CROW

1

2034

Attu Island (Bordering the Bering Sea and the Pacific Ocean)

Haven. Soldiers. Carnage. Conspiracy. Escape. Realization.

It all played on Halayna’s mind as she padded across the space of the room underneath the harsh overhead lights. The three sides were unbreakable plexiglass. The final wall boasted an array of panels and inputs for idle machines that beeped and buzzed and provided electric shocks should the heart stop pumping. It had its own filtered oxygen system, making sure nothing foreign got in or out. At that moment, that second point was the most important. The enclosure sealed Halayna off from the world, and that pissed her off to no end. And on top of all of that, she had lost track of time—a critical factor—and that annoyed her even more.

She wore the same garb she had on when she woke. As Doctor Jett Mecca attended to her wounds, General Gavin Morgan sat across from her. Between them, they reconstructed what had happened, of how the traitorous Sergeant Ace Gatlin took her boss, Baxter Parks, onboard the aircraft at gunpoint, and Halayna had no choice but to follow them on. With the help of Master Sergeant Baine, she overcame Gatlin, leading to the three of them plummeting to the ocean.

She had miraculously survived, but the other two men were never recovered. Reports indicated that Parks remained on the Osprey, which had been tracked all the way to Russia. Then, the videos appeared. In them, he pleaded for her to save him, though he seemed unaware of his own identity. Regardless of whether Morgan approved, she was ready to grab some guns and hitch a ride to Mother Russia to bring him home.

But once she started coughing, Mecca instantly isolated her. It was the virus calling card and given where she had spent the better part of a decade, that singular act made everyone nervous. But it couldn’t be anything, could it? She was inoculated. They all were.

Regardless, nurses in full chemical protection garb collected blood samples, although there were no explanations forthcoming. Through the pain from the injuries obtained from her fight and subsequent ejection from the back of the Osprey, she folded her arms over her chest and kept walking, wall to wall, coming to terms with the situation. Parks was in Russia, held by the Russian mafia, and she wanted, nay needed, to rescue him, but that involved complications that kept Morgan at bay.

It gave her time to reconcile all the memories, both real and fake. The life she knew of Dr. Osher Ashguard—the role she played in Haven—slowly dissolved as Morgan suggested they would, although there was always a faint murmur of a memory that she had to critically assess whether it was hers or belonged to some implant. Ashguard—the original Ashguard—had an extensive array of knowledge and expertise when it came to virology and immunology.

As she reached the wall, she formed a fist and thumped on the plexiglass, the dull thuds echoing around her.

“Hey!” she called out. “We haven’t got time for this shit!”

She banged on the door again. She knew it was futile, but what else could she do besides dwelling on what Morgan had told her? Parks was the key to the knowledge he had locked in her mind, transforming her into a human vault. She had a fairly good idea all the files about the virus he created were in there, but Parks was the only one who knew to what extent. Yet, without a way to access it, the knowledge was useless.

And access it, she tried. She attempted meditation, silently breathing, and tried to reach some mental plane, but it was no use. On one hand, she found it ludicrous there was something within her she couldn’t access, and on the other knew that’s what people did with trauma all the time. They opened little boxes and shoved in the bad shit, then stored it away on a shelf, in a vault, in a house, on an island, protected by sharks, a treacherous reef, surface-to-air missiles and a small army of mindless grunts.

Grunts. Soldiers. The events of escaping Haven were still fresh in her memory and as such would continue to stay that way unless there was some sort of psychological intervention. The fights, and associated marks, cuts and bruises from her encounters were fresh on her skin, as much as they were in her mind. In particular, the final moments of Gatlin’s demise before disappearing under the wash of the ocean below them, and the blood streaming out of Baine’s mouth as they flew from the Osprey and hit the ocean and everything went black, like turning off the television, her life plummeting into darkness.

But through all of that, she had accomplished her mission, one she didn’t understand at the time, one that still rang true through every element of her body, one that she was once again connected to. She had to protect the man that saved her life many years before Haven, for that was the deal they struck, the code she lived by. And she would do it, in a heartbeat, life on the line, give her life for his, if only they would let her out of her goddamn glass cage.

Just then, through the glass, she saw Morgan and Mecca walk in. The General wore his combat utility uniform, while Mecca donned her white lab coat. She held a file and while she spoke, Morgan nodded along ad nauseum, to the point where Halayna thought his head would fall off his shoulders.

Halayna rushed to the glass. “When are you two going to fucking let me out of here?”

“There are some… complications,” Morgan said.

“I don’t give a fuck about complications. I have a mission to fulfill. We’ve already wasted too much time already.”

“It’s not safe,” Mecca said.

“I don’t give a fuck about my personal safety! I know where I’m going and what I’m going to encounter. I’ve fought in conflicts around the world and been involved with espionage, not to mention Parks’ personal bodyguard. I’m not scared by a few thugs with machine guns.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Mecca said. “I mean, it’s not safe for anyone else.”

“I know!” Halayna said as she thumped the glass. “I will tear those Russian bastards’ heads off. And god help me if I’m too late, because then I’ll be coming for both of you.”

“You’re infected!” Mecca shouted.

Halayna stepped back, almost faltering. “What? What do you mean? Infected with what?”

Morgan stepped forward. “There’s some history we need to bring you up to speed on.”

“Well, you better start talking, General.”

Morgan cleared his throat. “After you and Parks went inside the simulation and Beacon went missing, they released the virus.”

“Baine mentioned this,” Halayna said, tapping the side of her head as if trying to jog a distant memory. “He said they released the virus—but it was never supposed to happen.”

Morgan ran his tongue over his teeth, a slow, deliberate gesture. “When the time came to act, with both Parks and Beacon out of the picture, I guess no one had the spine to stand up against it.”

Halayna began to rear up. “What happened after they released it?”

“Despite all projections, the virus did little to impact the intended target.”

“Who was that?”

“Russia.” He stretched his neck. “They were ready for it, and given what happened with Sergeant Gatlin and Colonel Barsky, now we know why. But then things changed. Dramatically changed.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Halayna asked. “I had my shots before I went in.”

“Strategically speaking,” Mecca began, “the first documented case was in Tuvua, Fiji, which is where the virus got its name. But then something changed—no one knows how or why. It mutated into a more aggressive strain, which they labeled Tuvua-X, or TX. The worst part? Our vaccines are completely ineffective against it.”

Mecca paused, letting the gravity of the situation sink in. “And that’s what’s in your body now,” she added, her voice quieter but firm. “I don’t know how you were exposed, but you’ve contracted it.”

Halayna stepped back from the glass. A memory crossed her vision she couldn’t shake away, the last moments with Baine as they plummeted towards the ocean. He had coughed violently, blood ejecting from his mouth. Did he infect her? So who infected him?

“What’s going to happen to me?” she asked. “How long have I got?”

“TX provides the patient with a long road to death,” Mecca informed.

Halayna looked up. “How long a road?”

“Between five and seven days, depending.”

Halayna dropped her head once more, turned from the glass. Swore to herself, then turned back. “This is all the more reason to send me over there.”

Morgan took a deep breath. “As soon as we found out you were infected, I ordered what was left of Sel Team Five to commence a search and rescue mission to bring Parks home. The fact is the world is in chaos at the moment. We are one step away from utter annihilation and nuclear power leaders are inching their fingers towards that big red button. If we stand any chance of fixing this, any chance at all, we need what’s in your head. And we can’t do that without Parks. I thought we had time to figure things out, to do things on our terms, but given you’re a ticking time bomb, we had little choice.”

Halayna shuffled back to the medical gurney and eased down on the edge, her movements slow and deliberate. She nodded slowly, her eyes dropping to the floor. “Well, that’s that, then,” she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. “They’ll bring him home. He can crack my head open, and hopefully pull together some kind of miracle.”

Just then, Morgan’s aide, clad in his flight suit, pushed through the door. He stopped short when he saw Halayna, his eyes locking onto the general. His face was pale and slick with sweat, his chest heaving.

Morgan noted his entry and marched over. They engaged in a brief, tense conversation, after which Morgan’s head fell. The aide left, leaving Morgan standing there for a moment. He eventually elongated his spine and returned to the glass window.

“What is it?” Halayna asked. “Mission update?”

Morgan nodded. “We’ve lost all communication with Seal Team Five.”

Halayna’s breath caught in her throat, and any hope she had for the future seemed to shrink substantially. “Send me,” she whispered.

Morgan bowed his head once more.

Determined, Halayna pushed herself off the bed and stepped closer to the glass. “General,” she said, moving even closer. No response. “General,” she repeated, placing her hand on the glass. “Morgan, you know this is the only option. The risk of keeping me here is far worse than sending me.”

He looked up, their eyes meeting, contemplation etched into his features. He bared his teeth. “Alright,” he relented.

“General,” Dr. Mecca jumped in. “Halayna is in no condition—”

“It’s the only way,” Morgan interrupted. “Or there won’t be anyone left to save. Rescuing Parks is a non-negotiable, but if things go to shit, we might be able to accomplish something else.”

To Halayna, it sounded like the world wasn’t too far from going to shit already.