Decimation: The Girl Who Survived

by Burke, Richard T.

  The reception area ran parallel to the pavement, but when he pushed against the door, it was locked. Glancing down at the notice above the handle, he read that the business was closed on Saturdays.

  “Damn,” he muttered under his breath.

  Ahead, the straight road ended in a roundabout. He strode along the pavement as the cold winter wind ruffled his hair. On his right, he passed another local business. A sign painted in a variety of pastel shades read ‘Low-Cost Printing’, but the lack of internal lighting indicated that it too was closed.

  On the opposite side of the road, an elderly man traipsed along behind his dog. The man shuffled forwards, his face barely visible between a black woollen hat, a thick, slate-coloured scarf and the upturned collar of his coat. The dog, a small, brown animal with pointed ears, ranged ahead at the full extent of the lead, vigorously sniffing the wall of the adjoining property.

  Jason waited for a gap in the traffic then hurried across and approached the man. “Excuse me.”

  The dog gave a high-pitched growl, then sensing that the stranger was not a threat, lifted a leg and urinated before resuming its analysis of the wall. The man took a step backwards, dragging the dog away from a particularly interesting scent. “I’m sorry, I don’t have any change.”

  “Right. I don’t need change.”

  A pair of rheumy eyes inspected Jason. “Well, what do you want, young man?”

  “Well … um … I was wondering if you know whether there are any derelict buildings near here.”

  The man scratched his left ear. “Derelict buildings?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’re not one of those squatter types, are you?” the man asked, looking Jason up and down. “You don’t look old enough.”

  “No. I’m trying to find a … friend.”

  “So your friend’s a squatter then?”

  “Look, it’s a long story. This friend of mine moved recently, but he didn’t leave a forwarding address. I remember him saying that his new house was near a derelict building close to the railway station.”

  “No new houses here, you know.”

  “No, it wasn’t a new house. It was an old house, just new for him.”

  “The railway station’s over there,” the man said, pointing.

  “Yeah, I know. I just came from there.”

  “What’s your friend called?”

  “Um … Daniel. Why does that matter?”

  “I don’t know anybody called Daniel,” the man replied.

  Jason shook his head. “Never mind. Thanks for your help.” He had taken a couple of steps when the man mumbled something from behind his back. Jason turned to face him. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

  “The old sorting office is derelict.”

  “Sorting office?”

  “That’s what I said. It must be what, five years ago, no … nearer ten I should think. They moved it all to Milton Keynes, been empty since then. No call for letters anymore. It’s all this new email rubbish. Can’t use a computer to save my life.”

  The dog approached Jason and sniffed his shoe. Jason bent down to stroke it but hastily removed his hand when it growled.

  “Oh, don’t mind Billie,” the man said. “He’s all bark and no bite. Thinks he’s a Rottweiler.”

  “Um … okay. How would I get to the sorting office?”

  The man pointed. “Just the other side of that road, but it’s all locked up. I don’t know where your friend might be living unless it’s somewhere along here.”

  “Thanks,” Jason said. “I’ll try that.”

  “You must want to find him badly. Owes you money, does he?” The old man cackled, his laugh turning into a hacking cough. He raised a gloved hand and waved to Jason before resuming his shuffle along the road.

  “Have fun and good luck,” he called.

  Chapter 37

  Saturday 8th January 2033

  Rosalind strode down the brightly lit corridor, her heels clicking on the white linoleum floor. She reached a door labelled ‘Chief Scientist’ and turned the handle without knocking. Behind a large wooden desk sat Nigel Perrin. A frown creased his forehead, and his fingers clasped a pen that he clicked in and out in a rhythmic pattern. “Couldn’t you knock for once? You nearly give me a heart attack every time you do that.”

  A smile twitched on Rosalind’s lips. “I’ve got to keep you on your toes, Nigel. So, what’s the big news?”

  “Come and have a look at this.” He returned the pen to his pocket, jumped to his feet and rounded the desk. Grabbing one of the visitor chairs, he dragged it with him, placed it next to his own swivel chair and invited Rosalind to sit.

  She crossed the room, her eyes sweeping over the framed certificates and photographs that lined the walls. She and Perrin featured on the majority of the images, smiling alongside a selection of politicians and celebrities. She had never understood the need to display the trappings of fame like this, an unspoken statement that the well-known personalities were somehow more important than the people who did the real work. It occurred to her that she could probably afford to buy most of these people ten times over. Unfortunately, the Public Relations people insisted that famous faces had to be present at the big occasions.

  The doctor moved his seat to the side and angled the monitor to direct it towards the visitor’s chair. “Can you see that okay?” he asked as Rosalind sat down.

  She nodded, her eyes drawn to the three-dimensional display. “What am I looking at?”

  Perrin could barely contain his excitement. “You know we had to re-run one of the tests?”

  “Yes. As I recall, a technician mixed up the samples, and you fired her.”

  “Well, it seems that we sacked her unfairly.”

  Rosalind turned her head sharply to the doctor. “That’s not going to be an issue is it?”

  “No, no. She received a generous pay-off, and I gave her a good reference. She won’t be a problem.”

  “Okay, you better explain then.”

  Perrin turned his attention back to the screen. “Right. Well, as you know we took blood samples and a buccal swab from the inside of her cheek. We ran both samples through the DNA analyser. So this is the blood sample.” He jabbed a finger and a three-dimensional graph floated a few centimetres in front of the monitor.

  “So what am I looking at?”

  “There’s nothing particularly special about this. But here …” He gestured to the display as if beckoning the data to come out. “Here we have the sample from the cheek cells.”

  The original graph reduced in height, and a second one appeared just below it.

  Rosalind squinted and leant forwards. “Are these supposed to be the same? They look totally different. Are you sure they didn’t mix up the samples again?”

  The doctor grinned. “Not possible. I personally took another blood sample and cheek swab just to be absolutely sure. There’s no mistake. They’re both from the girl.”

  Rosalind frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. How can one person have two different … oh, hang on. She’s not a – what do you call it? You know, a–”

  “Yes,” Perrin interrupted. “She’s a chimera, and what’s even more interesting is that the DNA from the cheek cells is male.”

  “What? So the blood cells have different DNA to the cheek cells?”

  “We need to do more analysis, but here’s what I think happened. When her mother got pregnant, two eggs were fertilised, making one male and one female foetus. As they developed, something went wrong, and somehow the two foetuses fused together. Basically, the female foetus absorbed the male one, but some of the male cells remained and were incorporated into the female.”

  “But what about rejection? Wouldn’t the female’s immune system attack the male’s cells?”

  “Apparently not. You’ve got to remember that they share the same parents so they’re likely to be genetically close in the first place. It also depends on when the merge took place. If it was early enough, th
e immune system wouldn’t have had time to develop yet and would recognise both sets of cells as the body’s own.”

  “So how rare is this?”

  “I did some reading. There were a couple of well-reported cases twenty or thirty years ago. In one of them, a woman offered to donate a kidney to her sick son. When they did a compatibility match by taking a cheek swab, they told her she wasn’t the mother. As you can imagine, that came as quite a shock. It had been a home birth, so there was no chance that the child had been mixed up with another at the hospital. They confirmed it by testing her other sons, none of whom matched the DNA taken from her cheek either. When they ran the blood, they found a different set of markers that were a match for all the sons.”

  “So she was a chimera?”

  “That’s right.”

  “But how rare are they?”

  “From what I’ve read, male-female chimeras are incredibly rare. It’s difficult to know what proportion of the population are chimeras because they don’t tend to display any overt sign of their condition. Apparently, it’s quite common in fraternal twins when they share the same portion of the placenta. Each twin can incorporate the other’s blood marrow cells, so they can even end up with two different blood types. If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say for the male-female variety, maybe one in eight hundred million or more.”

  Rosalind pulled an earlobe, deep in thought. “Okay, so let’s say she’s a chimera. How come she survived?”

  “Well that’s a different question, but it’s got to be more than a coincidence. I’m guessing that something in the foreign cells prevented the virus’ normal reaction to the changes that take place in the mother after childbirth.”

  “Could be. I don’t need to tell you how important this is, Nigel. If we can work out what those cells are doing, we can create a cure.”

  “I know, I know,” Perrin said, shifting on his seat. “I’m well aware of the implications. The first thing we’ll have to do is identify the disposition of the different cell types. That’s going to mean taking a lot of samples. It’s going to be pretty uncomfortable for her.”

  Rosalind stared at the doctor. “And? What’s one girl’s discomfort compared to saving the human race?”

  “Yeah, I know, but one of the nurses was saying that she’s becoming less cooperative, wants to talk to her parents.”

  “Not a chance. If they find out she’s alive, we won’t be able to hold onto her. There’d be all sorts of awkward questions to answer. I spoke to her earlier today, threatened to remove access to her son and to withdraw things like the wheelchair and the music. I don’t really care if she likes it or not. We’re going to do what’s necessary to develop this treatment.”

  “Of course, Rosalind. It’s just easier if she cooperates.”

  “Oh, I think she will. By the way, how are we going to discover whether the boy had anything to do with her survival?”

  The doctor scratched his bald head. “Good question. Maybe we make her pregnant again, this time by a different father.”

  “Hmm. I don’t like the idea of waiting another nine months.”

  “We could always deliver the child early, say at six months. In fact, if you don’t care about it surviving, any time after about six weeks would be fine to test the hypothesis.”

  “Good point, Nigel. Let’s wait until we know more, but that’s not a bad idea.”

  “We’re going to require more test subjects. I better tell Grolby to find some.”

  “Yes, do that. One other thing, Nigel,” Rosalind said. “I want you to keep all of this to yourself. Make sure that all samples are destroyed. I don’t want any of the workforce knowing what’s going on.”

  “Um … okay, but that’s going to slow things down a bit. All the ones who work down here are on the highest security clearance. Don’t you trust them?”

  “Look, Nigel, it’s all about degrees of trust. Would you leave ten or a hundred billion pounds lying around, just waiting for somebody to walk off with it? If one of our researchers were to learn about a cure, the temptation might be too great, especially given what it would be worth. Grolby’s got the security pretty tight around here, but this takes it to a whole new level. I’d rather delay things if it means that we reduce the risk of losing out to a competitor. You can use other staff to help you, just ensure they don’t get too much of the overall picture.”

  “Fair enough,” Perrin replied. “I’ll get on it right away. Have you decided what to do about the boys? Max hasn’t been sleeping, worrying about what you might do. Jason gave him quite a going over although from what he told us I think it was justified.”

  “Tell him not to worry. I’m not going to jeopardise the future of this company just to save a low-life like Floyd. Tell Max to keep his mouth shut. I’ll get Grolby to give the police an anonymous tip-off. Do you see any problem with that?”

  “No, no problem at all.”

  Chapter 38

  Saturday 8th January 2033

  Jason walked in the direction the man had indicated. At the roundabout, a tunnel led beneath a flyover to a locked gate. A sign on the gate read ‘Bedford Network Rail’. He hurried across the road and peered through the bars. Railway tracks cut through an area of open ground. Patchy grass and weeds poked up through the industrial landscape. A large, red brick building emblazoned with the text ‘Bedford Depot’ dominated the scene. Twisting his head to the left, he could just about make out a four storey structure, although at this distance it was impossible to determine whether it was derelict or not.

  Jason followed the pavement in the general direction of the building, his view blocked by the elevated roadway. After fifty metres, the ramp had descended, and he obtained the first glimpse of his target. A Royal Mail icon still adorned the beige-coloured structure. A high fence surrounded it, but the broken windows suggested that there was a way past, at least for the local vandals. This could well be the location that Grolby had mentioned. It certainly met the vague description he had overheard. The problem was how to get in. Whilst the surrounding fence was scalable, he could hardly do so in front of the steady stream of traffic rolling along the main road.

  As Jason strolled past the tired-looking facade, he spotted a narrow alleyway running down the side of the structure alongside the barrier. He waited for a gap in the flow of vehicles then crossed the busy highway. The alley provided access to the rear of a row of terraced houses. Backyards and garages, many of them with paint flaking off the woodwork, backed onto the narrow strip of concrete. More fencing blocked off the end, but alongside it stood a low storage shed with white doors. A paved footway switched back on itself and led to the back gate of one of the properties. A metal handrail divided the two opposing directions of the path.

  Jason ambled down the alley, his head down. When he reached the shed, he glanced around and confirmed nobody was paying him any attention. If he could get on the roof he could drop down into the fenced off area. There was no certainty that Floyd was even hiding here, and for a moment he questioned the sanity of the decision to warn the man.

  “Ah, sod it,” he muttered.

  He placed one foot on the handrail and pushed himself up. On the first attempt, he lost his balance and dropped down. He repeated the process and this time maintained enough stability to jump the short distance to the shed roof. His stomach bore the brunt of the impact as he landed on the sharp corner.

  “Shit.”

  The flat roof creaked ominously but held his weight. He pulled his legs up, crawled forwards then lowered himself down inside the delivery office compound. Feeling exposed standing by the railing, Jason sprinted across the open space to the side of the building. Most of the windows were broken, but heavy metal bars blocked the frames making it impossible to gain entry. He followed the wall away from the main road and came across a door. He twisted the handle, but it refused to budge. A second door was also locked. He rounded the corner and crept along the end of the structure. Glancing up, he spotted an empty window frame
, just above head height, that did not appear to be protected by bars. Jagged shards of glass rimmed the aperture. He would cut himself to ribbons if he tried to get through. If there was no other way of getting in, it might be worth reconsidering.

  He turned the next corner, his hands brushing against the dusty brickwork. Seeing no means of entry through the windows, he proceeded to another door. That was locked too. He was about to resume his search when an area of freshly splintered wood around the lock caught his attention. This one had been recently forced open. There was no handle, so he dug his fingertips in between the door and frame where the material had been prised loose. A splinter embedded itself beneath his fingernail.

  “Damn.” He snatched his hand away and delicately withdrew the thin sliver. A small spot of blood welled up, and he placed the injured digit in his mouth. More gingerly, this time, he applied both hands and attempted to lever the door open. No movement at all. Somebody had definitely come through here in the recent past judging by the fresh state of the exposed timber, but they had obviously used a tool to crowbar their way in.

  Jason lowered his eyes to the ground and searched for a suitable implement. His gaze settled on a rock about the size of his hand. He bent down and picked it up, but when he held it to the frame, he realised that it was too big. He dropped it and sighed in frustration. As he surveyed the wall, he spotted a corroded metal sign, the lettering long since eroded away. Four rusty screws secured it. He retrieved the stone and banged it down on one of the protruding screw-heads. The sharp thud sounded incredibly loud over the swish of passing traffic, and he scanned the surrounding fence for observers before studying his handiwork. The end of the screw was bent at an angle. Another blow and it dropped loose with a metallic tinkle.

  He repeated the process on the second screw-head and after three strikes had reduced it to the same state as the first. One side of the sign now sat slightly proud, held only by the two remaining fasteners. He levered the plate backwards until it separated from the brickwork in a shower of dust.