The
Deck
Saturday, August 28,
10:16 A.M.
Time Remaining on
Extinction Clock: 97 hours, 44 minutes
E.S.T.
“They’re landing,” Otto said as he set down
the phone.
He and Cyrus stood in the command center of
the Deck. All around them hundreds of technicians were busy at
computer workstations. A second tier of workstations was built onto
a metal veranda that circled the central area. The clackity-clack
of all those fingers on all those keys was music to Cyrus’s
ears.
Below the command center, visible through
clear glass panels in the floor, were two isolated cold rooms. The
left-hand one was crowded with fifty networked 454 Life Sciences
sequencers. Technicians in white self-contained smart suits worked
among the computers, constantly checking their functions and
monitoring every minute change. The right-hand room looked like a
brewery in which vast tanks worked around the clock to grow
viruses.
The tank directly below Cyrus’s feet was
dedicated to mass-producing a weaponized version of the human
papillomavirus that had been genetically altered to target
Hispanics. Sure, there was crossover to some white population
because racial purity was-sadly, as far as Cyrus and Otto were
concerned-more myth than truth, but the rate of cervical cancer for
female Hispanics was 85 percent and the crossover to Caucasians
only 6 percent. The synthetic growth medium they were currently
using allowed for a 400 percent increase in growth time. The tanks
had been running so long now that Otto estimated that they would
have enough to use it to launch the second phase of the Extinction
Wave in sixteen weeks rather than the previously anticipated thirty
months. Cyrus only wished that they’d settled on this new method
last year so that it would have been ready with the rest of the
first phase.
Thinking about it made Cyrus want to scream,
to run and shout with joy.
“We should close up,” advised
Otto.
“I know; I know.” Cyrus waved his hand
peevishly. “It’s just that I hate to do it.”
“We can’t let the Twins
see-”
Cyrus silenced him with a
look.
“They probably won’t even come in here.”
However, Cyrus knew that Otto was quite right. Taking chances was
never good at the best of times, but with the Extinction Wave so
close-so wonderfully, delightfully close-nothing could be left to
chance. And neither of them trusted the Twins.
“I wish we could bring them in,” said
Cyrus.
Otto turned away so Cyrus wouldn’t see him
roll his eyes. This was an argument that had started before the
Twins had hit puberty, and he and Cyrus had come at it from every
possible angle too many times to count.
“Everything in their psych profiles suggests
that they would oppose the Wave.”
“I know.”
“Their ideologies are too-”
“I know.”
Otto pursed his lips.
“Mr. Cyrus, their plane is touching down as
we speak.”
Cyrus sighed. “Very well, damn it.” He
flapped his hand and turned away.
He walked slowly away, hands clasped behind
his back, head bowed thoughtfully. At the door he paused and turned
to watch as steel panels slid slowly into place to hide the rooms
below. Heavy hydraulics kicked in and Cyrus glanced up as shutters
rolled into place to hide nearly 80 percent of the technicians. A
faux wall rose up to cover a half-mile-long corridor that connected
the Deck to the viral storage facility buried under the hot Arizona
sands. The whole process took less than three minutes, and when it
was completed the room looked small, almost quaint. High-tech to be
sure, but on a scale suited only for research rather than mass
production. Cyrus sighed again. It depressed him to have to hide
this from his own children. Just as it depressed him that his
children were such serious disappointments.
“I’ll be in the garden,” he said to Otto.
“Bring them to me there.”
Otto bowed and watched him go.