Dream Sky by Brett Battles

Population
    798,869,034

8
     
    MUMBAI, INDIA
    9:41 AM INDIA STANDARD TIME (IST)
     
    V AN ASSEN PACKED into two plastic cases the weapons and ammunition that had been stored in the closet next to the senior manager’s office. Elsewhere, other Project Eden members cleaned out desks and destroyed equipment that would be left behind after the evacuation.
    The order to abandon the Mumbai facility had come down from the new Project leadership twelve hours earlier. Van Assen was surprised it had taken them that long to make the decision. While the Project’s operations in Mumbai had worked smoothly through the first few hours of implementation, it had quickly gone downhill after that.
    First, senior manager Schmidt had been killed, and a few boxes of vaccine had been stolen by a local Pishon Chem employee who had somehow learned the truth about what was going on. And then, over a week later, that same Indian son of a bitch had returned, freed most of the detainees, and taken the remainder of the vaccine. These events drove Dettling, the new senior manager, to take his own life. In the wake of all this, those who had escaped were probably intercepting any other survivors headed for the facility, because no new survivors had shown up at the station since the breakout.
    A complete and total disaster.
    As soon as van Assen finished packing the final boxes of the ammunition, he looked down the long hallway and whistled at a group of soldiers at the far end. “Two cases here ready to go.”
    After the soldiers took possession of the containers, van Assen went up to the second floor.
    In the aftermath of Dettling’s death, a man named Rainer had been elevated to the senior manager’s position. He was even less qualified than Dettling had been, but, in his favor, he seemed to realize this and was more than willing to cede much of the decisions to van Assen. So, in everything but name, van Assen was in charge of the evacuation.
    He moved quickly through the management housing area, glancing into each room to be sure they had been cleaned out. Satisfied, he went to check on the rooftop communications center via the narrow staircase that had been constructed in a former closet.
    He popped his head and shoulders through the trapdoor at the top and spotted Klausmann sitting at the counter, headphones on.
    “Status?” van Assen asked.
    Klausmann took a moment before he looked back. “The second plane is in the air. The last is ready when we are.”
    Van Assen thought something was a little off with Klausmann this morning, but he figured it was probably a reaction to evacuation orders. He would note it later in the man’s file, but for now, van Assen had other things to check.
    “Tell them we are on schedule, and will be there in forty minutes. Then close up here.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Van Assen headed back down the stairs.
    __________
     
    E MERIC KLAUSMANN TURNED back around as soon as that uppity van Asshole disappeared. The bastard was acting like he was in charge, but he was no more than an assistant. Which, someone should point out to him, put him a level below Klausmann.
    He grabbed the bottle of whiskey he’d been drinking right before van Asshole showed up, and took a sip. Thank God for the metal staircase. He hadn’t heard the stairwell door open, but he had heard van Asshole clomping up the steps, giving him enough time to hide the bottle.
    Who could blame Klausmann for drinking? Things had been screwed up since Implementation Day. Sure, he’d understood that a lot of people would need to die for the Project to reach its goals, but actually seeing it happen was something else entirely.
    The tipping point for him had come when he was on search duty, tasked with conducting a sweep through the Intercontinental Hotel. Right there in the lobby he’d found an old couple sitting on a couch—European, by the looks of them—leaning against each other. He didn’t know how long they’d been dead, a week at least. The worst part