No Escape

by Alex Scarrow

  Jake placed the extinguisher down on the ground beside him. “You’re saying I get to return back here? And I’ll be uninfected?”

  “Yes. I promise,” replied Camille.

  “I won’t be, you know, changed in any way or anything?”

  “Any scout cells left in your bloodstream will switch off their self-defense mechanism. Your immune system will destroy them quickly and easily. They will die to ensure you return as you were. Unchanged. Uninfected.”

  It’s a lie. It’s a trap! Leon wanted Lawrence to step in. Bring this farce of an exchange to a close. And if he wasn’t going to…

  “Jake! We’ve both fought to stay alive this far! And you’re just going to lie down and let her infect you?”

  Jake shrugged. “What if she’s right? We’re hanging on, that’s all we’re doing…hanging on. If the food runs out, if we can’t catch fish, if this winter is going to be worse than the last two… Shit, Leo, if They can just wander up to us like this girl has, we’re already screwed!”

  “For Chrissakes, we’ll relocate! That’s what we’ll do!”

  “What if she’s right though? What if being infected is like being uploaded to the internet or something? What if it is life but different? Something better than this? Life 2.0? I volunteer.”

  “Hold on!” cut in Lawrence. “Look, how will—”

  “My choice,” said Jake firmly, turning to Leon. “My choice, mate. Don’t worry. I’m good with this.”

  “Jake. Don’t!” It was Cora, standing with Howard, Adewale, Finley, and Kim. They had instinctively grouped together, an old allegiance resurfacing. “We escaped the warehouse together, love. We got so far. Don’t give in now!”

  Jake shook his head. “I’m not giving in. I’m just… I need to know.” He glanced back at Camille. “She’s made it sound OK. What if it isn’t that bad?”

  “Shit, Jake!” said Leon. “You’ve seen it with your own eyes! We all did! Those things were monsters! Those things were screwed up!”

  “I’m just going to see, mate. Then I’ll come back and tell you what’s going on.”

  Leon shook his head slowly and took a few steps toward his friend. “You won’t be able to come back to us, Jake. You go, then you’re gone for good.”

  “I think this girl’s right. We’re on borrowed time. It’s just going to get worse and worse until we die out.”

  “Jake is correct,” said Camille. “In my world, there is no death. Not anymore.”

  “Immortality,” added Jake. “Come on, that sounds better than this.”

  Not as a bug. Or some twisted mutant.

  “I’m staying human, Jake. Right to the bitter end, if it comes to that.” Leon wanted to grab him and shake him. Scream at him that they could just burn this creature and run. Get their stuff, get off the isle, and go find somewhere else.

  “Leon?”

  “This…” Leon felt his throat tighten, his eyes brim, threatening to spill a tear. “You know, this is just…giving up.”

  “You know what she’s just described?”

  Leon shook his head, not sure where his friend was going.

  “Heaven, mate. That’s what it could be.”

  “Or hell,” Leon whispered.

  “Or…the other alternative, a bullet in the brain, and then it’s just nothing forevermore.” Jake held out his hand. “Nothing just sounds like shit.”

  “If you return…you know we won’t be able to trust you. You’ll be a viral. That’s it.”

  “And you’ll burn me?”

  Leon didn’t know what he’d do if Jake came back among them and started evangelizing like Camille. Looking like Jake, sounding like Jake, but talking about the virus like it was some hippy-dippy chill-out zone.

  “Yes. If we have to…whatever the hell you come back saying, you’re gonna be one of Them.” He bit his lip. “I’m staying human, Jake. Right to the end.”

  Jake reached for Leon’s hand and grasped it. “Look, if I come back, at least gimme a chance to try and say something. OK?”

  “Don’t do this.”

  Leon turned to the faces lining the back walls of the restaurant. “This is complete crap. Isn’t anyone else going to goddamn well say anything?”

  He got nothing back. Cora had tried, and the others gathered around her said nothing. The rest of this morning’s diners shook their heads.

  He suspected they all wanted Jake to go. To be the sacrifice…until next time. Until Jake came out of the goo and asked for another volunteer to come and join him. And one by one, they were all going to be led like pigs to the slaughterhouse.

  Jake turned to Camille. “So what happens now?”

  “We will both leave on my boat.” She turned to Lawrence. “I can see you have men outside and they have gasoline. Please, will you ask them to back away? To let us go?”

  Lawrence nodded. “Uh…all right.” He cleared his throat and raised his voice. “All right, everyone, listen to me. The girl and Jake are leaving us. Everyone just stay where you are. Stay calm while I go inside and explain what’s happening.”

  Leon watched him as he went over to the door, pulled it open, then stepped inside to address the crowd with the same message. Through the foggy window, he saw their response. Their eyes suddenly widening, peering through the window at their visitor, then starting to back away.

  “Hey, Leon?”

  He turned to his friend.

  “Just don’t burn me, Leon. OK?”

  They flamed Grace, remember? They didn’t stop to ask her a damned thing, did they? They just burned her because they were frightened. Is that what you are now, Leon? Frightened? Ignorant?

  “I think you’re an idiot agreeing to this.”

  “I’m taking one for the team, mate. If it’s a crap deal…I’ll let you all know.”

  Leon huffed out a dry laugh and offered his hand. “You do that.”

  Jake grasped it. “And if I don’t come back, for whatever reason, you stay safe, bro.”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  “You’re a real fighter, mate.”

  Not always. Leon let him go. “Good luck.”

  The crowd had cleared back far enough, and Lawrence stood before them, arms spread wide.

  Camille turned to Jake. “We will go now.”

  Leon heard Lawrence telling someone to calm down and stay well back.

  He watched his friend and the viral creature walk down the long jetty, slowly becoming indistinct silhouettes amid the fog, and then, finally, they were gone from sight.

  Leon heard them stepping into the dinghy, oars being dropped into their holes, and the gentle dip and splash, dip and splash, as the small boat pulled away.

  Chapter 36

  For a while Rex Williams felt weightless. That was the only word he could use.

  Weightless. Disembodied.

  It was a pleasant state. However, if the virus had tricked him into allowing himself to be infected and this state of being was to last forever, how long would it be before he began to feel this nothingness close in on him, suffocate him?

  He became aware of sensations beginning to stir. First taste and smell together. He suddenly had the distinct impression that he could smell or had just eaten something flavored with vanilla. One of his favorite flavors.

  Then he thought he could hear waves breaking softly on a beach: a gentle thump of water and a long hiss as it withdrew. Other sounds faded in: the occasional call of a seagull, the soft clink-clink-clink of halyards against a mast.

  The sounds informed him that he was on a beach; then finally, the darkness lifted, and he was: a beach that looked familiar from his youth—the Turnball Sailing Club. He could see the dinghies drawn up farther down the golden sands, deck chairs and beach umbrellas and the clubhouse farther along. The Pacific Ocean was warm, turquoi
se, and in a placid mood today.

  “Hello.”

  He turned to see Grace sitting on a bright-red beach chair beside him.

  “This is really nice,” she added.

  “How…? This…this…” Rex shook his head. The Turnball Sailing Club didn’t exist anymore. When he was in his teens, it had gone bust, the clubhouse was demolished, and the beach was built up with apartments.

  “I read your memories,” she replied. “I liked this one. And it seems you like it too.”

  Rex nodded. He’d been ten when his parents first joined. Those were maybe the happiest few years of his life, coming here virtually every day.

  “Why…why are we sitting here?”

  “We could be anywhere, any-when. But I thought you’d like to see this again.”

  Rex nodded slowly. “I spent so much time down here.” He looked at her. “But this isn’t here. This is a…some sort of hallucination, isn’t it?”

  “Not really. It’s real in every sense that matters.”

  “But it isn’t real. It can’t be. The sailing club doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “What we see, hear, taste, touch, smell, feel, Mr. Williams, all ends up as electrical signals converted to chemical messages before we’re even aware of them. Our minds interpret the chemistry and decide what that means, where we are, and how we feel.” She leaned over and ran her fingers through the coarse sand. “To be honest, the only things that are real—that you can rely on being true—are those you experience inside your head. Everything outside is just…information.”

  “But”—he gestured at the sea—“this is either here, or it’s not. It’s not a matter of opinion.”

  “You know, the real sky outside could be green, the sea could really be bright orange. But we’ve all decided to interpret the information our eyes gather in a certain way. We are told the sky is blue, so we all see the sky as blue. All that matters on the inside is what you decide is true.”

  “So this is…inside? We’re inside…what exactly?”

  “We call it the bioverse. It’s a good name. I don’t know who first came up with it.”

  “Is everyone who got infected…in this bioverse?”

  Grace nodded. “Most of them.”

  “Where are they?”

  She shrugged. “Nearby.”

  He looked around. “On this beach? In the clubhouse? Beyond these trees?”

  “No. This is a private space. Just you and me. I made it from your memory, so you didn’t panic when you reassembled.”

  “Reassembled?”

  “Your mind. Your consciousness.”

  Rex had an unsettling image of his brain floating like a cauliflower in a jar of jam.

  “You’re talking about my…brain?”

  “No, your awareness. That’s such a tiny part of you. I think only fifty or sixty million cells of the brain. It’s so small. The rest of that organ, the billions of cells, they’re just storage, they’re housekeeping, they control body processes.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Someone explained it to me this way: awareness is like your CPU. The rest of the brain is the hard drive, the cooling fan, circuit board, power unit…all that stuff. It follows you around, and sometimes it all assembles together—one complete mind. Sometimes it’s just your awareness you have with you.” She smiled. “That’s a lot to take in, I guess.”

  “So…how much of you is here with me?” he asked.

  “Not all of me,” she replied.

  “Just your awareness?”

  “Not even all of that.” She smiled. “You can share yourself out, be in two places at once, duplicate, then recombine. It’s—”

  “My God…duplicate?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “So then…if you can do that, which one is the real you?”

  She laughed at that. “I am not the cells themselves, Mr. Williams. I’m how they talk to each other. I know that must sound weird.”

  “You’re not kidding.”

  “Are you religious?”

  He shook his head. “My father was Catholic. I never believed in any of that.”

  “Well, I was going to say it’s easier to understand this if you think of yourself as a spirit.”

  He spread his hands. “And what? That makes all of this…heaven?”

  “Yup.” She shrugged. “Kinda. Or nirvana, whatever you want to call it.”

  He was about to laugh at her reply, but then he realized she was serious, and she was right. Looking at this strangeness that way, yes, it made sense.

  “This is a…microbiological afterlife?”

  “That or you can call it inner space or the bioverse.” She shrugged. “Everyone seems to have a different name for it.”

  “If I accept your religious metaphor, and you and I are spirits…and this is heaven? Then, does it follow that there’s a God? Someone or something in charge?”

  “Not in charge.” She smiled. “Not really. But They’re certainly here to help.”

  “Who?”

  “Them.”

  “Them?”

  “It’s really hard to describe who They are.” She pressed her lips together as she thought about it. “They found their way here sort of randomly, I guess, but They came with a mission.” She turned to him. “Would you like to meet one of Them?”

  He wondered if he was going to regret it. “That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? So we can meet? Negotiate?”

  Grace shook her head. “They don’t have to negotiate with you. We could wipe out the last survivors easily. We could swarm ashore and get this over with very quickly. But then many would die in the process and their minds lost forever. No one wants that.”

  “So what do They want from me?”

  “Just for you to see for yourself. Decide what’s best. Then go back home and tell everyone. That’s why you’re so important, Mr. Williams. People trust their leaders. You know, the same thing is happening with other groups around the world. We’re getting other leaders to see for themselves.”

  He understood. He was pretty sure she was telling the truth about swarming them too; if They could make that vast floating structure and tolerate the salty Pacific, They could probably find a way onto the two islands of New Zealand without any trouble.

  “So?” She looked at him. “What do you think? How about it?”

  “Meet…one of Them? One of your facilitators?”

  “Yes. Just one.”

  What the hell am I agreeing to do here? Meet God?

  “Anything I need to know first? Dos and don’ts…that kind of thing? Wear a tie or something?”

  “No.” She laughed softly. “They’re not judging you.”

  “Right.”

  He looked around once more at the bay, at the clubhouse, at the inviting turquoise waves. “I suppose we’d better get on with it and have this meeting.”

  He was standing in a dark void. Floating, in fact.

  It took him a while to realize that it wasn’t just more blackness—it appeared to be a projection of space. He began to pick out the faint, steady light of distant stars, the subtle brushstrokes of the Magellanic Clouds.

  “Grace. What’s going on?”

  He heard Grace’s voice even though he couldn’t see her anywhere. “Just a moment.” Her voice filled the universe around him.

  The luminosity of the stars and gas clouds increased until what was once the blackness of a dead universe was awash with color, like a watercolor painting left out in the rain. At college, he’d studied a module of cosmology. From the little he remembered of it, he realized what he was looking at was a universe much, much younger than the present one.

  “Why am I seeing this?” She didn’t reply. “Grace?”

  No response. He looked down at himself and saw nothing. He was s
imply present in this place, in what he presumed was another bioverse simulation. He was a wandering spirit, witnessing the incredible adolescent years of the cosmos.

  Presently, the gas clouds began to move, to swirl and spin into what looked like weather systems, and Rex understood he was watching millions of years accelerated into seconds. The clouds swirled and compacted, glowing brighter with energy. The scene suddenly zoomed in on a random tendril of gas, and Rex felt panic for a moment as he found everything rushing past him. He was pulled toward a small segment of the universe, to inspect it more closely.

  He saw clouds of gas and dust that had fallen in on themselves and formed into a cluster of baby stars. Rushing forward again, descending into even greater granular detail, he found himself hurtling toward one particular star as the rest receded into the background.

  The color washes of distant gas clouds drained away, and once again, space was a black void peppered with faint pinpricks of stars. His view zoomed in, and now he was hovering above a world.

  My God.

  Another world. He could see beige oceans and dark land masses that began to distort and change shape. He realized, once again, time was being accelerated and he was seeing this planet’s geology finding its form, tectonic plates sailing like ships across the incomplete crust. The land masses settled, or maybe time was being slowed down. He saw the planet’s hue change, become cooler. He saw the beige oceans change to more of an olive color; he saw the envelope of an atmosphere thicken and green-tinted clouds begin to form like milk curling in a stirred coffee cup.

  “Is this…Their world?” he asked, hoping Grace, or someone, would answer him. “Is that what I’m being shown?”

  But still nothing. Silence. He remained on his own.

  He watched the world below him settle now that it had an atmosphere; time was being slowed down yet again. He saw the marbling of colors changing across the land masses, ecosystems rising and falling to be replaced with new ones as global temperatures changed.

  He watched a smear of white spreading down from the top and up from the bottom of the world, almost meeting at the equator and then drawing back like theater curtains, and realized he’d just witnessed a complete ice age. It might have lasted tens or hundreds of thousands of years, but for him, it had been mere seconds.