The Contagion
Ernest Bywater
The Contagion
All rights reserved and copyright © 2016
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. All rights are reserved by the author, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
Product names, brands, and other trademarks referred to within this book are the property of their respective trademark holders. Unless otherwise specified, no association between the author and any trademark holder is expressed or implied. Nor does it express any endorsement by them, or of them. Use of a term in this book should not be regarded as affecting the validity of any trademark, service mark, or registered trademark.
Cover Art
The images used are Up-armored excavator in Afghanistan.jpg, Seal of the United States Northern Command.png, and The U.S. Army - Guard Gear.jpg are in the Public Domain due to being placed there by the US Federal Government, their copyright holder. Trimming, manipulation, and adding of text is by Ernest Bywater. All rights to the cover image are reserved by the copyright owners.
15 April 2021 version
Published by Ernest Bywater
E-book ISBN: 978-1-365-27981-2
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Note: UK English is used in this story, except for dialogue by a US character where US English is used in the dialogue and some nouns.
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The titles in use are a Chapter, a Sub-chapter, and a section.
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The First Day
Maximilian 'Mad Max' Milton is lying on his bed reading another report when someone pounds on his door. Before he can put the report down a male voice shouts through the door, “Emergency, all senior officers and equivalents to report to the big conference room, Sir.” Max sighs while getting off the bed. He drops the report into his briefcase, closes the case, slips his shoulder holster on, puts on his coat, and he heads for the big conference room, briefcase in hand, while wondering what's going on. He's not the first or the last to reach the room.
Briefing
The commanders and senior officers of all the military organisations in the area are present when the Admiral in charge of the United States Northern Command takes his place at the front of the room. A map of the world is projected on the wall beside him. He says, “We've a major war on our hands. A war that's difficult to fight. I'm sure you've all seen the news reports on some odd infection spreading around the world.” A few nod yes, but he doesn't wait, “No one knows where it started, but most of the world is now affected by the infection. The medical research people are fairly certain it is a virus of some sort. However, no anti-biological agent has yet had any affect on it. They're still looking into it.” He stops for a drink of water before he continues, “The media reports are clear the infection is the cause of a major heart attack killing the person infected. What has not been reported is the infected dead come back to life as the worst sort of Hollywood zombie somewhere from one hour to twenty-four hours later, and they then seek out others to infect by biting them.”
There's stunned silence while everyone digests the information. He waits a moment then says, “Experience has shown the only way to kill an infected person is to destroy the brain. Don't ask me how they know, and if you find out how they know, I don't want to know. The Infected can't drown, can't suffocate, even when dismembered they try to infect people. Cold does slow them down, so does water, and as does mud. But they continue to walk through anything. They have extremely good hearing and they will home in on any sound to infect the people making the sound. They don't make any noise themselves. The only proven way to kill them is to smash their brains, fry them down to skeletons with fire, or to blow their brains apart. There are reported cases of infected people with only half a brain still moving.” He sighs as he turns to the map.
Picking up a pointer stick the Admiral taps Europe and says, “We're no longer in communication with anyone in Europe, Great Britain, the Middle East, Asia, or South America.” He touches each place as he names it. He moves on, “There are reported cases from Australia and some of the other Pacific nations. They report having cleansed their lands, but they've also closed their borders. Planes or boats approaching them aren't allowed to touch their shores and they're destroyed by fire. Washington has declared martial law, and similar orders have been issued to all of the military commanders in Hawaii and Alaska. There are no reported cases of The Infected from either of those two states, at this time. Canada has some reports from their east coast cites and their west coast cities. The Canadians are hard at work cleansing their lands, and they've also closed all of their borders.”
He turns back to his audience, “The orders from Washington are to protect as many of our citizens as we can. Large sections of the east coast and some parts of the west coast have already succumbed to this infection. The southern border fence has huge numbers of infected people pressing on it. The Border Patrol and military personnel near there are killing them as fast as they can, but not fast enough, it seems. We're ordered to establish protection areas in large car parks and to get our citizens into them. Then to defend the barriers we erect. You're all to organise your people into units to establish these defensive centres and assign your people to protect our citizens. You research people are to see what you can do to help.” The Admiral moves to his seat and sits down.
In the stunned silence following the briefing Max says, “What brain dead idiot issued those orders?” All turn to look at him, so he adds, “The border fence is a very well constructed barrier designed to withstand an attack by large numbers of people, yet you just said it's about to collapse. And they think we can put up temporary barriers that'll do better! If that's the best they can come up with kill all of the people now!”
The Admiral is angry and he's about to speak when one of the research leaders says, “Max is our generalist, and he's our major problem solver. He's also the best damn analyst I've come across. Now he's stated it, I have to agree with his assessment.” He turns to Max and asks, “What do you think we should do?”
“Imitate the medieval Swiss. Find a huge valley or group of valleys, move everyone we can find into them, and close off all of the passes with damn strong barricades and combat positions to keep the enemy out. I'd send the same recommendation to all of the other commands. Also, all of the bases that can be locked up tight, like the missile centres, have them take in people and lock the vault doors. If The Infected can't see them or hear them they should be safe behind locked vault doors.”
The Admiral writes on the pad in front of him, rips off the sheet, and he hands it to a junior officer while saying, “Have these orders sent to all of the units under our command, along with the reasons noted. Copy them onto every other command centre you can still reach.” He turns to Max and asks, “Can you recommend such a place?”
Before he can speak a Marine Major says, “The valley just over the mountain is quite large. If we evacuate everyone to Hartsel we should be able to close off all the entrances with a lot stronger defence than a bunch of long fences in car parks. If our forces can close the passes in the Rockies and put a line across the valleys near Las Vegas, they can protect most of Nevada and everyone there with little trouble. I'd like to turn the whole of the Rocky Mountains into a giant fort, Sir. We could evacuate most of the people from the plains into the mountains to concentrate our combat capabilities into a tighter defensive line.” The Admiral nods his agreement, notes it all down, and he hands it to an officer to send out the messages while he hopes it can be done in time to save the people.
The Admiral turns back to Max, “Anything else you can think of?”
He nods, “Move your command into Cheyenne Mountain and put a plug in the front door by putting up a barricade on the valley entrance of the roadway where it's hardest for The Infected to go around it. Also make sure you defend any other valley entrances or slopes they can use to climb up to get at you.” He gets agreeing nods from a few other people as the better communications capabilities there will be very useful. “The next two things you won't like. Use tactical nuclear weapons where you've large enough groups of The Infected to justify the cost. The other thing is to set up systems to make noises to attract The Infected so you can get a large enough group together to use the TNWs on.”
The Admiral grimaces, “You're right! I don't like it. But it's probably the best way to fight them.”
“We need to do more research on what they can and can't do. We also need to find out what the underlying cause is, then find a way to attack it. If it's a virus we should be able to isolate it to find a way to kill it. We need to find out how long it can survive outside a host, and if it can cross the species barrier or not. Also, if another species can be a carrier vector for it.” He stops, takes a breath, and adds, “We need to establish ways to make our own ammunition because supplies won't be replenished until this is over. We also need to develop new weapons that are silent and will still do the job of destroying them. First thing is to move all of the people, all the food, all the weapons, all the ammunitions, all the fuel, and all the clothes we can lay our hands on into the safe zone we're establishing.”
Max gets a few frowns, and adds “We need to feed and clothe a lot of people for an unknown period. We also need all of the fuel we can obtain to make weapons to burn the enemy and to operate our equipment.”
The Admiral takes a deep breath then he says, “Right! Let's get active. You all know what you're to do and who should do it, so just get doing it. I want everyone and everything moved into the valley. I want the southern valley passes and entrances barricaded first, then the western ones, and the eastern ones, the northern ones last. Strong patrols of all passes until they're barricaded and defended. Get moving.”
One Air Force Colonel asks, “I've got a lot of napalm available, Sir. What say I move it by dropping it on The Infected at the border while they're in such large groups?”
“Good idea, Colonel. Do it. But make sure not to hit our people who are holding the border. Also be careful to not damage the fence with the heat. You can drop the napalm further back in the pack so it won't damage the fence.” The Colonel nods yes before he leaves to get that project started.
Max says, “Admiral, from what I've heard, once we get everyone out of here there should be little or nothing to encourage The Infected to hang around deserted areas. So the sooner we empty the cities and towns the less likely they are to be damaged, especially if there's no noise here.”
The Admiral nods his acknowledgement before he leaves the room.
Research Assignments
Max's boss turns to Max and asks, “Any ideas on useful research we can do?”
A smiling Max replies, “Lots of ideas. But damn few we can work on with the people we have here. However, how about seeing if we can get a decent light rail-gun we can work off capacitors powered by solar cells. They'd be good for taking out The Infected quietly. The hard part will be coming up with a frangible round that survives the firing.” His boss nods yes, and he starts assigning tasks to various of his staff with him.
Max thinks about the oddity of them being here. He's part of a think tank group doing a tour of various US military facilities and research centres. They only stopped here since most of them wanted to look at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. They were due to fly out tomorrow, but not now. He also doubts he'll get back to his family home in Sydney for a long time to come.
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Light Research
Amongst the reports Max has are papers by three research groups he thinks may be useful. They don't know of the other groups or their work, but the combined work can have some far reaching ramifications. If the first two can be brought together they'll be very useful. If all three can come together it will provide extremely useful results.
The first report is about a much more compact power cell or battery. The project is all but finished. The only problem is they can't regulate the power output flow. The system is either all on or all off.
Second is a report on a powerful portable laser. But further research on it is limited due to the lack of a good portable power unit. They test well with major fixed power sources exceeding the project parameters. However, the aim is a man-portable field unit, and the best they can do is a generator that fits in the back of a large pick-up truck, which is too big.
The third project generates forcefields, but the problem is they can only create a partial arc, and the biggest so far is only ten inches, which isn't large enough to be of much use. The problem is the amount of power needed goes up very steeply after you create the initial half inch sized field. The theory implies an increase of power by four for each doubling of the size, while the reality is an increase in power needs of twelve for the doubling in size. They can't work out why, which is why the think tank has it and it's been given to Max to review.
Max can see using the power cell to operate the laser by running it through a decent sized capacitor bank will work well. Turn the power on to charge the bank, and leave it on while using the laser. Also, he wonders how well using sets of two forcefields can be used to create the lenses for lasers to reduce the weight of the whole unit while giving it more flexibility in the laser size. Maybe using the new power cell technology will provide enough power for the combined project. So he goes looking for his boss to help find local people to bring the three projects together. There's one person on their team with them who can help with the laser project, but the researchers have to talk to the military staff about military people who might be able to help to make some devices. They end up with three senior technical staff to help them.
It's mid-afternoon before Max can gather together the four people to explain to them what he wants done, and he offers the advice of using a capacitor bank to help regulate the power flow. He hands over copies of the three reports then he leaves them to get on with making what he wants them to build, if they can do it. His job is to spot ways around problems in projects, not to run the projects. It's odd, in a way, most of the projects involve concepts and maths he doesn't understand, but the reports can usually be understood by Max. He can see what they're trying to do, what they've done, and then he can often find a way to bridge the gap between the two places. Not always, but often enough to justify the large salary they pay him to work on things in his home lab.
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After getting the laser project going Max goes looking for the two computer programmers on the travel team. He finds the two young men and he leads them outside to find a quiet place to talk undisturbed. He finds a spot in a large lawn with no one near them, then he turns on his portable radio. This is a very good way to stop people listening to their conversation.