Extinction Edge

Book 2: The Extinction Cycle

by Nicholas Sansbury Smith

Genres: Post-Apocalyptic sci-fi; Military Sci-Fi

Synopsis

A bioweapon designed to save the world …
A scientific discovery that will alter human history …
And a new threat that will bring humanity to the Edge of Exctinction.

The dust from Dr. Kate Lovato’s bioweapon has settled. Projections put death counts in the billions. Her weapon was supposed to be the endgame, but it turned a small percentage of those infected with the Hemorrhage Virus into something even worse.

Survivors call them Variants. Irreversible epigenetic changes have transformed them into predators unlike any the human race has ever seen. And they are evolving.

With the doomsday clock ticking, the fractured military plans Operation Liberty—a desperate mission designed to take back the cities and destroy the Variant threat. Master Sergeant Reed Beckham agrees to lead a strike team into New York City, but first he must return to Fort Bragg to search for the only family he has left.

At Plum Island, Kate discovers Central Command may have considerably underestimated the Variant population in New York. As Operation Liberty draws closer, Kate warns Beckham that Team Ghost won’t just face their deadliest adversary yet—they may be heading into a trap.

Release date: February 14, 2017

Publisher: Orbit

Print pages: 320

Sample

The popping of distant gunfire startled Meg Pratt awake. She jolted upright, wondering at first if she was still dreaming.

The stillness of the night closed in on her like a vise. Reality slowly set in as she remembered, bringing with it a wave of despair and anxiety that worked its way from her gut to her pounding heart. Several fuzzy minutes passed before she came to her senses.

She had awoken from one nightmare only to enter another. Over two weeks had passed since the hemorrhage virus swept across the nation. Honking horns, blaring sirens, and shouts from noisy neighbors were absent now. New York City was a dead zone. No more neon lights, no more blinking advertisements.

The old world was gone, and no one could bring it back.

After rubbing her eyes, she scanned the room. Jed and Rex slept in the adjacent beds, their silhouettes frozen in the rays of moonlight seeping through the gaps in the boarded-up windows.

Meg examined the two-by-fours she and the other firefighters had hastily nailed across the windows. So much had happened in a short time. As her gaze fell upon the empty beds neatly lined up throughout the rest of the room, her mind and heart ached.

The agony was brief, ripped away by more gunshots. She held a breath in her chest, listening, trying to pinpoint a location, but once again the noise slipped away. It was the first sign of a military presence since the jets had swooped in twelve hours ago.

The next round of gunfire came a moment later, the crack of fully automatic weapons. The noise reverberated through the derelict city streets. It had to be military. There had been only a few civilians who could get their hands on that type of firepower, and they were all dead.

“You hear that?” asked a voice a few feet away. It was Jed, the quiet marine with a Southern accent. Meg’s crew had taken him in days earlier when his platoon had been wiped out ten blocks away.

Jed swung his feet over the side of his bed and crossed the room on his toes. The creaking of floorboards woke up Rex. All three hundred pounds of him shot upright. “What’s going on? Did they find us?” He ran a hand through his thick red hair.

“Shhh,” Meg said, holding a finger to her mouth. She’d always found Rex to be a bit paranoid for a man of his size. But she couldn’t fault him for that now, especially after the unthinkable things they’d seen. The three of them were all that was left now. Every other civilian and firefighter that had sheltered here had died. Their families and friends were dead. Everyone they ever knew was gone.

Meg closed her eyes at the thought of her husband, infected and crazed. She’d watched him kill a neighbor before a soldier gunned him down. No matter how many times she told herself it wasn’t her husband who died that day, she still couldn’t bring herself to believe it. Some small part of him had remained when the bullets tore through his body. She had seen it in his dying eyes.

Grabbing her axe, Meg joined Jed at the window.

“See anything?” she asked.

“Not yet.”

Pressing her right eye against a crack in the boards, Meg scanned the rooftops for motion. She flinched when the gunshots came again. They were getting closer.

Meg continued to probe the darkness, her gaze stopping on the gargoyles that protruded off the stone ledges two buildings down. There was something else too, something moving in the shadows.

“You see that?” Meg asked.

Jed squinted. “I can’t really see anything.”

Another round of automatic gunfire broke out. Muzzle flashes flickered on the rooftop, illuminating the silhouettes of soldiers. They fired as they ran. And although Meg couldn’t see the ravenous creatures chasing them, she knew they were out there.

“Soldiers,” Jed whispered. “And …”

Meg pressed her eye closer, scratching her forehead on the coarse wood. Moonlight spilled from the clouds and lit up the rooftops.

A chill spiked through Meg’s body when she saw the dozens of infected chasing the soldiers. The pack skittered across the rooftop and along the exterior walls of the building like human-sized insects.

The gunfire couldn’t mask the noises the creatures made—the scratching, the clicking joints, and their primal screams. These no longer seemed like men and women; they were the predators of the new world. Humans were transformed into monsters through the hemorrhage virus. People like her best friend, Eric, a man she’d known her entire life. Turning her axe on him had been the hardest thing Meg had ever done. She could still hear the crunch of bone and the screams of agony.

Meg brushed a lock of brown hair from her face and pressed her eye closer to the crack in the wood, following the soldiers as they jumped from ledge to ledge. They were fast, but the creatures were faster.

She remembered her own narrow escape from a pack of the monsters when they’d rescued Jed. She could outrun almost every firefighter she had worked with. She was a three-time Ironman triathlete. But it wasn’t the endurance or speed she’d gained from swimming, biking, and running over 140 miles in a day that had secured her escape. It was the adrenaline that only pure fear could produce.

She imagined the soldiers were experiencing that same adrenaline rush. They eased to a stop on the next rooftop; a thirty-foot-tall billboard loomed over their bulky frames.

“They’re out of room,” Meg whispered. She strained to see the creatures trailing the team. Shadowy shapes dashed across the buildings, apparitions in the night.

More flashes lit up the scene. The three soldiers stood close together, firing at the horde of infected racing toward them. The deformed creatures twitched and jerked, dropping one by one as bullets riddled their bodies. It was over in a few seconds.

The moon vanished, the sky swallowing the light like a brooding storm.

Meg pulled away from the boards at the sound of heavy footfalls. Rex had finally decided to get out of bed. The man walked hesitantly toward the window.

“I think we should try to get to that rooftop,” Jed whispered.

“Are you insane?” Rex said. “We won’t make it for more than two minutes outside.”

The distant thump of a helicopter pulled Meg back to the window. Her eyes roved across the skyline, searching for the aircraft.

“Hear that? That’s our ticket out of this hellhole.” Meg gripped her axe tighter. “I’m with Jed. We need to get to that rooftop.”

“We don’t have much time; we need to move,” Jed added.

“But—no—we …” Rex trailed off.

“What’s that?” Infected were climbing the back of the billboard now. There were a half dozen of them, maybe more.

“Shit,” Meg said. She scanned the roof for the soldiers and spotted them on the east and south ledge. For a moment they looked like the gargoyles, frozen as they waited for extraction, oblivious to the approaching threat.

“Those things are going to sneak up on them!” Jed said in a voice just shy of a shout. “We have to warn them.”

Rex grabbed the marine by his arm. “Keep it down. Are you crazy? They’ll hear you.”

Meg watched with gritted teeth. “There isn’t anything we can do. Not from here.” Rex was right. He was a paranoid son of a bitch, but he was right. The infected were drawn to noises—and the scent of flesh. From the safety of the boarded-up room, she’d seen the creatures sniffing the air, hunting other survivors. And here she was again, helplessly watching the three unsuspecting soldiers as the monsters advanced. There was no running from them. No escape. Hiding was the only option.

Blinking red lights on the skyline pulled her gaze away from the roof. The sleek outline of a Black Hawk descended over the building. There was no way Meg and the others would make it to the rooftop, even if they tried. They were stranded.

Jed pulled out of Rex’s grip and moved back to the two-by-fours. “Oh my God,” he whispered.

The creatures spilled over the top of the billboard. They slid down the other side, and then Meg lost sight of them. Gunfire lit up the south ledge as the soldiers opened fire.

Adrenaline flooded Meg’s system with each shot. She was used to running into fires. It was almost worse being on the opposite side of the fence. She had joined the Fire Department of New York City to help people, not watch them die.

The chopper hovered low, and tracer rounds streaked through the night, each one hitting its target as the soldiers fought back the infected swarm. Meg strained to see, but the gunfire ceased almost as fast as it started. The chopper pulled to the right and then flew away over the skyline. Just like that it was gone, the red lights blinking one last time before there was only darkness.

Meg cursed their luck. They hadn’t seen a chopper in days, let alone one so close.

“Great,” Jed said. “That’s fucking great.” He scratched his closely trimmed crew cut and then slammed his hand into the boards.

Meg glared at the marine. “Keep it down.”

Jed shrugged and muttered an apology. He had turned away and started walking back to his bunk when the sound of shattering glass came from below.

The three of them froze.

A guttural screech ripped through the building. Pounding followed. The walls shook from the impact. It sounded as though a wild animal was loose on the first floor.

Rex grabbed Meg’s arm as she stepped away from the window.

“Don’t go down there,” he said.

Meg shook free and exchanged nods with Jed. Together, they crossed the room cautiously. She eyed the empty M16 on Jed’s bunk. Without a gun, Meg felt naked. Her axe slowed the creatures down, but bullets were much more effective.

A second scream echoed through the fire station, the sound lingering in the night. Meg gritted her teeth and stopped. The axe slipped in her grip, sweat bleeding off her palm.

“Guys,” Rex said. “Guys, come back.”

Meg held up a hand to silence him. Then she heard the clicking. It was the sound of cracking joints, and it wasn’t coming from inside the building. It was coming from the street, as if they were surrounded by hundreds of oversized crickets. Rex stood with his eye pressed against one of the gaps at the windows.

“Oh no,” he said.

Meg scanned the bookshelves and boxes in front of the door. If the monsters found them, the barricade wouldn’t hold for long.

“Let me see,” Meg said. She tapped Rex on the shoulder. The man’s thick arms were trembling.

She pressed her eye against the crack in the boards, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Movement flickered across the rooftops, but how—

“Holy shit,” Meg gasped. She had never seen so many infected in one spot. The entire street and even the walls of the buildings had come alive with a blur of flesh.

“They must have been drawn to the gunfire,” Jed said.

“What do we do?” Rex asked, his words a panicked slur.

Meg shook her head. “We pray.”

Two Days Later …

The room erupted with applause as Dr. Kate Lovato entered the mess hall. Uniformed men and women from every branch of the military stood and clapped, cheering as she walked past.

The sound took Kate’s breath away. Ever since her bioweapon, VariantX9H9, had been deployed, she had been hailed as the “savior” of the world, the woman who had stopped the hemorrhage virus in its tracks. But there were others in the audience who glared at her with resentment. She knew what they were thinking: She wasn’t a savior, she was a monster. And she felt like one. The burden of so much death rested solely on her shoulders. The weight made it difficult to breathe.

Her gaze gravitated to the commander of Plum Island, Lieutenant Colonel Ray Jensen. The African American commander narrowed his eyes as she approached. He clapped with the others, but he was sizing her up too, seeing if she was mentally fit to address the crowd. They had let her out of quarantine only a day earlier, and she was still a bit groggy.

“Good morning, everyone,” Jensen said, bringing a mic to his mouth. “I think all of you know Doctor Kate Lovato, with the CDC.”

More cheering rang through the room. Kate scanned the faces for someone familiar, but soon realized she was alone. Her friends were all working. Dr. Pat Ellis was in the lab, and Master Sergeant Reed Beckham and Staff Sergeant Parker Horn were in the hospital with their injured teammate, Staff Sergeant Alex Riley. The kid had come back from New York with two shattered legs. He was evidence that her weapon hadn’t killed all of the monsters—a new threat had emerged in the blood-soaked streets.

The Variants.

Kate shivered at the thought. The memory of the Variant that had attacked her two days ago was fresh on her mind. She could still hear the creature’s claws skittering across the ceiling. It was an experience she would never forget.

“Thank you for coming, Doctor,” Jensen said. He handed Kate the mic and gestured toward a podium with the Medical Corps insignia on the front.

Kate knew what he wanted from her. He wanted her to reassure the staff on Plum Island that there was still hope, that the Variants could be defeated.

Clearing her throat, she said, “Good morning, everyone. I was told to give you all a sitrep on what’s happening outside. There is good news and bad news. The good news is that VariantX9H9 is still being deployed in every major city. Ninety percent of the infected are dying. The weapon attacks their endothelial cells and causes massive internal bleeding. It’s a relatively quick death.”

Kate paused and scanned the crowd, focusing on a woman in the front row. She was dressed in a neatly pressed navy uniform. The officer couldn’t have been more than twenty-five years old. When she saw Kate looking at her, she stiffened her back and smiled. Her eyes pleaded with Kate to say something encouraging, to tell them that things were going to be okay.

But Kate couldn’t lie. She couldn’t feed these people false hope. After a brief pause, she continued. “The bad news is that the other ten percent of the infected are recovering from the Ebola virus, but not the effects of VX-99. Those epigenetic changes seem to be irreversible at this point.”

The word hung in the air, and nervous voices broke from the crowd. A familiar feeling of dread crept into her thoughts and caused her mind to drift. It threatened to steal her sanity, to break her.

Closing her eyes, she said, “I don’t believe there is anything we can do to bring these people back.” She shook her head. As she handed the mic back to Jensen, she muttered two final words: “I’m sorry.”

She rushed out of the room with her eyes downcast, avoiding every single glare. No one stopped her or protested her departure. They were still digesting what she had just told them. Learning that VariantX9H9 had only delayed the inevitable was difficult to stomach, even for the most hardened of soldiers.

A Medical Corps guard opened the door, and Kate stumbled out into the blinding morning sunlight. Shielding her eyes with a hand, she looked out over the island.

Kate wasn’t the type of person to leave others behind. She never ran from a fight. But the death toll from her bioweapon had taken a piece of her. The numbers were hard to fathom, with billions of losses that produced a constant ache that wouldn’t go away.

She walked aimlessly across the island and paused to study the ocean, wondering what was on the other side. In the end, she’d done her job. She had stopped the spread of the virus, though she’d fallen short in eradicating the monsters. Now she could only wonder what the world looked like beyond the safety of the island.

The American military had shared the recipe for VariantX9H9 with the nation’s European allies, but the strike on foreign soil had come days after the US operation. Kate hoped it hadn’t been too late to save her parents, living in Italy.

Exhaling a sigh, she continued through the hexagonal campus. The white, domed buildings rose above her. She wasn’t sure where she was headed; her thoughts were muddied with guilt and regrets. They drifted from Javier, her brother, to her mentor, Dr. Michael Allen. They’d been dead even before the missiles descended on Atlanta and Chicago, but if they hadn’t, they would have died from VariantX9H9. From her bioweapon.

Kate choked on the thought.

She didn’t fight the tears that streaked down her cheeks. Everyone had a breaking point, a moment where everything came crashing down. Kate had finally reached hers.

There was only one person left in the world who could make her feel better, and he was in the medical building nearby. For the first time that morning, Kate felt a sudden burst of energy. She finally knew where she was going.

Staff Sergeant Alex Riley couldn’t believe his fate. He’d built a career on his speed and his ability to sneak in and out of some of the most secure locations in the world. Now he lay in a hospital bed, staring at his shattered legs and wondering if he would ever run again.

If it weren’t for Beckham and Horn, he would never have made it off that rooftop. Then again, he would never have made it out of Building 8 at San Nicolas Island without them either. What were the odds?

Riley let out a sad laugh.

The noise woke Horn and Beckham. They stirred in stiff-looking chairs facing the foot of his bed.

“Feeling better?” Beckham asked.

Riley eyed his casts. “I’m happy to be alive. But my legs, man.”

“They’ll heal,” Beckham said.

“I thought you were toast, Kid,” Horn said, his voice scratchy.

“Me too,” Beckham said.

“Shit. It’s going to take a lot more than some crazed shithead to take me out.” Riley laughed. “I would have been fine without you guys.”

Horn rolled his eyes. “Right. You had the situation under complete control.”

“Damn straight,” Riley said.

The three men chuckled. It was the first time in weeks that they’d all had a good laugh. It was like old times, but they knew that things would never be the same.

A rap on the door pulled them back to the grim reality of the status quo, where old times were nothing but memories. Kate waited outside, waving from the other side of the small window in the door.

“Beckham, it’s your girlfriend,” Riley said, jerking his chin toward Kate.

Beckham shot him an angry glare but didn’t respond. His narrowed, dark eyes were enough to silence Riley. He knew what Beckham was thinking: Keep your trap shut or you’re going to stay in that bed even longer.

“It’s open,” Horn mumbled, scooting his chair to the side.

“Morning,” Kate said.

Riley picked up a hint of sadness in her soft voice. He watched her walk into the room and stand a few feet away from Beckham. The shadows of the dimly lit space couldn’t conceal her swollen, red eyes. It wasn’t surprising, Riley thought, considering she had killed most of the world’s population.

“How are you doing, Alex?” Kate asked. She hardly made eye contact with the men.

Riley forced a smile. He wasn’t used to people calling him by his first name. “I’m feeling much better. The pain meds here are killer.”

Kate nodded. “You can thank Colonel Gibson for that.”

“How’s that piece of shit doing?” Horn asked.

“He’s awaiting trial,” Kate said. “I noticed Lieutenant Colonel Jensen posted another guard outside his room. Must be worried about the man’s safety.”

Beckham stood and stretched. “I would be too, if I were him.”

“There aren’t enough soldiers on this island to protect Gibson from what’s comin’ to him.” Horn snorted.

Riley shuddered. His friends were right. The colonel was partially responsible for the end of the world. He had earned a spot at the top of the list of the biggest assholes in the history of the human species.

“Any developments?” Beckham asked.

Kate shook her head. “Not really. We have reports coming in from Europe that VariantX9H9 has destroyed around ninety percent of those infected with the hemorrhage virus.”

“And the ones it didn’t work on?” Beckham asked.

Kate’s brittle voice cracked. “Variants.”

“How many do you think there are worldwide?” Riley asked.

Kate rubbed her forehead. “The last projections I put together were from old numbers, but that’s all we have to go on. I estimate about seventy-five to eighty percent of the world’s population has been infected with the hemorrhage virus.”

Silence washed over them. No one spoke. Riley did the math in his head—if five and a half billion people had been infected, and now 10 percent of them were Variants …

“Holy shit,” Riley said. “Five hundred and fifty million Variants? There’s one of those things for every three human survivors.” He let out a low whistle.

Kate cupped her hands over her head. “You don’t need to remind me.”

“Sorry,” Riley said. He reached for a pillow and propped it behind his back, wincing in pain.

“You did what you had to do, Kate,” Beckham said. He stood and put a hand on her shoulder. “You saved the human race.”

Kate glanced up, tears sparkling in her eyes. “I stalled the inevitable.”

“What’s that mean?” Riley asked. “We all know the world will never be the same. But even after we kill all of those things, we’ll still have people left to rebuild society, the economy, food production …”

Riley searched Kate’s face for confirmation, but she pivoted away to stare out the window. She parted the blinds with a finger, letting the sun leak through. “The human race might be the next species on the extinction list after all,” she said, with her back still to Riley, Horn, and Beckham.

Sandra Hickman and Ralph Benzing looked exhausted. They sat in front of a wall of communications equipment in the command center, quietly skimming the channels for intel.

Lieutenant Colonel Ray Jensen paced behind them anxiously. Both communications officers were in the twelfth hour of their shift, and he could tell that the coffee was finally starting to wear off.

Chatter was coming in from around the country. Jensen hadn’t even started filtering the info streaming in from Europe. There was so much to process, but his priority was Plum Island and keeping his people safe. There was also a larger mission—a mission that Central Command was still piecing together.

“Here we go,” Benzing said, cupping his hands over his headset. “I’m picking something up.”

Jensen chewed the inside of his lip. The phantom taste of tobacco made his stomach growl. Four days without it and he was already going through withdrawals. Digging into his pocket, he felt for a piece of chewing gum.

“Patch it over the speakers,” Jensen said, preparing himself for the worst. He’d never been much of a deep thinker; taking things too seriously caused unnecessary stress. Now that he was acting commander of one of humanity’s last strongholds, all of that had changed. The fate of so many rested in his hands. Every single soul on the island was invaluable. Whatever Command was cooking up was likely to put many of his own in harm’s way, and he wasn’t looking forward to it.

“It’s an automated message,” Hickman said. “I’m picking it up on several frequencies.”

“Switching,” Benzing said. “Mine just cut out.”

The speakers coughed static and then went silent for several seconds.

“What happened?” Jensen asked. He leaned over Benzing’s shoulder as a voice suddenly crackled from the speakers.

“This is Gener. . .