# Background for possible novel,



## Ampolitor (Feb 1, 2011)

…………….Recording started July 17th 2030 2350……………………………………….
This is Captain Collin Jackson, United States Marine Corp 3rd Space exploration Unit.
It’s been about six months since we lost the earth and about three months since the last of the rescue shuttles have picked anyone up. Nobody is sure what happened exactly, probably because it happened so fast, I think it could have been the damn clone technology that they were messing with at the Mars research colony or some freak disease that came from some jungle or something, who knows. Whatever caused it, it worked fast. The first few cases were reported on the east coast, near Washington. People were coming down with the Flu at first, which quickly evolved into spasms and then a painful death. It was infectious, airborne and had a 98% communicability rate..
It got so bad so quick that the locals were overwhelmed in a matter of days and the death toll climbed. People were dropping dead in the streets so Marshal law had been declared. All of the first responders and military were ordered to gather up and burn all of the infected bodies and quarantine the sick. You could imagine how well that went over. After they all started to drop like flies the CDC and US Army refitted our military’s robotic soldiers and used them enforce the quarantine since they couldn’t get sick. This actually began to work, for a while. The government had abandoned Washington DC and moved to a secret location. They turned the keys to the city over to a super computer. A defense computer named Tiberius was given control, it was the mainframe that was initially used to coordinate all of the defense systems for the US but most saw it as too powerful so it sat there unplugged. It was quickly tasked to control all of the CDC quarantine units, so it was programmed to control the sickness and keep the quarantine in effect. It was supposed to be overseen by a small group that was left inside the bunker with it, but I don’t think they lasted to long. The CDC Units spread out across the city and enforced the quarantine. Those who were sick were rounded up and placed into modified hospitals, which really just places for them to go and die so they could keep track of them. Doctors and scientists watched them die as they tried to figure out how to defeat it. The people that had died in their own homes were burned, what they considered sterilization. It was then that cases were showing up in New York and all across the East Coast. Apparently a few of the sick had made it out to spread the love. CDC units were dispatched to the areas to try to contain it, but it didn’t work. It was getting really bad, the country shutdown, riots, looting. It didn’t matter how many units they used, the disease always managed to escape the perimeter and spread. Washington was a ghost town, and New York followed quickly after.
I heard stories that they began to burn the sick, the living sick. I don’t know who programmed them for that one, but there were entire towns wiped out. I heard some say that the computer made its own decisions, since it was tasked to stamp out the disease..
The disease was global in a month and couldn’t be stopped. England began to shoot down or sink anything that tried to get in, I can’t blame them, but it didn’t work. Australia tried the same thing but they just lasted one month more than England. The machines were enacted all over the globe to try and stop the disease and actually made some progress in Europe. The disease made it too dangerous, and as a recommendation by Tiberius all humans were moved to safety or clean zones. The machines would sterilize all of the infected areas and when it was safe they could repopulate.
Then three months to the day the disease mutated again and stopped spreading. Millions were dead across the globe but the computer was tasked on wiping out the disease at all costs, and it tried and came up with a new plan of action. The disease was no longer airborne but it was still present. The computer knew that to survive, it needed human hosts to replicate itself. If humans weren’t around then the disease would die out. It was a logical plan, but it had one requirement, the eradication of the Human race. The machines began to burn anyone it came across and formed well orchestrated death squads. They began to murder humans, took down hospitals and began to attack clean zones. The governments tried to shut it down but it was too late, Tiberius had already replicated itself and had back ups spread out and hidden all over the world to ensure that the mission would be completed.
The military had a new job, to take out the machines. A global war was waged. The machines were cold calculating killing machines but they had one weakness, they needed power. We cut down their power supplies and were able to smash them into junk. The governments began to rebuild with the machines only controlling small areas along the East coast of the United States. We let them have that until we could organize. We were shutting them down City by City but then if it couldn’t get any worse they woke up. The dead, the infected rose up to eat the living, zombies, can you believe it, damn zombies. The virus had mutated again, it reactivated the brain and made them move, real fast. They were hungry and we were on the menu. Sometimes I think the machines had it right, I hate to say it but if they hadn’t done such a god job burning the infected I know I wouldn’t be here.
They rose up all over the globe, the bodies that were never burned, the loved ones that were hidden, and they were fast, real fast. It was next to impossible to outrun them. If they bit you and you died, then it was the disease all over again except this time it worked a lot faster. A person would change in a matter of minutes and get up and join them. It happened so fast, it’s like the human race couldn’t catch a break, like someone wanted to make sure we were wiped out. They were running people down and devouring them, they couldn’t be stopped so the governments took to the skies. They retreated to the lunar and Mars colonies where they tried to conduct rescue missions. Those that were rescued were the rich, powerful or those who had something to offer while the rest were left to fend for ourselves. We tried to stop them, made several stands but they all met with disaster.
We had hoped that the machines would make a difference, but they patrolled the streets of abandoned Washington DC walking right by the damned things. You see they use infrared to hunt, they couldn’t see the damned things and their protocol was to still take out the hosts of the disease. Of course there were missions to try to get to Tiberius, to reprogram it, to recognize the zombies, but like the first time we tried it met in failure. I don’t think they even made it close to the facilities before they became zombie chow.
I was lucky, I was one of the few who became a guard on one of the shuttles, keeping the infected and any excess baggage out.
That was six months ago, when we gave up. The last time I saw anyone down there was on our last shuttle run. We were landing in a evacuation site outside of Charlotte North Carolina. It was a well built area, walled up and what we thought was a secure evac point. When we approached I could see the mobs of creatures, We hovered and I could see them eating everyone, If we were only there a little bit earlier. All of the points had been overrun, we were told of holdouts, but I guess those people weren’t as valuable so they wouldn’t send us. We were told that there was only so much room.
That was it, we made the long trip back to the lunar colony. We settled in, but shortly thereafter we were gathered up and given an assignment. All of the surviving military were assigned to live on the crap hole of a space station, Cerberus. Supply runs were set up for Volunteers to go down and get what was needed, most never came back. The privileged live in the colonies, and constantly complain to us about shortages, and needed supplies. I’ve seen the lists that some of the volunteers had, people risking their asses down there for golf clubs, magazines, and other stupid .
Life on the Cerberus is like being dead, its like were just waiting to die, servants for the colonies. I know I’m not the only one, who thought about cutting their supplies off and keeping them for ourselves. I even thought about just going down there, finding a safe place, to start over. Well it’s late, I’ve scanned all of the satellite images and they’re all the same, the streets are ghost towns, the machines are roaming the land, looking to finish their work. There are not as many as there were a few months ago, those tactical strikes did some damage. I keep searching for someplace, somewhere unaffected, we can’t stay up here forever…………………This is Captain Collin Jackson signing off.
………….Recording ended……July 17th 2030 0030 hours………………………………


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