Farewell Address

Farewell Address

The hall was packed, every seat taken as the ceiling lights dimmed. Then he appeared – Doctor Simon Torrance – tall, strong, his neatly combed hair glowing silver. A roar of cheers and applause filled the hall as everyone rose to their feet, cell phones flashing as he strode beneath an enormous banner reading “Happy Retirement Doctor Torrance!”

He was the most brilliant genetic engineer of all time, and the founder and Chief Scientist of Torrance Genetics. After three decades of world-changing discoveries, he was one brief hour from walking into history.

The ovation continued long after Torrance reached the lab stool near the front of an otherwise empty stage. He waved to the audience, and the roar became deafening. A minute later, he began motioning for quiet.

People gradually retook their seats, but their whispered conversations still filled the hall. Some remarked on the contingent of uniformed military officers filling the front three rows. Their presence seemed a non sequitur, since Torrance Genetics was all about medical research.

“Thank you,” Torrance began in a deep, resonant voice. His signature white lab coat glowed under the stage lights. He looked like an angel, no, a god. After all, he’d cured ninety percent of cancer in the past twenty years.

“We’ve achieved a lot over the past few decades. A lot of important work. Hundreds of my colleagues are here with us in the audience tonight, including many that you've never heard of. Until now, that is. I’m referring specifically to the members of the United States Army seated near the stage.”

There was a renewed rumble of conversation in the audience as people speculated on the army's involvement in Torrance’s research. The officers, themselves, appeared to freeze in place, as if to divert attention from themselves.

“Which leads to my real motivation for this presentation. Because, my friends, I’m afraid I’ve something to show you. Something terrible.”

A great hush filled the hall. Thousands of smiles melted into frowns of puzzlement. Someone in the balcony began talking loudly.

“Shhh!” said the person beside them.

Then came a squeaking noise, as a stagehand wheeled a dented, rust-spotted lab cart across the stage toward Torrance. Atop the cart stood some kind of test tube rack. It was filled with illuminated cylinders, each a foot tall, two inches wide, and glowing a different vivid color – magenta, blue, orange, green.

“I gathered these tubes late last night. They're from several of our level four containment vaults. Tricky work, but of course I do know all the security codes.”

There was nervous titter from the audience, but he didn’t smile. His eyes appeared flat, emotionless. His dark-eyed, unblinking stare focused beyond the officers, the upper balcony, and the hall itself.

“This is my ultimate legacy. One of unforgivable hypocrisy and shame. Because here, inside these glass containment vials, is my Doomsday Collection.”

The audience was suddenly abuzz, while the army officers gestured emphatically among themselves. Some were on their cell phones, their eyes following Torrance’s every move.

“Since the beginning,” Torrance said as he carefully lifted the magenta tube from its holder, “the United States Army, under clandestine Project X1, has funded and directed us to weaponize dangerous viruses.”

A collective gasp filled the hall. Then an eerie silence. Someone in the top balcony sneezed while Torrance held the tube in one hand and pointed at it with the other.

“This tube contains STR-53. It’s like Ebola, but a hundred times more virulent.” He gripped the center of the tube, twirled it twice like one would a majorette’s baton, and tossed it nonchalantly toward the army officers. The audience rose in uproar as several uniformed men struggled to catch the tube intact. They succeeded.

Handfuls of people were leaving their seats and hurrying up the aisles toward the exits. Many of the younger officers were attempting the same, despite a stern order from their superior officer to remain seated. The celebratory mood was gone. Only a palpable sense of danger remained.

“Let me show you their favorite pathogen,” Torrance continued. “CXL.”

Torrance’s breathing was tremulous. With an angry glare he lifted free the bright green tube. More and more in the audience tried to flee, many of them stumbling over people still in their seats.

“Somebody stop him! Now!” an older officer shouted. Several of his men leapt from their seats and struggled to reach the stage, but it was too high and out of reach. A man ran to the far side of the hall and up the stairs leading to off-stage right. He tugged on the door handle. He rattled it loudly, but it was locked.

“CXL is the pinnacle achievement of this perverse endeavor, a kind of unholy grail to the monsters seated before me.”

As isolated shouts and screams rose from the audience, Torrance twirled the tube several times and, as before, tossed it toward the officers. Close to a dozen men were on their feet, and they once again barely managed to capture it intact.

“The evil that we and they perpetuated and, yes, literally profited from, must now be publicly acknowledged and revealed to the whole world. What hypocrites we’ve become. Instead of saving humanity, we figured out how to destroy it!”

With that, thousands stampeded for the exits, the aisles and stairways jammed to overflowing. Men and women screamed as they fell and others trampled over them in terror.

Torrance lifted the orange cylinder.

“But this… this is a virus that only I knew about. It took me ten years to develop and test. And now it's ready.”

Two doors at the rear of the hall banged open, and a half dozen police and security guards poured in and charged down the aisle.

“Shoot him!” a senior army officer shouted while pointing frantically at Torrance. “He’ll kill us all!”

“I call it simply,” said Torrance, with a pause, “The Apocalypse.”

Torrance gripped the tube at one end, raised it over his shoulder, and with all his strength threw it like a hatchet at the shouting officer. Then shots rang out, and a bullet tore through Torrance’s lab coat, splattering blood across his chest and onto the floor behind him. Another bullet struck the glowing blue tube still on the lab cart. It exploded into a luminous mist that floated off the stage and into the audience.

Time slowed to a crawl for the thousands still present. They could do nothing but watch. Torrance was falling backward, his eyes glazed over, his face relaxed. The luminous Apocalypse tube tumbled slowly, end over end, on its arcing trajectory – up, then down into the midst of the officers. In the chaos of green-uniformed men, no one saw it coming. No one thought to reach up and catch it.

Then the most dreadful sound imaginable. When the glass shattered.