Technosis: The Kensington Virus by Morgan Bell Read Free Book Online

elevators and put four others forward near the entrance of the psych ward. Rosen walked up to the receptionist and flashed his badge. She reached down for a scanner.
    “It will be easy once you’ve gotten the first one under your -” Rosen was saying to Jamie.
    Jamie had buried his machete in the receptionist’s face and knocked the phone away before Rosen realized what was happening. Jamie crushed the phone beneath his boot.
    “What was that?” Rosen asked.
    “Rule number one, don’t get Sergeant Rosen killed,” Jamie said.
    “How did you…”
    “You had your goggles off. She was blue and getting colder. She was reaching for her panel.”
    Rosen pulled his goggles back on and saw the still moving receptionist was blue and cooling. Jamie removed the head and hands, and the form stopped moving.
    “Alright,” Rosen said. “Definitely a hotspot. Assume the worst; proceed with extreme prejudice.”
    The team moved into the psych ward where over forty people were complaining loudly, texting, messaging and posting on their social media. Not a single one of them had a heat signature anywhere near normal. By the time the team had cleared reception Rosen’s shoulder was sore from hacking. Jamie on the other hand was just warming up. He entered the exam rooms without backup – a break with protocol – and cleared them himself.
    “All three doctors were dead,” Jamie informed team red.
    “We’ve got forty three KV out here.” Rosen informed him.
    “Only had two try to get out to the stairwell,” team blue leader reported.
    “Baxter! What are you doing?” Rosen asked, seeing Jamie duck down behind a counter.
    “Bird dogging, sarge!’ Jamie replied.
    Jamie crawled along the floor of the workstation until he came to where the med tech’s chair was pushed out. Huddled up in a cubby he found the med tech, on his phone.
    “Hello,” Jamie said.
    The med tech didn’t look up and instead growled, “Fuck off, I’m on break.”
    “No one appreciates how hard you work,” Jamie commiserated.
    “No fucking gratitude. Fucking doctors and nurses acting all high and mighty. But we showed them. Got ourselves a union, no more step and fetch for that lot,” the med tech grumbled.
    Jamie looked at the heat signature; it was red, fading to blue. “Close enough,” he muttered, and dispatched the med tech.
    “Found one under the station counter,” Jamie called out, standing up.
    “Sarge, we’ve got trouble,” blue team leader responded. “Admin incoming.”
    A man in a silver suit, blue shirt and red tie marched across the lobby of the psych ward officiously. “You, over there,” he pointed to Rosen. “What is going on here?”
    “We are here on -” Rosen began, taking off his goggles.
    “This is my healthcare campus and my responsibility!” the man cut him off.
    “Yes and -”
    “Do you know who I am?” the man squealed. “Do you know how many facilities I’ve run to get to where I am today? You and your goons come into my healthcare campus and take it over! Well I’m Mr. Tracy and this is going to -”
    The machete flew across the room and buried itself in Mr. Tracy’s head. Mr. Tracy fell to the floor, still twitching and complaining loudly about who he was and how hard he’d worked to get there.
    “Baxter, how did you pick that up? His heat signature?” Rosen asked in awe.
    Jamie moved his goggles into place and saw that Mr. Tracy was a dark blue fading to black on the heat signature spectrum. “There’s that too,” Jamie said, and shrugged.

CHAPTER 6
    KV OUTBREAK 3 RD WORLD: PARAMUS, NJ
    P aramus, New Jersey, even on the nicest day, is not a place a soldier wants to be deployed. This wasn’t a nice day; snow had blanketed the east coast in the worst weather in forty years. Businesses, schools and roads were closed. But a handful of hardcore shoppers were at the mall when the KV strike team arrived.
    ∞
    “Hey, little man,” the creepy guy who was standing in the living room in his