The Cure

by Jeremy P Horgan

  ‘Ridiculous,’ said the Professor ‘On what grounds do they possibly think this will work?’

  ‘No disrespect Sir, but this is based on years of research from people who know what they are talking about. Not some criminal who runs with Mexican Death squads,’ Zack interjected, whilst the rest of them stared at him critically.

  ‘Death Squads?’ Mendez laughed ‘What is a Death Squad?’

  The other men in the room looked at each other bemused then one man said to another ‘el escuadrón de la muerte,’ and they started laughing again.

  Zack pulled a face ‘Your Death squads who go out at night taking people off the streets,’ he shrugged ‘Cannibalism.’ The men knew this word and laughed again.

  ‘Why are you here Tallulah? Seriously. If not to kill me, what is it you seek?’ said the Professor.

  ‘Whether or not their plan works, they are going to use the toxin in the water supply. We need an antidote. You are the only person I know cleverer than my father who could do such a thing. We took a massive chance coming here not knowing whether you were even alive. We need your help.’

  ‘What makes you think I am capable of such a thing? I have been in this place for years now, with no laboratories, nothing. What makes you think I want to help?’

  ‘I still know the man you were. I remember when I was a little girl, you said to me ‘if we are just a mistake and passing through this worlds life cycle then why make us individuals. The answer is simple, because as individuals we have the choice to make that life cycle better or worse. I will always choose better.’

  ‘Ah, choice. You are asking me to choose now of course.’ the Professor mused. ‘You of course have a sample of the toxin?’

  ‘Yes,’ Logan said.

  ‘Are you really entertaining this Mr. Brittle?’ said Mendez.

  ‘So many questions today Isaac. It’s about time we started to give some answers. Logan, Tallulah, please come with me, I have something to show you. Isaac, please can you make our other guests feel at home in the canteen.’

  Mendez nodded and the other men lowered their guns and waved the group out of the room and down a grey hallway.

  ‘Death Squads?’ the Professor said to Mendez as he joined Logan and Tallulah.

  ‘Hey, you see. They still have eyes on us. But sometimes the eyes lie. No?’

  The Professor led the pair down a metal staircase and up to a large double door, a huge lock across the riveted four-inch-thick steel. As he opened the doors bright sunshine blinded them momentarily until their eyes adjusted to the light, revealing a farm before them. In the prison courtyard men were digging at the ground whilst another chased a chicken around, swearing in Spanish.

  ‘Surprised?’ Mendez said.

  Logan looked at him ‘How?’

  The Professor smiled.

  ‘You have to remember Mr. Mathers; we were not always criminals. Yes, we have done bad things in the past. I am very aware of the things I have done and when I make peace with my maker, I will accept his decision. I deserve to be locked up forever, but this man did not,’ he held out his hand to the Professor.

  ‘Thank you, Isaac, but others would disagree with you I am afraid. None more so than this man’s father I am sure,’ said the Professor.

  ‘What do you mean? Why are you here? What did you do?’ said Logan.

  ‘More to the point, what didn’t I do. But we shall get to that. Let us show you around,’ said the Professor. ‘We have corn, fresh tomatoes, potatoes, cabbages, carrots over there.’

  ‘Don’t forget chilies,’ said Mendez.

  ‘Of course, Isaac. Our Mexican compadres make up eighty percent of the casa de la nueva vida and they love their chilies.’

  ‘House of New Life?’ Logan translated.

  ‘Yes Mr. Mathers. Every one of the people living within these walls was blessed with a new life. Not when The Cure came, but when the food stopped coming. We were the first to suffer and rightly so, but then we found out that we had a God living among us. A man of such knowledge that we would come to worship the ground he walked on, my good friend the Professor,’ Mendez beamed.

  ‘So melodramatic,’ said the Professor.

  ‘Mr Brittle had been in the prison four years and yet we had never crossed paths. He kept to himself, nonetheless it was clear he did not belong among us. The worst criminals the world had to offer lived here, but he was not one of them. However, when we needed him there he was. He taught us to grow crops where no crops could grow. He helped us find animals we could breed for farming. We have twelve pigs I think, no fourteen, goats, two cows and countless chickens now, but we started with nothing. Look at these men out here working together. Believe it or not some are guards who chose to stay rather than face the atrocities which awaited them outside. The bars are still here to keep people out, but unlike our President we did not forget the people outside our gates. The Death Squads you mentioned are my men taking food into the city and feeding those who cannot feed themselves. We have to keep them out so we can grow big enough to extend beyond the walls, which we will,’ he looked to the Professor who nodded approval back.

  ‘Nobody dies here. Nobody steals. We work together for the greater good. We work to do the very thing your father plans to take away from us, and that is to give the people a choice,’ said the Professor.

  ‘You did all this?’ Tallulah said.

  ‘No, we did all this. Every man within these prison walls is free to walk out whenever they want but they choose to stay, to live, and to help others live.’

  ‘It may not be the luxury you have become accustomed to, but to us, this is paradise,’ said Mendez.

  ‘Actually, where we have been living is more like a prison than here,’ said Logan.

  The Professor led them back into the prison and into the kitchens where the smell of freshly cooked bread filled the air. More men scurrying around carrying pots, testing food and stirring steaming hot vessels of food. Logan and Tallulah had never seen anything like it.

  ‘Apologies if my men give you any strange looks, but most haven’t seen a woman in many years. Especially one so beautiful Princess. You are completely safe of course but forgive their stares,’ said Mendez apologetically.

  ‘Professor, you said you were put here for something you didn’t do. Why?’ said Tallulah, choosing to ignore Mendez’ comment.

  The two men looked at each other ‘You don’t know?’ said Mendez.

  ‘No, why would we?’ said Logan.

  ‘Well, for one you are The President’s son, but she is Wanikiy’s daughter,’ said the Professor.

  ‘What does that mean?’ said Tallulah.

  ‘Your father didn’t tell you what caused The Cure?’ he said.

  ‘Something caused The Cure?’ said Logan.

  ‘Good Lord yes son, it wasn’t divine intervention, it was me,’ said Professor Brittle.

  Logan and Tallulah couldn’t believe what they were hearing and were speechless. This revelation was too much on top of everything they had heard, and Logan couldn’t find the words to reply.

  ‘You? You caused this?’ said Tallulah.

  ‘This?’ said the Professor waving his hands in the air as Tallulah had. ‘This being the end of the world, famine, death of humanity, the apocalypse? No. If I had then ending up in here would have been the least I deserved. No. Your father and I only created The Cure. We are not responsible for the repercussions.

  ‘My father? He has never mentioned anything about this. The Cure, we thought, was something else, not man made,’ said Tallulah.

  ‘Yes, like the rest of the world, but I had thought that those privy to what the left hand of the President knows would know too. Maybe even that secret was too barbaric to share, like poisoning half the country, I guess.’

  ‘Goldsmith?’ said Logan.

  ‘Yes, he was behind everything from the start. The government knew the scientists of the world were on the verge of discovery. Cures to Cancer, AIDS, Heart Disease, you name it, they w
ere close. Some had already been discovered but were awaiting approval for testing on live subjects. The five largest Pharmaceutical companies knew it too and they knew that they would lose billions once the cures were made available to the masses. They couldn’t pay off everyone, so they made a deal with the US Government to find a cure that was capable of curing and stopping anyone from ever getting ill in the future. It wasn’t about saving lives, it was always about making money. Goldsmith instigated everything and his first move was bringing your father and I to find the magic cure.’

  ‘But my father was trying to help people. He loved my mother and would do anything to stop people going through what we as a family had gone through. It was never about the money for him, it was about the guilt that he couldn’t save her,’ said Tallulah.

  ‘As was I my dear Tallulah, but we were oblivious to Goldsmith’s end game. Logan, your father was still Senator at the time, but his predecessor gave us carte blanche of everything at the Government’s disposal. We had access to Area 51 and substances which we had no idea what they were or what they were capable of, but we used them anyway in our campaign for a cure. We thought we were saving mankind and that just drove us to take bigger chances and more risk.’

  ‘But you did it. You found a cure to cure all illness. What went wrong?’ said Logan.

  ‘Yes, we found a cure, but not a way to administer it. The Government planned to sell the drug through the Pharmaceutical companies, but we couldn’t get it into pill or liquid form. It was a gas which could be breathed in but there was no way it could be sold on the open market. And by the way, we are talking about gases that cannot even be found on planet Earth, that we had no idea if they had any long-term side effects. But Goldsmith was working to a deadline. The Pharmaceutical companies needed proof that it worked so Goldsmith set up an experimental test on a town just outside of Mississippi with a population of less than four thousand people. Out of those four thousand people two hundred of them had been involved in an asbestos poisoning accident, so for Goldsmith this was the perfect way to show them the cure worked. We went over those figures a thousand times and by having planes release the gas over the town it had a target area of five square miles. It should have gone airborne throughout the town and in theory cured anyone within the area of any illness they might have. Despite what the figures told us we were dealing with, Wanikiy and I were concerned about releasing that much gas, which had never been done. Goldsmith ignored me and your father and went ahead with the test. As soon as the gas was released and entered the atmosphere it started to expand at a rate we hadn’t seen. Within seconds our apparatuses were going off the charts as it spread outside of the town and continued growing. It could have easily killed everyone and everything. Instead the Cure completely covered the whole planet within hours, curing everyone in its path.

  Nobody spoke.

  ‘The,’ Logan stopped. ‘Alien gas?’

  ‘Si, sounds loco tio,’ Mendez laughed ‘Yet here we are?’

  ‘Not exactly aliens my friend, but something we shouldn’t have taken so lightly,’ said the Professor. ‘It was a mistake on a scale never seen before. Of course, the Pharmaceutical companies were taken care of by the Government and the whole thing was covered up. I was taken into a room and Goldsmith asked me whether I could be trusted. I made the mistake of letting my feelings be known and that we should share what we knew so we could prepare against any side effects, but Goldsmith had other ideas and I was buried deep in a place where nobody would believe me if I even wanted to tell them. After a few weeks when I wasn’t joined by Wanikiy I guessed that he had made a different choice to me and the fact that you now stand before me confirms it. Logan, if it’s any consolation your father knew nothing of the experiment or what we were doing. As far as he is concerned The Cure was a natural event and when his predecessor committed Hari Kari, he was left with his legacy to clear up.’

  ‘This is too much to take in,’ said Tallulah.

  ‘It was a mistake? All this time and it was a mistake,’ said Logan.

  ‘Take a minute,’ said Mendez. ‘It’s a lot to process.’

  Logan had so many questions to ask but Tallulah was his priority now. She was conflicted as to whether her father had been a victim or become the villain in everything Professor Brittle had just told them. Truthfully, she just wanted to break down and cry. He was also aware that the whole reason they were there in the first place was the mission to stop the government making another huge mistake. A mistake which would undoubtably affect the professor and his fellow prisoners first-hand.

  They had come full circle back to the canteen where the rest of the group were sat chatting to the other prisoners, sharing tales and even jokes. They approached the others who all stood, as Logan and Tallulah were visibly shaken from what they had just heard. ‘Everything ok Boss?’ said Chuck to Logan.

  Logan wasn’t sure he had the answer to that question, but he smiled and nodded. Mendez put a hand on his shoulder ‘Well, at least we now know you are not here to kill anyone,’ he laughed.

  The laughter was short lived as he heard a gun cock and turned around to see Zack holding his gun against the Professors head ‘They may not be here to kill anyone, but I’ve got other plans.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Danny pulled up to the trellis gates of the reservoir, which were hanging off as though something had hit them at force. The place was silent, and he walked the motorbike into the forecourt of the reservoir and removed the contents from the box on the back, throwing up the C4 and catching it again, before stopping himself and considering the consequences of dropping that little block of explosives. He could hear the whooshing of the water now, although he couldn’t see it and he closed his eyes and breathed in the fresh air before exhaling and walking towards the entrance to the building.

  It looked like any office building on the inside, minus the people rushing around and the fact that the reception was unmanned. He pulled out the diagrams that he had for the buildings and looked around for the entrance to the underground walkway which housed the main water system.

  A loud beep sounded, and Danny jumped. Then an automated voice.

  ‘You are trespassing on government property. Please leave the building.’

  ‘You are trespassing on government property. Please leave the building.’

  Although technology had progressed massively in the last twenty years, Danny hadn’t seen outside of the base for years, and whilst he knew artificial intelligence was in place as a security measure, he wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. ‘I swear, if there are ‘replicants’ here it’s game over,’ he said to himself recollecting his entire experience of artificial intelligence from the films he had watched.

  Danny followed the blueprints and passed the front desk and down some stairs to an area which was open plan with desks lined up in a semi-circular fashion in front of a giant screen. The screen flicked between security footage of the reservoir and a broadcast every thirty seconds of his father warning everyone to evacuate and move to safe and secure areas of the country. He stood there looking at the ten-foot-tall vision of his father and nodded ‘I hope I’m doing you proud Dad.’

  He lifted his haversack and walked between the desks to the door at the back of the room. Looking through the window he jumped backwards as a face appeared behind the glass. ‘A hologram,’ he said to himself as the face peered back at him. ‘Name and security code?’ a voice came through the speaker on the wall. ‘Erm, Daniel Mathers,’ he stammered. ‘Not recognized,’ came the reply. He had not been prepared for this and he started to become flustered. He grabbed a nearby chair and threw it at the door. ‘Name and security code?’ came the voice again. ‘President Nathanial Mathers,’ he said. ‘Not recognized,’ repeated the hologram with no expression on its face. Danny picked up the chair he’d just thrown and sat down on it looking for inspiration.

  In the silence, weighing up his options, Danny heard a noise from upstairs. He jumped up startled and ran o
ver to the entrance to the room. He contemplated climbing the stairs and confronting whatever had made the noise, but he thought twice. He secured the doors with a broken chair leg through the door handles, wondering if it would hold.

  Running back to the security door he looked chillingly into the dead eyes of the hologram looking back at him ‘Name and security code?’ Frustrated, and almost in tears that he had come so far and was now not going to be able to complete his mission, he rested his arms and head against the door, completely exhausted. As he did, the door moved open. ‘Override effected,’ came the voice again as Danny almost fell through the door. Composing himself he walked through the door and past the hologram cursing. Now he had a choice to make. Did he close the door behind himself and ensure no-one else followed him inside, but risk not being able to get out again, or leave it open and hope the noise he had heard was nothing?

  He left the door ajar and walked forward into a tunnel. It had reinforced windows overlooking a lake thirty feet below and solid steel structures on the right of him. The walls were cold and damp to the touch and he could feel the movement of water down the other side despite a good two-meter thickness to the wall. If he had placed the C4 here it would make no impact whatsoever. He needed to find the weak point and attach the explosives. Time was a concern and he hadn’t heard anything through the walkie-talkie for some time. The not knowing what was happening with Logan was far worse than being here with the world on his shoulders.

  Moving along the tunnel it opened out every ten feet and a monitor above him broadcast the message from his father, ‘find a safe area.’ ‘I gave up my safe area Dad, to save your ass,’ he said begrudgingly.

  Ahead of him he could see a tent pitched up against the side of the tunnel. He slowly approached it and looked inside. A skeleton still inside a sleeping bag was the only occupant. He looked around at the possessions around the tent and picked up some photos and flicked through them. Empty tins of food scattered around. Someone obviously saw this as a safe area but failed to consider their ongoing food source. Danny felt sad that this person had died alone with nothing but their memories.