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Part I Aaron Seven stood in the study of his mentor, Dr. Raylond Desmond, deep in the Tennessee forest. Two hours before, Seven had been plucked out of an horrific jam in Atlanta traffic by a military helicopter. It was a total mystery to Seven how they had found him at all. Even he had not had a good idea of where he was when the long wire sling was lowered to him from the hovering chopper. Had he not already been stuck in the endless grid lock for more than four hours, he would never have accepted the ride on the end of the long rope for reasons he still did not at all appreciate.
The military men were steely and efficient but altogether uncommunicative. No matter how many times Seven asked the ‘why’ question, they did not answer. They simply flew him fifteen short minutes northeast of Chattanooga and left him standing alone on an uninhabited bluff overlooking the Sequatchie Valley. Less than ten minutes later, a yellow and black civilian Hummer driven by a large, enigmatic man in gargoyle sunglasses, picked him up, navigated back roads through the deep woods and delivered him to Dr. Desmond’s study at his estate called Stonebrooke. The man briefly identified himself as Joseph Blake – aka ‘the Commander’– and then abruptly left the room where Seven was left alone, once again.
“Ah, Aaron, so good to see you,” Desmond announced sincerely, entering into the large, well apportioned room whose glass wall overlooked a frothing, white stream just a few feet outside the crystal, clean windows.
Seven nodded with as much decorum as he could muster but could not shake his flat, tense smile. “And you, Professor,” he responded with a nervousness he could not hide.
“Sit, please!” Desmond said, as he settled himself opposite Seven.
Seven took a seat across from his mentor, a Nobel Laurite and one of the most famous physicists in the world. He had not seen or spoken to Desmond in nearly three years but time had been kind to the older man. His beard was slightly greyer, but the professor wore the same confident and winning smile he always had.Desmond stared back at Seven, a 30ish man of lean build, well apportioned and athletic in appearance. Inquisitive brown eyes peered intensely at Desmond from beneath the brown hair falling lightly across Seven’s intelligent brow. His countenance bore a natural smile and exuded a confidence he could not hide. Seven was dressed in what those who knew him considered his ‘uniform of the day’ – blue jeans, a long sleeved cotton T-shirt and a pair of New Balance sneakers.
“Aaron,” Desmond began earnestly, “please forgive the drama of the military evacuation, but time is of the essence.”
Seven nodded his pardon, adding, “I should thank you, Professor. I was definitely looking for a way out of that traffic jam. A helo with a sling was somewhat more dramatic that I had considered, but a very effective way out nonetheless. However, there are two considerations…”
Desmond had anticipated the first issue and handed him an envelope. “Inside are enough funds in the form of a cashier’s check to purchase a replacement for your automobile. I am sorry if this has seriously inconvenienced you.”
Seven looked inside the envelope and whistled. “Wow! You must not have done a Bluebook lookup on my car!”
“We wanted to be fair, Aaron,” Desmond replied with a smile that strongly hinted he never expected Seven to actually cash the check. “And what was your other consideration?”
“The doughnuts,” Seven stated flatly. “The dozen freshly baked Krispy Kreme glazed doughnuts.”
Desmond shook his head, a puzzled expression begging the question.
“That was why I left my apartment in the first place,” Seven continued. “ I was out after a dozen doughnuts. I had slept in, then woke up and was planning to take Interstate 85 as a shortcut to the closest Krispy Kreme. I had no idea I would end up in terminal gridlock. I figure if you knew where I was in traffic and knew how much my car was worth that you could at least take care of the doughnuts,” he quipped, smiling back at the professor with his infamously wicked sense of humor.
“We estimated your car’s value and located you by cell phone triangulation. We had no idea where you were actually heading or why,” Desmond retorted with what could have been slight irritation. He looked behind Seven and spoke to an unseen figure, “Serea, can we possibly locate some doughnuts for our guest?” Looking back to Seven, now having lost all sense of gentleness, Desmond stated flatly, “May we get down to business?”
Seven nodded sheepishly with a nervous smile.
“I take it by your comments that you have no idea of the mounting crisis?” Desmond asked.
Seven shook his head. “Sorry, Professor. I returned from a week on the Appalachian Trail late last night. I slept in then woke up and drove out on I85 immediately. I forgot my SIRIUS-XM radio and the car’s radio died years ago so I haven’t heard any news in about a week. Does the crisis have anything to do with the traffic jam?”
Desmond sighed and smiled a patient smile. “Then you really have no idea?” he asked Seven.
Seven shook his head again.
“A cover story has been released by the government – against my most adamant advice – to the effect that New York City has been attacked by a terrorist biological weapon. Unfortunately, rumor has spread faster than the government can control it and it is also now widely circulating that other cities have been attacked – such as Atlanta. That was the reason for the traffic situation. Unfortunately, the simple truth would have prevented much of this unbridled chaos, which is probably only going to get worse. And now, as I warned them would happen if they followed this course, the government has absolutely no credibility at all.”
“Do you know the truth?” Seven asked inoffensively.
“Yes, unfortunately I do,” Desmond responded. “New York City was not attacked with a foreign biological weapon. As far as we can tell, the biological agent was unintentionally spread to the city by a DARPA laboratory technician.”
“So the crisis is biological and the organism is one of ours?” Seven pressed.
“Yes,” Desmond admitted.
“And the antidote?” Seven followed up as a simple, logical, matter-of-fact detail.
“There is none,” Desmond responded with a full scowl. “They were working on that.”
Seven smiled and nodded his head slowly, more out of irony than humor. “They were working on that…” he whispered loudly enough for Desmond to hear. Seven looked up at Desmond and leaned toward him. “What is the plan to stop it, Dr. Desmond?”
Desmond sighed deeply and looked down at his desk. He shook his head slowly and then returned Seven’s stare. “There is none. This is an honest-to-God E.L.E. – in the parlance of Homeland Security – an ‘extinction level event’. It is far too contagious and moving far too fast to ever contain. I’m afraid we’ve screwed the proverbial pooch this time, Aaron.”
Seven looked back to his mentor, but his eyes were focused elsewhere. “Is it infective to humans only?”
Desmond nodded. “As it was designed, yes.”
“And what are the numbers on natural resistance?”
Desmond looked pale. “There isn’t any natural resistance. It is 100% fatal to 100% of those who are infected. It is specifically targeted to the genius Homo sapiens. It was intentionally designed for absolute lethality.”
Seven nodded slowly, then looked back to Desmond. “So exactly why did you pluck me out of permanent gridlock and bring me here? I’m a bioengineer of macro systems, not a bioengineer of microorganisms. And you are a physicist. I don’t get any of these connections.”
“Your doughnuts, Dr. Seven,” interrupted a seductive voice from behind him. Seven turned to see a tray of doughnuts held by the most astonishingly beautiful woman he had ever seen. He opened his mouth to speak but a large part of his cerebral cortex had just been roasted by a massive surge of testosterone. The fact that the world was melting down outside the windows suddenly lost any consequence. He just sat there staring at the tray held by the angelic vision and it was all he could do to keep from actually drooling.
“Ah, Aaron, I would like to introduce you to my daughter, Serea. And Serea, this is Dr. Aaron Seven of whom I have been telling you.”
Serea nodded and smiled at Seven, looking him directly in the eye.
Seven’s rational mind refused to cooperate. He stared back at this woman of approximately his own age, with crisp grey eyes and long, flowing dark hair. Her face was perfectly formed, her nose slightly upturned and her body and breasts appeared to have been symphonically arranged by a supernatural presence just to force the male organism into permanent excitation. Her sheer image demanded fecundity and demanded it now.
“I’ll just set them over here,” she said to him with a sparkle in her eye, ignoring his temporary paralysis, obviously recognizing the intensity and depth of his anguish.
Desmond stood to his feet and announced urgently, “Dr. Aaron Seven, I have called you here to join me in saving a remnant of humanity until this plague runs its course. The disease cannot be contained. But we can engineer an isolated community of survivors and you have the unique talent to help us build a bioregenerative life support system that is completely self-contained.”
“It won’t work, Professor,” Seven responded flatly, returning his eyes to Desmond with much effort.
“And why not?” Desmond snapped.
“Because you cannot seal any facility, however well conceived, against a weaponized airborne viral attack, no matter where you attempt to conceal this hideout. This agent of death is less than microscopic – no filters are truly effective. And all you need is for one of those microscopic bastards to get inside – just one. The odds will catch up, and no matter where on earth you position it, the virus will get inside. It’s the perfect nightmare and certainly no rational human or government would ever permit any work on such a doomsday weapon,” Seven added sarcastically.
Desmond relaxed and sat down. He smiled and looked back at Seven for several uncomfortable, irrational seconds. Then he said bluntly, “Ah, I forgot to mention – our facility isn’t on earth!”
Seven blinked twice, his mind not fully comprehending this newest assault on rationality.
Desmond stood and held up his hand, circumventing Seven’s inevitable onslaught of questions and abruptly ended the interview with the statement, “Aaron, meet here in the morning at 0600 when we will depart. Joseph, please show Dr. Seven to his quarters.”
The Commander was now standing in the place where Serea had stood. The angel with the Krispy Kremes had simply disappeared.
Seven turned around to speak just as Desmond left the room.
Copyright (c) 2008 by Dennis Chamberland and Quantum Editions