I’m sitting in my office, watching the sun set over the horizon. I was lost in its beauty with the rocky mountains in the background. I never knew how peaceful it could get inside, just ignoring all the problems in the world. Up until it was broken by the ringing of my landline phone.
I got a frantic call from one of the nurses stating that I must come down immediately. Hearing her voice, I watched people rushing to and fro towards the ICU ward as the situation worsened. As a virologist, what I saw was carnage. The people that you work with when dealing with patients all of a sudden become desperate. The vaccine that we created for years to help cure the sick just became a nightmare, only for the disease to overcome it. Telling everyone to hurry.
Pandemonium ensues when one of the patients begins vomiting blood, with another and another all spewing out their contents. All becoming grossly pale, with their ribs visible, and losing their weight. Until their behavior instantaneously changes, it becomes apparent that their bodies are suddenly changing because of the infection that somehow brought about a form of mutation.
Of course, we have all informed the higher-ups about this ongoing incident. Yet! These patients were becoming to unstable, as their restraints couldn’t hold them down. Security arrived to assist both the doctors and nurses while our scientists were scrambling to create a cocktail. The medication we administered through injections became meaningless as the disease kept adapting. It became utterly fruitless to even help these poor souls.
Instead, we only had one option left, and that was to contain the infected. When one of my assistants managed to get inside the ICU ward. She tried to talk to me, but I couldn’t barely hear what she was saying. However, when I did, the disease somehow adapted and destroyed their immune system. We administered the vaccine to some of the infected, and it is not working. It was when she responded to me that it started assimilating.
Assimilating—that word alone sent chills down my spine. Never in my wildest dreams did I think a disease could actually do that. Well, with some exceptions like malaria. But the main difference between this and malaria is that malaria originated during the Cretaceous and survived the K-Pg extinction event, where it needed to adapt and evolve as it needed to assimilate to a drastically changing world. But this disease was something entirely else.
I had to gather all the paperwork I could get my hands on. And download the schematics onto this flash drive. She was continuing to state that the disease has undergone a new phase of its evolution. The infected patients became erratic, if not feral, in their behavior. With some undergoing dangerous compulsions, even to the point where one of them in his restraints snapped his arm in half.
Seeing it happen on the CCTV monitors shows the infected trying to break from their bonds. We rushed out of there until we heard the sound of glass shattering behind us. There, the scientists and other personnel screamed in horror as the infected patients escaped.
Breaking out in droves as I took what I could get my hands on and high-tailed it out of there. These infected were biting anyone they could get their hands on. We all ran out of the ward before these patients got to us.
Everyone was panicking, trying to escape to the elevators and taking to the stairs, running away from the horror that was unfolding. That we unfortunately fabricated with the product of experiments that were conducted to help combat a global plague.
This disease has adapted to overcome the body’s immune system and mutated into something that wasn’t seen before. The two of us got out of there until my assistant received the message on his phone from one of his contacts. Whereupon he just got some bad news.
I looked at the message and saw that the corporation had asked the state and federal governments for assistance. They will be deploying the National Guard. which will be primarily composed of combat androids and military androids, issuing them with heavy equipment. And that’s not the worst part of it; included was the use of corporate security synthetics. I have heard of them before, but never seen them.
I understand the use of Androids by the federal government and military. But! The use of security synthetics is illegal. They are completely banned for anyone using them. And this time they will be equipped with tactical gear and equipment, making them even more dangerous. If the situation wasn’t bad enough. Now we’ve got these. I was sweating bullets.
The situation has become dire. People were now being attacked by the infected patients, and I heard the screams from each floor as we ran down the stairs. As we exited the main lobby. There were so many of them piling up on one another, getting to their next victim, with more of the infected gruesomely tearing them apart. Watching how strong the infected have become, it felt like this was coming straight out of a horror movie. I don’t know how many hours have passed. But! Many more of the infected jammed out of the doors and jumped off the balconies in the lobby below.
Armed private security personnel began firing at the infected, trying their utmost to repel them as a few remaining people that weren’t infected managed to escape. Their numbers became overwhelming for them. The armed security guards all retreated back and closed down a roll-up gate and locked it in place with their keys, followed by closing the glass doors. Hoping to buy us time to escape from where the infected piled up little by little.
Banging and gnawing on the metal grilles of the gate, I and my assistants inform the security guards about the arrival of synthetic humanoid personnel. He too knew of it, but he has given us the bad news that they will eradicate anyone and anything on site. And that is when I first heard of “The Phalanx Protocol.” I may not have heard of this before.
He had elaborated that this protocol was a collaboration between the federal government and the corporation. He didn’t want to go in further details. As he said that in the end, they must eradicate anything that they deem a serious threat. I guess we’re now all expendable. But as for you, you must leave now. We will hold them back. In fact, no one knows of it. I have to give huge respect to these men. I am just scared out of my wits.
The security captain ordered his officers to hold their ground while letting the survivors escape. More security officers arrived on the scene, letting some of their colleagues reload their service weapons. Using primarily shotguns and pistols and regaining their professional discipline. Watching their steady composure, which none of us could have in this severe situation.
But I have to inform him that these infected patients are becoming stronger. Yet he wouldn’t budge. He and his men stood their ground. Telling us that it’s best for us to escape now. He didn’t care how dangerous they are. Sure I can see the look of those security guards who are frightened. But for him, all I saw was anger, whereas I was trembling.
And that I did, running out of the main entrance and watching them all prepare for the worst, even grabbing hold of fire axes. the infected bashing on the doors and metal grille, as security got out and closed the main glass doors. They held their position and parked their patrol vehicles on the steps. It was nightfall as we ran towards the parking lot.
Until we all heard the sound of glass breaking coming from the main lobby, where the roll-up gate was torn away by the infected, I stood there, perplexed by the strength the infected had.
Breaking through as security stood between them and us, escaping with our lives. denying them the opportunity to get to us. Unfortunately, there were too many of them breaching out of the entrance. A hail of gunfire was fired upon them by the armed security guards. Standing their ground against the overwhelming force of the infected that soon surrounded them.
What I saw as we ran away was scores of the infected rushing out of the main doors, catching up to some of the survivors. I ran as fast as I could. My assistant, younger than me, threw himself towards the company vehicle, breaking the window with his fist and opening the doors. I jumped to the backseat as my assistant and two women who had tagged along sped away as fast as they could.
A woman was catching her breath while the other was sobbing profusely as fear overcame her. I could see the infected trying to catch up to our vehicle with such inhuman momentum. Seeing this, he swerved his car to the left, hitting one of the infected. Hearing them screaming and growling like rabid animals, trying to get their hands on us. The infected are now far behind us. I breathed a sigh of relief as we were almost close to the exit, until he stopped suddenly.
Before us was a column of armored vehicles and military trucks lined up in a defensive position. Now, I may not be a military man, but what I saw were infantry fighting vehicles and some other armored vehicles fitted with grenade launchers. Some of the military trucks, or what I believed to be armored, these armed androids wearing body armor and helmets, carrying rifles, and others with machine guns in hand, stood there watching us with their red glowing eyes in the night as we stopped before them at the main entrance.
Some of the combat androids placed robotic machine guns and soon placed barb wires in front of them. Behind them, an incoming thunderstorm loomed as the winds picked up strength. A burly android wearing military attire walked towards our vehicle, stood, and leaned towards my assistant. Speaking in a deep mechanical tone. Now, I must admit I have only seen androids before in videos, with these having synthetic flesh over an armored endoskeleton with strong artificial muscle fibers.
One android can gut a full-grown grizzly bear with its hands. Taking a look at my government ID and personal identification with his glowing red eyes as if he were scanning, he then glared at the other two women who showed their identifications. He stood back as he looked at what seemed to be his commanding officer with one of the corporate security synthetics. I could tell the difference between them by the uniforms they were wearing and the models they were. There, he nodded and told us to leave.
We drove past the heavy military equipment and sped away from that dangerous column. Arriving were military aircraft that flew over us. However, to our horror, there was another column of military vehicles approaching in our direction. This time, tanks, artillery, and armored battle walkers went past us. Until we have all heard the sound of gunfire and explosions behind us.
One of the female survivors, who was a computer technician, showed me the live feed from the cameras on her tablet. And what I saw terrified me. Scores of the infected rushed towards the incoming fire. Being easily annihilated by these Androids. Then she showed my assistant the live feed as he was driving. When he snarked by saying these were like zombies facing terminators.
I wanted to scoff at him, but watching that live feed made me think otherwise. Did we really create zombies? And was that cure we were making somehow making it worse? The live feed was cut short when we all heard loud, ear-splitting explosions, with me and the women looking back and watching.
Whatever happened back there, we may never know. More military aircraft flew over us, heading in the direction of the battle. Watching a barrage of missiles strike down, we couldn’t see much as the trees blocked our vision. We all just drove away from the exit towards the interstate highway. We! Did not stop… We did not look back