The Stand1994

[looking at the images of the virus outbreak]

Gen. Starkey:
Look at that. It killed 'em in a hurry down there. Telemetry reports suggest that even the ones that managed to get their respirators and gas masks on died within 12 minutes after exposure. The rest were gone in less than five. Do you believe that?

Maj. Jalbert:
Do I have a choice?

Gen. Starkey:
No. Apparently none of us do. This 'Project Blue', it's nothing but a souped up version of the flu. Herbert Denninger of the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, the Pentagon's bright boy of the week, says that once we find Campion, we'll only know if it's going to jump to the outside. He says the virus will probably mutate as it passes from person to person, but that's not gonna help the people who catch it.

Maj. Jalbert:
Sir, I have information that...

Gen. Starkey:
[interrupting] It'll just take 'em longer to die, that's all. Most people are gonna think thay have the plain old non-lethal flu... right up to the very end, and that's the biggest break we've had so far. Now it's loose out there all because a gate malfunctioned and some idiot, glorified TV repairman grabbed his family and ran for the hills. What I'd like to do more than anything else is get that coward and...

Maj. Jalbert:
Sir, we found him. We located Campion. He crash-landed late last night at a gas station on the outskirts of a one-stoplight town in east Texas.

Gen. Starkey:
He made it halfway across the country in only 12 hours? How the hell did he do that?

Maj. Jalbert:
I don't know. But right now, we have a shot at containing this.

Gen. Starkey:
Is he alive or dead?

Maj. Jalbert:
He's dead.

Gen. Starkey:
Oh my God. Denninger says that this stuff has a communicability level of 99.4%! You know what that means? Any chance we had at containing by the book went out the window when Campion stopped to buy gas or his first take-out hamburger!

Maj. Jalbert:
We can't think that way, General.

Gen. Starkey:
Well... you're right, I guess not. What about the rest of his family? His wife and baby daughter?

Maj. Jalbert:
They're dead, sir. Contact with townspeople was minimal.

Gen. Starkey:
That doesn't matter. We've got to shut that town down, lock it up, dig a moat around it.

Maj. Jalbert:
That operation is already on the launching pad, sir.

Gen. Starkey:
Good. What kind of cover did you come up with?

Maj. Jalbert:
Anthrax. A new strain. It's bad, general, but it could be worse.

Gen. Starkey:
[scoffs] Oh, yeah? How so?