Extermination Day by William Turnage

importantly, I didn’t know the scope of the incident, whether this was something that happened just in the Harvard lab or on campus or what. At least not right away.”
    He swiveled to face Jeff.
    “At the time I received the data drive, it was twenty or twenty-five years in advance of the technology we had at the time. I could figure out some of the basics, but not everything. And it had been damaged slightly when the bulldozer ran over it. I knew there was more data that could be recovered, so I sought out the smartest computer expert I knew at the time, a former student who was an instructor in the computer science PhD program at Harvard, Franklin Whittenhouse.”
    Jeff peered at Chen, eyes wide. “The founder and CEO of Whittenhouse Electronics? The billionaire?” Franklin Whittenhouse was one of the richest men in the world.
    “The same. Franklin was smart enough to figure out how the device worked and bold enough to build a business around what he learned. That one device, with technology from twenty years in the future, enabled a small renaissance in electronics and communications and is largely what runs most of our electronics today. Whittenhouse was able to build on what he learned and take that knowledge to new levels. Anyone without his skills wouldn’t have been able to do the same.”
    “Amazing,” Holly said. “What other data was Whittenhouse able to uncover from the device?”
    “This,” Chen said as he pulled up one more video. “This is information taken from the Internet and save d in the device’s cache. It’s a satellite image of the grounds at Harvard.”
    The screen showed small dots on the ground. As Chen enhanced the video, Jeff realized the dots were bodies, scattered everywhere.
    “We were also able to enhance video from other areas around Boston, and the scenes showed much of the same death.”
    “So you did know,” Jeff said, his anger rising. “Dr. Conner was right; you knew that everyone was going to die and you did nothing to prevent it!”
    “Why didn’t you tell us about all of this.” Holly was sobbing. “You said a few days ago only that there was the chance of a terrorist attack. You never said you had a video from the future showing that attack killing everyone in Boston. We could have done something to help our families. Everyone is dead because of you. Conner was right to call you a mass murderer!”
    “Wait, wait, let me explain,” Chen said, thrusting his hands angrily into the air. “I went to the U.S. government immediately after learning about the video. No one believed me. I was talking about a time machine that I hadn’t even invented yet. They thought I was a nut-job, some crazy scientist who’d lost his marbles. It wasn’t until I’d built a prototype of the device and showed it to the government brass that they started to take me seriously.
    “Even then, though, they were thinking that this would be a localized terrorist attack on the Boston area. We had no evidence to show us otherwise. None of us knew the scope of the deaths, nor did we know about the virus. The general with oversight on the project suggested that we move everything to a safer location outside the city. I thought that was a good idea and given the larger scope of construction and the need for a large particle collider, I thought it best to move the facility to a remote location, underground, in case there was any sort of accident. The result was this base.”
    He stood, paced a few steps, and returned to his chair. Jeff made room for Holly, who had come close. Her face was flushed, her eyes red and wet. Jeff guessed his face was as pale as hers was red. Agent Mullins was standing stoically beside the remains of his fallen comrade, guarding him even in death. Jeff wished that someone would come and take what was left of Tom so that they could start to prepare a decent burial for him. He didn’t even know if the man had a family. Of course that family might all be dead as well.