The Virus (35 page)

Chapter 32

SUCCESS OF THE CENTURY!
CURE FOR VIRUS FOUND FROM CHILD WORLD NEVER KNEW
EXISTED!

This was the headline of
just one major newspaper as news swept the globe like a tidal wave
that a viable cure had been synthesized. The Virus had at last met
its match. Clinics and hospitals, two of the only institutions or
buildings that had not been burned to ruin or leveled completely,
were packed. In some places, lines stretched for miles, with people
crowding in makeshifts tents to get a dose of the cure. Besides the
few lucky women who were yet pregnant but not so far advanced that
they would succumb before the cure could be administered, nearly
every other woman able to bear seed wanted to be pregnant now. Over
half the population of the planet had been wiped clean from
existence, many by The Virus itself, but many more by the ensuing
chaos. Now, with a cure present, and in the wake of all this, the
women of the world wanted to repopulate the planet with a
vengeance. A global feeling of rebellion against the faceless alien
intelligence that would dare perpetrate such a heinous destruction
upon the planet, our planet, had materialized and crystallized and
would not be denied. The loved ones that had been lost could never
be replaced, true, but new loved ones could certainly be produced,
and if the strong, healthy women left in the world had anything to
do with it, they damn sure would be.

Without doubt, the
devastation and loss would not be undone quickly or forgotten, but
even the longest road to recovery begins with a single step, and
the first of the those single steps, which is also the most
important of the steps, had been granted by ‘a child no one knew
existed’. As per Dr. Crangler’s—now an overnight global celebrity
of the highest order—advice, the entire military complex was
converted to a facility by which to stockpile the cure in massive
quantities. The base’s huge number of military vehicles, planes,
and helicopters were used to distribute those massive stores to the
world’s clinics and hospitals. Where there were people who could
not get to the cure, hospitals and clinics were set up in what was
left of their villages and cities so that that would not stop them
from receiving the cure as well. The worst was finally over and the
world, though still broken and reeling, was anxious to
rebuild.

Lieutenant Dan recovered
with no permanent damage, and his brief moment of insanity was
never rehashed again. Geoffrey, on the other hand, didn’t fare as
well. The lieutenant general’s thrashing had left him in a coma
from which no one knew if he would ever recover, but fortunately
(or unfortunately, depending on the things that were to happen
next) that was not the end of his story. A strange incident took
place with the doctor while he was supervising one of the larger
remaining hospitals in what was left of one of the U.S.’s major
cities. As was normal since word of the cure had reached the world,
the doctor was working around the clock. He was sitting in a
special, protected room that had been set up as his personal
quarters and had been helping with the overwhelming workload for
the last sixteen straight hours, when something like radio static
began to fill his head.

He looked around this way
and that, and, discovering no possible source of the static,
listened more carefully, as an evil foreboding began to settle upon
him even before he realized what was going on. As he listened
intently, he began to fancy that the static was not static at all,
but a meshing of voices…mental voices. “Oh, God!” he shouted,
bolting to his feet, but resisting the powerful urge to box his
ears because he knew that that would do no good against
these
sounds. “Please,
God, no!” Now Dr. Crangler was a professional, a medical
professional. He had always prided himself on not believing in
fairy tales, even ones as elaborate as ‘God’, but all that had
begun to change the moment he first laid eyes on the child back at
the once-secret facility that had helped to usher in this whole
global revival. Though he still didn’t fancy himself a religious
man even now, he could think of no one higher, no one with more
authority to call upon to stop what he was sure was happening.
“Please, God!” he shouted again, genuinely terrified to the very
marrow of his bones. “Don’t let us defeat the alien intelligence,
only to
become
them!”

Unfortunately for Dr. Ian
Crangler, the famed synthesizer of the cure that would save the
world’s progeny and thus its future, only God Himself knew if that
was a prayer He would choose to answer.