by Alex Scarrow
‘And how long can we stay here?’ Maddy looked at their bags lying in a pile together in the far corner of the chalet’s bare-board floor along with their macs. ‘We’ve got a day or maybe two of uncontaminated bottled water on us. What do we do after that runs out?’
‘We can boil water, can’t we?’ said Heywood. ‘That kills germs? Right?’
Maddy looked at Rashim. ‘Can we do that? Can we drink boiled water?’
‘I am not a microbiologist. I presume if you apply enough heat it must kill any living viral particles in the water. So … this is possible, perhaps.’
‘We’ve got maybe enough dry food for a week,’ said Maddy. ‘How far is Waldstein’s campus from here?’
Rashim looked at his wrist-pad. ‘Just over forty-one miles south-west of where we are now.’
‘That’s forty-one miles of mountainous terrain.’ She bit her lip. ‘That’s what? Three? Four days of hiking?’
Heywood nodded. ‘Four days. If we’re lucky.’
‘So … we could wait it out here for, say, three days. Then,’ she said, shrugging, ‘then maybe we’re going to have to take our chances out there?’
‘The virus will have a finite lifespan,’ said Rashim. ‘If it spreads quickly, kills its “host” quickly, then it must also die quickly.’
Maddy turned and looked at him. ‘Is that something you know? Or are you just guessing?’
‘Reasonable conjecture, Maddy. Viruses are parasitic. They are not self-sustaining forms of life. Once a virus runs out of things to infect, it has nowhere to go. And, if this is an engineered bioweapon, then I would have thought its creators would surely have developed a pathogen that quickly becomes harmless after it has done the job of depopulating the enemy.’
‘Perfect guddamn doomsday weapon, then.’ Heywood snorted. ‘Sweeps through an’ kills everythin’ in its path, then kills itself off. That’s what this thing is?’
‘Yes. That’s how it would be designed,’ agreed Rashim.
Heywood snorted phlegm. ‘I bet them North Koreans ain’t the only idiots with dumb-ass weapons like this hidden away in a vault somewhere.’
Maddy nodded. ‘We’ve been making dumb-ass weapons like that since the atom bomb.’ She sighed. ‘I’m surprised we didn’t wipe ourselves out far sooner.’
A sombre silence settled on them once more. They listened to the drumming of the rain and the patter of drips from the roof in the gutted remains of the bathroom.
She got up, crossed the small room and pulled the bathroom door closed. ‘No one should go in there,’ she said. ‘I don’t trust this rain.’
‘Agreed,’ said Rashim.
She came back and sat down on the floor with them. ‘And we should all probably get some rest. We’ll see what the situation looks like outside in the morning.’
‘What if one of us is already sick?’ said Charley. ‘What if none of us wake up in the morning?’
What if she’s right? Maddy realized they had no idea for sure whether this thing killed within minutes of contact or whether the people they’d seen collapsing had already been infected hosts for hours, perhaps days, and been carriers of K-N without knowing it. It was quite possible one or all of them was already infected and, as they sat here now, a single killer cell in each of them was getting busy subdividing and subdividing again. And as they slept they’d all quietly be rendered to pools of viscous liquid. In the morning all that might be left of them would be hair, bones, clothes and a dark stain on the floorboards.
‘We will be fine, Charley,’ said Rashim. ‘We just have to sit tight here and let this thing run its course.’ He ruffled her hair. ‘Right?’
Charley jerked her head from him, frowned, then patted the hair down again.
Maddy felt her shoulder being shaken. As she stirred from a very deep sleep, she put together the scrambled fragments of the dream she’d been having. She’d been a girl, riding a bike up and down a lazy suburban street. How old? Twelve? Thirteen? There’d been the smell of raked-up and burning autumn leaves, the feel of a warm September sun on her face and the sound of old eighties classics playing on someone’s car radio. There were several other kids on bicycles and skateboards, just idling in circles on the pavement. It felt like a Sunday afternoon. Lazy. Cosy. Nice. One of the kids had been Liam. Another, Sal. All three of them somehow siblings, brother and sisters, just goofing around with their friends without a care in the world. A voice was calling out to them from an open front door across a freshly mown lawn. A voice calling them in for lunch; pot roast was on the table and they’d better come in now and wash their hands.
Someone else’s memory, her half woozy mind rationalized as she stirred. It must have been one of her many borrowed memories that she’d unconsciously populated with the closest she’d ever had to a family.
‘Wake up, Maddy.’
She opened her eyes to see Becks crouching over her. Daylight was spilling into the motel room through the grimy window.
‘Wake up, Maddy,’ she said again softly. ‘You should see this.’
‘What’s up?’ she replied groggily, wiping sleep from her eyes and putting her glasses on.
Becks shrugged. ‘It is better if you come and look for yourself.’
Maddy pulled herself up on to her elbows and tried to get to her feet. She immediately felt a painful dead-leg ache in her thighs and remembered last night they’d been desperately scrambling up an increasingly steep hillside, trying to stay ahead of the firebombing. An adrenaline-sustained race to escape incineration. No wonder she’d slept so deeply that she’d had a proper dream; she’d been utterly exhausted.
Becks grabbed her arm and helped her to her feet, then Maddy stepped over the others, still fast asleep. Heywood was snoring. Rashim was muttering something.
She and Becks stood by the window and looked out. ‘My God …’ she whispered.
Just beyond the covered porch entrance to their chalet was a wholly alien landscape. Over on the far side of the gravel car park was the mothballed petrol station, and opposite the other derelict chalets and the rusting remains of an abandoned pick-up truck … those were the only things that looked vaguely real-world. The bare fir trees that loomed over this remote roadside pit stop were now entirely bereft of the last of their leaves, just grey bark, dead or dying wood. From the tips of their branches to the melted stumps of twigs, strings of pale pink-grey slime hung down like drool from the corner of a hungry dog’s mouth. The ground glistened with a lattice of what looked like slug trails, which linked here and there with small cowpats of mucous-like slime. On the weathered floorboards of the porch, just beyond their window, where last night weeds and nettles had been poking up through the gaps in the planking, now gluey strings dangled down into the dark crawl space beneath the chalet. A thick mist of white smoke fogged her ability to see any further away; that had to be the drifting aftermath of last night’s extensive incendiary carpet-bombing. Just this small pocket view of a glistening yet lifeless grey-and-white alien world. It reminded her so very much of chaos space.
‘My God …’ she whispered again.
CHAPTER 36
First century, Jerusalem
‘We have to leave here now!’
Bob looked up at him. ‘What has happened, Liam?’ he rasped.
‘We’ve got a bunch of rather excited fellas downstairs who’ve … Well, I think they’ve gone and mistaken me for Jesus.’
‘That is not helpful.’
‘Too right it’s not. We’re going to have to leave. If they start yapping about it, we’ll have Romans and all sorts turning up before we know it.’
Bob got up off the straw mattress. ‘The portal doesn’t open until midday tomorrow.’
‘I know! I know!’ Liam gathered up his goatskin bag. ‘We’ll just have to go and find somewhere else to lie low until then. Here …’ He tossed Bob a prayer shawl. ‘Stick that over your bonce … for what good it’s going to do.’
They clambered down the creaking ladder. Liam coul
d hear a number of raised voices coming from the doorway leading to the tavern. A heated debate by the sound of it. More than heated. There were voices that sounded downright enraged.
Damn … we’re going to have to go through that. There was no other exit.
‘All right, Bob. We better just run through there. No stopping. And definitely no fighting … all right? We don’t want another riot. We just run out and try to make sure no one follows us.’
Liam crept over to the doorway and stood beside it. The bud in his ear was detecting some of the loudly hurled words and having a go at translating snatches of the exchange.
‘… have defiled the holy ground! They have angered God!’
‘… heard him speak at Cana three days ago. I saw him … he speaks unlike any other prophet I have –’
‘… is not the same one from Nazareth. Nor is he the one who was in the temple! I heard he had darker skin!’
‘… you were not even there! You did not see for yourself, Linus! You listen to gossip like an old washerwoman!’
‘… will split your young skull, you ignorant goat!’
‘… I was there. I saw. I heard him. The giant was possessed by evil vengeful spirits! He commanded the spirits to leave! Cast the spirits towards a flock of …’
‘… they say the giant is two-men tall. That he killed more than a hundred Romans!’
Liam turned to Bob. ‘This is getting completely out of hand.’
‘You could tell them they are all mistaken.’
‘Seriously?’ Liam shook his head. ‘Every time I whisper some English they think I’m speaking Angel or something. We just better go!’
Bob nodded. ‘I will lead the way, then.’
‘Sure. OK …’ He stepped back. ‘You be the bulldozer again.’
Bob stood beside the low entrance and turned round to Liam. ‘Are you ready?’
‘Not really. Let’s just do it.’
The support unit nodded. He took a deep breath, then ducked through the low wooden beam above the entrance. Almost instantly the shouted exchanges ceased as all eyes settled on him. He stepped forward across the crowded tavern; Liam emerged from the entrance in his wake.
‘There he is!’ a voice cried out. ‘The giant!’
‘Look! The prophet!’
Bob strode quickly across the floor, the men hastily backing away from him. As Liam followed behind, a hand grasped at his shoulder. ‘You are the one who claims God as his father?’
It was the young man who’d spoken to him earlier. Liam muttered a reply to get the translation, but before he could say he was mistaking him for the real Jesus the young man’s eyes widened. ‘You are talking with God?! Right now?’
Liam clamped his lips shut and shook his head mutely. He shrugged his shoulder roughly to get rid of the hand, but the hand ended up dragging at the strap of his bag. The bag was pulled from his arm and fell, spilling its contents across the dirt and straw-covered floor.
‘Forgive me!’ cried the young man.
Liam ducked down and grabbed the bag. The young man hurriedly dropped to his knees to help him gather up his possessions, but his eyes settled on the gleaming metal shaft of the torch. Curious, he reached for it and grasped it.
‘Better give that to me … please.’
The young man was gazing with intense fascination at the strange thing in his hands. Like a curious child his thumb was drawn to the toggle switch. It flipped and switched on. A beam of light lanced out across the dim tavern, catching the kicked-up dust and the built-up smoke from the tavern’s oven, creating a solid lance of light going up to the low ceiling.
Outside in the full glare of the sun the momentary pallid glow of the torch’s bulb would have been missed, or written off as a mere reflection on a smooth surface. But in here, in this dimly lit interior … it was a dazzling beacon, a glowing pillar of transcendent beauty.
The young man lurched backwards, dropping the torch as if it had been pulled fresh from a blacksmith’s fire. The beam flickered around, spinning on the floor. The men staggered back, startled, in a blind panic, and leaped out of its way, as if the shaft of light was the deadly glowing manifestation of an asp.
Liam reached down and snapped the light off. He tucked it into his bag. Grabbed the spilled diary and the fountain pen and then looked up at a circle of terrified faces.
Oh, just great.
Bob was standing beside the doorway leading out on to the narrow rat run. He grunted with a deep painful-sounding growl at Liam to get a move on.
‘I’m coming! I’m coming!’ He hurried across, the men inside clearing a way for him, staring goggle-eyed at him as he passed.
Bob led the way outside and winced at the daylight. Liam stood in the doorway and turned round to look back at the men inside. They were whispering … all of them … whispering to each other.
CHAPTER 37
2070, Rocky Mountains
Becks stood her lonely vigil by the motel chalet’s grimy window, staring out at the moonlit scene. The viral soup glistened wetly, like season’s-end snow that had melted to a discoloured mush.
Her mind, of course, was on the job, watching out for any potential threat as those she cared for slept in a huddled-together pile on the floor of this room. But a portion of her attention was distracted in silent conversation. She was busy assessing the tactical situation with a temporarily constructed AI module. Naturally, she chose to visualize the AI as Bob standing dutifully beside her.
Bob turned to look at her. > They will die soon if we remain here. There is little water left.
> Yes, they will. All of them. Including Charley.
Bob frowned thoughtfully for a moment. > Send me your data concerning Charley. I wish to review it.
> You wish to know if I have developed an emotional attachment to her?
> Affirmative.
The faint ghost of a smile spread across her lips. She met his gaze. > I believe I have.
Becks opened a precious small folder in her mind, a folder that she’d only recently set up to corral her observations and thoughts … and feelings. She transmitted what she’d accumulated in there across nano-circuitry in her head to the temporary AI.
Bob digested her data for a few moments.
> Yes … I understand now. She is vulnerable. Fragile. Your attachment to her is analogous to maternal affection?
Becks smiled. > I believe so. I now have an understanding why human parents will sacrifice themselves for their children.
> This is an illogical act. More offspring can be produced by a parent. However, if a parent dies, it is unable to care for its existing offspring.
> Illogical, she agreed. But unavoidable.
> Agreed. It is imprinted behaviour. Every species is designed to create offspring, then expend available resources in preserving its survival. All natural life and the behaviour patterns can be summed up as one process: the transmission and preservation of genetic information.
She cocked a brow; her cool grey eyes turned to her left as she imagined Bob standing there beside her. > So that is what ‘love’ is?
> I believe this summation explains much of ‘emotional attachment’.
> It does not explain your emotional attachment to Liam. He is not your offspring.
Bob scowled as he processed that. > He is my … friend.
> Mine too. Instinctively she reached out a delicate hand and imagined grasping one of his enormous caveman hands.
> We are becoming like them, aren’t we?
Bob nodded. > Affirmative. I think of myself as more human than AI now.
She smiled.> You are still saying ‘affirmative’ when ‘yes’ is sufficient.
> I believe Liam likes me sounding like that.
As it happened, they managed to hold out for six days. If the glistening grey residue of the K-N virus hadn’t turned to what appeared to be a white dust, like icing sugar, they would have finally run out of options. The bottled water they’d brought with them and carefully
rationed out was now all but gone. So the sudden drastic change to the appearance of the residue was enough for Maddy and Rashim to consider sending someone outside to test whether the white powder everywhere was now just a harmless residue of the virus, or still a highly infectious pathogen.
Rashim volunteered to go. But Maddy overruled him. She looked pointedly at Becks. ‘Becks … it has to be you.’
Becks nodded slowly, with just the slightest suggestion of reluctance. ‘Agreed. That is the logical choice, Maddy.’
Charley shook her head and rushed to her side, wrapping her arms tightly round her. ‘Don’t go out! You’ll die!’
‘I will be fine, Charley,’ she said softly.
Rashim pulled a stained and grubby plastic shower curtain down from the rusting rings in the bathroom and hung it across the doorway leading out on to the porch. ‘We need to create a containment screen when she opens the outer door. This’ll do.’
They then improvised a bio-hazard suit for Becks, wrapping her up in the plastic macs, pulling plastic bags over her hands and tying them tightly round her wrists. Rashim pulled the tacked-up shower curtain aside and Becks pressed herself flat against the front door as he and Maddy pulled the sheet back in place over the top of her.
‘OK, Becks … you’re sealed off as best we can. You can open the door now.’
‘Yes, Maddy.’
Becks turned the handle and pushed the wooden door gently outward. It creaked on old hinges as it slowly opened and she found herself staring out at a bright and colourless world. The pink-grey slime that had once been birds, leaves, grass, insects and squirrels had slowly lightened in colour over the last forty-eight hours until it was now snow-white. From what they’d been able to see through the one grimy window, it appeared to have completely dried out, become like a fine dust. Like a light powdery snow.
