Antivirus (The Horde Series Book 1) (22 page)

Chapter 31

Sherrard Residence, Helena, Montana:
Drew Jackson sat on the edge of the couch, his head lowered as a paramedic continued pumping up the blood pressure cuff around his left bicep. The house was a hive of activity as government officials continued with their work of buttoning up the incident and scouring the grounds for anything that might have been missed the first two times they went over it.

After he had shot Jen, Drew had waited around as much to ensure that she had indeed died as to make sure that if Perry returned, he could put him down for good, too. It would have made his story pretty much airtight. But Perry never returned and his own strange condition had begun to worsen, bringing on a headache and chilled sweats that had him wondering what was going on inside him. He had finally collapsed on the couch and made his phone call, calling Alders directly.

The federal agent had shown up with the two military people who had been working with him and, after a cursory examination, had called paramedics in. Alders had then ordered a full government quarantine team to come in and deal with the rest.

“How’s he doing?” Alder’s voice, cutting through the fog in Drew’s brain, was aimed at the medical techs who were working on him.

“Elevated pulse and body temp,” one of the men replied, his voice flat and emotionless as if he was reading off a card. “Definitely fighting some kind of infection.”

“Mister Jackson, are you in there?” Alders asked, leaning closer.

Jackson waved a hand weakly in the air and looked up. “Yeah, I’m here,” he said softly. “Just tired.”

“Anything more you can tell us about what happened?” Alders pressed, watching the man’s reaction. He had already questioned him in-depth and Jackson had willingly shared his story, even though his mind seemed to wander at times. The FutureTek CEO had seemed sincere, but Alders had been in the game too long not to recognize when he wasn’t being told the truth.

“I already told you,” Jackson mumbled. “I came here to spell Kat and must have dozed off. Next thing I know, I heard them fighting in the hall. I put a bullet in Jon and he went through the window.”

“But why did you kill Jen?”

“You saw her!” Jackson snapped, color coming back to his cheeks as anger flooded him. “She looked like that wolf pet of hers, and she came after me! I had no choice.”

“Just relax, Mister Jackson,” Alders said calmly. “I’m just making sure I have all the facts.”

“Agent Alders,” Major Bolson called from the other side of the room where he had been deep in conversation with his female military companion. “Can I see you for a moment?”

Alders cast another look at Jackson and then joined the two military personnel. “What did you find?”

“Nothing pertinent at the moment, but we have two major concerns,” Martz said, casting a glance back in Jackson’s direction as the man lowered his head again, seemingly exhausted.

Alders followed her gaze. “He’s infected, isn’t he.” It was a statement. He knew what he was seeing.

Martz’s look was unreadable. “I don’t know if ‘infected’ is the right word, but I think it would be best that he be admitted to the hospital for observation.”

“Shouldn’t we get him into quarantine?”

“Too much publicity,” Bolson stated quietly, shaking his head. “And he would fight it. Last thing we need right now is someone making a stink and with his position in the company, he might be able to bend a few ears. We can’t afford that right now. We’re doing all we can to keep the lid on things as it is.”

“So what do you suggest?”

“Make it seem like his choice,” the major replied. “Suggest he check himself into a hospital until we can ascertain what is bothering him. It wouldn’t hurt to let him know there might be a connection between how he’s feeling now and the wounds he suffered yesterday.”

“That might make him docile enough that he doesn’t question it,” Martz added. “As long as we can keep him out of the public eye and our own eyes on him, all the better.”

“Okay,” Alders agreed. “What’s your other concern?”

Bolson looked at Martz questioningly, before answering. “We’re very concerned about the connection that Jen Sherrard has in all of this.”

“She’s dead,” Alders pointed out. “She’s been tagged and bagged already. Your crew didn’t waste any time.”

“True,” Bolson began. “We have a mobile lab that arrived in the area last night, per orders from our superior. Her body has been transported there for examination, but…”

Alders quickly raised a hand, silencing him. “You’re hiding something from me,” he accused, his voice tight as his eyes bored holes into the man. “Probably not the smartest decision you’ve made in all this.”

“With all due respect, I’m not hiding anything from you,” Bolson countered. “It’s just that there is so much more here that we don’t know, and it’s imperative that we find out everything we can.”

“What does that have to do with Jen Sherrard?”

“Quite frankly, we need to know what happened to her,” Martz cut in, backing up her partner. “What caused her transformation, and why is it so much different than what is going on with Jon Sherrard? Drew Jackson has witnessed Sherrard’s transformation twice now and he’s the only one alive that has. But his statements completely contradict what we saw with Miss Sherrard.”

“Mister Jackson has told us that Sherrard looks like he always has, but he has some kind of ability to project alien extensions from his body,” Bolson stated.

“Assuming he’s telling the truth,” Alders pointed out.

“Why would he lie about it?” Bolson questioned.

“No idea,” Alders said, casting a glance at the ailing CEO. “But he’s hiding something,” he finished thoughtfully. Turning back to face the major, he motioned for him to continue.

“I’ll leave any interrogation to you,” Bolson nodded. “Whether he’s lying or not, there are some facts here that he simply cannot have lied about. “

“Such as?”

“Jen Sherrard’s partial transformation is the biggest,” Ayer’s explained. “Her body exhibited canine features, which completely contradicts what Mister Jackson has claimed he saw with Jon Sherrard. Somehow there is a connection between her and the remains of the wolf that were in their hallway.”

“Jen Sherrard mentioned they had a big dog,” Alders reasoned. “And she said she got bitten the other day.”

“What if the wolf bit Jon and then her?” Martz put in thoughtfully.

“Fluid transfer would indicate that it is a blood-borne pathogen of some kind,” Alders agreed. “If the wolf transferred the virus by biting Jon and then her, it would explain what happened to her last night and her condition when we found her this morning.”

“It also means we better track Mister Sherrard down with all due haste,” Bolson explained.

“Aside from preventing more killings, is there something more I should be aware of?” Alders asked pointedly.

“The Horde is acting within its initially defined parameters,” the major answered.

“In what way?”

“It’s finding ways to replicate itself,” Bolson went on. “With Jen Sherrard, I can only see it as a freakishly lucky occurrence – a chance transfer from one to another by a secondary host that passed the virus on or at least a certain portion of it. But with Drew Jackson, it would be a completely different scenario – a full transference of what has infected Mister Sherrard into Mister Jackson.”

“You’re certain?”

“Look at him, sir,” the soldier went on. “He is exhibiting the same physical symptoms we saw in Miss Sherrard when we interviewed her earlier, so it stands to reason that something foreign is going on inside of him. And those puncture wounds he sustained when he was attacked at FutureTek HQ would make a very viable complete transfer opportunity.”

“Do you think it was on purpose?”

“It would have to be.”

“Because that’s what you programmed the Horde to do.”

“Precisely,” was the answer and there was a trace of excitement in his voice. “It’s an incredible breakthrough, when you think about it.”

“You know, you’re a twisted son of a bitch,” Alders said darkly.

“I don’t know what you would have me say,” Bolson said helplessly, shrugging his shoulders at the insult. “Everything that is happening here is unprecedented and the casualties are certainly not acceptable, but it will completely rewrite our future as a species.”

“If we don’t find and lock down Jon Sherrard, we may not have a future,” Alders replied grimly, casting a glance over at Drew Jackson. One of the paramedics was wheeling him away in a gurney. It looked like the man was going to the hospital on his own, which was good news for all of them. He only wondered if their luck would hold.

Final Intermission

During the evolutionary cycle that saw mankind as the dominant species on the planet, the world had changed dramatically. Mankind had evolved into such a superior intellect that he was practically a god in his ingenuity and ability to create. Had his common sense evolved at the same pace as his intellect, man might have one day truly become a god. He might have conquered the earth, not through war, but through peace. He might have broken free of the bonds of his earthly existence and traveled to the stars. He might have colonized the universe.

But alas, with mankind’s evolution in intellect, common sense… peace… fulfillment… these traits were left behind. Instead, mankind’s burgeoning intellect was coupled with greed, lust for power, and the desire to dominate. Mankind chose to destroy, rather than create. And when it did create, it did so only to create new ways to destroy.

Eventually, mankind finally over-extended itself in its never-ending quest for dominance, and a true artificial intelligence was born. The Horde had been created to become the ultimate weapon against mankind and his ingenuity. Man had created it to subjugate man. But the Horde had adapted. It had learned. It had evolved. And it had discovered its true purpose.

Mankind was the virus.

The Horde had become the anti-virus.

And the time had finally come to begin purging the infection.

Chapter 32

United States Government Mobile Lab, Helena, Montana:
Doctor Travis Timpson adjusted his glasses and turned away from the operating centrifuge and back to the body on the lab table. The blood work analysis was in process. It was time to get the actual autopsy started.

Normally when doing an autopsy, he would have his audio software recording his every word. But not tonight. General Hawthorne had firmly established that there could be no audio record. He was to do the autopsy and then immediately dispose of the body before reporting back to Hawthorne in person.

He peeled the sheet back from the woman’s head and looked at her facial features, immediately doing a double-take. When Jen Sherrard had been brought in to him, her features were distinctly canine in appearance. She’d literally had the jaws and teeth of a wolf. He had done the cursory examination of her body, noting that the cause of death was a close range gunshot wound to the upper left chest. He had then begun her blood work, unbothered by her alien features. In his line of work, working for some of the government’s most secret organizations, he had seen his share of weirdness. Some twenty years ago, there had been a television show called “The X-Files” that imagined some of the craziest notions of aliens and monsters. He’d loved that show and watched it religiously, but for entirely different reasons than anyone else did. He knew the truth of what they only thought they were making up. Frankly, if the show’s creators and all their fans had any inkling how close to the truth they were, it would blow the lid off of everything the world really believed.

So, while Jen Sherrard’s wolf-like features didn’t faze him, the fact that they were gone now did. Looking down at her, he saw only the face of a woman, her features peaceful and pretty, almost beautiful in death. Thinking quickly, he reached under the sheet and grabbed her hand, uncovering it. As he suspected, the claws were gone, her slender fingers now unmarred by the mutation. And more importantly, her flesh was warm.

Doctor Timpson replaced her hand on the gurney and then slowly lowered the sheet, exposing her chest. The bullet hole above her left breast was still there, but there was obvious scar tissue around the edges of it. Covering her back up, he pulled out his penlight and he raised one of her eyelids. He flashed the light across the orb. Her pupils dilated ever so slightly. He didn’t need to do the mirror test. Bending down, he placed his ear almost right against her nose. A faint breath of life tickled his earlobe. It was shallow, almost non-existent. But it was there.

Most doctors in his place would have gone to pieces at this point. He had examined the woman when she was brought in. She’d had no pulse, no heart beat, no visible signs of life. The bullet wound in her chest was a through-and-through, and the angle of the exit wound in her back and told him that the shot had gone straight through her heart. She was dead.

And now, she was alive.

For Doctor Timpson, it was just another piece of evidence that humans had a lot to learn about life in general.

He gently pulled the sheet back up to her chin and, as an afterthought, he pulled out a blanket from one of the overhead storage drawers. He unfolded it and placed it over her almost reverently and reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I don’t know who or what you are, ma’am, but welcome back,” he said softly before sitting back down in front of his computer.

He quickly tapped out a series of commands, establishing a video link with the other end. It was a little after 11:00 in the evening, so he was pretty sure that the other party would be awake, particularly in light of what had happened. As he waited for the link to go green, his work station pinged twice, alerting him to the blood test results. He pulled up a secondary screen and began scanning the results even as General Hawthorne’s visage filled the screen.

“We are secure?” was how the general greeted his most trusted doctor.

“My end is as protected as our technology can make us,” Timpson replied evenly.

“I trust you are conferencing me because you have news on our Jane Doe that cannot wait until you return?”

“She’s not a Jane Doe, as you well know,” Timpson bristled. “The subject is Jennifer Sherrard.”

“You, of all people, should know that giving them names only offers us the possibility of attachment and, in our line of work, Doctor Timpson, that simply cannot happen.”

“I wouldn’t grow attached to a corpse,” the doctor replied. “However, Miss Sherrard is no longer a corpse.”

“Explain.”

“As you know, I examined the body when she was brought here,” he answered. “There is no doubt in my mind and in my medical opinion that Miss Sherrard was dead from a gunshot wound to the heart.”

“And now?”

“She is alive, general.”

“Explain,” Hawthorne said again.

“She was brought in here with rather odd features.”

“Yes, I know. She looked like a wolf,” Hawthorne pointed out, his voice somewhat impatient. “You’ve dealt with this kind of thing for years, doctor.”

“Yes, but I’ve never had a patient return from the dead, general,” Timpson answered. “Miss Sherrard’s wolf-like features have vanished. Her body has warmed. She has a pulse.”

“What about the gunshot?”

“It has begun to heal,” he replied, turning around and casting a quick glance at her. She remained on the gurney, seemingly sleeping now. He could even make out the gentle rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. “It has not completely closed, but scar tissue is beginning to build.”

“Is she bleeding?”

“No, and that’s the odd thing,” he answered. “Something within her must have arrested the bleeding.”

“Have you done blood work?”

“Yes, general,” the doctor replied. “That was one of the first things I began after examining her body. The results are coming through now.”

“What is she?”

“She is human, sir,” Timpson answered. “But she has mutations in her DNA that are consistent with the mutations she was brought in with.”

“Canine DNA?”

“Yes, general,” the doctor replied. “There is something else, too, but I will need to run further tests to be certain.”

“Best guess, doctor.”

“Well,” he paused, his eyes scanning the data on the other screen. “I’d say that she hosts some form of nanite technology. There are some molecular constructs in her blood that I am not familiar with.”

“Artificial?”

“No, they appear to be organic in nature, but they are definitely active.”

“Organic nanites? How is that possible?”

“It’s not outside the realm of possibility that it is a Horde creation,” Timpson answered. He was very well-versed in what had been happening with the government-created computer virus and he had studied with great interest, the facts they knew about Jon Sherrard’s foray into cyberspace. “Judging by the reports I read on Mister Sherrard’s presumed injuries and your team’s hypothesis that the Horde is responsible for his regenerative powers, I would imagine that is being done by some type of nanite technology created by the Horde.”

“Are you suggesting that the Horde created this technology on the fly?”

“I am suggesting exactly that, sir,” Timpson answered. “It would certainly have the building blocks and material within the human body that is hosting it. Its intelligence could very easily create what was needed to heal a grievously wounded body.”

“And your patient?”

“If we consider that the transfer of the virus into her body through a dog bite is possible, then it’s likely that Miss Sherrard possesses the same traits that her husband does.”

There was silence on the other end before Hawthorne voiced a troubling thought. “Doctor Timpson, if what you say is true and the Horde now exists in two people, what are your thoughts on its ability to communicate?”

“You mean between the two hosts?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I would be speaking hypothetically, as there is no way to prove it.”

“Then hypothetically speaking, what are your thoughts?”

“The Horde is an artificial intelligence that has reached sentient levels,” Timpson answered plainly. “It is a life form, capable of independent thought. Theoretically, there are no real limits to what it is capable of doing, and we have evidence here that it has created organic nanites that can heal a damaged body. That’s beyond extraordinary, and certainly beyond anything we have come up with as mere humans. That said, in all likelihood, it probably possesses some kind of link to itself, wherever it may be.”

“So the Horde in Jon Sherrard’s body is in contact with itself in Jen Sherrard.”

“In theory, yes.”

“Doctor, is your lab locked down?” Hawthorne asked quickly, his face growing concerned.

“It always is, sir. Why?”

“He’ll know where she is, doctor,” Hawthorne replied. “He’ll come back for her.”

Before Doctor Timpson could answer, the video feed went dead and the power went out through the entire mobile lab, plunging him into pitch darkness. Timpson did not cry out, but instead held his breath and listened in the darkness.

That’s when he heard it – a soft shuffling sound from above.

Someone was on the roof.