Day 11
#13 of Days
Hope you have your reading eyes in, this is the longest single chapter yet at just over eight pages.
Some cute scenes in here that I loved writing. Hope you enjoy them too.
I woke curled up behind the co-pilots seat in the cockpit, it wasn't all that comfortable but a fox makes do with what a fox has. Harry noted my wakefulness, "Almost to LA, their tower is up and the military are running the show down there. Apparently Karen had some useful information to pass on and doctor Willins is eagerly awaiting the results of it."
"A nice meal and a good bed will be the best thing they could offer us at the moment, how much longer before we touch down?"
"Give me about fifteen minutes or so, thankfully its not that busy down there now, the drugs have been getting distributed flat out since you gave them the info." The pilot replied.
"Ok, I am going to see how Star and her young are doing." And with that I headed for the cockpit door.
The smell hit me as soon as I opened it, "Ugh, poor kitties have been dealing with this this?"
An answering mrow and a pair of pouncing kittens greeted me as I entered.
"How you been doing there Star?" I ran my hands down her flanks, she had lost some weight in the last few days.
The door behind me opened and closed and Karen came up beside me, "Harry says not a lot longer, and that we should find some seats back here and strap in."
"So what's on the cards for when we land? Harry said you had some data the head doctor wanted, but what are we going to do after that?" I asked, emphasising the 'we'.
"Yeah, before we ditched the WHO jet I posted that we had done some research in regards to the animal mutation in humans and I now have some notes on how this seems to affect animals." She patted one of the kittens that had made her lap its home.
"I didn't think it was just me noticing it, Starlight seems a fair bit smarter than any animal I have seen before. Wonder if these two little nightmares are going to be the same way?" I pondered, patting the other of the two kittens. "Hey Star, you better find a good spot to hold onto, we are landing soon."
She jumped onto a seat and set about getting her claws dug in nicely when Harry came over the intercom. "We are on approach for LAX, see you lot in a minute or two."
And he was right, the private jet landed smoothly, Stars chair had barely any damage and the kitten asleep in my arms didn't even wake.
We were taxied to a terminal and after hearing the engines wind down, Harry left the cockpit and joined us.
"Make sure your guns are in full view, there are fully armed soldiers down there, and we don't want them surprised by anything." He told us.
"Are we in trouble or something?" I asked.
Karen laughed, "Nah, its standard procedure, when the shit hits the fan as hard as this has, the brains," And she collectively thumbed her chest, "get the best bodyguards. Just act like your there to protect me and the soldiers will be at ease."
"Right." I said feeling some nerves, would these people know I was the one who spread this crap?
Harry opened the door on the plane and stepped out onto stairs that were up against the side of the aircraft. He turned and yelled, "Come on you two, David, you go down first, look around a lot but keep you hand clear of your gun. Karen you next, your the 'boss' here, I will close up and make sure this is all secure."
He thought he had it all planned, but at that point Star made it known that she would be following me down the gantry.
I handed my kitten to Star and made my way down the stairs, the soldiers were indeed quite alert and when they saw Starlight exit just behind me and start padding down the grip on their weapons tightened. While glancing around I managed to keep getting a look behind myself, so noticed Karen come out and trot forward so she was pacing the cat as she descended.
"I'm Lieutenant Haywood, sir. What's the status here?" The soldier at the bottom of the stairs asked, part of what now looked to be an entirely German Shepherd squad.
"I am escorting Doctor Ellis back from her mission to locate a large store of the drug, we found it in Sydney. She is returning with research she did en-route." I said, trying to keep things strait in my head.
"Ahh, you were the ones who found that stash? Nice work, that lot nearly doubled what we could distribute that day. I believe doctor Willins wants to meet with your doctor asap." He replied.
"Thanks, which way do we go?" I asked, Karen was almost behind me at this stage.
"Just head toward the main terminal, the WHO set up in the main international section, there are signs to lead you there. Uh, is the cat yours?" He finished up.
"Research subject of the doctors, friendly enough, and helped us in a tight spot too." I chuckled, "Thanks for the directions mate, catch ya' 'round."
Without turning to Karen, I started off in the direction I was pointed, glancing around I noticed my little precession was following.
When we entered the huge building we found it bustling, there was a strong military presence around what looked like a huge bank of computer and radio equipment. We were constantly stepping over cabling running along the floor, finally we saw an improvised sign 'WHO Research' with an arrow pointing down a side corridor, I led our little party that way, nodding to various soldiers as we passed.
"Ah doctor Ellis, good to have you back, your..." The head researcher, identified by his badge, suddenly cut short, stopped dead at the sight of Star pacing along, hardly surprising considering all the in-built tendencies of rodents upon seeing a large and very adept predator of the feline variety.
Karen stepped forward, "Doctor Willins, good to be back, you got my notes on the mutating effects in humans and the preliminary work on changes in animals exposed to human contact during their contagious period?"
The head researcher, who had obviously caught his DNA package from a test rat, was still stunned, I realised the problem and quickly crouched in front of Starlight and gripped her head, "Don't mess with this person please Star, he is important.". She, of course, replied with her standard answer, 'mrow', after handing one of her young to me.
"What, why..." The doctor was at least coming out of his catatonia now the sight of the feline was removed.
"Ah, magnificent isn't she? Star there, and her kittens" The other of which Karen quickly passed off to Harry, "are forming the basis of my research, their intelligence level is far beyond anything I have ever heard recorded in nature. Star at least seems able to understand human speech to a good degree and can follow complex commands, as well as having shown initiative on her own when given the opportunity."
"Ahh, interesting to hear, you have the documentation?" The doctor said, sounding very eager to have it.
"Of course doctor." Karen handed him a USB data stick. "Usual codes for decryption, standard procedures followed."
"Very good, very good indeed, now if we could..." And with that the doctor was ushering Karen deeper into the WHO area, she managed to give us a shooing gesture behind her back as she wandered off beside the scientist.
"Well Dave, if I know the good doctors, she will be busy for a long time explaining her notes to the big wigs. Dave, hello? Earth to Dave?" Harry was saying, but seeing that tail swishing as she walked away from me was a little distracting.
"Huh? Oh so we can chase down some real food then?" I asked, scratching the head of the kitten in my arms.
"Yeah, we can get some food, a nice big steak would be my preference, rare as hell..." HA, and he thought I got distracted easy.
We did the simplest thing for a creature to do in such a situation, we followed our 'old factory' to the source. It was a very military style kitchen and eating area.
"Holy shit, that's a big kitty!" One of the soldiers who had been looking our direction said. "Kitty hungry?" The Shephard said again, offering a chunk of meat down to Star, who very very daintily took it from his fingers and purred pushing her head into the palm of his hand.
"She is very friendly." I said.
"Hey Dave, want me to grab for all of us?" Harry asked, handing off the kitten as his nose pulling him closer and closer to the source of the meat-smell.
"Yeah might as well, see if you can grab something for Starlight too." I replied, sitting down beside the besotted soldier and his new best friend. "Don't give her too much, she will have a meal coming." I told him with a laugh. "David by the way, David Scotts."
"Private Erickson, at your service. Hey, your not 'that David' are you? The one who got all the info to the egg-heads about how to save people despite being almost dead from this thing?" He asked inquisitively.
"Yeah, apparently I am that David." I blushed.
"Holy fuck, well its good to meet you sir, they got our unit a supply of the drug just in time to save our arses. And before you ask, it was the MP's guard dogs, they got us all." He seemed proud of that. But at my blank look as to his acronym, "Oh, MPs are military police." I nodded, understanding.
"So what has you back here?" He continued conversationally, now his lap was full of kitten that demanded his hand's attention.
"We, that is Harry and me, were escorting doctor Ellis back from a mission to try and track down a supply stash of the drug, ended up in my home land." I figured my accent was enough to complete the picture for him, but at his blank look I suddenly realised my foxy mouth was not handling the aussie drawl as well as it should, "Australia that is, the nut-jobs who started this had stashed a whole container load down there."
"Crap, that was you as well? That stuff has been handy, after the initial supply down under we were going to follow it up with a bulk delivery but they told us they had found a stockpile and were 'right', meant more to hand out for the rest of the world.". His tone suddenly turned serious, "Cities were pretty fubar, it spread too fast and killed even faster, but once it hit lower population areas and relied on animals to carry it we could out pace it with deliveries, guess that makes the world a pretty rural sort of place now." At some point during the speech, Harry had arriving with three plates, plonking one with mixed meat and vegetables in front of me, a rare steak with a few greens for himself and a steak with mixed kibble that he placed on the seat beside me for Star, who practically pounced on it purring.
"Mmf thith ith grayht!" I said, around a mouthful that seemed to teleport from the plate.
"First decent meal in a while huh?" Erickson asked rhetorically.
Sounds of mastication and gastronomical delight were his only replies.
A few other soldiers arrived and sat down with us after having gotten their meals.
"Who's the new guys" A female soldier asked, then squealed loudly when she almost sat on Star. "Ok, who the fuck let an animal in here?" She demanded with a very authoritative voice.
"Uh, that would be me, ma'am." I replied, having taken the edge off my hunger I was just eating regularly now.
"Get it out-" She began, but then one of the kittens poked its head out from under Erickson's arm and mewled softly. "Aw damn." She conceded defeat in the face of overwhelming cuteness. "Ok, as long as its house broken and won't eat anyone.". I scooted along so she could sit betwixt me and Harry, who was cradling the other kitten.
"Names David bye the way, and this is Harry." I said, gesturing across to the pilot.
"Sergeant Thallin." The soldier replied, "You just arrive?"
-
"... and so I am continuing research into how this intelligence is affecting the creature, so far it doesn't seem to be impeding its regular behaviour in regards to its own interactions with the environment, but when a human is introduced their projected IQ seems to rise dramatically. I am still in the process of devising some tests to measure just how smart they have become." I concluded.
"Very nice work doctor, and under adverse conditions at that. I am sure we all cannot wait for the next part of your research." Doctor Willins said.
"Well, if you will forgive me, now I must go and have a meal, the flight over here was not partaken under the best of circumstances." I begged them, 'please don't ask more questions, please don't ask more questions' echoing in my head.
They must have picked up on my internal monologue, "Of course, of course! We are still working trying to isolate and shut down the virus, but doctor Willins seems to -" Despite his first words, one of the doctors tried to continue.
"Come now Gerard, lets leave the good doctor to her meal and we can continue later?" Doctor Willins diverted the man back to his work and gave me a wink.
The sight that greeted me in the mess area when I arrived should have shocked me, but I knew, throw David into any situation and he would crazy-afy it.
At that moment, one soldier had three tin cups on the dinner table nearby, and was switching them around madly, obviously trying to hide the one with the ball under it. After slowing down and then stopping, a feline paw belonging to Star lashed out, knocking one cup over, the ball bounced out from under it.
"Damn it, how does she do that?" Another soldier was decrying.
At my slight giggle Star spun around and, without taking a single step, leapt to me. I managed to brace at the last second and not topple over, catching the front paws of the cat on my waist and petting her while she purred loudly.
"Well, aren't you just the little attention whore." I chuckled as she dropped down and let me walk closer to the table, now consisting of David, Harry and a few soldiers, back playing their intent game.
"Its under that-" David began, pointing to the left most cup, but a little nose from his lap pushed the right most and it toppled over, revealing the ball. "Ahh crap." He said, making much of the victorious kitten with pats, much to its delight.
-
"So does anyone know why this Colonel is asking for us?" I tried asking again, for the sixth time, as we walked in the direction of one of the military's 'briefing rooms'. We had left Star curled up asleep with her kittens in the mess hall, the soldiers constantly passing through made much of her.
Karen sighed, "None of us have any clue... here it is, 'briefing room seven'.".
We stood outside the door and Karen knocked loudly. "Come in!" Came a voice from inside.
We entered to find a room three quarters full of soldiers, among them Sergeant Thallin and two guys with fancy looking badges on their shoulders standing in front of them.
"Ah, the field research team, so good to have you join us. Please take your seats." Said one of the 'big wigs'.
Realising discretion may be needed, I took an offered seat along with Harry and Karen and parked myself and listened.
"As I was saying." The other guy at the front seemed to recommence, "Now that we have located the headquarters of the suspected religious sect that started all this we have NATO permission to head into the location on their behalf, so long as we take a WHO representative." He nodded to Karen. Ahh, they were on a tight leash and needed Karen to have what little free play they could.
"We will approach the site, just outside of the Vatican City via road from the Leonardo da Vinci Airport, we will be going in hot, no telling if any adherents are left there, or what the native animal population will be. As for civilians, satellite has not confirmed a single human survivor anywhere in the streets of Rome." He continued, "We have no estimate on how many there were in the building originally, so we are gearing you up to handle anything, there will be reapers in the sky to cover you should things prove more difficult than expected. Once the area is secure doctor Karen and her team will obtain any samples they deem necessary and we will evac via the indicated routes."
All the while he had been talking, maps and pictures were flicking past on the over-head display.
"Any questions?" He finished with, expecting none of course.
"Sir? Just one sir." Karen surprised me by saying.
"What's that Doctor?"
"What will become of any survivors, if there are any?" She proposed.
"They will be returned here, detained and questioned. With a NATO representative present at all times of course." He finalised.
"No, not that, I mean as far as medical isolation?" She continued, seeing an angle none of us had, including the big guys up front.
"Uh, if you could draw up some requirements for isolation Doctor, we will use that as our guide." Big bossy boots he may be, but stupid he most certainly was not, he treated that problem with the seriousness that it obviously deserved by delegating it to the only expert in the room. "Any thing else?" He tried to finish again and after an uninterrupted silent pause said, "Rally time is in two hours, that is one eight hundred hours. Dismissed."
The troops filed out, the bosses cutting into the line themselves and leaving, the Sergeant, another man and our little trio was all that remained.
"Captain Hastings, ma'am, I will be in charge of this operation on the ground. The Sergeant here says your two assistants may be useful in this as well, and has asked me to invite them to join the push in, just following the main breach-team. Inclined as I am to trust my Sergeant in all things relating to soldiers, you three are not soldiers. Put plainly, why should I have you there, and for the love of little green apples, do not attempt to suggest I give you a weapon."
"Captain, good to have someone with a level head running this, and I would not attempt to persuade you to let us arm ourselves, I am sure your soldiers are more than capable of defending themselves, and by virtue of that, us as well. The only reason I could give to have us there up close to this mess as it happens is that you may have to deal with potentially dangerous, unknown chemical substances, and possibly people infected with either a mutation or a more pure strain of the virus than we have witnessed so far." She replied, keeping an even tone.
"Do you mean to say, this virus, that has decimated more than ninety nine percent of the population may have, and you pardon my lack of jargon, 'aftershocks'?"
"Thats exactly what I fear. As I will be giving you later, there will be procedures in place for dealing with any living matter in there, and I would suggest after the building is clear and our job done, the place be razed to the ground, preferably with thermite." She said.
"On that we are agreed Doctor. If I knew it would do any good I would salt the fucking earth after we leave."
"Well then, if you don't need us further, we will see you at six pm." Karen finished.
The officer nodded to us and turned back to Thallin and began hashing out who they wanted where, or so it sounded. Dismissed we turned and left.
"Ok, so what are we going down there for?" I asked Karen after we had gotten a few paces away.
"Depends who you ask, according to the brass we are there as NATO figureheads, according to the Captain we are there as his insurance that 'he did everything he could'. According to me though, we need to make damn sure nothing else starts spreading, starting with monitoring the soldiers as they make contact and on the trip home." She told us, Harry nodded along to each point. I was flabbergasted, this girl knew her shit it seemed.
"Well, lets see if we can find someone to look after Star and her kids while we are out badie-hunting." I said as we entered the mess hall again.
Star was sound asleep but her kittens seemed to be entertaining half the room by padding around and nosing different parts of what looked to be disassembled guns.
"What the..." Karen started.
"Oh, hey ma'am." One of the cooks welcomed us, "We was just taking bets, you see one of the privates was stripping down his side arm and cleaning it when these two started watching intently. Realising he had an audience, he started breaking down and re-assembling his gun over and over. Now we are trying to confuse these two by moving the parts around, but still neither of them has picked the parts to be assembled in the wrong order. Once a Sergeant tried to slip in an extra part while the kittens were distracted, little Remington there nosed the offending part out of the way and, to the dismay of the Sergeant, piddled on it."
"You named them" I asked in dismay. I snuck a look at Star, to see her thoughts on it, she just gave the typical cat 'I am happy with whatever gets me the most attention' look and lay back down.
"Uh, they are just nicknames, although little Enfield actually answers to his already..." The cook looked crestfallen.
"They are great names for strong hunters!" Harry said. Enfield, hearing his new name, turned to look at us, halfway through his 'game' and let out a little 'mew?'.
"Only problem we have now." Karen said, raising her voice so she could be 'casually overheard' by everyone present, "Is that we have a forty eight hour or so mission, and we can't take our feline friends along. I wonder if we can possibly find anyone who we could impose upon to look after them for-" Was as far as she got however before everyone present started assuring us that they would be looked after.
Starlight, however, was not impressed. She padded over to me, making sure to make noise as she walked, got right up close to me and looked strait up. I crouched down and hugged her, "Its only for a day or two babe, and I have a whole lot of guys to make sure I don't get into trouble.". I thought my speech appeased her, but suddenly she turned and leapt up to Karens shoulders, pulling her down to the cats height.
"Hey, what's-" Karen began, but stopped. Something passed between the two, just in their eye contact because neither uttered a syllable. "Ok Star, I will not come back without him, I promise." She said solemnly to the cat, who, apparently appeased, turned back to the game the soldiers were playing and nosed the right parts from what was apparently three separate weapons into the right piles, hooked one kitten by the neck, gave the other a 'follow me or else young man' look and padded off, Remington following, but turning every few paces to look at the stunned soldiers, tripping up on the fourth look and having to pick himself back up.
"How did she." "She never even glanced at us" "What the...", Were some of the comments from the soldiers after Stars display of aptitude.
"Ok, I give up, that cat is better at this than I am." The original private was now conceding.
"Damn strait, that's why I am promoting her to Private First Class and your still stuck without mosquito wings." The Sergeant commented, drawing a lot of laughs from the other soldiers.
"We can keep track of them here if you want, they are no bother and the troops keep them entertained." The cook said.
"Thanks." I replied.
"Well." Karen said, "We have another hour to kill, lets round up some equipment, get some germ-bags and see if we can be ready on time."
"Aye aye ma'am!" Both Harry and I saluted her smartly.
"Oh knock that off. Come on." She rebuffed.
Three quarters of an hour later and we had all the gear Karen thought we might need, some clothes that fit the part and some specially modified combat boots that seemed to fit our feet despite the changes.
"Good to have you along." The Captain greeted us, "That all you bringing?" He asked.
"Yeah, we got suits for at most four live captures and sampling gear to cover half of Rome, some combat tack for ourselves, bladed weapons only of course Captain, as you asked. Rations, sleeping gear and heavy weather equipment, we were told, would be all on the plane?" Karen supplied.
"Yeah. Halliburton, Grist, get your arses over here and help the doctor and her team stow their gear. We will be leaving as soon as we are all packed." The two soldiers arrived quickly and took most of our loads and showed us where the rest needed to be put.
"Now we just settle down and sleep if we can till we reach Italy." One of the soldiers told us after we had all strapped in.
Snuggling close to Karen beside me, it was minutes before I did just that. Muttering "Damn planes, where's my comfy bed I was promised." just before oblivion overtook me.
Argg, descriptive scenes take soooo much to write.