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Pandemic Novel Chapters
List of most recent chapters published for the Pandemic novel. A total of 180 chapters have been translated and the release date of the last chapter is Apr 02, 2024
Latest Release: Chapter 1 :
HOW IT BEGAN …For a hundred thousand years, the machine traveled in a straight line.The
HOW IT BEGAN …For a hundred thousand years, the machine traveled in a straight line.The Creators had launched it into s.p.a.ce along with many others, countless others. The others also traveled in a straight line, but each one in a different direction. I
- 1 HOW IT BEGAN …For a hundred thousand years, the machine traveled in a straight line.The Creators had launched it into s.p.a.ce along with many others, countless others. The others also traveled in a straight line, but each one in a different direction. I
- 2 She again looked at the acetylene torch’s steady flame, a translucent, blue triangle filled with a beautiful light that promised pure agony.I can’t let them get me again … do it, now, Candy … do it or die …When the pain came, she couldn’t let herself scre
- 3 She walked into the darkness of the crew’s mess. An aisle ran down the center. Small, four-person booths lined either side. In those booths, she could make out lumpy shadows, the still forms of corpses, the crimson shade of dried blood.This was where they
- 4 Not that Charlie felt it. He would never feel anything ever again.The Orbital had watched. The Orbital had learned.Its first infection vector had been rather simple in concept: spores that floated on the air, released by the Orbital from its position some
- 5 JAMES U: (in reply to REPUBOTHUGGY) A republican would say something like that, which shows your lack of education. Thanks for trying, though. Maybe you should read a book.J-C-DOOMTROOPER: (in reply to JAMES U) I bet I read twice as many books as you, lib
- 6 “You don’t know what it’s like,” she said.Margaret looked to her desk, to the framed pictures of the people she’d lost. A picture of Dew Phillips in a jacket and tie just like Clarence’s, although Dew’s looked like he’d been wearing it for days. Dew’s cre
- 7 She shook her head. “Honey, you don’t—”“Stop,” he said sharply, the word a slap that landed in her soul instead of on her face. Then, softer: “You know me. You know I wouldn’t start this unless it was already finished. I love you. I always will. You didn’
- 8 b.u.t.t in the lawn chair, laptop on his knees, Steve slid his sleeves a little higher so he could type unenc.u.mbered. Not that he was typing all that much; three girls were also taking advantage of what might be the year’s last sunny day to stretch them
- 9 Steve glanced over at the girls. He couldn’t help it. As if being a semi-heliophobic nerd sitting with a laptop wasn’t enough of a turnoff, now he was hanging out with a hunched-over, fiftysomething old man.The girls were pulling on sweats.h.i.+rts of the
- 10 A lifetime of waiting for a chance to serve his people, his heritage, and now — perhaps — his moment had finally come.He just hoped no one would get hurt.DUTYSitting on the couch in her living room, Margaret felt newly aware of how much she had fallen apa
- 11 Clarence’s face wrinkled in indignation. “You didn’t evac the wounded to mainland hospitals? That’s not—”Margaret’s left hand found Clarence’s knee. An automatic gesture, a way for her to tell her man relax, even though he apparently wasn’t her man anymor
- 12 The original drawing looked water stained. Whoever had drawn it had done so quickly, yet there was no mistaking the artist’s skill — the subject’s open eyes looked lifeless, stared out into nothing.Why were the men hidden under the blanket? No, it wasn’t
- 13 “This is from the Orbital?”“Maybe,” Murray said. “An unmanned probe discovered it six days ago. Five days ago, it was brought onboard the Los Angeles using the most rigorous decontamination and BSL-4 procedures known to man.”Clarence took the photo. “Not
- 14 “Great,” Margaret said. “So you’re a.s.signing a babysitter?”“I’ll a.s.sign a midget with a whip if that’s what it takes to keep you from reading blog posts about yourself for fifteen hours a day.”Margaret fell silent. Murray knew all about how far she’d
- 15 “Coop, I own half of this company. I think I can take a little money to treat us once in a while, bro. I don’t need permission to write a check.”“No, what you do need is enough money in the checking account to cover the check. I can’t believe you’d be so
- 16 “It went down in 1950 over Lake Michigan,” Stanton said. “It was a DC-4, flying from New York to Minneapolis, had to—”“Reroute due to weather,” Jeff finished. “We’re familiar. Fifty-eight people died, worst crash in American history at the time, blah-blah
- 18 Brute force had stopped the Orbital’s attempts, but so, too, had intelligence. The fifth design would harness the human intellect, shape it, turn it into a weapon. The most brilliant humans would be transformed into leaders, generals that could manage the
- 19 Like Porter, Blackmon took her time to think things through. She didn’t rush. That made the two of them get along quite well. For the bystanders, however, watching them converse was like watching paint dry.Blackmon had swept to power amid anti-Democratic
- 20 Vogel smiled, looking smug. “The probable crash site is seven hundred to nine hundred feet deep. You need specialized gear for that. The intelligence community has been consistently monitoring all domestic companies that have the right kind of equipment,
- 21 “That’s the Coronado,” Clarence said. “It’s new. It’s called a littoral combat s.h.i.+p.”“So it literally does combat?”“Not lit-ER-al, lit-OR-al,” he said. “It means close in to sh.o.r.e. That’s where SEAL Team Two is.”Guided missile destroyers. Littoral
- 22 If America possessed a weapon, America would use it.The only way to keep the balance, to properly protect the land of his ancestors, was to make sure China had the same weapons. If Steve found something his nation could use to defend itself, he would beco
- 23 He would play his role. He’d make sure she ate, make sure she slept, because she forgot to do both when she lost herself in research. He’d fetch her coffee. He’d clean her clothes. Whatever it took; when the real s.h.i.+t hit the fan, Margaret Montoya too
- 24 Yasaka folded her hands on her desk. “Three days ago, the Los Angeles reported erratic behavior among the crew. A fight involving a few injuries. I’m afraid there wasn’t much detail. Captain Banks made his scheduled daily report, but he seemed … strange.
- 25 Very meticulous, very disciplined.The lieutenant held the door open for them.“Doctor Feely will take it from here,” he said. “Just go down the stairs.”Clarence thanked the man. Margaret said nothing. Clarence went down first. Even on a secure s.h.i.+p, he
- 26 “Nice suit,” Tim said. “Not many suits in lab work. I don’t suppose you can do anything down here that’s actually helpful?”“You never know,” Clarence said. “Sometimes shooting people is a useful skill.”Tim rolled his eyes. “Oh, great, an action hero. That
- 27 Breath frosting from their mouths, Cooper, Jeff, José, Steve and Steve’s buddy Bo Pan stood in a loose circle, staring down at the cargo they’d hauled out to the middle of Lake Michigan.When Steve Stanton had spoken of his ROV, Cooper a.s.sumed he knew wh
- 28 “My eyes are trying to focus on two things at once,” she said. “It’s giving me a headache. How do I just get rid of it for now?”“Just reach up and grab it,” Tim said. “Then swipe it to the side.”She reached up to grab something that wasn’t there, and she
- 29 The second chain reaction had the same effect on the infection’s cellulose structures. Instead of apoptosis, infection’s cells produced a cellulase. Cellulase dissolved cellulose, the cell swelled and burst, spreading the cellulase catalyst to surrounding
- 30 He could finally kill.TESTY-TESTYThe final airlock cycled. Clarence stepped out first, took in a large area hemmed in by the now-familiar white walls. In front of him were two rows of high-ceilinged, ten-by-ten gla.s.s cells stretching to the back of the
- 31 “Correct,” Tim said. “Your notes described an incubation period of between twenty-four and forty-eight hours before infected victims start to show symptoms. So if we’re lucky, these men are in there another two days, just to be sure.”The black diver spoke
- 32 Then, stopped.The red light came on.No one said a word. Clarence stared, stunned into thoughtlessness. The man had looked fine.Cantrell broke the silence. “ ‘If you poison us,’ ” he said quietly, “ ‘do we not die?’ ”Clark raised the testing kit to eye lev
- 33 “And calling me an illegal isn’t an insult? I’m an undoc.u.mented worker.”José paused the playback. His finger reached out, rested below the screen’s time readout. Cooper saw it, made the connection — the recording was from the time of that morning’s laun
- 34 Candice Walker had suffered horribly, but Charlie Petrovsky had it even worse. His entrails were mostly missing, as was his left hip and the leg that would have been attached to it. His left arm looked fine, but his right was a ribbon of flesh made b.u.mp
- 35 “Look at that poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Cantrell said. “Years of service, and he’ll die horribly.” The diver tilted his head to the right, toward Edmund, who lay in his bed and would never wake again.“Or him,” Cantrell said. “Good to know that the f.u.c.king
- 36 “So you touched her?”The diver rolled his eyes. “No, Agent Otto, we sat back and told her she had nice t.i.tties. She was still alive. We were trying to save her.”“Do you remember what she said?”Cantrell stared back. “You’ve got my report right in front o
- 37 “I checked for that. She doesn’t have the triangles or any Morgellons fibers indicative of a fizzle.”A fizzle, Amos’s name for an infection that didn’t quite take hold, resulting in red, blue or black fibers growing out of the host’s skin.Margaret stopped
- 38 Obviously, he’d been wrong. This s.h.i.+t was real. If the infection got out, it could literally end the world. Like it or not, he was smack-dab in the middle of it.But it wasn’t all doom and gloom: he got to work with Margaret Montoya. The Margaret Monto
- 39 And then there was Murray’s order to collect some crawlers and seal them up for s.h.i.+pment to Black Manitou. Tim had done that the day of the battle, grabbing a few samples from Petrovsky and sending them on. He knew he should have fought that order, bu
- 40 “Of course. What do you want to know?”“Start with her medical history. Maybe there’s something unusual in her system that wasn’t in the other victims.”Tim called up Walker’s records, scanned through the usual list of military checkups, inoculations, physi
- 41 The Orbital had watched. The Orbital had learned. It knew of the primitive-yet-effective technology the humans had developed to protect themselves from infection. Drawing on the knowledge of a vastly superior technology, the Orbital had prepared a way to
- 42 “The holes could be small,” Tim said. “The crawler spores are tiny. We’re talking microns, here. Gauges might not show pressure loss from something that size.”Clarence nodded. “Correct, which is why if they don’t find a leak that way, they will then go f
- 43 Cooper had warned him that spending too much time belowdecks could lead to seasickness, but so far Steve had felt no ill effects. If anything, the constant rocking motion made him hungry. He chewed mouthfuls of Doritos, which he washed down with swigs of
- 44 Steve didn’t really want to think about how much money he’d wasted if his machine had failed and was lying on the lake bottom, but he closed his eyes and mentally walked through what he knew about the components and the materials used to make them.“Um … e
- 45 But since then, G.o.d had created new vectors.Orin didn’t have to lick people. All he had to do was touch them. He didn’t know how he knew this, he just knew. Touch them, and a few days later, they would be his kind.An even greater ill.u.s.tration of G.o.
- 46 No, no … Steve was just stressing out, imagining things. Bo Pan was Bo Pan. Had to be. It was Steve who had changed. In all his years of work, pursuing whatever development he thought might add to the Platypus’s effectiveness, he’d felt invulnerable. He’d
- 47 This was almost a thousand feet below the surface. Could there be survivors?“A battle,” Steve said, his voice a husky whisper. “Between who?”“The Americans. They shot at each other.”Steve couldn’t think. Why hadn’t he asked more questions?The final pictur
- 48 Just a pull of the trigger, one tiny motion, and his brains would splatter all over the cabin. Steve stayed oh-so-still, lest a s.h.i.+ver or a twitch make Bo Pan’s finger squeeze.“Yes, I understand.”The pressure against his temple went away, leaving the
- 49 Clarence now understood their excitement. He was beginning to feel it himself.“So if you take it soon enough, it is a cure,” he said. “What happens after the twenty-four hours?”Tim shrugged. “The crawlers need about twenty-four hours to form, find your ne
- 50 All Margaret’s energy drained away. She felt hollow. The biosafety suit suddenly seemed so heavy. If she could just get out of it for a little bit, maybe rest her eyes.She heard the click of someone coming onto her channel.“Margo,” Clarence said. “Where a
- 51 Rear fins undulated slowly, pus.h.i.+ng the Platypus toward the crack in the dry deck shelter. Small internal motors activated, pulling the machine’s sides in tighter. As it slid through the crack, it hit something soft — the severed leg that had once bel
- 52 Perry drew in a huge breath, and screamed his final words.“Thank you for saving my life!”The giant bomb exploded. The mushroom cloud rose up far beneath her feet. It wouldn’t reach her. She wouldn’t feel the effects.She was safe: it was only other people
- 53 “Clarence,” Tim said as he poured a gla.s.s, “it’s not my fault other people didn’t get a doctorate.”“No, I suppose it’s not,” Clarence said. “Just like it’s not your fault that you get to live in freedom.”This guy had to have an American flag tattooed so
- 54 Patriotism could drive people to sacrifice themselves. That, too, was d.a.m.n annoying, because it flew in the face of survival of the fittest. Stupid people could be convinced to die for the greater good. The greater good was always someone who would liv
- 55 The legs were similar to the arms, all connecting to a white, hard-sh.e.l.led torso, as did the bulbous helmet. A boxy red backpack housed the oxygen supply and CO2 scrubber, which could give the diver up to forty-eight hours of life support. An ADS rig
- 56 “Roger that, Chief,” Tom said. “Diver turning left.”The image on the screen slewed left again.“Look down,” Clarence said.The diver did. The image of a black shoe appeared.“Just a shoe,” Tom said. “It’s stuck in some kind of brown stuff, looks like sedimen
- 57 “Topside, Diver Two, entering the sub.”The dive master continued to calmly issue orders, sending the remaining UUVs to the Los Angeles and getting rescue divers into the water.The image on Clarence’s screens s.h.i.+fted from static to the entrance hole an
- 58 Murray wasn’t a naval expert, but Porter seemed confident in the measures taken.Blackmon eased back in her chair. “So, sabotage,” she said. “That’s the most likely answer. But if something did get through our lines …”She didn’t finish the thought. She did
- 59 Hydras, on the other hand, reproduced on their own. Like the crawlers, they hijacked stem cells, made those stem cells produce more hydras. As far as Margaret could tell, hydras would provide permanent immunity from the infection — no booster doses needed
- 60 Margaret had tuned the crying boy out, but he suddenly grew louder. The suit comms were on a private channel — the young sailor couldn’t hear Tim’s statement of doom, but perhaps he’d read the look on Clarence’s face.Two options, neither of which promised
- 61 Tim nodded.“Yep, that does it,” he said. He reached out, wiped his hand right to left, clearing the video from his view.“Yes indeedee dodee, that certainly f.u.c.king does it right f.u.c.king there. f.u.c.k you, Mister Triangle, f.u.c.k you right in your
- 62 He flipped it open. It had one number programmed into it. He dialed.On the other end, the phone rang and rang. Clarence was patient. He closed his eyes, almost fell asleep — just like that, almost nodded off — then stood up, bounced in place trying to cha
- 63 Then what? Would they keep reproducing until there were billions? Trillions? Would the hydra population in his body expand until it overwhelmed him, until it started to damage him?She had no way of knowing, other than to just watch Edmund.What were the hy
- 64 “To make what?” Clarence asked. “Maybe that encased man that Walker drew, could that be happening to Austin? We saw a man like that in the Los Angeles’s nose cone, too. We’ve got video of it.”Margaret reached out, started grabbing and poking at the air. S
- 65 She was writing Clark off, and with good reason. His triangles couldn’t be cut out. Tim had taken X-rays, seen the spiked triangle tails wrapped around Clark’s heart, lying against his arteries. Removing the triangles would kill him.Nagy and Austin, howev
- 66 Although all the captives were unconscious, their bodies continued to change. Austin’s metamorphosis had kicked into high gear. Even worse, Clark’s triangles were hatching.Tim had bailed, said he had other things to do. She was done arguing with him. Clar
- 67 She smiled. Only a little, but she couldn’t help it. She hoped the infected still had some degree of communication, at least a shred of their inexplicable telepathy. She wanted them to know she was about to kill Nagy … first him, then all of them.SELF-MED
- 68 Margaret noticed that Clarence was staring at Tim. Not in disbelief, or in surprise or admiration, but in suspicion.“Tim,” he said, “you have a runny nose?”Margaret felt the room grow cold. Clarence’s hand had drifted near the pistol strapped to his left
- 69 Three people from a s.h.i.+p that was already known to be compromised. When Paulius went after them, he’d probably take all twenty SEALs under his command, bring the package back to an isolated s.h.i.+p with a crew of fifty. Just one infected person could
- 70 “That’s the combat alarm,” he said. “What do we do?”A voice bellowed over the speaker system, making them both jump.“General quarters, all hands man your battle stations.”The blaring alarm returned at full volume.The floor suddenly bucked up beneath them,
- 71 She saw Conroy Austin’s severed head, a sleepy look on his young face. Something had torn it from his shoulders. It had come to rest on the b.l.o.o.d.y, ragged neck, temple pressed against a broken chunk of cell. A rain of bleach wet his hair to his scalp
- 72 In front and behind, towering s.h.i.+p hulls rose up like smooth, impenetrable castle walls. Swells lifted her and dropped her.She felt that numbing cold, that clutching snake wrapping around her feet — water pouring in through the tear in her suit, filli
- 73 “Agent Otto is in the other zodiac,” he said. “He’s okay.”She felt a burst of relief, albeit a brief one — she had her hands full trying to save a life.Tim adjusted his grip on the wounded soldier. “He’s still breathing, he’s moving his legs, and I think
- 74 She slid her hospital gown down over her shoulder. As she’d suspected, not that bad of a wound at all. Eight st.i.tches. Could have been so much worse.Could have been and probably was: she’d been exposed. She might test positive in a day or two, possibly
- 75 Margaret gestured to the small trailer around them. “What is this room?”“It’s called a mission module,” Klimas said. “Instead of building everything in as a permanent part of the s.h.i.+p, the Coronado has s.p.a.ce for modules that serve different purpose
- 76 “Steve, you have done your nation a great service, but our work is not over yet.”Steve tried to speak with volume, with intensity, but his throat hurt, felt painfully scratchy — all that came out of his mouth was a cracking whisper, the voice of a boy rat
- 77 If she drowned in her dream, would she ever wake up again?Gloved fingers searched for the clasps, darted back and forth, hunting desperately … but there were no clasps.Sweat rose past her belly b.u.t.ton.“Hey, Margo.”She stopped moving, looked out the cur
- 78 Then, she stared at the flas.h.i.+ng yellow light. Flas.h.i.+ng slower … slower … slower …Green.She sagged sideways onto the bunk.Klimas stepped forward, caught her. “Margaret, you okay?”She nodded, weakly. He helped her sit up straight. “I’m fine. Couldn
- 79 He had a point. Tim had ingested the concoction over twenty-four hours earlier, and he seemed fine. Worst-case scenario, really, was that it might make people a little sick. Best-case scenario: immunity from the horrific infection.Klimas stepped closer. “
- 80 Cheng’s smile faded. “The YBR2874W strain, Doctor Feely. Properly named — Y for yeast, B for chromosome two, R for right arm, 2874 for strain number and W for coding strand.”Tim slapped his hands on the table in an exaggerated bit of outrage. “Oh no you d
- 81 “Temporarily immune,” Margaret said. All eyes turned to her.“Let’s not forget that one dose doesn’t last forever. Tim’s inoculant is good for …” She turned to Tim. “For how long?”His eyes glanced upward in thought. He pursed his lips, tilted his head left
- 82 She blinked. Her words played back in her head. Her face flushed red. Everyone was staring at her. She slowly sat back down.Clarence turned to face Murray’s screen.“Director Longworth, Doctor Montoya is under considerable stress.”Murray nodded. He looked
- 83 Cooper glanced at the Chinese men near the white van. They were edging closer, like they wanted to approach but were waiting for instructions. Bo Pan looked furious.Cooper thought of pointing out that they could have unloaded themselves, and therefore did
- 84 Neutrophils detected contact, reversed their grip, letting go of Bo Pan and clinging to Madha instead. In two days, she would kill her husband by driving the point of a clothes iron into the back of his skull.“Would you like a bag, sir?”Bo Pan shook his h
- 85 Bo Pan’s infection, however, would live on. Live on in the most densely populated nation on the planet.THAT TODDLIN’ TOWNSteve Stanton didn’t know how to handle his hurricane of emotions. Bo Pan would have killed Jeff, Cooper and José, probably with the h
- 86 “Don’t worry,” Jeff said. “My tip is always oversized.”The waitress shook her head, but she had to hold back a laugh. If Steve had said a line like that, he would have been slapped. Not that he could ever actually say something like that in the first plac
- 87 “You win,” she said. She kissed him, slow and warm. Steve’s body seemed to melt. Becky’s hand held the back of his head as her tongue slid into his mouth. He felt himself grow hard instantly, knew that she felt it, too, and she didn’t move away. He heard
- 89 “So it’s not a cure, and we still don’t know if it prevents infection,” Blackmon said. “Can we test it on lab animals? See if it really does inoculate them?”Murray shook his head. “The crawlers only survive in humans, Madam President. We don’t know why. T
- 90 “Let me get this straight,” said D’Shawn Bosh. “You’re saying you can tell if people are infected by how fast Tylenol sells?”Tim nodded. “Basically, yeah. I can even do it from here on the Coronado. Klimas set me up with a laptop that ties into the TSCE.”
- 91 That, or he was drunk. Drunk, and safe, isolated from everything, surrounded by trained killers who thought he was the bee’s knees.Tim was lucky, after all. If that luck held, he could just stay right here, in this very safe place, until Cheng’s grand pla
- 92 But if the crawlers had worked their way through her suit, why hadn’t they worked their way through Tim’s? Why wasn’t he converted?Because he’d ingested that yeast. Her exposure had to have come from Petrovsky’s body. Tim had worked on Petrovsky as well,
- 93 MURDERSteve Stanton sat up and turned on the light. He squinted, blinked. Was it still night? The heavy curtains shut out all traces of the outside. He looked at the alarm clock on the little nightstand next to his hotel bed: 11:52.He squinted, saw a litt
- 95 “She’s on all the big networks,” Cooper said. He tried ESPN, only to find the same thing. “Holy s.h.i.+t, dude — she’s on all the channels.”“She’s a stinky, hate-filled, nasty—”“Hold on a sec,” Cooper said. “This has to be something big.”Jeff propped hims
- 96 His lip curled up, like it was all he could do to not stand up and smash Cooper’s head into the TV. Cooper didn’t know what to say.Blackmon continued to babble, but Cooper wasn’t paying any attention. He used the remote to turn the TV off. “Dude, just tak
- 97 @TwistahSistahBB5I don’t get this hostility — if you want to take their drugs, take them, if I don’t want to, that’s my choice! It’s a Big Pharma trick.@BadAstronomerHey, antivaxers, heard of a thing called “the news”? You know, those fancy moving picture
- 98 “Spit it out, Nancy,” Blackmon said. “I heard your good news, now give me the rest.”Whittaker cleared her throat. “Madam President, while the distribution is going well, there is a growing problem. On multiple websites and in social media, people are broa
- 99 Cheng froze. He looked left and right, saw that everyone was waiting for his answer. He licked his lips.“Um, we’re working on it.”Blackmon slapped the table again. “How long?”Murray was just as much at fault as Cheng for this, but he couldn’t help take a
- 100 “That’s some pretty f.u.c.ked-up s.h.i.+t,” Cooper said.Jeff coughed again, even harder than before. Half bent over, he walked to the bed and flopped down.“f.u.c.k it,” he said. “I gotta sleep. Turn out the lights, bro.”Seeing Jeff on the bed made Cooper’
- 101 It was empty.He turned on the nightstand lamp. He blinked at the sudden light. On the floor below the TV, Jeff’s AC/DC s.h.i.+rt and his jeans: gone.Cooper quietly stood, walked to the closed bathroom door.“Jeff,” he said in a whisper. “There’s some s.h.i
- 102 The message beeped.“You stupid d.i.c.khead! Call me back the second you get this, and tell me where you are.”Cooper hung up, then immediately called again, only to get voice mail for the second time.The bas.e.m.e.nt. That narrowed things down, at least.Co
- 103 Morris looked down at his b.l.o.o.d.y mess of a foot. He pressed it down harder — the woman stopped fighting. She drew in wet, broken hisses of air.The man looked back to Steve, hope blazing in his wide eyes. “Can I kill her? She was always b.i.t.c.hing a