A day went by. A day filled with reconnections. They filled in the gaps created from separation and detailed what occurred in the others’ absence. This included what little Alex, Doug and Emily learned about Todd’s plans, and what little Richard knew about the place they were now in. Alex particularly enjoyed Richard’s description of their safe house attacking the invaders when he and Oscar were captured. In his turn, Richard seemed impressed with Alex’s ability to fly a jet. “Did he put you in a spin?” he asked Emily with a glint in his eye.
Alex did edit some of his story. He didn’t want to burden Richard with what happened with the pilots – something he’d as soon forget anyway.
Quarters were assigned. Alex, Richard and Doug shared a room; Emily had her own next door. Despite the size of the place, it wasn’t built as a hotel and that was what they were given. They were comfortable and well fed, but left alone. They neither saw nor heard anything of Todd or Martin. It was if, now that Todd had the pen, they were forgotten.
Late on their second day in the underground lab, the four of them were eating dinner in the cafeteria. Alex looked up at Richard. “Did you really have to give them the vial?” he asked. Emily gave him a questioning look.
“I was pretty sure Oscar was near death and if I didn’t take any action, he wouldn’t have much longer to live,” said Richard.
“Damn.” Alex took a deep breath. “I just wish there’d been another way.” Had all their efforts been for nothing?
Richard hung his head and looked at the floor. “There’s still hope. There’s always hope.” He raised his eyes and looked at Alex. “You never know what could happen. We just have to keep our eyes open, recognize an opportunity when it presents itself, and then take the appropriate action.”
“I don’t see a lot of options here,” said Emily. She sat slouched in a chair, playing idly with her silverware. Her plate of food remained half uneaten.
“There’s always hope,” Richard repeated.
After dinner, they sat together around the table, sipping tea and coffee. The door opened and Martin walked in. There was a cold half-smile on his face. “Follow me. Now,” he said. He held the door ajar.
“Why should we go anywhere with you?” asked Emily.
Martin opened the door a little more and three men dressed in black suits strode in like mastiffs circling for attack. The layers of clothing they wore did not hide their beefy physique. “Because they won’t let you stay,” said Martin, nodding toward the men.
The four of them looked at each other and, without saying a word, rose from their chairs. Alex shrugged and Emily let out a long sigh. “Where’re we going?” she asked the nearest black suit as she passed him for the door. She got no response other than a wave out the door.
They made for the elevator, Martin in the lead, the three mastiffs driving from behind. In the elevator, they descended to floor “C” some distance below. The doors opened onto a hallway. “Don’t push,” mumbled Emily as they were herded down the hall to a closed wooden door.
Martin knocked on the door. “Come in,” came a voice from within.
The door opened and Alex saw Todd sitting behind a large wooden desk. He was impeccably dressed in a dark blue suit and was once again immaculate – some change from the warehouse. The place looked like a library - books everywhere. A large flat screen monitor was on the wall opposite the desk between floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. There were four chairs, two placed on each side of the desk facing the monitor. “Please, sit down,” said Todd, waving in the direction of the chairs. Martin nodded to the mastiffs, moved over behind the desk just behind and to the right of Todd and stood with arms crossed. The mastiffs left the room.
Alex looked at the others, sighed and took a seat next to the desk. Emily sat next to him and Doug and Richard went to the other side of the desk. “What now?” asked Emily. Alex noticed her eyes were continually moving, as if she was trying to take it all in. Maybe she was looking for an “opportunity.” He hoped so. He couldn’t see any.
Todd stood and walked around the desk, facing them. He paused for a moment, as if considering his next step. “I am genuinely sorry,” he said, “that we got started off on the wrong foot. It’s entirely my fault and I apologize. I was a bit too eager and tried to move too quickly.” He paused again and paced back and forth, looking over their heads. “Srivastava panicked, passed the vial to Richard and all I could see was the loss of years of work and a delay we can’t afford. Again, I apologize.”
“Apology not accepted,” said Emily.
“Well, maybe you’ll feel differently after you hear what I have to tell you,” said Todd. He paused, paced a few more steps and looked up at Martin.
“Anytime, sir,” said Martin.
Todd stopped and leaned up against his desk. “We’re just waiting for one more person to show,” he said.
There was a knock at the door and it opened to reveal a man in a wheelchair being pushed by one of the mastiffs.
“Oscar!” said Emily as she sprang from her seat and dropped to her knees next to the wheelchair. She threw her arms around Oscar and hugged him as best as the wheelchair would allow.
“Hi, Emily, everybody,” said Oscar. He seemed a bit slow somehow.
“Are you okay?” asked Emily.
Richard, Alex and Doug also rose and approached Oscar. Richard stood next to him and patted him on the shoulder. “Damn good to see you in one piece,” he said.
“Well,” said Oscar, “I guess I’m not exactly in one piece. Just had surgery a couple days ago, you know. Lost some of my beloved parts.”
“Maybe so, but you’re breathing,” said Alex as he reached down and grabbed Oscar’s hand, giving it an eager shake. “We were really worried when we heard what happened.” He gave Oscar a clinical once-over as he spoke, felt his pulse and watched him breathe. He decided Oscar was doing okay, despite all he had been through.
Doug stood in front of the chair, smiling. “I was afraid we might’ve lost you.”
Oscar groaned and shifted in his chair.
“I’m sorry,” said Emily. “Did I hurt you?” She let go of her hug and stood up.
“No, I’m just not myself yet. They also have me hopped up on painkillers. Makes me a little off.” Oscar smiled up at them. “Sure is good to see you again.”
“Thank God, you’ve survived these people’s cordiality.” Emily turned her head and scowled at Martin. Martin smiled back.
Todd cleared his throat. “Sorry to break up your reunion, but we have some business to take care of.” He nodded at Oscar. “Welcome, Oscar. It is good to hear you’re recovering well.” Todd looked at the others and waved toward the chairs. “Please sit,” he said. They returned to their seats and the mastiff wheeled Oscar over next to Emily. He then nodded at Martin and left.
Todd began pacing again. “We have a problem here.” He stopped and looked at each of them. “Due to my fumbling, we now find ourselves in violent opposition to one another. I want to change that.”
“Good luck with that,” muttered Emily.
“Who is this guy?” asked Oscar.
“He’s Dr. Griffin Todd,” said Alex. “He’s the one we’ve been trying to stop.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Oscar, raising his eyebrows. “I thought he looked familiar. So what’s this all about?”
“I’ll get to that,” said Todd. “But first, let me say that each of you have earned my respect. Richard, the fact that you were able to avoid capture for as long as you did is simply remarkable. True, you had help from the others, but even so, I‘m impressed. I’ve looked into your scholastic and professional record and I know that you are an excellent physician.”
“I’ve done some research into your record too,” said Richard.
Todd paused, as if not quite sure how to take that, then continued. “Alex, you are not only a brilliant doctor, you’re a very competent pilot and obviously quick-witted enough to deal with unusual circumstances on the fly.” Todd looked at Alex. “But, I guess one shouldn’t be surprised, given the fact that you work in an emergency room and never know what’s going to come in the door next.”
“Apparently, I make a damn good target, too, given the fact your guys have been shooting at me as much as they have,” said Alex.
“Yes, well,” said Todd, “like I said, that is most unfortunate. Forgive us, please.”
He turned to Doug. “Doug, not only from personal observation, but also from the highest authority at the FBI, I know that you are one of the best agents they’ve had. I don’t know how you got into this, but I am most impressed at what you’ve been able to figure out. I know how well we’ve buried it from prying eyes. Quite amazing.”
Doug frowned, but said nothing.
“Oscar, pure genius. Your technological capabilities are unsurpassed anywhere. I’m guessing that if you hadn’t been pulled out of the chase, we would still be looking for you all.”
Oscar seemed to be snoozing in his chair.
Todd stopped and looked at Emily. “Emily, you are one extraordinary woman. And police officer. I don’t know of anyone else that could keep Martin dancing in the dark so long.”
Martin grunted.
“I am so pleased to have you on my list of admirers,” said Emily. “Now get on with it. Just what is this all about?”
“I’m getting to that. I just want you to know that I think you five have outstanding abilities that we can use. We would like you all to join us.”
“You’ve said that before,” said Doug. “Just why should we want to participate in a genocide to kill off more than ninety percent of the world’s population with a deadly virus?”
“Yes, of course,” said Todd. He turned toward the screen on the wall and pushed a button on a remote he held in his hand. The screen lit up with an animated picture of smoke stacks billowing out clouds of pollution. “What do you know about global climate change?”
“I know we’re in serious trouble and, if we don’t do something soon, we’re going to hurt,” said Alex.
“It’s worse than that,” said Todd. “Fifteen years ago, a few environmental scientists came face to face with the fact that we’re choking the planet to death with our pollution.” The view on the screen changed to a graph. On the graph were two wiggly lines, one red, one blue. They both started out at the left lower corner of the plot and advanced to the right upper corner in a sweeping exponential arc. The red one was above the blue. “They measured atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and average global temperatures shown as here.” He pointed to the left lower corner with a laser pointer. “They then plugged these values into models they had at the time to predict the worse case scenario these models could produce. The blue line is the CO2 level as predicted by the models, and the red global temperature.” He pushed another button and two more lines appeared, yellow and black. “This is what we’ve actually measured since. Notice the yellow curve, actual measured CO2 levels and the black curve, measured temperatures, are well above the green and red respectively. This means what’s happening to our environment is worse than what we thought possible.”
“Yeah, and the price of gasoline has gone up to more than four bucks a gallon,” said Emily. “So what?”
“Patience, please,” said Todd. He turned back to the screen and quickly brought up other graphs, one after another. “These plots show predicted food and water availability, storm severity, rate of infant death, overall mortality, percentage of the world’s population that is diseased, average household income, and many other parameters that measure the state of the world’s human population. They all point to absolute disaster.”
“Okay,” said Richard. “We’re heading for some really hard times. I don’t get the connection with designing a virus to eradicate the human race even more quickly.”
Alex listened and had an uncomfortable feeling he would not like where this was all leading.
“It’s a long story,” said Todd. “But let me see if I can give you the Cliff’s Notes version.” Todd turned from the screen and began pacing again. “These environmental scientists were frightened by what they found. They didn’t know what they could do about it, so fifteen years ago, they went to the powers that controlled the world, governments mostly, and pitched the results of their research. Much to their credit, the people in charge of our world, very clever people, rounded up the very best military, scientific, medical, social science, and economic minds in the world to study the problem.” Todd sighed deeply and stood still, folding his arms in front of him. “Twelve years ago, this group of very bright people got together in a very secret conference and compared notes. The result was worse than Armageddon. By the latter half of the twenty-first century, there will be widespread famine and drought that will kill off more than half of the world’s population. The resulting decaying biological mass, a lot of which will remain unburied and exposed to runoff and pollute otherwise potable water resources, will cause world-wide pandemics that will cross all borders and economic class barriers, killing off more than half of the remaining human population. It was predicted violence will reign supreme and bloody battles between those having water and food and those that don’t, will slaughter another seventy-five percent. By the latter quarter of the century, worsening drought and rising temperatures will eliminate almost all plant life. This is both on land and in the sea.”
“So,” said Emily, “you’re saying we should help nature take its course by designing a virus that will kill us off quicker?”
“No, wait,” said Alex. He felt a tightening knot in his stomach. “I think I see where he’s going with this.”
“Huh?” said Emily.
“Population control,” said Alex.
“Exactly,” said Todd as he pointed to Alex like a professor recognizing an unusually bright student. “The predictions said that unless we take dramatic action NOW, these things WILL happen.” He turned and began moving about the room again.
“More bright people were called in, more predictions made, and it became clear that the reduction of energy consumption required would not support the existent human population at current standards of living. The sacrifices that would have to be made, even if it could be done, and this is not at all certain, would destroy our way of life. The only way out of this predicament was to somehow dramatically reduce the world’s human population, and quickly. That’s when I, and others like me, were called in. The question I was presented with was: how can we humanely reduce the world’s population in a few years’ time so the survivors could maintain our way of life; could keep all of the advances in knowledge and technology that humanity has made since its beginning; could continue to progress forward instead of regressing God knows how far back.”
“I see,” said Richard. “You’re going to sacrifice the peons so the Roman nobility can still take hot baths.”
“Hardly,” said Todd. “We, the human race, have progressed to the point where we have some control over our fate. We need to take that control. Nature is arbitrary, has no sense of what direction humanity should take. She would kill off the brilliant along with the retarded, the caretakers along with those that would not survive without that care, the technologically and artistically gifted along with those that produce nothing but only consume, that part of the gene pool that represents human evolution along with that part that represents devolution. Billions of people are going to die horrible deaths anyway. But we can take control and insure that some will survive and that those that do are capable of keeping alive the best of what humanity has to offer.”
It still sounded pretty elitist to Alex.
“After being called in to see what could be done, we worked years trying to develop a biological means that would target only humans, that could be inoculated against for those that were chosen to survive, that would act quickly, but not so quickly that there would be a sudden mass of rotting protoplasm lying around that would lead to worse disease. Srivastava stumbled across a simian virus that infected nearly one-hundred percent of the monkeys exposed with nearly one-hundred percent fatality. After ten years of study, we were able to make some changes in the viral genome so that it would target people instead of monkeys, could be inoculated against with one-hundred percent certainty, and was indolent enough so that the infected would not know their fate while they helped bury and remove those that had already died. The only copy of this virus in existence is in the sample given to you, Richard, by mistake.”
Todd stopped his pacing in front of Richard and stared at him. Richard was leaning forward in his chair, forearms resting on his thighs, staring at the floor.
“Richard,” said Todd. “We’ve run out of time. If we don’t release the virus soon, within the next few weeks, CO2 levels will rise to levels that will ensure the demise of everything that we have worked for as a species since the dawn of mankind. We need the vial that has the virus, and we need it now. Where is it?”
“But I thought…” said Alex, then stopped himself as he glanced Richard’s way. I see, he thought. Richard’s hope. They have the other vial!