RAGE (Descendants Saga (Crisis Sequence One)) (9 page)

Natural History

8 Hours Earlier

Vladimir
slashes at the Escalade’s front and side airbags with one of the blades he keeps for throwing. Sometimes, an assassination requires a more up close and personal touch. Whatever his employers want done and in whatever manner, Vladimir gets the job done.

The Bags deflate, leaving a white powder residue behind on the smashed interior of the SUV and on his suit. He ha
s no time to concern himself about that now. He is in Kensington where much of the trouble has occurred. He has already seen infected individuals on the street. He has to get out of this vehicle before something finds him.

Kicking at the door,
Vladimir realizes it isn’t going to budge. The door frame has buckled and twisted during one of the impacts. Nothing short of the Jaws of Life can extract him that way.

He look
s up just in time to see two individuals leaping onto the hood of the Escalade. Vladimir sizes them up at once. The first is a young man with a blue button-up shirt tucked inside torn khakis. His skin has a ruddy hue like a sunburn. The second is an older, heavier woman wearing a multicolored tank top and blue jean shorts that are far too tight. Her skin is also quite red in appearance.

The pair of them ha
ve claw marks and wounds across their faces and their exposed skin. Their clothes already have dried blood staining them. They move incredibly fast, and Vladimir wonders if his kicking against the inside of the door has drawn them to his location.

He curse
s, considering how quickly he might whip out his Sig Sauers and realizing at least one of them will be upon him before he manages both kills. Reflexively, he clicks the seatbelt loose and rolls back over the top of the front seat as the young man dives head first through the cracked windshield.

Vladimir
hears steps on the hood and roof and realizes the large woman is galloping over the top like a gazelle. The man hits the front seat and is just looking up as the assassin rolls over the rear bench seat into the cargo hold beyond.

The rear hatch popped open and wedged that way
when the frame twisted with the forces exerted upon it by the bus. The young man reaches the rear seat with a ravenous growl, bloodshot eyes and bloodied teeth. The woman drops from the roof to the pavement outside the open rear hatch.

Twin silenced Sig Sauers fire simultaneously.
Vladimir crouches in the cargo hold with his arms outstretched toward both targets. Headshots to both. The young man bounces off of the back of the driver’s seat and crumples into the floorboard. The woman falls straight over onto her back in a fleshy pile and moves no more.

Vladimir
takes stock of his situation. He is alive and the mission has not yet been compromised. He can make this work. He just needs another vehicle to get him to the SIS Building on the other side of Vauxhall Bridge.

He pull
s the compartment open that would normally house a spare tire. Instead, there is a compliment of weapons at his disposal. There is a brace of throwing knives which he takes. Removing his jacket, he puts the brace over his shoulder so the knives fall across his chest. Vladimir doesn’t mind that he is conspicuous for now. He has to get to the SIS Building in one piece.

Next
, he removes a single Glock made entirely of ceramics. It is a model that was recalled due to its ability to pass undetected by security systems like metal detectors. Only Secret Service uses these and they are still rare.

This particular weapon
was taken from a Secret Service agent upon his death. Vladimir has only one extended clip of ammunition for this pistol. It will only be used for the SIS Building. That will be all he needs inside.

A contact case l
ies inside the molded space also. These will transmit the retinal pattern of his contact inside, just as the badge will display their name. He looks around, surveying the area, and then places the contacts in his eyes. Vladimir blinks to place them in their correct position over his corneas and then retrieves the last weapon in the space.

He lift
s the Heckler & Koch MP5K, with its barrel grip for extra stability, out of the molded foam. He has a dozen extended clips filled to capacity with 9mm ammunition. These he places inside a black shoulder bag with other items he might need. Then he exits the vehicle with the MP5K strap thrown over his neck in the opposite direction, so his knife brace, the bag and the submachine gun create a criss-cross-criss of straps across his chest. He is loaded down, but not so much he can’t make good time. He is a strong man in excellent physical condition.

Vladimir
walks back to the passenger side, keeping an eye on the streets and buildings, hearing screams and the sounds of chaos growing nearer. He retrieves his lab coat and badge, leaving the tazer because it is nowhere to be found following the crash. He stuffs the lab coat and badge into his shoulder bag and zips it closed. He is ready, or so he thinks.

Then he spot
s a mob of people heading his way. There are several armed police officers running in front of them. The mob consists of at least fifty individuals, all of them clearly rabid with this new plague.

Fifty yards away, in the side of a building
, sits the double-decker red bus that broadsided him coming off Queensgate out of control only moments ago. People are being attacked on the bus. The driver is nowhere to be seen.

Screams resound from every direction. A helicopter passe
s low overhead, a sniper firing shots toward the mob of infected individuals, no doubt in response to pleas for help from the police officers fleeing on foot. Vladimir has to get off of the street. He might stand here and hope to gun down dozens of people like the American movie character, Rambo, but the reality is much different. He will be overwhelmed by the onrush while only a few individuals fall before him.

Vladimir
turns, noticing the Natural History Museum stretching away from the corner of Queensgate and Cromwell. It is a huge building with lots of places where he might escape all of this approaching activity. At the very least, he will be in a much better position to pick off individuals in a building with many places to hide.

He
runs as the police officers approach. They are out of breath. One of them stumbles and falls. His partner keeps going as the mob engulfs the fallen officer. While a few remain with the man, feeding upon him, the others carry on, trying to run down the other man and anyone else in their path.

Vladimir
briefly considers shooting the officer in the leg, so he will also fall in the street as a distraction. However, the infected have already spotted him. Some are even veering after him.

The police officer also notice
s Vladimir, as he leaps over the waist high wrought iron fence, and turns aside to pursue him. “Wait!” he cries. “Help me!”

The young policeman panic
s. He probably spotted Vladimir’s submachine gun dangling on the strap at his right hip. Perhaps, the officer thinks he is some kind of special agent. Maybe, he doesn’t care at all why Vladimir has such a weapon on his person, so long as he uses it to save him before he, too, is overwhelmed by zombies.

Whatever the case,
Vladimir isn’t waiting for him. He sprints toward the entrance to the museum. The officer continues down the street, bypassing the leap over the wrought iron. He might not think he can make the jump after running for so long already.

Vladimir
finds the front door open. He passes through, turns and locks the bolt. He turns, noticing there are no patrons, no workers. The building appears to have been abandoned in the rush to get out of Kensington.

The policeman round
s the fence, sprinting for dear life up the sidewalk with a horde of the infected on his heels. He hits the glass door, pulls on it, then in terror pulls on it again. The infected leap at him. The officer’s body hits the glass, his face presses against the clear pane. He screams. The doors shatter as zombies plow into one another, trying to get to their prey. Vladimir holds tight to his MP5K, receding into the shadows of the dimly lit Great Hall of the Natural History Museum, as the infected tear the man apart.

He turn
s and runs. It isn’t cowardice though. Vladimir has a plan, and this is a perfect environment. He has to eliminate the infected people who are now coming into the building. It is time for the assassin to put his skills to work once again.

An Inconvenient Truth

I was never afraid of viral pandemics until it became too late to do anything about it—Jonathan Parks

14 Days Earlier

My journey through London takes place inside a black car—a car that is luxury and stealth and a degree of mystery with its darkened windows that afford me a dim view of the world while shutting the world out. Agent Devine sits beside me in the back of the Mercedes-Benz. I am not put into handcuffs when they lead me from the med surg floor at St. Mary’s Hospital, but I am bound nonetheless. The lack of a real family, my young age, and my status as belonging to the state are tight strictures, sure enough I know fighting this action will be pointless.

So, I s
it there on comfortable leather, watching a light rain pelt the windshield. Pedestrians go about their business on slightly crowded sidewalks, a field of colors in their mingled umbrellas, passing one another like blood cells through a capillary. The wet world beyond this heavy window tint conveys my melancholy perfectly.

I ha
ve no idea what is about to happen to me. Becoming a part of some clandestine program under duress does not bode well. I thought I would simply graduate from my high school and then go on to attend college—plan a career in medicine, perhaps, and eventually have a family. Now, my future has become as mysterious as the events surrounding my birth. And I have no one to turn to for answers or assistance. I am a leaf in the wind, completely out of my own control.

The car tool
s along at a leisurely pace, the suited driver unperturbed by the crawling pace of traffic and the inclement weather. Darkness is already on its way. I wrongly assumed we would dash along in a blacked out van, dodging through cars, narrowly missing pedestrians on our way toward MI6 headquarters. Isn’t that what you do when you kidnap somebody? If this isn’t an abduction, then what is it?

Hyde Park
passes on the right as we come on toward Piccadilly. Traffic slows to a snail’s pace here. I wonder if I can pop the door latch and hurl myself into the road. What would Agent Devine and his crew do then? Would they chase me down in the rain, a teenager against three full grown, suited individuals who each probably fancies himself the equivalent of a James Bond?

My gaze f
alls from the window and Buckingham Palace on our left to the door. I can see it’s definitely locked. There is no control to unlock it, either.

The Mercedes sp
eeds up now, cruising onto a less busy Vauxhall Bridge Road. The Thames lies beneath us, a gray winding snake through London and beyond. The green and gray ziggurat towers on the south bank. The SIS Building. The home of MI6, Britain’s intelligence agency, and the equivalent of America’s CIA.

How in the world ha
ve I gotten into such a mess? All this over a broken arm? At that moment, I want nothing more than to punch Tom Kennedy for getting me into this. Unfortunately for him, my feelings about him are the least of his worries. He must still explain to the police why he attacked me with a cricket bat.

We cross the
Vauxhall Bridge and the Thames. It seems my former life is left on one side of the river, while the future awaits me. I can’t take my eyes off of the SIS Building. It has the appearance of a modern castle. There is nothing else like it in London.

Too quickly
, we are pulling into the lot with the ziggurat towering over us. My breath catches in my chest. I suddenly feel claustrophobic in the car.

“I
think I need some air,” I say.

Agent Devine glance
s at me. “You’ll be fine.”

I consider telling him otherwise. A few choice words c
ome to mind, but I hold my tongue. My grandfather would be disappointed in me. Still, he would also be disappointed to find me in this predicament.

I think he would worr
y I was left alone like this. Yet, no man can control when he will die, only where he will go when he dies. My grandfather said this to me more than once. Again, I find myself missing him.

The driver cruise
s around the building, turning down beneath the ziggurat. Parking facilities spread out in the cave-like environment. We drive down several levels before stopping in a space with a concrete wall before us. There are no other cars this far down.

Instead of shutting down the engine, the driver tap
s a sequence on a mounted tablet computer. I can not make out the code. A space in the wall opens before the car. When we’re clear, the driver takes us through. To my surprise, another parking facility lies on the other side. I can see only one level here. It is larger and more spread out. Several dozen vehicles are parked already in its available spaces.

The driver f
inds one empty and then parks. The engine shuts down, and Agent Devine indicates I should exit the car on my side. The door is unlocked now. Standing next to the Mercedes, I notice the door in the concrete wall closing again. I cannot discern where exactly it was.

“This way, Jonathan,” Agent Devine sa
ys.

The driver remain
s with the car. Another agent, who remained nameless sitting in the front passenger seat, walks with us to an elevator. A camera mount watches as we approach.

Agent Devine scan
s his right hand over a plate embedded in the wall. The elevator opens. We three step inside. The walls of the elevator are mirrored on all sides including the door when it closes.

There
are no function keys inside I can see. Nevertheless, the elevator begins its descent without any command on our part. There is no level indicator to tell me how many floor levels we descend, but it seems to go quickly for about ten seconds.

“How did you do that?” I ask Agent Devine.

“What’s that, Jonathan?”

“Make the elevator open by waving your hand over that metal plate,” I said.

He grins at me. “Do you know anything about Biochip technology?”

“Not really,” I
reply. “Can you explain it to me?”

His grin straighten
s. “Not really.”

When the doors open, we
walk into a vestibule with gray concrete walls and a Plexiglas window, opposite the elevator. It’s probably bullet proof. This reminds me of a bank window, since a woman is sitting behind it smiling as we approach. Two plain metal doors flank the window to either side on the right and left hand walls.

The woman
is middle-aged with dark hair and glasses. She does not appear to be wearing any makeup.

“Yes?” she ask
s Agent Devine.

“A new
recruit
for Dr. Albert’s program,” Agent Devine answers.

She g
ives me a cursory look. I’m wearing blue jeans and a sweat shirt along with a dark blue jacket I wore to school yesterday. My book bag was put into the trunk of the black Mercedes and not given back to me. It only has books and assignments in it anyway. I don’t expect to need any of those things now.

It suddenly occur
s to me I might be missed at school. Someone will surely notify the school about the fight, maybe even Agent Devine here. They can excuse me that way for about six weeks for a broken arm, although that might be stretching it. I’ve seen plenty of kids with casts on their arms and legs attend school.

What
will happen after, when there is no excuse for my absence? Will the authorities make inquiries? I glance at Agent Devine, remembering whom I’m dealing with here. The Secret Intelligence Service.

They c
an say anything they want about my sudden disappearance. I’ve gone abroad to live with family in America, or I’ve simply run away. A depressed teen, bullied at school and rebellious because of my life in the foster system. Anything at all.

People w
ill give up worrying about me quickly. After all, there is no one who really cares. Maybe, Harold and Jeanette care enough to push the issue—maybe—but they can be silenced pretty easily, if need be. They might even believe the runaway story, and the government will be terribly forthcoming with an investigation that will ultimately lead nowhere.

My attention
is drawn back to the woman as she speaks again. “Possibility of contagion?” she asks.

Agent Devine snort
s a short laugh. “Minimal.”

“To the left, gentlemen,” she sa
ys. “We’ll still do a full screen and panel on him. No one comes into the facility without a screening.”

Agent Devine nod
s. “We’re just dropping him off with you,” he says. “I forwarded the hospital records to Dr. Albert already.”

The woman smile
s. “Jonathan Parks? We have them.”

The metal door to our left opens. There is no one on the other side I can see. I start toward the door then pause
, when Agent Devine doesn’t move. He and the other agent remain with their hands clasped in front of them.

He gives me a
little nod. “It was good to meet you, Jonathan. Dr. Albert will take good care of you while you’re here.”

I wonder how long that will be. Indefinitely, perhaps? They won’t tell me, even if I ask. I don’t nod. I don’t say goodbye. I just walk through the door, and it closes behind me.

Inside the square room beyond the door, a small wooden bench is bolted to the floor in front of three stubby lockers. Several bright orange jumpsuits hang on plastic hangers on a rack next to a shower stall. A man’s voice comes over an intercom speaker in the ceiling.

“Jonathan, please place your belong
ings into one of the lockers. You’ll have to shower in the stall with the soap provided. We have to make sure you’re free of contaminants before you come through into the facility.”

My eyes search the room for the camera I’m sure is watching my every move. I can’t see it, but that means nothing. Of course
, they’re watching.

“You’ll find a towel on the bar in the shower stall,” the voice says. “Dress in one of the jumpsuits when you’re done and we’ll have you come through the other door.”

There is one other door on the opposite side of the room. There are no door handles. I’m under their control. From now on, my life will be dictated to me. I can’t even begin to think of escaping.

Resigned to my fate, I disrobe and place my clothes in the locker. I’m growing angrier by the minute. This can’t be happening to me. I toss my underwear into the locker after my jeans and shirt and shoes. If these perverts want a show, then so be it. I refuse to be humiliated or intimidated.

I walk across the cold tiled floor and throw the shower control all the way on. The water takes a moment before growing hot. I reach around the stream of water and lower the temperature just a bit. When I stand under the hot water, I do my best to let my troubles wash away.

There is a bar of soap on the shelf. I lather up with it and use the scrubby provided. I’m assuming it’s new since the tag is still on it. My skin tingles once the soap is on. I wonder what kind of chemical this stuff is made from. Something antibacterial I guess.

I wash the soap off and then stand under the running water. I’m in no hurry now. In fact, I stand there rinsing off until the water finally begins to grow cold. Forcing them to wait is my insignificant way of letting them know I’m not broken. A foolish gesture, but it’s all I’ve got at this point.

Turning the shower off, I dry with the towel and then find a jumpsuit on the rack. A plastic package hanging with each jumpsuit contains a pair of Hanes underwear, a white undershirt
, and a pair of elastic slippers with a thin sole. I toss the towel in the empty hamper and then put on the clothing.

When I finish dressing, I realize I look like a prison inmate. There’s no number stenciled on my uniform, but the difference is negligible. I’m a prisoner just the same.

The door opens on the other side of the room—my cue to proceed. I leave the locker room behind, walking into the next chamber. This room appears to be some sort of doctor’s office. It has that look—a blood pressure cuff and other basic stuff on a counter with a little desk.

A boxy examination table with a thick vinyl pad dominates the right side of the room. I ignore it and take up station on the squat rolling stool sitting under the desktop. Scanning the counter, I find nothing of consequence, nothing that could be used as a weapon. The only thing missing from this dull room is a stack of ten year old magazines.

I sit on the stool, wheeling back and forth aimlessly, waiting for someone to come in. More than once, I address the faceless voice but receive no reply. It occurs to me my attempt at stalling in the shower is now coming back to bite me. I imagine them sitting in their control room, watching me here bored out of my mind, making sure I understand who calls the shots.

At long last, the opposite door opens and a man enters. He is wearing a mask, but I can tell he
has a graying beard. He also wears wire rimmed glasses. His hair is gray, but completely bald on top. The fluorescent lighting shines off of his polished scalp.

“Hello, Jonathan,” the mans says. “My name is Dr. Albert. I believe Agent Devine may have mentioned to you I’m the one leading this program?”