Two weeks before infection
0% of known population currently infected
A steady and painful ache began throbbing just behind my right eye as I stared into my computer's screen, text scrolling by at a blinding pace in one small window. Data mining. I hated it. Most people thought hacking was some super secret fancy thing that could be done at the drop of a hat. With some stuff, sure. Depending on the type of script you're using and the amount of security you had to carefully navigate. And, God forbid, you had to work against the clock. I glanced up and took stock of the office.
Gentek, like every other pharma company out there, was grossly rich but they still installed energy saving lights that were motion activated. I'd lost count how many times a day I had to stand up from my cubicle and flail my arms in an attempt to get the damn things to flicker to life again. Seemed I was the only one left "pulling overtime". A heavy, tired sigh escaped from me as I slumped back in my seat and chewed my bottom lip. I still couldn't believe I was here. Despite a lot of the rumors circulating the place, Gentek was actually one of the rare few places in New York that actually paid damn well and with pretty decent benefits to boot. With some positions you didn't even need a college degree to apply which was great for my broke ass in the big city.
Only one caveat to that: I wasn't technically an employee of Gentek. Well, I was and I wasn't. To start this all off, I was an idiot. Those stories always end well, right? See, I was broke. Constantly. Parents couldn't provide enough for me and my three brothers. We lived in a small, two bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Chelsea. Brothers got one of the rooms, parents the other and I was shoved into what was formerly known as a pantry. I tried selling some old vintage toys my elder brother had but that stopped just as quickly as it began. Earned a bloody nose for my trouble. Every attempt I made at gaining a little bit of income was thwarted. That was until I learned how to code.
One of the kids in our apartment had a dad who was a programmer. Taught his son, Nathaniel, little bits and pieces and what he didn't teach, his son looked up. We became fast friends through the magical power of trauma bonding. The complex wasn't what you'd call safe and robberies were a rather common thing. As were stabbings. My poor ol' pop got the sharp end of a knife one night when he interrupted a burglar who busted into our house. Police didn't do shit apart from take statements and assured us they'd catch the guy but a few days later, he'd broken into Nathaniel's home and stabbed his younger sister. That's when Nathaniel approached me. He wanted to teach me the small pieces of coding his dad showed him. We both desperately wanted out of this place and I was too young to get a proper job at the time.
And so we started working. He gave me an old loaner of a laptop, helped me write script, what security programs to look out for, the whole shebang. I caught on quick. About as quick as my little thirteen brain could function. And I got good at it. Once Nathaniel was certain he'd shown me all he'd known, he gave me a little test: break into the school record system and change his P.E. grade from a D+ to a C. We couldn't very well bump up one of his core classes from a D to a B+ just yet. Didn't want to tip off the staff.
He watched over my shoulder the entire time, not guiding me one bit. I'd pass or fail on my own. It took me a solid half hour, I was scared and wanted to take my time, but I did it. I was able to alter his grade. In his eyes, I was ready. Word soon got around about how I had a back door into the school system and could change someone's grades bit by bit. Nathaniel and I worked together, him fielding a bulk of the seniors and juniors and I took care of the rest. And, yes, we charged every damn one of them for our services.
Of course it didn't last long. Someone snitched, more than likely some goodie two-shoes bully who didn't like that I reneged on our little deal and ended up having her fail all her classes. Nathaniel got hauled off since he'd just turned eighteen and I had in-school suspension and detention. He took most of the blame since I was still young and "impressionable" as one adult put it. I did my best to look meek and dumb. My punishment was a slap on the wrist compared to Nathaniel's though I never really found out what happened to him.
I coasted through school, keeping my services on the down low from there on out. I took a genuine interest in computer science and programming as I neared graduation and took after it come college. Parents could hardly afford to send all four of us to university so I had to scour the interwebs for any type of grant that could get me just a bit of money. I'd found a grant claiming it was for left-handed women and applied. I also threw my lot into a few other ridiculous grants and scholarships. Unfortunately, I did wind up taking out a small student loan and soon gave up two and half years into college.
I dropped out, got reamed for it by my folks and applied to regular retail and fast food jobs. I still had some money I'd set aside from my early coding days in high school and eventually moved out into another apartment with a ditz of a roommate, Kate, in Upper East Side. We could barely afford rent and more than half her crap covered our little apartment but it was better than home. I wanted more though and, after looking through some online forums, I got a link to the spooky place dubbed the Dark Web.
I'd pulled up the browser using an old laptop and did my damndest to lock it down and out of our usual wi-fi network. Then I began my search. Postings, job listings, anything pertaining to someone needing a person of my skill set. I sent out a few feelers and within the hour I'd heard back from an unknown profile. They'd set up a secure chat log and I made sure that my laptop had screen recording installed. For ease of mind, I reasoned. Wasn't like the cops were gonna do anything if I got fucked over.
We went back and forth over a contract. We'd start with something small , they said. Pay me about a grand for this bit. Client needed a few records altered. Criminal records. Not completely wiped from the system as someone would catch wind of it. They'd gone over their crimes with me, claiming a lot of it had been blown out of proportion and all that. Something about tax fraud or some shit. I didn't really give a damn what the details were. As long as they weren't some kiddy diddler or serial rapist or murderer, we were cool. They gave me a deadline: two weeks.
Two weeks. Okay. I can do that.
And I did.
And I began doing more for them.
I did a few other odd jobs for different clients but I always came back to my first one. He, turned out he was a middle aged man from Maine, always paid upon contract completion and sometimes gave me a small bonus if I finished a few days early. It was then, a few months after that first chat log, that I got a knock at my door. Kate was out, doing God knows what, leaving me alone to deal with Mr. X.
I knew it was my first client as soon as I looked through the peephole and opened the door. Mr. X was dressed in an immaculate suit and tie number and politely asked if I'd feel more comfortable speaking with him in the hall or inside. I opted for the hall as I didn't want him invading my small sanctuary. I had to crane my head to look at him and meet his gaze behind a pair of flashy sunglasses. They looked flashy to me. Could've been worth ten bucks for all I knew.
He said he had another contract for me, didn't care to explain how he'd gotten my address and knew exactly who I was. If I were to do this contract for his boss and company, he wouldn't let slip to the respective authorities what I'd been doing for him all this time.
Blackmail. Motherfucker was blackmailing me!
And… he had enough to put me behind bars for a good long while.
Fuck.
Told him he wasn't giving me much of a choice. Smug bastard claimed I always had a choice. I was just now paying for the consequences of my choices. I accepted the contract and he gladly sent it to my personal number. According to him I still had much to learn by way of security which pissed me off even more. Mr. X proceeded to give me an overview of my contract, on top of the large payout I would be receiving by the end of it. I was apparently going to be cast as one of many interns Gentek, a large pharmaceutical company, employed. Faces were constantly changing day after day. I wouldn't be noticed. Mr. X soon mentioned his own employer, Merren's Genetics - the creators of Posigrow: One small prick and your depression would be utterly defeated! It was a lovely product as long as you ignored the side effects and known addictive qualities.
Merren's Genetics was in direct competition with Gentek and Mr. X had it on good authority Gentek was planning something big. What, Mr. X had no idea. Their last inside source had disappeared a week ago. Any attempts at raising them were met with silence. Great, so I was headed straight for the lion's den and I couldn't do much about it. The payout was too good to pass up and to have my record completely expunged would be fantastic. I could actually leave this city behind me and never look back.
So I shook my devil's hand and agreed. And that's how I found myself on Gentek's payroll two days later. I'd quit my previous job flipping burgers and exchanged my crappy uniform for pencil skirts and dress slacks. I ran up and down the office, taking care of one errand or another for some asshat who liked to look up ladies' skirts (I quickly became a slacks girl after my first day upon finding that out the hard way). When I wasn't running like a mad woman, I was situated behind my desk and had plugged in a small thumb drive that helped quiet the firewalls in my sector and got to work on my real job.
It was draining work and I was getting real tired of having to carry out some asinine task for some doctor type person for the past three weeks. There was one of the rare people who actually saw me as someone other than Errand Girl who I bumped into on occasion. I didn't have the clearance for the lower lab areas but even the mole rats had to come out of their tunnels to eat and intermingle somewhat. Merrick or Mason? Mercer? I could never remember the guy's last name and he had such a generic first name but he was nice enough to me whenever we met up near the water cooler or by one of the very many vending machines with crap food spread all throughout the building. Man seemed like he could use a week's worth of sleep and still come out tired what with the dark circles under his eyes and all that.
He was definitely someone with high clearance and I was never going to get past those doors without the proper keycard or bypass. That was going to be my next project. I needed to figure out what exactly Gentek was hiding below our feet.
"Kenzie, how much longer you staying tonight?" A male voice jarred me out of my thoughts and, on instinct, I immediately hid the script window I had displayed on my screen from view.
"Shit, sorry. Thought you heard me come in."
Willing my heart to slow way the hell down and not look guilty, I looked up from my computer and peered over to see Mike from HR with an apologetic look on his face. Mike was a biracial man in his early thirties with an easy smile and hair that always seemed on point even in the worst weather. He was easily over six foot and would've possibly been my type of guy except that he didn't have a beard. That didn't mean he still wasn't easy on the eyes though.
"Hey, Mike. Sorry, I was off in la-la land for a good while." I leaned back in my ergonomic chair as he walked over to my cubicle and braced himself against its pre-fab wall as I stretched, relishing the sound and feel of my joints popping back into place.
"You did seem pretty focused there for a while. I tried calling your name twice." He flashed a relaxed grin at me and I rolled my eyes.
"Apologies for not gracing you with my attention," I countered, a bit of snark entering my voice. I then crossed my arms over my chest and raised my right ankle to rest on top of my left knee as I looked at him. "What's up? And why are you still here?"
"Could ask you the same thing, Kenz." I wrinkled my nose at the nickname, something he insisted on calling me since we first met. "Well, upper management was needing me to pull some overtime. Had to slave away with a good two hours worth of data entry. Minding numbing shit. Gemma over in Payroll texted me about drinks now that I'm about to head out. You want in?"
I rocked my chair back and forth, deliberating for a moment. I really did want to actually go be a human being for once. The last couple weeks I'd been a drone, carrying out Mr. X's multitude of requests and funneling whatever data I could to a server stored offsite. I glanced back at my screen and chewed my lip; Mike recognized the hesitation in my face and smiled once more.
"I get it. You don't have to come tonight. Student loans and medical crap to pay off, right?" He didn't wait for me to respond as he continued, "Go kick some ass, Miss Intern. Just remember to come out and play every once in a while, 'kay?" I'd made up some excuse about my mountain of student loan and medical debt my mother had accrued over the years as an attempt to field questions about my constant overtime and declined requests for drinks.
I desperately wanted to go and get buzzed and then get laid. My libido had been severely neglected this last year and a half as my on again off again boyfriend found some other tail he'd preferred to chase over me and bailed. It also didn't help that Kate constantly brought home a new every other night and had raunchy sex to the point where I could hear almost everything through our shared walls. I was starting to worry about my hearing loss as I blared music via my headphones each night a new guy came over. I hated it but where else was I going to find a roommate so last minute?
"I'll try not to become a zombie tonight, Mike. Next time, I'll see if I can spare a few minutes," I replied, giving him a tired smile of my own. "Don't get too wasted tonight. We've got that all-hands meeting tomorrow morning. I think McMullen's supposed to be making an appearance."
"Fuck," Mike hissed and threw his head back with a groan. "I forgot about the fucking meeting… Damn it. Benji's gonna be pissed."
"Wait, don't tell me your team forgot about it?" I leaned forward and stared at him. Mike grimaced and nodded.
"Might have. Won't be able to get too hammered tonight. Of course he's coming down tomorrow." He let out another sigh and threw me a lopsided smile. "Thanks for the reminder, Kenz. I owe you."
"You can 'owe' me by not calling me by that stupid ass nickname," I shot back with an arched eyebrow on my face.
"I will once you stop responding to it." He quickly ducked out of my cubicle as I threw a wadded up bit of paper at him, his laughter trailing after him. He bid me good night on the way out and soon, I was the only one left on my level. I was sure there were still researchers and lab techs bumbling out below me as I reopened my script window to find it had nearly finished its data mine. I tapped into one of the folders of info it managed to pull up and began sifting through crap, filtering the good stuff from the bad.
This was another aspect of my job I loathed. To a certain point. I did like to be a little nosy. Okay. Maybe more than a little.
I was sorting through one folder when a series of letters in full caps spelled out BLACKLIGHT. I blinked twice and stared at the phrase, head tilting to the side. I didn't know why it stood out to me. It couldn't have been because of the words PROJECT before it, now could it?
PROJECT: BLACKLIGHT. This seemed to be important and it had been buried pretty deep. Had I not been searching and poking around, I honestly might've missed it completely. Curiosity got the better of me and, after looking around to make absolutely sure I was the only one here, I began to dig a little deeper. The further I went, the more I wished I hadn't come across this folder to begin with.
I think I may have stumbled across what Merren's boys were searching for. Maybe.
I couldn't find very many references to whatever BLACKLIGHT referred to but I happen across more than a few military operations and experiments, some organization dubbed Blackwatch and a place with an ironic name: Hope, Idaho.
Complete with photos.
My meager dinner threatened to return as I clicked through the gruesome photos of bodies being dumped in mass graves, tarps covering the small forms of children, and more than one human vivisection. The bodies looked like… pus filled flesh sacks. Like… zombies.
But I couldn't stop searching through it all.
From what I could gleam from the blacked out forms, some sort of viral outbreak hit the rural town of Hope in 1969. The town had been utterly decimated and Blackwatch had rolled in to secure the place.
"More like bombed it all to hell," I muttered to myself before pulling out my smartphone. I didn't type in the town name directly but instead opted to search for a map of the state itself. It took me a minute to locate the town or the spot I thought was it.
"The fuck… It's not there. How…? Did they erase it or some shit?" I looked back up at the screens where city maps circled in bright markers over unsecured sectors and the established quarantine zones were. My gaze returned to my phone as I stared at the lines I'd zoomed in on. My attention returned to my computer's screen, at the photos of the bodies. I thought they looked like zombies or at least the media's portrayal of them and realized with horror how much those movies had gotten right. As if I didn't need further proof, I clicked over on a video that showed a small mob attacking a regular marine before they all got canned by more of Blackwatch's people.
Fuck. Fuck! This can't be real but it is!
I typed out a quick message to Mr. X via a secured link.
May have found something. Will attempt to send it to box. Standby.
I hadn't gotten confirmation whether he'd gotten the text or not or if the man was even up. I didn't care. I needed to start transferring the files to the server link then wipe all traces that I had even accessed the data. As I began the transfer process, my ears were strained to pick up even the smallest sound. My heart beat painfully in my chest as I watched the progress bar slowly fill up.
What the fuck had I gotten myself into?