ECOPOCALYPSE CH.6 - "C.D.C, A.S.A.P."

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.6 - "C.D.C., A.S.A.P." 
by James McShane

Your trip to the Centre for Disease Control Headquarters allows you time to calm yourself down and indulge in a little family bonding with your sister. You and Madge never saw eye-to-eye on many things over the years, but when she brought back her first girlfriend and introduced Suzi Ching to Mom, you stormed out of the house and wouldn’t come back until they’d both left. This incident made Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays a hornets’ nest for the next fifteen years. It’s not your fault you’re a bigot; society made you that way. You wish you could turn back time and make things right again, a-la Sam Beckett and Quantum Leap. But going by your recent experience with inventions, any time machine you built would probably result in the Nazis winning World War II and the San Francisco 49ers winning Superbowl from now until Doomsday. Neither of these possible events sit well with you. You are who you are – now deal with it.

You turn to Madge and say, “Hey, sis, remember that time you and Suzi…”

“Shut the fuck up!” Madge replies into her headphone. “I’ve not yet forgiven you for that,” she continues. “However, if you can in any way make this"—she points down below at the shit- and blood-stained streets—"better, maybe this Christmas I’ll buy you something nice.”

“I always wanted a pony,” you say wistfully.

“I was thinking more of a one-way trip to fucking Jupiter.” She turns to you. “I hear it’s nice this time of year.”

Madge has mellowed over the years, you surmise.

“Are we there yet?” you ask, changing the subject. You’re the pilot, and you know how long the journey takes, but you really want to move on from all this bitterness.

“Two minutes,” Madge replies. “I rang ahead. The president’s guy at the CDC is expecting us. You better know what you’re doing.”

“It’s like we said earlier, Madge. Whoever’s lost is gone forever. The only way I can fix this is so it never happens again. I hope this joker listens to me.”

“Who else is he going to listen to? The Ayatollah?”

You grunt in mock agreement. The sooner this finishes, the better civilisation can get going again. You will make this right.

You hope.

As you bring the helicopter down on the roof of CDCHQ, you experience a bad feeling in the pit of your stomach. There must be at least twenty CDC goons as your welcoming party. They have guns. Lots of guns. As you and Madge step out, a goon in a hazmat grabs you by the arm and throws you to the ground.

“So you’re the fucker who’s responsible for this eco-Apocalypse?”

You raise your hand and introduce yourself. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance,” you add. He slaps you across your face with a gloved palm. “I didn’t think I was this popular,” you mumble.

A voice from behind your assailant calls out. “Easy, Ernie. Let’s not give the CEO too hard a time. After all, amends must be made. Bring them down to the lab.” The new guy, who you assume must be the president’s eyes and ears in CDC, points to Madge, who is carrying the new and improved Environaut from the helicopter. He pulls you up and offers his hand.

 “Jack Sneedon, President’s Liaison, CDC.”

You both shake. “I take it you’re aware of what we have here?” you say. “With the improvements I made to the original design…”

“Yeah, I know,” he says as his colleagues move Madge and the devise into the roof elevator. “Your sister filled me in over the phone. Some shit about co-coolants. I don’t get it.” He fixes you with a steely glare. “But I’m hoping you do.”

Once more, you hope.

Down in the lab, you unpack all your equipment and prepare for a demonstration of the Environaut. You look around and see that the place is spotless. No blood. No shit. “You’ve been cooped up here all this time?” you ask. “No breaches of security? No Shithead Zombies?”

Sneedon shrugs. “One or two got through the main gate, but that’s all. Our guys are clean and good to go. What about you?”

Your head drops. “I lost my Mom and my best friend.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Sneedon replies curtly, “but we’ve no time for sentimentality. We can grieve our dead later – provided we don’t become one of them. Set her up and let’s see what she can do.”

The demonstration works like a charm. After thirty minutes of further testing, Sneedon and his cohorts are less agitated than they were when they met you on the roof. It didn’t stop Hazmat Man from slapping you once more, this time with feeling.

Sneedon takes out his phone. “Wake up the president!” he barks. “Tell him I have good news.” His face loses several shades of natural colour. “What the fuck?” he roars. “When the hell did that happen?” He finds a nearby chair and just about manages to flop into it. He rubs his hand over the top of his head. He appears to be sobbing. “Artie’s in charge? Holy sweet fuck!” He ends the call and looks at you.

You feel a hand at your shoulder. It’s Madge, getting all sisterly like. “What’s going on?” she asks.

“Turn on the TV,” is Sneedon’s response.

On the big screen there is a shot of the White House. The ticker at the bottom of the screen reads: “President and Vice-President invoke 25^th Amendment. Speaker of the House, Arthur Gantly becomes President of the United States. News conference to follow shortly.”

You look at Sneedon. “They must have fallen foul of…the foulness.” Now you sound like a badly written twelve volume fantasy epic.

“You got that right,” Sneedon says. “Artie is out baying for blood. Your blood.”

“What do you mean?” Madge asks before you can even formulate the question yourself.

“My man at the West Wing says China, Russia and the entire Arab nation wants your head on a platter. They’re having their own problems and the only way they can placate their citizens is to ask for your public execution.”

You gulp.
Now that your life is on the , do you:

A. Offer to turn yourself over to the bloodthirsty masses, hoping your self-sacrificial gesture will change Artie's mind?
B. Appeal to Artie directly and show him your new and improved Environaut? He's not that much of a nut, is he?
C. Do what every self-respecting person would do in a situation like this - run?

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.4 - KABOOM

ECOPOCALYPSE CH. 4 - KABOOM 
By MJ Heiser

As you watch your sister introduce herself to the switchboard operator at the White House (can you believe they still process phone calls through a freaking switchboard?), something inside of you snaps.  Last night you were partying Bruce Wayne-style: lots of strangers—most of them in varying states of undress—gallons of booze, and lines of narcotics laying around. Through it all Milo was there as he always was, suspended upside-down and beer-bonging his way into the record books.  Now those party guests have the world's nastiest case of rotgut, and Milo . . .

You've just watched Milo die.

"Gotta go," you tell Madge.  She looks up from her phone call, her mouth slack as she registers the look of madness and desperation in your eyes.  You turn your back on the room even as she begins to fling at you reasons for you to stay.

"Wait!  I can get the President to neutralize everything!"

Fuck that, you think to yourself.  Somebody's got to pay.  Something's got to blow the fuck up.

You decide you need backup and you burst into a silent waiting room full of quarantined and terrified people.  In one corner are several burly guys you hope are either football linebackers or Navy SEALs.  You can tell already that the hospital staff are none too happy with the way you violated their weak excuse for quarantine; somebody has taken it upon themselves to set off a loud, insistent alarm.

Considering the fact that unknown numbers of security personnel are on their way to throttle you, you decide to cut about 98 percent of your speech.  "You guys want to just sit here and wait to find out if you're carrying the shits, or do you want to do something about it?"

Just as you'd hoped, the big burly guys stand up, biceps and pectorals twitching.  The biggest of them—your mind has already nicknamed him Hoss—smiles menacingly and says, "We thought no one would ever ask."

You're suddenly glad you've never been the publicity hound Steve Jobs was.  You're a virtual unknown.  "I know where the asshole who caused all this is keeping the master switch."

A guttural cry of assent breaks out among Hoss's friends, and they—along with several other twitchy people—follow you out of the waiting room.  You run towards the Emergency Room, and you hear distressing noises behind you, like Hoss and his friends are using their fists to prevent your capture.  You refuse to look back.  It will only slow you down. 

You burst through the Emergency Room doors to a scene of depressing chaos.  There's shit on the walls in a startling variety of colors.  The smell in here is ghastly.  Your eyes start to water from the smell.

"Cover your mouths and noses!" you yell through your hand, hoping you haven't already caught the airborne nastiness.  You then spot the crash doors leading outside, and—miracle of miracles—there's an open ambulance waiting there.  "Come on!"

You weave your way through the equipment in the back of the ambulance and sit down at the driver's seat.  You feel the back of the ambulance sag a little under the weight of your burly new friends, and, without waiting to ensure everyone's on, you gun the engine.  You smell a distressing aurora of gasoline fumes around you and wonder if the last EMT driving this rustbucket ruptured a fuel line. 

Fuck it.  The gas gauge says I have enough fuel even if I spill half of it on the way.  Okay, I have my crew, you think to yourself, giddy with excitement and high on adrenaline.  Now I need some explosives.

"Any of you guys know where I can find a few bombs?"

Dead silence from the back of the ambulance.

You turn around and see that all of your new friends have brown fluid leaking from their eyes.

Fuck.

"Did you think I wouldn't know who you are?" Hoss asks you as he advances on you.

"Wait," you say, whipping your head back around to not crash into a building.  "Come on, man."

"Were you really so arrogant to think that big guys like us don't keep up with scientific principles or breakthroughs?  What did you think we were, linebackers?"

You say nothing.  Again, you're hoping he's just angry and, of course, sick.  "I'm not the person you're looking for, dude, remember?  I'm taking you to the person responsible."

"We're fucked," Hoss says, inching closer.  You think you hear a clinking noise.  Shit is getting too real, so you swerve the ambulance to the emergency lane on the freeway and put it in park.  Then you turn back to see what's waiting for you.

Hoss now has something brownish coating the inside of his mouth.  His eyes are producing so much brown fluid it's falling in droplets from the edge of his square jaw.  You see that he's carrying a cylinder of oxygen in his hands.

"We're so . . .fucked," he says, his voice slurring a little.  He stumbles, but regains his balance on the edge of the gurney.  "I speak for all my guys when I say we aren't going to wait for this shit to take us.  We're going out, man.  But we aren't going alone."

You know enough about oxygen to know it can't burn by itself—but suddenly, you realize it doesn't have to.  That spilled-gas scent is stronger.

One of Hoss's friends has a match.  Another one has the emergency escape axe.

What happens next is so quick you'd think it had been rehearsed.  The guy with the match strikes it on the matchbook, then sets the rest of the book on fire, dropping it to the bottom of the ambulance.  Next, the guy with the axe buries it in the oxygen cylinder's neck with such force it splits the tank open.

The concussion from the explosion isn't the worst of it.  The worst of it is inhaling pure fire down your throat.

Oops...head back to chapter 4

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.4 - TO THE HOSPITAL!

ECOPOCALYPSE CH.4 - TO THE HOSPITAL!
By Mandy Ward

The Helicopter dips as you momentarily lose control from shock. How could it get this bad? What on earth is causing this?

As usual, Milo reads your mind.

Milo shudders. “What the hell is causing this, man? We did all those tests and there were no malfunctions or side effects from the prototypes. Shit, we even had a whole fricken town testing them for a whole year!”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been able to get close to an Environaut recently, so how the fuck would I know?” you point out irritably as you wrestle the ‘copter back into stable flight.

“So what’s the plan?” Milo is jiggling his right foot and tapping his left hand on his left knee.

You ignore the annoying movement and concentrate on flying. “Not sure at the moment. I know that I’m not going to run away from this until I’ve had a damn good look at what’s causing it.”

Milo laughs. “Man, you’ve got so much money stashed all over the place that you could just go to ground. Why not let the Government sort it out?”

Glancing at him, you realise that his eyes have glazed slightly and his skin is looking far too yellow, even for an Asian.

You frown. “Did you use the john this morning before I woke up?”

“Yeah.” Milo’s voice is starting to sound slurred. “Man, I don’t feel so good.”

“Shit! Shit…just…shit!” you give yourself over to a bout of swearing as you swing the ‘copter around in the direction of the Iscariot Hospital. “Hang in there, buddy, I’ll get you to my sister at Iscariot.”

“Thanks.” Milo wipes a dribble of brown away from the corner of his mouth. “You got anything to drink in this thing? I’m parched.”

“Sorry, Milo. I don’t allow food or drink in here.” Risking a glance at your friend’s face, you increase your airspeed. I have got to get him well; I can’t fix the Environaut without him. Using the auto pilot for a moment, you text your sister about Milo. Her answer is predictable:

He’s a shit anyway; it’s just like finding like. Bring him in. We need a guinea pig that isn’t too far along for the treatments we’re developing.

Smiling, you put your phone away and take control of the ‘copter back from the auto pilot. “Madge says they’re developing a treatment. Trust her to be on the ball!”

“Yeesssrrrgh” Milo gurgles. Brown liquid is dribbling from the corners of his eyes.

“I just hope I can get you there before you try to attack me.”

“Yeesssrrrgh”

Dropping the helicopter cleanly onto the helipad at the hospital, you scramble out as the rotors slow.

A group of ER nurses rush out with an odd looking trolley. It’s one of those metal cages that the hospital uses to transport boxes and bags around the place, but it’s been covered in acrylic sheets and reinforced with metal. There’s a soft looking waterproof mattress on the base of the cage, and a bottle of some kind of gas attached to the side.

All the nurses are wearing hazmat suits, and they bundle Milo out of the helicopter and into the cage before he has a chance to complain. The door is bolted and one of the nurses turns the tap on the gas canister.

A loud hissing fills the air and Milo’s eyes droop before he collapses to rest on the mattress.

“Anaesthetic?” you ask anxiously.

One of the nurses turns towards you. “We’ll keep him sedated. It seems to slow down the rate of decay and hopefully it will give us time to administer the treatments."

You blink. It isn’t a nurse, it’s your sister. “Madge? Why are you in one of those?”

“Why do you think I am? It’s an airborne contagion, you idiot!” she marches towards you. “You had to go and invent something that turns people into Golgothans, didn’t you? Why couldn’t you just have gone and been an astronaut or a surgeon?” Madge looks upset.

“What’s happened?” you ask, moving closer.

The rest of the nurses wheel Milo away. Madge links her arm through yours and pulls you along behind them.

“Have you used a toilet this morning?” she asks.

“Not yet.”

“Have you been in close contact with any of the affected people?” Madge is strangely insistent.

“Did you not see the news this morning, Sis? They invaded my house and flung poop at us.” You snap back. “What’s with the twenty questions?”

“I’ve been dealing with the results of your little invention. Did you realise that three quarters of the patients I’ve had in the last two weeks have had a significant level of mercury in their systems?” she blinks. “Mum was one of them.”

“Oh.” You can’t think of anything else to say. You might have been estranged from your parents since going to college, but that doesn’t mean that you didn’t care about them.

”She died.” It wasn’t a question and you blink back the tears. “Time enough to grieve later, little bro.” Madge pats your shoulder. “Did you ingest any of the feces thrown at you?”

You gag a little at that thought. “I don’t think so. I hope not.”

“We’ll run some tests on you and put you through decontamination.” She eyes the suit you’re wearing. “A pity we’ll have to dissolve the suit in acid, but it’s the safest way to do it; burning just puts the infection vector back into the air.”

Two hours later you are pronounced safe from infection and, dressed in a set of scrubs and a hazmat suit, you are allowed to visit Milo with your sister.

“Hey man!” you wave at him inside his plastic encased cage.

He raises his head and you stumble back at the rage in his eyes and the brown, foul smelling sludge dribbling from his eyes, nose and mouth. He’s wearing nothing but a hospital gown, and there is brown gunk everywhere around him.

“He’s been through decon and had the treatment.” She gestures at a second gas canister. “It’s just a case of waiting now.”

“How many people have you cured?” You ask, feeling guilty.

She looks sad. “No one yet.”

Ushering her out and down the corridor to her office, you fire questions at her. “Do you know exactly what is causing this? Why do they start spitting up brown slush? What is it that the Environaut has done to cause this? Am I liable for any of this? Is Dad all right? What about animals? How widespread is it?”

She shuts the office door behind you and pushes you down into a seat. You unzip your hazmat suit and push it down to your waist in relief. Phew these things are hot.

Madge just unzips the hood.

“You’re a stupid excuse for an intelligent man,” she snaps. “The mercury in the Environaut’s coolant system is causing the zombie state. It’s affecting the brain in a completely new way, and there’s not much we can do to counteract it. The treatment we’ve come up with works about fifty percent of the time.”

You remember what Milo was swearing about. “Shit. The mother fucking board interfered with the design specs! They must have used the older design internally and the new design externally.” You collapse back against the chair. “What about the sludge?”

“That’s the remains of their internal organs; they go into rapid decay for some reason. While our treatment has been successful against the zombification, humans can’t live when they don’t have a heart, lungs or nervous system.” She raises an eyebrow as you dive for the waste paper bin and throw up in it.

Wiping your mouth on your sleeve, you turn back to her. “Why is that happening?”

“We don’t know. And the only way we’re going to be able to find out is to take samples from a working Environaut.”

“Aren’t there any in the hospital?”

She snorts. “You have got to be kidding. The hospital board vetoed acquiring Environauts when you refused to discount the price per unit.”

But that wasn’t me! That was the board; I remember fighting them on it six months ago. You swear in fluent Russian.

“Enough of that.” Madge aims a slap at the back of your head and you duck. “To answer the rest of your questions, if it was an internal fault that caused this then yes, you are liable. Dad is fine; he’s on his yacht in the Pacific. Animals don’t seem to be susceptible and it’s happening everywhere that your invention has penetrated.” She folds her arms. “So what are you going to do about it?”

You walk over to her office window. Outside the hospital, the numbers of shit covered zombies are growing, hunting down anyone still capable of movement. You remember Hal at EcoGen. “How are you keeping them out?”

Madge joins you at the window. “All the doors from the ground are locked. We have a thousand or so patients in here that we can’t risk. That’s why we’re keeping those brought in by helicopter up here in isolation.”

“How do you get supplies?”

“The Army airlifts them in.”

“What the hell can I do about this?” you wail. “Milo is the engineering genius. I’d need all the plans and a lab, not to mention…” you trail off and stare at your sister. “Will he survive?”

There’s a knock at the door and a nurse in a hazmat suit hurries in. “Sorry to interrupt, Dr. Tebid–Fewmet, but the patient is asking for your sibling.”

The two of you suit up.

“I don’t know why you haven’t gone back to your maiden name, that bastard is long gone,” you say, zipping Madge’s hood up for her. “Besides, his name is almost as ugly as his face.”

She shrugs and stalks away down the corridor after the nurse.

Milo is sitting cross legged on the mattress. Brown slush has dried in long streaks down his body and, looking at the state of the cage, you’re glad for the canned air in your suit. That place must reek.

“What’s up, buddy?”

“You have to fix the damn machine. I know what’s wrong, but I don’t think I have enough time left to help you.” Milo coughs and a deluge of brown gunge splashes over his legs.

He ignores it. “First you have to get everyone to cut the power to the machines; that will stop anyone else being affected. Then you have to destroy the main processing plant. The fuckers on the board must have used mercury in there as well; the presence of mercury in the individual units would just cause toxification, not all this as well.” He waves a hand at the slurry around him.

You blink. “Did you understand that, Madge?”

She nods. “I can call the President to order a shutdown of the power plants. That’s the fastest way to kill the power to the machines.”

“Milo, how do we fix the Environaut?” you ask your oldest friend.

“My notes…” he coughs, “…at the lab… change the… coolant and…” a veritable flood of decayed internal organs emerges from his mouth. He slumps to the floor of the cage and the light goes from his eyes.

You find yourself crying. Poor bugger. What a horrible way to go.

Madge steers you back to her office. “Let’s get this sorted out.

So what do I do first? You think, sitting down while Madge makes her phone call. Destroy the main processing plant or pick up Milo’s notes? Or shall I just call it a day and do a Dad?
What's next?

A. Do you head to the marina for your yacht and join your dad in the pacific until it all blows over?
B. Do you try to retrieve Milo's notes from the lab in the hope that they hold the key to saving your hide?
C. Do you assemble a team to destroy the Main Processing Plant?