Author's note: If you have been following Ultra Somnium, this chapter used to be chapter 5, but I felt the flow of the story works better changing this to chapter 4 and altering a few details.
Chapter 4: No Reason To Panic
MONTCLAIR, VIRGINIA
JUNE 11, 2009
1625 HOURS
Jill wearily entered the motel room she was sharing with Chris. She was thoroughly exhausted and starting to enjoy the feeling again. She'd been to Hogan's Alley before, but the simulation of urban combat was far more realistic than it had been years ago; the paint ball bruises blooming all over her body would attest to that. The role-play shootout had been quite a spectacle, and it was nice to test her field abilities with nothing on the line for a change. The life-sized computer-generated simulation, complete with light guns that actually had a kick due to force feedback, had been just plain fun.
Better funding, cooler toys, thought Jill as she splashed her face with water. She leaned back a bit and looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was coming in brown, the blonde growing out, giving her a bit of an odd look, but she couldn't quite bring herself to dye her hair back to her old color. She liked watching it slowly come in, back to the color she'd always had. But what she was really focusing on was the face surrounded by the two-tone hair. It wasn't a face that belonged to someone whose burden was unbearable. The smiles were coming easier and more frequently these days. A good sign.
She left the bathroom to turn on the TV and grab her shower bag. Returning to the bathroom, the words of the newscaster caught her attention; abandoning her shower for the moment, she sat on the edge of the bed to hear more.
"… fifth such death this week alone. Eye witnesses stated that the victims seemed to, in their words, 'melt.' Let me warn you that the account you are about to hear is very graphic, and may not be appropriate for sensitive viewers."
The video feed switched to an on-the-street interview of a middle-aged woman in front of ambulances and fire trucks.
"I never seen anything like it. He, he grabs at his face and his throat, and starts to sink down, you know? But he didn't bend his knees. I mean, it was just like he was a big red candle melting inside his clothes. This red stuff poured out as his clothes just fell into a pile. Bones were poking out. It was unbelievable!."
"Authorities still decline to comment on the situation. We… all right, I'm being told we have Andrew Luntz, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Virginia in the studio. Good evening, Professor Luntz. Based on the reports we've gotten so far, what can you tell us about the cause of these unusual deaths?"
The camera cut to a sallow, dark-skinned, balding man with a beard and oversized glasses perched on an oversized nose.
"Kurt, before I start, let me just say that this is pure speculation. I do not have any information that the public does not have. Okay, the liquefication of human tissue in such a rapid timeframe would most likely not be viral or bacterial in nature, but rather the result of a physical or chemical process. Now, I won't even theorize about what kind of a chemical agent could be in use. But the important thing to realize is that, if these deaths are not being brought about by a pathogen, there is no reason to think that this is in any way contagious.
"And even if it were a disease, it would be a rather poor one, in terms of propagating itself. The most successful viruses either do not kill their host, or take a long time to do so. A virus that kills the host this quickly would barely have time to spread. To sum up: it's almost certainly not a disease, and even on the remote chance that it is, it would be an extremely easy one to contain. Now I don't mean to suggest there's nothing for people to worry about, but the important thing to realize is that there is no reason to panic."
Jill knew the professor was trying to be helpful, but she also knew that when you say "no reason to panic," all people tend to hear is the "panic" part. She could predict the next few hours and the next few days with some degree of confidence in her accuracy: enormous traffic jams and backed-up flights as people tried to leave D.C. with their entire families. They'd be lucky to avoid riots.
But the other thing that nagged at her was the description of the deaths: people liquefied inside their clothes, melting in seconds, leaving nothing solid but their bones. Nothing specifically about this description said "Umbrella," but in her experience, the professor could be very wrong about whether this was viral in nature. Expertly engineered viruses could act with unfathomable speed, though the nature of these viruses was known to a select few for security reasons.
What this chain of events did say to Jill was: "bio organic weapon." This was BSAA territory.
And here she was, totally inactive. And Chris had his rookies lost in the woods, out of contact until the morning.
Jill thought about calling Captain Pyke, and requesting activation as a BSAA Operative. But she didn't know if she was quite ready for that, and in any case this was just a hunch.
Okay, she thought. Before this goes any further, I'll just head into D.C. ask around, find out what I can, get a feel for what's going on. Then I can tell Chris in the morning, and let him make the call on how best to proceed.
She nodded to herself. Sounded like a reasonable plan. She grabbed her bag and headed for that shower. There was one part of the plan she didn't care for; she knew one person in D.C., knew him pretty well, knew he was the person to talk to about this kind of thing, and was pretty sure she was the last person in the world he'd want to see.
Oh well, she thought as she started to run the hot water. He'll just have to grow up and deal with me.