Alicia Zimmermann was angry, but she knew that what was coming would be worth it. She had spent a month under carte blanche by Waffen to finish their weapons, and all that time she had spent in ruthless activity. The various intellectuals guarding the particular genomes she needed access to took their jobs seriously; getting through to them was quite difficult. As she discovered, Poslushi neuroforming had a somewhat destructive effect on clusters of memories, which was why the Poslushi never used it for interrogation. Thus, she had to be more conventional.

For hours, she had to sit through the almost laughable mewling of her so-called peers, talking about monetary benefits and immunity from prosecution following the war, about the chance to access the certainly impressive archives of research the Combine had access to and other, less consequential things. Alicia coaxed them along, subtly degrading them as she went along, depreciating the perceived value of what they had for her as low as she could before making a true bargain of an offer. However, with what she was dealing in, a steal was still eye-wateringly expensive, but the Lovelace Group regularly dealt out tens of millions of dollars to its important subsidiaries, and Waffen was one of its most valuable.

When the dealing was done and her required goods were acquired, thus began the reason why Alicia really loved her job. Before her eyes, the lists of nucleotides faded away, reforming into a landscape she knew intimately. As she read through the collated genetic data, she began to speak to herself.

“That could be improved… of course, why didn’t I think of… I’ll need to change that…”

This process was repeated for four different genomes, four different once-extinct weapons that Dr. Zimmermann liked to collectively call the Horsemen. When she had taken in their primal, deadly, almost serene beauty, she began refining it to match what she needed. An adenine where a guanine was, a cytosine for a uracil, and so on and so forth, rewriting the RNA strands on a fundamental level to better serve Waffen’s interests. Like the writer for an angelic symphony, she created a harmony of genetic code that, when played just right, can work wonders. In this case, wonders included devastation on a heretofore unseen level.

Now began the phase of manufacture. Cloning equipment was incredibly difficult to come by in order to prevent people like Alicia from doing exactly what she meant to do, but she made connections, and with enough briefcases sent to enough discreet locations filled with enough cash, enough equipment found its way into enough hands. Alicia left the actual use of the machinery to her underlings; her work, for all she knew, was done, and aside from a few kinks that required minor tweaks to the genome, all she could do was wait.

However, all that time had passed, and now Alicia, wearing a hazmat suit and gas mask, stood before a similarly-protected Captain Hutchins in a negative-pressure clean room, carrying a sterile white briefcase. In between them was a steel table, on which Alicia laid the container gingerly. Carefully, Alicia punched in the numbers on a keypad next to the briefcase’s mechanism and opened it. Inside were four tiny, color-coded vials of clear liquid cradled in soft foam, laid out in a row.

“This one,” Alicia pointed to the leftmost vial, its neck wrapped with thin green tape, “is a Yersinia pestis culture, which I’ve modified to be compatible with mosquitoes and additional species of fleas. It shouldn’t do much harm, what with the state of medicine nowadays, but the fear factor is immense.”

“Mm-hmm. And this?” Hutchins nodded, pointing to the blue vial directly beside it.

“Vibrio cholerae, modified to erode through certain varieties of water filtration. Unfortunately, it’s still defeated by the more expensive methods used in most first-world countries, but it’ll force CAST and AHINT to spend resources on relief efforts.”

“Admirable. I’ll have it dispersed in a body of water of your choice. Now, this one?” Hutchins gently pulled a white vial from the case. Alicia yelped and snatched it from her hand, placing it back where it belonged.

“Don’t touch that!” she cried.

“Why?” Hutchins cringed backward.

“Oh, I don’t know, it’s just that I’ve effectively recreated the damn Spanish flu!”

“We cured that one a century ago.” she narrowed her eyes.

“Well, not exactly,” Alicia calmed down, “I’ve somewhat increased the time between subjects becoming contagious and showing symptoms. Of course, genetic engineering isn’t an exact science, so I can’t give a number, but it’ll thwart any attempts to quarantine the obviously sick. Combine that with the flu’s historical infectivity, and it’ll show why it was a heavy hitter way back when.”

“Ah, I see. You know, you’re really good at this.” Hutchins nodded again. Alicia didn’t respond; she was above needing validation for her work.

“That’s not it.” Alicia said, picking up the last, red-wrapped vial.

“That one’s…” Hutchins trailed off. “Oh, do we really have to?”

“The other three have vaccines in databases that can be replicated quite quickly, even if they need to be tweaked to work on my own little variations. This little guy’s been dead for a long while, though; they’ll practically have to start from scratch on a vaccine or cure. You see, Hutchins, this might just be the only one that’ll stick, and that’s why we have to use it while we can. Even if it doesn’t do much damage, it’ll be quite psychologically affecting to show how easily the Combine can return to life the first disease humanity ever conquered.” Alicia explained. As she discussed this macabre topic, she almost wanted to laugh; soon, the day when the animals below her would recognize their inferiority would come.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Hutchins sighed. “If we must, then deploy it as soon as we can, just to get it out of my sight. The Sitting Room has a subject just coming out of neuroforming, and I’ve told the supervisor to hold him for you.”

Alicia closed the briefcase and locked it once more, but kept the little red bottle with her as she left the room. The culture had been immersed in a chemically-treated growth medium that was specifically designed not to aerosolize in the event that the bottle spilled or shattered, but it didn’t stop Alicia from handling it with the care one would expect when carrying an oil drum full of nitroglycerin. Everyone she passed was wearing a gas mask as Captain Hutchins mandated for that day. When she was coming into work, she spotted a single logistics clerk on the verge of tears as Lieutenant Haskell berated her for forgetting her mask, talking about how her incompetence could get them all killed, and felt bad for another person for the first time in several years (though it was mostly because the clerk looked like Alicia).

The signs guiding her made a sharp turn and Alicia found herself in front of the Sitting Room’s door with one Dr. Lebowski guarding it. “I hear you’ve got someone for me.” Alicia said flatly.

“Ah, right this way.” Lebowski said, typing a numeral code into a keypad beside the door, then flinging it open. Inside, a gentle doctor circled around a wide-eyed new induction, speaking quietly in a soothing voice to ease the brief panic that came with waking up from a neuroforming stint.

“I’m here. Is this my new guy?” Alicia asked. The doctor turned to her, his expression grim. It was obvious that he knew what was going to happen.

“Yes, ma’am.” he said, stepping away. The recruit was a smallish man, barely an adult, who looked up at Alicia with fearful, vulnerable eyes. Alicia shuddered; she hated being looked at that way.

“Are you to be my leader?” he asked, cocking his head to the side. The emotionally-dead way he said it put Alicia even more on edge. Freshly-brainwashed recruits were always creepy as all hell. Still, Alicia put on the act, adopting a light, cheery voice and welcoming posture as well as she could in the bulky biological materials suit.

“Why, yes,” Alicia cooed, fetching a syringe from a box on her belt. She stuck it into the little red vial and pulled back the plunger, “but you won’t be serving conventionally, I’m afraid.”

—

Mike’s Deli prided itself on being the oldest continuously-open kosher deli in Upper Manhattan. Founded in 2045 with the economic rebound of the United States, it had avoided the strict meat rationing during World War III that shut down many similar stores by switching to providing kosher food options to Jewish soldiers leaving for the European Front. Nowadays, what with the new war, the prices of meat had once again risen, but not as badly as when the Russians knocked on the doors of Europe, and thus the deli remained in business.

It was sad, really, what had to happen to it.

The day went on as usual, as Mr. Ramstein took the orders of his patrons and passed them along to the pair of chefs in the back. The windows had been covered with plywood to shield them from the occasional small object thrown at the building when the protests in the south of the city got out of hand, but the place was still fully open for business.

At the corner table sat a man with a shawl pulled tight over his head and gloves on his hands, eating silently. He chewed slowly and in an almost reluctant manner, as though the act of eating pained him greatly, while keeping his head turned towards the blocked-out window. At one point, he put his head in his hand and whimpered quietly before collecting himself and going back to his business. Mr. Ramstein wanted to ask what was wrong, but it seemed obvious that the customer wasn’t exactly in a talkative mood.

About fifteen minutes later, the traffic of the store increased to a near-fever pitch as tired, hungry office workers were let off for their lunch breaks. The lone customer, near the end of his pastrami on rye, didn’t seem to notice, but instead shrank against the wall, shivering slightly. Mr. Ramstein made a note to confront the man if he remained much longer.

He didn’t need to wait long for it to become a necessity, however. As an incoming, obviously-harried manager asked about whatever meal was cheapest, a horrific, agonized cry reverberated through the restaurant. Instantly, everyone turned around to watch as the man in the corner collapsed from his chair, then violently threw up on the floor. “Oh, dear!” Mr. Ramstein yelped, running to support the man as one of the chefs went out to the supply closet to grab a mop. There, he helped the kneeling customer to his feet. “You should go see a doctor,” he said, his voice full of concern.

The customer turned to him, and Mr. Ramstein backed up almost instinctively, a gasp of horror and sympathy escaping from him. The man’s face was disfigured beyond any recognition, covered completely in puckered blisters. Some were broken open, and leaked watery pus over his face. “I'm so sorry,” he coughed, his voice rasping and desperate. Mr. Ramstein got the feeling that he was apologizing for far more than a dirty floor. “I need to go.”

Then, without another word, the man rushed from the restaurant, practically knocking over Mr. Ramstein in the process. He watched as the beleaguered customer rounded the corner, then was distracted when one of the chefs noticed that there was a considerable volume of blood in the pool of vomit. Meanwhile, the man struggled to move his legs. Blindly seeking safety, he stumbled into a dark alleyway between two buildings. His body was slick with sweat, but yet he was so unbearably cold. He broke out into a fit of unbearably painful coughing, gasping for air like he would never feel the wind in his lungs again. Blood cascaded from his mouth in a small stream, pooling at his feet. His strength failing, he descended to sit down, leaning against the walls encroaching upon him. It was all so, so very cold…

His body wouldn’t be disturbed for three days, and those were three very eventful days. On the first day, the manager departed on her business trip to the Netherlands, and the office workers returned to their places. On the second day, Mr. Ramstein checked in to St. Patrick’s Hospital with a particularly severe fever, unaware of the storm that was coming. On the third day, as the doctors confirmed the source of his illness, the governor of New York declared a state of emergency, but it was too late. As CDC units massed around the city, the contagion was everywhere. It was in the office buildings, and it was on the streets with the homeless. It was onboard ships leaving the docks, and it was in corporate branches in the EU, where one particular manager was beginning to feel rather ill.

Smallpox had made a dramatic return to the world.