Free Z-Volution by David Sakmyster, Rick Chesler

resources—two pterodactyls and how many zombie soldiers lost?”
    “Obviously they hoped to retain the air power, hadn’t counted on our skilled pilot’s fast reactions, but as for the foot soldiers…they can make more of them, and fast. An unlimited supply, if what you claim is true.”
    “Can we get a closer look at that freighter’s wreckage?” Veronica asked, trying to peer through the smoke and the blurry image sent back by the drone.
    “Working on it,” someone said.
    Veronica took a breath and glanced at some of the other screens in the room, including the largest one, over her right shoulder, displaying a map of the southern/eastern US and full of color coded lines and dots and symbols, indicating flight paths, vessel coordinates and locations of naval and Coast Guard blockades.
    One of the techs came running in from another room. “Sir, we have a call coming in from pilot Major Casey Remington. Priority One. He’s escorted the Cessna into Miami’s auxiliary landing strip and is asking for support. Asking to speak with Special Agent Winters.”
    Veronica stood up. She had been following the approach with apprehension. She had told command that despite her relationship with Alex and his mother, it was inadvisable to let them into the country, and especially so after she was patched in to Alex and heard the details—something about a rapid escape from Grenada, from a suspicious facility and miracle cure. It all seemed too obvious, and yet—his mother had no symptoms. Still, they could check her out, quarantine her and Alex there and wait.
    The Chief glanced briefly at Veronica. “No time. Change of plans. The president heard the situation and wants them delivered to our CDC branch in Langley. There’s a biohazard team standing by. So tell Major Remington to transfer this Ramirez and his mother to his plane, refuel, and get back here ASAP.”
    Veronica winced. “Sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea to bring them here. Miami could work just as well.”
    “Sorry, but we don’t have the facilities, and we don’t have you. We need your expertise in figuring this out, and in debriefing her. Grenada? We looked into it, and it’s completely off the radar. Whatever they’re working on there might be connected to all this, and right now Mrs. Ramirez could be the only one who can give us clues. You know her, and so you can do the debrief and get us some intel.”
    “After making sure she’s not carrying the prions,” Veronica muttered.
    The Chief nodded and turned his attention back to the main screen. He mumbled something to his aide, who fiddled with the controls and enlarged the view of the freighter wreckage to cover the whole screen.
    He stood up along with half the room, everyone jostling to get a better view.
    “What the hell?”
    Veronica craned her neck, moving to see around a couple of analysts. “Oh shit!”
    The water was littered with broken crates and smoking flotsam, but the crates that had opened had spilled their precious cargo. Cargo that now floated on the waves, floated for them all to see, drifting in mockery.
    Hundreds upon hundreds of stuffed animals.
    Veronica’s voice dropped. “Birds?”
    “Fucking penguins,” said the Chief of Staff, who sat heavily in his chair.
    “A diversion,” Veronica said. “Jesus. All that…was just a diversion?”
    She looked back to the screens of the blockade tactical positions along the eastern seaboard—and now saw multiple contacts breaking off from the stalled positions of incoming vessels. They streamed through softer areas and made a break for the coast.
     

11.
     
    Undisclosed Bunker Site
    William DeKirk watched the screens through the slots between his fanned fingers. With heightened senses and his brain in hyper-activity mode, he took it all in, feeling like he was a computer, calculating thousands of permutations each second for every action he saw, like a chess-playing computer plotting a dozen moves in advance for each one