Read Online The Rabid: Rise by J.V. Roberts - Free Book Online Page A

out and lights up, blowing the smoke towards the ceiling. “If you see guys in suits in your neighborhood setting up some shit like that today, it’s gonna crash harder than Icarus, folks are wise about it now, they don’t trust the government. But, back then, you gotta remember, Cold War, there was a lot of paranoia about the Russians and a potential attack on America, so, people just went with it. But, little did they know that the good old boys at the CIA were there to test weapons on them. Hundreds of pounds of finely powdered zinc cadmium sulfide and radioactive material were blown out over that population.”
    “Bullshit.” I dismiss him with a wave of my hand and turn towards Katia. She’s standing with her hips cocked, her hands wrapped across the hilts of her swords. She looks intrigued. “What, seriously, you believe that? Flu shots?”
    She shrugs.
    “You don’t? Same people that have been hunting you and your sister. You don’t believe they’re capable testing weapons on their own people?” Ruiz seems offended by my skepticism.
    “ It’s the General. He’s hunting us, his men are hunting us. He’s the only one I’ve seen do shit. Excuse me if I’m skeptical.”
    Ruiz smirks. “ Are you stupid? Where do you think these assholes get their funding? Their hardware? They aren’t running yard sales and selling cookies door to door.”
    “ The men hunting you are petals. They are a product of a very deep root system. Project Lockjaw goes all the way to the tiptop. They aren’t out here chasing you down of their own volition.” Bytes turns back and forth in his chair, relaxed, hands locked behind his head.
    I can’t really argue with their logic. “Okay, so flu shots, how do they play in?”
    “They were the deli very system for the nanorobots.”
    “ Nanorobots?”
    “Yes, they are 1.5 nanometers across , invisible to the human eye. They weren’t in every single vaccine, but, they were in enough of them. The robots attach to the brain stem.” Bytes turns one of the computer screens towards me. It’s a stock image of a skull, with the spinal column attached, set against a green and black background. Bytes points to the bottom of the skull and clicks the mouse button once. A herd of, what appear to be, tiny metallic spiders begin latching onto where the spine and the skull connect. “You get the general idea.”
    “Wh oa, that’s pretty gross looking,” Bethany says.
    “You see , Bytes, this is why I stay away from you techno geeks, shit like this,” Katia says.
    He pouts. “ C’mon, baby, we’re not all bad.” He reaches a hand towards her and pats his lap with the other.
    “I’ll cut it off.” Katia pulls one of the swords half way from its sheath.
    Bytes laughs and turns the screen away from us. “ It looks like, according to the information on this drive, that this was supposed to give whoever was in charge control over the hosts body. They would hit the button and the robots attached to the brain stem would go live. And just like that, worldwide zombie army.”
    “They were supposed to have control over each individual person?” I ask.
    “No, it was a hive mind scenario. One switch to turn all of them on. The orders were pre -programmed. Something went wrong. It was just supposed to be a test run, you know, to see if it worked, before they started using it on actual soldiers. They were going to turn them on, have everyone dance in circles, or something, and then flip them off again; no one would ever be the wiser. The hosts didn’t adapt well, obviously. Even worse, we know that the hosts can spread their nanomachines to others through the bites. The nanomachines are self-replicating. A nasty feature, but, genius nonetheless, for when you want to turn your enemy into your friend. What a way to build an army, huh?”
    This connects something sitting on the back burner of my mind . Something I’ve heard before. Ruiz and Bytes can see my wheels spinning. They wait