The
Deck
Monday, August 30, 6:40
P.M.
Time Remaining on the
Extinction Clock: 41 hours, 20 minutes
E.S.T.
I moved through the Deck quickly but
casually. I found a clipboard on an unoccupied desk and took it.
Every time I saw someone who looked vaguely official I studied the
clipboard and mumbled meaningless computer words to myself. Bug
must have heard me, because I heard him chuckling in my
ear.
SAM steered me through the common areas
toward the research centers. His knowledge of the Deck ended there,
but that was fine. I wasn’t going to stick around very long. The
Deck was multileveled and I took a combination of escalators,
stairs, and moving walkways to get around. A couple of times I
thought I saw SAM again-or the kid who looked like him-but each
time there were other people around and I couldn’t risk trying to
make contact. It was another mystery to be solved
later.
I reached a level that was marked:
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, which I thought was kind of funny since
this was the secret lab of a maniac out to destroy the world. But I
guess there’s bureaucracy everywhere.
I used another of Bug’s sensors to reset my
master keycard and then slipped inside the restricted area. Just
inside was a glass-enclosed metal walkway that ran along all four
sides of a huge room in which sat rows of big tanks in massive
hydraulic cradles that rocked them back and forth. The tanks had
glass domes with blue lights that filled the room with an eerie
glow. There were at least thirty of the tanks connected to
computers on the floor and a network of pipes and cables above. I
leaned close to the glass and looked down to see a half-dozen
technicians in hazmat suits adjusting dials, working at computer
stations, or taking readings. There were huge biohazard warning
signs everywhere.
“Are you seeing this?” I
whispered.
Church said, “Yes.” He didn’t sound happy.
“Walk around and see if you can get a better angle on the
tanks.”
I moved along, pretending to make notes on
my clipboard, until I found a spot that offered the best view of
the closest tank.
“Whoa!” It was Dr. Hu and for once he seemed
disturbed rather than jazzed by something science
related.
“What am I looking at?”
“Something that I’ve only ever heard talked
about but never expected to see,” he said. “This setup is like a
gigantic version of a vaccine bioreactor. But the
scale!”
“Bioreactor?”
“It’s a device in which cell culture medium
and cells are placed in a sterile synthetic membrane called a
Cellbag, which is then rocked back and forth. The rocking motion
induces waves in the cell culture fluid and provides mixing and
oxygen transfer. The result is a perfect environment for cell
growth. I mean, GE was making these back in the mid-nineties but
for a max of like five hundred liters. Those things are the size
of. they must be able to hold. ”
“ ‘Five thousand gallons,’ ” I said, reading
it off of the side of the vat.
“Jesus. ”
“I kind of doubt they’re making vaccines
down here,” I said. “Could this be how they’re mass-producing the
pathogens?”
“It. could,” Hu said hesitantly, “but if so,
whoever designed this is heading off into some new areas of
production science. That’s some scary shit right
there.”
“Believe me when I tell you, Doc, I’m
shaking in my boots.”
“Captain Ledger,” said Church, “get out of
there. We have enough proof to shut this place down once we secure
that trigger device. Get out of the building and rendezvous with
Echo Team.”
“I want Echo Team to provide backup for
Alpha when they hit the Dragon Factory.”
“That depends on timing. Alpha may not be
able to wait until you arrive.”
“Copy that. I’m out of
here.”
I wanted to run, but I had to play my role.
I slowly made my way to the exit but then turned and looked back
through the glass at the rows of slowly rocking tanks. At the
absolute proof that evil existed in the world. Not as a concept,
not as an abstraction, but as an irrefutable reality. Right here,
brewing in those tanks. And I knew that if the Extinction Wave was
set to hit in two days, then the pathogens for that were already
gone, already distributed to Africa and God knows where
else.
This. this was more of it. More evil, more
danger brewing in a very real sense. Who was next? Who else were
these madmen planning to kill? Was it to be all races except for
some select few?
God, the rage that burned through my veins
was unbearable.
How do you reconcile yourself to a world in
which monsters like Cyrus Jakoby can exist? I stared at the
handiwork of this man and struggled to grasp the enormity of what
he’d done and the horror of what he was on the verge of doing. This
man was willing to kill millions-tens of millions-to infect whole
populations, to try to eradicate entire races.
How do you fight something like that? Hitler
is seventy years in his grave and still the pollution of his dreams
taints our modern world. What drives a man like Cyrus Jakoby to
keep such an inhuman program going? The technology in this room
spoke of enormous intelligence, imagination, and drive. He broke
through barriers in genetics, virology, bio-production. aspects of
science that could have benefited mankind, and why? To destroy? To
exterminate people as if they were lice.
Hate. Now that’s something I understand. At
that moment, standing on the catwalk above the rows of bioreactors,
I was filled with a degree of hate that took me beyond heat and
into a strange cold space. I turned away and headed for the door. I
needed to get out of here and into the air. I needed to be there
when the DMS took Jakoby and the rest of the Cabal down, and if it
was within my power I was going to see that it was taken down for
good this time. Taken down, torn to pieces, and the bits scattered
to the winds.
As I walked the halls and climbed the stairs
I thought about what we would do if we caught Jakoby alive. How do
you punish such as person? A bullet seems so simple. Too easy. A
bullet and he dies; he’s gone.
Torture?
Man, that was a can of worms. My personal
politics are left of center, but I have my hardline moments. A guy
like Jakoby, a man willing to slaughter every nonwhite in Africa. I
hate to know this about myself, but I know that if I was alone in a
room with that bastard I don’t think I’d be Mr. Passive. If I could
make it last for a year, keeping him in screaming agony, would that
offer an adequate redress? When the crime is so vast that it spans
decades of time, crosses all national lines, changes cultures, and
devours the weak and strong alike, then what possible form of
punishment could be appropriate? Where is justice in the face of
true unalterable evil?
I could use his records, his confession, to
launch a holy war against those who embrace the ideas of eugenics,
ethnic cleansing, and the master race. I could light that fire-but
what chance was there that the resulting firestorm would burn only
the guilty? War is madness, and when bullets fly and bombs explode
many people use the conflagration to settle personal agendas, or
profiteer, or simply play blood games.
No. I could not do that.
But I had a better plan. It would bring
neither peace nor closure to the victims of Cyrus Jakoby, but it
would do something no bullet or hangman’s noose could do. It would
hurt him.
With those dark thoughts burning in my
brain, I made my way carefully out of the Deck, crossed the
obstacle course of cameras, and then ran the rest of the way back
to where Top and Bunny were waiting.
“The Brits are landing,” Top
said.