Can't have Shit in Kentucky ch. 20 (Patreon)

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"Who are you?" the Buyer's voice broke through the silence. Rifles had been raised all around at the unseen speaker. He bid them all to lower it as the accented voice spoke up. 

"As I said, I am Dr Heinrich Beck, the one in charge of this facility. You know who I am but I do not know you," the man replied, a tinge of amusement in his tone. He could see them from somewhere but there were no visible cameras. Hidden ones were the most likely one, thought the Buyer.

"I'm the Buyer. We will leave it at that," He shook his head as he motioned to Roy to open the safe. The veteran nodded as he marched and punched in the supposed password Beck had given. The password proved its worth as the safe opened with a click. Roy reached in and pulled out a stack of documents bound with leather. The letters "TOP SECRET" were emblazoned on the cover.

"Those documents, if released into the wild, dear visitor, would be a scandal unlike any other. The American Government and the backers of this place would bury you all in shit so deep, you will forget what the sun looks like," Beck continued. Roy handed the documents over to the Buyer who grimaced behind his mask. He knew that hence his safeguards. He wanted heads to roll after everything was done and dusted. The ones responsible for this mess, not theirs. 

"Good thing I have safeguards which will activate ff I die. I have already compiled enough evidence that implicates the government." The Buyer revealed. 

"But not enough to damn it," tutted Beck. There was a pause as his tone turned questioning. "Do you hate your government, Herr Buyer? You release those and the American government could become an international pariah. Are you not a patriot that shall keep country safe and clean?" 

​All eyes in the room turned to the Buyer. Roy wondered that too. The man paused for a moment as he strode over and leaned against Beck's desk.

"Honestly, I don't care for the government. I started this purely out of self-interest. I like civilization, I like my capitalist society as it is. I first thought of simply destroying this place and ending the poison choking Earth's air," the Buyer admitted. Roy did not know what the Buyer's men were thinking regarding this admittedly self-serving reason. The Buyer was filthy rich seeing from the resources at his disposal. Only someone of that caliber would want civilization preserved. He was honest at least, thought Roy. Not a lying scumbag unlike the ones that sent his generation to die in another land.

Elis on the other hand could hardly care less about the Buyer's reasoning. The mystery of the place, the intrigue distracted him too much. 

​The Buyer then continued. "Then I thought about what happens afterwards. Yes, this place would be purged of corruption and Knox is eventually pacified. There would most likely be outbreaks afterwards in different places but I have safeguards for those too. When this sad event is over, what about the assholes responsible? They get to live their lives in peace while so many lose theirs?" 

He shook his head. "What is the point of my wealth and power if I can't do something good for people? Will I just be the usual rich fuck, enjoying my pie while others don't get theirs? Or I can finally do something worth a damn for once and nail the fucks that started this? I don't care if the President himself did this, the innocent will want justice and I have the capacity to bring it to them. So I shall,"

"Hmph. You channel Florian Geyer," Beck harumphed. Approval or not, it wasn't known. He then hummed. "You answered my question, I shall deign to answer yours. Ask away, if you have any." 

"Who're you?" Elis asked excitedly, breaking the seriousness. His eyes glittered like pearls. "You sound German. You one of them Paperclip fellas?" 

Roy blinked. "Paperclip?" 

The young man turned to him nodding as he explained excitedly. "Oh yeah! My buddy Keith, he's interested in them conspiracy theories, you know? We were watching a rocket launch one time and he said that the scientists that worked on them NASA rockets were Nazi scientists we got when we kicked Germany's ass!" 

"The young man is correct," Beck added in. "In the dying days of the war, my team and I were slated to be executed by the SS. OSS operatives saw to it that we could escape. I take offense to being called a Nazi however. I voted Zentrum exclusively." 

"So, you are responsible for this outbreak?" the Buyer asked, his voice calm but rage bubbled inside. 

"Yes and no," Beck replied unemphatically. "The cause of the corpses tearing through your state was mother nature, not me though I had a hand in its release." 

"...Explain." The Buyer said, his voice not hiding his impatience.

"Take a chair and I shall say," Beck said. At that, the Buyer motioned his men to stand down and relax. Elis found a chair to sit on while Roy merely leaned against the wall. While not as enthusiastic in learning the story unlike Elis, the old timer did feel some intrigue in the Nazi bastard's story. Information was important after all and knowing the root cause of it could help them fight the dead better. 

"Before the war, my colleagues and I travelled the world searching for artifacts that could support the Party's claim of our Aryan past. I was part of these such groups, going all over from Scandinavia to the highest peaks of the Himalayas," Beck narrated. "The search was frankly a waste of time. My colleagues and I knew it yet we relied heavily on the Nazi party for support. We could tell Herr Himmler that we were on a fools errand but then, we'd get no money or worse, a bullet to the brain."

"You're deplorable," Eliva said in disgust, having been quiet the whole time. Eliva had much reason to be disgusted. Not simply because it was a natural human response if they cared for justice but also because Eliva Greenberg was Jewish. Unexpected however was Beck's reply.

"I know. But we kept quiet anyway. Many educational institutions in my country at that time needed money and unfortunately, the National Socialists held the key. If you do not believe me, look at the history of German universities during the Reich years. We all took blood money but frankly, it was worth it." Beck's voice was regretful, apologetic. But the fascination in his voice took all sympathy away. 

"Thanks to their money, we managed to find rumors of rakshasha, malevolent beings that were imprisoned in a ancient monastery in the Himalayas. The locals feared it so and refused to go on further. The rakshasha however were powerless before machine-gun fire," Beck chuckled as he reminisced. "Anyway, the bodies were returned to Germany and examined. What we found...oh, it was revolutionary." 

As Beck narrated, the Buyer took the moment to open the top secret files. His lips frowned as he read the document, two seals greeted him. The first was a white burning flame with a P on it. The second was a globe with a stylized I. The former he recognized as that belonging to the Finnegan Research Group, a company the specialized in genetics with a facility nestled in Louisville. The latter...he did not recognize. He shook his head, closing the files. As much as he wanted to read them, now wasn't a good time.

"The creatures we had fought, they weren't demons. Rather, they were humans who were infected by a ancient prehistoric super-virus, one that attacked a hosts immune system and hijacked the body to be nothing more but a vector to spread itself. We had conducted tests and found it had worked far too well on simians particularly humans. On other animals, they simply died." Beck continued, narrating his grim work. What was left unsaid was how he found people to experiment on.

"What made it?" The Buyer asked.

"We never knew, Herr Buyer. The records at the monastery spoke of villages turning rabid, of local kings quarantining the valley. The rakshasha were soldiers and monks belonging that area. They apparently lured all infected to that monastery and sealed themselves in." revealed Beck. 

"And...what did Uncle Sam want with you? With your research?" Roy asked, discomfort brewing in his stomach. 

"Have you heard of the town of Jupiter's Point, herr Soldier?" Beck suddenly asked him. Roy shook his head.

"It's to be expected. You see, Jupiter's Point was once a thriving town in Alaska. That was until it went dark. The official story was that it was covered by an avalanche. Truthfully, the town suffered an outbreak of this virus and American troops were forced to burn it to the ground. That was the reason my team and I were recruited, dear visitors. This virus was found in Alaska and research into its structure was necessary to understand it. The OSS figured that my mind and my papers would be important in keeping America safe." Beck chuckled. "This virus, this was found in extremely cold regions. We theorized that the Ice Age had kept it frozen, locked in stasis. This also jumps onto why humanity migrated so far away from its birth places. We weren't fleeing the cold. No, we were fleeing from something worse." 

​A sense of fear and dread crept up their spines at this revelation. A sort of deep seated revulsion that could only be a genetic defense. Humans feared bodies, they would rot and spread disease surely. But a forgotten fact, a reality that their ancestors had lived was that such bodies would rise up and attack the dead. 

"And the spread here? Kentucky isn't exactly cold," Roy asked, focusing on the bottom line.

"Allow me then to explain the purpose of this facility," Beck continued, his voice sounding smug. "We were to research and understand the disease, yes. But we were to find a way to weaponize it. During the height of the Cold War, your Department of Defense looked for solutions to destroy the Soviet Union, its allies, and America's enemies without using nuclear weapons. So, we synthesized this virus to be heat resistant too. I believe that Vietnam is a hot country, ja?" 

The terrible gut feeling in Roy's stomach reached a fever pitch, memories of Vietnam coming into his mind. The plain-clothes civilians that would show up then vanish just as quickly as they appeared, rumors of Vietnamese villages going dark then the Air Force conveniently dousing those villages in Napalm. 

"God in Heaven," he muttered, crossing himself. 

"Believe me, God has longed abandoned this place. The devil too, I think. I believe he would clap at the ingenuity of this place then send me to the deepest pit in Hell," Beck hummed, nodding to himself. "Anyway, the start of the infection here. You can blame your government for that. They were going to shut this place down and bury it deep. They intended to massacre the personnel here and hide it from the eyes of God. Understand that the personnel are dear to me and seeing them murdered and hearing their cries, I had to do something to protect them. And so, I released the valves that contained the virus into the air." 

That explained the black-uniformed dead, thought the Buyer. Special Operations guys sent to Black Mesa this facility. The two Kentuckians on the other hand, their reactions differed. Roy had long since been used to disturbing news, he took the revelations stoically. Elis however had his excitement run out, the novelty of the affair turning stale as he realized that his friends and family were dead or dying simply because the government wanted to hide secrets. He knew his own immediate family were okay, they lived in the woods and were self-sufficient enough to protect themselves. Keith on the other hand wasn't so much. In fact, wasn't he turning green?

Oh no...

"Is there a cure? Tell me there's a cure!" Elis suddenly blurted. 

"Well, our research revealed that two out in ten humans are resistant to the virus," Beck drawled. "Remember what I said about our ancestors facing this virus? The human body is capable of adapting well to circumstance, this virus among them. We found those immune have to them a mutation in their genetics, one that has lain dormant in the absence of the super-virus. As for a cure, there is no cure. This virus once transmitted is fatal."

Elis's breath stalled. His friend was gone. He had hoped that there would be a cure to save him but if the kraut was speaking truthfully then...Keith was no more.

"There is hope yet, however. We had synthesized a vaccine to protect uninfected persons. My whole papers for it were confiscated by my bastard backers, Finnegan Research Group and Prometheus." Beck said, his voice shaking with anger. Then, he coughed. There was silence at first then, chuckling.

"Having issues there?" the Buyer asked. 

"Indeed. It appears that I am infected," coughed Beck again. "It was only a matter of time. No matter. Listen, the papers in your hand, Herr Buyer, have everything you need. Evidence to damn the ones who have approved of this research and even half of my notes on how to synthesize the vaccine. Do what you wish of this place and with it, only promise me that Prometheus will suffer." 

The Buyer did not know who or what Prometheus was but he was committed in bringing this place to light, figuratively and literally. "I'll do that," he vowed.

​Beck smiled. The Buyer could not see it but he could feel it. "Fire will be enough to purge this place. The virus itself has a shelf life for a week before earth's heat kills it. I wish you look on your labour, Herr Buyer. It's only just begun." 

​The German scientist chuckled mirthfully before a loud bang echoed, then a body falling on the floor. 

"Let's plant the charges then let's get the fuck out of here," the Buyer commanded, walking off as he held the documents in his hand. 

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A/N: Revelations, eh?