The War Within #1: Victims Read online

  THE WAR WITHIN

  Episode One: VICTIMS

  Marcus Rodham Perry

  Copyright © 2017 Marcus Rodham Perry

  All rights reserved.

  To my father…

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  1.WHAT IF?

  2.I AM

  3.DEMONIC CRY

  4.AN UNDESIRABLE COMMITMENT

  5.THE KIND OF THING THAT HEROES DID

  6.RULES OF THE GAME

  7.A SMALL VICTORY ON A VERY UNPLEASANT DAY

  8.CONCEPT OF REALITY

  9.THAT’S OUR KILLER

  10.THE CRIMSON PRINCE

  11.THAT’S OUR DEAL

  12.ADAPT AND OVERCOME

  13.CAN YOU DO THAT?

  14.THE PRIMITIVE ALLUSION OF AN EXECUTION

  15.JACKPOT

  16.DARK TIMES

  17.SO MUCH FOR THE GHOST TOWN THEORY

  19.VICTORY OVER DEATH

  20.WARLORD

  21.THE SYNTHESIS OF INEVITABILITY

  22.IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, CALL THIS NUMBER

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I’d like to make bigger special thanks to my family. To my father, who teach me persistence and patience; I hope I make you proud. To my mother, whose passion and fervor I inherited and always said I would make it. Plus, thanks to my special beta reader, whose strong opinions almost drove me crazy; don’t ever change that...

  .

  PROLOGUE

  Arthur Schopenhauer once said that fate shuffles the cards and we play. Thomas Polansky experienced the real meaning of these words when the world changed. Not that Thomas actually knew what was happening in the world; he was making tourism in Brazil, he was a preteen, and had the concerns of a preteen.

  Among them was the increasingly urgent question of not being beaten by a girl. That death match tournament on the videogame had already lasted two hours and the competition was fierce.

  “I killed you again...” the maid said. Thomas showed his teeth as the match resumed — a few hours of digital violence can turn even the quietest boy into a rabid dog.

  The television was in Thomas’s room, near the large window facing the street. They were sitting on the floor, on top of an old carpet they had stained with juice. Close to them, there was a wreck of fries, popcorn, juice, and soda. Thomas’s mother was already coming back, which meant they had time for just one more match. Then Olivia would clean the place and destroy the evidence — when his mother came home, it would be better if she didn’t find out the maid was “poisoning” him with crap.

  And his mom wouldn’t take too long to return, they both knew it. Not with that odd disease out there, putting people in a coma. Mom was worried — especially because it looks they are trapped in the country, with all planes on the ground and the entire world at state of emergency —, and she only got out home because she had to buy some stuff.

  “Home” was a funny word. Everything in that city and house was new to Thomas. The rooms, the furnishings, even the people. He couldn’t even watch TV — national programming, besides being in Portuguese, was unpalatable — and if Olivia couldn’t speak his language, Thomas was sure he’d spend days talking to the walls.

  It wasn’t that he didn’t know Portuguese, but there were times when it was preferable to speak his native language. Besides, he had no friends, apart from the maid — there isn’t much time for friends when you spend most of your life surrounded by doctors and nurses.

  Olivia was the only person in the world that he dares to call friend — his parents weren’t in the equation, of course. The maid had been well instructed about his “special condition,” as his mother liked to say.

  Yeah, Thomas’s mother liked to pretend that he was still a child who had no idea how things worked — she didn’t seem to understand that, when his private teachers said he was brilliant, they meant that he was indeed brilliant.

  A genius, but still unable to beat a girl!

  He fought the controls, but within five minutes his soldier was already dead — again. Thomas snorted and Olivia got up to turn off the video game.

  “Okay, that’s enough for today,” she said. “I’ll clean the house and—”

  They listened to the thunderous barking of dogs, followed by the sound of a car stopping in front of the house. Olivia grimaced, going to the window and seeing Sarah Polansky’s Land Cruiser.

  “Eita...”

  “Good luck,” Thomas said, going to his bedroom with a smile. He didn’t want to be around when his mother discovered the crime scene. Of course, the idea that he’d be spared was merely illusory, but it was still valid.

  Thomas entered the room and closed the door. On top of his bed were his books on Mathematics and History, among others. He tossed the books to the floor and picked up a comic book. Like any normal child, he hated studying — unlike most, he’d read the books a dozen times, completing all the calculations and answering all the questions. The first time he did this, his teachers doubted his integrity and thought he was trying to fool them. Only later did they realize that he was very intelligent — the kind who learns to speak a foreign language in a week.

  They even talked with his mother about putting him in a school for prodigies, but Sarah Polansky didn’t more than say that she’d think about it. Thomas snorted, thinking about it — his mother would never let him go to a regular school in first place, and he had already asked for it a hundred times. For him, it was about being in the place where the other children were, about making friends, playing ball with people of with the same stature and doing the same crazy things than he.

  But nooooo, Mom would never allow it, and when Thomas pressed and asked why, Sarah dodged the subject. Maybe his father had a different opinion — that is, if his father were present, right? Thomas only saw his dad twice a month, his absence being justified by his work, though Thomas didn’t know what kind of work it was.

  It was assumed that his father was a doctor, since every time he visited his son he’d bring his medicine and pass the boy through a battery of tests. Once, when Thomas asked why his father had to leave, he said it was because of work. Thomas then asked why he and Mom couldn’t go with him.

  “It’s complicated, son,” Antoine Polansky didn’t have the same evasive skills as his wife, and soon that was his favorite answer every time his son cornered him with questions.

  Thomas dropped the comic book. Was anyone shouting his name or was only his impression? Then his bedroom door opened and his mother came in, hysterical. Thomas looked at her and made no more than a face, confused. It was true that his mother was overprotective — in that particular week, she was even more paranoid about the new flu that people were catching — but that was too much.

  “Mom, you—” He was speechless when he saw the blood on her shirt. Olivia appeared in the doorway behind Sarah, equally horrified by the red stain on the once immaculate shirt. “Mom, what happened?”

  But Sarah Polansky didn’t give him time to speculate. Bad things were happening and she had to be fast. She grabbed the boy by the arm, lifting him with the force of a gale.

  “We’re leaving now,” her tone was so strict that Thomas thought she was possessed with hidden hatred. He had never seen her altered like this as his mother was the iconic sweetness, always docile, contented and concerned for his well-being.

  Only that it wasn’t anger that drove Sarah — it was terror.

  “Mrs. Sarah, you’re bleeding,” Olivia said, following them. “You have to go to a hospital...”

  Sarah stopped at the house’s front door and opened it. She said, “We’re going, Olivia, you—” Her eyes widened with someth
ing out there and then she slammed the door shut and locked it. Before Thomas or Olivia could ask what was happening, they heard the screams and growls.

  Then something slammed against the door. Olivia jumped back and Thomas flinched. “What was this?!” Olivia asked, but Sarah didn’t answer. She grabbed the maid’s hand and led the girl along with her son to her room, while the punches on the door became more intense and desperate.

  Sarah locked the bedroom door as soon as they entered. She looked around, searching for something. Maybe it was a way out or a gun, Thomas couldn’t tell — he had never seen such anguish in his mother’s face, and it almost frightened him as much as the screams he was hearing.

  “We have to call the police,” Olivia said. Sarah looked at her, but she didn’t seem to have heard the maid’s words. Then they heard the crash of glass breaking and people invading the house. Olivia gave a little shriek, but Sarah just ran to the wardrobe, throwing everything on the floor, still looking for something.

  Thomas felt numb, not knowing what to do or think. He grabbed the brim of his mother’s shirt, trying to get her attention. Sarah continued to rummage through the wardrobe until she finally found what she was looking for so eagerly. It was a backpack, and inside the backpack there was treasure. Sarah turned to Thomas and bent one knee so that her eyes were on the same level as her son’s eyes.

  “Whatever happens, don’t make a sound,” she told him, handing him the backpack.

  Even without understanding, Thomas couldn’t do more than nod with his head. His mother hugged him and led him to the bathroom with Olivia. Sarah passed a series of instructions to the maid. She had to slap Olivia’s face so she wouldn’t panic, and then she hugged her son again. They heard screams and disorder in the hallway, and soon there someone was striking the bedroom door.

  “I love you, I love you, I love you...”

  Thomas realized that his mother was crying uncontrollably. That only made him more terrified. Why was his mother crying that way? And who was out there? What was happening? He started, “Mom—?”

  “Shhh…” she cut him, kissing his forehead. “Stay here, and don’t make a sound. Don’t make a sound, Thomas, do you hear me? Promise me, promise me!

  “Yes, yes, but—”

  “Good,” she kissed his forehead again and hugged him. They heard the door of the room crack. Sarah Polansky released her son and left the bathroom. “Silence,” Sarah said, her voice solid as ice, and then, under her son’s wide eyes, she closed the bathroom door and locked it outside.

  From within, side by side with Olivia, Thomas heard the screams and barks that entered the room where Sarah was waiting, death written on her forehead. Thomas couldn’t stand it and he ran to the door. Olivia tried to stop him, but Thomas wouldn’t try to open the door. He wants to see what was happening, he had to know.

  He bent down, peering through the keyhole.

  And he witnessed, in a sepulchral silence and paralyzed with horror, his mother being torn to shreds.

  WHAT IF?

  Ten Days After Ground Zero...

  There was an old aphorism, “If the King is running, his servants must run twice as fast.” Desmond Steger put these words to analysis as the CIA director sprinted from his office, flanked by stoic bodyguards and closely followed by livid adjutants holding piles of files to their chests.

  Desmond tried to intercept the assembly, holding a vanilla envelope. His stomach growled loudly — he had eaten very little in the last few days, and his body hungered for food that tasted and looked like food. Putting these awful thoughts aside, he tried to catch the Bosworth’s attention.

  “Sir!” he called the director, arranging to pass under one of the bodyguard’s enormous arms, “I found something that you need to see...”

  “Found something!” Bosworth repeated, mocking, and then paused to face him, his broad, bald head glistening under the phosphorescent lamps on the hallway. “Found something?”

  “Yes,” Desmond said, straightening his tie. “The implications are... meaningful.”

  “Desmond, you’re one of my best men, but honestly, do you really think anyone cares about your discoveries now? We have bigger problems here.”

  And, with that, he was pushed aside by a bodyguard. The director and his court went marching down the hall, Bosworth’s aides looking to Desmond with clear disdain and shaking their heads.

  Desmond was a big man with a very bad temper, but this time he just stomps the floor with frustration and hurried to catch up with the director. He wasn’t going to give up. He was too stubborn for that, but it was clear that the director wouldn’t make it easy for him.

  Best men, right, Desmond thought. It was hard to talk to a man who didn’t really think he was more than an ant. And, if Bosworth was already a complicated person during usual times, what could be said now, with monsters popping up around the world.

  It was in those moments that Desmond wished he had followed the footsteps of his older brother, Raymond. The “All-Mighty Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Steger,” his father’s favorite son — the old man had made that very clear until his last breath.

  Desmond’s father never comprehended why he had decided to work “for them”. If he knew that his son had been influenced by Jason Bourne — the best secret agent of all time! —, then he’d have been even more disappointed.

  The real result: a small paycheck — when there still was a paycheck — and the disdain of his superiors. Actually, the director only knew his name because they sat together once, on the dropship, and Desmond helped him buckle the seat belt.

  But that didn’t mean he hated his job — normally. No, sir, he was a longtime employee of Langley, loyal to the CIA to the end — although, well, he wasn’t essentially a spy. In point of fact, he was an analyst — senior! —, which meant that he spent more time using his brain to save the world than driving supercars, seducing women and shooting bad guys.

  The king and his court were almost running down the hall. Desmond decided to take a shortcut — he stepped through a room where a series of monitors showed satellite images of Shades running through the nation’s cities. The room was crowded with people following the movement of the monsters.

  Desmond shook his head.

  Monsters, he thought, yesterday they were people!

  The Plague had done what Hollywood had always dreamed of — and turned it into a nightmare. Those who contracted the disease and didn’t die suffered from hallucinations, extreme paranoia, and negligible reaction to pain stimulus — plus, they went mad and started killing healthy people. A big shot on TV called them the Shades, and the label caught on. After that, it was just a matter of time before the government stopped classifying them as “victims” and started treating them as “threats” — only two weeks, just the time it took for New York to be reduced to a post-apocalyptic desert. At that point, the president had already taken shelter inside a bunker and the Government Continuity Task Force had been activated.

  Meanwhile, the infection spreads and the world plunges into hell, with humanity stopping to fight the Second Cold War just to go straight to World War III — and they are losing.

  By then everyone knew the “how” — New York —, but the “why” and “who”, well, was a secret under lock and key. Scientists all around the world are claiming that the Plague was human-engineered, and every nation was accusing the other. It was a half-truth, indeed, that the Plague was a bioweapon, and only a few people in the US government are aware — a hush-hush involving a mad scientist and experiments in a clandestine facility called Blue House.

  Yeah, ladies and gentlemen, only a small amount of individuals in the world knew that the Plague was an American bioweapon, a very deadly one — and then someone was exposed and the nightmare escaped from the Pandora’s Box.

  And only one man knew that the Plague was not the only thing to escape the box.

  And now, he had to get the director’s attention.

  So Desmond did what no man who loves
his work would do; he passed by bodyguards like a mad man and grabbed Bosworth’s arm, forcing the man to stop walking and look at him. Desmond could already imagine the bodyguards jumping on top of him. Instead, the whole human convoy stopped, the king, the knights and the servants, all of them looking at the plebeian with an assortment of expressions — none of them optimistic, Desmond noted.

  “Five minutes, sir,” he said as gently as possible. “That’s all I ask. It’s urgent.”

  Bosworth’s expression remained inscrutable for a moment, his cold gray eyes seeming to look through Desmond’s soul. But Desmond, justice be done, didn’t let go of the director’s arm. He didn’t mind he had crossed the line — sometimes a man had to do what a man had to do.

  “All right, Desmond,” Bosworth said, his voice like iron. He motioned for his bodyguards to step back. “You have five minutes. Mind if we talk while we walk? General Walker isn’t a patient man. Oh, and please, release my arm.”

  ♦♦♦

  “This is Antoine Polansky…”

  “Yes, I know who he is...” Bosworth said, not even looking at the picture. “He is the damn fool who created this entire catastrophe.”

  Desmond nodded.

  “He was working under direct orders of Colonel Daniel Luther, Commanding Officer of the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, on the Black Initiative. The original idea of the program date back to the War of Terror, the creation of supersoldiers, but it was a total failure. The program was discontinued and buried, but Luther reactivated five years ago, erasing the idea of a supersoldier and favoring the development a biological weapon.”

  “Nothing new here, boy; I’m already aware of all this and it seems like you’re wasting my time.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t think so,” Desmond showed to him the second picture. “This man is Michael Cussler, a scientist who was working with Dr. Polansky, and also the Patient Zero of the outbreak in New York.”