The Kepler Code

By Paul McKay

After global bee and butterfly populations crash, famines and pandemics divide the world into three rival political and military blocs. Each seek to create deadly viral missiles. Confronted by the malevolent Bounty Inc., a Nobel Prize scientist and a beautiful Brazilian biologist join a radical green underground headed by the mysterious "Jaeger" to prevent this, and devise an antidote which can save both humanity and countless besieged species. The action moves from California to the Canadian Arctic, before a final clash in exotic Brazil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Sep 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9780981338040

Paul McKay

The Rev. Paul McKay is an ordained United Methodist Church deacon who served as a second-career hospital and hospice chaplain in North Texas. In a journalism career spanning 32 years, Rev. McKay was an award-winning, general-assignments reporter for newspapers including The Houston Chronicle. He was also an associate editor of the now-defunct The United Methodist Reporter. Currently living in Belize, he blogs at www.jitterbuggingforjesus.com

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PROLOGUE

BLACK TIME 9, QUARTER 3

Erik Salming's nordic blue eyes swept in an impatient arc from the indigo-hued screen cradled in his palms to the soundless stealth jet flying escort outside his plexiglass portal. In the mid-distance, backlit by a crimson sunset, a string of cruise ships formed an elegant ivory necklace just off San Francisco’s protective harbour. Below, grey billows roiled and the lights of the city, laid out like the printed circuits of a long-obsolete computer motherboard, glittered through shreds in the clouds. ¹

Alcatraz Island loomed below like a medieval fortress. Its landing pad, marked by a neon-blue H, was partially eclipsed by wreaths of mist. But belying the hospital visage, the menacing barrels of Allied anti-aircraft laser cannons spiked upward through the fog. Only a few knew they now guarded not convicts, but Salming’s secret immunology labs – and hundreds of Bounty Inc. marshals confirmed to be virus carriers.

His single-passenger drone banked steeply, locking in to auto-pilot coordinates set by Allied Command, as images of his old Atlanta Centre for Disease Control labs flashed in his memory. His team had almost won a Nobel Prize after predicting global bee and butterfly populations would crash, just before the Black Time famines began. But the military had ordered his CDC research retracted, then classified. His consolation prize was the directorship of an elite research laboratory, financed by a network of obscure medical foundations with equally obscure donors and directors.

Dr. Salming glanced back to his hand-held tablet until retina refraction, thumb print, and body chemical scans re-verified his identity. A Top Secret icon appeared, and the screen glowed again with columns showing de-encrypted daily global pandemic reports. The toll was grimly relentless.

Like a runaway train, fatalities for both humans and many wild species were gathering speed and velocity. The biological barriers which had segregated and protected each for two million years were decimated. Fast mutating viruses were jumping from gorillas, birds, marine mammals, livestock and rodents to humans. And in reverse.

Salming's mission was to find out how, then seek new viral firewalls. In a few hours, the molecular biologist would join a quarantined, high-security conclave to track which Allied enemy – Islamica or Asiatica – had unleashed deadly viral accelerants using the most innocent, intimate and unsuspected pathway: America’s beloved household pets.

Above Idaho and Montana, his micro-drone would pass through the plumes of a dozen Bounty Inc. crematoria, fed by convoys of refrigerated freight trains and tractor-trailers issued rare diesel rations. Under military sub-contract, they would burn 24/7 until countless human cadavers, every pet on the continent, and vast tonnages of suspect meats, poultry, and farmed seafood were incinerated. Identical edicts were also being executed in western Europe, Australia, and Salming’s destination: Annexed Athabasca, where the last heavy crude, rare metals and potash in North America were extracted.

Bio-War One was now underway.

1. HYMN OF HOPE

CHAPTER ONE

Erik Salmings’ psyche was reeling.

The final long arc of his drone flight had first taken him over vast farms anchored on the depleted prairie grasslands of what was formerly Alberta, then the desolate, Texas-sized oilsands excavation region. Both were bounded by military fences and guard towers to keep potential saboteurs, drugs and black market meat out – and conscripted labourers in. Aside from 5-story power shovels digging greasy black bitumen, or giant tractors continuously applying potash fertilizer to infinite acres of soybeans, there was little sign of humans. Cattle herds had vanished, just as the bison had a century earlier.

Then he found himself in a scene straight out of an Ansel Adams landscape portrait. After landing and passing through military security and a cobalt-beam decontamination chamber, an electric tram whisked him and a handful of passengers to a stunning, remote wilderness resort and computer server farm. The power-intensive complex ran solely on Nahanni River hydro turbines humming below a heavily fortified, missile-hardened powerhouse. They also supplied a nearby mine which produced the Allies only secure source of heavy rare metals crucial for guided missiles.

Set against a backdrop of vaulting mountains flanking the emerald green Nahanni, the grandeur took Salming’s breath away. A sudden memory of his honeymoon with Larissa an eternity earlier stabbed his heart. Her field work as a migratory bird biologist in northern Sweden had exposed her to a new, lethal avian virus. Cruelly, her beautiful body had been quarantined and incinerated before he could say a final goodbye. He had not touched another since.

Doctor Salming.

One white, latex-gloved hand was already gripping the handle of his data-base case, and another was on his luggage. They belonged to an apparent Marine, with a smile as professionally crisp as the creases of his pressed uniform. But for the laser gun in a shoulder holster behind his jacket lapel, the African-American could have been a 20th century hotel porter.

I am Adkins, your assigned escort. Please follow me to your final security and bio-scan station. Once cleared, you will be given the agenda and attendee list. I am here to make sure your stay is productive and pleasant.

Are you with Allied Command?

No – Bounty Inc. Military and Intelligence Division.

"Then there’s some mistake. I work on public health and pandemic research relating to viral vectors, which has little if anything to do with….

There’s no mistake, Doctor. For reasons that will be explained, the diverse research work of all the invited experts may prove to have high military intelligence value to Allied Command. You would not be here otherwise. Bounty Inc. is its prime sub-contractor, and also operates this quarantined conference site. That is all I can impart, for now. Except that you will find the meals here exceptional.

Adkins was right. For dinner that night, Salming had a choice of wild arctic char or caribou meat, organic vegetables with wine bottled decades earlier, and an exotic fruit from Brazil. It was the kind of meal he had not tasted in years, and most of the planet’s population never would. Yet the sumptuous meal – and a copy of the conference agenda – brought anything but a peaceful night’s sleep.

**************

I am not here to bullshit or babysit you, Colonel Eugene Jennings curtly told two dozen delegates from the conference podium the next morning. "There is zero time to waste. The stakes are too high. Here’s why:

Serial pandemics have cut the Northern American population from 410 million to 164 million since the first Black Time famines. We project losing another 100 million in the next four Quarters, due to multiple viral assaults launched by unknown enemies. Most of the key Allied services in Greater America, Europe and Australia – energy, electricity, food, medicines, telecom, policing, sanitation – have been crippled.

Only our partner, Bounty Inc., has prevented a total crash in public morale, and averted even deadlier disease vectors with efficient pet, domestic animal and human cadaver retrieval. It has been assigned authority to execute Operation Argon, and detain or eliminate any person or persons which obstruct or fail to comply with that mission.

This includes each one of you. Operation Argon will remain in place until you pinpoint the source and pathways of these serial viral assaults, and how to immunize against them. If you do not, the Allied Territories will be too weak to resist outside attack. What remains of civilization will vanish.

Now, please turn to your detailed briefing binders. Let’s start with the recent science on viral pathways between household pets and humans."

Seven hours later, the initial session finished with no apparent progress – and a caustic reminder from Jennings that another half million would die with each day of failure. As the delegates filed out for dinner, his aide Adkins handed each an insertable de-encryption key, with instructions to scan the daily transcripts and references now waiting on their room computers before re-convening after dinner.

**********

Late into the night, Salming was still scanning updated pandemic stats, searching for patterns among thousands of viral signatures, when the prompt "Switch to hologram mode flashed across his screen. Irritated, he toggled the display key, only to hear Kepler Code Alert. Expect instructions." in Swedish. Seconds later, his computer crashed, the power in his room was cut off, and his door sealed shut with an uncompromising click. He checked his room phone, data-base case, and palm computer. All were lifeless.

Adkins here, came a clipped voice on the intercom. We have a security breach. Any attempt to communicate with anyone, use any devices, or leave your room will be considered an act of treason. Act only on personal instructions from Colonel Jennings.

Several hours later, Salming woke from a fitful sleep to hear someone outside punch the code to his door-lock. Jennings stepped in briskly, followed by Adkins carrying a tray of coffee and fragrant croissants. Both carried conspicuously unconcealed weapons.

Apologies for the lock-down. This won’t be an inquisition, Jennings began. We just need to know some facts. But first – have some coffee while it’s still hot.

There’s not much I can tell you… Salming began.

We will ascertain that, cut in Adkins. That earned a sharp glance from Jennings, and a gesture for Salming to begin his breakfast.

Concisely, please, Jennings suggested.

My room screen prompted me to switch to hologram mode. I did. Then I got an unintelligible message in Swedish, then all systems went dead. That’s it.

And the message was?

Kepler Code Alert. Expect instructions.

In the same typescript you were using?

No. It was spoken. The voice was digitally generated. There was no trace of any Swedish accent I know. No tonality.

Anything else? Think carefully.

Everything went dead seconds later. Phone, computers, lights. The door locked. Then Adkins’s warning came on the intercom.

Jennings nodded to Adkins.

When, where and with who did you last speak Swedish, Dr. Salming?

Most likely at the old Centre for Disease Control, before the Black Times began. When our team was nominated for the Nobel Prize. I was interviewed by adjudicators from Sweden. No travel there has been possible since.

Adkins tapped his tablet computer, apparently checking Salming’s decades-old travel records, and his term at Atlanta’s CDC.

"That is plausible. Next question: what does ‘Kepler Code’ mean, and why would someone send you that message in Swedish?

I have no idea about either, Salming said irritably. The only Kepler I know of was a 17th century German astronomer who proved the earth orbited the sun before Galileo. I studied him as an undergraduate. Perhaps it was a cyber joke. Or a message garbled in transit…

It was neither, Jennings snapped. "Your two dozen colleagues here got the identical message – in their native languages. They were not sent by Allied Command, or Bounty Inc. That means this server farm, and our data, has been hacked from outside. Or from an inside spy. So no one will leave here until I know what this Kepler Code means, and who the fuck is pissing on my patch of grass."

Adkins – get every ass in IT tracking every line of code that came through our server farm in the last 24 hours. And have Dan Donnelly from the Pandemic Research Foundation come here. I think it’s time Erik met his biggest benefactor.

*****

Salming’s formerly invisible patron arrived with an amiable Texas twang, a trowel-edge smile, grey diamonds for eyes, and a welcoming hand so icy it sent a shiver into the scientists’ arm socket. Jennings introduced Dan Donnelly as his West Point room-mate from decades past, who had gone ‘off the reservation’ to earn an advanced degree in engineering physics at M.I.T. , then become a philanthropist after selling satellite signal encoding patents. Donnelly had no expertise in immunology. But Salming wasn’t inclined to pursue incongruous details – or question this crucial source of funding for his own research foundation. His annual budget requests had always been approved.

Donnelly, however, did have access to Allied intelligence estimates for pandemic outbreaks in Islamica and Asiatica. The scale of human losses there was reportedly even more horrific – particularly in territories like Malaysia, Pakistan, Nigeria, India, China and Vietnam. And the viral vectors appeared similar: pets, domestic chickens, pork, beef and farmed fish.

I don’t trust that data, growled Jennings. I’d bet either Jakarta or Beijing are falsifying losses to mask their own covert viral campaigns.

Or one of them unleashed the viruses, but they proved so virulent they jumped species and continents before they could create defensive firewalls, Donnelly offered. Or Beijing or Jakarta might have done an attrition calculus, then bet that their net population losses would be far less than ours.

"Are you saying this was deliberately set in motion? asked an incredulous Salming. That means some lab would have had to extract, isolate and replicate the viruses, then bottle them for mass dispersal. That goes against every virology protocol, and every ethical standard of science. I can’t believe my colleagues would consent to any request …

We cannot afford such fatal naivety, Erik, snapped Donnelly. Brilliance and moral purity are not synonyms. Werner von Braun, Oppenheimer and Sakharov established that. Many such minds can be conscripted by religion, ideology, patriotism, fear, ambition and just plain greed. Isms are more potent than ethics. That is a fact of life.

After a subdued silence, he continued.

We are at war – even though the identity of our enemy is as yet unverified. It is already the worst in human history. Assuming we isolate the worst strains and devise inoculants soon, our modelling predicts some 600 million total Allied deaths by Q4. He paused, and cast a glance toward Donnelly. That should be incentive enough. These are all innocent lives. And I believe one of the first casualties may have been your wife Larissa.

An electric surge of surprise and anger crackled from Salming’s brain to his heart. So Donnelly, Jennings or Adkins – or all three – had traced his personal life. And they were ready to exploit even a tragedy to achieve results.

I am afraid the ends do justify the means, said Donnelly softly. "It brings no pleasure to bring her death into the equation. Perhaps this was unnecessary. But millions more will lose their Larissa’s each week that we fail to crack these viral codes. We must have the best, and the best motivated, minds applied to this mission."

Salming nodded sombrely. Their most coveted conscript was now fully committed. Tension eased from the room.

Your security clearance will be upgraded, Donnelly resumed briskly. I want you to direct all discussions at this conference, approve related research parameters, assign tasks, enlist anyone required, and interpret results. You will be allowed to meet anyone, anywhere, any time – as long as we are briefed in detail immediately. Money will be no object. Adkins will arrange funding, travel permits, and computer access as required.

Are we agreed? Everyone nodded. "Then we will re-convene the conference with all the invited experts in one hour. Erik, you will have time to shower. A lovely lunch will be delivered here.

It goes without saying, Jennings added. We must be apprised instantly if there is another ‘Kepler Code’ contact attempted. Adkins, I want a report from I.T. in 45 minutes. Donnelly – let’s talk over lunch.

*****

Is Salming with us? Jennings asked Donnelly over a room-service lunch of wild whitefish, fiddleheads and vintage white wine.

There’s no reason to doubt it. All his dossiers are clean. No radical past. No trips to China or Islamica garrisons. No known links to political or military entities there. No nasty habits that could leverage blackmail or subversion.

No sexual deviations?

Not unless celibacy qualifies. His colleagues say he hasn’t even had a date since his wife died. There are no traces of him trolling porn sites, or showing up on Atlanta strip joint or gay bar cameras. Guess he sleeps like a nun.

What about drugs? Gambling? Debts?

Nothing. And we’ve looked hard.

"Nobody’s that straight," Jennings mused, then chewed in perplexed silence, while Donnelly sipped wine and scrolled through his tablet computer.

What about the Nobel Prize business? Would he betray us because we took his research out of circulation and that vetoed winning?

Hard to say. But I doubt it. If anything, his colleagues hold Salming in even higher esteem because he was a Nobel nominee, then got cheated at the eleventh hour. So he has the professional stature, and research funding the rest envy. I think the bigger loss was his wife.

Anything suspicious there?

Not that we found. She was Danish. A leading biologist, banding endangered baby birds in Lapland bogs before they could fly. Taking blood samples for genetic mapping. Weighing eggs. She was close enough to pick up an avian virus that could have migrated from anywhere between Mozambique and Mongolia. She died on the eve of Black Time famines.

Long painful death?

No. Mercifully quick. She was gone within days. Salming was at a conference in Rome. Only got home for the funeral.

Did she infect others?

Apparently not. She was working out of an isolated field research camp in Lapland, and refused being sent to a Stockholm hospital. At her request, some northern Swedish steel mill furnace cremated her.

Jennings nodded appreciatively.

"Brave girl. I could use a division with guts like that. He paused. So let’s not worry about Salming. We need the equivalent of a Manhattan Project to win this war, and he’s the only Oppenheimer in sight. Where we need to focus is the origin and pathways of these viral assaults. And the hackers playing this ‘Kepler Code’ game."

When they arrived at the conference centre they were pleased and surprised to see Salming at the podium sketching out lines of research. The hand-picked experts were nodding assent.

I’ve been advised that we have priority access to the most powerful server system on the continent. So computing time or capacity will not be an issue. Nor is funding, Salming said to murmurs of approval. But this is not an excuse to pursue pet theories, or exotic avenues of research. If there is debate, we will proceed by consensus. If there is a stalemate, I will choose the course of research. Anyone object?

In the short silence that followed, Adkins flashed a discreet smile of approval. They had picked a natural, if reluctant, leader. Jennings nodded in his direction, and the three convened outside the hall.

What’s the report from I.T.? Jennings barked to Adkins.

No exposed hacker signatures in the North American or European servers. We are now scanning ANZAC systems at Canberra Garrison. The hackers may have routed through the satellites of officially neutral Brazil, since we and even Allied enemies keep cyber traffic going through there for diplomatic reasons.

You are chasing your tail, Adkins. They were smart enough to get the message to every delegate here translated into their native language. That means they have the delegate list, their personal histories, who knows what the fuck else. Probably what they ordered for dinner… There’s a spy or spies inside my conference. Find them!

Adkins bowed his head slightly, saluted and left.

I have an update from Langley, said Donnelly softly. Allied Command has ordered Operation Argon accelerated. All remaining urban pets and domestic livestock are to be eliminated by Q2. And the compromised Bounty Inc. marshals at Alcatraz and similar sites are to be disposed of.

Jennings nodded.

I expected that. The volume and velocity of the viral incursions is not abating. We will have escalating mass riots and public suicides if we don’t staunch the public death rate. Have hospitals release more public bulletins confirming that pets are the prime pathway for viruses that are killing American children. And have Bounty Inc. announce a reward for turning in five household pet pelts. A months’ guaranteed supply of meat and milk should do it.

Done, said Donnelly.

The infected marshals at Alcatraz, Long Island and Puerto Rico must not get any hint their pending vacation cruises will be fatal. That would provoke open, armed revolts and firefights everywhere. So don’t spare the booze, whores, drugs. Get biopsies before their corpses are disposed of. And make sure Salming stays in the dark about their final fate.

*******

Scenes of mass, quiet carnage followed.

On the luxuriously appointed Bounty Inc. cruise ships, the infected, all-male marshals had a final blood test and biopsy before one last debauched night. No hangovers followed. Instead, silent, odourless, tasteless argon gas was piped into their sealed cabins as they slept. It took mere minutes for the argon molecules to displace nitrogen in their blood, and asphyxiation to arrive. At sunrise, their bodies disappeared into roiling red waters where sharks patrolled for breakfast banquets of limbs and torsos.

The cycle was repeated each five days. The cruise ship holidays were promoted within Bounty Inc. as a reward for those who put themselves in harm’s way, and worked at the frontlines of viral ‘sanitation’ services. Life-long health care, and a luxurious if endless exile on a quarantined tropical island, were the promised quid pro quo for being conscripted into ‘culling squads’ – though the cruise ships never lifted their anchors for any destination.

The standard Operation Argon techniques were far less discreet, because of the sheer mass of human and animal bodies to be gassed and disposed of. They borrowed from tactics first developed by Nazi Germany, and then outbreaks of avian, swine flu and ‘mad cow’ diseases in the late 20th Century. Mass cullings of cattle, pigs and chickens had been ordered to insulate healthier animals, protect global trade markets, and prevent virus strains from infecting humans. But each year the cullings proved more and more futile, as increasingly virulent strains leapt across national borders, continents, and ancient biological barriers between animals and humans.

The fatal dynamic intensified as the global human population grew past 7 billion, and sudden declines in world bee and pollinator populations brought on Black Time famines. Food production plunged. Starvation soared. The death rate reached millions per day. Countless more had their immune systems compromised by malnutrition. Hoarding took hold. In the poorest countries, a mere yam or cup of rice could provoke murder. In the richest countries, immigration was outlawed. Strict bans on imported food were enforced. Travel was forbidden except for those on military or diplomatic missions.

For a decade, these isolating measures – and the best practices of modern medicine – kept North America, Europe, Australia and Japan from succumbing to the same scale of losses suffered in Asia and Africa. But as the deaths mounted there, desperate populations acquiesced to autocratic and fascist governments, or religious fundamentalism, because both promised certain deliverance from the unfolding calamities.