Dr. Paul Brenner paced in front of the screens that covered the wall. The world map they displayed was covered with red dots: one for each Orchid district. A number floated above every point: the Orchid failure rate for that district. Since the outbreak, Orchid had been ineffective for roughly 0.3% of those infected. Now the numbers were climbing. In one district in Germany, almost one percent of the inhabitants were now dying from the plague, with no way to delay the eventual outcome: genetic transformation for a few, and for most—about ninety percent of people—death.
They had seen temporary, localized Orchid failures, but that had been due to formulation issues—manufacturing. This was global. If it was another… Paul resisted even thinking the word mutation; but if it was…
“Roll it back,” Paul said. “Show Orchid failure rates one hour ago, two hours ago. Keep stepping back an hour until they stabilize.”
Paul watched the numbers gradually decrease, then level out. “Stop right there.” He glanced at the time.
He walked to his station in the large conference room and rifled through a stack of papers. What had happened then? Had the Immari released a mutated virus—one Orchid couldn’t stop? That was their plan, or at least that was the working theory. He focused on the memos regarding Immari activity. One caught his eye. He checked the time. It was close. He scanned it.
Eyes Only
Suspected Nuclear Explosion at Immari Corporate Research Campus outside Nuremberg, Germany
Cause (best theory): industrial accident; detonation of an experimental weapon, part of Immari Research Advanced Weapons Program
Paul knew Immari Research was working on all kinds of advanced weapons. But the timing… He glanced at the rest of the memo.
Alternative Explanations:
(1) Immari believed to have removed object from location in Antarctica for study in Germany; possibly connected.
(2) Immari could have purposefully destroyed facility to prevent Allied seizure following their invasion of southern Spain.
Paul took a deep breath. He was sure of two things: one, that Orchid was failing around the world; and two, that it had begun with an Immari act. How much time did they have? One, possibly two days? Was there anything they could do in that amount of time?
“Get the group on the line,” Paul said. It was time to throw a Hail Mary pass.
CHAPTER 31
David Vale had tried the doors and control panel more times than he could count. He had even gone and stood in the tube, hoping it might activate an escape route. The room hadn’t changed since he had awoken. He could feel himself getting weaker. He had a few hours left, maybe.
He needed to make a move. He walked to the damaged Atlantean suit that lay crumpled on the floor. Maybe if he put it on… He held it to his chest and let the legs hang down. They barely cleared his calves. David was six-foot-three and broad-shouldered. The owner had been under six feet and rather small in stature, a woman perhaps. He dropped the suit and looked over at the other suit—the Immari colonel’s uniform, crisp and new.
He sat on the bench next to it for a long while. It was the only thing he hadn’t tried. What choice do I have? He grudgingly slid the pants on, then the boots. He stood and held the tunic for a moment. The four oval glass tubes in the room each reflected a warped view of his figure, like angled mirrors in a carnival fun house. He was just as muscular as he had been when Dorian had first shot him, but his body was “new”—even the skin was as smooth as the day he was born. Gone were the fresh gunshot wounds in his chest and shoulder that Dorian had inflicted technically days ago. Across his chest, older scars had also been erased: burns from a falling building that had trapped him in the 9/11 explosions, a stab wound just below his ribcage he had received during an operation outside Jakarta, and a smattering of shrapnel impacts from Pakistan. He was a new man. But his eyes were the same—intense but not hard.
He ran a hand through his short blond hair, exhaled, and stared for a long second at the tunic, the last piece of the ensemble. He pulled the tunic on, and it glistened as it adjusted to the light. The tunic’s flicker swept across the tubes like a crowd doing the wave at a baseball game.
The tubes. Would he wake up in one again if he died? As if reading his mind, a small crack sprinted up the length of the first tube. Spider-like smaller cracks erupted at every angle, multiplying and expanding like cells dividing in a petri dish. The other tubes followed suit until the four clear glass tubes were so clouded with cracks they looked white. A series of soft pops rolled across the tubes and the tiny pieces of cracked glass began falling inward.
Where the four tubes had stood, a series of cone-shaped piles of glass now lay, twinkling in the sharp light like stacks of diamonds.