic; I can't tell you what they're thinking, only what they say."
"And they will not come to investigate?"
"I highly doubt they'd mount the effort. I told them exactly what we agreed: earthquake, metro system collapse, government cut off, cannibalism, all of it. If they have any fantasies about coming here, they involve waiting until this crisis has passed and claiming Nipon for the West, with no natives to account for."
"That will not happen."
"No, no it won't, but they do not know that."
"I will signal the Prime Minister then. It is time to begin."
The older man picked up a phone on the desk and punched a serious of numbers in. After a short delay as the line was transferred, he spoke briefly with the man on the other end. As they finished their cigarettes in silence, a voice began chattering through the intercom, addressing the residents en masse. As the speech concluded, they stood in salute.
