Read Online A World Reborn: The First Outbreak by Chris Thompson - Free Book Online Page A

left and started towards the
staircase to the roof. On her right, however, she saw the door to one of the suites
was cracked open. It was lit inside, so it had been occupied, Melissa reasoned.
As she passed, she crept towards it and quietly tried to peer inside, but it
was futile. Unsure whether she should check to see if anyone needed help or
whether she should continue onward to the roof, she decided to be cautious.
Melissa tapped lightly the door, but received no response. Gently, she pushed
on it and stepped inside. There was a small foyer area, with a turn off to the
left to the first bedroom, and ahead it lead into what seemed to be a living
area featuring a pair of leather sofas, a number of soft chairs, two footstools
and a glass coffee table. An open briefcase stood on the coffee table.
    “Hello?” Melissa called out softly. There
was no answer. She left the door open behind her and crossed into the living
area. Ahead of her was a window showing off the beautifully illuminated Las
Vegas night sky and on the right, a bar and a faux fireplace. To the left,
enclosed within three walls of glass, was the conference room, which owned a
number of chairs around a large, highly polished table. A television hung on
the fourth, solid wall of the conference room, which was currently switched
off, while at the end of the gap between the suite wall and the conference room
glass wall was a door which presumably led to the bedroom and en suite
bathroom.
    “Is anyone here?” Melissa asked, a little
louder this time. She looked at the briefcase on the table and saw it was
filled with foam and had cut-outs for items to be secured snugly and safely;
the shape of cut-outs were vaguely cylindrical, as though for securing tubes.
Looking through the glass into the conference room she could see additional
open briefcases which appeared to be identical to the one on the coffee table.
It seemed that whoever had occupied the room had left things behind in a hurry.
Melissa moved over to the glass door and went inside. The other open briefcases
had the same foam interior, but something else caught her eye. Beneath them
were plans of the building. She moved a briefcase out of the way and saw that
the top one was for the ground floor. Certain areas were highlighted: the
casino floor, one of the restaurants, and the entrance doors. In addition, hand
written notes revealing how long it took for an elevator to pass between the
floors and an estimate of the time it would take for someone to go up or down
the stairwells to move between the floors was scrawled in the white space at
the edge. It looked like a plan of attack. Melissa checked over the other pages
of plans, seeing other highlighted areas, like the theatre, certain stores in
the shopping area as well as chosen bars and restaurants on the second floor.
The only areas that didn’t seem to be highlighted included the swimming pools
and the majority of the guest room floors; however, every fourth or fifth one
was highlighted it seemed, based on a quick examination.
    Melissa considered this, and then looked at
all the discarded briefcases; there had to
    have been twenty,
maybe as many as thirty cylindrical spaces between them. She thought back to
what Roy had told her about the woman at the blackjack table who had injected
herself, and there had been similar individuals in other areas where people had
also starting biting those around them. Was it possible that this was where
they had made their final preparations? It made sense; if this was an organized
attack they would need a final staging area. Roy had also said the whole floor
had been reserved. That meant they had money, as these suites weren’t cheap.
Whoever was behind this attack was well funded and incredibly well informed.
The only thing Melissa didn’t have a clue about was their endgame; this attack
was frightening, but what purpose did it serve? If someone had developed such a
terrifying virus that it made people tear each