“You think they found what they were looking for?”
“I wasn’t sure. Now I am. The answer is in those samples you took. We have to protect them.” He looked back at her again. “I have to protect you. And you have to figure out just what it is they found, and come up with some kind of vaccine.”
Sara nodded. “That’s what I do. But I need my team. My equipment.”
“Once you’re safe, I’ll get you what you need.” He took a breath, and then added. “We’ll find a way to contact your team.”
If they’re still alive. Fulbright didn’t say it. He didn’t need to.
The stairs ended on a landing blocked by a heavy metal door. Fuller cautiously pushed the door open and peered out. Sara looked over his shoulder and saw a helicopter sitting idle on the rooftop, about a hundred meters away.
“That was fast,” she said.
But Fulbright pushed her back and pulled the door shut. “That’s not our ride.”
In the silence that followed, Sara’s hypersensitive ears detected the sound of footsteps echoing up the stairwell-judging by the cadence, there were at least three different people-and she didn’t have to ask who the helicopter did belong to.
Fulbright was taking out his phone, preparing to make another call, but she gripped his arm, forestalling him. “They’re coming.”
6.
The Old Mother dreamed of a place of death.
“Old Mother” was what her clan called her. The honorific was a sign of great respect; her stature in the clan was something akin to what would, many thousands of years hence, be called ‘divine.’
Indeed, it was she who had brought forth the great change, though few in the clan truly understood just how important that was. Only two of her children still lived and could recall the time before, when their fathers had been no different than the other beasts living in the valley, unable to make or understand speech, able to use only the crudest of tools, fearful of fire despite the Old Mother’s mastery of the element. She alone remembered what it had been like before that.
Her earliest recollections were of frustration. Her head was filled with thoughts which she yearned to share, but the grunts which the others in the clan used to communicate could not convey such complicated things. Worse still, the others seemed incapable of sharing her sense of wonder at the world that surrounded them. She had been thrilled by her discovery, as a very young child, that it was possible to use the sharp edges of a broken rock to cut through animal flesh, but when she had tried to show the dominant male, he had cuffed her in the head and taken the fresh kill for himself.
Yet, although she had been an outsider even among her own kind, her unique gifts served her well. The dominant male had taken her as his mate, protecting and feeding her, while other females were allowed to perish when food was scarce, and in time, when she bore offspring, she discovered that they shared her abilities. She conceived of a way to pass information to them, a system of communication where sounds and gestures had specific meaning that all of them understood.
Not surprisingly, her children thrived. Her first male child matured to become the dominant male, and his offspring, as well as all those of the Old Mother’s brood, also shared her gift. Within two generations, all the offspring born to the clan were of her bloodline.
Now she was old. It had been a long time since the blood flowed from her loins, even longer since any of the males showed even the slightest desire to mate with her. In many ways, her offspring had surpassed her, building on the knowledge she had given to them, innovating, and improving their common language to express new concepts and make new discoveries.
But she was still the Old Mother, and greatly honored.
And she was the only one who had the dreams.
The dreams guided the clan, leading them to abundant hunting grounds, guiding them to water and shelter, warning of dangers like the coming of storms that took fire from the sky and set the grasslands ablaze. She had taught the others how to read signs in earth and sky-to anticipate the changing of the seasons, or the migration of the animals-but none of her children or her children’s children experienced the visions that first enabled her to grasp these concepts. When she was gone, the dreams would be no more.
That time was drawing near. This also she had dreamed.
She dreamed of a place of death. She dreamed of her destiny approaching like a great gray wall, emerging from the setting sun.
Then, one night, she awoke from the dream.
It was time.
The Old Mother looked around the cave where the clan slept, oblivious to their wondrous future. The dim embers of the cook-fire offered little illumination, but she could make out the clumped shapes of mated pairs and families huddled together in repose.
She struggled to her feet, her age clinging to her withering muscles and creaky joints. It was good that this moment had finally come; in a few more turnings of the moon, she wouldn’t be able to move at all.
None in the clan stirred as she made her way to the mouth of the cave. A half-moon cast a silvery glow on the landscape and a bright river of stars lit up the sky. Yet, the Old Mother did not need illumination; the path she followed was one glimpsed in a dream and she could have followed it blind.
She walked all night, the urgency of her purpose pushing her onward through the pain and fatigue. At last, as the sun broke over the horizon, she found them.
She was not unfamiliar with the great beasts. The land belonged to them. Like her clan, they were herd animals, usually gathering in groups that numbered more than she could count on all of her fingers. From time to time, the clan would hunt them, taking stragglers that were too old or weak to keep up with the herd, but there was great risk in that endeavor. Even the weakest of the great beasts could crush them with hardly a second thought. The clan never approached a herd directly.
This herd was like nothing she had ever seen before.
Their numbers were, despite her gift, beyond her ability to comprehend. They were a great mass, stretching out in the direction where the sun would set at day’s end, farther than her eye could see. And as she drew near, they began to stir.
A shiver of excitement gripped her as the beasts began trumpeting and stamping their massive feet. She was afraid and awestruck, but this was the moment she had dreamed of, and witnessing the great herd, feeling the earth shake as they danced, was strangely satisfying.
Then, from out of the thunderous mass, several of the beasts advanced.
They were old, like her, the matriarchs of dozens of herds. She felt a tremor of fear as they drew close, surrounding her, but they did not attack. Instead, acting in unison, they knelt before her.
Images flooded into her mind, the thoughts not just of the matriarchs, but of the entire assembly, and a scream tore from her throat…
# # #
Felice Carter awoke from her long dream, and opened her eyes in the middle of a nightmare.
7.
King spun away an instant before the thermate compound in each grenade ignited. Unlike the flash-bangs, there was no detonation, no deafening blast. Rather, there was only a flare of light, as bright as an arc welder, followed by a palpable wave of heat that permeated the room.
The carpeted floor instantly erupted in flames, as did the wooden tables nearest the ignition. The molded plastic containers which had been used to transport the CDC team’s equipment began to melt, despite being several feet away from the flames, and as the emerging conflagration began to destroy natural fibers and manmade compounds alike, a miasma of black smoke filled the room.