Part I
:-:
The sun glinted off the black metal and windows of the Apache gunship and its accompanying gray Blackhawk. They thundered over the vast green haziness of the Brazilian rainforest as it stretched away beyond the horizon.
Lieutenant John Quincy looked towards the horizon line and saw a jumble of control towers and antennas, rising above the forest canopy. He turned back as the co-pilot tapped him on his shoulder. The copilot, a beefy man from Texas, held up three fingers and said in a heavy Texan drawl, “Three minutes to target, Lieutenant.”
He waited till Quincy gave him a thumbs up, and then turned back to his instruments. Quincy turned in his seat and said to the twelve rangers in the cabin with him, “we’re three minutes out. Look sharp.”
His men answered him by chambering rounds in their assortment of M-16’s and SAW’s. One soldier, a kid from Russia, answered by taking a deep breath from an inhaler.
Each soldier was dressed in jungle-camo fatigues and black flak vests. Strapped onto their vests were grenades of various sorts and pockets full of ammo. It was doubtful that they would need any of the weaponry, but it was always better to be prepared.
He remembered ten years ago, when he was still a lowly corporal, he and 160 other men dropped into Mogadishu, Somalia. It was supposed to be an easy hostile takedown. They weren’t to get into a scuffle with the natives. So much for that. They had soon found themselves pinned down. he’d made it through that ordeal, and never wanted the same thing to happen to him or his men again. That it why, whenever they went on missions, even ones like this, he made his men get ready for war, grenades and all.
The copilot broke his thought process with a hard tap on his shoulder. He pointed down, and gave a thumbs-up. Quincy returned the thumbs-up and looked out of the open cabin doors, to see the military compound spread out one-hundred feet below the bellies of the helicopters. There were three grey Blackhawk’s resting on the large concrete helipad, leaves and sticks resting over the rotors and in the cabins. A deer fled from the helipad, its feet scrambling in panicked hysteria. In one of the nearby trees, a flock of bright blue parrots took off screeching. The helicopters slowed down, then stopped their foreword movement, hovering of the leaf littered concrete helipad, sending the leaves blowing in all directions. The helicopters began to descend, like large lazy flies descending on a carcass. The rotors whined as they gently settled the helicopters to the ground. When Quincy felt the slight jar as the helicopter touched the ground, he hand the other rangers leapt out of the Blackhawk and ran to the clump of small buildings. The door to one was open and banging wildly against the wall in the backwash of the helicopters. Quincy ran to that building, and poked his gun inside the open door. He saw something inside, just beyond the edge of the light from the open doorway. His hands felt along the wall, looking for a light switch or a control box of some sort. He found one and opened the metal door, his fingers running over the switches. He slammed them all over and jumped as the lights flickered to life, then went out in a showering of sparks. He sighed and moved out of the building, heading back to the helicopter for a flashlight. He dug through a supply box for a moment, and then found what he was looking for. With an ease from years in the field, he ran back to the building, the flashlight swinging from a strap on his wrist. He got to the doorway, then heard a volley of gunshots, then one of his rangers, the Russian, said in a heavy accent over his radio, “ Sir, we have a situation here.” through the crackling, he heard three more gunshots.
“What building are you in?”
“Third to the left,” The Russian said in a shut-up and get over here tone.
Quincy raced to that building, and entered the yawning darkness, lit up by and occasional burst of pistol fire. He hurried down the hallway and flicked on his flashlight. He stopped, seeing his men hunkered down on the opposite side of a doorway, from which a whizzing, bang, erupted. The bullets ricocheted off the opposite wall with an audible ping and spark of friction. He hunkered down beside the door, and looked across to his men. One of his rangers looked up, and then shouted to him, “Some crazed technician was in here when we came down the hallway and started shooting at us. What do we do?”
Quincy shrugged, and then waited until the technician ran out of bullets. Then, he lifted his M-16 and fired a short burst into the back wall. The man’s head disappeared as he ducked behind a desk and Quincy motioned for his men to enter the room. They did, and got the man’s gun away from him with little difficulty. Once they had the man on the ground, Quincy ordered Peter Kirilov to go through the man’s pockets. He did and found and ID card, three magazines of 9 mm. ammo, and an empty asthma inhaler.
The man was wheezing, and gasping. Quincy looked at the man, then at the asthma inhaler in Kirilov’s hands. Finally, he told Kirilov to give the man his. Kirilov scowled in disgust, began to protest, and then sighed, pulling the inhaler out of his left breast pocket. He handed it to the man who grabbed it and began to suck on it furiously.
Take him out to the choppers,” Quincy said, and left the room, heading back outside. He stopped at the Blackhawk helicopter while his men hauled the technician out of the building. Two other Rangers came out of an outbuilding, and ran over. The technician was batting weakly at the soldiers, who deftly avoided his poorly aimed punches. Two rangers got into the helicopter and kept the technician restrained as the rest of the chalk went back to the buildings. Quincy entered the building he’d originally gone into, and flicked on the flashlight when he got to the end of the shaft of light from the open door. He shined the little beam of light around the hallway, and then pointed it at the floor. The sight that greeted him sent him reeling back, trying, without success to stifle a shout.
He tipped as he stumbled backwards, and tried to scramble back even as he fell. His men came running as he scrambled out the door, backwards. He breathed an astonished curse and two of his men went into the building. He saw his flashlight beam waver as one of the soldiers picked it up. They were gone for a second or two, and then returned, their eyes wide.
“They’re all dead,” was all they said.
The rest of the chalk moved into the building and stopped near the shadows. They turned their flashlights on, and then pointed them at the floor.
the bodies were strewn all along the hallway, their clothes now covering only rotting flesh and bones. The rangers searched the entire compound and found that everyone there was dead.
The team returned to the Blackhawk and Quincy climbed into the back, and squeezed into the cockpit with the two pilots. He picked up the radio, and thumbed the talk button.
“Charlie 32, this is Charlie 90, over.”
The radio crackled, then, “Charlie 90, this is Charlie 32, what is your status, over?”
Quincy paused, and then said, “Our mission is a no-go, I repeat, this mission is a no-go. They’re all dead sir. Over.”
“Alright,” his commanding officer said with a deep and sorrowful sigh, “Return to base. We’ll send another team equipped with medical supplies and technicians immediately. Over.”
“Roger. Charlie 90 out.”
Quincy climbed back out of the cockpit and knelt down at the edge of the cabin.
“Ok, everybody, lets get going.”
The chalk climbed into the chopper and it powered up. The pilot motioned to the Apache, which was circling slowly, and then the Blackhawk lifted heavily and lifted of the ground with a soft jar.
The technician handed Kirilov his inhaler. Kirilov sighed, and put it back in his pocket.
Quincy coughed. The co-pilot coughed. Two of Quincy’s men coughed. Quincy cleared his throat and coughed again. Quincy rubbed his throat which was becoming sore. He coughed again, but this time, blood came up. The same thing was happening to almost everybody else in the helicopters.
Suddenly Kirilov started to wheeze and cough. His asthma attack was severe and he passed out as the others were pre-occupied with their own problems.
Both pilots were going through the same ordeal as their passengers. The helicopter was losing altitude. The apache was faltering almost in tandem, its pilots coughing and clutching at their throats. The apache hit the forest canopy at a thirty degree angle and burst into a brilliant shower of sparks and fire.
The Blackhawk followed the same fat, dropping until its grey belly, slammed into the tall majestic trees of the Amazon.
The fire burned for several hours, turning the forest into a field of dark grey ash.
PART II
:-:
Alexander Sinclair was sitting at his table reading the newspaper that morning as he did every morning. This morning however, he was reading the front page with more interest than he normally gave newspaper reports. The phone rand, startling him, and making him spill his coffee on the kitchen table. He let out a curse, as the answering machine picked up.
“Alex, this is Duncan. Where the hell are you?”
Alex dropped the sodden newspaper and reached for the phone, “What?”
“Did you read the front page of the newspaper yet?”
“Uh, yeah. Why are you calling me?”
“Get to work. Duncan hung up, and Alex sat there, the flat beep of the dead phone ringing in his ears. Sighing, he stood up, grabbed his keys and put on his overcoat as he headed for the door.
The drive through the Atlanta suburbs was slow, and it took Alex almost an hour to reach the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. He walked up the steps through a light drizzle and entered the front doors. He rode the elevator up to Duncan’s office and knocked on the open door, before entering.
Duncan was waiting for him; his feet perched on the edge of the desk.
“Hey, Ira, what is going on?”
“The army says that another helicopter went down in the vicinity of the first two, but it wasn’t under attack. They have a Hazmat team down there now. They have one survivor. We’re, well, you’re, going to go down there to find out what’s going on, and to help. This is top secret, so tell no one about this. Your plane leaves in four hours from Atlanta International.”
“Well,” Alex said, and then pulled out a cigarette. He lit it, put it to his mouth then continued, “Who else is working on this?”
“Uh, there is a Chinese virologist, Edward Chang, you’ve heard of him?” Alex shook his head. “He won the Nobel Prize last year, and the other is Louis Ford, and American who moved to Brazil eight years ago. Both Chang an Ford are already at the site. Now go.”
“Why don’t you come down? You’re the leading expert on this stuff on this side of the world. We could really use you.”
“Are you out of your mind?! I haven’t been in the field for twenty years. Chang will be the leading expert on this. You’ll follow his orders.”
“Ok,” Alex said, “whatever you say.”
Alex returned to his house and started packing whatever he would need for this trip. Then, he called his ex-wife, Anne.
“Hi Anne,” he said as she picked up the phone.
“Hi, what’s up?”
“I need you to watch the kids for the weekend. Can you do it?”
Seven years ago, Alex and Anne had divorced and their two children went to Alex’s every weekend.
“Yeah, what’s going on?”
“I have to go on a business trip; I’m not sure when I’ll be back. I’m sorry this is such short notice, it being Thursday and all.”
“It’s ok, have fun. I hope you figure out what it is.”
“What?”
“I assume that you are going to Brazil to figure out why those soldiers died, right? I mean, it was in the newspaper.”
“Oh, yeah,” Alex had totally forgotten about the newspaper article.
“I hope you figure it out, instead of that Chang fellow.”
“How do you know about him?”
“He won the Nobel prize last year.”
“Oh, I have to go.”
“Ok, by.” The phone went dead.
Alex sat in his room for a moment. Was there really a point for this to be top secret, if everyone already knew about it? He supposed not, but with the government, you could never tell.
<><><><><>
The trip to the airport was slow, and Alex arrived just in time to catch his flight.
The 747 lifted of heavily, it’s engines roaring. Alex was forced back into his seat as the jet accelerated and lifted off of the runway.
It was a three hour flight, so Alex decided to take a nap. He would need the sleep once he was in Brazil. Once he got there, there would be no sleep for who knew how long.
He woke up long before the plane landed, and tried to absorb in a book. He couldn’t concentrate, and after re0reading the same line five times, he put the book away.
He didn’t like this assignment one bit. Duncan had sent him somewhere with very little info. It was like being a soldier and going into battle blind. With no clear understanding of what he was up against, he couldn’t plan how he was going to conduct his experiments. Then again, how could you blame Duncan, when he himself didn’t know what was going on. This whole situation was bad news.
The intercom light flicked on at the front of the cabin, and the captain’s voice crackled over the speaker, “We’ll be landing in twenty minutes. Thank you for flying American Airlines.”
Alex never liked landing, it always made him nauseous, and that’s probably the last thing he needed right now.
There was an old couple sitting beside him. the women noted that his knuckles were white as the dug into the arm rests of the seat, and
asked, “You don’t like to fly?” She had a black face mask n her forehead.
“I don’t like to land, no ma’am.”
“Neither do I, now, I put this on,” She indicated the facemask, “it helps.”
With that, she pulled the mask over her eyes, as the plane began to descend towards the runway. He screwed his eyes shut and tried not to imagine the plane crashing with a blinding light, and deafening explosions on the runway. It didn’t work. the image came unbidden to his mind, causing grip the armrest even tighter. He heard the wheels squeak as the plane touched the tarmac and began to move towards the airport.
Alex let out a long shuddering sigh. The old woman pulled the eye mask of her head and turned towards him.
“There dear, was that so bad?”
Alex was just short of telling her exactly how bad it was, when his cell phone rang. He fished it out of his pocket and answered.
“are you there yet,” it was Duncan.
“No, we’ll be in a holding pattern for the next four hours.”
Duncan let out a very loud, very vulgar curse, causing the woman beside Alex to give him a mean look.
“Ira, I’m joking. You’re a bit uptight. Have you been sitting at your desk for the last four hours, waiting for us to land?”
“Yes, and don’t ever do that again.” Alex got up as Duncan rambled on about the importance of this, and how he shouldn’t goof off. “Now,” Duncan said, his mind back on focus, “There’s a helicopter of rangers waiting for you. don’t bother going into the airport. Just go straight to them.”
“Ok, I’ll call you when I get there.”
He hung up and followed the other passengers out of the plane. The blast of heat hit him, as Alex stepped out onto a hot muggy Brazilian afternoon. There was a US Blackhawk resting on the tarmac a few hundred feet away. He started over to it, but was stopped by a guard with an AK-47.
“Go with them,” the guard said and pointed to the other tourists with the barrel of his gun.
“I’m with them,” Alex said, indicating the rangers who were running up to him.
“Go with the others,” the guard said, and pushed Alex towards the airport doors.
“Sir, let that man go.” it was on of the rangers who had finally made up to the guard.
A long debate ensued, but finally the guard relented, and gave Alex a very rude gesture as he walked away.
“Alexander Sinclair, please come with us.”
They all jogged back to the helicopters as the guard watched
sulkily. The helicopter was powered up when they got back, and was waiting to lift off. They climbed in and the chopper lifted away into the hazy, afternoon Brazilian sky.
Part III
:-:
“Sir, put this on,” one of the rangers handed him a suit that would protect him from the virus, or whatever it was, and he began to struggle into it.
The sun was still bright in the sky when they reached the base camp. the camp consisted of a bunch of “inflatable” habitation buildings and a large “inflatable” research building.
The Blackhawk circled the camp once, and then began to descend with a soft lurch, heading for a clearing at the edge of camp.
A man was waiting at the edge of the helipad, his right hand cupped over his facemask, to cut out the glare of the light.
Alex climbed out as the helicopter powered down and the two pilots and the rangers jumped out.
The man walked up and extended his hand.
“Alex Sinclair, I’m Louis Ford. Welcome to the Amazon.”
“un... hi. Where’s Edward Chang?”
“He’s at the military compound. He wouldn’t wait. We need to get started right away.”
They walked back towards the buildings as Alex asked, “What
info do you have?”
“No more than you, except we know that we’ve lost 23 Rangers so far.”
“That is a lot of men.”
“Yes, the army sent in two teams of Rangers.”
“Wait, aren’t there twelve men in a team?”
“Yeah, there was one survivor. He was with the original team. Before we go to Chang, I want to show you the situation so far.”
They walked over to one of the smaller buildings, and went inside. The suits were bulky, and Alex realized that he wasn’t taking it off until this whole debacle was over. That could be a day or a year. It was at this point that Alex desperately wanted to go back to Atlanta, to relax in his living room with a beer. It wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
“here is a map of the surrounding countryside. We are here,” Ford pointed to a little red dot on the map,” The compound is here,” this time, Ford pointed to a blue dot to the northeast of the red one. “The village is right there.”
“What village?” Alex asked, indicating the village’s yellow dot.
“Duncan didn’t tell you?”
“No.”
“The second team in crashed into a village almost directly north
of the first team’s helicopter.”
“Oh my. how many people were there?”
“I don’t know. We’d best get going.”
They returned to the blazing sunlight and plodded over to one of the Blackhawk’s. Two ranger pilots converged on them, and met them at the cabin door.
“We have to go to the compound,” Ford said, his oxygen mask hissing slightly.
“Yes, sir.”
They all climbed in and the helicopter powered up, it’s rotors whining. It lifted off slowly, like a fat water bird, and they thundered off towards the northeast. During the trip out to the compound, Ford filled Alex in on everything he wasn’t told by Duncan. The trip to the military compound was relatively short, and Alex climbed out of the helicopter after it landed, and saw another Blackhawk, its two SOAR pilots sitting in the cabin in their suits. they were playing poker. One of Alex’s pilots tapped him on the shoulder.
“Sir, we’ll be waiting out here. If you need anything, just give us a call.”
With that, the pilots turned and trotted off to the first Blackhawk, climbed into the cabin and sat down with the other pilots.
The generators in the compound had been fixed, and there was pale orange light coming from one of the open doors. Ford ran over to the first Blackhawk and talked to the pilot for a moment or two, then ran back to Alex.
“Eddie’s in there,” Ford pointed to the building with the light coming out of the door.
They began jogging over to that building, and then stopped as a suited figure stepped out of the doorway and waved them over.
“Hello, Mr. Sinclair, come on.”
They followed Edward Chang back into the building and entered the third room down the hall.
“Sinclair, good that you finally arrived, his voice held a tone of frustration and annoyance. “ Go to the helicopter crash, and begin studying the bodies there. Ford, go the village and see what you can do there.”
Chang held and air of contempt about him, which made Alex uncomfortable, so as soon as he was given his orders, he left the building, even as Ford asked Chang about how long they’d be out. He motioned to his pilots who had just finished a round of poker, and they climbed out of the helicopter and ran over.
“That was short,” one of them said.
“I don’t like Chang.”
“We don’t either. He’s... contemptuous.”
“I thought the same thing when I was talking to him”
Ford came out, and they cut off their conversation.
“Guys,” Ford said when he reached them, “Let’s go.”
They all climbed into their Blackhawk, being careful not to catch their suits on anything, and powered the helicopter up. It lifted away, and headed due south.
“You only have an hour to work, so make it quick. Chang wants a lot of samples,” Ford shouted above the roar of the rotors.
The Blackhawk was flying swiftly over the forest and the wind was whipping through the open cabin doors. It took five minutes to reach the site of the crash, a large black patch in the forest.
“Sir,” co-pilot, David Harrol said to Alex, “We can’t land. You’ll have to rope down.”
“What? I can’t do that!”
“Sir, just hold this rope tightly. The tighter you hold it, the slower
you go. Put these gloves on. It’ll keep the rope from burning through your
suit.
Alex’s face turned pale and he was gripping the rope very tightly when he pushed himself out from the helicopter’s cabin. He let the rope go too much, and slid ten feet, before finally stopping himself. It took quite a while to get to the ground, and when he did, he hit hard.
Alex groaned, stood up, and began brushing the leaves and twigs off his suit and the black research container. He jumped as one of the pilots, Captain David Harrol landed beside him.
“what are you doing here?”
“I’m here to help you if you need anything.”
“Oh.” Alex turned to the burnt out hulk of the Blackhawk as the helicopter above him lifted away from the tree tops and thundered out of site above the forest canopy.
Alex lugged the research case over to the downed Blackhawk and knelt down by the cabin door. He opened the case and turned to look into the cabin. There were fourteen men in the helicopter, all dead, their eyes wide with shock, fear, and pain.
There wasn’t as lot of blood in the cabin, but the bodies were charred from the fire and there were a lot of flies buzzing lazily around the helicopter.
The entire nose section of the helicopter was crushed in, the glass shattered. The two pilots were pinned against the control panel, their noses only inches from the knobs and buttons.
Three of the five rotors had snapped off, and the other two were buried deep in the dirt. Alex looked off to the left, and saw the broken part of one of the rotors sticking out of a charred tree.
Harroll tapped him on the shoulder, “Sir, we only have an hour. Then, we have to go back to base camp.”
“Ok.”
Alex knelt down in front of his box, being careful not to tear his suit on a protruding stick, and lifted up a tray in the box. There was a scalpel, a row of test tube, and a container of syringes, in the tray.
Alex pulled out the scalpel, two vials, and two syringes, and went over to the cabin.
He cut scraps of skin from two of the dead rangers, and slid them into the vials. He took blood samples from two others.
Harroll broke the silence, “This was Lt. Quincy’s outfit. I flew them on a few missions. Damn.” Harroll slammed his booted foot against the metal wall behind the cabin, making it shudder. A whole pile of dust drifted down onto the floor. One of the bodies slumped.
“Sorry, sir.”
Alex waved his apology away. He was studying the dust, taking samples and putting them into vials.
Several minutes later, the radio crackled.
“This is Ford. We’re on our way back.”
Alex studied the dust for a moment, and then packed all the vials and syringes back into the box and stood up, brushing off the dirt and twigs, from his suit.
Four minutes later, the helicopter rumbled to a stop overhead and a flexible ladder and a coil of rope was rolled out of the cabin. Harroll attached the rope to the box as Alex began the arduous climb up the swinging ladder. Harrol followed after him.
Alex finally made it into the cabin, and sat panting against the back wall as Harrol climbed in with an almost cat-like grace, and pulled up the swinging ladder. Ford and Chang were already in the cabin, their boxes resting between their feet. Harrol hauled Alex’s box into the cabin, and the helicopter tilted dizzily as it made a wide loop and headed back towards base.
The ride back was uneventful and once they landed, Chang got out and went right to the laboratory, leaving Alex and Ford to catch up.
They entered the antechamber of the lab and set their boxes down on a conveyor belt which took them through an opening, which closed after the last box was through.
“Hold your hands away from your body, palms out, and stand with your feet apart,” a man’s voice echoed around the room. “Close your eyes.”
Alex, Ford, and Chang complied, and a blinding light and searing heat filled the room.
Finally the light died, and Alex opened his eyes. These sterilization chambers were annoying, but they did work. There was a fine dust lying all over the chamber. A vacuum below the metal grated floor, kicked on and the dust was sucked from the room. The dust, as Alex well knew, was the burnt remains of the virus, or whatever it was, and any other foreign particles that had come into the room with the scientists. Even thought all particles were killed during the sterilizing process, the team wasn’t allowed to take their suits off.
“Alright, you can go through.”
Chang started forward, opened the door and walked into the laboratory. Alex and Ford followed.
The lab was a small room, it’s three parts split up by Plexiglas
partitions. The first part was where Alex, Ford, and Chang would be. By means of joysticks, mechanical arms, and glove boxes, they could conduct their experiments safely. The second part of the lab was split into three sections. The actual experiments would be conducted there. There was an assortment of robotic arms extending from the wall, with tables of medical instruments resting below them. Along the back wall of the rooms were stacks of animal cages, with their own air supply. Inside were rats and rhesus monkeys.
“Sinclair,” Chang said, turning to Alex, “go to the first room and work with the survivor. Ford analyze the vials, and I’ll study the samples.”
“Oh well, here goes,” Ford said, sighed, and turned to the middle partition.
Alex walked over the first partition and peered through the Plexiglas. There was a young man lying on a hospital bed, and I.V. sticking out of his arm.
“Eddie, can I go in, or do I have to talk to him through the glass?”
“Is your suit working properly?” Chang’s tone told Alex that the china man was totally uninterested in the conversation.
“Yes.”
“Fine, you can go in. Door is on the left.”
Alex pulled open the door open and stepped into another antechamber. He stood through the same process again, and then he finally entered the little room. The survivor was a young Ranger; his suit was torn and shredded in several places. The name on the front of his shirt said Kirilov. The kid was definitely from Russian heritage. He was breathing peacefully and his heart rate monitor was beeping steadily. Alex shook him gently. The kid’s eyes opened and he grimaced at the harsh lights. Then, he turned to look at Alex.
“Where am I? Who are you?” The soldier’s accent was heavy and he was hard to understand.
“You are in a medical facility. I’m Alex Sinclair. You survived your downed helicopter. I need to ask you a few questions?”
“What questions?”
“Can you tell me exactly what happened at the compound?”
“First, what happened to the other guys?”
“They died in the helicopter crash.”
“No, they were dead before that.”
“What?” Alex said in Alarm. By studying the bodies, he’d assumed that the Rangers had died in the accident.
“They were dead before the crash.”
“Did they die at the compound?”
“No. They died when we were flying back.”
“Oh. I’ve got to back to the crash.” Alex got up and went o the
door.
“Ten years.”
Alex turned back, “What?”
“It’s been ten years since my last asthma attack. I was the only
one on the team with asthma, and I survived. The technician had asthma too. He fell out of the helicopter when it crashed. I think he got crushed.”
“Technician?” Alex came back to the bed, his eyebrows raised.
“We found a technician at the compound. He had asthma too. He didn’t die until the helicopter crashed.”
“Hold on a second. I’ll be back. I have to check out the crash again.” He walked out of the room, and approached Chang, who was studying the skin samples.
“I’m going back to the crash. I’ll be back soon.” He said when he reached Chang.
“Ok, be quick. We don’t have all day.”
Alex turned and ran from the lab, yelling for the pilots as he scrambled for the helicopters.
^^^^^^
The crash site was in really bad shape. Apparently, soon after Alex and Harrol left, a wild animal had come and had torn apart two of the bodies and had dragged a third away completely.
It was getting dark and When Alex reached the ground, he took the flashlight Harrol handed him and flicked it on. The flashlight gave a narrow cone of brilliance in an otherwise dark night.
Harrol let go of the rope and the helicopter lifted away. He
chambered a round in the M-16 he was holding and flicked on his flashlight, adding to the light around them.
Alex climbed over the wreckage to the closest body and pulled out a scalpel from a pouch on his suit. He made an incision in the chest cavity, exposing a lung.
Harrol whispered through the darkness, “What’re you doing?”
“I’m Checking the lungs. From what I gathered from the Ranger in the lab, I think that whatever this is attacks the lungs. We’ll find out right…” he cut the lung open, “now.”
He heard Harrol make a sick sound, and then he whispered, “Is it supposed to look like that?”
“No, it’s not.” Alex said, eyeing the opened lung. The lining was shredded as if it’s been burnt open, and then clawed open by some animal. He put his hand into the chest, his fingers sliding right through the lung lining.
He turned to Harrol, who had turned slightly green and said, “hmmm...”
The next body was the same. So was the next. Alex moved over to the other side of the helicopter and found the technician. The lower half of his body had been crushed by the helicopter. Alex cut the man’s chest open. The lungs... were in perfect shape, except for a coating of greenish/fellow fluid on the lung walls.
The sound of their Blackhawk alerted them even before they saw it over the tree tops. A rope was thrown out when it reached them, and Alex could see Ford waving frantically at him. Chang wasn’t with him. Alex began climbing the rope with Harroll right behind him. He made it into the helicopter and knelt down to help Harroll in.
“We have to go back,” Ford shouted to him, “Chang cut himself. Let’s go.”
The helicopter took a sharp turn, and then sped up, flying over the trees almost frantically.
It took two minutes back to base where the helicopter dropped like a rock, before stopping just above the ground with a teeth chattering jolt.
Both Alex and Ford scrambled out of the helicopter and raced over to the lab. They had to wait in the sterilization chamber for a couple seconds, the pushed the door open.
Chang was sitting on the floor. His hand wrapped in a lot of bloody paper towels. His eyes were wide, and his breath was coming in short ragged gasps. He’d ripped off his helmet and his hair was soaked with sweat which was running into is eyes.
Peter Kirilov was sitting at the edge of his bed and was trying to calm Chang down. He was having very little success.
“Edward, Are you having trouble breathing?” Alex asked, kneeling down beside Chang.
“Help me,” Chang shouted at him, his eyes wide with terror.
“Listen to me,” Alex asked, taking hold of Chang’s shoulders and shaking him gently, “Are you having trouble breathing?”
“No, I’m not, dammit.”
“Ok, Louis, disconnect Kirilov’s IV and open the ventilation.”
“What? Have you gone crazy?” Louis asked is shock and horror.
“No, do it. Do it now!” Alex said as he opened a cabinet along the wall and rooted around in a tray. He pulled a syringe of morphine and another empty one out and walked into Kirilov’s room.
Kirilov was looking at him with pure terror. With seconds of his IV being disconnected, Kirilov started having trouble breathing and had started to wheeze.
Alex took the full syringe and gave Kirilov a shot of morphine, then slipped the empty syringe needle into Kirilov’s chest.
In the other room, Chang was coughing.
Alex Lifted the plunger on the syringe yellow/green fluid filled it.
“Stabilize him,” Alex yelled when he’d gotten a full syringe of the phlegm.
Ford ran into the room and began working on Kirilov, sealing the room and clearing out the air. Alex went back into the main room and pushed Chang to the floor. He sat on Chang’s stomach, his legs pinning Chang’s arms to his side. With that, he slowly slid the needle into Chang’s chest. Chang whimpered in pain. Alex injected both lungs with the yellow/green phlegm.
Chang started to hack and cough. Alex got off his stomach and he and Ford carried both Kirilov and Chang to a different building. It was three hours till they woke up.
In the new building, Alex and Ford were able to remove their suits in the ante-chamber.
It was around 2:30 in the morning when Chang and Kirilov woken up.
“I’m alive,” Chang said in utter disbelief, “How?”
“I’ll explain,” Alex said, and sat down on the bed a Chang’s feet, “OK, when we were studying all of the materials and I was interviewing Kirilov, he informed me that the technician, the only survivor of the compound had asthma, I dismissed it, but when he told me that he too had asthma, I began to think that maybe this virus attacks the lungs. When I went back to the crash site, I discovered that all of the bodies had shredded lungs, except for the Technician. He’d been crushed by the helicopter.
That was when you called me back.
Going on my hypothesis, I triggered an asthma attack in Kirilov and extracted some of the phlegm. This, I injected into you lungs. My hypothesis was right. You obviously survived and by the way you’re breathing, your lungs are still in pretty good condition.”
“Hmm... well, why does asthma block this virus?” Chang asked, his hand going to his chest, rubbing tenderly.
Alex shrugged, “I’m not sure, but I think that that yellow/green phlegm you get during an asthma attack blocks the virus from getting hold.
While you were out, I had a chance to study the virus itself. It looks, basically, like a sea urchin. I’d assume that those spines are what tears through the lung wall.”
“Ah... that explains a lot.”
Yeah, but...” He was cut of by Chang. Chang had coughed. A trickle of blood ran down his chin.
Alex and Ford Coughed.
They heard the door seal itself and a siren went off, a loud, shrieking wail.
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