“We’ve seen satellite photos of the aliens’ base camps all over the world,” Jack Diamond told the other heroes at the table, “and they all look exactly the same. The same dimensions, same organization, same shape.” He saw a couple of his cohorts nod. “That’s what makes this next picture is so interesting.”
He clicked a button on the remote control, and the projected picture on the conference room screen changed. The previous image’s perfect rectangle was now marred by a large, irregularly shaped protuberance. There was immediate chatter in the room.
“This is the landing zone in the Nevada desert. Over the past week, we’ve seen this unusual area form and grow. There has been no atmospheric traffic in or out and no particular activity in the area. No obvious reason for such a drastic change. So I went down last night to take a look.”
He pressed the button again, and a new image appeared. “These are night vision photos, digitally enhanced and colored. As you can see, this new area appears to be a hospital.”
Row upon hastily organized row of beds stood out in the grainy photograph. They were filled with the humanoid-looking creatures the heroes had come to know so well over the previous five months. More than a dozen similar photos followed in rapid succession.
“As you can see, a large portion of the enemy camp is now in bed. And as some of you have probably noticed, there are no signs of battle wounds, no missing limbs, or anything of the sort.”
“That's odd,” Bronze Guardian said. “Why would so many of them be in a hospital unless they were wounded?”
“They’re not injured,” Impulse offered. “They’re sick.”
Diamond smiled grimly at her deduction. “That’s what it looks like.” He waited in silence for a moment for that fact to sink in.
“So we may have an alien plague on our hands,” Thunderstrike said. Sometimes it was hard for Diamond to believe that this baby-faced kid was actually a married man in his mid-thirties with almost two decades of experience as a hero. “Any sign that it’s spread beyond the camp?”
“Not yet,” Diamond reassured him. “It’s our good luck that they set up shop in the middle of nowhere.”
“It’s also good luck that we have a world-renowned immunologist in our midst,” Thunderstrike countered, turning to a longtime teammate. “So what do we need, doc? Blood samples?”
“Blood samples would only be helpful I had some healthy ones for comparison,” the man-wolf answered. “If you can talk them into providing some, I'll be happy to see what I can do.”
“Fang’s right,” said Momenta, brushing the auburn hair from her eyes. “We need more information, or we’re never going to pin this one down.”
“It would help if we could tap into some resources beyond what we've got here. Enigma?”
The blonde-haired ex-intelligence officer looked up from his notepad at Impulse. “I know some people in the NSA,” he told her. “I can see what they might know.”
“Do it,” she replied, turning her attention back to Jack Diamond. “And if you have any unusual resources that might help….”
Diamond looked unusually thoughtful. “I think I just might.”
Jack Diamond knocked at the door. It opened almost immediately, as he had hoped it would. “Enigma….”
“Please, call me Alex.” He was obviously still not entirely comfortable using a code name.
“Alex,” he corrected himself. “May I come in?”
“Of course. Have a seat. Can I get you something?”
Diamond looked around at his teammate’s quarters. They were spartan, well organized, and immaculately clean. Not surprising, he thought; the man was in the military for ten years. “No thanks, I ate just before the meeting.”
“All right,” he answered, taking a seat opposite his guest. “What can I do for you?”
“What do you know about all this?”
Alex regarded his guest for a moment before answering. “That’s an interesting question.”
“I hope you’d be interested in an alien disease we may have no way to fight.”
“Oh, I am, certainly. But that’s not what I was talking about. It’s the question itself that I found interesting. ‘What do you know about all this?’ Not, ‘Do you know anything about this?’ or ‘Have you heard anything about this?’ A little presumptuous, don’t you think?”
“Not at all. If anyone here knows anything more than I do on this, it’s got to be you.”
“And why is that?”
“It’s your business to know things that nobody else knows, isn’t it?”
“Well, I do have some small talent for gathering information,” he admitted.
“Yes, and you also have a talent for obfuscation.” Diamond smiled. “And it’s not going to work on me. Tell me what you know.”
Alex thought for a moment before answering. “I’ll make you a deal. Prove to me that you know I know something, and we’ll talk.”
Diamond’s smile turned to a smirk. “Okay, we’ll play it your way. First, you have ten years’ experience in Air Force Intelligence, mostly spent cracking computer codes and translating enemy signals. Second, as you stated before, you have contacts in the intelligence community. And third, you love a good mystery as much as I do, and maybe more. There’s no reason you shouldn’t know something.”
Alex returned Diamond’s smile. “What you’ve given me is speculation and flattery—neither of which is proof. If you really think I’ve got information, you’ve got to know I won’t give it up that cheaply.”
“All right, then, there’s the matter of your behavior at the meeting a few minutes ago.”
“Yes?”
“You were extremely…professional.”
“Well, this is my profession.”
“No, it was more than that. You handled the meeting perfectly. Absolutely perfectly. You took notes, nodded at the appropriate times, even offered to help find some things out. You were concerned without being worried, detached without being distant. You have an exceptional poker face, Alex.”
“Thank you.”
“The problem is, no one else in the room was playing poker.”
The man not yet comfortable with the name Enigma allowed himself a small frown. “In other words, I did it too well. I begin to see the nature of the problem. Part of the adjustment to working with civilians, I guess.”
“It’s not that big a problem, actually. I seriously doubt anyone but me noticed.”
“What about Impulse?”
Diamond snorted dismissively. “Being a telepath doesn’t mean you know what people are thinking all the time. She’s a decent investigator, but she relies too much on her powers and not enough on her instincts.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You do that. Now, I believe you were about to answer some questions for me.”
“Fair enough. I can tell you that what you have deduced so far is true. That is a hospital we see in those pictures. There are something like three hundred and fifty of them in there right now....”
“Three hundred and thirty-eight, if my count is correct.”
“I don't doubt that it is. And no, they're not suffering from battle wounds. They're sick.”
“How sick?”
“It's probably life-threatening for most of them.”
“And what's the danger to us?”
“Minimal.”
Diamond looked his teammate directly in the eye. “What, exactly, do they have?”
“Influenza. The same strain that we all suffered through last last winter.”
He leaned back, exhaled. “So the aliens have contracted a disease that's generally just an inconvenience to us but is deadly to them. Bad break.”
“For them.”
“You know, if this disease had been intentionally introduced into their camp, some people would call that bioterrorism.”
Alex shrugged. “And some people would say the aliens set themselves up for that kind of response when they started dropping asteroids on our major cities.”
“So, an eye for an eye, eh? One weapon of mass destruction deserves another?”
He shrugged again. “One of the aims in war is to attack the enemy in a way they can't counter. We can't stop their mass drivers, they can't stop our viruses. We have a balance.”
“And that justifies biological warfare?”
“Usually, I'd say no. In this war, I'd be willing to make an exception.”
“Why this war?”
“Because this war isn't about power or resources or lines on a map. It's about evolution. If we lose this war, the human species becomes extinct. It's that simple. The choice for us is whether to go gently, or to rage. Until and unless the invaders show that they can coexist with us, we have to fight them with every weapon we have. Including biological warfare.”
The two regarded each other silently for a moment. “I won't say I disagree with your reasoning,” Diamond finally said. Alex nodded in acknowledgment. “From a strictly pragmatic point of view, it's a hell of a plan. Simple, discrete, devastatingly effective. Once all the planning was taken care of, it probably wouldn't take more than three or four people to implement.”
“What makes you think it would take more than one?” His face was utterly calm.
Diamond nodded to himself. The final piece of the puzzle. “I suppose a single operative could pull it off, if it were the right person. Sneaking into an alien encampment to plant a virus would take someone with extensive training in tactics and infiltration. Special Forces training, maybe. They'd need to be smart, able to think on their feet. They'd need nerve, not to mention exceptional talents. Maybe even superhuman powers.”
“And a rudimentary working knowledge of the aliens' language wouldn't hurt, either.”
For the first time in the conversation, Jack Diamond was truly surprised. He thought of a reply, then bit it back. He'd said enough, heard enough.
They sat together in silence for a long moment, then Diamond rose to his feet. Alex followed suit. “Well, I suppose I should get some work done. There's a war on, you know.” He extended his hand.
Alex took it at once and shook it. “Yes, these are trying times for us all. I'll call my friend at the NSA and see what he knows. Something tells me he'll be able to offer all kinds of interesting information.”
“Yeah, let me know what you find out. And thanks for the chat. This has been a most interesting evening of...speculation.”
Alex watched Diamond turn and leave his quarters. He smiled to himself.
“You never asked me to speculate.”
