Broadcast News Association
Washington, DC
11:35PM
Porter Nash rolled his bike into the BNA bullpen and approached his desk quickly. A subtle build in activity brewed as reports came that the White House was in lock down. Pulling on the hand brake, he stopped at his desk and jumped off the bike seat. With one arm's sweep, he cleared his desk, sending crumbled balls of notes to tumble to the floor.
He brandished the flash drive from his pocket, as if it were the jewel of the Nile and inserted it into the USB port of his desktop computer. Ambitious for the story, he navigated his Desktop to see the contents of the folder, but to his shock the folder was empty.
What the hell? There's nothing on it?
Then as he continued to navigate through the folder, reopening and closing it to ensure it was in fact empty, his PC froze. The cursor stopped and ignored all commands from the mouse.
Damnit!
Porter smacked his computer upside the monitor and fell back in his chair in defeat. It was a common feeling in investigative journalism, but no story of his career had so many dead ends.
As he reflected on the mystery of the flash drive he leaned forward and restarted his computer. The computer ran through its loading process as it rebooted. As the computer beeped its logon, Porter pounded his fist on his desk and racked his brain for any open possibilities in the case.
It doesn't make any sense!
Then the computer connected to BNA's network. Porter turned his focus to the ceiling tiles and failed to notice the quick upload to the network that occurred in the corner of his screen.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
In the dark quarters of a subterranean tunnel a row of computer monitors stood. Distant activity sounded down the echoing archways of the deserted space, but it did not faze the operator of the computer, as he stared through his dark rimmed glasses at a blinking light on the opened window displayed on his monitor. He jumped alive at the sign and brought his phone to his ear, immediately.
After two short rings Harak Khan's voice answered on the other end.
"Yes..."
"Our worm has accessed BNA's network and is awaiting our command to activate," the computer operator mentioned.
"Good..." Khan's voice rolled in sadistic tones. "Go ahead and activate... let's throw this city into a panic."
"Understood... activating the worm now." The phone clicked, the computer operator began typing the command. The command window showed his user name.
Rogue7
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Porter spun in his chair, one part perplexed, and two parts frustrated with the seemingly pointless meet with the shadowy figure.
I put my life at stake for this story and what do I get? Nothing... not a damn thing!
At that moment, the TV monitors flashed and a message appeared on the screen. There was an immediate commotion in the production room of the news set next door. BNA employees quickly gathered before the screen, reading the message.
We interrupt this program to bring you Breaking News.
The message remained on the screen for a full minute, allowing the staff and the American public to gather around their television sets. The anchors on set maintained frozen smiles, confused as to why their image was not coming through the feed. The producers on duty had no answer for them and began shouting in the control room at the staff.
"What the hell? My computer froze again!" Porter heard a random voice announce.
"Mine did too!" Over the increased commotion shouted one strong voice.
Porter lifted his eyes to Lukas Zucker's office, overlooking the bullpen. His silhouette looked down on the office, obviously alerted to the program interruption.
"What the hell is going on?!" Rachel Norton walked through the bullpen toward the control room. Porter's eyes followed Rachel as she approached the window and saw a frenzy of clamorous activity behind the glass. The producer on duty shrugged his shoulders and ran a stressed hand through his hair, while the staff behind him inspected every switch and button at the control panel.
Porter continued to spin in his chair and saw that at every angle the studio was in hysteria.
What is going on around here?
And then his eyes fell to something stuck in his CPU. Jutting out of the USB port was the flash drive, given to him by an unknown man, one who carried an eerie feeling with him. Porter's mouth dropped as he began to understand what was happening.
We've just been hacked...It's a hostile take-over.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The PEOC continued its pandemonium as more possible leads surfaced, no matter how desperate they were. Fernandez reviewed the latest reports from regional medical centers.
"There doesn't appear to be any cases yet at any local hospitals..." she reported over the crowd.
"Good!" the President called back. "Check on those reports every half an hour."
Nervous eyes darted across the room, as the individuals in the PEOC wondered if the bacteria had gotten in and if so who was its host. They eyed each other with an uneasy suspicion.
"Marty!" the President called.
"Yes, Mr. President?"
"Get my wife on the phone please," the President directed.
"Yes sir!" The President watched as calls were placed from end to end of the Conference Table. His eyes continued to roam the bunker, reminding himself of the many marching orders given.
NSA is text mining all recent phone calls in the city for any mention of sickness or terrorism, FBI is preparing their emergency Hazmat teams, Military is on stand-by and Sparta is running point in the field...
His thoughts were interrupted by the extended hand of Jacobs, holding a phone for him. As soon as he brought it to his ear, his wife started talking.
"Another stupid lockdown... Don't they know people work around here?" The President smiled at the sound of his wife's voice. She always played coy, cutting the never-ending tension that came with his office.
"We are government employees – no one thinks we work around here..." His wife offered a warm laughter that brought rejuvenation to his spirit. "How are you holding up, Jeanne?"
"I'm doing fine. How are you? Is this a big deal?" she asked, knowing full well that her husband was in the bunker and that the lockdown was coded black.
"No, everyone is fine..."
"Yeah, I know what that means..." the First Lady responded with an accusatory cadence in her voice. The President did not play back with his wife. Rather, he pivoted, as well as any good politician could.
"What are you doing? Your Sudoku puzzles?" he asked.
"No! I left my book in the residence and they won't let me go get it. So, I've been catching up with your Vice President. He's been moved to the Chief of Staff's office, so now it's just me and the staffers watching television. If it was my choice, we'd be watching Days of our Lives, but they insist on watching BNA news... why do we always have to watch the news here?"
"We make the news, my dear..." he reminded his wife.
"I thought we didn't care what people said about us... I'm instituting a new policy in my house and it is that the only thing we can have on during the day is The Price Is Right and Judge Judy," she quipped, playing also to the audience around her, listening to her speak to her husband.
"We're not that old!" The President chuckled back, but was then nudged by Jacobs, pointing him to the BNA newsfeed on the high monitor.
"Honey, I have to get going, we have a lot of work to do..." He hurried the conversation to its end.
"Okay...I love you." She heard the tempo of his talk and quickened her goodbye.
"Love you too, honey. Bye!"
The President hung up the phone and squinted towards the monitor. The loving husband had been replaced by the leader of the free world.
"Turn that up!" the President shouted over the room, silencing the frenzy. Hardy complied and increased the volume on monitor #4. There was no sound, giving an eerie quiet to the scene. Only simple text marked the screen, 'We interrupt this program to bring you Breaking News'.
Then it changed.
My fellow Americans... - Franklin D. Roosevelt
After the opening quote, a distorted voice read the text aloud from the screen. The voice was a low, deep manipulation, carrying with it an ominous tone.
Your government has kept you in the dark and lied to you over and over again. They are doing it right now.
The joint task force gazed on the bunker's wall. After reading the last line of text, Marty Jacobs slammed the notebook in his hand down on the table.
"They're exposing it! Damnit! They knew we would keep it under wraps!" Jacobs yelled irate.
How do we know this?
The text faded, leaving merely a black screen behind. Then the surveillance footage from the NIH populated the television screen, showing Mohammad Azir breaking into to the laboratory.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Catherine and Tobias watched the surveillance footage in horror as the scene played out before them.
The distorted voice spoke over the surveillance feed as it played the murder of Dr. Woslowski and the intruder stealing the contagion from the lab.
A deadly bacterium from the NIH was stolen and transported to Washington, DC by terrorists who call themselves the Skeptics.
Catherine shuttered at the sight of the footage of the NIH, reliving the horror of the day prior.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Rachel Norton looked on the feed amid a crowd gathered in the BNA bullpen. An intern could be heard crying from the sight of watching a man fall dead.
"That was yesterday!" one of her researchers announced, referencing to the time stamp in the corner of the surveillance feed. The feed cut, and the screen returned to black. More words came over the video.
Two targets in the DC metro area, including the White House, have already been attacked today.
The staff around her gasped in shock at the announcement. The crowd grew from confused to panicked.
"Somebody get Frank, I want to know what's going on in the White House right now!" Rachel ordered, needing word from BNA's White House correspondent before believing it.
Your government also knows that two more targets will be hit in DC today.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The quarantined in the Oval Office stared straight at the news, silent and terrified –unaware until that moment that they were at ground-zero. The First Lady immediately flashed a heavy disdain, knowing that her husband had known about this and willingly withheld it from her.
But there has been no mention to the American public that this deadly plague is spreading throughout the city.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Mac and Cusick stared up at the high monitor on the computer bank, as it ran the text populating BNA's newsfeed.
"Is there a way to hack into BNA and stop this?" Cusick asked.
"No, this had to be an inside job, someone on the inside had to connect into the network. My gut is telling me it was some kind of worm.," Mac observed aloud.
Are you tired of living in the dark?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The employees of BNA fell silent at the proposed question on the screen.
We know that the cure is truth and our government plagues us with lies. We are the Collective. Are you?
The feed faded, and the news footage returned to perplexed anchors at the news desk in BNA's studio.
"We are sorry for that... it appears that we are experiencing some technical difficulties..." But they weren't as Porter Nash looked around the BNA studios everything had immediately returned to normal. It was as if nothing had happened. The control room operated effectively and the computers became responsive again. Porter looked around his office and then dropped his eyes to the flash drive sticking out of his computer. He yanked it out immediately.
"Holy God! What just happened?"
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Back in the bunker, everyone was distraught. People yelled over the phone and the President pounded his fist on the table, demanding answers.
"What the hell was that?! They just hijacked the news?!" the President shouted.
"They want the city in a panic," Jacobs offered, still shocked by the video.
"We have to close the city down immediately... This is going to incite chaos!" Janet Powers aggressed.
"Yes, you're right. Send in the National Guard. We must control the situ—" the President's words were overcome by an itch that had lay root in his esophagus.
He nodded the affirmative to Powers, but remained huddled over himself and brought a hand up to his throat to everyone's concern.
The itch gave way to a lump that rose up into his throat, he could not swallow it down. He tried to gently clear his throat but to no avail. He only agitated it more.
And then an unmistakable sound came over the bunker, causing everyone to stop their work and look up at the President.
A sound that was as deafening as an explosion on this day.
A sound that came from the President himself in the most secure place in the country.
It was the sound of a hacking cough.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That's the last chapter of part 2. Hope you enjoyed it. Tell me in the comments how you are liking it so far!
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