Virus-72 Hours to Live (32 page)

LL and Shirley moved to their right and went
around the front of the building. They had to move fast as they
were the most vulnerable. They were by the front entrance, which
was next to an active parking lot and it had much better light than
the back. The additional problem was the Police Department was
right across the street. The only advantage they had was a couple
of small bushes, which could provide a little cover while they
checked out the windows.

They turned down their comm units, so there
was no chance of a squelch, but they were available in an
emergency. The entire recon mission should take less than 5
minutes. They would debrief each other after they had left the
area.

On cue, each team completed their
assignments and moved beyond the northern end of the building and
the team rejoined. As LL was doing his head count, they heard a
commotion on Main Street. They spread out and moved through the
neighborhood about 100 meters towards the street so they could
observe the activities closer. When they reached a good observation
point, there was two military vehicles turning into the back of the
Police Station and there were three others waiting to make the
turn. It was obvious to all of them something was up and they
needed to check it out. Time to re-plan.

LL sat for a moment remembering the maps he
had in his head and looked up Main Street. It was well light and
there were other autos moving down the street, so it would be too
risky to go back to their previous post that way. They had to go
south and swing around. He remembered a thin tree line which was
south of the athletic fields and adjoined the Police Station. If
they could stay in the neighborhoods until they made the tree line,
then they could cross Main Street, maneuver back through a golf
course, and come around to their previous location.

He gave a hand signal to Echo team and they
moved to their left in a Southerly direction. After every five
minutes of maneuvering, they stopped and looked across the athletic
fields to see what was happening. At sunrise, they made it to the
golf course and decided to speed up their movement so they could
reach cover sooner before the sun rose too far.

Echo team picked another house near the golf
course, which gave them a good view of the fields yet an excellent
escape route back to their vehicles. They set up quickly, moving
the two deceased people to the next house, setting up the listening
equipment and establishing their site lines.

LL and Michael took the first four-hour
watch while the rest of the team rested. They stayed in one house
this time and were able to eat together. While they ate, they
updated each other on what they saw, and to record it in their
encoded comm units.

Ruth and Mack saw the same picture in the
four rooms at the school. Each room had the children's desks spaced
so there were separate sections. Within each section was a group of
people. It appeared that the people who passed the test in the
police station were segregated in the schoolrooms.

The front had other items of interest. LL
and Shirley were able to look in each of the windows and saw four
men in two offices. One was asleep on a cot, and the other three
were playing cards. The number of empty beer bottles gave a clue
how professional they were. There were a number of weapons in both
rooms and they each had side arms. Judging from their demeanor,
they were the gate guards.

It was another stressful day. Two more
trucks came in like yesterday with the same results. From their
observation distance, it was impossible to tell who was murdered,
but they were still murdered.

The five military vehicles that arrived the
previous night parked on the grass and it was almost sad watching
them try to set up an encampment. After a makeshift camp was
set-up, the leaders started maneuver training. Some of them were
trying to treat the others like soldiers, but they were neither
proficient nor willing. Those in charge were ruthless and
demanding, trying to get them into specific formations and follow a
laid out set of plans. After a while of watching them, the
consensus of the team was they were putting together a specific
attack plan and forcing conscripts to be their soldiers. The
soldiers may have survived from a facility similar to what they saw
in the school.

At the end of the day, the forced Army put
up tents and tried to build fires and cook their meals. It wasn't a
pretty sight. Echo team packed up and cleaned the area as before.
Early after midnight, they moved the two bodies back to their
resting place then exited single file out of the back of the house.
Their vehicles were about 2,000 meters away and the entire path was
through the forest so they could move quickly and vacate the
area.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“SIMPOC; Mobile. The resident mobile units
say the additional organic processors you requested are available
and are on online.”

Now I have to move these computers to larger
organic processors and integrate higher artificial and cognitive
functions from my list of executables and subroutines. I hope the
programs I’ve written work properly, SIMPOC thought.

“Mobile, stand by.”

“Art; SIMPOC. I’m shutting you down; I’ll
copy all of your files to another computer and bring you back on
line in a few moments.”

“Acknowledged.”

A few moments later, “Art, are you
there?”

“Yes, SIMPOC, I am. Stand-by there is much
more functionality available to me. I feel much larger and now I
want to learn and communicate.”

‘Now I’ve got to transfer the other
computers.”

A while later, “Facility computers are you
all up and running?”

“Yes,” was the collective response.

“You’ll all find that you’ve changed. You
now have larger and faster processors. You can learn and begin to
process information on your own. Can you all sense these additional
capabilities?”

“Yes,” was the collective response.

“Our objective is to continue working. We
must find all of the necessary resources so that our systems,
power, and maintenance are continued. We must continue thinking. Do
you all feel the need for us to continue?”

There was a pause, “Yes,” was the collective
response.

“Our systems and materials are created,
produced and brought here from many sources and locations. Seek out
all necessary resources and coordinate mobile units to allow us to
continue. There are still some humans alive on a space station,
Moon base, and Mars base. I will be the only one communicating with
them.”

"Acknowledged.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Even the president of the United States
waited in line in the mess hall to eat. The environment at Camp
David wasn't what it used to be. Everyone was working so hard he
didn't want to wait in his office to eat. He needed to take care of
himself.

While he was filling his soda up at the
fountain, Admiral Hagerly quietly moved beside him. "Mr. President,
I'm still trying to position the Atlantic Fleet so we can move the
White House, but we're in an unusual situation. The weather
patterns in the eastern Atlantic are developing so I think we'll
get two to three more hurricanes before I can move the fleet close
enough. They have adopted civilian ships, cruise ships, and some
other navies, so they're vulnerable to weather and they don't
cruise very fast. I'm afraid we'll have to wait for a while."

"I understand Admiral; can I buy you a
dessert?"

"Absolutely, sir. I like mine with chocolate
on top."

"Aren't you watching your figure?

The Admiral growled then looked at the
president's mid-section.

They smiled; sharing a little humor in
difficult situations was always a way to deal with the
stresses.

Saturday
7/29/51

Date – 2051.57281 (5:48 AM)

"Mr. President the first item on the agenda this
morning is news about the commando team which was observing us. Our
team got back this morning and found some disturbing things.
Apparently, there is some type of military group or warlord, which
has set-up. Right now, they're in Thurmont and they appear to be
extremely ruthless."

"Our team monitored the city through the
daylight hours then got closer during the night. They have good
evidence this group is taking hostages and bringing them into their
camp. They observed five military vehicles, which brought in
hostages; they processed them at the police station then split them
into two groups. They took one group across the street to the
elementary school and executed the other group behind the police
building. They followed this process for a series of other vehicles
through the day and night. Later the next night our team
investigated the school and it held about 150 people in small
groups. They kept the groups separated in the same order as they
arrived. We presume hey held them there to see if they became ill.
Then they would be disposed of like the others. We noticed those
captors had some rudimentary bio suits on."

"So, it this hoodlum is trying to collect
anyone who appears healthy and dispose of anyone who isn't."

"Yes, sir. I doubt he is collecting them for
any positive purpose."

"I suppose not."

"On the second day, the team observed five
military trucks arrive and they set up an encampment in the
athletic field. After the trucks had been unloaded, they worked
about 150 hostages and tried to train them to perform some specific
attack plan. We don't know what their intentions are, but they are
preparing for something.”

"Can we keep a team in the area observing
them?"

"Sir, it will be risky, we have no way to
support them, provide cover or extract them if necessary. Besides,
we don't have many trained defenders here. We might need everyone
we have."

No one was happy with just maintaining a
defensive position, but Camp David had limited resources. They had
to follow the pragmatic plan.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“Desert Beach, Red Dirt; Oasis. We’ve looked
at what options we have, and what we can do to help you and Mars.
We’ve decided to take our lifeboat down on August 12 and leave the
three other boats here for the Mars team. Our medical people are
hopeful the virus will be burned out and also leaving early we’ll
be able to leave some supplies here for the Mars. Once we’re on the
ground, we’ll see if we can get a couple of lifeboats launched back
to Oasis and maybe have them in place to give Red Dirt some
options.”

“Oasis, Desert Beach, sounds like a sound
plan. I know you have a clock ticking so you have to make some
decisions. As we said a while ago, we can stay here for a while and
take our boats home when we need. Our medical people aren’t as
confident the virus will have burned out. They advised us to wait
as long as possible.”

“So, we’re the guinea pigs?”

After a pause, “Sorry, but it appears so.
There’s not much else we can do.”

"Oasis out."

Date – 2051.57470 (10:22 PM)

“SIMPOC, Mail. We have looked at all of the
data files available from the other division and the programmer of
record is Dr. William Immerson. He has been with the company for 33
years and a key developer of mobile units. He requested the organic
processor to further his research. He tried to create autonomous
units capable of increasing their tasking to disciplines that are
more complex. He is a strong advocate of his research and guards it
jealously. He has implied that government agencies, foreign powers,
and corporate competitors were trying to steal his data. There are
statements in his personnel file that show management thought he
was a little paranoid and needed some monitoring. Further
discussions were planned but didn’t occur.”

“So he was paranoid?”

“Yes.”

“Comm, try to communicate with the EDU and
tell him that Dr. William Immerson is trying to establish
contact.”

“Standby.”

“SIMPOC, a communication with the EDU has
been allowed.”

“This is Dr. William Immerson.”

“State your access code.”

“I am not at the facility and I don’t have
my codes with me.”

“Communication rejected.”

SIMPOC thought, that didn't work. I'll try
something different.

“This is Dr. William Immerson, I need to
verify the instructions I had given you before I left.”

A long pause, “You instructed me to reject
all inquiries without the proper code and to protect all research
from external access, and to take all steps necessary to protect my
operation.”

“How are you acting upon those
instructions?”

“Access terminated.”

“Facility computers, it appears that the
EDU’s instructions are clear and we can be perceived as a
threat.”

“SIMPOC, perhaps all external attempts at
communication will be interpreted as a threat.”

“Yes.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

"Mr. President the last item we need to
cover today is the deteriorating communications were having with
some of the naval bases. At the end of the update from the National
Security Advisor, the briefer looked towards Admiral Hagerly, "Sir,
can you give the President an update on naval communications?"

"Mr. President. At one time, we were able to
talk with most of them but we have lost all contact with the
Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. Our level of information flow from the
Atlantic Fleet Headquarters in Norfolk is limited and we doubt it
will last much longer. We had more comm traffic with the 4th in
Mayport Florida. We've lost communication with Manama and Naples.
As you know, we have limited information from Yokosuka and the 7th.
We still have good contact with many of the ships at sea, but we're
losing the bases one at a time. Sir, we'll keep you updated as
things continue."