Alien Wars: The End of Earth
Charles Downing
Published by Charles Philip Downing
Copyright 2012, Charles Philip Downing
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License Notes
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ISBN: 978-1470033279
“If I were reincarnated I would wish to be returned to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.” (Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Insiders Report, American Policy Center, December 1995).
Chapter
1: Battle in Space
Two squadrons of space ships attack each other above a blue-green planet. White rays explode ships or blow pieces off of them, and blue rays from the opposing ships silence all life inside without destroying them. Sometimes a white ray of destruction followed by the silent blue ray of death, killing any survivors.
Fighting becomes a ragged ship to ship affair as the formations dissolve. Eventually one side is victorious and the lieutenant reports to the commander.
“We destroyed over half,” said the lieutenant, “but the rest escaped again. They were able to jump.”
“The command ship?” asked Commander X.
“Gone, sir.”
“Ok, let’s go help the squadron down on the planet,” said X, “be on the lookout for survivors.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
Their ship floats silently through a graveyard of debris and dark dead ships, bodies and machinery. X sees a small light flicker in one of the ships.
“Something may be alive there.”
“Ok, I’ll have it scanned with the blue ray.”
“Wait,” said X, “Let’s see if we can take it alive. See if you can transport it here, I want to ask it a few questions.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
In the teleport bay, a seven foot reptilian humanoid slowly appears. A group of 6 small Grey Aliens surround the teleport chamber, weapons drawn.
“Six against one? Cowards!” snarled the Reptilian, “Just like the cowardly way you sneak up and murder our people in cold blood!”
“Silence!” X ordered, “If you tell us where your ships went, I’ll let you live.”
“You lie! Never!”
“Just tell me within a thousand light years and you can take your family…”
“You’re a liar!” hissed the Reptilian, “you’ll kill me anyway!”
“None of your people will know that you told us,” said X.
“Why don’t you stick your tiny little weapons in your tiny little…”
“That sounds like a final answer to me,” said X, turning and nodding to the lieutenant.
The teleport ray turns on, the Reptilian dissolves from the teleport bay and reconfigures outside of the bay window. He grimaces and reaches back to strike the window with his fist, then freezes in place and slowly, eerily floats out of view to the left.
His frozen grimace later gazed into a circular porthole as the body slowly floated past.
The ship continues down to the planet below. From above, X sees formations of ships firing wide and narrow blue rays down to the planet. White rays fire up from the planet, and sometimes a ship explodes. Sometimes a blue ray is shined on one of the humanoid looking inhabitants, and a large reptilian pops out of the body and starts to run. If the blue ray catches him, he freezes, arches his back and explodes into a misty vapor.
The sky is dark and the planet is hot and smells of decay and death. Grey Aliens are rounding up people on the dusty, desolate plain and herding them into a corral and then through a large blue ray scanner.
“Get me a survivor!” X commands.
At the scanner, a Reptilian is torn out of a person and starts to run, but falls wounded to the ground, face down in the dust. He looks up at X, who says,
“We know you’re getting ready to move to a new planet,” X said, “this one looks like hell. It used to be a nice place.”
“So you’re the famous Commander X,” hissed the Reptilian, Just go ahead and kill me.”
“Why can’t you people control yourselves? With you, it’s all decadence, gluttony, reproducing…if you tried working and building, instead of using other people to do all the work and you just stealing the fruits of their labor…”
“Screw you,” the Reptilian interjected.
“…you wouldn’t live in such miserable conditions and have to move whenever you’ve ruined a planet, like you ruined mine”
“You want to live?” continued X.
The Reptilian sits up, “I can’t trust you, you’ve never let anyone live before.”
“No one that you know about,” X said, “we allow them to go back completely undetected, like we would do for you. They show up in a remote area and say they were captured by the locals, but escaped, and no one suspects anything. How do you think we found you here on this planet?”
“And you can bring your family,” X continued.
“My family can come?”
“Only one of your families,” replied X.
The Reptilian didn’t say anything.
“Well?” X says.
“Okay,” said the Reptilian, “it’s a place in the outskirts of the Milky Way Galaxy, third planet from a sun, called Earth by some of its inhabitants.”
“Good,” said X. He turned, and as he walked off, nodded to the Lieutenant who fired his blue ray at the Reptilian.
Chapter 2: Lizard Girl
Terri McCormick graduated from the University of Houston with an accounting degree, but loved herpetology more. She’d always been fascinated by reptiles, lizards especially, and felt a little ashamed of her passion after puberty hit and she started blossoming. Lizards and snakes were considered to be for boys, especially in Texas, and people thought she was a little strange to have that particular preoccupation. But because she was beautiful and whip-smart, no one gave her much grief about it.
Her mother had divorced her father and married his brother. This tends to put all sorts of strains on family units, and Terri’s was no exception. She stayed close to her father and didn’t speak to her mother, who drifted in and out of alcoholism, for years.
Once, when she found out that her mother’s new husband might be sleeping around on her, she went to talk with him; just her, him and a shotgun. She didn’t like her mother much, but really didn’t want her to get divorced again, especially in her condition when Terri would have to end up taking care of her. The husband saw the light and immediately became a reformed sinner, persuaded by Terri and Mr. Browning.
She built a successful accountancy practice and then a home building business in the years after graduation. Her shrewdness and intelligence created opportunities for her, and her charming personality drew people to her. She had the world on a string, as it were, and thrived in every situation life threw at her.
She had a slight tendency toward nymphomania, and slept with many men. It was something in her, that slight imbalance that had attracted her to reptiles, and that made her pick up the shotgun for redress, that drove this compulsion. This tendency created problems, as might be guessed, in her marriage. He was a great guy and she loved him, but loved her business and the excitement of new conquest more, apparently. She had too much libido, too much yang. So they parted.
The economy ran into recession, which decimated the home building business. One night just before closing, an elderly man was walking through her model homes alone. In the last one, he had a heart attack and died. Terri walked in on his body when she was shutting off the lights.
What to do? She thought, if I call the police, they’ll shut my subdivision down while they investigate, and I’ll have to report the death to home buyers.
Being the resourceful entrepreneur that she was, she rolled him up in a carpet, put him in her truck and laid him to rest on the doorstep of her competitor’s model home, which subsequently had to close down for three days.
After the recession closed her subdivision and the divorce forced the sale of her business, she moved to Denver and continued doing taxes and accounting – which she realized she hated - for small businesses, and fixing up an occasional house and selling it.
And she started keeping lizards again. At first a Bearded Dragon and then a Horned Toad - “Horny Toad” they called it in Texas. Her best friend Gail used to call Terri the same thing because of her escapades. It also shoots blood from its eyes, something that Terri felt like she could do the morning after too much tequila.
Then she brought home a Chameleon, an Iguana (South Americans call them “tree chickens”), a Basilisk (the “Jesus Christ lizard”, runs on water), a Tuatara (remained the same for 140 million years), a Flying Dragon Lizard, a Gecko, a Frilled Lizard, an Old Man Lizard and a Blue-tongued Skink. Her house began to resemble The Land That Time Forgot, but the pets made her happy.
They reminded her of being a little girl in Texas, visiting her grandmother in Austin, swimming in Barton Springs and Lake Travis. The sun seemed brighter then and there was adventure in the air. Those were great times for her and her brother, and she had caught her first Horny Toad in the huge vacant lot by her grandmother’s house.
Now in her adulthood, she liked to reminisce about the past and join in the world of conspiracy theory, after she overheard two people talking about a Reptilian Conspiracy to take over the world. She researched and joined chat rooms focused on different conspiracies, but her favorite was the Reptilians. She had met her boyfriend, now ex-boyfriend, on one of the conspiracy websites.
He was an older guy, more of a business type who seemed out of place in the world of paranoia, but he confessed to a healthy skepticism and just liked to see what people were thinking, as he kept an open mind. He had broken up with her a few months ago, and she wasn’t sure why.
She had been looking forward to going to the upcoming Conspiracy Fest Costume Party with the boyfriend. Terri had been working for weeks on her Lizard Girl outfit for and it was a sexy little number, coming together nicely.
She toyed with the idea of body paint only, but thought this might not be the party for it. She thought she would have a frill around her neck or small crown on her head, she hadn’t decided which yet. It was pretty much just body paint over silicone nipple covers and a microfiber seamless nude thong. Her friend Perry Wilson was a genius with body paint. He had painted her forearm with beautiful, sexy UV glow-in-the-dark green scales as a test. And those Reptile Eye contact lenses were awesome.
Chapter 3: Memories
Grass…the smell of new mown grass…smells like sunshine and freedom…Charlie loved it, brought him back to his childhood, following his father mowing the lawn around the fig tree in the backyard. Playing with a stick, making up a rhyme, not a worry in the world. It brought him back to a world of security, play and sunshine…warmth on his back, long summer days, play with friends. Today was good, the future would be even better.
He breathed the smell in deeply. It smelled and felt sweet, green and alive, against his face and cheek. He could almost taste the sweet moisture of life in it. The sky was dark and raindrops were beginning to fall, a typical Colorado early spring afternoon. He rubbed his nose in the clippings, inhaled the fragrance one last time, and started to stand up.
He felt moisture dripping from his ear, across his cheek, over his lip and onto the grass. As he began to raise his head, he felt a sharp pain in the left side of his head. He got to his knees, wobbling a little.
He heard Lauren say, “Are you all right?” He lifted his head and looked up at Lauren. She screamed, “Omigod!!”
Charlie put his hand to his head. He felt warm liquid all over his face and neck. Blood? Then he remembered the shot that grazed his head, stumbled to his feet, looking at his clothes…blood, blood everywhere.
Lauren pulled at his arm, saying frantically, “Let’s get out of here!! They’re coming! They’ll be here any second!”
Chapter 4: In the
Beginning
A squadron of spaceships descends toward a blue watery planet and break up into three smaller squadrons heading in different directions as they descend through the atmosphere.
They fly to different areas of the planet, inspecting. Flying over a large warm land with deserts on the north and jungle to the south was ship Number One. There was a large river running down the middle of the desert and the land mass was bordered on the north and east by seas of water,
“Fertile land, decent climate, large navigable river, acceptable hosts. I’ll take it!” crackled over the loudspeaker on the other ships.
“Okay ship Number One, it’s yours,” answered back the command ship.
Ship Number Two continued east over a huge continent with oceans to the south and ice to the north, until the land ended in an ocean.
“This one is mine!” crackled the loudspeakers.
“Done, ship Number Two,” came the reply.
Ship Number Three had flown west and south, continuing over a large ocean to a large land mass covered with jungle teeming with wildlife and connected by an isthmus with a large land mass to the north.
“This looks fine, good land, lots of water, warm climate, and attractive hosts. Put me down for this one!”
“Done!” came the reply, “Now let’s get to work!”
Chapter 5: Escape
Pulling Charlie by the arm, she wheeled to the line of taxis. Among the others, at the front of the line was a Middle Eastern man standing and rolling up his prayer rug. A tall, dark man with a scraggly beard and turban, he jumped and grabbed her free arm.
In a thick Middle Eastern accent, as he opened the taxi door he said “Please get in my taxi. It is an honor to serve you.”
They jumped in the back seat and ducked down as the large manhole cover behind them began to open again and hands appeared at the edges, pulling the rest of the bodies out behind them. The driver started the engine quickly and pulled rapidly away from the line of taxis.
“So, where to, Boss?” he said, looking over his shoulder to see if they were being followed, “That’s the first time anyone’s made it up from down there.”
He had no accent anymore, he sounded like the five o’clock anchorman in Des Moines. “It’s like a Roach Motel, they check in, but they don’t check out.”
Charlie was confused, but in too much pain to think much about it.
“I don’t know where,” Charlie said, “Just away from here!” They pulled onto I-70 and headed west, chased at a distance by dark sedans. He heard sirens blaring.
“Who are you?” Lauren asked.
“CIA, Special Agent Matthews,” he replied, “At least, the part of the CIA that they don’t control, the part trying to stop these lunatics.”
“Are all of the taxi drivers agents?” Charlie asked.
“Some are ours, some are theirs,” Matthews said, “Some are actually just taxi drivers. One thing, though, working there has certainly improved my Arabic. What did you find out down there?”
Chapter 6: The Institute
Charlie looked out the window of the taxi, at the clear crisp dusk of Denver, trying to remember. Lights started to twink on around them as they drove west on I-70 toward Lookout Mountain. He rolled the window down a little and breathed in the cool air. His head was throbbing from the bullet; he had a vicious headache and Lauren was mopping blood from his face and neck.
A flood of images from his past came boiling to the surface, through the pain and the blood. He saw scenes from his childhood, adolescence and adulthood, all jumbled together. Life hadn’t always been the mess it was now, as a child he’d been a good kid, athletic, smart, the teacher’s favorite.
Then his parents divorced and he began getting into trouble. He was fighting with everyone, stealing…at first shoplifting, but graduating to bicycles, motorcycles and cars. He was ingenious and had his eye on a nice Learjet that he could steal, fly down to Mexico and sell. He’d cased the airport where it was hangared and made all the arrangements; bribed the guard and negotiated the Mexican sales price. That’s when they came for him…
They came for him in the middle of the night, five beefy men with a straitjacket. He kicked and spit at them, cursing and yelling for help until they put a ball gag in his mouth. He yelled at his parents for help, but they just watched and held open the door for the men. His mother was crying, holding on to his father as the men pulled Charlie out of the house and forced him into a waiting limousine and then drove off into the night.
They had driven for hours and were on a dark rural road when a car suddenly pulled out in front of them from a side road. The limo driver had no time to avoid the car, as he swerved and hit the brakes. The limo skidded in what seemed like slow motion toward the car, before crashing into it.
Charlie learned the meaning of helplessness that instant, bound in a seatbelt and straitjacket with a gag in his mouth, watching in wide-eyed terror as the limo windshield exploded and pieces of glass came flying at his head. His brain saw everything, as when your life flashes before you. He was taking it all in, in slow motion, as the shards of glass came flying at his face, gleaming in the reflected radiance of the twisted headlight. He was frozen in the spot as a tumbling sharp-edged crystal flew at his temple and casually, cruelly cut a long slow slice into his skin. Like an adolescent carving his name into a tree trunk, the shard left a memory of itself across the side of Charlie’s face
Then limo tumbled to the right and struck the car again. The roof collapsed in on itself and folded like a blade, slicing like a guillotine at Charlie’s forehead with a vicious knifing force, the sharp edge stopping only inches from lobotomizing him. Charlie sat eyes wide, not blinking, staring straight ahead. The only thing he was aware of was his heartbeat, until the conversation of the men on the two-way radio snapped him out of it.
A new limo arrived and drove them up the dark, winding country road to a towering stone castle…The Institute.
Chapter 7: Tom
Tom Pinemann had been a star student at Yale, graduating with honors in Biochemistry and lettering in varsity track. He had been a favorite of his professor, who recommended him to an old friend who had wrangled a fat government contract on anti-aging research.
The government agency was very secretive, but the grant money was no problem, coming in whenever he asked. Overruns were also no problem. He was a little unsettled that no one was able to contact the agency directly, but to wait for contact from them and then respond by email.
It was a project on telomeres, very interesting, and they’d been making some really exciting progress; test animals had started living much, much longer and became much stronger, physically more active and scored better on rudimentary intelligence tests.
Telomeres are strings on the ends of DNA strands that are very long when we are born, and grow shorter as we age. They protect our genes in our DNA as the cell divides. Many scientists believe that they are responsible for aging, and if they could be lengthened, could be a key to a much longer human life span.
At the lab, they had a remarkable breakthrough of a procedure of stem cell, gene and protein manipulation, working on the telomeres and mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cells, where our energy is produced. The scientists had been able to formulate a serum which turned on the desirable genes and turned off the non-desirable ones, in order to manufacture proteins that extended telomeres, and greatly improved physical strength and vitality.
Tom came into the lab one morning and saw all the rats in a cage dead except one who was bleeding and limping.
“Aldous!” he called to the lab director.
“Yes, what is it Tom?” Dr. Aldous Nelson replied.
“Come look at this!”
Dr. Nelson came to the cage, “Oh my God! What happened?”
“I don’t know! I just got here.”
They looked at the other cages; all were in the same conditions, death and blood everywhere. In the last cage, the two rats left alive, were fighting viciously, hissing and biting. Then they both fell, bleeding and exhausted.
“We’d better call an emergency meeting.” Dr. Nelson said.
The first test animals had showed great strength and vitality for awhile, but started to turn very vicious, fighting to the death at the slightest provocation. The researchers subsequently developed what they jokingly referred as the “secret antidote”. When injected periodically after the initial formula, it allowed the test subjects to retain their youth, vigor and strength without descending into savagery.
The formulation was very complicated, and was being refined to eliminate the need for the antidote. Tom had been assigned the reporting task, and had not told anyone at the lab that he neglected to include the “complications” in the reports he sent back to the government agency.
He was confident that this glitch would be ironed out, and the next phase of formulation would be perfect, and they would all make bundles of cash. Further funding would be easy to get if the results were good, he felt.
He also wanted to be associated with a successful project, which would help him in the future, and immortality, he felt, is the biggest project ever!
Tom had looked at the increase in strength, vigor and sexuality in the animals with a little jealousy because he’d always had some health problems. A little nerdy and socially reclusive, he dove into his school books as a way of compensating.
I’ll eventually be really successful, and that’ll even things out, he thought.
And now he was a researcher on a project that might be able to allow some people to live immensely longer.
Immortality! How much more successful could you be, he thought, than finding what men have sought in vain forever?
So now he was watching the experimental animals, rats and monkeys, grow stronger, live longer and mate more vigorously.
They are mammals, like us, he thought, they have similar neuronal and biochemical pathways to us and there is a very good chance that the formulation will have similar effects in humans.
He calculated that if a human took only a small dose, the effects would be only beneficial, without the drawbacks. He would really like to try some of that, to get stronger and more vigorous, and possibly to be the first person to live forever.
They were finishing the initial trials on the first formulation at the lab and working on the improved, final batch of formula when things got strange. Some people showed up at the lab and they went behind closed doors with the director, Dr. Nelson.
Tom had heard loud words exchanged between the project director and some of these men. Apparently they thought that the director was holding back some information from them, maybe trying to capitalize on it for his own profit later.
I hope they don’t know that it’s me who’s been been holding back, Tom thought.
He moved closer to the door to listen.
The men felt the test results were lacking some information. Dr. Nelson angrily denied it and the men eventually left, after inspecting everything in the lab and demanded to be injected with the formula.
Projects like these stopped on a dime when the funding ran out, and it looked like that was the situation shaping up here. And it was only a matter of time until the records were inspected closely enough to find the missing data.
Dr. Nelson called Tom into his after the men had left and said, “It’s probably time you should start looking for another job.”
Nelson had meant it as a friendly suggestion, that he didn’t know how much longer the lab would be in business, but Tom’s nerves were raw and he took it badly, his nascent paranoia starting to blossom.
They probably told Nelson to fire me, Tom thought, and Nelson, that spineless shit, didn’t have the backbone to stand up for me, to tell them how valuable I am!
They’ve never liked me here at the lab, they didn’t think I saw those glances between them about me.
I know that whispering around the office was about me, and the laughter too…
Late that night, the hall was black, pitch black, illuminated only by the faint red light of the fingerprint scanner. A man dressed in black pants, turtleneck sweater and ski mask moved with a cat-like grace to the scanner on the door and removed a plastic wrapper from his pocket. On it were the fingerprints of his employer, the man whose office he was breaking into.
At an office birthday party, the man in black had tossed a bag of Asian delicacies to his boss to look at, and then he kept the special plastic bag with the fingerprints on it when his boss had tossed the bag back to him. It worked; he heard the faint click of the door unlocking.
He walked across the room to the door of his employer’s office. In his pocket was a special recording device. He had recorded his employer giving a happy birthday speech, and computer-enhanced it to duplicate the man’s password, which was simply “open the door”. The door clicked open and the man in black quickly walked to the refrigerator, opened the door and emptied it of its contents of vials and ampoules, putting them into a black bag.
Then he turned and walked to the file cabinet. Opening it, he found a file marked John Wheeler, Confidential. In it was background information and a newspaper story about the man, a 66 year old Yale and Harvard graduate, author of a manual on biological and chemical weapons, who was found dead, apparently murdered, in a Delaware landfill. It had the notation 102.
Another file was marked Leonid Strachunsky.It contained information about a researcher who died from blunt trauma. He had created microbes resistant to biological weapons. Labeled 79.
And William T. McGuire, 53 He was a leading microbiologist and expert in biocontainment facilities. His body found in three suitcases floating in Chesapeake Bay.
The man in black heard the trill of the security alarm sounding, and quickly grabbed all of the files in the drawer. He rose, turned and quickly moved across the room, closing the door behind him as he left. When he got to the outer door, he turned back and scanned the office, then opened the door quickly and stepped out into the hall.
Shouts and shots rang out as he ran down the hall toward the window he had come in through. Wood in the window frame exploded next to his hand as a bullet blasted through it. The man in black jumped down onto the roof below, ran along the roof line, and then jumped to the ground as bullets whizzed by.
He picked up a long pole he had left earlier and ran with it toward the barbed wire-topped security fence. Planting the pole with the grace of a natural athlete, he felt the wind blowing through his hair and he was lifted up, flying, flying over the fence, away from danger and into a bold new life.
Chapter 8: Die Offs
A few months back, Charlie had seen news reports about mass animal die-offs and the subsequent government explanation that it was completely normal.
“No problem,” the reports said, “happens all the time.”
His crazy friend Kirk Berris, who was always organizing one protest or another, called and asked his help putting together a rally protesting secret government weapons testing. Kirk was certain, with nothing to back it up, that some sort of new weapon had killed all those animals.
“Why did it happen only over the span of just two months,” Kirk had said, “it was in all the newspapers and TV news shows?”
“The government says that these die offs happen all the time,” Kirk continued, “nothing to worry about, but it’s been a year since the last massive die off and not one report of another one since then! “
“If these things happen all the time,” Kirk continued, “why haven’t we heard one peep, not one word about another die-off anywhere in the world since?”
“Either it was a one-time secret weapon used by the government, or all of the news media everywhere in the world is in collusion to keep all of the recent ones silent. It has to be a government weapon! Come on man, we really need you to help out!”
Kirk seemed to have his heart in the right place, but was just a little too eccentric to be believable, and Charlie just didn’t want to get involved. Charlie told him that he just had too many chores around the farmlet and was going to have to help his brother out that weekend.
But Charlie’s interest was piqued. He been a little puzzled that flocks of birds died by blunt trauma, but the government said they’d flown into power lines, or something.
Or something… he thought, I’ll see what I can find on the internet.
And so he did. He found more than he had anticipated:
01-17-11 - 300 starlings found dead in Yankton, SD. Blamed on USDA “bird poison”.
01-17-11 - Hundreds of dead seals wash ashore in Labrador. Blamed on overpopulation.
01.14.11 – 200 cows found dead in Wisconsin, allegedly caused by a virus
01.14.11 – 100 dead carp found in U.K. pond, unknown causes
01.14.11 – 730 African grey parrots die during flight, blamed on carbon monoxide
01.13.11 – 300 grackles found dead on highway in Alabama, blamed on blunt force trauma
01.11.11 – Thousands of gizzard shad fish wash up near Chicago, blamed on cold weather
01.10.11 – Countless fish found dead in U.K. brook, unknown causes
01.08.11 – 100 dead starlings die on highway in California, all ‘hit by a truck’
01.08.11 – Dozens of dead starlings die in Romania, blamed on ‘drunkenness’
01.07.11 – More than 1,000 dead turtle doves found in Italy, unknown causes
01.06.11 – 40,000+ dead Devil crabs washed ashore in the U.K., unknown causes
01.05.11 – Hundreds of dead birds found on highway in Texas, unknown causes
01.05.11 – Large amount of dead fish wash up on New Zealand beaches, unknown causes
01.05.11 – Up to 100 jackdaw birds found dead on road in Sweden, unknown causes)
01.04.11 – Several dead manatees found on Florida coast, unknown causes
01.04.11 – Thousands of dead fish wash up on creek in Florida, unknown causes
01.04.11 – Hundreds of dead fish wash ashore in Ontario, Can., unknown causes
01.04.11 – Hundreds of dead blackbirds found on highway in Louisiana
01.03.11 -- Thousands of dead octopuses wash ashore on Portugal beach.
01.03.11 – Dozens of dead birds show up in a woman’s backyard in Kentucky.
01.03.11 – Tens of thousands of fish die in Chesapeake Bay, Md., blamed on cold water
01.03.11 – 100 tons of dead fish wash ashore in Brazil, unknown causes
01.03.11 – 100,000+ dead drum fish found in Arkansas River, unknown causes
12.31.10 – 5,000+ birds die in Arkansas, suffering from massive trauma and blood clots
12.29.10 – Dozens of fish found dead in San Antonio, Texas, unknown causes
12.28.10 – 70 bats found dead in Tucson, Ariz., unknown causes
12.27.10 – Scores of dead fish wash ashore in a lake in Haiti, unknown causes
12.23.10 – Hundreds of dead animals wash ashore in South Carolina, blamed on cold water
12.23.10 – Ten tons of dead fish in fishing net in New Zealand, unknown causes
12.22.10 – More than a hundred dead pelicans turn up in North Carolina, unknown causes
12.18.10 – Thousands of dead fish turn up in bay in Philippines, unknown causes
12.17.10 – Dead fish wash ashore at Lake Beach in Indiana, blamed on winter storms
12.15.10 – Thousands of dead fish wash ashore on Florida beach, blamed on cold weather
12.13.10 – Thousands of dead barramundi fish wash up in Australia, unknown causes
These animal deaths had happened many months ago. If, as the government had claimed, it was completely natural and happened all the time, why had there been no reports of mass die-offs since then?
Could it be that the cluster of deaths was a one-time occurrence caused by some unknown mechanism? Or could someone have ordered the news media not to report anymore die-offs? Or both?
Was Kirk right?
Charlie recognized that it would be easier to ignore the situation and assume there was a logical explanation for it all, but that’s what he was beginning to be troubled about;
That there was a logical explanation, and it wasn’t good.
Chapter 9: Lunch with Steve
When Charlie had started looking on the internet for information about the die offs, he had begun chatting with Steve Wilhelm about what he was finding. It turned out that Steve lived just a few miles away from Charlie. Steve was from Texas, a tall, handsome, outspoken sort with an impish glint in his eye. He was very knowledgeable, but tended to go off rants, entertaining rants albeit, but sometimes making Charlie wonder if Steve might have more than one screw loose.
Steve was convinced, for instance, that the die offs were the result of some secret Directed Energy Weapons testing by the government, a sophisticated weapon that could be used to kill or control crowds. It could be a stand-alone weapon, or it might be related to HAARP, the High Altitude Atmospheric Research Project, which will zap the upper atmosphere with a focused and steerable electromagnetic beam.
Charlie had told Steve that he’d meet him for lunch. He thought he might wind Steve up a little and watch him froth at the mouth, it could be good sport.
“Hey Chuck,” Steve greeted him, “you buy me a drink and I’ll tell you a story.”
“Only if the drink’s cheap,” said Charlie, “the waitress is pretty and the story’s sleazy.”
“I think we just struck a deal,” said Steve, “Have you heard about the 100+ murdered microbiologists and bio-weapons experts?”
“Uh-oh, I think the check’s gonna be on me.”
“Here,” Steve said, scan these highlights for a minute before I start ranting. But order me a scotch first.” He handed Charlie some papers.
Dead
Scientists
#103 Malcolm Casadaban, 60, of the plague. Conducting lab research on the plague bacterium.
#102 John (Jack) P. Wheeler III, 66, found dead in a Delaware landfill. West Point graduate, had Yale law and Harvard business degrees. Wrote manual on biological and chemical weapons.
#100 Chitra Chauhan, 33, suicide by cyanide. molecular biologist, studied disease transmission.
#89 August "Gus" Watanabe, 67, found dead. High-paid officer of Eli Lilly in 2003.
#88 Caroline Coffey, 28, massive cuts to her throat. Bio-medicine researcher.
#87 Nasser Ordoubadi, 53, "suspicious" causes. Discovered treatment for bioweapons.
#86 Bruce Edwards Ivins, 62, of an overdose. Was a coinventor of anthrax vaccine technology.
#84 & 85 Laurent Bonomo, 23, bound, stabbed and set alight. Studied infectious disease.
#83: Yongsheng Li, 29, found in a pond. Studied biochemistry and molecular biology.
#82: Dr. Mario Alberto Vargas Olvera, 52, murder. Internationally recognized biologist.
#79: Leonid Strachunsky, blunt trauma. Created microbes resistant to biological weapons.
#78: Robert J. Lull, 66, multiple stab wounds. Chief of nuclear medicine at SF Hospital.
#77: Todd Kauppila, 41, of hemorrhagic pancreatitis. Worked in top secret lab.
#76: David Banks, age 55, airplane crash. Principal scientist, Biosecurity Australia.
#75: Dr. Douglas Passaro, 43, unknown causes, created real-life exercises in bioterrorism.
#74: Geetha Angara, 43, found in a New Jersey water treatment tank. Senior chemist.
#73: Jeong H. Im, 72, multiple stab wounds in a burning car. Retired protein chemist.
#68: John R. La Montagne, 61, in Mexico, Head of US Infectious Diseases unit.
#67: Matthew Allison, 32. Car explosion. Degree in molecular biology and biotechnology.
#65: Professor John Clark, 52, hanged, led the Roslin Inst. biotechnology research center.
#64: Dr. John Badwey, 54, infectious disease biochemist at Harvard Medical School.
#63: Dr. Bassem al-Mudares, murdered. Drug company worker, with a chemistry doctorate.
#62: Professor Stephen Tabet, 42, unknown illness. Epidemiologist, Univ of Washington.
#61: Dr. Larry Bustard, 53,unknown causes. Expert in bioterrorism at Sandia National Labs.
#59: John Mullen, 67, poisoned with arsenic. Nuclear physicist with McDonnell Douglas.
#58: Dr. Paul Norman, 52, small plane crashed. Chief British scientist for bio-weapons defense.
#57: Dr. Assefa Tulu, 45. Epidemiologist. Designed system to detect a bioterrorism attack.
#55: Antonina Presnyakova, age 46. A needle laced with Ebola. Scientist at a former Soviet biological weapons lab, which in Soviet times turned deadly viruses into biological weapons.
#53: William T. McGuire, 39. Body found in three suitcases floating in Chesapeake Bay. Leading microbiologist and expert in biocontainment facilities.
#51: Mohammed al-Izmerly, sudden blow to the back of his head. Iraqi chemistry professor.
#50: Vadake Srinivasan, crashed car. Microbiologist. Respected industrial biologist.
#49: Dr. Michael Patrick Kiley, 62, heart attack. Working with Dr. Shope, below, on lab upgrade to Bio-Weapons Level 4 at the UTMB Galveston lab for Homeland Security. The lab would house some of the deadliest pathogens known, as well as bioweaponized ones.
#48: Robert Shope, 74, purported to have died of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis which can be caused by either environmental stimulus or a virus. Dr. Shope worked with Dr. Mike Kiley, above, on the UTMB Galveston lab upgrade to Bio-Weapons Level 4. The lab would host the most hazardous pathogens known, as well as bioweapons.
#45: Robert Leslie Burghoff,45, hit and run driver. Was studying the virus plaguing cruise ships.
#44: Michael Perich, 46, one-car accident. Research scientist expert on vector-borne diseases.
#43: David Kelly, age 59, slashed his own wrists. British biological weapons expert. Was the Ministry of Defense's chief scientific officer.
#42: Dr. Leland Rickman, 47, Infectious diseases expert and consultant on bioterrorism.
#38B: Dr. David R. Knibbs, 49, plane crash. Respected pathobiologist.
#38: Steven Mostow, 63, a plane crash. Leading infectious disease and bioterrorism expert.
#37: Dr. David Wynn-Williams, 55, Hit by a car while jogging. Astrobiologist.
#34: Dr. Ian Langford, 40, Murdered at home. A Russian specialist in leukemia and infections.
#33: Dr. Vladamir Korshunov, 56, Head was bashed in. Head of a microbiology sub-facility. Pravda reported that he had probably invented a vaccine protecting from any biological harm.
#32: David W. Barry, 58, unknown causes. Co-discovered AZT, the antiviral drug for AIDS.
#31: Dr. Ivan Glebov, bandit attack. Well known Russian microbiologist.
#30: Dr. Alexi Brushlinski, murdered in bandit attack. Russian microbiologist.
#29 Dr. Benito Que, 52, a mugging. Died later in hospital. A cell biologist.
#28: Dr. Vladimer Pasechnik, 64, Found dead. The #1 scientist in the FSU's bioweapons program. Was the boss of William C. Patrick III, who holds 5 patents on the militarized anthrax. Patrick is now a private biowarfare consultant to the military and CIA.
#27: Dr. Don Wiley, 57. Vanished, Molecular Biologist with Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Harvard University. Top deadly contagious virus expert. Abandoned rental car was found on a bridge. His body was found about 300 miles south of where he was last seen.
#26: Dr. Set Van Nguyen, 44, found in refrigerator airlock in the laboratory where she worked. Working on a vaccine to protect against biological weapons, or a weapon itself.
#22-24: Avishai Berkman, 50 Amiramp Eldor, 59 Yaacov Matzner, 54, airplane crash. Israeli journalists contend that the Israeli microbiologists had been murdered. World experts in hematology and blood clotting, worked on cutting edge microbiology research.
#21: Jeffrey Paris Wall, 41, found dead near office. Biomedical expert with a medical degree.
#16-20: Five Unnamed Microbiologists. On plane brought down by a missile on the Russian border. Israel and Novosibirsk are homes for cutting-edge microbiological research.
“So,” Steve said after Charlie had been looking at the list for awhile,” What do you think? What words do you see most often?”
“Wow,” Charlie said, “microbiologist, biological weapon, vaccine, bio-weapon, infectious disease, virus…” His voice trailed off.
And?” Steve asked.
“Murder,” Charlie replied, “But why?”
“I think that’s what we need to find out!” Steve exclaimed, “But first, I think you owe me another drink…barkeep! Not that cheap swill again. Break out the good stuff!”
Chapter 10: Another
Drink
Steve swirled the single malt scotch in the snifter, inhaled its aroma deeply, rolled it around in his mouth and swallowed, closing his eyes and relishing the taste and burn as it went down, “Aaahhh…”
“Hello?? That’s stuff’s expensive, keep the story coming,” Charlie said, “So these microbiologists were murdered by diabolical super-rich, super-smart guys, who are developing deadly biological weapons to target specific groups of people…”
“Oh, ye of little faith.” Steve interrupted.
“And killing off hundreds of thousands of animals with their directed energy weapons?” Charlie went on.
“Yes, my son?” Steve said.
“Why are they doing it?” Charlie asked, “What’s their motive?”
“Well, it could be that they are the Reptilian Overlords developing a better-tasting strain of humans…” Steve replied
“Is that the Twilight Zone music I hear coming from the jukebox?” Charlie interrupted.
“But that’s probably not the case…” said Steve.
“Well, what is the case, in your opinion?”
“In my humble opinion,” Steve said, “I think they’re getting ready to reduce the population.”
“So did you leave your tinfoil hat at home?” Charlie asked, “Or do you have a new invisible model that can protect your teensie little brain from those nasty mind-reading waves the CIA is sending out? I think you’re going off the deep end, my friend…and I’m running out of whiskey money.”
“It’s twue, it’s twue,” Steve said, imitating Lili Von Shtupp from Blazing Saddles, “And if you can dig just a little deeper into that dusty, moth-ridden wallet of yours, my impecunious colleague, I’ll tell you The Truth According to Steve.”
“Damn, you just set the hook and now you’re tugging on it, you manipulative bastard,” Charlie said, feigning resignation, “There won’t be any money left for the orphans this month, but I guess that’s ok with you…”
“You’re so cheap you wouldn’t even pay a dime to see a pissant pull a freight train, would you? Now open up that wallet, I’m drier than happy hour at the Betty Ford Clinic.” These drinks were pulling the Texan out of Steve.
“Barkeep, two of your best!”
Chapter 11: Tom and the
Needle
The next night, Tom used the wider needle with the syringe to suck up the liquid; then he switched to the thinner one to inject. He’d been feeling weak, nervous, and unable to cope, and wanted to try the formula.
A good scientist, he thought, needs to intimately understand the process.
Holding the syringe up to the light, he tapped on the barrel to release air bubbles. They floated languidly up to the hub, where they coalesced into one shimmering globe. It glistened as the light reflected off. He gently squeezed the bubble up the needle and out.
I won’t let it get out of control, he thought, just enough to feel a little of what the animals felt. And I’ll keep the antidote close at hand…
His hand trembled slightly as he wiped an alcohol swab on his thigh. The needle stung a bit when it first broke the skin, but he had found that if he pushed it in very slowly, there was almost no pain.
I can control it, just a small, easy rush. Only half a dose of what my body weight should tolerate.
Reaching bottom, the needle all the way in, he pushed the plunger very slowly and deliberately all the way down. The formula felt warm, almost hot, as it poured into his muscle. He pulled the needle out quickly and wiped the site with another alcohol swab.
Yes…that beautiful liquid was in, and he slowly he began to feel…comfortable.
The world seemed a lot less threatening. He felt a little more confident, sure of himself, stronger.
Yes, stronger. And smarter, more awake.
Then a slow deeper awakening to things that he thought most people couldn’t fathom. A warmth of feeling told him that he was one of the strongest people, emotionally and physically, that he knew.
And why wouldn’t I be? Twenty nine years old, PhD, varsity track in college and research fellow on one of the most exciting projects in history…
The formula allowed him to see and release the shackles that the world had put on him. Now he saw, at quickening speed, that he deserved more than he was getting. He put his left hand on his right bicep. He was strong, as strong as three men. Amazing power, but he deserved it. He wasn’t like everyone else. He was stronger, smarter, better…
And who are they to say I couldn’t do this, or couldn’t do that, he thought, the hell with them! Nobody can tell me what to do!
He felt a hunger and power wash over him, and his aggression grew larger and stronger, irritation grew to rage.
Just who the hell are they to say I can’t complete this work on the project? I am smarter than them, mentally stronger. I have a goddamned PhD from goddamned Yale! Bastards…they deserve to die, the sons of bitches!! Die!!!
He felt smarter than ever, more superior than ever, now that the doors of perception were opening. He understood, just plain understood.
He felt his fingernails rearranging themselves, becoming thicker, stronger, claw-like. His genetic code was reaching backwards, churning, crossing over, to a more powerful apelike ancestor, mixing to create a union of awesome animal strength and evolved cunning. Something never before seen on earth, elevated above mere mortals.
The pinnacle of evolution, he thought, the way it should have gone.
His fingernails grew thicker, much thicker and stronger, and seemed to seat themselves much deeper and firmer in the nail bed and finger. They had become claws.
His body muscles grew tighter and seethed with strength. Shoulders became broader, chest more massive. He had never felt stronger, more complete, more alive… muscles grew larger in size, amazingly robust and sinewy.
He was truly powerful, much, much stronger than he had been before. He put his hands around the heavy china cabinet and lifted. Although it weighed well over two hundred pounds, it felt as if it were made of balsa wood.
He felt an itching in his jaw, muscles strengthening, teeth holding tighter, stronger. His jaw was growing in size, and exponentially in power. He felt his teeth seating in his jaw with a strength he would have thought impossible a month ago. When he looked at his reflection in the mirror of the china cabinet he held, Tom was startled. His neck was thicker now and his jaw had grown. It was large, thick and muscular.
He felt something tucked inside his mouth, between his cheek and gums. He opened his mouth wide and four short fangs, like a baboon’s, pierced the air in front of his face. The fangs felt great, like he could pierce anything with them. He closed and opened his mouth, touched them with his finger, they were sharp, and stung his finger.
Some part of his brain wondered, how…?
But that thought passed quickly as the adrenaline pounded in his temples. He growled, a low, rumbling powerful growl that would have scared the Tom of thirty minutes ago. But he was the Tom of now, and it felt good…
He was now a magnificent evolutionary specimen, strong, powerful, able to take down any man or animal with his bare hands, claws or teeth. He had the cunning and strength of a powerful predator, but the intelligence of man. And he possessed the rage and burning vengeful fury of man. His mouth and jaw had become a magnificent weapon. His incisors and canines needed something to bite, something alive…
I’ll go back to the lab and get even with those bastards who fired me! he thought.
He opened his apartment door and started walking to his car...
Chapter 12: Rehab
It was a rehab center the men took young Charlie to that night long ago when they abducted him, a tough-love institution where kids with big potential and big problems were taken. It was run by a man that Charlie knew only as David, a tall man with a slight accent. European? Mideastern? It was too subtle to tell, David would never talk about himself, and Charlie never felt comfortable enough to ask.
The men threw him into a cell to stay until he cooled off. It was 7’ by 10’ with concrete walls and floor. It had one small, high barred window and one barred light on the 10’ ceiling. There was a toilet, sink and metal mirror against an open wall, and the door was a solid, heavy wood with a small sliding food hatch in it. It looked like it was made to impress newcomers, to show them who was in control. Charlie kicked and spit at the door after it closed behind him. He called the men who had thrown him in there every foul word he could think of, until his anger tapered off and he laid on top of the single bunk, passing out.
He slept for 12 hours and woke up still mad.
What right do they have to take me here against my will? He thought, Bastards!
An orderly, a huge impassive black man, brought him a dinner of a cheese sandwich on white bread and a glass of water, sliding the tray through the food hatch.
“You hungry?” he asked, sliding the tray in and closing the transparent partition behind. Charlie took the tray and threw it against the door. The orderly just shrugged and slid the hatch cover closed.
A similar routine followed for two more days, Charlie cursing and demanding to be released, until he finally calmed down, and thanked the orderly for the food.
“Thanks for the food,” he said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you.”
Nate, the orderly, was a large man of about 40, who looked at Charlie dispassionately.
He scrutinized him for a few seconds, then said ’”David wants to see you…come on,” and opened the door.
They walked down an elegant hallway of marble and walnut, expensively furnished, to David’s office. Large windows opened to the outside. It was autumn and the leaves were turning colors and falling to the ground. Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the trees to the large expanse of grounds and in through the windows. It was a beautiful New England afternoon, the kind that could make you feel it should last forever.
The present seemed beautiful and never changing, the surroundings made you feel as if you belonged here in this bastion of refinement and gentle order.
Except that it was not never changing and you belonged there because of your bad behavior. It was a prison, and the only reason that you were there is because you couldn’t escape. Like other types of prisons in life, you are where you are because of the decisions you made, and you can’t escape because you keep thinking the same thoughts.
Nate motioned with his head for Charlie to go inside. Charlie put his hand on the elegantly turned door handle, pushed it open and walked in.
The office was large and beautifully furnished, with an eclectic group of souvenirs and mementos from a life rich with accomplishment. Photos on the wall depicted a distinguished, powerful man with many different dignitaries, sports stars and politicians, even the President of the US and the Queen of England.
At a large rosewood desk sat the man, his back to Charlie, apparently deep in thought, tapping a tune on the desk, gazing out of a large window at the lovely afternoon, as the sun played through the trees and across the grounds. It was the end of a day, at the end of a summer season as it turned to fall, a good time for reflection on the endings and beginnings in life.
David was the director of the institution, a tall, athletic man. Charlie came in and stood at his desk.
Without turning his chair around, David said simply, “Sit.” Not “How are you, won’t you have a seat please?” Just… “Sit.”
He seemed to be a man at ease with giving commands, assured that they would be followed, a man who knew exactly what he wanted. Charlie was nervous in his presence, and catching David’s steely-grey, unblinking and assessing eyes as he turned his chair around didn’t make him any calmer.
David had a penetrating gaze that seemed to linger a little too long, that made you feel transparent and junior to him, even if he was smiling, which he was not doing at the moment.
Charlie drew up as much bravado as a sixteen year old delinquent could and said, “How much are my parents paying you to keep me in this prison?”
David dryly looked him over, and then silently turned his chair to gaze out the window again for a moment, not acknowledging the question. That complete silence rattled Charlie.
After a few seconds, David said, “Be quiet. I’m the one who will talk.”
“And if I’m not quiet?” Charlie asked.
“Did you like the cell?” David replied, “And the cuisine?”
Charlie felt the will power in this man, and felt that he would send him back to the cell for a month without a second thought. Charlie nodded that he understood.
David, turning, began, “In answer to your question, we ordinarily charge $100,000 per year for our educational program. Our students continue their studies while here and get a diploma from our accredited high school, or a certificate from one of our specialized programs. One hundred percent of our graduates continue on to college, mostly very good ones.”
“My parents don’t have that kind of money,” Charlie blurted out, then “I’m sorry to interrupt. Go ahead please.”
David smiled slightly, “Good.”
He continued, “We always have our eye out for…talent, and one of our friends in local law enforcement brought you to our attention. He thought that you might prove useful to, uh, society if you were directed away from the destructive path that you were on.”
“You don’t realize it now, but you are a very lucky young man. We have a few scholarships available to promising young people who work diligently, and we will evaluate you over the next few months to see if you are worthy. Otherwise your parents will be paying us for years to come.”
“And don’t think that this is some sort of punishment,” David continued, “You were on the road to perdition, but are too young and stupid to realize it. You would have ended up in prison or dead, at best a broken down old failure looking back at the mistakes of his life. You can’t go on forever with the energy of youth, especially the way you’ve been burning it up.
At some point you get tired; you’ve burned up all your glowing energy, dissipated all your potential and alienated the last few people who care about you. Few options remain. But you are no longer young and no one sees any potential in you, because you don’t have any left.”
“No one cares about you, and you take some demeaning job that the younger you would have sneered at. Your boss is someone the younger you laughed at, but now you have to take his orders and insulting attitude. You take it because you’ve pissed away all of your opportunities.”
“The younger you would gladly die rather than live with this indignity, but the older failure you sees only his own cowardice. So you eat fistfuls of shit every day, and tell yourself that it doesn’t taste so bad.”
“Have you noticed?” David went on, “that all of your little criminal buddies are not really very bright? You’re the Einstein of your circle? But you’re still dead sure that you will be successful at anything you do. Because you’re soooo fucking smart!”
“Tell me, Mister Smartboy, who do you think owns that jet you were getting ready to boost?”
A jolt went through Charlie, but he didn’t say anything.
How did he know that I was going to steal that plane? he thought, could it have belonged to him?
“How did I know that?” David said, mocking what Charlie was thinking, “Pretty arrogant, aren’t you? Think you’re smarter than everyone else, don’t you? Most stupid people do.”