The Apocalypse

Chapter 46

Eric

CDC Atlanta



Eric walked around the oval perimeter of the CDC with sweat on his upper lip and a digital camera in his hand. He was told to use it brazenly, that if he tried to sneak pictures of the defenses he would be caught for certain.

“I can't believe I'm doing this,” he whispered to himself, running a hand over his face after every picture, feeling the weight of his actions like stones piling in his gut. “This is f*cking treason.”

Or it would be if there was still a working government. He hadn't wanted to go along with the coup attempt. Stubbornly, he had tried to resist, however Admiral Stevenson had laid out rather clearly his reasoning and it had made sense at the time:

“The Secretary is criminal in her dereliction of duty,” Admiral Stevenson had said as if the idea saddened him. “You have no idea how dangerous she is in her ineptness. All across the country we've lost thousands of soldiers in the last week alone, and God only knows how many millions of civilians. And if she continues on doing nothing, hiding out in the CDC, there won't be anything left of this country.”

“But attacking the CDC won't help you. This is where we can find a cure, or a vaccine,” Eric had stammered out a defense. “If what you're saying is true about the rest of the world being overrun then we definitely can't put the CDC at risk. It's now more important than ever.”

A grave smile crossed the admiral's lips. “Not if you’re just spinning your wheels and wasting precious supplies uselessly. That’s exactly what’s been happening with the Secretary in charge. The truth is this is about uniting our country once again under a single leader; it’s not about the CDC or finding a cure. You said yourself that it might not ever happen.”

“No we can do it. It'll just take...”

“Seven years?” Stevenson asked, using Eric's words against him. “I wasn't joking about only having seven months. We need leadership now or the coming winter will ravage us and maybe takes us to the brink of extinction. You need to weigh these facts Dr Reidy and look to the greater good. Yes people will die in the short run and I wish that weren't so, but in the long run it'll be for the best.”

“And what will you do with the CDC?” Eric asked. “You won't just give up on a vaccine will you?”

“Yes,” the admiral admitted. The answer was like a slap and Eric actually reeled back. “Yes. For now. I’ll keep some essentials on staff, but I’ve got to look at the bigger picture. The CDC has fifteen hundred men guarding triple their own number, while at the same time there are refugee camps of five-thousand citizens being guarded by a single company of soldiers. We have literally become a country of vagabonds and yet the great majority of our recourses go to a group of scientists who may or may not produce something in seven years! Paring back the manpower at the CDC should have been done weeks ago and it's just another example of failed leadership.”

The admiral wasn't wrong about the Secretary, or her leadership skills, nor was he wrong in any of his arguments, however Eric didn't agree to help the coup for those reasons. He had other motives, the first was the fact that there was a sense of futility at the CDC—a sense that they were just going through the motions. It was as if everyone knew they were doomed as a species. It came out in their work and in their reports: there wasn't a single bright spot, nor a ray of hope in all the experiments. Had there been one, Eric would've risked his life to keep the CDC sacrosanct.

And his other rationale was that the admiral made it clear that Eric would be killed if he didn’t help.

Therefore he took the camera, and the satellite phone, and the encrypted laptop and went back to the Secretary with false promises on his lips.

The pictures of the facility, both inside and out were easy to come by, “For my scrapbook,” he had said when asked. It was the technical information, the troop numbers, the location of air defenses and their counts, the fuel situation of the Strykers, things of that nature that took him days to ascertain.

It was difficult, but it gave him hope that the admiral was being true to his word that he was looking for a surgical operation with the fewest casualties. “I could just level the place with Tomahawk cruise missiles,” he had said. “However the facility has proved its worth as a forward operating base and in these days that can't be overlooked.” Eric didn't know what the man meant by that exactly, but it was a relief nonetheless.

Finally when he had all the information he needed, Eric sent his encrypted message containing every possible bit of knowledge he had come by and then he waited feeling sick to his stomach, regretting his decision and yet not regretting it at the same time. He went back and forth literally as well as figuratively, pacing his room, wondering if it wasn't too late to take it back.

That night he didn't sleep. He sat by the phone hoping to hear something, anything. At midnight the phone rang once and Eric leapt at it. “Hello? Hello? This is Eric...I mean Dr Reidy.”

A voice said: “Eleven hundred hours. Maintain Emcon blackout.”

Eric had a sudden panic attack over this. “I don't understand what you mean. Are you saying it'll be eleven hundred hours before you attack...”

“Don't say another word!” the voice ordered. “Eleven o'clock tomorrow morning. Do not use the phone or the computer. Do not attempt to transmit anything. Now do you understand?”

“Yes,” Eric whispered. In the next second the phone went dead and he could only stare at it for long minutes. “This is for the best. In the long run I'm saving lives and besides, the Secretary is useless. Everyone thinks so.” Everyone did.

Despite his words, Eric began to pack. He had no clue where he was going, he just knew he couldn't be at the CDC when the attack happened. Nor could he be there afterwards. Of all the nonessentials he was likely the most nonessential of all. He wasn't a warrior or a scientist, he didn't own a PhD, and his only real skill was as a butt kisser, and an opportunist, and a traitor.

Packing took surprisingly little time and the rest of the night as the clock ticked slowly on, he sat on his bags and stared vacantly at his bed, wondering if he should tuck the corners in better. By sunrise he still hadn't come to a decision about it.

And then it was nearly eleven and time to go. Eric left his room with his eyes down and didn't dare look another person in the face until he was at the main gate. There he lied with every part of himself: his false smile, his phony demeanor, his dishonest words: “I have to collect some samples. Yes, I'll be careful. I'll be back tomorrow. No, I should be safe enough.”

And then he was through the gate where only death awaited to free him from his guilt.