Chapter 16
THREE YEARS LATER
Jewel stepped onto a polished chrome stage. "Oh, hello, one hundred people!" he said cheerfully.
There were, indeed, exactly one hundred people in the stands. They applauded unenthusiastically.
"Are you ready for the dawning of Earth's next era?" Jewel said. "In a few short months, you hundred people will be representative of the entire human race! Dig?"
There was scattered applause.
"Oh, come on!" Jewel said. "You've been chosen as part of the revolution! You should be happy about that! Let's try that again. Dig?"
The applause was more sincere this time. Still, none of the hundred were entirely comfortable with the notion that there would soon be no more humans.
"I hold in my hand a canister of the Spider Virus!" Jewel said triumphantly. "All of you have been immunized; the rest of the human race has not, nor will they ever be. In a matter of months, the Spider Virus will have spread to the entire globe."
Once again, there was scattered applause. Everyone in the room applauded, for fear they would be killed if they did not, but it seemed scattered because not one of them was at all into it.
"Shall I open it?" Jewel asked smugly.
Someone in the crowd yelled "WOO-HOO!"
"Yeah, that's the kind of attitude I like!" Jewel said. "Well, not today. Before we unleash the Spider Virus, we must undo all of mankind's mistakes. Factories, cars, basically anything that runs off of impure fuel. Once we've pounded all of those things into oblivion, hopefully taking a few humans along with it, then we open the canister! Anyone who survived the first phase of the cleansing will wish to God that they hadn't. For the Spider Virus eats away at the insides, killing quickly, but very, very painfully. No human will remain—not even Maximum Ride, wherever she may be."
To be continued in the third installment of the series, "One"