Birth of an Age Read online

  All around Decker the cries continued and spread as more people from the plaza area in front of the Secretariat came in the revolving doors, each time letting in more of the insects. In his agony from the single insect’s bite and sting, Decker was totally unaware of the additional insects that still clung to his clothing. Then suddenly he felt another fiery sting on his left ankle just above his shoe, and then immediately another on his left thigh, and then another on his right calf near the back of his knee. They were all over him, chewing and thrashing at the fabric of his suit with their teeth and spiny legs, digging their heads and stingers down into his flesh. As each one stung, he grabbed at it and threw it to the floor, but the pain had become too excruciating for him to step on them. As they hit the hard tile floor the insects lay stunned for a few seconds and then reoriented themselves and either flew to another victim or reattached themselves to Decker. Finally Decker fell to the floor, writhing in pain as two more crawled inside the back of his suit coat and began tearing at his shirt. He was in too much pain to continue to fight, but with all the strength he had left he rolled over onto his back, hoping to crush them. It only drove the stingers deeper.

  There was a stampede to get away from the lobby. People were pushing and shoving and climbing over each other. Those who could find an open office ducked in, locking the door behind them to keep others out.

  Lying on his back unable to move, another insect landed on Decker’s face. As it was about to sting, Decker passed out. When he did, the insect strangely seemed to lose interest and flew away. The others on him did the same. The two on his back beneath him released their hold and scratched and wriggled along his back, trying to get out from under him. As entomologists would discover later, the insects wouldn’t attack a victim that had already been driven into unconsciousness by their stings.

  Outside, thousands of the insects flew into the plate glass, trying to reach the people inside. The collision only stunned them and the sidewalk below the window became alive with the wobbly hexapods attempting to regain their bearings and fly away.

  Perhaps the insects’ greatest weakness was their persistence; once they had landed on a victim they would not cease their attack until they had drunk their fill of blood or until the person fell unconscious. This persistence added to the fierceness of their assault, but it also made them easy targets. By the time additional security personnel from all over the building began to reach the lobby, most of the insects inside had already attached themselves to their selected prey and, except for those withdrawing from unconscious victims, few were left to interfere with the security personnel’s efforts. As one group of the security force ensured that no more insects would get in the doors, others attempted to help the victims and quickly found, as Decker had, that the best way to kill the creatures was to pull them from their host, throw them to the hard floor, and then to step on them with their full weight.

  Soon afterward, teams from the UN’s medical facility arrived and began removing the victims. Scores lay unconscious on the floor while others screamed in pain as welts rose where they had been stung. A security guard who had captured two of the insects alive held one in each hand by the backs of their strange trunks as they squirmed and struggled, trying in vain to reach some part of his flesh with their stingers. He had pulled the insects from the face and leg of an elderly woman as they sucked the blood from their nearly unconscious victim. Someone, he was sure, would want to have a look at the peculiar creatures. Standing there though, he began to wonder where he would find a glass container large enough to put them.

  Outside, the rumbling of the insects’ wings grew suddenly but momentarily louder as millions took flight from their victims. Within thirty seconds they were all gone, headed for another part of the city and fresh prey. The sidewalk and street were littered with hundreds of unconscious people.

  * * * * *

  There were few theories among entomologists as to the particular species or even genus of the insect. Whatever it was, it was something no one had ever before reported — a strange mutation without explanation. The insects ranged from two and a half to three inches in length and were approximately three-quarters of an inch across the back, and slightly less than that thick. Their wings were sturdy but transparent with a wingspan of a little more than six inches. They were covered with a thick dark gray exoskeleton over most of the body, giving the appearance of heavy armor. It was this aegis that made crushing the insects so difficult. Over the head of the insect, the exoskeleton was spiny and luminous gold with perhaps a hundred inch-long soft fibers extruding from beneath, which looked remarkably like human hair. The insect’s face bore an eerie resemblance to a hominid, but was somewhat flatter. Its mouth, which, relative to a human face was easily twice as wide, exhibited fearsome-looking fangs that it used to chew through clothing and then bite its victim. The tail of the insect carried a large stinger, used to inject its victim with a still-unidentified poison.[46]

  The insects traveled in immense swarms up to fifteen miles across, and stayed in one place just long enough to feed off conscious victims before moving on. The swarm that had descended on the United Nations Plaza was now moving northeast, but it was just one of hundreds that had appeared suddenly throughout the world. In areas where shelters were constructed of materials less substantial than concrete, steel, and glass, far more people were bitten and stung by the creatures than had been in New York.

  Laboratory dissection revealed one additional feature that added to the entomologists’ confusion about the origin of the insects: They had absolutely no identifiable reproductive organs.

  * * * * *

  Five hours later Decker regained consciousness. In his arm, a needle fed his vein with saline solution to prevent dehydration. He was in the UN medical facility surrounded by other victims, some conscious, others not. Like Decker, those who were conscious wished they weren’t. The shrill cries of agony had yielded to sorrowful moans, not because the victims had obtained some relief from their anguish, but because they were too exhausted to cry out. The UN medical facility wasn’t designed to handle anywhere near this many patients, but the New York hospitals were filled beyond capacity with other victims. Thousands more still lay where they had fallen all over the city.

  All around Decker there was moaning and weeping, but he didn’t care. A few were pleading for termination, but Decker was in too much pain to be distracted by someone else’s problems. Huge welts, six to eight inches in diameter, covered his body in sixteen places from his neck to his ankles. His temperature had risen to 103 degrees as his body fought the poison. Never had he experienced such pain. Decker was whimpering and tears rolled down his cheeks, but he didn’t even know it. The doctors had tried the maximum dosages of a dozen different painkillers, but nothing provided any relief. Every minute was like an eternity. Time had stopped and torment was all he knew.

  Beside his bed, amidst the forest of IV stands with their clear plastic vines and saline-filled fruit, a familiar face looked down upon him, but Decker couldn’t see it. Christopher looked around to be sure there were no doctors or nurses nearby and then reached down and touched Decker on his forehead. As he did, a wave of sweet relief immediately swept over Decker’s body. He was exhausted, but in that instant the pain and fever were entirely gone.

  “How are you, old friend?” Christopher asked with a smile.

  Now Decker wept with relief. “Thank you,” he cried as he reached out to touch Christopher’s arm.

  “I came as soon as I found out,” Christopher told him.

  Decker looked around at the others who still lay there, and then back up at Christopher. Christopher nodded and left Decker. Quickly he moved among the other patients but, unlike he had done with Decker, as he touched each person, Christopher softly whispered, “Sleep,” and they slipped into a quiet peaceful rest, unaware of the gift they had been given.

  Decker struggled to keep his eyes open and watched as Christopher left the room to help other patients. Then he fell
asleep.

  Chapter 10

  Naorimashita

  Two days later

  Decker awoke to find a team of UN doctors examining the places on his body where he had been stung. His welts had disappeared, as had those on all the other patients. The doctors couldn’t understand it. Everywhere else in the world, victims from the first day of the insect attack were still suffering. Analysis of the poison indicated that it could take a week or more for the pain to subside. But here was a single isolated group of patients for whom the norm mysteriously did not hold true. Not only were they no longer suffering; they were entirely recovered, some reporting that they felt better than they had in years.

  Decker sat up. Some of the other patients had already left. “How long have I been here?” he asked the doctor in charge.

  “Two days,” she answered.

  “And the, uh . . .” Decker struggled, not sure exactly what to call the insects that had attacked him.

  “Locusts?” the doctor said, completing Decker’s question. Decker nodded, a little surprised at her choice of terms. “They’re still with us.”

  Decker found his clothes and shoes in a cabinet and started to dress. It was a new suit and he was distracted by the holes made by the insects. He dressed and looked in the mirror. Between the two-day growth of beard and the ruined suit he looked pretty unkempt. He could clean up and change clothes later: Right now he wanted to see Christopher.

  * * * * *

  “I’m so glad you’re all right!” Jackie Hansen said as she ran to hug Decker when he arrived at Christopher’s office at the Italian Mission. “I visited you in the medical facility, but you were in so much anguish, I don’t think you knew I was there.”

  “All I remember is the pain, but I do appreciate that you visited,” Decker said, returning the hug. “Is Christopher in?”

  “I expect him back any minute. You can wait in his office if you like.”

  “Thanks.”

  “By the way,” Jackie added with a grin as she put her little finger in one of the holes left by the locusts, “nice suit.”

  Decker rolled his eyes and started toward Christopher’s door.

  “Secretary Milner is waiting for him as well.”

  “Oh,” Decker responded. It seemed that since returning from the Israeli wilderness, Milner could almost always be found near Christopher.

  When he entered, Milner was at Christopher’s desk on the telephone. Milner looked up at him and seemed to be inspecting him disapprovingly; it wasn’t just the holes in his suit or the two-day growth on his face. There was something more.

  Decker nodded in greeting, not quite sure what caused the strange reaction from Milner, and then walked over to look out Christopher’s window. The street below was nearly deserted. There were fewer than a dozen cars and only a handful of pedestrians darting from door to door. A moment later Christopher walked in.

  “Decker, how are you?” Christopher asked with some excitement in his voice.

  “I feel wonderful,” Decker answered. “Thank you for what you did. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but I didn’t realize you could do that.”

  “I didn’t either,” Christopher replied. “It just seemed like the natural thing to do at the time.”

  Robert Milner got off the phone and was about to join the conversation, but Christopher spoke first. “Welcome back,” he said, looking in Milner’s direction. “I thought you were in Spain.”

  “I was,” Milner responded, “until I heard about what happened at the UN medical facility.”

  “You mean people know what happened?” Decker interrupted.

  “No,” Christopher answered calmly. “Not exactly. They just know that for some unexplained reason the people in the facility had an unusually quick recovery.”

  “Christopher, you cannot be taking this kind of chance!” Milner admonished. “What if someone had seen you?” Milner’s voice was raised, but it was clearly out of concern.

  “When I heard that Decker had been stung, I couldn’t just leave him there,” Christopher insisted.

  “No,” Milner said, frowning and shaking his head as he looked over at Decker. “I guess you couldn’t. But did you have to heal everyone else while you were there? It would be a one thing for doctors to overlook one person who had a miraculous recovery, but a whole facility?”

  “They were in so much pain,” Christopher argued. “I had to do something,”

  “Christopher, people are in pain all over the world. Have you forgotten about the China-India-Pakistan War? Or that there’s a 1200 mile strip of scorched earth across the heart of North and South America? The Pacific Ocean is a cesspool and those who survived the tsunami have lost everything. Hundreds of millions have died and at least that many are starving. The crop harvest all over the world is a fraction of what’s needed . . .” Milner cut his list short, but he could have gone on. “But you know as well as I do,” he concluded, “that this is part of the process. These are the labor pains of the coming age. If you subvert that mechanism of change, you may remove the pain, but you also risk aborting the birth.”

  “Bob, it was only a few people,” Christopher reasoned.

  “There were more than a hundred people in the facility.”

  “But that can’t possibly make any difference in the overall scheme of things.”

  “It might, if anyone saw you.”

  “I was very careful.”

  Milner sighed; he had made his point and didn’t care to argue specifics. “Well,” he said, and then sighed again, “I guess there’s nothing we can do about it now anyway.”

  “It will be okay,” Christopher assured him.

  “But you can’t let this happen again,” Milner insisted. “I know it’s hard when you see the suffering up close, but you cannot let your heart rule your head.”

  “I know, Bob, I know,” Christopher answered sorrowfully. “Thank you for being here to remind me.”

  “And you’re sure no one saw you?”

  “I was very careful.”

  There was a pause, and Decker took the opportunity to ask, “The doctor at the medical facility called the insects ‘locusts.’ Was that just coincidence or do people finally realize that John and Cohen are behind all of this?”

  Robert Milner pulled a copy of The New York Times from his briefcase. Nearly the entire front section was filled with articles about the locusts — where they had attacked, estimates of how many people had been stung, recommended measures to seal homes and other buildings to keep the locusts out — and an international poll showing that 86 percent of those responding said they thought John and Cohen were responsible. Milner pointed at an article titled “Search for ‘Prophets’ Continues in Israel.”

  “They won’t find them, of course,” Milner said.

  Decker sat down and quickly scanned one of the articles. The swarms of locusts had struck throughout the Northern Hemisphere and the tropics. Apparently they didn’t like the cold. Many swarms were so large that they were easily tracked by satellite and radar, enabling the World Meteorological Organization to provide some advance warning to inhabitants when a major swarm was approaching. In many parts of the world, there was no need for advance warning. Even if they knew when a swarm was coming, they had no modern structures in which to hide. So it was that across much of the world the population was easy and repeated prey, and their blood was a constant source of nutrition to the ravenous arthropods. Even in modern cities, it was never really safe to be outside because smaller swarms and stragglers became separated and their movements were impossible to track and predict. So far the use of UN-approved pesticides had proven entirely unsuccessful on the insects.

  In addition to the agonizing pain, the locusts’ poison also caused the victims’ kidneys and liver to go into overdrive, and though this did little to eliminate the poison, it rendered painkillers of no benefit. Ironically, it had the same effect on the UN-approved thanatotopic (that is, death-inducing) drugs, and for an as-yet-unknown r
eason, even sodium potassium ATPase inhibitors (formerly used in executions) were ineffective. So it was that, though many victims would have gladly chosen life completion rather than enduring the pain, none of the drugs approved by the World Health Organization for completion assistance was of any use to them.[47]

  “I have a meeting in Barcelona in four and a half hours,” Milner said, as he closed up his briefcase. “I need to be on the next supersonic out of Kennedy.”

  Decker looked up from the paper. “Be careful getting to your car.”

  “My driver is picking me up out front. It’s relatively safe as long as you’re not out for more than a few minutes. Besides, they tell me you can hear the locusts coming.”

  “Well, yes,” Decker said from experience, “if they’re in a swarm, I suppose.”

  “It will only take me a few seconds to reach the car. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  “Okay,” Decker said. “But believe me, you do not want to get stung by one of those things!”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Milner said.

  Decker went back to the article while Christopher walked out with Milner. When he returned, Decker offered, “Well, I understand why you did it. And I appreciate it.”

  “He just wants what’s best,” Christopher responded. “He’s looking at the big picture.”

  “Sure, but you can’t just stand by if you can stop someone’s suffering.”

  Christopher shrugged. There was nothing more to say on the matter. “What are your plans?” he asked.

  “I’d like to go home and get cleaned up, but I’m not too excited about going back outside. It was bad enough running here from across the street,” he said, referring to his route from the UN to the Italian Mission. “I’m not so sure about going three blocks to the Hermitage.” Decker’s apartment in the Hermitage was conveniently close to the UN, but it meant he had no need for a car, and there were few cab drivers willing to risk going out with the locusts. If Decker wanted to get home, it would have to be on foot.