Free The Days and Months We Were First Born- the Unraveling by Christopher Hunter Page B

street.
    Moments later, he reappeared . He walked briskly down 19 th Street to join his militia. The militia that was all that he had .
    I watched them all for at least ten minutes. I could tell that only a few people were to remain behind the youngest of the children, a few of the care providers, a couple of guards, and the dying who were too weak to move.
    Once I was ready, I put the knife in my left pocket. Then I checked the 9mm to make sure it was on safety. It was. So I tucked the gun into the right side underneath my belt.
    My nerves were a little jumpy, but I was resolute with what I had to do. It was time to make my escape from New York.

York Academy
     
    It was true. There were scientists at York Academy, the young and prestigious university on the Upper East Side. And of all the places on campus where they could have been, the scientists were trapped in the Biogenetics building. It was true that they were working on a very dangerous device. It was also true that people were trying to stop them, and that these people were dying in their attempt. All of that was true. But the truth didn’t tell the whole story.
    The scientists were not Bio geneticists. They were not trying to destroy the world with some doomsday device. And they certainly were not responsible for the virus. Instead, the scientists were Physicists—seven men , three women—and they were some of the most gifted minds that the world had to offer. They were the surviving members of a Dream Team staff. And unfortunately for them, their fate was tied to their secret project.
    They were led by Dr. Albert Peacock, a British national who was tenured at Oxford University. Dr. Peacock was a skinny man, with bushy eyebrows, a balding head, and a nose that was parrot-beaked in shape. He spoke with an over-the-top, airy voice, and he had a strange, bird-like posture. He was also a narcoleptic who fell asleep at random. But those quirks aside, he was a brilliant scientist. And he was sought after by many.
    Though he was a heavily demanded person, Dr. Peacock asserted that he would have stayed at Oxford University. He stated that he never would have left his job there, and he certainly wouldn’t have crossed the ocean to come to New York, if it wasn’t for the opportunity granted to him by the East American Government and the York Academy Board. The opportunity to work on his landmark project: The Space Exploration and Empowerment Device.
    The name was unimpressive, but the device itself was going to be an absolute game changer. It was only the size of a meter-by-meter cube, not much bigger than a microwave, but within that size, there was going to be enough self-generating energy to power a spacecraft for up to a thousand years. To put that in perspective, the device could have powered every single thing on Planet Earth, at maximum usage, for more than twenty million years. In other words, it was an artificial sun.
    When it came to space exploration, significant progress had been made by the 2060’s. Man was on the verge—some speculated that we already had—of mastering suspended animation. The light barrier was within a few years of being broken. And tantalizing targets, such as Earth-like planets and moons, had been discovered within the range of twenty light years or so. The pieces were coming together. We were on the verge of an exciting new age.
    The only thing missing was the power source. Moving a ship through space at such speeds, operating once the ship reaches a destination, and having a shot in hell of returning home required energy. Ungodly energy. And that was where S.E.E.D. came in. It was going to be the Holy Grail . The final piece that made it all possible.
    With funding not an issue, Dr. Peacock was able to recruit a staff of renowned scientists from all over the world. The recruiting kit included expense free living, dual citizenship,  permanent tax-free status within the country, an initial contract that ranged from EAD500,000 to