Apocalypse (The Wasteland Chronicles, #1) (3 page)

“The xenovirus.” My dad looked up at me. The
tiredness was gone, and a strange energy came into his eyes, the
kind that accompanies a passion – or perhaps, an obsession. “I
might finally be able to figure out how this damn thing works,
Black Files or not.”

This wasn’t the first time for my dad to
mention the Black Files. The Black Files encompassed years of
research on the xenovirus and were archived in Bunker One, in
Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. Though many scientists had worked on
the project, it was the brainchild of a certain Dr. Cornelius
Ashton. The Black Files documented the xenovirus from its first
discovery, cataloguing its various strains and the flora it
affected.

The xenovirus first appeared at the Ragnarok
impact site thirty years ago, which suggested it came from the
meteor itself. From the Crater spread a strange growth known as
“xenofungus” – an organic swath of pink, purple, and orange that
covered the ground and seemed to thrive in any environment. Certain
strains of the xenovirus also affected Earth plants. These plants,
once infected, became twisted and lived in symbiosis with the
xenofungus. Areas taken over by the xenofungus and twisted plants
were known as “Blights.” No Blights existed as far west as
California, though they were common in the middle of the United
States, closer to Ragnarok Crater.

Besides caring for patients, my father
researched the xenovirus, hoping to discover how it worked. He
hoped he could find a way to eradicate it within plant species – to
cure it, if you will. The Black Files, if ever uncovered, could be
the key to completing his research. The xenovirus posed a risk to
Bunker 108; it could infect crops, rendering them inedible. My
father theorized that several Bunkers fell that way, not the least
of which was Bunker One, which used to be Central Command for the
United States of America.

Bunker One went silent overnight twelve years
ago, and was presumed offline – which meant the Black Files were
also inaccessible, because they were stored on its intranet
database. If the xenovirus infected the farms of Bunker One,
everyone there would have starved. But it begged the question: why
hadn’t Bunker One sought help from nearby Bunkers? And why wouldn’t
they have told anyone before starvation set in? Whatever happened,
there were no survivors. No expedition sent there ever returned.
Our Bunker had never sent anyone there, but other Bunkers had. And
those Bunkers were gone now, too.

In any case, the Black Files were in Bunker
One, locked away in what was probably an underground tomb.

My father believed the xenovirus was a
byproduct of natural evolution, and not a direct result of the
impact of Ragnarok. He hypothesized that mass extinction events,
such as the Ragnarok Extinction, could stimulate a huge growth in
biodiversity over the long run. He saw the xenovirus as the
beginning of that growth – that it was life’s way of surviving
given conditions of the meteor fallout, the constant cold, and lack
of water. The xenofungus seemed to be perfectly adapted for Earth’s
current climate. Laboratory tests proved it could survive, and even
thrive, in conditions of extreme heat, cold, darkness, and
drought.

The xenovirus wasn’t a virus, really, but the
name stuck. It was an agent that attached itself to DNA, copied it,
and transposed it onto other life forms. The xenovirus mixed and
matched genes of different plant species until it created something
completely new. It seemed to do this at random, as if guessing what
might work. It was hard to imagine how such a complicated life form
arose so quickly, but my dad believed it possible. The xenovirus
was so one-of-a-kind that my dad thought it should be classified in
its own taxonomical kingdom.

As for me, I found the xenovirus and the
fungus it produced creepy. Watching the lab samples of xenofungus
made my skin crawl. There was something sinister about how fast it
grew and swallowed plants, sometimes overnight. It created this
pinkish goo that we hadn’t yet named. I’d suggested “Keener’s
Slime,” but I didn’t blame my dad for not liking the ring of it.
For now, we simply called it “slime,” at least until we could think
of something more creative.

“I ran tests on this man’s blood,” my father
said. “It’s full of microbes infected with the xenovirus. These
microbes, in turn, are making him sick.”

“I thought the xenovirus wasn’t supposed to
affect people. Just plants, right?”

“The xenovirus isn’t affecting him
directly
. It’s infecting the microbes in his bloodstream,
and these infected microbes are doing a number on him. One thing is
clear: it is killing him. The injuries I could have fixed. But
against this infection, I have nothing. He is hanging on by a
thread. If nothing else, I hope having him here will give me some
answers.”

“What kind of answers?”

“Well, for one, we have never seen the
xenovirus inside a human before. Even if it’s not infecting
him
directly, it can still provide useful data.” He shook
his head. “And if he ever comes to, he might explain what exactly
happened
at Bunker 114. That alone has Chan on edge.”

Yes, I imagined it would. If this was
another
Bunker down, and one so close, that meant there were
just three left. And with so many fallen and offline– one hundred
and forty so far since 2030, one hundred and forty-one including
Bunker 114 – then we all had to wonder – were we next?

I tried not to think of that woman and how
she could tell anyone that we were here. I didn’t want to be the
one responsible for
our
fall. I could only hope that it
wasn’t too late.

I shook this thought from my mind. “Is he
contagious?”

“As long as you didn’t touch any infected
areas, there’s nothing to fear. All the same, he’s
quarantined.”

I had to wonder:
had
I touched any
infected areas? There might have been a point, as we were picking
him up, when one of the wounds brushed against my clothes. Other
than that, I had just held the guy’s lower leg.

“I don’t think I got anything on me.”

“Good.” My dad stared at the top of his desk,
his eyes distant. It looked as if he were about to pass out from
exhaustion.

“Get some sleep,” I said. “You won’t figure
anything out if you’re tired.” I pushed the container of stew
toward him. It had cooled a bit during our conversation. “And eat
your dinner.”

He sighed, grabbing the container, but making
no move to open it. “I have to run some more tests. I’m the only
one with the expertise to solve this. Who knows? If I hurry, the
patient might even be saved.”

“I just wonder who he is, and what he could
tell us. It must have been important for him to come all this
way.”

My father smiled. “You are curious, Alex.
Maybe too much for your own good.”

“I think I might get that from someone I
know.”

My father smiled. “Touché. Just keep your
nose out of trouble.”

The problem was, I had already run into
trouble. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t forget the
Wastelander woman. Maybe I’d
never
forget her. For all I
knew, she was halfway to L.A. with the intent of telling everyone
where we were hidden. Worst-case scenario, she showed up at the
door of Bunker 108 with a bunch of her Raider buddies. I didn’t
know if
she
was a Raider, but it wouldn’t have surprised me.
Out in the Wasteland, you either raided, or you starved – or so the
Officers said, the only ones who were allowed into the Wasteland
with any degree of regularity.

I had to tell someone about the woman. If I
couldn’t tell my dad, who could I tell?

“This guy wasn’t alone, Dad. There was a
woman hiding behind a rock. I was the only one who saw her. She
might have tried to kill him. She might have been with him at the
time, I don’t know. I didn’t tell anyone. I just…froze. She ducked
away. She’s probably far from 108 by now.”

My father frowned. Instead of being angry, he
looked contemplative – as if he had received a new piece of the
puzzle.

“Hmm. Maybe she
did
do it. Well,
whatever happened out there, we have no control over it now. She is
gone, and even if you had told someone, she’d be dead. I would have
liked to ask her a lot of questions. Perhaps she came from Bunker
114, too.”

I hadn’t thought of that, yet it made sense.
But something inside told me that she wasn’t a Bunker type. Even
from that distance, there was a hardness to those eyes that
underground soft living simply didn’t instill.

“You won’t tell, right?” I asked.

My father smiled. “Alex, of course not. I’m
your father. I’m on your side, no matter what. You did the right
thing.”

Even with his approval, I wasn’t sure.

I sighed. “I hope so.”

At that moment, Chief Security Officer Chan
entered my father’s office. His sudden appearance made me jump, and
I wondered just how much he had heard. He surveyed me with his
brown eyes, not missing a detail. Every part of his body was hard
lines and angles, without a trace of fat. His hair was cropped and
gray, and his face betrayed no emotion. I knew he often practiced
meditation, as well as martial arts – and in Bunker 108, Chan
inspired as much fear as he did respect.

He wasted no time in addressing me. “I need
to speak with your father alone, Alex.”

“Yes, Officer Chan.”

Inwardly, I was relieved. It appeared he
hadn’t heard what I said about that woman. If he had, he wouldn’t
be telling me to go.

I glanced at my father. He nodded, urging me
to follow Chan’s direction.

“See you at home.”

I walked out of the bay, realizing that I
probably wouldn’t be seeing my dad at our apartment tonight.
Whatever Chan had for him, it wasn’t the kind of thing that could
be taken care of in a few minutes. Of course, Chan would be
interested in the man’s progress. He would not miss that for
anything. As Chief Security Officer of Bunker 108, it was his job
not to miss things.

The man from Bunker 114 had clearly been
heading here. But why? What message was he carrying from that
Bunker, and why was Chan so interested in it?

In the Old World, Chan was an intelligence
officer. When he entered Bunker 108, he was in his early thirties.
Now in his sixties, he was one of the few old ones left. As the
higher-ups died or were relocated, Chan slowly took firmer hold on
108’s operations. He’d been in charge almost my whole life, so I
couldn’t remember a time he wasn’t. Though he was strict – maybe
even draconian – there was no question: Chan had kept us safe all
these years, and he was the main reason why we were one of the four
Bunkers left.

I walked down the corridor. The hallway was
empty right now; most people would be in the commons, the archive,
or home in their apartments. I walked past the Caf, where the
kitchen staff was wiping down tables.

I rounded the corner. At the end of the
hallway were two wooden double doors with stained glass windows. I
sighed as I walked up. I hadn’t been to the chapel in a long
time.

I’d sort of lost my faith once I reached the
age of reason. Khloe was different, but I just couldn’t see how she
could maintain her faith in Heaven when the world had gone to Hell.
I’d always wondered: what did we do that was
so
bad
that God cursed us with this apocalypse? Sometimes, at night, I
thought of the people above who lived in that cold, dry waste of a
world eking out an existence for another miserable day. Hell, that
was
me
sometimes, and I was the one with the warm bed, hot
showers, and plenty of hydroponically-grown food.

Each time I realized anew: there was nothing
– nothing but the Wasteland.

Dark thoughts, once again. In truth, I wanted
someone to save me. I inwardly prayed it would be Khloe. It wasn’t
fair to burden her with that hope, but all the same, it didn’t stop
me from doing it.

I sighed, and pressed open the chapel
door.

I walked into the chapel. It was dark; the
only lighting came from the hallway, and the air was thick and
musty. Ten rows of pews lined the red-carpeted center aisle, which
led to a low stage and communion rail. Being in this small
sanctuary with the old familiar smell of wood and books made me
think of younger days; simpler days that hadn’t been filled with
gnawing questions.

Khloe was already sitting in one of the back
right pews. She tapped her foot as she leafed through a hymnal.

She looked up as I approached.

“There you are,” she said. “I was beginning
to worry you’d stand me up.”

I smiled. “I would never.”

She nodded toward the pew. “Sit.”

I took my place beside her. She put the
hymnal up.

“It’s so dark in here,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “No one really comes here
anymore.”

This place was once a bigger part of the
Bunker. Every Sunday, Father Nielsen had preached. Almost everyone
would gather to hear his words. My dad was one of the few who
didn’t. He never put much stock in religion, and that rubbed off on
me a bit, all the more so since I’ve grown older.

Those had been different times. Then Father
Nielsen got cancer. Even my dad couldn’t save him from that.

With Father Nielson’s death came the slow
death of the church. Some tried to take his place, but no one spoke
with his conviction.

Father Nielson had been dead two years now
and it showed. Dust coated the hymnals in the pews. Cobwebs
stretched from ceiling to floor in the dark corners, hung from the
Christ nailed on his cross. I tried not to notice how defeated He
looked.

I was the one to break the silence.

“I saw someone, out there.”

Khloe stared at me blankly. “You mean someone
other than the guy you found?”