Night of the Living Trekkies (20 page)

“The first zombie,” Gary said.

“The first
reanimate
,” Sandoval corrected. “Fortunately, this happened on-site. We contained him as soon as we realized—and forced ourselves to accept—the truth. Still, the situation almost got out of control. The technician, whom we later designated Patient One, bit two medical workers and a security guard before being subdued. All of them fell sick, died, and reanimated. This, to put it mildly, changed the tenor of our investigation.”

“You should have shot them back into space,” Jim said.

“The material was deemed too dangerous even to move. The government constructed a secret underground containment facility at Johnson. That’s where I’ve spent the past five years.”

“What did you learn?” Rayna asked.

“We exposed the samples to various plants and animals to ascertain the threat they posed to terrestrial life. We determined that each alien cell—and I use the term ‘cell’loosely, because their internal workings have nothing in common with ours—can produce reanimation within twelve hours of ingestion. The victims died and then resurrected, always with an extra eye. The process didn’t work on reptiles, amphibians, fish, and other lower life forms. Their neural networks are too primitive to handle the rewiring the aliens do.”

“What sort of rewiring?” Rayna asked.

“They shut down things like breathing and high-order mental acuity. But they keep motor ability. Or rather, the best motor ability a walking corpse can manage. The aliens can only get their hosts to move at a slow walk.”

“So, no runners then,” Gary said.

“Excuse me?” Sandoval replied.

“You know, fast zombies that can really haul ass,” Gary said.

Sandoval smiled a weary smile.

“No runners,” he said.

“Did you try to communicate with them?” Jim asked.

“Of course. We quickly realized they aren’t sentient. All they want, really, is to . . .”

“Eat?” Rayna said.

“Actually no,” Sandoval continued. “Their nutritional needs are met by a type of photosynthesis. Give them a bit of pretty much anything from the back end of the electromagnetic spectrum, from ultraviolet to microwaves, and they’re good.”

“So what’s with the biting?” Jim asked.

“It’s a form of reproduction. They need hosts to reproduce, and their mode of infection is ingenious. They destroy most of an infectee’s brain, but keep the portion responsible for motor functions and hunger. The reanimates are inflamed by a primal urge to consume other creatures.”

“How does this help with reproduction?” Gary asked.

“They’re driven by an overwhelming desire to hunt, but they aren’t very good at it. They’re slow and physically weak. So most often, unless they surprise or corner their prey, all they can manage is a bite or two before their ‘meal’ gets away. Those would-be victims then crawl into a corner, die, and rise again—under new management, of course.”

“Reproduction via a crappy hunting strategy,” Gary said. “That’s not a very elegant approach.”

Sandoval gestured toward the window.

“But it works,” he said.

“I don’t suppose you developed a vaccine,” Jim said.

“I’m afraid not. The disease is universally fatal. We learned this by studying forty-six intentionally infected animal specimens, plus seven accidentally infected humans.”

“Seven?” Rayna said. “You only mentioned four.”

“After the incident with Patient One, we instituted extreme safeguards. But in spite of those, the organisms managed to reach three more people. When it became apparent that they were still taking victims even under highly controlled conditions, active study ceased. Now we focus on containment. Or at least we did, until this week.”

“How did they get out?” Gary asked.

“I don’t know all the details, because I wasn’t there when it happened. On Wednesday evening at 5:12 p.m. a massive computer anomaly opened the doors to the containment facilities. Many of the specimens they housed hadn’t been examined in years. It wasn’t worth the risk.”

“What caused the computer failure?” Gary asked.

“It might have been a cyberattack. Though I wonder if the aliens themselves were responsible. After seeing the insidious approaches they’ve used to infect biological entities, I can’t dismiss the idea that they found some way to infiltrate the complex’s computers.”

“So if all hell is breaking loose, why did you come to GulfCon?” Jim asked.

“Given what happened, the gathering was even more important. Plus, at first there seemed no need for urgency. In case of general contamination, the facility was equipped with a fail-safe mechanism. A thermobaric bomb that incinerated everything in the bunker.”

“That’s the accident they’ve been talking about on the news,” Jim said.

“Correct. The bomb was powerful enough to vaporize all organic and semiorganic matter. But not quite powerful enough, in theory, to penetrate the facility’s six-foot-thick outer wall. In the event of containment loss, it could turn the place into a crematory.”

“And yet . . . here we are, hiding from zombies,” Rayna said.

“Indeed,” Sandoval said. “Approximately two dozen people from the Johnson Spaceflight Center were slated to attend this convention. One of them, or perhaps more, was infected and carried the alien plague to Houston. I suspect it was Colonel Oliver Cronin, the base security chief, but that hasn’t been confirmed.”

“What was his costume?” Gary asked.

Sandoval seemed amused by the digression. “He came as Bele, from the original series episode,’Let That Be Your Last Battlefield.’ He was a big fan of the old
Batman
TV series.”

“Bele, the
Star Trek
character, was a big
Batman
fan?” Jim asked impatiently.

“No, Colonel Oliver Cronin, the base security chief, was a big fan of the old
Batman
series. The actor who played the Riddler on that show was . . .”

“Oh! I know! Frank Gorshin!” Gary exclaimed.

“Exactly. Frank Gorshin played the Riddler, but he also played Bele. It was a fairly easy costume for our colonel to put together. All he had to do was paint half his face black and the other half white and acquire a silver jumpsuit.”

“I remember this episode,” Rayna said. “It was about two guys fighting an interplanetary race war. One group in their society had black on the right side of their faces and white on the other, and the other group had the exact opposite arrangement.”

“Really a dumb paint-by-numbers premise,” Gary mused. “It bordered on self-parody.”

“And yet Gorshin received an Emmy nomination for his role,” Willy pointed out.

“Which was stupid,” Gary shot back. “They give the guy who was black on the right side an Emmy nod, while the guy who was black on the
left
side, who did exactly the same amount of work . . .”

“Lou Antonio,” Willy said.

“Yeah, black-on-the-left-side Lou didn’t get squat,” Gary continued, indignant.

Sandoval tried to follow the banter, his head cocked to the side like a dog that’s heard a strange sound.

“I’m afraid we’ve tumbled down the rabbit hole,” he said.

Jim took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He contemplated telling Gary and Willy to shut up, but then decided not to. Better they focus on Lou Antonio’s résumé instead of deliberating too much about the horrors surrounding them.

“I’m pretty sure Colonel Cronin made it to GulfCon,” Jim said. “Earlier this afternoon, my security chief received complaints about a drunk mime. The guy was staggering around and banging on doors. The police took him away, which means he probably infected an entire precinct single-handedly.”

“An otherwise-healthy specimen feels symptoms three to four hours after infection,” Sandoval said. “Physical decline progresses rapidly after that. Death occurs within twelve hours, and reanimation shortly thereafter. If the infected subject is killed in the initial attack, reanimation can take place almost immediately.”

“Why?” Rayna asked.

“It’s easier to steal the house if no one’s home to defend it,” Sandoval said. “The parasites also work more quickly in the presence of an EM source. The ‘food’ matures them faster.”

Jim sighed. None of this was helping.

“There’s a lot you guys don’t know,” Rayna said. “Haven’t you had years to study these things?’

“I’ll answer your question with a question,” Sandoval said. “What initially attracted you to Star Trek?”

“I thought Patrick Stewart was hot,” Rayna said.

“Fair enough. You know what I always liked? The inevitable moment when some horrible crisis threatened to destroy the ship, and there seemed no way out. And then, suddenly, at the last possible second, Scotty or Geordi LaForge or B’Elanna Torres or Chief O’Brien would get a faraway look in their eyes and spout some long, long line of techno-babble about venting the plasma from the warp nacelles or—”

“—recalibrating the dilithium crystals,” Willy offered.

“—ejecting the warp core,” added Gary, once more fully engaged.

“Exactly,” Sandoval continued. “And they would make these changes instantly, by pressing a few buttons, and it always worked. I loved that. I loved the idea that no matter how grave the situation, a technological solution could always bail you out. Even McCoy got in on the act. They’d need a poison antidote or a vaccine for a new disease, and he’d have it before the credits rolled, with time left over to banter with Spock. But now that I’m actually a scientist, do you know what I’ve learned about the Star Trek approach?”

“What?” Jim asked.

“It only works on
Star Trek
. In
this
space-time continuum, you can focus a lot of computers and a lot of great minds on a problem, and still not find a quick answer. It can take a year. Or ten years. You have to keep hammering away until the nut cracks.”

“I don’t think we have that much time,” Leia said.

“Precisely. Given the stakes, a more rough-and-ready approach is in order. Which is why we have to get out of here.”

“What do you mean?” Jim asked.

“Right now a group of very powerful people is fighting to stop this plague from spreading. And they aren’t approaching the problem like Federation scientists. They’re more like Klingons. They’ll employ a strategy of containment and annihilation. Houston is lost. They’ll cordon off the area and liquidate everyone, survivors and infected alike.”

“That’s pretty hardcore,” Gary said.

“The danger is too great to do otherwise. If this contagion spreads, it could overwhelm the world. The government will seal off the city and then perhaps provide a short grace period to allow un-infected humans to escape. And then . . .”

“Ah, shit,” Jim said. “They’re going to nuke us.”

“I’m guessing they’ll use a fusion bomb. Turn the entire area into a sheet of glass. It’s the only way to be sure.”

The room grew quiet. All talk about Lou Antonio abruptly ceased.

“I thought the aliens fed on radiation,” Rayna said.

“Only the low-frequency types,” Sandoval said. “The highly energetic stuff put out by atomic weapons—gamma rays and the like—is as lethal to them as it is to us. Especially in their current, more or less organic forms. The EM pulse accompanying the explosion might also be disastrous. Electrical current can disrupt the neural link with their hosts.”

“That explains why our Tasers work,” Jim said.

“So what should we do?” Rayna asked.

“Evacuate,” Sandoval said. “It’s our only hope.”

“Destroy Houston to save the world,” Gary said. “I guess the needs of the many really do outweigh the needs of the few.”

“Except we’re not talking about a few,” Jim said. “There are five or six million people in the Houston area. This is the fourth-largest city in the United States.”

“Not for long,” Sandoval said.

“When will they launch?” Jim asked.

“I’m guessing sunrise,” Sandoval said. “They’ll want daylight for damage assessment.”

“Can’t you contact them and request extraction?” Jim asked.

“I did, via a scrambled satellite uplink. It’s pretty much the only method, given the loss of Internet and cell phone coverage. They responded by downloading a worm into my computer that fried my hard drive. That’s the government’s way of telling you that you’re expendable.”

“No, you’re not,” Jim said. “None of us are expendable. Especially a scientist who understands these creatures. We need to get out of here. We need some vehicles.”

“Don’t look at me,” Leia said. “I took a cab.”

Jim went to the windows and peered down to the street. He had a pickup truck down in the Botany Bay’s garage, but there weren’t enough seats to hold everyone.

“What we need is Matt’s RV. It’s in the garage. Easy to access, and there’s room for all of us.”

“You’re forgetting that Matt has the keys,” Gary said. “Maybe we can track him down and ask if he’ll give us a ride. Hell, I’ll even pump the gas again.”

Rayna smiled at Gary. “And
you’re
forgetting that I’m the helmsman of the USS
Stockard
.” She produced a key ring from her pocket and tossed it to Jim. “And in that official capacity I am charged with carrying a second set of keys.”

“Great,” Jim said. “We have our ride. Now all we have to do is get to the garage without the zombies ripping us to pieces.”

“Stay positive,” Rayna said. “Things could always be worse.”

Just then the lights went out.

“You were saying?” Jim said.

The group stood silently in darkness, breathlessly willing the lights to flicker back to life. Finally, Sandoval spoke the ugly but obvious truth.

“We’re at an even bigger disadvantage now,” he said. “The reanimates see extremely well in low-light conditions. We don’t.”

“What are we going to do?” Willy said. “The hallways will be pitch black. We won’t see the zombies until they’re on top of us.”

“The hotel’s emergency lights kick on if the power fails,” Jim said. “Plus we have a couple of flashlights and our Tasers have LEDs.”

“If we switch those on, we might as well yell,’Here we are, come and eat us,’” Gary said. “It will draw them like moths. Big, stinky, flesh-eating moths.”