“You’re telling me they’re all dead?”
“Yes, Mr. President,” Hugo answered softly. “They’re all dead.”
Andrew cupped his face in his hands. This can’t possibly be happening, he thought. A whole city is dead, hundreds of troops are gone, and six more cities… Six cities… are in danger.
“Sir?” It was Marshall Stone.
Andrew looked up, his eyes weary.
“Mr. President, I suggest we deploy troops to those cities as quickly as we can. There’s not enough time to get everyone out before those things reach them.”
Not enough time. “Which city will they reach first?”
Hugo answered. “Topeka, sir. It’s closest. We’ve already started initial evacuation actions, but like Tank said, there’s not going to be enough time. At the speed they’re moving, they could be in Topeka within the hour. We’ve already lost contact with Lawrence.”
The president knew Lawrence, Kansas, was the home of KU, the University of Kansas. A college town. Full of kids. The thought sickened him. “How fast are these things moving?”
“We estimate roughly forty-five to fifty miles per hour, Mr. President,” Hugo said.
“What?” Once again, Andrew felt a chill crawl up his spine. The creatures had enough intelligence to smash light fixtures to get out of the light, and they could move at incredible speed. “These are animals, right? You told me they were some kind of rodents, for Christ’s sake! Nothing can run that fast!”
“These can. Sir.” Hugo couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“How do we stop them?”
The SECDEF and secretary of Homeland Security looked at each other, apparently hoping the other had an answer. Neither did.
Andrew wasn’t willing to live with silence from his advisors. He fixed his gaze on his SECDEF. “Come on, Tank, I need some goddamned answers here.”
“Mr. President,” Tank said, “we’ve killed thousands of the damned things. But there’s hundreds of thousands of them, possibly more. We’ve had AC-130s pounding them as hard as they can, but they’re not making much of a dent. We’re trying to get forces in the area as quickly as possible. A-10s, F/A-18s, other strike aircraft…”
“Do you mean to tell me Kansas City had hundreds of thousands of coordinated, bloodthirsty rats? Where the hell are they all coming from?”
“We haven’t been able to explain the large numbers yet. Sir.”
“Have we caught any of them?”
“Sir?”
“Have we caught any of them!” Andrew immediately regretted his outburst. He knew he couldn’t let the frustration he was feeling get the better of him.
Tank shook his head. “Not to my knowledge, Mr. President.”
“Tank, Hugo, we need to know what the hell they’re made of. These may have started out as normal rats, but they’re certainly not normal now. We need to take one apart and see what makes the goddamned thing tick. See what the living hell turned them into some sort of superbeasts.”
Hugo cleared his throat. “It’s not just rats, sir. We’ve received reports of other things. Two legs. Standing upright.”
“People?” The realization hit Andrew like a hammer blow between the shoulder blades. Whatever had turned the animals into ferocious killers had also affected people.
“What used to be people, sir.”
“How many?”
“We’ve seen a few,” Tank said. “Mostly, it’s four-legged animals, but it appears some people have been… mutated, too.”
“All right. I want those cities evacuated. I want us to get as many people out of there as we can. Even if we save the lives of a few thousand…”
“The orders will go out immediately, Mr. President,” Hugo said. “We’ll save as many as we can.”
“Get on it, Hugo. Tank, I want you to start killing those things by the hundreds of thousands. They need to be stopped. Right here, right now. If you need any authorizations for special weapons…”
“Understood, Mr. President.” Tank noted the word nuclear had not been spoken. For now, it would not be considered.
“And,” Andrew continued, “I want to grab one. Catch one of the little bastards and tear it apart for info. I want to know how I can kill them without blowing our own country to bits in the process.”
“Roger that, boss.”
“Before the both of you leave, I want to make something perfectly clear.” The president’s eyes were burning bright, no longer showing any signs of weariness. “I will not let this situation spiral out of control. We were caught completely off guard tonight, and we’ve lost a large amount of blood and treasure because of it. We will get our people out of the way. Save who we can. That is priority number one. Priority number two is killing those things. Stop them before they decimate more of our cities.” He paused, thinking about how to word his next statement.
With the number of people lost in less than twenty-four hours combined with the speed at which the things were moving, Andrew knew he was facing an inconceivable loss of American life in a very short amount of time, and he had to take drastic measures to stop it before it was too late. In his gut, he knew he might be witnessing the opening stages of a battle that, if lost, could spell the end of the United States. His gut instinct, which had guided his decisions for years, was almost always correct.
“We will accomplish both priorities simultaneously, gentlemen. If we can’t stop them outside of the cities, we may have to kill them wherever they are at the moment we have forces available. This means there may be civilian casualties. Some of our citizens may have to be sacrificed in order to save the lives of millions of others. This blood, gentlemen, will be on my hands. My hands, and no others. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Yes, sir.”
As both advisors turned to leave the situation room, the president opened his comm channel to the vice president. He needed to touch base with Allison Perez.
“Madame Vice President, the president is on button one.”
“Thank you, Major.” Allison Perez was still at NORTHCOM, keeping abreast of the fast-moving situation as best she could. “Yes, Mr. President. This is Perez. You’re on speaker. Admiral Grierson is here with me as well.” They were seated in a small breakout room off the main Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center. The major closed the door behind him.
“You’ve seen the reports?” Andrew asked.
“Yes, sir. It’s not looking good.”
“I’ve ordered evacuations of the major cities in the spread’s projected paths. We may be able to save some, but I’m afraid we’re going to lose a lot of people before this is over.”
Allison knew he was right. They were facing a crisis unlike any the world had ever experienced. It wasn’t spinning out of control yet, but she knew unless they could stop the spread, it soon would.
Admiral Grierson spoke up. “Mr. President, the evacuation orders are on the street and being executed as we speak.” Keaton Grierson was one of six geographic combatant commanders, each a four-star admiral or general tasked with operational responsibility over a specific portion of the globe. The crisis was unfolding on the North American continent, so NORTHCOM — Grierson — was leading the fight. “We’ll get as many people out as we can.”
“Keep pressing, Keats. We need to stop these things.”
“Stopping them may become problematic, sir,” Allison said. So many had died in such a short span of time, it was simply sickening. Worse, nothing they were doing seemed to make a difference. “Their numbers seem to be growing at an exponential rate.”