The news hit me in the chest. Hard.
I couldn’t believe it. The military were announcing their rescue plan. And they were announcing it to the world. Whatever happened to ‘top secret’? A matter of national security? I guess my YouTube stunt had forced them into action. And now they were finally breaking their media silence.
But what did this mean for my friends?
Did it mean the military knew they were alive?
Did they know where my friends were hiding?
How? How did they know this?
I felt like I was setting myself up for more disappointment, more heartache. But I couldn’t help it. My spirits were immediately lifted. The small light of hope for my friend’s survival had been all but extinguished. But now, after the announcement of a rescue plan, it was a full-on raging inferno, deep inside my belly.
They were going to rescue Maria. And they were telling the world about it. This was good news. It had to be.
The military were the only ones who could do it. They had the man power and the resources. And now that they were about to tell the world; the world would demand results. The world would hold them accountable for their success or for their failure.
They knew this. They had to. Which meant they were confident in their ability to achieve this goal, they were confident the rescue would be a success.
Maybe they had already rescued Maria. Maybe this was all a ploy to make themselves look good, to win back the public’s trust. So in a couple of days or whenever they could say something like, ‘the rescue mission was a success! We have Maria Marsh and our best scientists and doctors are working on an anti-virus as we speak!’
The more I thought about this flight of fantasy the more I started to believe it. In my mind the plan made perfect sense. They knew the public would expect results. So announcing it after they had already rescued her meant there was no risk of failure.
But then again, maybe they were just acting because I had forced their hand. Maybe they could no longer hold their silence.
This line of reasoning was enough to keep me worried.
Why? I don’t know. Maybe it was because the military had already failed once. Maybe it was because they had failed so completely, and so quickly lost control of the situation in Australia. But they would learn from their mistakes, right? They would get in and out before they could be surrounded or swarmed or overrun. They wouldn’t take any unnecessary risks.
It would be a simple rescue mission. In and out.
And I guess it would be easier for the military to find Maria this time around, because the last time they tried to ‘rescue’ Maria we were hiding from them and trying to run away. But now all they needed to do was take a short chopper ride into the middle of Sydney and extract them from the area.
In and out.
It was a simple plan with a simple goal.
The press conference was held at the Staples Center. I think I remember something about how they had to post-pone a basketball game between the Lakers and the Celtics. Fans were not happy.
When we arrived at the Staples Center the parking lot was jam packed with trucks and news vans and trailers with large satellite dishes on their roofs. Whatever plans were about to be announced, the rest of the world would know about it in real time, live off the satellite feed. People wanted to know what was going on and they wanted to know right now.
It didn’t take long for the global media to become suspicious of the US military’s involvement in the quarantine procedure. They had blockaded the entire Australian coastline, preventing anyone, even aid ships like the Red Cross from getting in. Naturally they said it was part of the quarantine measure. But the real reason was they didn’t want any camera crews or journalists getting in. They had gone to a lot of trouble to shut down the communication networks, to control the flow of information. They didn’t want any leaked footage of what it was really like on Australian soil. And I’m hoping, praying they didn’t want any more blood on their hands. They had to know that if anyone got through their blockade they were done for, they weren’t coming back. Not alive anyway.
Blockading the entire coastline was no easy feat, especially since Australia is the largest island on the planet. It was a huge effort and took the combined forces of the US Navy, the British Navy, and what was left of the Australian Navy.
There’s a well-known saying that Kenji’s father use to drill into Kenji. It was posted on their fridge in their kitchen and on Kenji’s bedroom door.
Those with the most invested are the last to surrender.
The military had invested everything. They had invested billions of dollars, soldiers, innocent people. They now had twenty-two million lives on their hands. You can’t get any more invested than that. It was one of the worst disasters in human history. An extinction level event. And the scary thing was, a whole lot more people could die. Millions more. Billions more.
So yeah, the military were invested. And they were going to do everything in their considerable power to stop this thing.
The weird thing was, the military, or the allied forces if you will, they were the fall guy, the patsy. Who was in charge?
Kenji said the military’s mission in Australia was to enforce the quarantine. He said they were on clean up and containment duty. Someone else was pulling the strings. So who was it? Was it some secret, all powerful organization? Or maybe a multi-national pharmaceutical company? How much were they paying the military to be the face of this disaster? What was the benefit? Was it a new biological weapon, like Doctor West said it was? Or something else? Something worse?
I know I sound like a crazy old conspiracy theorist but in my mind there was no other logical explanation. The military must have had a damn good reason to be taking this kind of heat.
We made our way into the stadium and to my surprise the conference was going to be held on the actual basketball court.
There was a podium situated at one end of the court and a long table with at least a dozen chairs just to the right of this.
Also to my surprise, I was told, or ordered I guess, to sit at the table. The military wanted me front and center, right in the spotlight. The PR guy walked passed me on his way to the podium and gave me this smug look like he was saying, ‘You wanna play games and be a star on YouTube? Then you can sit out the front here with the rest of us and face the music.’
The table was full of high ranking military officers.
Generals and Admirals and Colonels.
The director of the CIA.
Even the Vice-President was there.
In front of each seat was a folder full of notes. Microphones were positioned in front of each person.
I’ve never felt so out of place in my life. Luckily, Daniel took a seat next to me, which made me feel a little less nervous.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
The place was buzzing as the reporters and journalists took their seats. They filled the court and even some of the seats in the stands.
The PR guy took the podium and cleared his throat. I could see his hands shaking with nerves. A thin layer of sweat had formed above his top lip.
The buzzing ceased.
He thanked everyone for coming at such short notice and gave a brief introduction and explanation about why they had called the press conference. Basically, it was to put to rest the rumors and internet chatter about the Oz virus and the situation in Australia. He never actually mentioned my video, but it was obvious that’s what he was talking about.
Ultimately, they wanted to clear the air and make sure everyone was as well informed as they could be.
Gee, what a nice guy.
He gave the crowd and the cameras a warm friendly smile. This guy was good, and he was getting into a rhythm now. I noticed that his hands had stopped shaking.
“So, first things first,” he said. “We need to give you all a bit of back ground information on the Oz virus. From certain classified intelligence reports we know that the virus was developed by a network of extremely advanced and extremely dangerous terrorist splinter cells in the late eighties and early nineties. We don’t know who exactly created it or where it originated from. What we do know is that an earlier strain of the virus was used in the first Gulf War. Again, we don’t know who used it. But we saw firsthand the devastation. It had a one hundred percent kill rate. No one survived. We kept this hidden. It was classified above top secret. We didn’t want anyone, especially our enemies, or other terrorist cells to even know that this virus existed. We were providing support and security to an organization who had taken on the arduous task of trying to develop an anti-virus and a vaccine against this weapon. As you know, to develop a cure, you first have to understand the virus, how it acts, how it survives. We were close to a break through when we had a containment failure in a research facility in Australia.
“Our biggest fear has always been that one of our enemies would develop a reliable weaponized version of the virus. And because of this fear, it is our top priority to develop a cure. We have always taken the utmost precaution and safety measures in our research facilities. The containment failure was an unforeseen tragedy.”
I sat their shaking my head. They were lying. At least, I think they were lying. They were so good at it, even I started to believe them. Now they sounded like the good guys, like they had taken on this terrible burden. They sounded like they were protecting the entire world.
It was genius.
A reporter shouted a question from the back, too impatient, too anxious to wait for question time. He didn’t even raise his hand. He just blurted the question out. His voice was full of fear. “Is the virus airborne!?”
“No,” The PR guy replied quickly. “In its present form, the virus can only be transmitted through blood or saliva.”
Another reporter raised their hand to ask a question. “Who is the mystery organization you are working with to develop an anti-virus?”
“That’s classified.”
“How was the virus used in the first Gulf War? How was it contained back then?”
“That’s classified. If we could please…”
“What’s the current death toll in Australia? What the hell is going on down there?”
“Please, ladies and gentlemen, if we could keep this moving along. We have a lot of information to get through. There will be a full Q and A session at the conclusion of the conference. We have a lot of ground to cover. As you know, the secondary objective of this press conference is to announce the military’s plan to rescue Maria Marsh. She is the only person on record who has shown any resistance to the Oz virus.”
The same reporter kept up his aggressive line of questioning. “How do we know that claim is true?”
“To be honest, we don’t know,” the PR guy answered. “And we won’t know until we can run some definitive tests on her.”
“So we’re going to risk soldier’s lives on an unsubstantiated rumor?”
“We have it on good authority that Maria Marsh is not only resistant to the Oz virus, but that she is completely immune. Considering what she could mean for our research, I’d say she is definitely worth the risk.”
“Who’s authority?”
“Rebecca Robinson has given a detailed eye witness report. We are acting on her authority.”
Suddenly the heat was on me. I could feel all the cameras, the microphones and Dictaphones, the reporter’s eyeballs focus on me. They wanted to know if Maria Marsh was really immune. They wanted to know if this whole mission was worthwhile, or if it was just a waste of time and energy and hope.
“She’s immune,” I reassured them.
I was then prompted to speak up because no one could hear me properly. Daniel then leaned over and repositioned the microphone in front of me so that it was closer to my mouth. I leaned forward and repeated myself. “She’s immune.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, I guess I can’t be sure. But I was there. I saw everything. She came in direct contact with the infection…”
“What does that mean? Can you elaborate please?” a reporter asked, interrupting me.
Whatever happened to waiting for the Q and A session? “She was bitten by another person,” I explained. “She was bitten by a person who was infected with the Oz virus. She was bitten on the ankle. At first we thought she was going to turn…”
“Turn?”
“Yeah. I… I don’t know how else to describe it. When a person becomes infected, when the virus takes over, they change. They turn. Maria started to change. We decided that we needed to…” I choked on the words. It’s hard to believe what we were going to do, what we were prepared to do and what we had to do to survive. “We needed to take care of her,” I said. “To put her out of her misery before she turned, before she became a threat to the rest of us.”
“A threat?”
I looked at the PR guy to see if it was all right to divulge this bit of information. He nodded his head.
“A person infected with the Oz virus will attack a non-infected person to spread the infection. They become aggressive and violent. We needed to make sure she didn’t attack us.”
“So you were going to kill her?”
I lowered my head. “Yes. But it never came to that. We didn’t have to. The virus never took over. She didn’t turn. In less than a few hours she had fully recovered.”
“Why wasn’t this information made known during your previous interview?”
I opened my mouth to answer but the PR guy took over once again, getting the spotlight off me. “The virus is extremely fast acting,” he said. “Observable symptoms include violence, aggression, increased strength, and facial hemorrhaging. Rebecca’s report indicated that Maria Marsh displayed none of these symptoms.”
Daniel reached over and held my hand. It was a timely show of support. The whole thing only lasted a few minutes but I felt like I’d been squeezed in a vise and dragged over a bed of hot coals.
“How will you find her?” a reporter asked.
“We have her position from a radio transmission that was broadcasted on the 23rd.”
“The 23rd? Why has it taken so long to act? It’s been over a week now.”
“These things need to be planned. Soldiers need to be briefed and mobilized. We have to be prepared. We have to take every precaution when embarking on such a dangerous mission.”
“Has there been any other contact with the survivors?”
“No.”
“So how do we know they are safe? How do we know they are still alive?”
“They are situated in an extremely safe location,” The PR guy assured.
Another lie, I thought to myself. They had been running for their lives in that last transmission.
More questions came thick and fast. What was the actual death toll? Were there any other survivors? How long would Australia be under quarantine for? Each question was expertly answered and deflected, with no real information, no secrets being revealed.
The reporters were getting angry. They knew they were being played. But after a brief question and answer time, the PR guy introduced the Special Forces rescue team. Apparently such a public introduction and divulging of mission information has never happened before, and this seemed to placate the reporters a bit.
They introduced the team via satellite link up from an aircraft carrier anchored in the Tasman Sea, about one hundred miles off the coast of Sydney. I wondered if it was the same aircraft carrier I saw leaving the harbor the day I escaped from Sydney.
The rescue team were the best and the brightest. They were the strongest soldiers the US Navy and Australian Special Air Service - the ‘SAS’, had to offer. Their leader looked strong. He was a veteran of both Gulf Wars and he had served in Afghanistan. I wondered if he had served with my father.
But despite his excellent service record and his experience, there was something about him I didn’t like. He didn’t just look confident, he looked over confident. Arrogant. I got the impression he thought this mission was going to be a cake walk. And that scared me. He didn’t know what was waiting for him in Sydney. How could he? Even if he had been briefed on the virus, there’s a difference between reading about it and experiencing it up close. The team leader spoke briefly and assured us and the rest of the world the mission would be a success. His men were the best operators in the world. And the Australian SAS soldiers would provide firsthand knowledge of the local terrain.
He said that according to Private Kenji Yoshida’s radio call for help; they knew exactly where the targets were hiding. Luckily, Yoshida was able to get Maria Marsh up to the higher levels of one of the skyscrapers in the CBD of Sydney. He said in an urban warfare type of environment, the high ground is the safest place to be. It offered them a great tactical advantage, and a great deal of protection. It would simply be a matter of landing a chopper on the building they were seeking refuge in and extracting them. He even made a joke about how doing this kind of thing usually involved being shot at with rocket launchers and anti-aircraft guns. Not having to deal with any of that would be a sweet relief.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
He went on to say they usually operate in complete secrecy, so the preparation for this rescue was a bit weird. But they understood this wasn’t the usual, run of the mill mission. And as such, it had taken a little bit longer to prepare for. He said they deconstruct everything and think of everything that could go wrong. They make counter-measures and contingency plans.
Again, he assured everyone they would find Maria Marsh.
A cure would be created.
Australia would be saved.
The world would be saved.
Everyone clapped and cheered. Everyone but me.