Chapter 16: Biological Warfare - Part 1
POV: Alec Morgan
Murphy stumbled into camp at dawn, beaten and desperate, and my blood turned to ice water recognizing the setup I'd hoped might not happen exactly as I remembered it.
He looked terrible—face swollen with bruises, clothes torn, moving with the careful gait of someone nursing internal injuries. But it was the fever flush across his skin and the too-bright glitter in his eyes that made my stomach clench with horrible certainty.
The hemorrhagic virus. Biological warfare delivered through a vector the Grounders knew we couldn't turn away, no matter how much we distrusted the messenger.
"Please," Murphy gasped, collapsing near the fire where most of the camp was gathering for morning meal preparation. "I know you hate me, but I'm dying out there. They tortured me for information, left me to die. I just want to come home."
The plea was delivered with genuine desperation, because Murphy didn't know he was carrying death in his bloodstream. Didn't know the Grounders had deliberately infected him with a weaponized pathogen designed to devastate our population through the one person we might show mercy despite our better judgment.
"He's already contagious. Everyone who touches him, everyone who breathes the air around him, everyone who shares food or water—they're all exposed now. And I can't explain how I know without revealing impossible foreknowledge."
"Shouldn't we make sure he's not sick first?" I said loudly enough for the gathering crowd to hear, trying to plant seeds of caution without seeming prescient. "Basic quarantine procedures? Test for infection or contagion before bringing him into close contact with everyone?"
Bellamy was studying Murphy with the tactical assessment of someone weighing security risks against humanitarian obligations. "What kind of testing?" he asked.
"Temperature check, symptom assessment, maybe isolation for twenty-four hours to see if anything develops?" I suggested, grasping for reasonable-sounding protocols that might delay the inevitable spread.
"He's obviously hurt and exhausted," Octavia protested, her compassionate nature overriding tactical caution. "Look at him. He needs medical attention, not isolation."
Clarke knelt beside Murphy with her medical supplies, professional instincts taking over as she examined his obvious injuries. "Dehydration, malnutrition, extensive bruising," she reported. "Some of these wounds look infected, but nothing immediately life-threatening."
"She can't see the virus yet. It's still in incubation, still building toward critical mass in his system. But every second he's here, he's spreading it to everyone around him."
"The Grounders tortured him for information," Finn said, studying Murphy's condition with mix of sympathy and suspicion. "What did you tell them?"
"Nothing," Murphy claimed, though his voice carried the exhaustion of someone who'd been tested beyond their limits. "I told them nothing. But they kept asking about weapons, about how many fighters we have, about the dropship's defenses."
Intelligence gathering. The Grounders were assessing our capabilities while simultaneously deploying biological warfare against us. Professional military tactics that made our teenage leadership look like children playing games they didn't understand.
"We should let him stay," Octavia decided, her vote carrying weight with others who remembered their own desperate need for second chances. "He's one of us. We don't abandon people."
"No. No, please don't. You're all going to die if you let him stay. Half the camp will be dead in three days, and I can't explain how I know without destroying everything I've built here."
But the democratic decision was already forming. Compassion winning over caution. Humanitarian instincts overriding tactical awareness. Murphy would stay because they were better people than the Grounders who'd tortured and abandoned him.
"Fine," Bellamy decided, though his expression suggested he was filing away my quarantine concerns for future reference. "But he sleeps apart from everyone else until we're sure he's not carrying anything contagious."
Too little, too late. The damage was already done—Murphy had been breathing the same air, touching the same surfaces, existing in close proximity to people who were now exposed to biological warfare they couldn't detect.
Within six hours, the first symptoms appeared.
Harper collapsed during afternoon work detail, fever spiking to dangerous levels with startling rapidity. Then Monroe, then two others whose names I knew from camp rosters but whose faces would haunt me forever. By evening, eight people were unconscious with high fevers and bleeding from places that shouldn't bleed.
Clarke worked frantically with her limited medical supplies, but she was fighting an enemy she couldn't see or understand. "It's viral," she announced after examining multiple patients. "Hemorrhagic fever. Highly contagious, probably transmitted through bodily fluids."
"Or through breathing the same air as someone in the infectious stage," I thought grimly, feeling my own body responding to pathogen exposure in ways that defied medical understanding.
My adaptive immunity was already analyzing the virus, breaking down its structure and developing countermeasures at the cellular level. I felt feverish for perhaps an hour—mild nausea, slight headache, elevated body temperature as my enhanced systems worked to neutralize the threat.
But I had to pretend to be sicker than I was, had to fake symptoms that would convince others I was experiencing the same biological warfare that was killing them.
"How many people are going to die because I can't explain what's coming? How many lives is my secret worth?"
"I feel terrible," I announced loudly enough for Raven to hear, then proceeded to perform theatrical coughing and weakness while my immune system systematically dismantled viral proteins that should have been killing me.
"You need to rest," Raven said, immediately shifting into protective mode as she helped me to our shared shelter. "Let me check your temperature."
Her hands were gentle against my forehead, checking for fever that was already fading as my adaptive systems gained control over the infection. I leaned into her touch, grateful for the contact even as I hated lying to her about my condition.
"Bad?" I asked, making my voice sound weaker than it was.
"High," she lied, probably trying to spare me additional worry. In reality, my temperature was already dropping toward normal as the virus lost its foothold in my system.
The camp descended into chaos as more people succumbed to symptoms that escalated with horrifying speed. Delirious fever, internal bleeding, organ failure that left strong teenagers looking like death within hours of infection.
"It was deliberate," Murphy finally confessed as his own symptoms worsened, guilt overriding the fever-induced confusion. "The Grounders. They kept me alive, kept feeding me, said I was their message to you. I didn't understand what they meant until people started getting sick."
The admission triggered exactly the reaction I'd feared—rage, demands for immediate execution, the kind of mob justice that would make us no better than the people who'd weaponized biological warfare against civilians.
"He's a victim," I said from my position in Raven's arms, forcing strength into my voice despite my supposed illness. "Biological warfare makes him a weapon, not a willing participant. We're better than execution for people who were used without their knowledge."
"Are we?" Bellamy demanded, his protective instincts warring with strategic calculation. "When our people are dying because he brought death into our camp?"
"Yes," I said firmly, thinking of Murphy's future redemption arc and the crucial role he'd play in keeping humanity alive through disasters still to come. "We are. Because the moment we start executing people for being victims, we become the monsters we're fighting against."
The argument continued around me, but I barely heard it. Half the camp was dying from biological warfare I'd known was coming but couldn't prevent. Raven held me close, terrified I was infected with something that could kill me, unaware that my adaptive immunity had already won a war she couldn't see.
"You're going to be okay," I whispered against her hair, the one truth I could give her. "I promise. You're all going to be okay."
But as night fell and the death count climbed, I wondered if promises made from knowledge I couldn't explain were worth anything at all.
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