ASYLUM: Chapter 9

Chapter 9

   Just before the alarm was set to go off, I closed down the computer and dressed for the day. By the time it did go off, I was sitting at the table and ready to go. Debra reached down and switched of the alarm and then groaned as she stretched before sitting up and looking around.

   “You didn’t go back to sleep, did you?”

   “No, I didn’t.”

   “I know I keep saying this, but I’m going to lose that computer if you don’t start getting more sleep.”

   “I know, but this shit’s too important for now. Babe, have you ever had your IQ tested?”

   “Why?”

   “I’m just curious, I figure you’re probably good to go, what with being in the Air Force and being a cop for a major city. Have you been tested?”

   “Yes, but it was a pretty bad time in my life and I didn’t pay much attention to it.”

   “How old were you?”

   “Fifteen.”

   “So, you don’t remember what it was?”

   “No, why? Why are you suddenly asking after reading that crap all night?”

   “I’m pretty sure that conspiracy thing we were talking about? I think it’s more than a plan; I think it’s already being done.”

   “You’re tired, you need more sleep.”

   “Babe…”

   She put her hands over her ears and said, “No, I don’t want to hear what you have to say.” She stood up and went into the bathroom; a few minutes later I heard the shower running. Shortly afterwards it was turned off and moments later the door opened and Debra came out with a bath towel wrapped around her torso. She walked directly to me and as I stood up, she stepped into my arms and pressed against me.

   “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m kind of freaked out, you know?”

   “Yeah, I know exactly how you feel.”

   “I’m guessing you have stuff to show Packer?”

   “Yeah, we should go soon.”

   She glanced at the table and saw my dinner plate, “You didn’t eat…again.”

   “No.”

   “I’ll get dressed and we can run by the cafeteria before we leave. They usually have some type of breakfast sandwich or burrito we can eat on the way,”

   “Sounds good.”

   When we left, her hair was still a wet tangled mess that she restrained with a camo bandana, “I’ll brush it out when we get to Packer’s office.”

   I smiled and took her hand as we walked, “I like the look,” I said. “It’s kind wild and sexy, like you.”

   She poked me in the chest with her knuckles, “You’re being silly,” she laughed.

   At least she was more like her normal self. I realized I needed that, for her to be her normal self.

  

    Packer wasn’t in his office when we arrived, it was still relatively early, so we sat at one of the tables in the briefing room while we finished our breakfast burritos. They were really bland scrambled eggs and potatoes, but large enough to be filling. The coffee, even after the walk from the cafeteria, was still uncomfortably hot, which means it was way too hot to begin with. It was also very bitter. Finally, I saw the light flick on and Packer enter his office.

   We went to join him and waited at his door until he waved us in. Debra walked in and stood at attention, so I did the same, “At ease,” he said. “You two are here early, so I’m going to assume you have some bad news for me?”

   I pulled my laptop out and placed it on his desk as I opened it, “No news is good news, is no longer a way to live our lives.” I said. “Lieutenant, I’ve been so busy, tired, or otherwise occupied, that I haven’t been watching the news, have you?”

   “Unfortunately, yes, I have.”

   “Things are going to hell in a handbasket,” I said.

   “I agree,” Packer said. “Fortunately, other than the incident in the lab, things have been pretty monochromatic around here.”

    “Yes, Sir, but the fact we like normal doesn’t mean things are normal,” I said. “The fact is, I believe there’s a reason we’ve been so lucky here in that regard.”

   “Why do I have a feeling I’m not going to like what you are going to tell me? Ok, I’ll bite, why have things been going so good around here?”

   “Because, Lieutenant,” I said, “People don’t normally shit in their own backyard.” He didn’t comment, he just continued to look at me. “Okay, when you hired on here permanent, did you have a full physical and receive a set of booster shots?”

   “Yeah, so did my wife. I remember both of us were a little feverish for several days and when we talked to the facility doctor, he told us it was normal and not to worry.”

   “Same here, I was feverish also, but I didn’t go in to the doctor because it only lasted a day.’ I looked at Debra, “What about you, did you receive additional shots also?”

   “Yeah, but I didn’t have any ill effects. There were six of us from EXSEC that day that got physicals and I remember a couple complaining about being stiff and sore for a few days.”

   “Why do you ask?” She said.

   “Because I believe everyone here has been inoculated with a vaccine. I have no proof yet, but I’m looking.”

   Debra looked puzzled and then asked, “Why sequester us away if we were already vaccinated?”

   “Ah,” Packer said. “If we were not sequestered, we would be coming into contact with people who were not vaccinated and if we were exposed and no one became ill, that would quickly become a red flag. We just recently started taking deliveries again, but it looks more likely we’re going to be placed under UN administration, which means, all of our reports concerning illness will go to the WHO instead of the CDC. There is no need to hide because no one in the American health care system will receive reports about infections, or lack of infection, here. They’re covered.”

   “Makes sense,” I said. “But I’ll see if I can find anything on that. My next question I know the answer to, but I want to make sure there have been no changes, who is the chief administration officer here in the facility?” I asked.

   “Doctor Martin Marlow, he’s CEO of Global Research.”

   “And he actually lives onsite?”

   “He comes and goes, but when he’s here you can bet his suite is very luxurious. It’s in Phase Four and actually has a floor on both levels One and Two.”

   “Have you met his wife?” I asked.

   “Sort of, but not personally. All of the department heads were invited to a fancy dinner and I was there to represent External Security; my wife also attended. Marlow introduced his wife and she gave a few brief comments to the group of us.”

   “Doctor Mary Marlow?”

   “Yes.”

   “Okay,” I said. “Let’s start there since you’re familiar with her. She’s more than just Marlow’s other half, she’s also Chief Financial Officer for a nonprofit organization called, ‘A Better World.’ The organization is pretty low-profile, but they funnel a lot of money to other groups. One of the people they are associated with is this guy,” I pointed to Ahmadii’s name, then accessed the article I had read earlier. “He’s a real piece of work and you should read the article for yourself, but his basic premise is, the world’s population should be reduced ninety per cent. He suggests a naturally occurring virus might be a convenient vector if it was enhanced; something he calls 'gain of functon,' but measures would be required to safeguard those you wish to survive.”

   “What kind of safeguards?”

   “Inoculations would be my first guess; he doesn’t go into that in the article, but I checked a couple of his citations and found them interesting. One of the scientists he cites used to do research for the Soviets. He worked at a Vectors Facility in Novosibirsk, Siberia, which was a bioweapons lab. It was constructed of concrete, partially underground, and it was a remote facility, with the staff living onsite with their families. Are you seeing any similarities?”

   “Damn.”

   “Yeah.”

   “And you found this out in just one evening of reading?”

   Debra said, “In about three hours. He woke up at three AM and when I got up at six, he was done and waiting for me to wake up.”

   “Seems to me,” He said. “You should be working on this instead of learning to be a grunt. I think I’m going to take you off of Auxiliary training and have you perform research full-time.”

   “The training is a temporary assignment, if I’m not training, I’m supposed to be working for Facilities. If what I think is happening, is actually happening, you’re going to need a trained militia that can transition from worker to fighter at a moment’s notice. I need to keep up with it and you should be figuring out a way to train even more people. I like the idea you’re starting to issue some basic standard surplus gear because from what I’m hearing, some people who would join are balking at the cost of providing their own shit. You know as well as I, it can get real expensive real fast. With that said, if you need it, I’m willing to donate a substantial amount of my funds to purchase gear for the Militia.”

   “That’s going to be hard to hide from someone we may not want to know what we’re doing,” he said.

   “Don’t hide it,” Debra said. “Tell the powers-that-be, you can envision the need for a larger, better trained Auxiliary in order to protect The Facility from possible outside threats. All you have to do is point to the national news and they can see the proof on their TVs. Even better, tell them we need a properly equipped Auxiliary and we can’t wait for the members to acquire their own gear and weapons to protect the facility, maybe they’ll see the need to purchase everything instead of the members of the Auxiliary buying it themselves.”

   Packer laughed and said, “You think like my wife, she’s devious too.” Then he looked at me and said, “Better hang on to this one, Smith, she’s a keeper.”

   “That’s the plan,” I answered. I glanced at Debra and noticed she was smiling, but she was also turning red.

   Packer glanced out his window and then said, “Okay, it looks like your training squad is arriving, Smith, so let’s wrap this up. Can I keep your laptop, so I can read this article?”

   “Of course,” I glanced at the computer tower that was on the floor beside his desk, “Is that hooked up? Do you have an e-mail account?”

   “Yes, to both, but I usually have my wife handle that crap.”

   “She’s right, you know? You need to move into this century,” I smiled to remove any sting.

   “Yeah, I know,” He grumbled. “Now get the hell out of here.”

 

   A week passed as I trained and did the research that Packer wanted done. I was actually enjoying the training more than I thought I would, but the research was my passion. Debra and I became fixtures during mornings in the briefing room as every day, I would stop in to make comments to him about the information I would send him via e-mail. If Packer was reluctant about what my thoughts were at first, he rapidly fell in line as the circumstantial evidence continued to grow.

   I had already picked up my bullpup from Eugene Henderson, and had thought about just leaving it the flat black color of the anodizing, but when I laid the carbine on top of my camo smock, it stood out like a sore thumb. I immediately made a trip out to my truck and gathered a selection of the camouflage paint I had packed inside. While Debra watched, I cleaned the entire rifle with brake cleaner spray, dried it off and then masked off everything I didn’t want painted. Then, I gathered all of the spare magazines I purchased in Phoenix, and inserted each one into the rifle before marking them with a black felt pen. I covered the area that would actually fit inside the magazine well with masking tape and sprayed the rifle, the magazines, and then the hydration bladder pack with dustings of Nutmeg paint until I had a uniform color. After it dried, I used a natural sponge to dab on the other colors I needed to match my smock. Debra watched for a while and then asked if she could help. There was a lot to do, so yeah, she got to help. After we were done, I noticed the items she dabbed the paint on were much better than what I did. Guess who gets to do any painting that needs doing? Unlike me, for some reason she likes doing it.

   Monroe and Bellows were impressed with the way the new stock of my bullpup turned out and told me I should carry it during our training exercises, which I did. I liked the carbine before, but now, with the ease of changing mags and the ambidextrous controls, I loved it. When I appeared for training after I painted the carbine, the mags, and the hydration pouch, they were even more impressed. After training for the day, they pulled me aside and asked if I would be willing to paint the weapons and gear of my fellow squad mates and I told them I was just too busy with the extra work I was doing at Packer’s direction. As we were talking, Debra arrived with her rifle case and said she would be able to help. Danni asked if she knew how to do it and Debra opened her rifle case to show them her newly painted Designated Marksman Rifle. They immediately accepted her help. It worked for me; like I said, I hate painting. Unfortunately, I had nowhere near the amount of paint required to paint that much gear and weapons, so Bellows took the cans I had and went to the Facilities Paint Department and told them what he needed and why he needed it. They said no problem, with the cans to get information from, they could order as much as we needed in their next shipment.

   Back in our room, I congratulated Debra on how well her weapon turned out and she seemed truly pleased with the compliment. Then I started trying to figure out how I could attach at least a light to the stubby gun. When Debra asked me what I was doing and I told her, she held up her index finger and said, “Hold on.” She has several plastic tubs that she keeps things in because we don’t have a lot of dedicated storage in our room. She pulled out the one on the bottom and started digging through it.

   “What’s all of that?” I asked.

   “Some of it is gear and pouches that I thought would be cool, but they didn’t work out. What I’m looking for right now is some stuff that I was going to use on my DMR, but decided not to. Originally, I was planning on getting a ten-inch upper receiver for my rifle for when I was working indoors or in close quarters, but then I actually fired a short barrel rifle and holy crap it was loud.  The SBR I fired even had a suppressor on it. Anyway, I figured if I put a good quality suppressor on it, I would end up negating the whole purpose of the SBR, which was to make the weapon shorter and easier to handle in confined spaces, so I dropped the idea. I ended up getting a stock and a threaded barrel for my Glock. Ah! Here it is.” She pulled out a plastic blister package and handed to me. It actually held two items, one was a weapon light and the other was a laser. Both items were designed to be used mounted to a picatinny rail.

   “Holy crap, Babe, are sure you don’t want to keep these for your rifle?” There was still a price tag on the front of the plastic, $495.00. “Babe, this cost five hundred dollars! I can’t take this.”

   “Of course, you can. It’s my gift to you. I already decided not to use them; they are not very practical on a DMR and I have the same thing mounted on my Glock, but a smaller and more compact version.”

   “All right, but I’m going to pay you; I can afford it.”

   “No, you’re not, I already gave it to you.” There was a bit of sternness in her voice.

   “Babe, I mean…

   “Dan…” She called me Dan, that meant I was treading on trouble.

   “Uh, okay, how about a trade?”

   A long slow inhale through her nose and a slower exhale through her pursed lips, shit.

   “How about a thank you kiss?”

   She stared at me for a moment and then a slow smile spread across her face as she stripped off her socks and then began to wriggle out of her pants, “I don’t know,” she said. “I think you’re going to have to sweeten the offer.”

   I stood up and pulled my tee-shirt off over my head before I said, “Tell me when the receipt says paid in full.”

   “Deal.”

 

   It only took a short period of time to attach the light and laser to my bullpup. I was going to have to get used to the slight change in where I placed my support hand on the foregrip, but I didn’t see that as a problem, Debra said it was as easy as simply practicing the motion of raising the weapon repeatedly and holding it to my shoulder and I would develop the necessary muscle memory. She also said I needed to do that with the process of changing magazines. I needed to be able to do it without looking and to start off making the movement slowly until I could perform it smoothly. Once I could do it smoothly, speed would follow. She used a phrase, so I would remember, ‘slow is smooth, smooth is fast.’

   She demonstrated what she meant by showing me how she reloaded her own rifle. She would reach and grasp the empty mag as she pushed the magazine release button, pull the empty magazine, slip it into her cargo pocket and then pull a loaded magazine from a pouch and slip it into the mag well of her AR, slap the bottom of the magazine and hit the bolt release. She did it slowly several times to demonstrate and then did it quickly, as she would in combat. She was fast, but then she demonstrated what she called a tactical reload. She said there might be times you needed your rifle loaded and back into action really fast, for instance, covering for a friend when they were trying to reach cover or something similar. This time, she didn’t pull the magazine and put it safely away, she simply hit her mag release, dropped the empty mag directly to the ground as she pulled a fresh magazine and then inserted it. That was blazing fast. I made sure I practiced both techniques.

   Early the next morning, she took me to the inside pistol range by the EXSEC Bunker and we tried out the weapon light first. After shutting the sound proof double doors, she turned off the lights and then told me to turn on the light. I fumbled around quite a bit before I finally found and activated the light, damn it was bright. It had one lower setting that we both figured was serviceable for our needs inside the complex and a third setting that was a strobe. Debra had me shine it in her eyes and then she shined it in mine, the fluctuation of the bright light was blinding, and confusing. She had me take several shots at targets with the strobe on. It was going to take a little practice to get used to it, but it was definitely doable. I liked the idea of blinding someone that might be trying to kill me. Then we set the laser. She suggested we zero it at fifty feet, the maximum distance of the inside pistol range, so that’s what we did. When I asked her if it could be used outside during the day, she said probably under some conditions, but not in others. I would have to experiment with it to establish that myself.

   We finished at the pistol range and went to Packer’s office and waited outside until he arrived. Again, I went over what I had e-mailed him and gave a prep on the material. After I was finished, he sat there quietly for a few seconds and then said, “Some of the squad leaders are a little dubious about the info you’re compiling and wondering if what we’re looking at is just some nutty conspiracy theory. I haven’t gotten too deeply into what we you have dug up because frankly, I’m more of a nuts-n-bolts kind of thinker.”

   There was a knock at Packer’s closed door and he motioned to it, “Tarn, would you mind getting that? I believe it’s probably Gillian with coffee and breakfast wraps.”

   “Yes, Sir,” She answered, stood and then opened it.

   Gilly Packer smiled and said, “Hi, Sweetie, give me a hand?” She rolled a cart in and then returned to close the door as Debra passed what was basically burritos to first the Lieutenant, then me, and then Mrs. Packer as she squeezed by and sat on the edge of Packer’s desk. I quickly stood and poured coffee from a carafe into cups and first served Gillian, then Debra who passed it to the Lieutenant, then Debra again who sat down with her breakfast wrap. I poured my own and then sat down myself.

   Mrs. Packer smiled and said, “I haven’t seen you kids in a while, so I decided to sit in this morning with Jerry’s permission.” She looked at Packer and said, “You’re right, they both look much better since they’ve put on a little weight.”

   Packer smiled at us, “She keeps demanding I pay attention to the health of both of you. She was worried there for a while.”

   “Thank you for your concern, Mrs. Packer,” Debra said.

   “Gilly, please,” Mrs. Packer said. “I don’t think we need to practice military formality in private, do we? I know if we were all still enlisted, it might be necessary, but things are much less formal here, right?” She asked as she looked at Packer.

   The Lieutenant smiled at her said, “Yes, and no, I prefer to think of us as friends who recognize the validity and necessity of rank recognition. If we weren’t in the pickle we’re in, I’d be inclined to agree with you.”

   “All the members of EXSEC,” Debra said. “Look up to you, Lieutenant, all of us have the greatest respect for your years of service and those of us who had the pleasure of serving active duty with you, have made a point to let those who were not allowed the honor, know of your capabilities and the loyalty you display for your people.”

   Packer laughed and said, “Tarn, have you ever thought about getting into politics?”

   Debra smiled and said, “I may have been Air Force, Sir, but I was an honest grunt, just like the rest of the people that follow your lead, and no, Sir, I don’t have a lot of desire to become a politician.”

   He laughed and turned to me, “As I was saying before, some of our people are having some trouble buying into the situation we appear to have, so I was wondering, Smith,” He glanced up at Mrs. Packer and then said, “I was wondering, Daniel, could you put together a presentation, lecture, whatever you would call it and give it to the squad leaders some morning? It wouldn’t have to be real long, maybe a-half-hour or hour in duration? You know, hit the highlights in an organized manner the way you have done for me? Then they can pass it on to their people, what do you think.”

   “I suppose so, Lieutenant, it wouldn’t be much different than the oral presentations I’ve given in some of my earlier college courses.”

   “Good, see what you can put together, how long do you need to prepare it?”

   “Actually, the e-mails I’ve been sending you would make a pretty good outline for what you want. How about tomorrow morning?”

   “That would work out pretty good. I was going to tell them about my meeting with the administration concerning the purchase of additional weapons and equipment this morning, but I’ll put that off until then as well.”

   “You already had the meeting?” Previously, he had been concerned whether the administration would even want to discuss purchasing more equipment.

   “Yes, and surprisingly, they readily agreed to my requests.”

   That surprised me. “Really?”

   “Yeah, Marlow even told the rest of the departments to work up lists of any additional supplies, or equipment they needed. For some reason, to use a term you used to describe it once, his decision to suddenly spend a lot of corporate funds is making me itchy.”

   “Yeah,” I responded. “Corporations don’t normally start throwing funds around without worrying about what the shareholders will think.”

   Debra looked back and forth between the two of us and then asked, “This is good though, right? We get what we wanted.”

   “Yeah,” Packer said. “But,” he added, and then hesitated before saying, “Why did they so readily agree? That’s what is making me itchy.”

   I asked, “How much money did you request?”

   “I was going to ask for $100,000, but before I could, the Finance Director said they would provide $225,000 and to let them know if that was insufficient.”

   “Wow,” I responded. “What did you say?”

   “I told the Finance Director, the funding would go a long way towards the initial costs of increasing the Auxiliary, but we would need to increase our ammunition stores and stocks of field rations as well. He just nodded and made a notation in his laptop.”

   The hair on my arms stood up and I began to drag my fingernails over them, “Shit,” I said.

   “Yeah,” Packer responded.

   “Okay,” Debra said. “I’m starting to feel stupid here, obviously the three of you are seeing something I’m not.”

   Mrs. Packer said, “No, Sweetie, you’re not stupid. You just aren’t interested in playing power games. Have you heard the expression, ‘use it, or lose it’?”

   “Well, yeah, but…” You could see the wheels turning and then she said, “Oh, they’re afraid if they don’t make the investment now, they may lose out in the future. They consider the money spent on defense, as money well spent, if everything falls apart.”

   “From looking at the news,” I said. “Everything has fallen apart, now it’s just a matter of how far apart we’re going to fall. The money they spend now will help shore them up, and others like them, through the initial chaos, so they will be in a position of power once things begin to settle down.”

   “With a lot fewer people in the world,” she finished. “Don’t these people understand that they could end up being some of the billions of people that are going to die if they keep this up?”

   “They considered it alright, that’s why we are here, we’re their insurance policy. They have probably set things in motion and are now realizing that motion can move in directions they didn’t anticipate.” I said. “Has anyone noticed reports of mobs of people over-running corporate headquarters, or government facilities, maybe something similar?” I asked, but no one answered, “We should probably continue keeping an eye on the national news, but foreign news agencies might be a better bet.”

   “Probably best for me to do that,” Mrs. Packer said. “I usually have the TV on anyway when I’m taking care of chores in the apartment.”

   “Daniel,” the lieutenant said. “Do you want the day off from training to get that presentation done?”

   “No, Sir, it should go pretty quick once I get started putting it together.”

   “Good, because your squad is showing up outside.”

   “I better get out there then,” I replied.

   I did, and Debra went off to meet up with her squad to receive duty assignments for the day. That evening, she sat in the common room and watched the TV news with a notepad while I worked on the presentation. It wasn’t going to be a polished lecture, I didn’t have time for that, it was simply going to be a timeline and chain of events that were all related and came to only one conclusion.

 

   I arrived quite a bit early for the meeting in the Ready Room. There was a display board in the room that could be connected to a computer, so you could project images on to it. I was worried about whether I could interface it with my laptop, but Mrs. Packer took care of that, I guess she was pretty tech savvy. She, Packer, Debra and I sat and drank coffee until the people Packer had requested began to show up. Daniel Smith was there and all the other squad leaders and assistants as well, even Bellows and Danni Monroe. Fourteen of them total plus a surprise, there were three members of INSEC as well. When they walked in dressed in their black uniforms, I cast a glance at Lieutenant Packer, but he just nodded as he gave me a thumbs up gesture. I don’t have a lot of trust in INSEC, but I keep hearing they’re not all bad. I hope people are right.

   I’ll give all of them the respect they deserve, they were all polite and reserved their questions for the end. They all asked questions that were direct and to the point, even the INSEC guys. One of the INSEC guys told us there were concerns even they had, about what was going on and said they were on board and couldn’t deny the conclusions we had reached.

   Once the questions were answered, Packer informed everyone about the increase in funding they were receiving and the plans for the immediate future. EXSEC consisted of one platoon of personnel, a total of forty-one men and women grouped in four squads of ten. These were EXSEC’s core. They were to be reduced to three squads as ten members were going to be pulled to act as squad leaders and assistants for the Auxiliary. Eventually, there were going to be ten squads of Auxiliary, and EXSEC overall, would be increased to 130 men and women. When one of the squad leaders commented that he still had Auxiliary members without weapons and gear, how were they supposed to arm everyone while we waited for them to be able to afford it? Packer informed the room that they were going to receive a significant boost in funding and Global was going to pay for weapons and gear to equip the Auxiliary. There were some smiles and light applause. I did notice the INSEC people looked rather nervous about the whole proposition.

   Packer finally dismissed everyone, so they could return to their normal duties and I started winding up my computer and notes from the presentation. The three INSEC guys approached and one of them asked me, “Smith, right?”

   “Yes.”

   “You did all the research for the, uh, lecture?”

   “I wouldn’t characterize it has a lecture, more of a presentation.”

   He waved his hand in a dismissive manner and said, “Semantics, it was well done and perfectly performed. I liked the way you weaved together the information and then tied it off with your conclusion.” I had heard the same example from someone else. It seemed to be what a lot of different people could relate to.

   Surprised, I simply answered, “Thank you.” I noticed Debra had moved quietly up and was standing to the side listening.

   “Listen, some of us had a few serious concerns about the containment break down in Phase Six. We know, without a doubt, that information was withheld about the cause, but anytime we try to push the Administration for answers we get shut down. Is it possible you can do the same thing you did here today, but in regards to the containment breach? I have a personal reason for getting to the bottom of it and any assistance we can get from you would be really appreciated.”

   “That was actually what I started this investigation for, but direct information is hard to collect and I have to approach it in a round-a-bout manner. I’m still working it on though and any information that you guys have come up with could be helpful. What’s your personal reason for your interest, if you don’t mind me asking?”

   “I have a four-year-old daughter and she goes to a child care center down in Phase Five when my wife and I are both working, which is damn near every day. From what the caregiver at the center said, if it wasn’t for some of you EXSEC people, her and all of the children would probably be dead, including my daughter. I’d feel a lot better if I knew that wasn’t going to happen again.”

   “That’s understandable,” I said, then I motioned for Debra to come to me, which she did. I slid my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, “This is my fiancée, Debra Tarn, she was volunteering at the day care center that day and now you can thank her in person.”

   “You’re Debbie?” He asked. “Marie didn’t know your last name, she said you were injured and got left behind with another guy because there wasn’t room in the golf cart they were in. I figured you must have gotten out because when I and some of the other INSEC guys got there, all we found were the bodies inside and out.” He offered his hand and said, “Thank you, so much.”

   Debra seemed embarrassed, but she shook his hand and then said, “Wait a minute.” She looked around and shouted, “Danni, hey Danni! Come over here before you leave!”

   I glanced over and saw Danni working through the press of people leaving the Ready Room. She was eyeballing the INSEC guys as she said, “What’s up, Debra?”

   Debra looked at the INSEC guy and asked, “What’s your name?”

   “Mark Wilson.”

   She looked at Danni and said, “Danni, this is Mark, his daughter was at the children’s day care center when you and Daniel saved my ass.” Looking back at Mark, she said, “She’s one of the two that shot the people who were outside trying to get in, then she drove Marie and the kids to safety.”

   He immediately grabbed Danni’s hand and started shaking it, “Thank you so much, I can’t tell you how much, what you did, means to me.”

   Danni looked flustered, but said, “Uh, yeah, sure.”

   Then, Debra told him as she placed her palm on my chest, “And this is the guy that helped Danni shoot the people outside that were trying to get in.”

   I had to let go of Debra as he starting shaking my hand. “How the hell did you two get out of there anyway?”

   “It’s a long story,” I said.

   “Don’t ask me,” Debra said. “I was unconscious most of the time while he carried me.”

   One of the other INSEC guys tapped Wilson on the shoulder and said, “Hey, I wish we could stay longer, but we need to get back.”

   “Yeah, I know,” Wilson said. “Hey,” he said to the three of us, “Just know, you have friends at INSEC, okay? A lot of us.”

   “Got it,” I said.

   That evening, after we finished training or duty time, Debra, Danni, Daniel, and I went to the cafeteria to meet up with Dak and Felicia. We had dinner and talked for a while, just a General bull shit session before Felicia commented how much fun it had been when we played cards and wondered if we could do it again. Debra said, sure, so we left the cafeteria and the six of us went to mine and Debra’s room. I was a little anxious because we hadn’t played cards before, we had used it as an excuse to leave and speak in private.

   I only had four chairs in our room, so while everyone got situated, I went to the Common Room and brought back two folding chairs, I figured when they weren’t being used, I could simply fold them and leave them against a wall out of the way. As soon as I returned, Debra handed me a Shiners, so we all had one, and we gathered around.

   “What’s up, Felicia?” Debra asked.

   “Has anyone noticed any odd behavior around the facility?” She asked.

   We all glanced around at each other, but no one said anything as an awkward silence followed her question. “Uh, a little context to the question might be helpful, Fel.” Dak said.

   “Oh, yes, sorry. What I mean is, I brought this to Dak’s attention and he did some checking through Human Resources and found some interesting stats. As an example, there has been a sharp increase in cases of assault and battery, domestic abuse, and arguments in general, within the complex.”

   “Another little item.” Dak added, “There’s also been an increase in worksite accidents.”

   “Where?” I asked.

   “All over the facility,” Dak said. “But, the one thing in common with the majority of the incidents is Phase Six, Level Two. Most of the people involved in disputes with others, either work in the science labs, or have reasons to be there periodically. As an example, members of the janitorial staff, or people from warehousing delivering supplies or equipment.”

   “Could it be from what happened in Gupta’s lab? I mean, some form of infection, or contamination?” Debra asked Felicia.

   “That’s what’s strange, all the labs have their own air filter systems and are independent of the other lab’s air. My lab has had no problems with anger issues among the personnel even though we were close to Gupta’s lab, but not directly next to it. The Biochemistry Lab is on the opposite side of us from Gupta and they have had several fights actually break out in the lab area.”

   “Biochemistry?” I asked.

   “Yes.” She answered.

   “Dak,” I asked. “Has it ever been established what happened in Gupta’s lab?”

   “Not that I’m aware of, Fel?”

   “The Lab Directors, including my supervisor, were told the problem was a technical exercise that went wrong.”

   “A technical exercise? What does that even mean?” I asked.

   “What?” She asked, “Oh, I’m sorry, not a technical exercise, I meant to say, technician exercise. The lab technicians were working on a new piece of equipment and something went wrong while they were developing a process to load it for transport.”

   “Wait,” Danni said. “They accidently, released a deadly substance, while figuring out how to crate it up for shipping? Didn’t anyone think maybe they should have maybe used a dummy piece of equipment, or container, in order to develop a safe procedure?”

   Felicia held her hands out from her sides, “I don’t know, that’s what we would have done in our lab, but we don’t know what parameters for safety protocols had been established in Gupta’s lab.”

   “I know I’ve asked this before,” I said. “But what does Gupta do in her lab? I know she’s in genetics, but what does she actually, do? Gene splicing? Gene editing? What does she do?”

   “We’re not allowed to inquire what the other labs are working on,” Felicia said.

   The room was quiet for a few moments as we all looked at each other and then Debra said, “So, none of the different departments, the different labs, are working on related projects?”

   “Possibly, but again, we aren’t allowed to interact. I can tell you that I have never seen anything from my lab, go to Gupta’s lab, or vice versa. I’ve never seen anything from our lab go to any of the other labs.”

   “This doesn’t make sense,” I said.

   “We’re not scientists,” Daniel said. “Why would what they do, or not do, make any sense to us?”

   “Simple logistics. Global is still a corporation and corporations exist to maximize their bottom line.” I said. “Felicia, does the procedures you work under here make sense to you?”

   “Yes, if our work is unrelated, no, if our research is related. I know that sounds like obfuscation, but without knowing what they are working on precisely, I can’t say.”

   I thought for a moment and then asked, “Are you directed into certain areas of research? If you are, who does it, the redirecting?”

   “Well, obviously, we get direction from Global, but when we are not working on a project for them, the Director is free to explore other venues.”

   “Have you ever been given directives to work on vectors? I know you are in virology, so I’m assuming you work with viruses, right?” She nodded. “Do you also work on vectors, methods of introducing a virus into the cells of the human body? Maybe in an attempt to somehow modify existing cells to perform another function?” I suggested.

  “Geez, Daniel, you’re looking for simple answers and the facts are much more complicated. Can we create vectors to speed up the process of infection? Yes, in some cases, in some cases, no. When you are dealing with living tissue and cultures, they can change, mutate, naturally and be forced to do so, but only on a small scale with the equipment we have here.” She was starting to get frustrated, “It’s difficult to express in a way that someone who is untrained in the discipline can grasp. Another thing is, if I knew what the areas of expertise were of each individual member, of each department, then I might be able to develop a guess as to what they were doing, but they could also be doing things that were unconnected to what I might think.”

   “Okay, questioning the people who work in separate departments is a no go. So, if you knew what those researcher’s area of training, or expertise was, could you make an educated guess about what they might be working on?” I asked.

   “Maybe, but often, people will end up in different areas simply because the work they have performed before, has pushed them down another path of inquiry.”

   “Damn,” I said. “Sort of like a plumber veering off into sprinklerfitting or vice versa.”

   Felicia frowned and said, “Huh?”

   “Never mind,” I said. “But I understand where you are coming from.” I thought for a moment and asked Dak, “I guess your attempts to follow equipment requisitions didn’t play out?”

   “Not really, Fel said that a lot of research equipment could perform multiple functions depending on what a lab might need it for.”

   “Too generic to draw specific conclusions from.” I said.

   “Yeah.”

   “Global hired and transferred new personnel to replace the ones lost,” I looked once again to Felicia, “If you could look at their training and/or work record, could you formulate an idea on what they might be doing here?”

   “Possibly, but like I said, there are no guarantees.” She answered.

   “Can you check that out for us, Dak? I mean through your Human Resources point of view?”

   “Possibly, maybe, I still have to get permission to access my office’s computer through the system administrator. He’s been getting overloaded with people needing to access records; he has to stop whatever he’s doing to take care of other people’s computer needs, so I think he’s getting a bit burned out on the security thing.”

   “Yeah, the purchaser at Facilities said something similar,” I responded.

   Debra went to the fridge and started pulling more bottles of beer, “Okay, enough of this shit, we aren’t really getting anywhere, so what do you guys think of actually playing some cards? If anyone asks, at least we’ll all be able to say what games we were playing, right?”

   I’ve never been much of a card player, but I learned how to play Canasta, it was kind of fun.

    

    Time slipped by and after three more weeks of field exercises, Bellows announced we were almost done with our training. Our final training exercise consisted of main gate security for the first day, where EXSEC members faked trying to get in without authorization, then we had to actually repel an attack with blank adapters on our weapons and firing blanks. That night we did patrols inside the perimeter until three in the morning while again, repelling infiltrators. We were allowed to sleep for three hours and then awakened to be sent on a patrol around the outside of the perimeter that lasted the next three days. During those three days, we were never allowed more than three hours of sleep per twenty-four hours and we had to have sentries while others slept. Our meals consisted entirely of MREs and the only sleep gear we had were our rain ponchos and liners. We had to find our way from one point to another using only a map and compass. At our second to last way point, we carried out an ‘L’ shaped ambush and then exfiltrated back to the perimeter fence where we became an attacking force that had to penetrate the perimeter. Our final way point was in front of the EXSEC Bunker where Packer congratulated us on completion of our training and presented us with embroidered patches we could sew onto our smocks. I was exhausted, but exhilarated at the same time. Bellows and Monroe had accompanied us the whole time, but only gave us a few pointers along the way; they were exhausted also. Six of the women in our squad were assigned to other squads that needed them and the men they replaced were added to our squad. The two women who stayed were Menendez and Lincoln plus myself and the other guy, John Trench. Our official unit designation was 1^st Squad, 3d Auxiliary Platoon, Able Company, but unofficially, we were the fourth squad of 2nd Auxiliary Platoon.

   Once the Administration had given permission to Packer to start using the funds that had been delegated to the Auxiliary, he went on a major buying spree. Some of what he bought was new, like radios, GPS devices, magazines, weapon cleaning kits and such, but the majority was used military surplus. As an example, when my training squad received our first set of MOLLE gear, the fighting load carriers, canteen, IFAK, hydration, and magazine pouches were all the old style ACU grey/green camouflage. Debra jokingly said, the old camo would only work in the parking lot that had been covered with gravel, so we had painted the gear in order for it to match the smocks we wore, and it was fairly effective, then Packer decided the Auxiliary would use Coyote Brown gear whenever it could be found. However, often, the gear needed was unavailable in brown and he was forced to purchase other types of camouflage in order to get complete sets of gear. The ones we were forced to buy were normally painted in order to look the same.

   Purchasing the weapons really became what Packer referred to as a cluster fuck. He wanted Global to buy the weapons, but Global was blocked by law from buying guns and then issuing them to employees. Global’s lawyers tried several ways of trying to work around the problem, but the only thing they could do was bring in a Federal Firearms License holder to run background checks on each employee. When costs were figured in, the bean counters balked and Packer didn’t hear from the Administration regarding the weapons for a while. Then, one day a truck arrived and Packer was required to sign for the delivery. The cargo was one-hundred, AR 15 carbines, twelve, AR 15 rifles, and twelve M1a rifles. When Packer asked what happened, he was told it was best not to ask, just accept the weapons. The problem was, the cost to Global was enough that the bean counters started looking at every purchase order and going over them with a fine-toothed comb.

   Gillian Packer was still doing the sewing on the smocks, but her machine was wearing out from constant use. It was never intended for what she was using it for. Packer ordered two industrial sewing machines because the wife of another EXSEC employee was helping Mrs. Packer with the sewing and her inexpensive machine was also wearing out. The bean counters wanted to know why a security force needed sewing machines. After Packer explained that he had solicited bids for the smocks and the cheapest he could get was $150 a piece, the accountants reconsidered and allowed the purchase to go through. The good thing was, Mrs. Packer and Martha Bellows, who was helping her with the sewing, began to be paid for their work.

   When Packer ordered MOLLE belts and suspenders for the belts, the accountants balked again. Why do they need belts when they have Fighting Load Carriers? The Auxiliary were only issued six magazines anyway. Packer worked around that by removing the sub-belts of the FLCs and using them for what we started calling sustainment belts. When he had been in the Rangers, it was something they often did and it worked well. Mrs. Packer made simple adjustable suspenders from one-inch and one-and-a-half-inch webbing that Packer ordered spools of.

   Another example was, rucks. Packer wanted each member of the Auxiliary to have a large main ruck, and a smaller patrol/assault pack. Accounting again said, the Auxiliary was a defensive force and had no need of the ability to carry gear long distance on their backs. Packer countered and said sometimes the best defense was the ability to pursue an enemy in order to assure they didn’t come back again and the packs were also needed in case the Auxiliary needed to carry extra equipment within the confines of the complex. They finally agreed to patrol/assault packs, but not large rucks. Packer checked around and finally ordered the old-style ALICE Medium Pack for us. It was slightly larger than the MOLLE Patrol Pack, had an external frame and was a proven piece of kit. The one thing he did change was the shoulder straps. He ordered straps from the MOLLE Large Ruck to replace the smaller and narrower ALICE straps, which made them far more comfortable. I actually had a large MOLLE Ruck, but I also had an ALICE Medium Pack with the same modification. When I showed him mine, he saw I had also added a MOLLE Fanny Pack to the bottom of the medium pack. When I bought the pack used, it was missing its waist belt, so I added the fanny pack because it had its own belt that I used as a waist belt on the ALICE. He liked it and ordered fanny packs for the ALICEs.

   When he tried to order sleep systems for the Auxiliary, again they used the excuse they were not going to be an expeditionary force, so they could sleep in their own beds at night. I showed him another thing I had done, which was, I purchased a Joint Services Lightweight Integrated Suit Technology pack. Yeah, I know, it’s a mouthful, but I used it to carry my Ranger Taco sleep system. It consisted of a rain poncho, a poncho liner, and a war casualty blanket, which is really nothing more than a space blanket on steroids. I called it a J-list bag because it was easier to say and I had used it to sleep in temperatures as low as 30 degrees. Packer, being an ex-Ranger, was familiar with the taco and ordered enough for all of the Auxiliary. During colder weather, I added a military surplus wool blanket and it worked fairly well. It was just another way of working around the bean counters, but it was a pain in the ass; they give you a budget and then some lackey in the accounting office, in who knows where, questions every little purchase made concerning a topic, they have no expertise in. It was no wonder, Packer walked around ready to blow-up in someone’s face.

   As I said, my training was finished, so I returned to working out of Facilities with an occasional day filling in at EXSEC. When I wasn’t at work, I was researching on the laptop. Normally, if I had something for Packer, I would e-mail it to him before I went to bed, but I always stopped by to explain the significance of what I sent. I had already left Packers office one morning and had walked into the Sprinkler Cage, our tool room, when Supervisor Morgan stepped in.

   “Daniel?”

   “Got something for us this morning?” I asked.

   “Yeah, but your guys will have to take care of it. There was an e-mail waiting for me this morning from Human Resources and they want to talk to you at their office.” He glanced around and then asked, “Dan, have you gotten into trouble for something?”

    “I can’t think of anything I might have done wrong, why?”

   “The last time I got an e-mail from Human Resources, they fired my guy they wanted to talk to.”

   “Are you talking about Johnson?” I asked. He nodded and I continued, “Johnson was kinda shady, Boss. He was always scamming shit and trying to work the system. He basically got what he deserved when they fired him.”

   “Yeah, I agree, but still, the only time they have contacted me was when they wanted to fire one of my guys. Are you sure you haven’t…?”

   “Absolutely, is it the front office that wants me?”

   “Yeah, you’re supposed to talk to Dak Sorensen.”

   “Okay,” I said. “I’ll be back as quick as I can.”

   It’s a long walk to Dak’s office, but I was interested in finding out what he wanted to talk to me about. He had been looking into employment records of the new hires in Gupta’s lab, but so far, he had come up empty. The six of us still got together to play cards and those were nights we discussed his progress, or as was usually the case, the lack of progress. When I arrived, I looked through the front windows of the office and saw Dak sitting behind his desk, in his office, while speaking to another man.

   I walked into the office and said to the receptionist, “Hi, I’m with Facilities and I was told Dak Sorenson wished to speak with me.”

   The young woman turned and looked through the window of Dak’s office and then said, “He is having a meeting at the moment, I’m afraid you will have to wait.”

   “No problem,” I said and continued to stand there waiting. A few minutes passed and Dak looked through the window and saw me, I waved, but he didn’t, he spoke quickly to the man and rising from his chair, he walked to his office door and stepped out, while holding the door open.

   “Hi, are you from Facilities?”

   I hesitated a moment as he was obviously acting as if he didn’t know me, and then said, “Yes, Sir, I’m with the fire sprinkler crew and was told you wanted to speak to me?”

   “Yes, I want to add a small room here,” He made a vague gesture with his hand, “But I was told it would be contingent on the availability of supply for an additional fire sprinkler?”

   I glanced at the man in Dak’s office as he rose from the chair he was in and looked at both Dak and myself. I looked up at the ceiling and glanced around, “Yeah, the sprinkler head over there, is designed to cover the area where you want the room and half of this out here,” I said as I waved my arm around. “That means if you want a room there, you’ll need to add a head for proper coverage.”

   He looked at my hands and said, “Didn’t you bring anything to sketch with?”

   “No, Sir, all I was told was to come here and see you.”

   The other guy stepped out of Dak’s office and stood quietly as he watched me.

   “Alright, I’ll get you a clipboard and some paper, I suppose you need a pen also?” Dak sounded exasperated.

   I reached up to my shirt pocket and produced a pencil, “No pen, but I have a pencil.”

   Dak stepped back into his room, grabbed several sheets of paper from a desk drawer, added several more blank sheets and then attached them to a clipboard before coming back to where I stood.

   The man, who was looking at me the whole time said, “I have not met you yet.”

   “Guess not,” I answered.

   “I am Major Becker; I am the new head of Security in this facility.” He was speaking with a definite German accent. He was shorter than me, wiry, small boned, with dark hair and a thin pencil width mustache. He looked rather effeminate.

   “Congratulations,” I said.

   He seemed to wait for a longer response, but then added, “And you are?”

   “Daniel Smith, I work out of Facilities.”

   He gave me puzzled look.

   “I’m a Sprinklerfitter,” I said. Then I pointed at one of the fire sprinklers in the room’s ceiling. “Fire sprinklers, I install them, or change them so they can protect the facility from the danger of fire.”

   He nodded and started to return to Dak’s office, but stopped and looked back at me, “I am looking forward to interviewing the lesser employees of Global Research, we shall meet again, soon.”

   “Looking forward to it, Chief,” I answered. Then I pulled a tape measure from my belt and began to measure the area Dak had designated his new room. After writing down a few cursory measurements, I left and started back to Facilities. The lesser employees? What an ass.

    I waited until I was outside the EXSEC Bunker before I looked at the sheets of paper Dak placed on the clipboard. It was a list with pictures, of the replacement employees in Gupta’s lab. Names, job description, and qualifications. It looked as though I might have some light reading when I got off work.

   That evening, I sat at our table in the room and began to go over the names. Following each name was a brief description of their education, past employment, job positions and the reason for the termination of past employment. All of them were in the United States on work visas and that alone raised some red flags, the U.S. didn’t have enough trained personnel to fill Global’s needs? There were three lab techs, two from Venezuela, and one from Columbia. The Venezuelans were previously employed by the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but later by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the Columbian was previously employed by the UNFAO. That was kind of a strange mix. I wondered what they might have in common? Back to the computer, I looked up both agencies and what their primary functions were. There were no similarities that jumped out at me. I also couldn’t see what an agency involved with monitoring atomic energy would have to do with genetics, so I went back to food and agriculture. I traced several news articles that mentioned the UNFAO was involved with the release of genetically modified mosquitos in third world countries to control the spread of disease. Then I remembered a small blip from an article about the IAEA, they also had been involved with the release of genetically sterilized mosquitos. Okay, why would the IAEA have anything to do with something that sounded like an UNFAO matter? I kept digging and finally found the connection. Drones. The IAEA used drones to monitor nuclear sites, the UNFAO did not have drones at the time they wanted to do their initial trials of releasing mosquitos, so they borrowed some from the IAEA to test their concept. When genetically sterilized mosquitos are released from aircraft, a large per centage are injured and even killed from being buffeted by the speed of the aircraft. However, drones can fly at slower speeds and are cheaper to fly than a helicopter. By releasing the mosquitos from a slower speed drone, more of them survive uninjured. I went back to the education and training of the three techs, all three had past experience in drone design and delivery systems.

   Now we were getting somewhere.

   Looking through the list of names further, I found another tidbit, three of the new hires in Gupta’s lab were not only geneticists, they were also biochemists. The only other lab seriously affected by the containment breach had been the Biochemistry Lab in Phase Six; four of the lab coats Danni and I had killed turned out to be from the Biochemistry Lab. Almost all the people in the Genetics Lab were killed outright, the people in Biochemistry became unusually violent. Why? Felicia’s lab was in between the Genetics Lab and the Biochemistry Lab, but suffered no problems. Why? Then I remembered something, when the labs were under construction, I had to change the piping of quite a few branch lines for the sprinkler system, because there was a conflict with a pneumatic message tube that traveled between the labs. The changes were made to allow the installation, but the pneumatic system was never finished because it violated the containment protocols. The tubes were above the hard lid ceilings, but were never brought down inside the labs because they decided any information between the labs could be transmitted by inter-lab e-mail, or by person-to-person exchange. I made a note of that little item; was the tube system connected at the time of the breach? If so, why? I kept puzzling over it and finally realized, inter-office e-mails would leave an electronic trail, a record, but a message through a vacuum tube?

   As usual, I came up with more questions than answers.

   I decided I needed to speak with Dak, Felicia, and Lieutenant Packer, but I was a little concerned because Debra hadn’t come in from work at her usual time. When she did show up late in the evening, I asked why she was late.

   “Oooo, am I detecting a little suspicious jealousy?”

   “What? No, I trust you implicitly, don’t ever think otherwise. I was just curious.”

   She laughed and said, “We had gate duty and got stuck there because the new head of INSEC wanted to meet with the members of EXSEC who were off-duty. I guess the meeting went on for a while. It was kind of boring duty; the only exit was one of the trash trucks and the same truck was the only entrance.” The trash trucks were a new aspect; previously, when the facility needed to get rid of trash and garbage, it was loaded into a single trash truck that was kept at the loading dock. Generally, it was driven to the onsite dump once per day and emptied. However, after some concerns had been raised about burying trash on the site, two more of the compaction trucks were purchased and they delivered the trash and garbage, to a county dump down by Hurley, New Mexico, three times a week. Usually, all three trucks went together, but apparently this one had a load of particularly noxious smelling crap and it was decided to make an early run to get rid of it. After dumping its load, it suffered some sort of breakdown and was driven to a commercial vehicle repair shop to be worked on. That was why it was so late returning. “Man, did that truck reek when it left,” Debra said.

   “Well, I bet the loading dock guys will have something to bitch about for a while.”

   “Why?” She asked.

   “Dumping whatever made the truck smell bad isn’t going to get rid of the smell. It’s going to have to be cleaned before that happens.”

   “It didn’t smell bad when they got back, just when they left.”

   “Really?”

   “Yeah, thank god, whatever they took to the dump was really awful, I almost upchucked it was so bad. I haven’t eaten yet, have you?”

   “Just some carrot sticks. Why don’t you take a shower and then we’ll run over to the cafeteria?”

   “By the time I get done with a shower and get my hair dried and done, it will be too late for the dinner spread, would you mind going and getting us something while I shower?”

   “I’m on it,” I said. I closed down the computer and hurried out to see what I could come up with. Fish, I’m not real keen on fish patties, but Debra likes them, so I got her two fish patties and fries, a handful of tartar sauce packets and catsup. I waited and had them make me a pastrami sandwich with fries also. By the time I got back, Debra was sitting at the table and looking through the papers Dak had given me.

   “Hon?” She said. “These two guys here,” she pointed at the pictures of two of Gupta’s lab techs.

   “Yeah?” I said as I placed our food on the table.

   “They’re lab technicians, right?”

   “Yeah.”

   “Why would they be driving a trash truck?”

   “I don’t imagine they would. The dock guys take care of that.”

   “Today they didn’t. That trash truck that smelled so bad was driven by one of these guys and the other was sitting in the passenger’s side.”

   I stared hard at her for a moment, and then said, “Really? You’re sure?” As I placed her plate of fish and fries in front of her.

   “Yeah, they tried to act like they couldn’t speak English, then they tried to play it off like they were joking around, but one of the guys with me, Guiterrez, speaks Spanish and called them on their bull shit. He ripped them pretty good and said the next time they pulled that shit he was going to arrest, and then turn them over to INSEC. They got real serious, real fast.”

   “Interesting,” I said. “And a good question, why would two lab techs drive a trash truck to the dump, when we have guys that do that already.”

   “I think we need to talk to the dock foreman,” she said.

   “Yeah, and let’s do it before Major Becker gets involved, I’m already not liking that guy.”

   “You met him?”

   “Yeah, he said he wanted to interview the quote, lesser employees of Global, unquote.”

   “Great, another damn elitist. I wonder if he thinks he’s smarter than us serfs, or just another self-important asshole?”

   “Probably a whole lot of both.” I said. “I’m going to go back by Dak’s office tomorrow and try to touch bases with him again. I think all he wanted to do was get these names to me, but we couldn’t talk because Becker was there when I arrived. Basically, he slipped them to me right under Becker’s nose.”

   “Be careful,” she said. “Until we get a handle on that guy.”

   “I will,” I finished my sandwich and reopened my computer as I glanced at the other names on Dak’s list.

   “Hon,” she said. “Are you planning on working late again?”

   “It’s the only chance I get to, Babe, between work and the Auxiliary, I’m short on hours in the day.”

   “I know, but our quality time is starting to suffer.”

   I stared at her for a long moment, and then without taking my eyes from her, I closed the laptop. “You’re right,” I said. I got up and fetched two beers from the fridge and gave her one after unscrewing the cap. “Let’s talk for a while, and then if you are in the mood, maybe we can…”

   “Make love? That better be what you were going to say.”

   “Absolutely, Babe, absolutely.”

   She smiled and took a sip of her beer.

 

   The next morning, I swung by the Dock Manager’s office to talk to him for a few minutes. As I walked in, he said, “God, I hope this isn’t a militia drill or something, I’m way too busy.”

   “Auxiliary, Jason, not militia. Administration finds the term, militia, unsavory.”

   “Ah, screw those people and their politically correct bullshit. I don’t care, I’m too busy.”

   I laughed, “Naw, I just needed to ask you a question about the trash truck that went to the dump yesterday.”

   “Okay, what is it?”

   “I was wondering why you allowed a couple of guys, from the labs in Phase Six, to drive the truck to the dump?”

   “The director of one of the labs called and said she had some very unpleasant material that needed to be dumped. She said she knew yesterday wasn’t a regular dump day and I probably didn’t have anyone who could take it, but it definitely needed to go out, so she was willing to send a couple of her own guys. I figured no skin off my nose and said sure. Man, I don’t know what was in those crates, but yeah, there was no way I was going to leave it at the dock.”

   “It was crates that smelled so bad?”

   “Yeah, six of them. I watched as the two drivers loaded them with a forklift. She said they were some sort of fluid that was supposed to be refrigerated, but was left in the warehouse by mistake. Those crates looked brand new to me, so whatever was in them must spoil fast.”

   “Did the Director identify herself?”

   “Yeah, I think her name was Gupta.”

   “Okay, well thanks, Jason, take it easy.”

   I left and went to work, but the first chance I got, I went to Dak’s office and talked to him. He was relieved when he saw me. “Hey, Daniel, sorry about yesterday, but that Major Becker really creeps me out.”

   “I gathered that,” I said. “But just so you know, that list of names and the info you included is paying dividends.”

   “I thought it might, which names caught your attention?”

   “Gupta’s three lab technicians, for now, but I’ll get to the rest.”

   Fel wants you to take a close look at the biochemists, she says there is something about them that’s not right.”

   “Did she say what it was?”

   “No, just a general feeling. She’s tried to strike up conversations with them, but they seemed evasive.”

   “Okay, I will. In case that Becker guy comes by and asks, tell him, I told you, there’s not enough water supply to add a head in your new room. Guess you’ll have to leave your copy machines where they are for now.”

   He chuckled and said, “Thanks for picking up on that so quick.”

   “What are friends for? One other thing, Gupta had six crates in the warehouse that were supposed to be refrigerated, but they weren’t and the fluid in them spoiled. Do you know what was in those crates?”

   He had a blank look on his face and then said, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

   “No?’

   “No.”

   “That raises a question or two.” I explained about the crates, the trash truck and the lab techs who drove the truck. Then I asked him, “Has Gupta requested any lumber be delivered to her lab?”

   He accessed his computer and looked it over, “Yeah, eight sheets of plywood, twenty-five 2x3x8 lumber, an assortment of screws, hinges, and lock hasps. That was five, no, six days ago.”

   “Interesting.”

   “Why?”

   “She says warehousing is responsible for mishandling some of her materials and basically, that’s you, but you know nothing about spoilage on your watch. Then she orders enough wood to build the crates she says you spoiled and then sends the new crates to the dump. Something to think about, right?”

   “One other thing,” Dak said. “She sends the crates to the dump the same day the newly appointed head of INSEC makes his appearance. Is she trying to hide something from him?”

   “Yep, more interesting.”

   I said my goodbyes and headed back to Facilities, what the shit was going on?

   I left work a little early and met Debra as she was getting off, once again our hours were meshing together, but I wanted to speak with Packer also. I filled him in with the new developments and I could tell he was getting frustrated.

   “Every time you come up with something new, my life gets more complicated. One of the reasons I applied for this position was I thought it wouldn’t be very demanding and I’d have time for the little shit in life. Remember the saying ‘ignorance is bliss?’ I’m starting to believe that shit.”

   I nodded, “Yeah, until you watch the news and you realize that ignorant bliss might plant your ass in a grave.”

   Debra was being unusually quiet, but finally she said, “That trash truck, when they came back, it didn’t reek any longer. I mean, it, it smelled like a garbage truck, but that really bad smell was gone.”

   Both Packer and I stared at her for a moment and then Packer said, “Well, they got rid of the crap that was smelling bad at the dump.”

   “Yeah, but you guys didn’t smell it like I did, it was thick and cloying, in fact, after they left it sort of hung in the air. I remember thinking that truck was going to stink for a good long time, but it didn’t.”

   I sat there for a minute and said, “The way you describe the smell and how strong it was, they must have gotten a lot of complaints about the smell; the crates had to be moved through the complex to the loading docks.”

   Packer picked up his phone as he asked us, “Complaints would probably go to the janitorial division at Facilities, right?”

   “Yeah, they would be called for any potential cleanup,” I answered.

   Packer checked his phone directory and then dialed the number. “Yes, this Lieutenant Packer at External Security, did your office receive any complaints about a foul odor anywhere in The Facility yesterday?’ He listened for a moment and then said, “No, I’m not reporting a smell now, but yesterday.” Another pause and then, “No, that’s all I needed to know, thanks.”

   He hung up, “Nothing, how could something that smelled as bad as you say, be moved all the way from Phase Six, and no one complain?”

   What the hell…I walked to Packer’s desk and asked, “Can I use your phone?” He nodded, and I dialed Felicia’s apartment phone, no answer. I dialed Dak’s number and he picked up. “Dak, it’s Daniel, is Felicia there with you? Great, I need to speak with her for a minute.”

   I waited until she answered, “Hi, Dan, what’s up?”

   “Felicia, I need some information. Is it possible to create a really strong stench that could be neutralized easily?”

   “Yes, I had a chemistry teacher in high school that demonstrated the way different chemical compounds could interact by using that very technique. He sprayed a compound into a box with a lid on it and then had each of us in the class come up and take a whiff. I had to grab his wastebasket and throw up it was so bad. Then he sprayed another compound in the box and had us sniff it again. I wouldn’t do it the second time, but some of the braver guys did, and they said the bad smell was completely gone.”

   “Do you remember what those chemicals were and if so, can you find out if they are available here at the Facility?” I asked.

   “No, not off-hand, but I can find out pretty easy. I’ll take care of it and Dak can check if we have it, okay? What do you want to do, make a stink bomb?” She laughed as she said it.

   “No, I just wanted to find out if it was possible, ask Dak about missing crates that smelled bad and he’ll let you know what’s going on. Hey, wait, can you do me a favor?”

   “What is it?”

   “I need to get a look above the hard lid ceilings in your lab, but I need a reason to be there. Could you place a call to Facilities and ask them for a check on a possible fire sprinkler leak in your lab”

   “Why?”

   “I think there may be a connection between the Biochemistry Laboratory and Gupta’s lab that might be responsible for the increase in violent attacks. Probably not, but I still need to check. Can you do it?”

   “When?”

   “Tomorrow?” I asked.

   “Consider it done,” she said. I hung up after saying goodbye.

   “Felicia says, you can create a noxious smell and then get rid of it pretty quick. If you want to get rid of something fast, making it smell bad at the right time would be a good way to do it.”

   “It doesn’t make sense,” Packer said. “Why make newly built crates smell bad, so you can throw them away? Yeah, I know, they obviously wanted to cover up getting rid of something they put inside the crates, but…”

   Debra interrupted him, “Maybe they weren’t getting rid of them, maybe they were delivering them.”

   You could have heard a pin drop in the room, “I’ll be damned,” Packer said.

   I laughed and said, “You can’t have her, she’s mine.” I kissed her on the cheek when she started turning red. “Damn, Babe. That did not occur to me.”

   “Okay, so what were they,” Packer said, “Maybe, delivering?”

   “I have no idea,” I responded. “If we knew what Gupta’s techs were working on when the containment breach occurred, maybe we could figure something out from that perspective.”

   “Not much chance of that,” he said. “Administration is still keeping a lid on it.”

   “You were able to get the security tape, the one of Gupta and I, from INSEC. There must be a security tape of the lab when the accident happened, right?” I asked, and in my peripheral vision I saw Debra squirm a bit; she still got uncomfortable when that whole episode came up in any form.

   “Yes, Phillips had his people look at specific camera feeds to see if what I was beginning to suspect was true, but he specifically stated he wouldn’t give me access to anything from the labs. As far as getting Becker to help, now that he is in command, good luck with that. The little shit is a martinet and follows the Global directives to the letter.” I could tell Packer was less than impressed with Major Becker.

   “Okay,” I said. “That street looks closed for the duration; we’ll have to figure something else out.”

   Debra and I left shortly after the exchange and returned to our room. Neither one of us wanted to make a run to the cafeteria, so we gathered the leftovers from the fridge and threw a meal together. It was while we were eating that Debra opened a new avenue.

   “Daniel, that INSEC guy at your presentation, the one whose daughter was at the Day Care Center. Do you remember what he said?”

   “Uh, thank you, thank you, thank you, until it started getting embarrassing?”

   She tossed a stick of celery at me, unfortunately, she had already dipped it in Ranch Dressing. “Stop it, you would of done the same thing if it was your kid.”

   “Yeah, I guess so,” I said as I wiped dressing from my cheek and then licked it off my finger.

   “What I was going to say is, he said if we ever needed anything to let him know, because we had friends at Internal Security.”

   “Yeah, he did, but he probably wasn’t talking about breaking site security though.”

   “Maybe, maybe not, I think it’s worth a try, don’t you?”

   “His name was Mark Wilson, I’ll see what I can come up with, you know, try to contact him somehow.”

   “I’ve got that covered,” she said. “You know I’m still filling in at Child Care and I’m on friendly terms now with his wife, Melissa. She’s a sweetheart.”

   I thought for a moment and then asked, “I remember Wilson said his wife worked for Global also, do you know where?”

   “Accounting.”

   “Okay, see what you can come up with, but be careful, alright?”

   “Of course.”

   The next morning, the phone in the tool cage rang and when I picked it up, Morgan was on the line, “Daniel, I just got a call from Assistant Lab Director Ortiz down in the Virology Lab in Phase Six, Level Two. She says she has a possible leak in the fire sprinklers and needs someone there right away. Can you do that this morning?”

   “Yeah, those people down there have been kind of spooked since the accident; I’ll check it first thing.” I loaded a work cart and drove down to Felicia’s lab and parked. I took an eight-foot ladder in and set it up under the access panel and opened it, allowing the lid to swing free. Crawling up the ladder, I used a high intensity light and checked out the attic space, it was readily apparent that Felicia’s lab had never been connected to the pneumatic tube system; it was also readily apparent the Genetics Lab and the Biochemistry lab were connected to each other, son-of-a-bitch. Those connected tubes were strictly against safety protocols.

 

   It was three days before Debra worked at the Child Care Center again, but it wasn’t Melissa that came to pick up their daughter, it was Mark Wilson himself. During her effort to sort of, feel him out, she learned he had been a sniper in the Army and that was also his position in the BATFE when he was a member of one of their SWAT teams. He lamented that INSEC didn’t have access to the rifle range EXSEC had put together and Debra invited him to go shooting with us the next day. The lady is definitely smooth.

   While we were working on our target practice, Debra and I slowly started to inquire about his feelings about the containment breach and he reiterated there were a significant number of Internal Security personnel who were as concerned as we were. I told him about my own investigation and wondered if he or one of his compatriots could assist me in acquiring any security footage of the accident. He didn’t promise anything, but he said he would check into it. We finished our session of practice and went our separate ways.

   After he had left, Debra asked me, “So what do you think? Will he be able to help?”

   “I hope so, but he seemed a little reluctant after I asked him about the security footage.”

   “Yeah, I’m wondering if we moved too fast for him.”

   “Me too.”

   During the following week, Debra filled in at Child Care twice, but both times, Amanda Wilson, the daughter, wasn’t there. Frankly, we were becoming a little nervous and discussed it with Lieutenant Packer. He told us to stay in one of the empty rooms in the family barracks until further notice; he wanted us closer to EXSEC for our own protection.

   The third day we were there, Shayla Lincoln, who was in my training squad and was now Assistant Squad Leader for my Auxiliary squad, found us outside of Packer’s office. “Hey, Smith,” she said.

   “Shayla, what are you doing down this way?”

   “Yeah, one of the girls I work with, Melissa, has been trying to get together with you, or Debra Tarn, and hasn’t been able to. Her daughter has been ill and the pediatrician wants her to stay away from other kids, so she’s been staying home with her.”

   Debra immediately asked, “What’s wrong with her? If it’s been a whole week…”

   “She says Amanda is getting better, but she had a severe bout of the flu and the doctor wanted to make sure it wasn’t one of the strains that has been knocking the crap out of the world. We’ve been pretty lucky so far and the medical staff want to keep it that way. She said her husband was going to try and contact you, but his supervisor reassigned him and has him staying in the bachelor rooms down in INSEC’s barracks. He didn’t want him carrying the flu from his daughter to the rest of the security guys down there. Anyway, she gave me this to give to one of you; she seemed to think it was important.” She handed Debra a large manila envelope.

   I said, “Thanks, Shayla,” as Debra handed the envelope to me.

   “We’re still on for a day of Auxiliary training next Saturday,” She said to me. “Will you be there?”

 “You bet,” I said.

   She left and I opened the envelope to find a DVD with no title. Debra gasped and said, “Do you think…”

   “I hope so,” I answered. “Let’s take it to Packer and see what’s on it.”

   As soon as we walked into the office, I showed Packer what we had and what I thought it might be. He immediately took the disc and inserted it into his computer. It was what we had hoped for, it was a view of the inside of the Gupta’s lab and the date matched that of the breach.

   There was no audio, but you could clearly see what was happening inside the lab. A medium sized wooden crate was sitting on the floor next to a work table while three men were working around it. One of the men lowered a wooden framework into one end of the box. Looking at the frame work from the end, it looked like two ‘Cs’ back-to-back. After placing the frame inside the box with one ‘C’ down and the other up, a second man lowered what appeared to be a stainless-steel cylinder into the saddle formed by the upper ‘C’ of the framework. Then the first man placed another frame over the top of the cylinder. There were four straps lying over the sides of the box, he picked up two of the straps, fed them into a tool until they appeared snug, and then started ratcheting the handle back and forth.

   “He’s securing the tank inside the crate,” I said.

   While he was securing the tank, one of the men lowered another cradle into the crate at the other end, pulled both ends of the attached straps out and laid them across the sides of box. A third man entered the view of the camera carrying another tank. He waited a moment as the second man positioned the straps, but finally set the bottle on its end, behind the man with the straps, before stepping off screen again. The strap guy finished positioning the straps and then stepped backwards as he turned, his leg struck the bottle standing on end and caused it to fall away from him. The man who had stepped off screen momentarily, ran back into view as he started for the glass doors that were the exit from the lab. Suddenly, the tank that had fallen, began to spin about as it spewed what appeared to be a bluish spray under pressure. When the bluish haze enveloped the two men by the crate, they collapsed instantly. Other people within the room attempted to run for the door, but none of them made it. Then the camera view changed.

   Another camera captured the man that escaped the room as he ran into two janitors who were walking by, one of them pushing a cleaning cart. The man from the lab fell, but with the assistance of the janitors regained his feet and ran alongside the face of several windows, a door, and then in the next door. One of the janitors, a woman, looked in the windows of Gupta’s lab and pulled a dust mask over her mouth and a set of goggles down over her eyes. Hurriedly, she started for the doors of the lab, but as she neared them, she staggered, stumbled into the window next to the door, slid to the floor and began to convulse. I shifted my concentration to the second janitor, but he was already down and convulsing also.

   I pointed to the female janitor and said, “Danni shot her outside the Children’s Center.”

   Packer paused the screen, and looked at me, “Are you sure? It’s a long way from Gupta’s lab to the Children’s Center and that woman is obviously down, plus, she is having convulsions.”

   “Turn it back on,” I said.

   He did and we watched until we could see both janitors begin to get up. They were extremely clumsy though and seemed to lack balance. That view stopped and then the footage continued inside of another lab, “That’s the Biochemistry Lab,” I said. “I remember from when I worked down there.”

   Debra said, “So the door he ran by was Felicia’s?”

   “Yeah.”

   On the screen, the man ran inside as he stripped off his lab coat and slung it away from himself. The coat came to rest on a table occupied by five other people wearing white lab coats. One of them was a very large man, I pointed to him and said, “I shot him, again at the Children’s Center.”

Packer nodded, but continued to watch. The man who had been in Gupta’s lab appeared to be shouting and then started back through the doors out of the lab, but he collapsed at the automatic doors as they attempted to close on his convulsing body. You could see there was a light flashing brightly and again, I commented.

   “I was there when they tested the emergency systems, when the alarm goes off, the outer doors close automatically and if there was sound on the recording, we would be able to hear the klaxon going off. His body is blocking the emergency containment door from closing.”

   We continued to watch the room as those inside collapsed and convulsed. Finally, one-by-one, they rose up and exited over the man’s body in the doorway. Now we knew how whatever had been released had spread outside of containment. As the last person left, the man in the doorway began to stir and he left also, but he seemed to be in worse shape than the others and kept falling down. The video ceased.

   Packer roughly scrubbed his face and then said, “Son-of-a-bitch.”

   I straightened up and replied, “Yeah.” When I looked at Debra, there were tracks on her face from tears. I asked her, “Do you remember any of those people? Were any of them the two you were forced to shoot?”

   She shook her head, “No, I mean, I don’t know. The last thing I remember was running to get my sidearm, and then shooting that guy that was choking you, and then the service tunnel when I asked where we were.” I stepped around her and wrapped my arms around her upper arms and above her breasts, she reached up with both hands and grasped my forearm in a strong grip, as if she was trying to hold herself up.

   “What now?” She asked, “I mean, what do we do with this, who do we give it to?”

   “No one,” I said. “Not yet.”

   She turned part way in my hug, “Why not?”

   Packer cleared his throat and said, “What she said.”

   “That crate they were filling, is it the same size as the ones sent out in the trash truck? If so, there were four bottles going in that crate, that might mean Gupta sent away twenty-four bottles of whatever that shit is.”

   “Well,” Packer said. “Yeah, that shit works pretty fast, but if you look at the results, it isn’t really all that bad.”

   “You don’t think so?” I asked.

   “No, I mean I expected there to be some kind of small release of material because in the grand scheme of things, not that many people were infected, or contaminated, but hell you saw the same thing we saw. There was a shitload of that stuff spraying around and it seemed to only kill a few people and affect another small number. That was a lot of spray for what might be considered a small number of casualties.”

   “I agree,” I said. “But that guy that ran out and into the janitors, his lab coat took the blast, you could see the color on the back. The janitors were contaminated when they helped him up, maybe they stirred up what was on his coat and they got a bigger dose than he did, hell, maybe he hadn’t even been contaminated yet, just his coat. He runs to the other lab where he removes the coat and tries to throw it away from himself. The coat hits the table and releases some of the contaminant, the others are affected almost immediately. He tries to run out, but collapses in the doorway, probably contaminated when he threw the lab coat away. What if the symptoms we saw are the result of overexposure, what if the results are supposed to be milder when a person is exposed to smaller amounts?” I stopped talking and froze for a moment.

   Debra turned in my arms until we were facing each other, “What? What is it?”

   “What if,” I said. “Whatever that shit is, is designed to be delivered over a large area from an aircraft, or a drone?”

   Debra and Packer both said at the same time, “Oh, crap.”

   “Yeah, what if it only takes an infinitesimal amount to get the effect they are looking for, and the contaminant the lab workers received was far above what’s needed for what they believe to be an optimal effect.”  I thought for a moment and then said to Packer, “Dak told me there had been an increase in violent behavior within the Facility. At first, he didn’t pay too much attention to it because many of the people involved weren’t employed in the labs, but as he dug deeper, he realized all the affected people had reasons to go to Phase Six, Level Two, or were in close relationships with people who had been to Phase Six. Another thing, he said there had been a significant increase in jobsite accidents since the breach and all of the people injured had been in the vicinity of Phase Six after the containment breach.”

   “Remember on the video, how the people acted after the contamination?” Debra asked. “They seemed clumsy, they staggered around like they were having trouble with their co-ordination.”

   “Yeah, I noticed the same thing with the people outside of the Child Care Center, they seemed unbalanced and were making gross over-adjustments to their movements.”

    “Yes, they were. You saying that tripped a memory, the woman that clocked me with the lamp? I missed with my first shot because she was weaving so badly,” Debra said.

   “Well,” Packer said. “Luckily you got her with your follow-up.”

   She reached up and traced the scar that bisected her eyebrow, “Luckier yet, if I would have got her with the first one.” The scar was pretty nasty, it extended almost an inch above her eyebrow and down into the fold of the eyelid. At first it wasn’t too bad after they sewed it up, but then the infection, and surgery was required to remove the infected flesh and bone chips; that one didn’t heal as well. I had noticed she seemed more self-conscious of the scar as time passed and I usually said something about it not affecting how attractive she was. This time, I said nothing, but I moved her fingertip away and kissed the eyebrow lightly. She smiled at me and then turned in my embrace and said to Packer, “Maybe their intent is to break down what little social order there still is by turning the people on each other.’

   “How so?” Packer asked.

   “Perhaps it’s intended to lower self-control, allow people to over react to stimuli, anger might flood the emotions causing people to attack one another, but be almost untraceable, leading the authorities to not be suspicious of people’s motivation for physical attacks. At the same time, it might be designed to dissipate quickly from both the blood stream and the environment.”

   “Okay,” Packer said. “So maybe the physical symptoms will disappear. They must have developed a vaccine for it, otherwise they could end up infecting themselves, just like what happened.”

   “Maybe, maybe not,” I said. “If the contaminant is virile, maybe, but if it’s chemical, maybe not. I remember reading that certain illicit drugs like methamphetamine could damage the Blood, Brain, Barrier allowing an easier entrance of foreign disease and drugs to effect the central nervous system.”

   “Alright,” Packer grumped. “You’re getting over my head. Get together with that Felicia Ortiz and see what she has to say. In the meantime, I’ll have my wife make copies of this disc; probably the more, the better.”

   “Yes, Sir,” I responded.

   “You kids get out of here and we’ll talk again tomorrow.”

   We didn’t talk the next day, or the day after. In fact, we didn’t talk until Saturday when I appeared for Auxiliary training. I wasn’t really training, we just rehashed things we had learned before and then performed a patrol around the exterior of the perimeter fence. Lincoln and I walked directly next to the fence and the rest of the squad was stretched out almost eighty yards in a line of twos away from the fence. We started at the front gate and moved in an easterly direction as one person studied the ground and another watched the terrain around them. I was watching the ground as Shayla performed buddy security. We were in the shade of a huge pine tree when I noticed a disturbance in the dusty, red clay. I raised my closed fist and then opened the hand and slowly lowered it to my waist, ‘Halt, take a knee.’

After checking that Lincoln had seen my signals and followed my movement, I removed my hand-held flashlight, turned it on and holding the light horizontal and close to the ground, examined what I had thought looked like a boot print. The intense light, combined with the shade of the tree, allowed me to clearly identify what I thought I had seen. A boot print. I pointed it out and Shayla nodded her agreement. Standing up, she pointed to her eyes, then to the ground, then dropped her hand in a straight line from her and I, and down the slope away from the fence. The signal was relayed down the slope and the rest of the squad began to slowly move forward as half of them studied the dirt. I began to follow the prints, but lost them several times before picking them back up again a little farther down the slope.

   Whoever left the tracks behind, they had weaved their way from one Juniper tree to the next in an attempt to avoid being observed. In some areas, they had purposefully worked through stands of closely packed young pine trees by cutting the saplings at ground level and then placing them to the side to clear a path. Each path through the thick stands of saplings was angled, so someone wouldn’t see a telltale path straight through. Someone was working hard to avoid detection as they approached the fence.

   Shayla reached out and held my arm, then pressed her finger into her ear that held an earbud for her radio. Pressing the transmit switch, she said quietly, “Ox One, go ahead Ox two, over.”

She listened for a moment, said, “Roger that, out.” And then motioned for me to follow. She picked up pace until we joined another buddy team kneeling back-to-back.

   Still speaking lowly, she said, “Mick, what have you got?”

   He pointed into a gully surrounded by saplings and said, “Check it out, we almost missed it.”

   Looking to where he pointed and I saw a small, carefully camouflaged, position. We worked our way down into the gully and looked inside. The position looked simple; whoever built it had used pine tree saplings to create a low oblong dome, covered it with a brown nylon tarp and then covered the tarp with what appeared to be chicken wire. Something had been applied to the wire and finally, I realized it was paper mâché and painted with camo colors. The interior was large enough for at least two men to lie next to each other and in a corner, I could see what appeared to be Ziplock baggies containing trash. I carefully picked one out and examined it. There was an assortment of empty food packages, including, a single serve envelope of spam, crackers, baked beans, and single serve packets for water flavorings, coffee and fruit cups. Someone was packing their own homemade MREs. Not a bad idea and something that might need suggesting to Packer. “Lay-up position,” I said. “He, or they, slept and ate here, before returning to observe the compound.”

   Shayla picked out another baggie and then quickly dropped it, “Nasty,” she said. Whoever had been using the hide had used the baggy to defecate into.

   “Yeah,” I agreed. “But effective. No need to dig a latrine and no need to visit a latrine and expose your position.”

   She nodded herself and then said, “Are there tracks going down the slope to the highway?”

   “Probably,” I said. “We should check and then radio it in to Packer.”

   “No,” Lincoln said. “Third squad of EXSEC has a guy who was a tracker in Africa while in the Special Forces. He can run this down better than we can and those guys have encrypted radios.” That was Debra’s squad, it sounded like she might have something interesting to do in the future. Shayla removed a GPS receiver from her vest and marked the position for later. “Let’s head back.”

   I nodded and followed her lead.

   Packer listened to what Lincoln reported and then contacted Debra’s squad leader. Within in twenty minutes, Debra and her squad were formed and moved out with Shayla Lincoln guiding them. The rest of us were sent around the interior of the fence to see if we could find any sign that an actual incursion had occurred. The thing is, the interior fence line is constantly patrolled and any sign of someone entering was probably destroyed by those doing the patrolling. After we finished the complete circuit of the perimeter, it was time to end our day of ‘training’ and wrap it up.

   I hung around and waited for Debra to get back, but it was looking like she was going to be late coming home. After a while, I sat down in the ready room and listened to Packer discussing the problem of the possibility that our own foot and vehicle patrols were destroying the evidence of someone penetrating the perimeter and how it might be rectified. I had my own idea, but I wasn’t part of the discussion, so I kept my mouth shut. It was Sergeant Bellows who finally suggested what I was thinking. He said, when he was active duty, they had a similar problem at one of the bases where he had served. What they did was pull a section of weighted chainlink fencing behind a patrol vehicle that smoothed the surface, eliminated old sign and left a soft surface that readily showed the tracks of anyone crossing the road. Packer told him to see what he could come up with that would work and implement the plan.

   After the meeting broke up, Packer returned to his office and thereafter walked back out to me. “First,” he said. “Tarn’s squad won’t be back for several hours, so there’s no sense waiting for her if you have anything to do. Second, I have the copies of the DVD that Lincoln gave you.” He handed me an envelope containing the disc. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but that Wilson guy also included what Gilly called an audio file. It was pretty interesting and it looks like there’s a significant number of the INSEC guys that are seeing the same shit we are. You might want to listen to it when you get to your computer.”

   “Yes, Sir, thank you,” I said as I held up the DVD, he handed me.

   I walked to our room, undressed, took a shower, and then dressed in clean clothes. I was getting short on clean clothes, so I took my dirty laundry to the barrack’s washroom and filled several machines. Then, I left and went to the common room to watch the news. The idea I had about groups of people possibly being exposed to Gupta’s, whatever it was, kept flitting around my head. What would a report of its use sound like, if the reporters didn’t know about the canisters used to disperse the material? Would it be reported as a riot? A medical emergency? A chemical spill? I had no idea, and I realized I was going to have to watch a lot of news. Hell, if the incident was small enough, as a test might be, it might never even be reported. The news channel was a constant stream of bad news, and reports of how the government was going to fix everything that was wrong; we just needed to be patient.

   Finally, I went to my room and brought my computer back with me. I plugged it into one of the power outlets, turned it on, and then inserted the DVD. I clicked on the menu and then the audio file.

   “I will not identify myself by name. This is a verbal report of the information accumulated by certain Global employees as an attempt to discover the intent of the corporation’s development of an agent that causes aberrant behavior in individuals exposed to it.

   Item one: The containment breach of the Genetics Lab was caused by an industrial accident. One of the canisters filled with an unknown agent, either chemical, or biological, was damaged and the unknown agent was released, resulting in the apparent immediate incapacitation and death of seven personnel within the lab. One of the men involved in the accident escaped before containment protocols could be initiated.

   Item two: The clothing, of the individual who escaped the Genetics Lab, was contaminated with the agent. Two janitorial personnel exposed to the agent collapsed almost instantly after exposure, but were later able to rise and leave the area of the containment breach.

   Item three: The individual, who previously escaped the Genetics Lab and contaminated the two janitors, entered the Biochemistry Lab and exposed the individuals working within who succumbed to the agent after several moments and collapsed. Then the individual who broke containment, then attempted to leave the lab, but collapsed himself, his body blocking the automatic door, this allowed the individuals within the Biochemistry Lab, who had revived, to exit the laboratory. The individual blocking the door then revived and exited the vicinity of the laboratory wing of Phase Six, Level Two.

   “Item four: At this point there were nine individuals who left the immediate area of the labs. They spread out as they started attacking people randomly in Phase Six, Level Two, and then Phase Five, Level Two.

   Item five: At this point, Internal Security was notified of the containment breach and the spreading attacks on others. Then people who were infected or contaminated, in turn infected others, who also began to attack individuals and small groups of personnel. INSEC attempted to secure Phase Four, Level Two, but were not successful. The affected personnel were able to spread to Level Two, and Level One of Phase Four. An immediate lockdown of the entire facility was ordered and implemented. INSEC Personnel then began to move through the facility and regain control.

   Item six: All critical administration officers, and their families, were evacuated to a secure area outside of the facility by means of aircraft and shuttle buses.

   Item seven: A total of eighty-three facility personnel were killed by infected, or infected who were killed by INSEC personnel. Infected personnel were readily identified and shot by security personnel; the extreme violence of their actions led to their easy identification.

   Item eight: After the facility had been secured, two members of the staff, dressed in hazmat gear, entered the Genetics Lab while two members of INSEC stood by outside the Lab and observed. One of the people dressed in hazmat gear, was attacked as he passed the body of a person who was believed to be dead. One of the two INSEC officers stood in the doorway and shot all personnel who were previously thought to be dead.

   Item nine: Within twenty minutes, the INSEC officer who shot the bodies within the lab, turned his weapon on his fellow officer in an attempt to kill him. He was shot dead by the unaffected officer. He was the only security officer killed.

   Item ten: Phase Six, Level Two, was closed and no one was allowed entrance without Personal Protection Equipment as cleanup commenced.

  Item eleven: Over the next week, numerous employees were arrested or shot as they attempted to carry out violent actions. Some employees were relieved of duty due to sudden onset psychosis, usually involving a violent act, or speaking of the desire to perform such an act.

   Item twelve: It has also been reported that there has been a significant increase in industrial accidents and arguments amongst employees resulting in aggressive behavior and violence. The employees involved are removed from the premises and sent for study at what is believed to be another Global facility. INSEC has suffered a decrease in personnel of approximately twenty per cent. It is believed the effected security personnel are suffering from exposure to the people they interacted with in the early stages of reclaiming the facility.

   Item thirteen: The personnel who have replaced the lost INSEC officers are not being hired through normal channels. All replacement personnel are foreign born and employees of the United Nations.

   One final note, there is a rumor running around that all of the remaining, original members, of Internal Security are to be reassigned to other Global facilities, or other companies associated with Global. The reason for that move is unknown, but one thing I am sure of, Major Becker should not be trusted to assist in any investigation.

   As the person who made the recording previously stated, he didn’t identify himself when he finished, but I recognized his voice; it was Mark Wilson. He had told me we had friends at Internal Security, but it didn’t sound like we would for long.