Since the inception of the Fabrique Nationale P90 and its main initial competition, the Heckler and Koch MP-7, the arms community had begun advancing in leaps in bounds, every company rushing new designs to market, taking chances with exotic calibers and materials, while companies that designed and manufactured personal defense armors likewise leapt to the challenge of creating new and more effective materials to counter the new arms race.
Norinco had been one of the fastest out of the gate, jumping into the race early and hard, the company enjoying the same benefit that the Soviet manufacturers had enjoyed prior to the end of the cold war, that of guaranteed government money and no fear of introducing a design and having it be completely ignored.
So the ‘33 Carley wielded was the result of almost two decades of military one upsmanship, and could unload its thirty round magazine in a little under six seconds. It also had a semi-automatic mode, of course, but the shooter had to be quick enough, or smart enough, to set it that way.
Carley wasn’t.
The snarl of the machine pistol cut the air of the room, spitting bullets in a near continuous stream, tracking up along the floor toward the armed man who was already turning toward him with a heavier, though slower, pistol in hand.
As the snarl of gunfire filled the room, Anselm Gunnar threw himself into a flat dive for cover, his hand digging under his jacket automatically for his own pistol. He hit the floor in a slide, rolling over onto his back as he finally managed to jerk the gun from its holster, and came to a stop behind a rack of computer equipment as he scrambled to pull his legs in.
A double crack of return fire sounded, punctuating the snarl of the submachine weapon, and Anselm turned just in time to see a blood plume erupt from the CIA agent as the man’s pistol bucked a third time in his hand. The big American went down to one knee, rolling as it buckled under him, and came to a rest with his back against a large cabinet type table that was set in the center of the room.
“You ok!” Anselm hissed, eyeing the injured agent.
“I’ll live.” Joshua muttered through gritted teeth, pressing his free hand up against his side. “I just had some of my extra padding ventilated.”
“I don’t suppose you got him”
“Fraid not.” Corvine grimaced, drawing his hand away and looking at the blood.
There was a sound of yelling in the background and Anselm grimaced as well.
This wasn’t going well.
He risked a look past his cover, just flashing his head out slightly.
Another snarl of gunfire pushed him back, the bullets ripping into the floor and wall just past him. He pushed his FN FiveseveN out and returned fire with two shots.
Corvine shook his head, “Save your bullets. You don’t have an angle on him from there.”
“Give me a bit of cover, I’ll get an angle.” Anselm promised.
Joshua panted a bit, sweat beads forming on his forehead from the stress of his injury more than any exertions he’d made, and risked a glance out himself. No answering snarl of gunfire greeted him, and he nodded a moment later.
“Alright.get ready to move.” The CIA Agent said, levering himself up to one knee as he tried to hold the pressure on his injury while moving. “On three.”
“One.”
“Two,” They said together.
The word three was spoken, but was lost in the sound of gunfire that erupted through the small lab room as the Interpol Agent rose from his cover as the CIA man ducked out and opened fire. The man at the door hesitated for a split second as he looked between two targets, his gun wavering, and then he was knocked back as five plumes of blood erupted from his chest.
He stayed standing, though, a shocked look on his face as he felt very little actual pain. What struck him most, as he stood there, was the faint odor of cooking flesh mixed with burning plastic from the smoldering holes in his cheap synthetic suit and his already dying body.
He began to crumple, his finger tightening in a final reflex, and emptied his magazine in a wild spray of fire that ended with the bolt locking back on an empty chamber. His body hit the ground just after that, making a solid thump when his head bounced unfeelingly off the hard floor.
Anselm straightened up, turning toward the CIA Agent, “Come on, we’ve got to.What What’s wrong”
Corvine was staring, not at Anselm or the dead gunner, but at a hissing cylinder that had been under the Class Three Biological Containment hood, which was now punctured by several bullet holes.
The CIA agent hesitated only for an instant, then instantly turned and threw his bulk at Anselm, slamming into the Swede with his full weight and literally throwing him out the security doors to the main hallway.
“Out!” He roared, falling back inside the lab as Anselm hit the hallway floor in a skid.
“What the hell are you doing!” Anselm yelled, picking himself up in a rush, scrambling back.
“Stay out!” Joshua yelled, slapping a red button on the wall.
Anselm was moving back toward the lab as the security doors swung back on automatic controls, the lights darkening as red lights and a siren erupted into being around them. Just before the doors slammed shut, Corvine tossed something out and began to turn away.
“Tell my Control what’s going on!” He yelled over his shoulder, and then the big doors slammed shut.
Anselm slammed into the doors, smashing his fists against them when they wouldn’t give. He could see through the thick glass windows in the door that the CIA man was moving back toward the hood, but no sound was escaping from the room.
None that he could hear over the siren at least.
Corvine coughed as he grabbed at the emergency containment system, a semi-portable system used to disinfect biological contaminants in the field. He’d seen earlier that whoever had setup this lab hadn’t bothered with the automatic systems they should have had for this sort of work, and when the hood was perforated he had known instantly that they were sitting on a catastrophe.
The lab wasn’t nearly as secure as it needed to be, not for this level of work. Gorra hadn’t bothered with anything more than the most basic of security precautions against accidental release of the Biological, and if a full canister of it were released even down here in the tunnels, Joshua didn’t want to think of what it would do to the project above them, and the city around it.
One hundred thousand people, including tourists and transients.
That was what the Interpol man said, and Joshua believed him.
The estimated fatality on this vector, in the initial attack, was only about forty percent. Only forty thousand people.
Only.
The CIA man activated the device, spraying industrial disinfectants into the air along with a hiss of superheated steam.
After the initial attack, though, things would get worse.
The greenhouse above them was a breeding ground for a pathogen like this one. Warm, moist, filled with people. Thousands of them at any given time, even in the middle of the night like this. The constant cycle of air would draw the biological up into the greenhouse like a pump, infecting everyone there within minutes if it got out of this room.
From there, forty percent would die.
The other sixty, though, would become carriers. Their bodies growing ill, but surviving for days or weeks with even minimal medical help. They’d be constantly pumping out the damned little bastards though, filling the air of the greenhouse like an invisible marching army.
Marching right up the one kilometer tall air pump, and from there straight into the southern hemisphere’s Jetstream.
A non-stop, constant stream of death feeding into a stream of air that traveled East at over five hundred miles an hour.