[The Fear Saga 01] - Fear the Sky (2014) (56 page)

But any good debater knows that statistics are far from infallible, they are a tool of the politician, and John took Shahim’s lead and ran with it.

“My friends on the Council, with seven billion humans on Earth, such a small number of cases are hardly relevant. This is a waste of our time. I propose that we move on. Is there a second?”

Shahim did not have to offer up his hand as several of their colleagues were equally unimpressed with the AI’s point.

But they both knew it was only a matter of time now. They were getting close. The cases of miraculous disease recovery were only going to increase and that was going to translate into media coverage and eventually someone was going to discover what was causing it. While that meant they were getting close to being ready to openly attack the satellites, they were still hobbled by the fact that the last few weeks of the antigen’s spread were going to be by far the most important. Once the spread reached critical mass, it would go like wildfire through the population. But between now and then they were at their most vulnerable. So few were already immune, and once the AI saw the antigen up close, events were going to snowball fast.

Ayala looked pensive as she stood against the wall of the large hangar at Hanscom. She and Colonel Milton had stepped off to one side to discuss the team’s progress in hushed tones.

“And how is Jack doing?” she asked.

“Good.” said Barrett, “According to his schedule, he should be back in a couple of days. We haven’t spoken openly, of course, but he called yesterday and said that he was ‘tired from a long but very fun evening out with an old friend,’ so that means they completed the installation on the HMS
Dauntless
as planned and he and his team are moving on to the GBMD sites.”

Ayala smiled at the news, but the colonel’s thoughtful look remained and Ayala looked at him, sensing a disquiet underlying his casual tone. He smiled, but with worried eyes, and answered her unasked question, “The work that they must have put in to refit all the SLAMs on the
Dauntless
must have been phenomenal. Even
with
John’s abilities. Things
seem
to be going well. I didn’t think it would be possible but we’re on track with the missile upgrades. I leave for Florida next week with the next shipment of casings. We’re … well … we’re progressing. But ….”

She raised her eyebrow, and he looked about the huge space, clearly making an effort to mask his emotions. “Ayala, don’t you think that we have been … well, extraordinarily lucky just to make it this far?”

She nodded slightly, a matching pensiveness spreading across her own face, but rather than answer she let him carry on, hoping it would help the man if he got it all off his chest. After a moment he continued, “We barely escaped with our lives the last time the Council became suspicious enough to begin nosing around. Now we have this letter from John saying that the CDC reports on HIV recoveries are raising new questions amongst the Agents. We’re so close, but … shit, pushpin, if they find out about the antigen now … well, it will literally mean disaster, absolute disaster.”

They both looked sideways at each other, their faces remaining as passive as they could, then she stepped in front of him, putting herself between him and the rest of the large room so she could speak frankly. With their eyes connected, her expression reached out to him, fondness and support radiating from her and he felt her love for him like a warmth.

“Barrett, darling, you need to remember that this is not a burden you bear alone. We are a team. Let’s not talk about problems or concerns, but about solutions. You say they might find us too soon; well that is certainly a possibility. But if it is, then let’s decide what we will do if that happens.”

He looked at her and tilted his head ever so slightly in a question. He didn’t have to verbalize it; they both understood what the implied risk was: what, my dear, do you propose we do if 90% of the world’s population is wiped out by a plague that would shame the old testament? She pursed her lips and nodded. Through a pragmatism born more of necessity rather than choice, she focused on what she could affect, rather than what she could not.

After a moment’s thought, she said, “The antigen spreads quickly now, but not in some areas. We feared this might happen and Martin and Neal have no doubt been trying to think of other ways to counter the viral attack, should it come before all areas are immunized. Those two always did like a challenge. Instead of fretting about this, why don’t we get Neal up here, sit down as a group and talk this through, with all the facts at our disposal?”

* * *

To an outsider, the movements of one Mark Jones from England might have seemed irregular. He would appear one day at a car rental agency or airport in or around DC and buy a ticket somewhere or rent a car for a few days. He would then be prominent on the grid for a couple of days, travelling wherever he needed, paying for hotel rooms, food, and fuel before returning to DC and vanishing again for some indeterminate amount of time.

If someone had been watching him, or if he had been flagged for some reason, then they may have thought this strange. But his behavior was far from being actively suspicious. No, Mark Jones had never done anything important enough to call particular attention to himself.

Well, nothing except dying two years beforehand in a car crash on the M5 near Hammersmith.

Shortly before his untimely demise, though, Mark Jones had applied for and been granted a green card to come and live in the US. The widely diverse national record systems around the world being as, well, widely diverse as they were, news of Mark Jones’s demise never found its way to the US, and thus his visa remained valid. The passport that bore Mark Jones’s name was also good, as long as its owner never tried to use it in Europe where records, by reason of proximity, were more up to date.

Combine the fact of Mark’s untimely demise with the fact that there are more than sixty thousand Mark Jones of varying sizes and shapes wondering the globe, and you had yourself an identity that would happily get you around any American airport, car rental agency, or credit card application without incident. At this particular moment, the man pretending to be the deceased Mark Jones was Neal Danielson, and he had used Mr. Jones’s credit card to buy a ticket on a train from DC to Boston.

After arriving in Boston, he had taken a brief walk to a nearby mall, using some of the city’s numerous overpasses and underground walkways to get there without spending too much time under an open sky. Once he had reached the car park of the mall, he had spotted the black sedan idling in a prearranged spot. As he approached the car, flashed its hazards once, and Neal slipped into the backseat.

“Martin!” Neal said, in surprise at seeing the diminutive rocket scientist in the driver’s seat.

“Good evening, Neal, I’ll be your chauffeur today. Where to, mi’lord?” said Martin in a dubious English accent and they both laughed, Neal clambering up and into the front passenger seat as they pulled out of the car park so they could catch up.

* * *

Half an hour later, in another covered parking lot at a Marriott Courtyard near Hanscom Base, the two scientists parked their car and took the elevator to the hotel’s third floor. Martin led Neal down the corridor to a hotel room. The door was opened by a smiling Ayala Zubaideh, who ushered them in quickly. Colonel Barrett Milton welcomed them once inside with a fatherly smile, and after Neal had greeted the two proverbial parents of the group he turned finally to the recently promoted Major Jack Toranssen leaning against the wall by the drawn curtains. Neal had saved a handshake for Jack, congratulating him on his promotion, and following it with an even more emphatic word of thanks for his work in Hawaii aboard the
Dauntless
. Jack blushed slightly and swept the compliment aside. He had no time for congratulations, especially when it had been John Hunt who had born the lion’s share of the task.

The curtains were closed and there were various pieces of equipment in the small hotel room. A projector threw a dim image from a laptop onto the wall, a flip chart dominated one corner, and various binders and folders covered the bed and filled two large boxes on the floor.

They set to immediately, Neal taking the floor so he could show some of the modeling he had been working on. He had used his position to discreetly glean several reports from the CDC and from various health organizations in allied nations around the world.

“OK,” said Neal plugging a flash drive into the laptop Martin had provided for the meeting, “I have been extrapolating the numbers of reported infections against population demographics and typical spread patterns and I have to tell you that, for the most part, I have good news.”

He smiled at the group, but it was a weak smile, because he knew the disconcerting end that was going to follow this pleasant seeming start. “OK, so, on the upside, I can tell you that based on the models I have put together, the antigen is spreading with surprising efficiency. In Western Europe, for example, I predict we are only a few weeks away from an effective 100% immunization. The same is true in North America, Japan and most of urbanized Indochina. I also register strong progress in Southern and Eastern Africa, South America and Australasia.”

The group nodded, but Ayala was not encouraged by Neal’s comments. He paused, done with the good news, and she spoke almost immediately, “And what of Northern Africa, the Middle East, the Urals, the Tibetan plateau?” He looked at her and she read his reply from his eyes.

She saw that things were not going as planned in all areas, as she had feared. Her shoulders sank and she spoke quietly, with an almost defeated tone, “But I spent weeks trekking through those godforsaken places. A Jew. And a female one at that.” She shivered slightly at the memory. It had been an unpleasant and dangerous time, even for someone with her background and abilities.

Gathering herself, she looked back up at Neal and said, “Tell us, Neal. What are we facing?” She was desolate. She had risked her life, and done so willingly, but to find out it had been for nothing was … demoralizing.

“Listen,” Neal spoke in placating tones, “it is not that bad, for the most part. In Northern and Western Africa the spread is strong in urban areas, but in Sahara and the central plains it has been slow, most likely because of the limited travel and communication in those regions. It is worst in the sparsely populated regions of the Middle East, as it seems to be more pronounced there, despite the much larger populations involved. I think that the same causes are true there as in Northern Africa but I suspect they are being compounded by the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kashmir. I suspect that the limits these are placing on the natural movements of the local peoples are further limiting our antigen’s spread.”

“How much longer do we need?” said Ayala, “How much longer till we have some effective level of coverage?”

Neal shrugged, “It’s difficult to say accurately, but I fear that in Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran, the spread is disturbingly slow. It will take several months, maybe more, before the majority of people in that region are reached by the antigen.”

He met Ayala’s gaze frankly, not sugarcoating his news, but she knew that it was not just a matter of patience.

“So we can just wait?” said Jack, shrugging, but Neal shook his head slowly and Ayala lowered hers, disappointment mixing with frustration.

“Unfortunately, no.” said Neal, slowly, “The cases of recovery from serious infections are increasing, and as John’s last letter pointed out, the satellites are taking notice. Shahim and John may have been able to avert the AI’s attention for now, but it is only a question of time before the entire process becomes too widespread to ignore. Within the next few weeks new incidences of the flu and common cold will pretty much stop in Europe and North America … completely. Every hepatitis, tuberculosis, measles, and mumps patient will see a complete and total end to their symptoms.

“In places like Kenya, South Africa, Malaysia, all across the tropics, malaria and HIV will simply cease to be. Current estimates have HIV rates as high as 33% in some African nations. Millions of people will be better over night, their white blood cell counts returning to normal, which with the antigen backing them up will make their immune system better than it was even before they contracted the virus in the first place. With events that unprecedented, the world is going to notice, and so are the satellites. It is only a question of time before they go looking for the source of the change.

“We have to face the fact that at some point in the next few weeks this whole situation is going to go critical. The remaining Agents are going to find out what we are doing and … well … we have to assume that they are going to launch their virus … at the very least. They may not be able to kill us all, but once they know that we are becoming immune, we have to assume that the AIs will react by either attacking immediately, hoping the immunity is not too widespread, or attempting to circumvent our antigen and build a new virus. John has said that if they get hold of a sample of the antigen they could, hypothetically, develop a pathogen that can withstand the antigen’s defenses. And if we delay our attack on the satellites long enough for that to happen … we will be done. End of game.”

They sat silent. Ayala and Jack Toranssen instinctively looked at the colonel, but he was as stunned as they were.

After a moment it was Martin, somewhat hesitantly, who offered up a thought, “So what you are saying is: we have up until the moment that the AIs figure out what is happening. Once that happens we have to launch our attack, whether the antigen is fully dispersed or not, we have to launch. If they can potentially counter the antigen we cannot give them the opportunity to do so. We will have to save whoever is already immunized.”

At Neal’s nod, Martin then asked, “I am assuming we cannot further speed the spread of the cure?”

“That is statistically impossible.” said Ayala, shaking her head, “I personally injected over three hundred people with the vaccine. That was an average of ten ‘covert’ injections a day. I also enlisted several friends and ex-colleagues to distribute a further 250 of the doses, including the colonel.”