Having never lost consciousness, Weston knew he was lucky to be alive, but even luckier to not have sustained any broken bones. He struggled to his hands and knees, acutely aware that the wave of hair-covered flesh roaring down the mountain was almost upon him. He stood on wobbly legs and held the tree for support. It was shaking.

Weston looked up and found the same deep, red rimmed eyes staring back at him. The creature, suspended upside down on the tree, reached out and backhanded Weston's head. He fell to the ground, stunned and despairing. They had him. Escape was impossible.

He began weeping as the creature climbed down the tree with an agility he'd witnessed all week. In many ways the creatures were more suited to a life in the trees than on the ground. Once on the ground, the beast stood erect, stretching its height to a mediocre five feet. If not for their physical strength, Weston might even be able to fight his way out. But he remembered how easily he'd been thrown, as though he were but a child.

As the beast stood above him it hollered to the others, who quickly surrounded his prone body. They hooted and slapped the ground in a wild display, the likes of which he had not observed in the last week, even when they were hunting. A few stayed in the trees where they shook branches and shrieked. The one who caught him, Red Rim, stood above him and looked into his eyes. Red leaned in close and smelled him, moving slowed from his feet to his head, sniffing diligently.

Perhaps they're trying to decide if I'm edible, Weston thought. He tried to think of a way he could make himself less appealing, but that was impossible. Inside his pants, his legs were already coated in shit and his urine had leaked through the front. He smelled terrible, though he noted now, not as terrible as the creatures standing guard around him. Their scent was fecal and raw, like moldy egg salad. As Red sniffed his head and blew its breath onto his face, he could taste the decaying flesh of some previous meal that clung to its two-inch long canines. While Red sniffed his hair, Weston became aware of a gentle caress upon his chest. He glanced down, past his frazzled beard and saw two large hair-covered breasts dangling down onto his body. Red...was a female.

Then she was up and hooting again. The cacophony reached an apex and the group descended on Weston like a starved pack of hyenas, yelping and reaching for him. As his clothes were torn and yanked away from his body by tooth and claw, he began to scream and fight. It did little good and only seemed to lather the group into more of a craze. Then one was on top of him, straddling his naked waist and pinning him to the ground. The creature's face leaned in close.

Red.

She howled and then bit into the meat of his shoulder.

1.

AnnamiteMountains - Vietnam 2009.

Open sores covered Phan Giang's feet like the craters of the moon. They'd long since stopped oozing, but the dried flaking skin itched relentlessly. Yet he kept walking. Stumbling really. He'd been moving like a machine for the past three days, shuffling through the jungle like a zombie. His bloodshot eyes, half closed, stung and saw the world through a haze. His feverish, parched body was slick with moisture that clung to him yet failed to penetrate his skin. His tattered clothes, those of a peasant villager, hung from his bones in damp tatters, like meat hung to dry. Though near death, his heart soared when the jungle broke.

He emerged from the sauna that was the jungle of Vietnam and stepped into an open field. He saw an array of gleaming metal hangers, several parked green helicopters and groups of men in uniform patrolling the outer fringe of the facility. A military base. Who better to help, the man thought.

As the only surviving man in his village, Anh Dung, he had left in search of help. For generations his people had dealt with cai cht bt thnh lnh-the sudden death. Occasionally one of the men in the village would fall over dead. Regardless of health or age, the man struck would die suddenly where he stood, sat or lay. They'd always believed that angry spirits looking for vengeance on the living targeted men on occasion, taking their souls. But the solution had always been to dress and act as a woman. This knowledge saved the village on occasion as the spirits never claimed more than one man.

But this time...the spirits that visited Anh Dung were furious. Regardless of dress or duty, the spirits had slain every man in the village, first with a mild fever and coughing, then death. Whether sleeping, tending the field or washing clothes, men were struck dead. Some in mid-sentence. Others in their sleep. The spirits were relentless...to the point that the villagers realized it wasn't spirits killing the men.

It was a plague.

In a single week twenty three men, some of them very young, had died.

Seeking to save his own life and possibly bring back help, Giang had fled into the jungle. When his father fell dead he simply turned and ran. He had no food. No clothes. And no idea where he was headed.

But after three days in the dark jungle, he'd emerged like Jesus from the tomb, back into the light of the world, where men, alive and well, stood guard.

He was spotted immediately, rounded up and brought to the infirmary. The men, well trained as they were, saw Giang's condition and kept their distance. The decision saved their lives.

Hours later, Giang woke after sleeping. He'd been fed and hydrated. The base had him quarantined, but he was feeling much better despite the sore throat, bouts of sneezes and severe headache. The room he was in was small, but the cot was comfortable and the food edible. A single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling lit the four white walls.

Giang jumped when a man suddenly appeared in front of the window that looked out into a barren hallway. The man's expression was placid, almost friendly, but his uniform, olive green with a single gold star on the shoulder revealed his importance. This would be the man who could help him.

Giang stood. An intercom next to the window crackled to life. "I'm Major-General Trung. You're feeling better?"

Giang looked at the intercom. He'd never seen anything like it. The man's voice had come through the wall via the device. He squinted at it, inspecting the speaker and single white button. He tried looking through the plastic slates. There had to be a hole in the wall behind it.

Giang jumped back as the speaker came to life again. "Push the white button to speak, and I will hear you."

Doing as he was told, Giang slowly related his story. The village. The sudden deaths. The fear of plague. Trung listened closely, nodding, but asking no questions. When Giang's tale came to an end Trung pursed his lips. "The doctors who tested you last night found only a flu, which is typically treatable."

A smile crept on to Giang's face. He would survive!

"But..." Trung's face turned deadly serious. "We exposed some men to your saliva last night. Two fell dead this morning. Three others are feeling fine, but we believe they will die soon enough, just as you will."

Giang sat on the cot, his mind a swirl of emotions. The military could help. They had special medicines. Surely they could cure him. He stood and pushed the white button. "You must do something!"

"Perhaps," Trung said. "Is there anything you overlooked in your story? Maybe something entered your village a few days before the first man died? Did anything strange happen? If we can locate the source-"

Trung paused, watching through the glass as Giang's eyes rolled back in his head. Then the man disappeared below the window, slumping to the floor. Trung peered down at the body. Dead.

Trung rolled his eyes in annoyance.

He exited the small two room building on the outskirts of his base. As he closed the door behind him, he turned to the four men waiting for him. "Burn it down."

As the four men doused the building with gasoline, Trung advanced across the dirt covered central quad of the base. Technically, this was a training facility for the Vietnamese People's Army, but two years ago it had been acquired by Trung and his elite Death Volunteers. The unit had been formed during the Vietnam War and as a homage to this, still referred to themselves as part of the Vietnamese People's Liberation Army, as a homage to those who came before.

His men were the best Vietnam had to offer and had been since the Vietnam War. They trained in jungle warfare, preparing for what they felt was the inevitable invasion of the west...again. Trung's own father had been a solider with the Viet Cong and his stories of defeating the superior forces and technology of America inspired his childhood fantasies. And now he was in a position to defeat them himself, should they be foolish enough to return.

Whatever Giang had brought out of the jungle was new, of that he had no doubt. The symptoms and tests revealed a flu, but the end result was unheard of. What he did know was that once exposed, his enemies would simply fall over dead before realizing anything was amiss. Entire armies or cities could be wiped out without shot being fired. It was the perfect weapon. But it could not be used in combat. Not yet. Not until he had the cure.

Twenty men, his best, stood waiting for orders; he issued them without pause, telling the men about the strange virus that infected Giang, and what they needed to do about it.

They entered the jungle and hiked for three days before reaching the Annamite range. A day's hike into the mountains, a mere half mile from where Anh Dung was shown on the map, the man on point called a halt.

He'd heard something.

Trung trusted his men implicitly, and the man on point had ears like a dog's. The sound that came next could have been heard by the deaf. It was a shout. A scream really. But not human. And the source...it rose up all around. His men took up positions, forming a circle around him, covering the jungle in all directions.

The sound came in cascades, washing over the men as the trees above them swayed in a fresh breeze.

Then, tearing through the din came a voice. A man. It shouted a single word...in English. "Now!"

The jungle exploded. Tree limbs fell from above. Ground cover burst into the air. Stones and branches soared at them from a distance. For a moment Trung believed the attack, primitive and ineffectual as it was, came from the frightened women of Anh Dung. But the male voice-commanding, as though speaking to soldiers...

Trung realized too late that the chaos concealed an advancing force. A diversion. His men, trained to hold their fire until acquiring an actual target had waited calmly for the enemy to appear. A mistake.

"Open fire!" he shouted.

The enemy descended.

From above.

Falling with branches and severed leaves from the canopy, they arrived. Through the debris filling the air, Trung saw figures-their exposed tan flesh and ruddy orange fur. Then a flash of white skin. A long beard. Perhaps glasses. The man appeared and disappeared as the chaos erupted.

Against roars and brute force his men fell one by one. Few shots were fired. Several attempted to fight hand-to-hand, but they lasted mere seconds. In less than thirty seconds, ten of his best fell to the savage, yet incredibly organized attack. They were severely outmatched. As his remaining men fearlessly engaged the enemy, he slunk down and slipped behind a tree. Sure he hadn't been seen, he turned and ran.

Four days later he emerged from the jungle, his feet swollen, his body craving water. He looked little better than Giang when they'd first found him stumbling from the jungle. When his men saw him, they kept their distance, fearing he'd been infected. After demanding a water bottle be thrown to him, he drank its contents and related his story. Still fearing Trung might be ill, but fearing his wrath even more, the soldiers helped him to his quarters where doctors tended to him.

A week later, cleared of the mystery illness and feeling strong, Trung met with some of the nation's best doctors, scientists and government officials. The scientists were stumped. The disease confounded their attempts to understand it. Without the source of the infection found, they wouldn't be able to understand it...or find a cure. Even with the source they doubted whether or not they could solve the riddle.

They needed help.

Loath as he was to admit needing help, he could think of only one nation with both the scientific and military capabilities that would be required to reach the source and develop a cure-America. He left the meeting, having said nothing of the plan brewing in his mind. But he put things in motion that night. The Americans would bring their best military and scientists...and he would be waiting.

2.

Beverly, Massachusetts 2010.

Daniel Brentwood had never fancied himself a family man. To be a family man, in his mind, you first had to be a ladies man. After all, procreation only happened with a willing partner. And throughout his life, willing partners were not lining up. He'd been a glasses wearing, pocket protecting geek in high school. An Apple IIC and a pirated copy of the kung-fu game Karateka had been his best friends. Throughout college he'd been a perpetually mocked virgin and the butt of more than a few shower room pranks. Though he'd managed to trade the Apple in for a brand new PC featuring Windows 3.1 and a pirated copy of Doom. And now, ten years later, he was CEO of Elysian Games, one of the top video game developers in the world along side Blizzard, Microsoft and EA. At thirty years old he'd built an empire and made more money in a year than most people did in their entire lives.

His glasses had gone the way of the Tazmanian tiger, replaced by contacts, and his pocket protector had been displaced by a PDA, but he was still a geek to the core. There was a time when nothing could distract him from the games he created. Then he'd met the proverbial "her". Actually, he'd hired her. Angela O'Neill. A brilliant programmer. He admired her talent. Few women got excited about creating realistic gaming physics, but this one did. But that wasn't what pulled his eye away from the computer screen. It was her penchant for tight t-shirts that accentuated her chubby love handles. He wasn't sure why, but those love handles drove him crazy.

As it turned out, she had a thing for pocket protectors. They'd married a year later-a grand spectacle and perhaps the only event away from the world of computers that half the guests ever attended. Two years previous, on that very day, they had a child. Ben. A little runt with light blue eyes, pale skin and jet black hair. Angie liked to joke that God had turned up the contrast when Ben was formed.

And now that Ben was two, they were tearing themselves away from the business. Away from the computer screen. Away from the chaos. LynchPark was their destination. A green grassed, tall treed park with two small beaches, a half-shell theater, a Dick & June's ice-cream and a sea breeze that couldn't be beat. All they'd brought was a few towels, some toys and plenty of sunscreen.

Having just returned from a week long, round the world business trip that started with meetings in Tokyo and Hong Kong and finished in WashingtonD.C. where his team photographed the oval office for a level that would be featured in a new first person shooter, Army Ranger: Advanced Strike Force. Inspired by the current president's exploits as an Army Ranger, the game featured a look-a-like president, though the name was different. The highlight of the trip had been his meeting the president in the oval office. They'd been publicizing the meeting for months and it was everything he hoped for and more. Not only did President Duncan welcome him warmly, but he also said he looking forward to playing the game! The president! Of course, the low point of his visit had been sneezing on the president. He'd picked up a bug while in Hong Kong that stayed with him for the week. Embarrassing as it was, the president shook it off with a joke.

But now, being home again with his family-nothing could beat that. Not the president. Not seeing Godzilla in a Tokyo theater. Not the release of any new game. With the cold all but gone, he was free to enjoy the summer weather and time alone with the people he loved most.

They'd just driven by the large Beverly cemetery where Daniel's grandparents had been buried when Ben began to serenade them with a rousing rendition of The Wheels on the Bus, a song to which he had created at least twenty distinct verses. And Daniel knew them all by heart. The sound of his son's voice, no matter how repetitive, was more magical than the welcome chime on his computer. Ben was his finest creation. Nothing could compare.

Daniel had surprised even himself when he turned out to be an excellent father. Loving. Strident. Fun. He was the kind of Dad all kids want. Infinitely trustworthy and endlessly playful. His one flaw was that he was also very busy. Which was why they were getting away, alone, as a family, for Ben's second birthday.

Daniel steered the black Jag, which he'd bought five years previous as a gift to himself when his first game had sold a million units, onto the steep hill leading down to the park's wide parking lot. He noted the lot was fairly empty for such a nice summer day. Motion above the lot caught his eye; the trees bending, as though reaching for some invisible desire. It was windy. Perfect day for a kite.

The Jag picked up speed as it rolled down the hill, but before Daniel could lift his foot off the gas and onto the brake, he froze. Eyes glossed over. Jaw slack. Gravity pulled his body forward. His head hit the steering wheel as his foot descended on the gas. The Jag launched forward, held straight by the weight of his head on the wheel.

The kids checking for park stickers jumped from their umbrella covered lawn chairs just before the car plowed through, destroying the chairs and a cooler full of cokes. It continued across the parking lot.

In the back seat with Ben, Angie screamed and shook Daniel's shoulder, pleading for him to wake up. She tried to climb over the front seat to get to the brake, but the car hit the curb and launched into the grass. The jolt smashed Angie's head against the ceiling. She fell back into her seat, head spinning. If the sea wall had been straight, the car would have plowed into the Dick & June's, but angled as it was, the car was headed towards a six foot drop into the ocean. Angie realized this, snapped her seatbelt into place and held Ben's hand.

The green chain link fence at the top of the sea wall didn't stand a chance when the car struck. It snapped free from the support poles and rolled over the side with the car. Angie's quick mind worked through the scenario as they fell upside down. Water would seep in while she unclipped Ben and- The car struck with a grinding metal on stone sound that made Angie sick to her stomach. Or maybe that was the seat belt yanking on her abdomen? They'd landed upside down on the mass of boulders that surrounded the park, revealed by a low tide. As her mind cleared she became aware of the most dreadful sensation. Silence.

She could see Daniel, who never wore his seatbelt, crumpled on the ceiling in the front seat. And next to her, Ben dangled in his car seat.

With shaking hands she unbuckled herself and fell to the car's ceiling. She fumbled to Ben and unclipped him. He fell into her arms. As a whimper escaped her mouth, she checked for a pulse. Nothing. She put her hand in front of his mouth and held her breath. She sighed with relief when she felt her baby's breath on her finger.

The silence was shattered by shouts from above and an acrid smell that told her the same thing, "The car is on fire! Get out!"

She tried her door. It was jammed tight. Deformed by the impact. She tried the door on Ben's side. It too was wedged closed. In fact, the whole roof of the car had crumpled down.

They were trapped.

And as smoke poured in through the heating vents, she realized they'd be suffocated or burned alive.

A loud explosion shook the back of the car and she screamed. But it was followed by a shout. "Take my hand, lady!" She looked back and found two young men. They'd smashed in the window with a large stone. Before she had time to think about how to get Ben out and then go back for Daniel, she was grabbed by the arm and yanked out of the car. She began screaming about Daniel, about how he was still in the car. As she was pulled over the rocks, which skinned her ankles, Ben began to cry. He was okay.

Her senses returned with the cry of her child and she demanded to be put down. Why were treating her so rough? Heat and smell brought her eyes back to the car. It was an inferno. Daniel was gone.

Her two rescuers pulled her over the rocks and into the water. When the car exploded they fell under the protective water. They were safe. But Daniel was dead. And no one would ever know what killed him.

The official ruling: fell asleep at the wheel. The cost of all that success. The news covered it for a night, focusing most of their attention on little Ben, now fatherless. Just another death to pad the nighttime line-up while folks waited for their reality TV.

3.

Gulf of Aden - Somalia A stark white motorboat bearing no national symbols, name or markings of any kind rose up over a wave, catching air for a beat. The motor buzzed as it left the baby blue water before being muffled once more as the boat descended and the blades bit into the sea. The fifteen foot craft leapt from wave to wave, dancing over the ocean as fast that the old engine could push it, and its five occupants.

Dressed in loose clothing, ski masks and head wraps, only the eyes of the five passengers could be seen. Four sets of eyes were locked onto a single target-the Volgaeft, a Russian cargo ship. The only one of the five not looking at the cargo ship sat at the back, guiding the flat-hulled boat through the maze of five foot swells. The seas were rough for such a small craft, but as they closed in on the cargo vessel, none on board thought about the threat of capsizing; their thoughts were on the violence that would soon begin.

The Volgaeft was at full speed in a bid to outrun the band of pirates, and had no doubt issued a call for help, but the pirates knew they could catch the sluggish, heavily laden vessel. And with some newly acquired technology, would easily board it before help arrived. And help would arrive. After a short period of successful pirating which brought in an estimated 30 million dollars, the international community had cracked down. Warships from India, the European Union, the United States and China patrolled the waters off Somalia, sometimes escorting ships from their various homelands, but always rushing to the aid of any ship in distress. And the Volgaeft wouldn't have waited to put out a call.

The pirates' sources put the nearest warship, a Chinese destroyer, roughly thirty minutes away. But with the Volgaeft now making a beeline for the destroyer and the destroyer for the Volgaeft, that half hour would be cut in half. And it had taken five minutes to pull up alongside the freighter.

Ten minutes left.

Typically, once a cargo vessel was boarded and the crew rounded up, there was nothing a destroyer could do. The ransom would be paid. And after returning to port with hostages, the ship and crew would be free to go. But this was no ordinary pirate raid. They were after something specific, and they needed to be gone by the time the Chinese arrived.

As the freighter crew watched the small pirate ship far below, preparing to cut grappling hook lines, they saw something they'd never seen a pirate do before. All five of the pirates raised, what looked like hand guns, but tipped with solid black cylinders. Pirates typically fired warning shots at the crew, forcing them away from the rail while they scaled the side, but these devices weren't weapons at all. All five fired as one. The black cylinders arced up over the rail trailing thin black wires. They landed atop a large metal container and snapped up into standing positions as their magnetic bases engaged.

One of the men armed with a machete tried to cut through the thin black wires, which were already taut with weight, but his blade could do no more to the wire than a plastic knife. Before the crew could discuss what to do next, the pirates were pulled up and over the rail, landing on their feet and drawing pistols. The stunned crew stared for a moment. Then ran.

Ignoring the fleeing crew, the pirates entered the maze of metal containers covering the deck of the massive ship. They were looking for one container in particular. Its contents were worth more than the bounty received from all previous pirate attacks in the last year combined.

They wove their way through isles created by the looming towers of containers, scanning the variety of labels, serial numbers and ID codes. They knew what they were looking for. ID-432 out of Vladivostok.

Three minutes later, they found it.

A pair of bolt cutters emerged from beneath one of the loose robes worn by the pirates. The lock fell to the deck a moment later and the large metal doors opened. Flashlights rose to meet the darkness within, illuminating a single metal carrying case.

"Over there," one of the large men said, his English perfect, though tinged with a New Hampshire accent.