Birds of Plague
Chapter One - The outbreak
Waking up felt harder and harder with each passing day, my body forcing me to wake up from a dreamless sleep with my eyes crusted over glued together from the tears that I shed as I slept.
As I rubbed the crud from my eyes, I flinched from the light that shone from the halfway opaque window of the motel room, I had long since got used to the twilight that had become the majority of my day and barely noticed the mummified carcasses of the bugs stuck against the glass. Getting up from the bed I stumbled towards the shower, crash into the bathroom stumbling over my own feet before standing in the lukewarm and barely flowing water.
Yawning and running my hand through my damp hair as I achingly wandered out of the bathroom, unconscious of the time I barely noticed time getting away from me as ten minutes later I finally reached for my pill bottle before noticing a handwritten note hidden under it. I recognised the handwriting immediately, the motel's owner and operator owed me and had long since paid up but kept helping me anyway.
They know you're here, run!
With a tired groan and the crack of abused muscles I leaved myself up and popped two of the pills into my mouth, swallowing them dry before sliding on my clothes and packing my few necessary belongings into my weather beaten backpack. Leaving the room I ran into a motel staff member as he went past, nabbing some toast from the trolley he nodded to me before handing me a plastic bag full of who knows what.
"From the Boss" The man nodded "Good luck out there Smith, we'll keep them busy as long as we can... get yourself to the tunnels and disappear alright, again good luck. " I nodded back as I walked across the tarmac to the reception.
Sighing to myself I rubbed my eyes and dropped my bag before stuffing the plastic bag into its half empty confines, shouldering my bag again I began eating the toast as I left the motel, swinging through the empty reception I dropped the key on the counter before snatching up a couple of matchbooks from the stand. Walking out into the sun I slipped on my sunglasses as I watched a couple of big black armoured vans arrive. I shook my head, 'Checking for infected again' I thought before merging with the gathering crowds to camouflage my get away hopefully before the 'Paladins' spotted me.
It's times like this that I think of the time when things weren't always this way... that there weren't checkpoints, identification cards and raids on unexpecting civilians trying to live in the world that was left after the attack of the mysterious plague.
And my mind goes back to the first outbreak.
"Thunderbird One, we're going to need more medical assistance here!" Virgil yelled over the communication channel, the noise of the people around them moaning or begging for help almost overwhelming him.
They had received another call shortly after returning from dealing with a forest fire in California, but this one had meant that they were once again in their biohazard suits helping with another unexpected outbreak.
Over the past three years outbreaks such as these had grown more and more common, the spread of the illness causing panic and destruction in its wake. The plague as everyone called it had spread rapidly within this chaos but no one had yet discovered why.
"No can do Thunderbird Two need everyone I got here, if you're full pull out and get those people into the specialized quarantine zones" Scott replied just as loudly, the screams from TB1's end echoing in Virgil's ears just as those on his likely were in Scott's.
"Thunderbird Five, can you contact the zones for me? I need to know which ones are full!" Virgil called up to the space station but only received static in return causing the young man to frown.
"Mobile Control from Thunderbird Two I cannot reach Thunderbird Five" He said as he walked up into Thunderbird Two's pod bay, Gordon was likewise suited up and helping the medical team with securing the infected residents in the isolation pods, they were down to the last few and there were barely any left on the island or the World Medical Authority's stockpiles.
"We are having a few troubles with the satellite network, but John managed to get a message to us. He said that zones one to three are full" Tin-Tin replied sounding shaken up by the experience around the danger zone. "WMA has indicated they can't open up any more for at least a week."
"Ok, contact base and give them a full update from all Birds, it can't be too serious if we still have communications" Virgil replied unlocking the controls to TB2, warming up the engines ready to take off.
"F-A-B Thunderbird Two take care" Tin-Tin responded getting to work on keeping a basic order on the computers around her. Since the outbreak of the plague, all of International Rescue's equipment and security systems had been completely overhauled.
Mobile Control was now a slightly larger enclosed, armoured vehicle with specialised airlocks that were sealed upon exit of Thunderbird Two. This would allow control to head out to the danger zones without the risk of anyone breaching the airlock and getting to the agent inside the vehicle.
Half way across the world a tall greying man paced back and forth while he watched a younger man working feverously on the large computer desk, sliding between the different screens, the readouts flipping by faster than he could keep up with.
"Any luck Brains?" The older man asked stopping at the wall of portraits, on each sat the likeness of one of his sons clad in their colour coded IR uniforms, with his entire family deployed around the world the other portraits, specifically designed to camouflage the hidden secrets of International Rescue's personnel were now stored in the wall and had not been seen in several weeks.
"N-nothing yet M-Mr Tracy" Brains replied as another beep came from the computer.
"Is that Tin-Tin again Brains?" Jeff asked moving over to join the genius at the computers, a new direct message from TB5 sat in the secured server.
"No it's J-John, u-up in th-the s-space s-s-station" Brains replied opening the email and frowned at the message contents.
"This will complicate things… we don't have the parts, do we Brains?" Jeff asked as he read over the message looking over Brains' shoulder, a malfunction like this is not something that they wanted right now, not with the continuing outbreaks.
"I-I think so" Brains replied typing a reply back to the email with advice and a few program attachments. "H-have t-to check, ju-just h-h-h" He stopped as the stammer got too much while focusing on the email in front of him.
"We'll worry about the 'how' later Brains, for now just do what you can" Jeff replied moving away from the desk and back over to the window.
"I will however arrange for someone to go up and get John down, we need his help with the island's security upgrades and one or two of the bugs that keep appearing in the birds" He added softly looking out of the window, the sun was setting telling him that the boys and Tin-Tin would return well after dark.
"A-and you m-miss him" Brains muttered knowing his friend and sighed a little, his own son Fermat was out with Alan and Scott aboard Thunderbird One.
"They'll be home safe soon Brains" Jeff replied softly before a loud alarm sounded making them both jump and rush to locate the source of the alarm, the main tracking computer held the location and condition of every agent they had. Several had gone grey over the months since the outbreak, their agents deceased or unavailable, while others had gone red with confirmed contraction of one of the pandemics. The rest were the usual blue of active personnel, focussing on one flashing between blue and grey Brains brought up the readout.
"I-I-It's m-mobile c-c-control…" Brains spoke up reading the information in front of them,
Jeff slammed his hand on the emergency comm channel breaking through any other transmissions that the vehicle might be receiving. "Mobile Control this is Base, come in Tin-Tin."
"It's not good, they are all over. TB2 is closing up, they are all over the place Help me please, help me... Virgil no, please... oh god no it's..." A screech of static and agonisingly high pitched screams combined before the channel went dead, desperately Brains tried to re-establish a connection with Mobile Control or Thunderbird Two to no avail. On the screen the icon showing the massive carrier vessel was slowly making its way into the air, slowly and shakily but still moving, the Icon for the other however had flicked off to grey, it's active signal extinguished.
"She's gone" Jeff said unable to believe what he was seeing, "My god, she's gone."
Mobile Control was offline.
To be continued.