Human Extinction Level Loss (Book 1): Nicole's Odyssey (34 page)

Nicole turned back and buried her head against her father, all senses blunted in the face of a wall of bitter emotion.

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An eternity later, Nicole raised her head.  She stared around her, drained from emotional fatigue.  She pushed herself away from her father and stood up.  Leaving her rifle on the floor, she saw the large desk near the door and shuffled over to it.  She stared down at the desk, with its blanket of jumbled papers.  It wasn’t like her father at all.  He was always so organized, so particular about his things.  A quote sprung to her mind, from where she didn’t know.  “
A place for everything, and everything in its place
.”  Amidst the chaos, she saw a sticky note on the mouse pad of her father’s laptop.  On the note was her name.  Nicole reached out and took it, the motion waking up the computer.  On the screen was an open video file with a large “Play” button below it.  Nicole slumped down in her father’s chair and stared at the screen.  Finally, she moved the cursor over and pushed the “Play” button. 

An image of her father appeared.  He was sitting where she was now.  He looked tired and worn, his uniform disheveled.  Nicole looked away, her eyes falling to the body on the floor.  Fresh hot tears welled up in her eyes.  Her father’s voice brought her back to the computer screen.  Steven Bennett took a breath and started to speak.

“
This briefing constitutes the last official record of the events that lead to the Human Extinction Level Loss… Hell… we used to joke at that, but…”

Steven Bennett looked away and became lost in thought for several seconds.  He gathered his resolve and looked back at the camera.

“It started off as an effort to reduce casualties on the battlefield.  I want that to be known.  Scientists and the military were working together here, to develop regenerative agents that would interrupt the death process and allow for rapid rejuvenation of life functions in the face of massive trauma.  We had achieved great advances, promising advances in this regard.  To say we had achieved total success would be an overstatement and there were… side effects with the early trials that warranted the R&D being conducted in this the most secret and secure of military bases.  To say that every precaution was taken is not an overstatement.  Everyone involved knew the risks and was fully on-board with what it meant to…”

Steven Bennett looked down at his hands in his lap.  After a long pause he gripped the armrests of his chair and stared back into the camera.  Nicole had never seen her father like this and it unnerved her.  She kept her eyes locked on the screen.

“
To say we got excited about the most recent results again is not an overstatement.  Subjects that had flat-lined were… reanimated.  That was one aspect of what we tried to accomplish.  The other was enhanced unit cohesion.  In the fog of war, the breakdown of unit integrity can be almost as crippling as human casualty.” 

Col. Bennett smirked and looked down at his hands again before continuing.

“Everyone at one time or another has looked at a baby and thought, maybe even said, that baby is so cute I could just eat them up.  Our scientists thought that notion may be a residual concept from humanity’s ancient tribal ancestors.  They think that it is a latent response that compels someone to want to be one with another.  This, they say, is reflected in cultures who would eat some part of their prey or enemy in an effort to gain their power.  In our modern culture, those serial killers that have eaten their victims are believed to have done so out of a desire to be one with them.  This was all theory until we discovered the presence of certain chemicals in the brain that triggered these feelings.  It was our belief that we could re-engineer those chemicals, and apply them to our goal of supplementing the fighting spirit of the American armed forces with intense feelings of fidelity to the unit, even in the face of the most extreme cases of battlefield chaos… minus the eating, of course.  Care was taken, that these desired effects could not be transferred to our enemies.  The serum resided in the blood and gave animus to a severely injured body while maintaining extreme unit fidelity.  The serum was structured in such a way that should our forces experience severe casualties in close combat, their blood could not transfer any of the animus or fidelity properties to the enemy.  We realized we were only half way there, when the reanimated subjects showed no signs of rejuvenation.  That is to say we had achieved animus in the body, but not in a healing way, and certainly not in a cognitive way.  All the safeguards in the world proved ineffectual in the face of what can only be called human cowardice on the part of one of the techs assigned to the specimens lab. I want the name Seaman Francis Delroney to become a byword of shame.  It is to him that I lay-”

Steven Bennett re-gained his composure and took a breath before continuing.

“We thought we were safe, in that the effects of the serum could not be transferred as blood born pathogen.  We learned too late, that life finds a way…”

Col. Bennett looked down at his hands again and gave only the slightest of smiles.  As Nicole watched him, she too
smiled
forlornly, as both she and her father said “Jurassic Park” together.

“We had isolated the chemicals and enhanced them without realizing that what we were dealing with was… alive.  Denied the ability to propagate, it found a way.  It bonded with the simple bacteria found on human teeth in such a way that any bite that penetrated the skin also passed on the pathogen.  As it germinated in a human host, it became highly aggressive.  As was demonstrated in the lab, and later… in the world, what we had created was a highly aggressive subject that would reanimate in the face of death, had extreme unit integrity and a single minded purpose to become one with others that it tried to fulfill by… eating them… It’s why we seldom saw subjects moving alone.  They almost always formed up in packs, moved in herds…”

Steven Bennett paused and took a deep breath before continuing.

“The serum was created from chemicals found in the brain, and that is where it resided, spreading itself throughout the body and replenishing itself when supplies diminished through blood loss.  This is why only a head shot could put them down.  There were protocols in place, of course, that if followed would have ensured that the events that have now become so obvious, would have never been allowed to happen.  Francis Delroney ignored those protocols… and ultimately damned us all quite literally to Hell… Human Extinction Level Loss.  We were able to apprehend him before he escaped Colorado, but he made it as far as actually boarding a civilian aircraft.   In our hope that the project could continue, we naively assumed the… breach had been contained.  A short time later, we realized how wrong we were.  Perhaps beginning to exhibit the effects of the serum, Francis Delroney spread the pathogen to his girlfriend.  In any war, you draw your battle lines.  Those battle lines, after the breach, were drawn at the Colorado state lines.  What was not generally known across the rest of the country was increasingly evident here in Colorado.  We tried to contain the flow of information, first with a media blackout, and of course later with total communication blackout to include cell tower and internet.  As what we had created here wreaked havoc on Colorado, we knew the threat would flood to other states as a result of human travel and interaction.  More drastic measures were taken when panic in the citizenry caused them to flee.  With all air traffic grounded, civilians took to the highways.  In a last ditch effort to isolate H.E.L.L to Colorado, the most extreme measures were deployed and the order was given to conduct bombing runs on outbound traffic.  The United States government authorized total destructive force against its own citizens.  This is what we had come to…”

Steven Bennett paused and again looked down.  He looked up again and attempted to straighten his ruined uniform.

“As events across the country unfolded, solidarity here within the base collapsed.  In the face of that collapse, we became overrun and the facility was lost.  Perhaps it is fitting that it should be so.  Why should we survive when what we attempted to do here so devastated the rest of the country… and the world.”

Steven Bennett looked down and paused for so long, Nicole thought the video was over.  Finally, Col. Steven Bennett raised his head a final time and addressed the camera.

“My last words are reserved for my daughter, Nicole…”

Nicole leaned forward, her eyes large but still focused on her father.  She placed her hands on both sides of the laptop as if to hold it there out of fear of it going away.

“Nicole, no words can express the sorrow and regret that have become my legacy.  My failure of you, in my mind is proportionate to our failures here within this mountain.  My whole life I pursued my career and the national interest over that of a loving wife and daughter.  When she could take it no more, your mother took you and left, but even that did not deter me from my wanton pride and neglect.  When I knew what had been unleashed, I tried to get you to listen to me and… come to me, but I had lost that right a long time ago.  I have no way of knowing your fate. I do not deserve the comfort that comes with knowing that you may yet survive and will make it here.  The base is on lockdown and while threats still exist, it is my hope and prayer that some of what I have imparted to you will prove helpful in your survival.  If you have survived to make it here, then you have been tested in the crucible of battle.  Despite the loss of this facility, it still remains your best hope.  When those of us as yet unaffected retreated deeper inside, I allowed certain protocols to lapse, namely the securing of the front blast door and one of the supply lift elevators, in the hopes that when you got here, you could gain access.  The outer door to this command center is on automatic lockdown.  If you are watching this, then you found a way around that.  You’re a smart girl.  Perhaps in your journey you have gathered others and they can help you… reestablish control here and that will… Nicole, I am truly sorry for all that has happened.  I want you to know, that my last thoughts will be of you.  Take what little I have given you and survive.  Had I accepted what you tried your whole life to give me, you wouldn’t have to…”

Tears streamed down her face as she watched her father reach over and turn off the camera.  The screen went dark and Nicole wept.

Fifty-Two

Hours later, Nicole still sat in her father’s chair staring off into space.  A gentle tapping brought her around and she turned to look at the door.  She watched as it eased open and Sam poked his head in. 

“Can we come in?” he asked. 

When he received no response in the negative, Sam eased the door open further and entered.  Behind him were Paul, Jordan, Billy, Walt, with Ruby leaning on Walt’s shoulder.  They gathered in front of Nicole.  Nicole did not look at them directly.  She kept her eyes down, her hands in her lap.

“I just thought I would come check on you… Nickel…” he said.

Nicole looked up at Sam at his use of her nickname.

“You said once, that your friends called you Nickel.  I never really thought to, cause… but I am your friend, Nicole.  I wanted to come up here and tell you how grateful I am for what you did for me… in the hopes that might… help you.”

Nicole did not look at Sam.  Sam took a breath and continued.

“When you found me in that store, I was really in a bad place.  I had lost everyone who was important to me, lost them in a way nobody should have to lose someone… If it wasn’t for you coming along and getting me out of there, helping me the way you did, I would have died there… I never would have gotten better, Nickel.  You saved me and I just wanted you to know, before you slip off to the place I was, that I owe you my life and I’ll spend the rest of it paying you back for it.” 

Nicole still did not look at Sam, but a fresh tear rolled down her cheek. 

“The others have some things they want to tell you, too,” Sam said as he stepped to the side.

Paul and Jordan took a step forward.  “Nicole, when you came along I was real mad that you had messed up the good thing I had for me and my daughter.” Paul said.

“Dad!” Jordan scolded.  Paul ignored her and pressed on.

“The truth be told?  You were our salvation.  We couldn’t have made it forever in that stadium.  I was in denial about that.  Our food would have run out.  Those Walkers would have eventually figured out where we were and we would have either died quick or died slow, but we would have died.  You got us out of there and on the road to something better.  I’m with Sam.  You saved our lives and that’s a debt we can never repay.  For me.  For my daughter… thank you.”

Jordan looked up at her father and beamed.  She and Paul moved off to the side. 

Billy approached, staring at his feet.  Finally he looked at Nicole.  Nicole continued to stare off to the side.

“You didn’t want to take me with you when we first met, Miss Nicole.  I had sneaked aboard Walt’s bus and took things I shouldn’t have.  I know I slowed you down and kept you from where you wanted to go for awhile.  When I came off that bus, that man was waiting for me in those woods.  I saw him and he saw me.  If you hadn’t taken me with you, even when you didn’t want to, he would have gotten me for sure.  He would have killed me, Miss Nicole.  He would have killed me for sure.  I never had many friends or even people that wanted me around, not even my parents.  Now I got a bunch of new friends, and even a girlfriend… the best girlfriend any boy could ever hope to have… a girlfriend you helped me save when… I owe all that to you, Miss Nicole, so don’t feel sad, okay?” 

Billy shuffled his feet and with his head down, took a place next to Jordan.  Jordan wiped her eyes and she rested her head on Billy’s shoulder.