“Come in; we have been expecting you. General Burkhardt has been
giving us a brief rundown on the mission, but he didn’t want to get
to the details until you showed up. First off, let me introduce you
to the people in this room.
“General Burkhardt is the Secretary of the Army and is standing
at the board. To the right of the general’s seat is Admiral
Sanchez, the secretary of the Navy. Next is General McIntyre of the
Air Force. On this side of the table we have Jack Looper, head of
the CIA, and you probably already recognize President Joe Howard,
Vice president Harry Fine, and the secretary of state and
president’s wife, Shirley Kemp-Howard. Please have a seat. General
Burhardt, would you please continue?”
“Thank you, Mary. For your benefit, let me go over a little of
the history to help you to understand the gravity of the situation.
During the cold war, we discovered that the Soviet Union had
developed a weapon of mass destruction that made the atom bomb look
like a firecracker by comparison. They had developed a spore-like
fungus that would consume anything it touched. In the early 60's,
the CIA ... aahh ... 'borrowed' some of this substance so we could
research it.
“What we found scared us to death! This spore ate everything,
human, animal, plant, it didn’t matter what it was.. The problem
was, there was no way to stop it. Once released, it would continue
to grow and expand until it wiped out every living organism on the
earth. The projection was, that because it also killed off plant
life, eventually, it would destroy the earth’s ability to produce
oxygen, in essence, killing the planet. Our scientists labeled it
'Doomspore'.
“For years we worked to find a way to counterract the spores,
without success. In order to research it, we needed to be able to
make more than what was originally taken from the Soviets. We
sucessfully made a small quantity, and as we needed more, we were
able to reproduce it. When President Gorbechev dissolved the Soviet
Union, we stopped our research. “We should have destroyed the spore
sample at that time, but we didn’t. Last week, someone broke into
our laboratory and stole the sample. We don’t know for sure how
much was left, but it was more then enough to insure the total
destruction of the earth.
“The CIA has traced the sample to a place called 6 Points. We
have prepared a mission briefing for you to take with you when you
go. The compound is heavily guarded, and is was designed to confuse
and delay anyone trying to break in, as you are about to attempt.
Needless to say, the retrieval of this sample is vital to our
survival. That is all I have. Mr. President, do you have anything
to add?”
“Yes I do. Thank you, General, for your background on this; it
is a very frightening scenario. I want to thank you for
volunteering for this assignment. I could never order someone to do
anything this dangerous. It is important for you to know that you
are not the first person who has attempted this, and if you fail,
you will not be the last. We have to recover this sample at
all costs. Feel free to change your mind about volunteering
for the misson if the information provided has caused you to
reconsider your decision.
“If you are still determined to attempt this, the entire world
population is grateful to you, even though they will never be
allowed to know about you. The details of the mission are in the
detailed briefing on this disk. Be sure to
print it at a high enough print quality to see the information. It
was very faint. I strongly suggest you bring it with you rather
than try to memorize it. Good luck, and God Bless You.”