“So, what do we have here?” Patrick Cannon asked right away as he stepped inside the War Room, a big, windowless space, ten stories under the ground with dozens of people working over hundreds of monitors.

He was not just a little bit ticked off because his vacation on the luxurious sail ship over the Pacific was interrupted and cut short. With the help of the Navy's rescue helicopter, they lifted him up straight from the ship and brought him to the huge plane carrier where he changed a ride to a Grumman Greyhound transport plane.

The ride on the propeller engine plane did not go smoothly at all with ten hours of bouncing in a small, uncomfortable seat.

On top of it all, nobody could tell him almost anything about the sudden emergency that required his immediate presence in the high-security base In Laguna Mountain, the place that did not even exist.

He did not understand why Nick, his second in command, could not wait for him at the airport and briefed him already.

If it was such an emergency, why waste time??

“Come on, Nick, while we're still young! Where are you??? What's going on??” he asked his second in command, not in the most polite of tones.

“Well, we might have a problem,” Nick said, picking his words, noting the mood of his superior was already bad, fearing it was to get way worse rather soon.

“We might have a problem?” Patrick asked sarcastically. “And whose idea was it to get me out of the embrace of a beautiful woman while I sailed the prettiest places on this planet?”

“I... Do not know. I'm assuming high-ups. I just came here an hour ago, sir.”

“Really? An hour ago?” Patrick said as he entered his sound-proofed office, indicating to Nick to close the door.

“Yes, sir,” Nick answered as he turned around and closed the heavy door behind him.

“Where were you?”

“A golfing trip to Arizona, sir?” Nick said, fully knowing that he had told Patrick on numerous occasions about his vacation there, fully knowing that Patric would never forget something like that.

“So, they got you too, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, so, what kind of problem we might have?” Patric asked more politely.

“There seems to be a new virus or... a new drug going around, sir. Killing people.”

Nick flashed some of the images of the dead bodies, showing their torn faces with the dried blood on them, some even with the limbs missing.

“No shit. So, what is it? A virus or a drug?”

“The thing is... we do not know, sir.”

“Shit. I'm assuming... we analyzed it?”

“Yes, sir,” Nick said and sighed. “To the best of our abilities.”

“And... Nothing that can be found in the records?”

“No, sir.”

“So, if's something new, it's either bio-engineered or, we are to believe voodoo science and it came from somewhere else. I do not like voodoo science, you know.”

“I know, sir.”

“So, it has to be us.”

Nick swallowed the lungs full of air and uttered. “We do not know, sir.”

“Okay, let's look at the virus... or whatever it is,” Patrick said, flipping to the magnified picture of the unknown substance.

“Well, sir, we do not know if it's a virus because... it does not look like one."

"What do you mean it does not look like one?"

"Not like any we have on records, sir'

Patrick scratched his head, looking at the pictures of all the dead.

“How do they know then it's some substance that killed them? For all it seems... these bodies died... maybe some cult activities?”

“No, sir. Some died...”

“Oh, I see... a gunshot wound here. They took half of his head off.”

“Yes, this guy was shot by cops.”

“Good lord. Cops now killing people? What had we come to? Better call me!"

"Sir, the bio lab was able to isolate this unknown substance in the blood of the victims. But... they just don't know what it is."

"Well, if we cannot identify it, that might mean it... did not come from us, right? Any... darkies agencies contacting us yet? You know who I mean, don't you?"

"Yes, sir, and no, nobody contacted us with a possible explanation."

"I mean, how many secret departments do we run? One of them might know something. Nobody called to shed the light on this?”

“No, sir, nobody contacted us yet.”

Patrick scoffed and rubbed the back of his neck, muttering, "And why does that not surprise me. And this here," he said, grabbing a piece of paper from the table, "This is the report from a bio lab?”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“Yes, sir.”

Patrick went over it quickly. “But it says almost nothing.”

“That's true, sir. That is the problem.”

“Well, get on their back. Tell them that they better give us something, anything fast, or there is going to be a big problem.”

“Will do that, sir.”

“Okay. So, let's work with what we have then. Basically, we have to assume it's not us. So, have we shared the info about this with our foreign security agencies? Anything from them? Could Chinese or... Well, could not be Russians. They can't even put a tank together. So, anything on the Chinese front?”

Nick was going to say how actually Russians had a long history of bio-weapons, had quite a bit of resources in the field, and should not be so easily dismissed, but, why contradict his boss who found it so entertaining to dismiss them so easily?

So, all Nick muttered out was. “No, sir. We are waiting for answers. We just put in the request for the info update. Nothing came through yet, sir.”

“Well, the first thing is... obviously this is something new, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, then, let's name it. This here SUBSTANCE 23ser122029 will not do,” Patrick said, reading the numbers of the bio lab report.

Nick cleared his throat and said, “Some are referring it to as a zombie drug?”

“A Zombie drug?”

“Yes, sir.”

“We are not sincerely thinking these are zombies, do we?”

The way the question was formulated, there was only one acceptable answer, and Nick quickly said, “Of course not.”

“No, I do not like the name zombie. Give me something else.”

“Well, it seems to create a neural disorder, and...”

“I like that,” Patrick said swiftly before Nick could continue. “Let's label it as UND substance, for Undetermined Neural Disorder.”

“That sounds very good, sir,”

“And we do not yet know how it's being transmitted? Is it airborne?”

“No idea, sir. It might not be transmissible either.”

“Well, if it is a drug, and very likely it is, then of course that would be the case. But, let's assume the worse, and go from there. Let's assume it's a bio-weapon, something of a new kind.”

“Yes, sir, that is a smart way to look at it.”

Patrick looked over more pictures, walked over the table, and took a moment to consider it all. Nick did not dare to interrupt the silence.

“Okay, then, now, take me to the beginning. How it started and take me a case by case. I'm listening,” Patrick finally said.

Nick rubbed his neck.

“I'm assuming you've been here an hour, so you already know everything, right?”

“Well... okay... The first reported death that matched the same parameters happened yesterday...”

“And all of this happened in the last 24 hours?” Patrick said, surprised.

“Yes, sir.”

“How many cases is that?”

“Twenty, sir. And counting. New ones come every hour.”

“Gee... This is going to be big.”

“I'm afraid so, sir.”

“So... take me to the first case. Let's see where it all started.”

“Well, sir, this is the first victim. We think he fell from a tall building and a truck must have hit him and...”

“Yeah, I see, his whole body seemed to have been run over. And when was this?”

“Forty hours ago, sir”

“What do we know about this person?”

“Had no ID or anything on him. So, we are looking into it, sir.”

“Do it faster. We should already know what his nickname in the kindergarten was, okay??”

“Yes, sir.”

“And this is the earliest? Nobody calling reporting weird shit?”

“Oh, we have a lot of that, sir. Thousands of calls.”

“And when did it all start?”

“Well... one of the first weird calls was a reported zombie, sir.”

“A reported zombie?”

“Yes. sir. It was some foreigner who called and was dismissed as a prank since he sounded rather young.”

“You said, the first person who called… had a strong foreign accept, and it was just dismissed?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Damn. Did linguists say from where their accent might be from?”

“Asia, sir.”

“Asia??”

“Yes, sir. We sent it to another verifier for a second opinion.”

“Good. That... almost fits.”

Nick was going to ask how it fit and with what. Certainly, if foreign agents from Asia were spreading the killer virus around, they would be smart enough to employ people who did not speak English with their accent and then leave a trace by calling 9-1-1 and reporting it.

"Can I hear it?"

"Yes, sir," Nick said and grabbed his notepad, and in a few fast strokes, played the 9-1-1 recording.

“Just a little bit of accent there, hardly detectable, don't you think?”

Yes, Sir,”

“We can conclude that it was made by highly educated individuals. Obviously well trained to use our language. A bit on a young side, no?”

“Yes.”

“Do we have the info where we may find this individual?”

“We are processing that, sir, so, unfortunately, we do not have that info yet.”

“Well, that is priority number one now. I want to talk to that person. So, let's find him. I doubt he went back to China. But, let's make sure we stop all the flights nonetheless. Shut down everything going out of San Diego to Asia. Will you?”

“That will be hard, sir.”

“Yes, I know, so be imaginative.”

“It would be easier to shut the whole airport down, sir.”

“Yeah, good. Report some bombs or something.”

“That would only be... an hour or two of delays, sir.”

“Well, not if one of them gets off, right?”

Nick's eyes widened, but he pulled himself together right away and uttered, “Right, sir.”

"Put Troy on that. He's got a team to handle stuff like that."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, give me a minute. I have to call some people, put some heat on to get some answers. This, we ain't telling you shit just can't fly here. You know what I mean, Nick?"

"Yes, sir," Nick answered and was happy to leave the office so his boss could put some heat on.

Ten minutes later Nick and Dan ran to his office and knocked on it.

When he told them to come in, they opened the door and Nick swiftly said “They’ve got a live one, sir”

‘What?”

“A guy that’s infected."

"Is he still alive?"

"Yes, sir. They say he's hallucinating, trying to bite people. They are treating him at…”

“Fuck treating him. Send the car over and get him into our isolation place. We can’t let some doctors screw this up. We need our doctors, our people on this. How else are we to control this!”

“Yes, sir. I’ll send a team there right away.”

“And, you Dan, call Troy and get the things ready to bring him in. Then bring anyone and everyone who can tell us what that... that..." Suddenly, Patrick was lost for words.

But Nick jumped right in. "U-N-D substance, sir?"

"Exactly! What that U-N-D substance is all about, okay?”

On the opposite side of the country, two elderly gentlemen sat on the balcony of an old colonial house, converted to serve as a secluded and exclusive working environment for the military elite. A multi-million dollar view of all the greens and blues of Chesapeake Bay in front of them was mostly ignored since it was their daily background picture.

“Sorry to bother you like this, Steven, but I wanted to talk to you,” the man who walked in a few seconds ago said.

“I know, Larry. Don't worry. You can never bother me. So, tell me, what has been bothering you?”

“Well, I just got a rather disturbing phone call from Patrick.”

“Yes. Has he arrived?”

“Yes. Seems upset. Are you sure he is the right man for the job?”

“I think so.”

“You know, he cheated on the tests.”

“Yes. It's all in his files. Cheated numerous times.”

“He's not very smart.”

“No. Actually, I would say he's just the opposite.”

“Divorced five times?”

“Yeah, can't keep his dick in his pants. Too damn cocky. With the size of his own ego that severely overshoots his capability and character. But...”

There was always, 'but' there and Larry waited patiently to hear what came after it.

“What you need to know Larry, I've got already a call from our private friends.”

“And?”

“They asked for our assistance.”

He passed a piece of paper to Larry. It included just one number, one connected with a bunch of zeros. “That can be in the account of your choosing. An old one you used before or you can open a new one. But, it can be there within minutes.”

“Okay.”

"Yeah?"

"Yes."

“So, we need someone like him. Not someone who... can add two and two. Someone who can be handled.”

Larry nodded his head. “I can handle Patrick."

“Yeah, you handle Patrick till he does not need to be handled by us anymore.” The man sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Then we won't talk about Patrick ever again.”

“I understand. I understand completely. It will be done.”