Protection and Preservation, Book 01
Chapter 1

Copyright© 2014 by radio_guy

[Florida]

Spring starts early in the south. After the middle of March, the weather can be delightful. In Central Florida, this time of year is pretty and fragrant. Orange trees give off a fragrance that can even get through the auto exhaust fumes.

George and Jane Amodon had risen and started their morning routines. Jane got the kids ready for the school bus to take them to elementary school while George finished his routine having already said his goodbyes and kissed each of his two children. Jane wasn't working because George's new job afforded them enough money to make that possible. She had picked up a part-time job to give them a little extra money and keep her busy. George and Jane shared a cup of coffee together, talked about the kids' school and the coming summer. It was time and George stood, kissed Jane and left for work.

His work at the plant was top secret and he took that seriously. He had been an officer in the army trying to develop counters to biological terrorists' potential attacks. Now, out of the army and working for a contractor, he had been working on countering a particularly nasty bug called SL47. It was an airborne virus that seemed to have a life of its own. It had been created by accident in a European lab and, when George left the army, it was natural that he would gravitate to working on a solution.

George went through the security procedures and entered his lab. His lab partner, John Engals, greeted him with his usual hearty good morning and they got down to work. Today, they would be trying a new vaccine. Over the last year, they had determined that there was no antidote. That was not surprising for a virus. Even the common cold has no antidote. With the flu, doctors would work on the symptoms and you get better as your body reacts to the virus and develops antibodies that fight the virus. With the SL47, your body didn't have time to develop antibodies before the virus killed you.

George thought that they had a promising vaccine that they were hoping could be administered as soon as a contagion was known and be effective in saving people. There was much work to do but it seemed that they were on the right track. Today, they would test it on a mouse.

John enjoyed his humor and had named all the mice after well-known lawyers. There was an old lab joke that one lab had started to use lawyers instead of mice because there were some things a mouse just wouldn't do and because the technicians didn't get attached to the lawyers. It was an old joke made constantly funny by the number two man at the plant, who was a lawyer. M. Loyd Webb was not a funny individual and tended to be pompous. However, he made sure things ran smoothly hurtling any administrative blockage to keep projects going.

He rarely entered a lab but, when he did, there was a good reason. John said, "We will have a visitor this afternoon. M. Loyd will be coming by. There has been some discussion about adding a third person to our lab. His concern is that more people won't help though he will do it if we want it. Anyway, that's what he said as we came in together."

It was just after ten o'clock when the accident occurred. They were transferring a vial of SL47 from storage to the testing point. Perry Mason would be infected, then they would use the vaccine and await results. It was an important point in the experiments.

The vial dropped when the holder that John was using broke without warning. As it slipped down, a sharp point punctured his suit. His face went ashen. Almost immediately, the alarms went off and the lab was sealed.

The alarms continued to ring with the gas alert. Suddenly, a new alarm note began. The external breach alarm had started meaning that something was detected going into the atmosphere! George knew that John was dead and, unless there was a lot of luck, he would not survive either, as the lab might not be flushed before his air supply ran out. That second alarm meant something really bad was happening. Containment was supposed to be total. George had almost decided to open his suit. John had already removed his and was treating his cut. Neither said anything about the virus. There really wasn't anything to say.

Then another deeper booming tone began to sound. This was the nuclear alert! There was something wrong with the nuclear pile to the point at which radioactive matter was leaking.

George looked at John and said, "What the hell is going on? None of this is supposed to be able to happen. We have safeguards." He nodded in agreement. They heard a rumble and felt a blast of heat and pain and then felt nothing ever again.

Jim Edwards was working on a house in Winter Haven. He had his own remodeling company with two employees. He looked up as he felt and then heard a rumble in the distance that became louder and louder. He thought to himself that he had moved from California to avoid earthquakes. He got ready to move over so he could look toward the sound when the world went white with a flash like the largest lightning bolt he could imagine. Even behind shelter, his eyes hurt. He could hear his helper screaming. "Joey, what's wrong?" All he heard was screaming as the light gradually became normal.

He went to Joey. Joey had slowed his screams to a painful whimper. Jim looked in horror to see Joey's skin red from a burn. He couldn't see Joey's eyes because he was holding his hands over them. "Joey, move your hands. Let me see what's wrong."

Joey didn't answer but his hands fell away from his face as he passed out. Jim realized, to his horror that Joey hadn't passed out but had passed on. His eyes were open and expressionless. They were seeing nothing and looked like there had been something very wrong with them. Jim looked around the corner of the building where his other helper, Mac, was slumped against a wall. He went over to Mac and could find no pulse on him.

Jim began to shake and then realized it was the ground not just his body. He fell to the ground as the shaking became worse. He could feel the ground moving under him and as he fell.

Falling, he saw the houses across the street topple over and vanish into the ground. He could feel a rushing of wind and a roaring sound when the house he had been working on fell and he was knocked out by a piece of wood.

He woke slowly and pushed some wood off his body. He felt various parts of his body and realized that he had bruises and cuts on his legs, arms and back. He heard a roar and struggled to free himself from the rest of the wall that had landed on him. He finally broke free and stood shakily and looked west where the roaring noise was originating. His eyes widened as he realized he was looking out and up at a wave that was at least a hundred feet high and bearing down on him rapidly. He didn't even have time to turn and run before it was on him slamming him into his truck. He felt something pierce his back as his head hit hard on the roof of the truck as the water tore him from the truck ripping his back and abdomen open. He died never knowing what had really happened to the world.

A portion of the SL47 had entered the atmosphere and was blown upward by the blast. In the atmosphere was nitrogen, which the virus used to reproduce and then, as it reproduced rapidly, it began to fall back toward earth to be spread by the wind. The air was now doubly lethal with radiation and SL47.

The explosion was picked up by various monitoring stations immediately. Protocols were followed and crews readied. Almost on top of the explosion were seismologists' reports of an earthquake. In Tallahassee, the EMA was notified and the staff began their efforts to make sense of the situation. The damage was beyond anything for which planning had been performed. Since the blast was ground level, the pulse was minimal. The damage, however, was catastrophic. A nuclear blast west of Orlando had occurred and no one knew why. All of Florida south of Orlando was severed from any land-based communications from the rest of the state.

As the ditch along the fault line widened and the water continued to rush in, the third result of the blast delivered a final blow to central and south Florida. From the earthquake and fault line splitting Florida came a tsunami, first outward and then back. South Florida was inundated and terribly damaged. The Bahamas simply ceased to exist as a viable place for habitation. Many Caribbean islands were severely damaged.

With south Florida and Miami no longer responding, all efforts centered out of Atlanta for control purposes. It's central location and excellent transportation facilities made it the logical choice. Within minutes of the explosion, jets were in the air for reconnaissance. The pictures brought back were horrific. No one was prepared to look at what the pictures showed. People with various types of expertise were called to review information and develop reports.

The location of the explosion was pinpointed and more alarms went off because of the sensitive nature of the installation in Polk City. A nuclear reactor just didn't explode and scientists were scrambling to figure out an answer when all theory and practice indicated that there was no solution other than the fact that the reactor or something exploded at that site.

At Florida State University in Tallahassee, two seismologists and three geologists proposed a theory that there was a previously unsuspected fault running across central Florida. Even those presenting it admitted that they had doubts but nothing else seemed to match the facts. The initial reports were that millions were dead. The blast was bad but the earthquake and tsunami accounted for most of the fatalities. They were the lucky ones. The survivors would face the SL47 virus.

The company that owned the facility had a much tougher problem. Their sensors indicated that there had been a lab accident allowing contamination from SL47. Worse, the sensors also indicated that the virus had escaped into the atmosphere. There was no one alive at the plant and the sensors were no longer transmitting data. The project oversight officer was located at the headquarters in Virginia. He pushed hard to see the company CEO immediately who was in a meeting. It took only the first news report thirty minutes later for him to realize the company's plant was the center of the catastrophe and to call for anyone connected to the project to report to his office immediately.

George Andrews was a scholarly seeming, quiet individual on the outside. He was in his early thirties and had the appearance of good health. He was the project coordinator reporting to the Plant Leader and his associate, M. Loyd Webb as well as reporting through the headquarters' chain. Both of those individuals had been at the plant and were presumed dead. The plant was now a hole in the ground being covered with water. It was on the center of the fault line running through Florida. George did not relish speaking but his concerns about what had happened easily overrode his slight apprehension about speaking in front of the CEO.

George started, "A little under an hour ago at four minutes after ten this morning, we received an alarm that the virus, SL47, was loose in its containment room. There were two men in the room at the time. Within thirty seconds of that alarm, there was another alarm recording a breach in the building roof for the containment room and, from those alarms and the sensors, it appears that some amount of SL47 was vented into the atmosphere. Less than two minutes later, an atomic sensor began to indicate problems with the nuclear pile. Thirty-four seconds later, the entire facility blew up.

"Sir, it is my duty to tell you that what occurred should be impossible. The containment room is exactly that. The sensor showing the SL47 escaping into the atmosphere seemed to be working correctly but I can think of no way the leak could have occurred. While I do not know enough physics to tell you the ins and outs of it, I have always been told and was taught, reactors don't just blow up.

"I suggest that we move with what we do know at this time. First, and most serious, the SL47 probably escaped into the atmosphere. If the virus was not destroyed in the explosion and that is doubtful, people will be getting sick tomorrow afternoon and deaths will follow two days later. The explosion and other damage are minor if this is true."

One of the men interrupted, "Minor! A new canal across central Florida and millions wiped out by the tsunami isn't minor!"

"Unfortunately, they are minor when compared to the billions who can die from the SL47. It is so deadly that we suspect a survival rate of considerably less than one percent. It's an aerosol. That is my concern. We have no idea about the virus and won't until people begin to show symptoms."

Faces went white and the man who had objected sat back limply in his chair. There was complete silence for a minute or more ... Finally, the CEO spoke, "This will be the policy. I will go to the government and make a complete disclosure of what we know so far. George, you will come with me. Bring what you have. We will not sugarcoat any part of the situation. We can say that it appears to have been an accident and that we don't know how it happened. I do have concerns. Holes don't magically appear in the roof of a complex like this and nuclear reactors don't explode.

"Jeff, you will be in charge of a project to determine what happened and find some explanation for it. It may not matter except to our consciences because, if George is right, we will probably die from the virus. Until and if the virus disables us, we will find out everything we can and try to figure out what to do and then do it. Go now!"

He crooked his finger at me and said, "George, we are going to the Pentagon. The Secretary of Defense is a friend of mine and we will start with him. I expect we will see the President tomorrow at the latest. Bill, come with us a bit. The press will be here sooner or later." We left and he was punching numbers into his phone as he walked. He said, "Miriam, call Secretary Stancil and tell him I am coming over with a co-worker regarding the explosion in Florida. Tell him it's vital I talk to him as soon as possible. Thank you." He ended the call and turned to Bill, "Bill, you don't have to bow and scrap at all on this one. Give them the truth and all information that we have. If we don't know, tell them we don't know. However, 'no comment' doesn't need to be part of your vocabulary today. Don't be gentle. Peoples' lives may depend upon them being scared enough to take precautions." Bill nodded and left us.

Before we arrived at the Pentagon, he had had two more phone calls. One from Bill telling him that he had received the first calls from the press and was setting a conference for two hours from now. The other was from Secretary Stancil's office to arrange for us to be met. I was impressed.

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