Manhunter Revelations (2 page)

So another biohazard containment airlock was
set up around the hole to be cut again to prevent exposure to
personnel of any biohazards that might be inside, and to protect
whatever may be in the lower level if anything from possible
contamination. Setting up the biohazards containment airlock took
about one week and a little over three weeks to cut the hole in the
floor, but it was worth it to the scientists. Or so they thought. A
lower level was discovered, taking up about four hundred square
feet and the height was around twenty-one feet high. The bots found
the same conditions that was encountered when the main door was
breeched, except there were several rooms with closed doors going
around the circumference of the lower level, surrounding a central
chamber. So the scientists entered the lower level into the central
chamber to see what could be found. Once below there were
indications that there had once been an entrance to the lower level
from the ground level above, which had been removed prior to
sealing. This led the scientists to believe that the scientific
treasures they were looking for was down here somewhere, probably
in the rooms with the closed doors. They were partially right. The
rooms were each sealed by a closed door and had handles to open and
close them. The doors weren't locked, but were huge compared to
normal human dimensions. Each door was about twelve feet high, by
seven feet wide and required two or more strong men to physically
pull open each doors. The handles on the doors was also extra large
for a human hand. It was as if the doors was normal for a man of
tremendous size and strength to open. It was also apparent that the
handles on the doors was located at a level which indicated it had
been made for a man of seven to eight feet tall. Here some of the
scientists exclaimed is the first evidence that The Structure was
built by extra-terrestials. In each of the rooms that was checked
was the treasures they were looking for, equipment that could only
be described as laboratory equipment, but to what function the
scientists were at a lost. Each room was a different size, to
accommodate the equipment in it. Later the scientist found that the
power source for most of the equipment was of an unknown nature and
that such power source had been removed. The main surprise however
was that in the center of one of the rooms in the back of the lower
level was a smaller sealed chamber around twenty by twenty five
feet and fourteen feet high, with a lot of the unknown writings on
the only door to that chamber that was ten feet high by five feet
wide. This door appeared to have been sealed in the same manner as
the massive outer door on the ground level. This, the scientists
decided was where the builders of this structure had sealed away
their most precious technologies or secrets. There were however
quite a few scientists who felt that whatever the unknown builders
had sealed inside the chamber, had been sealed away for a very good
reason, and maybe, just maybe, should be left sealed. This belief
was reinforced by the writings on the outside of the sealed chamber
door which looked ominously liked a warning of some kind. Due
however to the massive expense of the whole project, the
governments of the world needed to know what was inside, who had
made The Structure, and a million other unanswered questions, the
objecting scientists objections were overridden. Mankind still
didn't know who the builders were, where they came from, whether
they were truly human, or extra-terrestrial humans, or even
bi-pedal. However what they did know was that they were
biologically different in some fashion. Mankind needed to know
these answers, almost at any cost. So the decision to open this
inner chamber was given, a third bio containment airlock erected,
and the door was opened. The door on this smaller chamber was not
chosen as the entry point as the scientists wanted to preserve the
writings on the door for later translation by the linguists. So the
door was cut out completely to gain access to the inside. The walls
and door was only one foot thick so they were able to cut out the
door in two weeks. Inside the chamber was the prizes the scientists
hoped to find. There was laboratory equipment of a very advanced
designed. Written texts in the unknown language was also found, but
was determined by linguists many months later, to be mostly medical
and biological texts. No texts on other technologies or the history
of the builders was found. This had been strictly a medical
research facility of some kind. It was determined that the study of
the advanced biological equipment would yield major advances in
medical science, although it would probably take years to figure
out their operation, use, and just how to power them and turn them
on. Inside the inner chamber was a smaller vault about the size of
a small commedical safe. There was another sign on the door of this
small chamber, and this sign looked even more like a warning of
some type. Again the heated discussions were raised on the possible
dangers of opening this vault, yet for most of the other
scientists, the need to know was too great, and the governments
agreed. This vault was not too difficult to open and only took a
few days to remove the whole door intact. Inside was a number of
small sealed vials of unknown substances. A larger hole was cut in
the first level floor so all of the lab equipment could be removed
to the upper floors for further study. Strict bio restrictions and
security measures were put in place, so the unknown substances
could be studied in quarantine safety. Everything appeared to be
working perfectly.

Then four months after The Structure's lower
level was breached the first deaths started occurring. The first
cases of death cropped up at the Antarctic site. The symptoms of
the illness were horrific. The affected people bodies started
deforming. Excessive head and limbs swellings, unnatural growths
all over the bodies, with severe to no pain being felt in the
affected people. Death occurred within days. As the first signs of
the infection cropped up, a full quarantine was put in place around
The Structure, but it was too late. Reported cases started popping
up all over the world within a matter of weeks. It was determined
that the scientists investigating the structure who were
periodically sent home to confer with other scientists or to brief
their governments on the recent findings had carried the infection
home with them. How the disease was released to begin with was an
unknown mystery as full biohazard containment had been used
throughout the exploration of The Structure, and no biohazards were
found, nor had there been any biohazard accidents of any type. The
best guess at this point was that there was a pathogen that had
been unintentionally released that was totally undetectable by the
best bio detection equipment used at the site. The best scientists
put their heads together to fight the disease. Nothing man could
come up with worked. It was however found that the disease was
trying to mutate its victims. Into what, no one knew. Within months
the disease had spread worldwide. Since the pathogen was airborne,
whole urban areas was affected and were hit the hardest due to the
concentration of people in these areas. The death toll within three
months was in the hundreds of thousands. Worldwide panic ensued and
the governments of the world was blamed for the disease. Wide
spread rioting occurred, and many thousands more died due to the
rioting, or as a consequence of the riots as the governments had to
get hard on the populace to try and stem the violence. The
Antarctic site was placed under heavy quarantine as all of the
personnel assigned to the site started dying. It was discussed
whether the Antarctic site should be sterilized by nuclear means,
but it was decided the damage had already been done and the
remaining scientists felt sure the cure for the disease might still
be located within it. The fact was also pointed out that a nuclear
blast on the Antarctic ice shelf would create other global
disasters. So the decision was made not to sterilize or re-bury The
Structure, but it was sealed to the most extensive biohazards
methods in existence. Meanwhile the best medical and bio scientists
in the world continued to work exhaustively to try and find a cure
for the plague. Within weeks of the outbreak, the major governments
of the world had retreated into self contained fortifications which
had been previously designed to protect them, but allow them to
still run their countries in the event of a major war, disease
outbreak, or even an alien invasion. All possible disaster
scenarios had been considered and prepared for years before but
proved futile. Fully one third of the world's governments still
collapsed within six months after the outbreak. The surviving
governments knew that to preserve our civilization to some degree,
that extremely drastic measures would be needed. So a vid comm
conference was convened to find out how and what needed to be done
to preserve mankind future survival and it's diverse history and
accomplishments. Measures needed were decided and actions were
taken. Finally, many months after the outbreak, scientists studying
the unknown medical equipment recovered from The Structure figured
how to operate one that gave them a diagnostic of the pathogen. The
scientists found out that the unknown pathogen had indeed been
bio-engineered, not to kill, but to mutate it's hosts. Into what
and why was unknown. The scientists believed that the designers of
this pathogen must have made an antidote. So under strict
quarantine guidelines, scientist encased in the military's Battle
Biohazard Combat Suits again re-entered the structure to try and
find a cure. The whole continent of Antarctica was placed under
quarantine and to even approach the continent was a sentence of
death. People flocked to rural and the most deserted and desolated
areas they could find to try and get away from the disease and
other people, even though in most cases it did them no good. The
disease seemed to hunt out people to mutate and then kill them.

Mankind wasn't the only primate to be
affected by the disease. The Great Apes of Africa and Asia were
also affected as well as other primate species all over the world.
A great deal of them died due to the mutating effects of the
disease, except for the gorillas, and the strongest of the
orangutans and chimpanzees. Due to the gorilla's larger size and
strength almost all of the gorillas were mutated into huge beasts.
They grew much larger, up to nine feet tall and between six hundred
and fifty to nine hundred pounds. Most of the orangutans and
chimpanzees also due to their hardier physiques grew to around six
to seven feet tall and around three hundred to four hundred pounds.
They became insanely aggressive and developed an insatiable
appetite for all living animals. These mutated apes went on a
killing spree that spread from Africa and Asia up into Europe, and
from South America up through Central America into Mexico before
most were hunted down and killed. A few survived in the deep
jungles of Africa and Asia and the dense jungles of South America.
All of theses great apes were now monsters as far as humanity was
concerned. As far as the apes were concerned humanity and any other
animals they came across were food, plain and simple. The gorillas
and other apes that were in captivity in the zoos around the world,
were also mutated, some escaping and going on their killing and
eating spree. These were also hunted down and killed as well as the
ones still in captivity. As a consequence people were afraid that
all simians would mutate into hulking monsters. This caused people
to go on a killing rage against all the primates that they could
find, large and small. Although they soon found out that most of
the other apes, like the smaller Gibbons, and other species of
monkeys were all dying or had died from the disease the same as
mankind. The death toll from the great apes attacks reached into
the hundreds of thousands. Secretly some researchers figured the
mutated apes could give a clue to the disease, how to combat it,
and find a cure. So some of the mutated gorillas, as well as a
great assortment of the other primates were captured, collected and
taken to a highly secretive lab on an isolated island in the south
pacific for study. This was done under such secrecy that no one
outside of a few top level government officials from a few select
nations knew of its existence. Due to the eventual collapse of a
lot of the governments, and the death of most of the officials,
knowledge of this base was somehow forgotten. Eleven months after
the first case of infection fully one point nine billion people had
died from the disease. Over nine hundred million more had died from
the riots, chaos, gorilla attacks and between some smaller
countries, outright war. In a few of the smaller nations, border
crossings became an epidemic as people fled trying to get away from
the disease. The nations whose borders was being invaded felt the
invading refugees was bringing the disease with them. As the
tensions and death tolls increased, one nation driven almost to
total collapse used a nuclear bomb to destroy the neighboring
nation it felt was responsible to contributing to its nation
demise. As a result a few other nations used nuclear bombs on
neighboring countries. Fully eleven nations was totally destroyed
from the use of six nuclear bombs to try and stop the spread of the
disease.

A little over a year from the first death,
two men and a woman wearing some strange biohazard suits was
stopped as they approached the perimeter of The Structure on foot.
The solders stationed there were shocked and the only reason the
strangers weren't killed on sight was that the soldiers wanted to
know how they had gotten there. There was no vehicle or plane
anywhere in sight. The quarantine armada around Antarctica reported
that no planes, ships or any other craft had approached the
continent. The site commander still almost had them executed on the
spot until the shortest of the two men stated "We can help you find
a cure” He then commenced to discuss the disease and seemed to have
biological knowledge of the disease genetic makeup. Desperate to
find a solution, the scientists still there looking for a cure
convinced the site commander to let the strangers help them, even
though all questions as to how the strangers had gotten there
undetected went unanswered. The strangers did state that they would
reveal how they gotten there but only if they were allowed to help
find a cure and then only after said cure was found. Finally after
consultation with government authorities back home, orders was
given to allow the strangers to help, but under close guard. In the
intervening weeks the strangers showed an impressive amount of
knowledge on the disease and its makeup. So much so that the
authorities began to suspect they may have been responsible for the
disease outbreak. Secretly orders were given that if a cure was
found, that the strangers were to be immediately arrested for
questioning. About six weeks later they had a cure for the disease
that the world was now calling the Antarctic Plague. It took an
additional couple of weeks to design and formulate an air borne
version of the antidote to dispense it all over the world. Once
this factor of the cure had been completed, the military proceeded
to the quarters of the strangers to arrest them. It was planned to
arrest them while they were asleep, yet when the soldiers got to
the strangers quarters, the strangers were gone. The base alarm was
sounded. One of the most intense manhunts in mankind's history was
conducted on the Antarctic continent, the surrounding seas, and
neighboring islands. How the strangers had gotten off the base
without being seen or detected was considered impossible. Meanwhile
the dispensing of the cure had commenced and it was working. So the
governments of the world, unable to explain how the strangers had
first appeared and then disappeared, decided to keep knowledge of
their help on the cure one of the most protected secrets in
history. Meanwhile a theory was proposed that there must be another
hidden structure on the Antarctic continent that the strangers had
come from. It was also proposed that these strangers had developed
the pathogen and released it on the scientists who were exposed,
somehow while they were outside The Structure in the open air.
There was just no other explanation for how the disease was
released on mankind. It was believed the strangers had, through
some way unknown to the military, had evaded them when they left
The Structure and had returned to their hidden base. After three
weeks of fruitless searching all efforts to find the strangers or
their hidden base was called off. It took the resources of the
surviving governments fully five weeks to saturate the atmosphere
of the earth to fully eliminate the disease. It was still years
later until all of the world surviving population was convinced
that the disease was dead.