Breeding Ground

by Sarah Pinborough

  “Easy.” George said, lighting his freshly filled pipe. “Someone will let us in. Look up there.”

  Above us, on either side of the solid gates, two security cameras peered down. George walked over to where I was standing, and then back to where he’d been leaning against the bus. The silent dark eye followed him, whirring and clicking as it did so. The one on the other side stayed trained on John, who was carrying one of the shotguns across his shoulder.

  “That movement’s not automatic. Someone’s controlling them. I suggest you put that gun down, John, if we’re ever going to get an invitation inside.”

  John did as he was told, laying the gun on the floor.

  “We’ve got a sick man here!” Oliver called up to the camera, gesticulating into the back of the bus. “Let us in!”

  I doubted the camera could pick up sound, but Oliver’s gesturing would either make whoever was on the other side think we were all insane or they’d be coming down to let us in.

  John had climbed inside the bus, and emerged with Rebecca and an unsteady Dave, placing them firmly in the sight of the camera. “Let us in! For fuck’s sake, let us in!”

  Katie stood with Jane in the sightline of the second camera, waving frantically at it. All our hopes were caught up in getting into Hanstone, and if that didn’t happen, then I’m not sure how much strength we’d have to carry on. It would be the end of Dave, that was pretty much for sure. My own anxiety rising, I joined my waving and shouting at the cameras with the others. If nobody let us in now, then they could burn in hell. For a few tense moments nothing happened, then finally the mechanics burst into life and the two large gates started to slide open, freezing after a couple of feet. Whoever was inside wasn’t taking any chances, either. The space was big enough for us, but the minibus was going to be staying outside.

  “Thank Christ for that.” Oliver ushered Jane and Katie in first, before coming back and helping John and I quickly grab our few bags from the van. By the time George followed carrying the guns, everyone was on the other side and the fence was quickly closing behind us.

  “Well, we made it. I always wondered what it looked like in here.” George’s words were quiet as we took a couple of steps forwards and huddled together, uncertain of where to go or what to do next. About a hundred yards ahead of us there were two red and white striped car barriers with a central security box in the middle of the wide road; beyond that the wide tarmac led into the compound, the road occasionally splitting to the left and right but also maintaining the straight thick path into the distance beyond.

  From outside, the vastness of the facility hadn’t been obvious, but now that we were inside, it was clear that it must have been at least a square mile. Far beyond some buildings and lawns on our left, I could just make out the tips of aerials and the towering top of some kind of pylon.

  “I feel like we’re at Langley or something.” John was staring at the serious looking grey buildings that were almost hidden by neatly trimmed trees and plants.

  “What’s Langley?” Jane peered out from behind Katie.

  “An American place. Where all the spies work.”

  “Cool.”

  “Yeah. I wouldn’t mind being at Langley now, but this’ll do.”

  From what seemed to be between some bushes a little way ahead on our right, a man darted into the road, waving an arm in our direction as he ran towards us awkwardly, like someone who didn’t run often, arms and legs all slightly uncoordinated and trying to head off in their own directions.

  “This must be our host.” Still carrying both guns, George started to walk towards the figure, Jane running ahead, and we all followed, John allowing himself to be a human walking stick for Dave, with Rebecca alongside. Oliver, Katie and I managed the bags, while Nigel dragged behind, all sulky schoolboy. We must have looked like a bedraggled bunch, a far cry from the ordered group that had loaded up the wrecked four-by-fours not that long ago.

  We met just beyond the barriers, the gangly man grinning and saluting.

  “Dr. Chris Whitehead. Good to meet you.” Panting, he put his hands on his hips and sucked in hard, getting his breath back. “I was beginning to think we were all alone in here.” His eyes were tiny and dark as they darted around the group before coming to rest on me. I held out my hand.

  “Likewise. I’m Matthew Edge. And this is George Leicester.” The old man tilted his pipe in a gesture of hello and then introduced the rest of the group, finishing with Nigel, who still hung back slightly, oozing with suspicion as well as sweat and gel.

  “Are you saying no one else has thought to come here?”

  Still breathing heavily, Whitehead took a bag from me as I spoke and slung it over his shoulder.

  “No, you’re the first. We were hoping for more but . . . well . . . we’ll see. Let’s get you inside. Come on.” Turning on his heel, he began to stride back the way he came. He may not have been much of a runner, but he exuded nervous energy, his grin twitching slightly in his boyish freckled face beneath the short cropped brown hair that hinted at a wave as unruly as his limbs. He was younger than me, twenty-six at most, but his checked shirt tucked into high-waisted jeans suggested that he didn’t have time for fashion even before the past couple of days. I followed him onto the lawn, walking hard to keep up, needing to ask him more questions.

  “We? You’re not alone here then?”

  “Oh no. This place is manned twenty-four hours, although the staff had started to thin out quite dramatically in the past few weeks. The women had been laid off a while ago, after all this started to come to the surface, although of course we kept tabs on them.” His arms gesticulated unnecessarily as he spoke, as if only to release some of that excess energy he seemed to carry. “Still, we could count the daily staff and army at a hundred and fifty. The soldiers left last week to get back to wherever. We haven’t heard from them since. Most of the rest left the day before yesterday. Those with families wanted to get back to them.” He ducked beneath some trees and we followed. “I told them it was probably pointless, but you know . . . emotions take over. Most went. They said they’d come back, but so far none have.”

  A small path appeared behind the trees and we stepped onto it.

  “But some did stay?”

  He nodded, but his face darkened, a little tic twitching at the corner of his mouth. “Yes, eight of us stayed. I don’t have a family, not to speak of anyway,” he tried to smile, “and I’d been called in here a month or so ago because of all this. I’m a geneticist, you see.” Listening to him, I felt as if I must have been sleeping all this time. Just what the hell had really been going on here while Chloe had been getting fatter? And why the hell hadn’t they told us? I fought my anger. There was no point anymore. Whatever they’d been up to, we were all in the same boat now.

  “So, I really had nowhere else to go.” Whitehead was still talking, his words like his movement, quick and almost stuttery. “Nowhere safer than Hanstone, at any rate. Unfortunately, some of those that stayed found it all too much. Three of them killed themselves this morning. When we got confirmation of what was happening. The scale of it . . .” He shook his head slightly with the memory, and then pointed towards a long level building, his fast mind veering off at a momentary tangent.

  “That’s the dormitory. I’ll get you settled in there. Basic, but pleasant. Anyway, I found them at lunchtime when I was checking the perimeters.” He paused, his step almost slowing. “I think I knew. I knew what they were going to do. They had that look.” For a moment, his manic body almost stopped completely, but he shook himself out of it. “Still, they’re gone. We’re here. Since then, I’ve closed off some areas, but we’ve still got all we need. And the generators are working, so as soon as the electricity stops, I’ll fire them up.” He pulled open the door to the sleeping block.

  I stepped into the cool interior. “What makes you think the electric is going to stop?”

  He dropped the rucksack on one of the single beds that ran down one side
of the wall. “Because it has in London. And it’s bound to eventually, isn’t it?”

  A thousand questions leapt into my mouth, but Whitehead was already scurrying away. “Get yourselves settled in here and I’ll be back in about half an hour. The showers are at the far end, and there are a couple of private bedrooms beside them if you want to fight over them. I’ll let the others know we’ve got guests and see if we’ve got anything in our medical supplies to help your friend.”

  He’d disappeared before Dave had even made it into the building.

  “Well, if you boys don’t mind, I think Rebecca, Jane and I will be taking those solo rooms.” Katie heaved her rucksack back on her shoulder and headed off with the other two in search of their bedrooms. John had opened up one of the regulation wardrobes beside each bed.

  “Hey, look. Clean clothes. Cool.”

  The other cupboards revealed similar finds, even the underwear drawers holding socks and pants. Pulling out a bland jumper and trousers, Oliver Maine held them up against him. “Bit short for me, these. Anyone got anything longer?” George tossed him a pair of jeans. “Try these.”

  Having yanked out most of the contents of the small wardrobe and chucked them on the bed, John grinned. “I’m not seeing much in the way of sharp suits here, Nigel. You may have to just get scruffy like the rest of us.”

  Nigel said nothing, and I couldn’t help letting out a laugh along with Oliver. There was nothing I liked about Phelps and I was tired of pretending to, especially now that we had reached our destination and were at least relatively protected from the outside. It was about time the crazy bastard faced up to that. He wasn’t liked and it was him that needed to work on that, not the rest of us.

  By the time Whitehead got back almost an hour had passed, but no one minded. The showers were hot and powerful and I’d stayed under mine for thirty minutes, only reluctantly leaving the soothing jets to rub myself down and get dressed in a vanished man’s clothes. Getting dry wasn’t much of an issue. The air was getting hotter as night fell, but it was a dry heat, not like the humidity of earlier.

  Pulling my trainers back on, I wondered how the rest of the world was faring. If it was this hot here, just what the hell was it like in the deserts of Africa? And perhaps, more worryingly, what was happening to the polar ice caps? Were great icebergs melting and breaking away, sending huge tsunamis towards us? It wasn’t impossible. Not if this new English weather was anything to go by.

  Standing up and stretching, trying to shift the deep-seated muscle tension running down my back, I could almost hear Chloe wryly laughing at me for my eternal pessimism. It hurt my soul and I was glad when the hut door flew open and Whitehead stepped inside.

  “Sorry I’m late. Got into a bit of a discussion.” His grin was less confident than earlier, and with a slight sink in my stomach I guessed that the discussion had perhaps been more of an argument, and probably focussed on us.

  “Still, all sorted now. Dinner’s just about ready. Time for a quick tour of the necessary first.”

  The girls came out of their little annex of rooms, baggy trousers pulled in tight with belts, men’s shirts hanging loose over the top. The only one with her original jeans on was Jane. No belt was ever going to make men’s trousers wearable on her, although she could have worn a T-shirt on its own as a dress without being at all indecent. Still, it had to be said, none of us were looking at Jane for long. The two on either side of her, their hair still damp, were too much of a distraction.

  For a moment, no one said anything. There was something about a woman in a man’s shirt that was truly sexy, and Rebecca and Katie weren’t exactly unattractive at the worst of times. Katie’s slight, elfin features and tiny build seemed more fragile, and although Rebecca was probably the more beautiful of the two, my attraction to Katie wasn’t fading, however much I wished it might.

  Her eyebrow raised. “Feel free to stare.”

  Whitehead, who seemed the only one amongst us oblivious to their femininity, laughed. A short, almost comic sound.

  “So sorry. I should have said. We do have some women’s clothes, but they’re in the other dorm across the site. We haven’t been using it, and I didn’t think. I’m sure we can sort something out in the morning. Now, come along.”

  “What about Dave?” Rebecca had started to scribble the words, but George got them out first. “Should we just leave him here?”

  Dave’s bed was at the back of the room, nearest the toilets and showers. Rebecca had changed his dressings and he was asleep or unconscious—had been for at least twenty minutes. If it hadn’t been for the odd moan and twitch I would have thought he was dead. His temperature was raging, though, and without knowing my arse from my elbow medically, I knew no doctor would disagree that this night was going to be critical for him.

  “Oh, yes. I almost completely forgot.” He pulled a tipped syringe from his shirt pocket. “This is morphine and a strong antibiotic. It should help him.” He scurried over to the bed and muttered to himself as he searched for a vein. “It’ll knock him out for a few hours, so he’ll be perfectly safe while we’re gone.”

  I was pleased to see Rebecca watching carefully as Whitehead pinched off the tip and injected Dave. I wasn’t too sure that I’d want that bundle of nervous energy sticking a needle in me.

  “There we go.” He turned to the rest of us as he straightened up. “Now, there’s a few things I want to show you before dinner. Won’t take long.”

  Following him out into the warm night, I was amazed by how light it was. The whole complex was covered in a series of powerful floodlights, making the grounds far brighter than they had been in the hazy grey light that mother nature had provided; but as I looked over to my left, it seemed that that half of the area was in relative darkness, only an occasional pool of light visible.

  “Why is it so dark over there?”

  “This morning we decided that it was uneconomical keeping all the systems running all over the site. We’ve got the two generators and plenty of fuel for them in the underground tank, but it seems a shame to waste it. We’re keeping ourselves on this side mainly. The canteen and food store are here and one of the comm centres, so we’re keeping that all on full power, and of course all the cameras are running, but they pick up movement with infrared, so the floodlights aren’t necessary in all areas, and we’ve upped the voltage on the fences.” He peered over his shoulder to make sure we were all listening, especially Jane. “Don’t feel tempted to touch those, not at any time of the day or night. You’ll be fried alive. Obviously there’s a barrier before the fence, just in case, but still . . . be careful.”

  Slightly ahead to our right, a large pond shone in the reflected light.

  “That’s pretty.” Janie’s eyes were wide with it all.

  “Yes. Yes, nice to sit next to during your lunch hour. When the weather’s good, of course.” That tic in his mouth twitched again. “Not that bad weather seems likely. At least, not cold weather at any rate. And lunch hours are pretty much a thing of the past. How fast things change.”

  Sticking to the path, we skirted round the pond and came back to where we’d walked when we arrived. A severe grey stone building sat cloaked by trees. From where we stood, I could see the barriers a couple of hundred yards away, and the imposing fence further beyond. Thank God we’d got inside. I didn’t know what would have happened to us by now if we hadn’t. Despite the heat, I shivered.

  “This way.”

  Whitehead led us up a small flight of stairs on the side of the building and pushed open the heavy door. “This is the communications centre.” The room was full of machinery and computer screens, some with lights flashing, others dead. Compared with the brightness of outside, the yellow light in the windowless room seemed dingy. “Most of this we’re not using. It won’t work, or we don’t know how to work it.”

  I followed him carefully down a slim aisle between the desks, not wanting to knock or damage any of the equipment, whether it worked or not. The wh
ole inside of the place looked like it belonged in some kind of spy film or TV series.

  “That’s Daniel at the control desk.”

  Ahead of us, an unshaven man of about thirty-five in a black hooded sweatshirt raised his hand, but kept the set of large headphones on his head. His eyes moved past me and George, stopping at the women, his expression darkening slightly. He didn’t say anything, but at least smiled slightly. Maybe that was the cause of the “discussion” that Whitehead had mentioned. Maybe the other residents weren’t so keen on being joined by women. I didn’t let it get me down. They were going to have to get used to it. And I was sure they would. They were men, after all, and the whole of our sorry history showed men being suckers for women. Besides, if worst came to worst, we would outnumber them.

  “Daniel’s our expert at this, really. Most of the hi-tech stuff has stopped working, but the morse is getting through, and so is the voice equivalent, whatever they call that.” He grinned again, more relaxed. “I deal in living cells, not electronics, so this is all alien to me. But it is relatively simple to work. You’ll get some training in the morning when we work out a rota.”

  Listening to him, I felt that George had met his match in this highly strung scientist. Between the two of them, I figured they’d probably think of just about everything.

  In front of Daniel was a bank of monitors. “Those feed back from the cameras. It was on those two,” he indicated the last two in the middle row, “that I saw you earlier.” Now all I could make out in them was darkness and the vague outline of our abandoned minibus.

  George had come alongside and peered closely into one of the monitors. “Where is this camera?”

  “Along the back perimeter. There’s a small wood on the other side of the fence and then it backs onto fields.”

  He leaned in even closer, his old eyes sharply focussed. “There’s something moving, isn’t there? That’s what these red flashes of light that keep coming up are. Am I right?”

  Daniel pulled his headphones down so they sat around his neck. “You’re right. There’s some of those things out there. In the trees.” His voice was deep and had a rougher accent than I’d expected from someone working in a place like this. I guess I just thought they’d all talk like something out of a British World War Two film. I watched the red outlines as they dipped in and out of the screen, or maybe bits of the creatures were just being shielded by branches or dense leaves.