Antivirus (The Horde Series Book 1) (27 page)

Epilogue

High Security Underground Test Facility, Table Mountain, Nevada:
“So this is her,” the young man in the white lab coat said, peering through the frosted glass at the figure inside. His name tag identified him as a level 4 lab tech, the highest rating any of those in the facility could be given. Inside the chamber, he could make out the naked form of the woman, frozen in time. Of note were the her two defining scars – the star shaped one above her left breast and the longer incision scar along her flat stomach, just above her pubic bone. “Wow, she’s hot.”

“Have a little respect, Hopkins,” a second similarly dressed, but much older tech said, pushing him away from the face plate. “She was a CIA legend when she was still in the field.”

“So why do we have her in cryo?” Hopkins asked, turning away and seating himself at his work station. He was new on the project, assigned by the big man himself. Hawthorne had pulled him from his bio-tech gig at MIT, in large part because of his study and knowledge into nanotechnology. He was, he would be the first to admit, one of the foremost intellects on the subject.

“Same reason they gave you when they pulled you for this project. She has the virus inside her, or some version of it anyway.”

“I’ve read the reports. I would assume that the majority of the technology is located in her husband’s remains,” Hopkins said, pointing to the chamber next to hers. He hadn’t bothered looking into that one. He already knew that he’d find the headless body of Jon Sherrard inside, complete with alien physiology.

“It is and you’ll be doing most of your work on him.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” Hopkins lamented. He’d much rather work on the sexy lady.

“Orders came from the very top,” the older man shrugged. “They just want her on ice for future exploration, if needed.”

“I’ll volunteer for that job,” Hopkins laughed.

“You’re disgusting, you know that?”

Hopkins just smiled.

“Look, just get to work on the formulas. Hawthorne is going to want some answers and he’s going to want them soon. We need to figure out how the NSA screwed this thing up and what really went wrong with the Horde.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Hopkins said, firing up his station, his hands flying over his keyboard. “All right, people, let’s get this party started.”

It was cold.

Oh, so cold.

It was always cold.

And she couldn’t get away from it. She felt it, permeating her being, driving completely through her body. Was it death? Was she in hell? She didn’t know. She couldn’t see. She couldn’t feel her body. She couldn’t even breath. But the cold remained. The cold and the silence.

It was always cold.

It was always silent.

And then she heard it.

A voice.

A voice she knew

A voice she loved.

It was speaking to her, saying the same thing again and again. She latched onto it, feeling the life in the quiet whisper of her past. It buoyed her spirit and gradually, she forgot about the cold.

“Don’t worry, Jen. I’m here. Be strong, babe. I am with you…”

About The Author

Michael Koogler was born in Dayton, Ohio and resides today in Iowa with his wife and children. He got his start as a writer in the early eighties when he wrote an article for the local newspaper and has been writing ever since.

He is an avid reader of all things fiction and putting pen to paper is a joy hard to express. He continues to balance his time between work, family, and spinning stories and yarns ranging from end-times fiction to horror to fantasy.

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And finally…from me, the author…to you, the reader – thank you so much for picking up my novel. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed telling the story.