Degeneration (5 page)

“We’re clear out here, too. P
lant the thermals and let’s go!”
Cpl. Andrews shouted, coughing.

Lloyd unslung the black duffle from his shoulder. He brought out one of the charges and attach
ed it to one of the
server
s
. He pressed th
e button on the side of the charge. It beeped
and the
green
digital readout flashed 00:05:00
as it started counting down
. Once he activated the primary charge, the secondary charge
self-activated.

He slung the duffle
back
over his shoulder, ran out of the server ro
om, and joined the other
s in
the hall.

“Done?” Cpl. Andrews asked, gritting through the pain.

Lloyd nodded, uneasy.

“Alright
, let’s get the last one
planted,” Cpl. Andrews
said
, clutching his bleeding neck. T
he blood
had soaked
th
rough the thick gauze bandage and h
e
was coughing
violently.

The soldiers maneuvered back
through the hall back into the laboratory.

Cpl. Andrews, coughing,
pointed at the refrigeration unit
that had
the metal table
rammed through its glass doors.

Lloyd walked over to
the refrigerator and pulled
t
he second charge out of the duffle.
He stepped carefully around
the metallic table
that had been rammed through the fridge and
carefully slid his arm though t
he shattered glass door, reaching
towards the back of the fridge
, gripping the charge tightly
.

Inside the refrigerator
he saw a veritable arsenal of pack
aged microbial death. He froze as he read
some of the labels on the sealed containers inside: Anthrax, Botulinum Toxin, S
axitoxin, Tularemia,
A/
W-
H5
N1, A/W-H1N1, Black Rain, PT-13, PT-14, PT-15–

“Hurry!!!” Cpl. Andrews
shouted.

Lloyd jumped,
startled out of his trance, and his right forearm struck
again
st
t
he shattered refrigerator door
frame
.
A small shard of broken glass that was still stuck in the doorframe pricked him; he felt it despite his thick white-suit.

“Those goddamn charges have a five minute timer on them, so we really don’t have time for you to drag your ass! Move!
Plant the charge and l
et’s go!!!”

Lloyd shoved the charge between ‘Anthrax’ and ‘Botulinum Toxin’, turned, and rejoined the group.

“Alright, fall back to the elevator,”
Cpl. Andrews
ordered, coughing, gripping his
bite
.

They ran past the corpse of their fallen,
Patrick. Lloyd glanced down at Patrick as they ran and felt ashamed for his thoughts.
Better him tha
n me.

They pried open the
lab’s inner-door–

“
Danger! Inner-
door
has been forced open
. Proper decontamination
procedures were not followed.
Security has been notified
,” the pleasant female voice calmly announced overhead.

The team
ran towards the
open elevator with
a sudden slight hesitation–

Ins
ide the blood-stained and bullet-
riddled elevato
r, lifeless corpses with pale
faces were slouched against the wall,
gazing out accusingly at the soldiers.

Cpl. Andrews
fired
a round of automatic gunfire into the motionless corpses
for good measu
re and then stepped inside, dropping
his empty magazine to the floor.

The other
white-suited
soldiers slowly stepped in
to the elevator, carefully stepping
over the cor
pse's outstretched limbs.

Cpl. Andrews
pushed the
'L' button, coughing loudly, but
nothing happened.

He pushed it again, frantic.

Nothing happened.

“
This is
Colonel Mathis
speaking.
Have
any of
your
environmental
suits been compromised?” a voice asked from the emergency intercom under the controls.

The soldiers jumped a little in s
urprise and
looked at
Cpl. Andrews.

Cpl. Andrews coughed, swayed side-to-side, and looked
down.

“Answer me, C
orporal
, or you
and your team will
be left down the
re! Why are you
bleeding?”

The soldiers looked up at the dome camera centered in the
lift’s
ceiling.

“It’s nothing, one of the do
ctors nicked me,” Cpl. Andrews lied, coughing
.
Droplets of blood sprayed against
the inside of his facemask
with each cough
.

“You have to leave him. I’m sorry,
but he can’t come up. H
is suit has been compromised and he is
highly
contagious,”
Col. Mathis
ordered.

One of the
soldiers shoved Cpl. Andrews
out of the elevator.

Cpl. Andrews
stu
mbled forwards, panicking, coughing. He turned and aimed the
ri
fle at his men in the elevator while sticking his foot in the elevator’s doorway, preventing the door from shutting.

“You’re going to leave me to die down here!?” Cpl. Andrews
yelled, before erupting in a violent coughing spasm.
“After everything we’ve been through, you’re just going to toss me out here?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” one of the soldiers said.

“He’s infected,” Col. Mathis said from the elevator speaker. “You have no other options, I’m sorry. You saw those people… what the virus did to them. It will do the same thing to him, eventually.”

“Fuck him!” Cpl. Andrews yelled, waving his rifle towards his men. “What does he know?! He’s not a doctor! Just… just let me come up with you and try to get some help. That’s fair, right? At least give the scientists a chance to look me over!”

Cpl. Andrews erupted into a violent coughing spasm.

“If you don’t kill him, he’ll kill all of you,” Col. Mathis grimly announced from the speaker. “That bomb is going off any minute now. Don’t let sentiment seal your fates.”

The soldiers looked at each other hesitantly.

“Please move your foot, sir,” one of the soldiers said. “We don’t want to hurt you.”

Cpl. Andrews started to sob.

“Please…” Cpl. Andrews begged as he looked over at Lloyd, voice choked by tears. “I brought you in… remember? I’m the one who vouched for you! Don’t do this to me… don’t…”

“I’m sorry… I really am,” Lloyd muttered, looking down. He pushed Cpl. Andrews’ foot away from the door with his boot.

“Fuck you and your apologies!” Cpl. Andrews hysterically shouted. He doubled-over in a coughing fit.

Before Cpl. Andrews could recover, t
he elevator doors slid shut and the soldiers made their assent to the main lobby.

Lloyd’s rifle shook in his hands as he stared down at the ground.
It had to be done
, he thought,
this virus can’t be allowed to make it to the surface.

The elevator reached the lobby and the door
s
open
ed. A sealed plastic tunnel had been erected
around the ed
ge of the elevator doors and made a path
towards the
lobby
exit. Showerheads ran along the
center of the tunnel.

“
Now, leave your weapons in the elevator and slowly walk along the tunnel with your arms above your head
,”
Col. Mathis
said.

The soldiers looked at each other uneasily, but co
mplied. They threw their M16s on the
corpses in the elevator and stepped out into the plastic tunnel. As soon
as the last soldier stepped out
, the elevator doors slid shut and
the lift
lowered
itself
back
down to the s
ub-level
floor
.

As the
soldiers
walked along
the tunnel, the showerheads activated and
pelted their hazmat suits with a f
ine blue mist
.

Lloyd felt his
arm get a little moist inside his suit. He
lowered his arms and
looked down at his
right
forearm
; he
found a very sm
all puncture in his suit which allowed
the blue mist
to seep through. H
is mi
nd went back to when hi
s
arm s
truck
against
the jagged glass
protruding
from
the
frame
of the
shattered refrigerator door.

Horror washed over him and made his blood run cold.

The
ground
rumbled and the tunnel wo
bbled as the charges on the
sub-level detonated. All evidence of the
‘PT-12’
accident
was inci
nerated in less than a second. A
s suddenly as the rumbling
began, it stopped.

Lloyd
pressed his hand against the spot where his suit was punctured as he walked but he didn’t feel a twinge of pain.
It didn’t puncture my skin
, he assured himself. As hard as he looked, he couldn
’t see a single drop of blood; the puncture didn’t even
appear to have
penetrate
d
through the uniform he wore undernea
th his hazmat suit. Even though his skin wasn’t punctured,
he knew what protocol demanded.

Lloyd stopped in the middle of the plastic tunnel, arms at his side
. The
two
soldier
s following
h
im stopped as well,
arms still above his head as instructed.

Lloyd turned and looked back towards the closed
elevator doors in the distance.

He knew proper protocol
called
for him to be placed in quarantine and
monitored
. If he didn’t get sick
,
under ordinary circumstances
,
he would be released, but Lloyd knew these were not ordinary circumst
ances. They were ordered to leave their c
orporal
behind
because he wa
s infected. They were ordered to execute staff and incinerate
a whole flo
or just to kill the bug that had been unleashed
. Whatever
‘
PT-12
’
was,
it scared the shit out of Washington
and it made them take extreme measures.
Lloyd’s panicked thoughts race
d.

Who’s to say that they won’t kill m
e?

Llo
yd bit down on his lower lip as
anx
iety tightened around his chest. He didn’t get infected and he knew it
. After all,
his skin wasn’t even punctured! And they said the germ isn’t airborne, right? Right!
Lloyd swore that they said
it wasn’t airborne
in the briefing; at least,
he’s pretty sure that they did.
Lloyd had two daughters and a wife waiting for him at home in Fayetteville. If he spoke up and told somebody about his punctured suit, would he ever
even get to see–

“Hey, Lloyd,
I know that was rough back there, but you can’t dwell on i
t right now. Let’s get
out of here, alright? We’ll
have a drink and
unwind tonight,” the soldier behind
him
said.