The Echo

SCENE: Olympia, WA -- 09SEP17, 28 days after the outbreak. A special Army helicopter is coming toward the city carrying Major Karl Wesson USA special forces and Father Winston O'Bannon in hermetically sealed compartment. The priest is looking very concerned and the soldier very grim.

O'Bannon: How much longer before we get to the aid site.

Wesson: We'll get there soon enough. I'm glad you were willing to risk going back into that hell hole to retrieve more survivors without yet having been set down in a safe area yet.

O: I understand that time is of the essence. Besides that the look that appeared on your face when you received that radio call from base tells me that things have suddenly become even more grave than before. But I have a pastoral calling and I cannot but be willing to sacrifice my life when my Lord has sacrificed himself for me. If there is anything that I can do I am willing.

W: Those are some fine words, Father. But what really impresses is me is that you are willing to say that and go back to that particular place. I have seen seasoned combat troops come out of there screaming in horror. Yet you seem willing to face it all again in spite of knowing first hand what it was all like.

O: Oh, I could barely cope with it at the time, believe me. Five nights ago, it seemed that there was a sudden bright light in the sky that came down into the midst of the city. There was a huge explosion and many of the buildings were damaged from the shock wave. But even that was not the worst of it. Almost immediately several of the city people began to suffer. The began to grab their heads and scream in agony. Nothing could be done for them, even when they were rushed to the hospital. Whatever it was seemed to be affecting their minds. Very often the shear pain would make them pass out into a kind of coma. We tried to gather as many of the poor victims as we could and take them to homes, hospitals, schools, and so on. Whatever cause the syndrome, it seemed to only effect a certain percentage of the population. Many of us seemed totally unaffected by it.

W: I can tell you that what exploded on the city was a commercial satellite that was forced out of orbit by some kind of meteor. HQ thinks that the meteor or th satellite had contact with some kind of alien virus that attacks the brain and the CNS. The rapid spread of the viral effects makes it clear that it is something we haven't seen before. There was nothing we could do but quarantine the city and let the disease run its course. But that wasn't the worse part, was it?

(The priest took a deep breathe.)

O: No. No, not at all. The comatose eventually came to after a few hours or so. But it was clear that their humanity had been lost. They couldn't talk anymore, nor could the use their motor skills as efficiently as before. But even worse, even worse, they began to viciously attack anyone like some feral beast. Family members who were keeping vigil over their sleeping bodies were suddenly jumped by them and torn apart. The disease must have activated an increase in adrenaline because the victims displayed increased strength and speed. They did not stop at the ones near them but they began to rampage the city so that those who had not suffered from the disease still were hurt by those who were. And they didn't just attack them they . . . they . . .

W: They ate them.

O: Yes. Yes! I dare not describe the sites I saw. It must have been like the Black Plague only with people as the vermin and with no escape.

W: Please do not explain further. We have enough grisly documentation by satellite camera and by the various texts and photos from cell phones sent along to us. But can't you look at me when you talk about it?

O: But I am looking at you. Right at your eyes.

W: So I see. Sorry. It must be difficult even for you as a man of faith to accept such a horror from the hand of a supposedly good God.

O: Well, alien or not, what happened must have happened according to the course of the way nature regularly works. I can understand that God might rather make a world with natural regularities so that people could make reliable predictions and plans over one which nothing at all could be predicted, even if that means the some of the consequences include natural disasters.

(The major's stony face looked out of a portal into the night.)

W: Still, did God have to make a lawfully operating world that involved this much pain and horror. Doesn't it bother you at all that there seems to be no good reason for allowing this much suffering? God could have made the world regular without this having to happen.

O: I do know what you mean. But if there is a God, His nature would be such that He could have really good reasons for allowing such things that we in our limited resources cannot fathom, and that would explain we we don't see the reason for them. And there are to many great goods in the world like our mysterious universe and the sacrifices of good people that encourage me to believe that such a God lives.

(The major continued unmoved to look out of the portal and spoke again.)

W: Still, did God have to make a lawfully operating world that involved this much pain and horror. Doesn't it bother you at all that there seems to be no good reason for allowing this much suffering? God could have made the world regular without this having to happen.

O: I do know what you mean. But if there is a God, His nature would be such that He could have really good reasons for allowing such things that we in our limited resources cannot fathom, and that would explain we we don't see the reason for them. And there are to many great goods in the world like our mysterious universe and the sacrifices of good people that encourage me to believe that such a God lives.

(The major turned away from the window and began to stare at the floor between them. He began to rub the temple of his head.)

W: I had a friend and fellow combat officer put it differently. He told me that when he was in Afghanistan fighting, his troop came across a Taliban warlord's compound in a network of mountain caves. Apparently this warlord had been capturing Baha'ists migrating from Iran and had been torturing and abusing them, especially their women and children. The journals they kept were in extreme clinical detail and they told of the absolute indifference toward the victims as human beings. My friend told me that he knew at that time he had encountered genuine evil and not just suffering and that the recognition of the existence of actual evil actually had renewed his belief in God.

O: Yes, it is hard for good willed people to contemplate such a possibility in a fellow human being but there are times when we cannot fail to recognize an objective universal justice, if only when we see it violated.

(The major grimaced and a strange smile traveled part way across his lips. He continued to look at the floor.)

W: It's almost time for drop off.

O: Drop off? I thought we were picking people up? What about those who didn't fall sick to the virus?

W: There is no one who didn't fall sick to the virus.

O: What? What about me?

W: That call that I received informed me that the virus has broken out of the quarantined area into the centers where we were gathering the refugees from the city. They are frantically trying to redraw the quarantine area to contain the virus again.

O: But how could that be?

W: This is the picture we are getting from research. The theory is that it is not a virus but rather a parasite that multiplies and tries to take over the organism of a host body by taking over the higher order functions of the host's brain. The parasite is capable of multiplying and to network with its spawn while each of them work to kill the host and take over the existing neural connections and functional patterns in the brain. The success or failure of this seems to correlate with the rhesus factor in the blood. If the host is type positive, this attempt fails, the host succeeds in surviving the attack, and the parasites die, but the damage from the attack is so devastating that most higher brain functions are destroyed or isolated within the brain. It's like suffering from severe brain damage and falling into a permanently vegetative state, except in this case all that survives are the host's most basic animal instincts. The host essential becomes feral in the worst possible way but they still continue to live.

O: And what happens if the parasites win?

W: What happens if the type is negative is that the host dies and the body becomes simply the vehicle for the colony of parasites that are now using the existing networks to operate the body, camouflage their presence, and continue to spread and multiply. The host is dead but a simulacrum of the former host continues to persist until the parasites can suitably reproduce. The simulacrum is able to reproduce typical and predictable output behaviors to standard situations so that it seems as if the person that was their originally is still there.

O: I see. My blood type is O negative. This is why you were called to take me back to the hot zone.

W: To take us back to the hot zone. I was already pretty well exposed to you long enough before they found out and I'm A positive.

O: And you made it seem like a mercy mission in order to manage us better.

W: It's still a mercy mission of a sort. Even though type positives have become mostly feral, it seems that there is still complex brain activity in the part of the brain that is correlated with dreaming. This activity increases when the animal needs are sated. The feral become sated when they eat the simulacra and eating them destroys the parasites they are carrying while at the same time providing them a little more of their last joys as a human being. Eventually the feral will die -- they cannot survive for very long in that state -- and then controls will come in and clean up the mess. So the plan is to contain the situation until it burns out. No one survives.

O: A pyre for the dead and a hospice for those who are dying. I'm really sorry that you couldn't escape.

(The major collapses down on the floor between them, his face lined with pain.)

W: It was an echo of a good lesson before dying. Besides, being a simulacrum means never having to say you're sorry.

The major laid unconscious on the floor while the priest watched over him.