“But without spiders?” Annie had never liked spiders.
“Definitely without spiders. Well, maybe a few, to keep the insect populations down. But they’ll never go anywhere near houses.”
“Great.”
“And of course, people will never get sick. They’ll live until they’re about a hundred and fifty and then, when they’re ready, they’ll go to their local doctor and ask to be put down in a civilized fashion. They’ll have their friends and family around them. Many will even choose to die together, with their loved ones, so that nobody gets left behind.”
“I like that idea,” she said.
“And everyone will cooperate. Helping others will hold a higher value for them than helping themselves. Everyone will have everything they need: food, education, accommodation, healthcare if they need it, which of course they won’t, thanks to us.”
She smiled again, but her eyes were starting to close and I could see she needed rest. I stopped talking and just held her hand until I could see her pupils racing back and forth behind her eyelids.
All the modified children in the compound had been sealed away in the accommodation wing. In order to access them, to draw blood and isolate the antibodies, we had to wear hazmat suits, as did the parents and staff who were looking after them. The children ranged between two months and three years old, and many of them were scared by this new scenario.
We decided to divide the children up into groups. The youngest, who hadn’t as yet been infected with the flu virus, were sent off-site with their mothers to an old office building close to the clinic. The older ones, who posed the greatest risk, were also split up. We put them into groups based on their exposure to various pathogens and then divided up the higher risk subjects and separated them from one another. The problem was that our modified children had an incredibly high tolerance to disease. Even at a high pathogen titer, they showed no symptoms. And then, in the time it took their immune system to eradicate it, the virus had already moved on, and possibly mutated, thus staying alive. Separating them all and quarantining them would stop that from happening.
Richard had the idea of sending everyone out into the desert. We hired portable toilets and some large mobile homes from a place in the regulated zone and set up a number of campsites a couple of kilometers from the clinic.
This obviously wasn’t going to be a long term solution, and I thought about how we could separate the children and put them somewhere they were going to be safe. Permanent adoption was an option, but with people’s resources stretched, I doubted there was much market for it. Then I thought about Dylan and wondered if there was any chance he’d accept the children on the New Church havens.
That afternoon, I went across to visit Annie.
“How are you feeling?” I said.
“I wish you’d let me out of this bubble. Or that you would come in here with me. It’s very boring.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. How is the vaccine coming along?”
“Justin’s re-visiting our old somatic modification codes, and seeing how we can adapt them for this new virus. It’s going to take a while, though. In the meantime, we’re separating and quarantining everyone.”
“How are the kids taking it?”
“A bit scared I think.”
“All this trouble just for one stupid flu virus. I’m sure I’ll get over it anyway.”
“We can’t be too careful.”
“We haven’t been that worried up until now.”
“We never expected it would mutate so quickly in such a low population density.”
“Maybe all your work will be in vain. As soon as the modified children become resistant to one thing, another will evolve to take its place. You can’t beat nature.”
Her head flopped back onto the pillow and her eyes rolled up towards the ceiling before she closed them.
“Are you alright, Annie?”
“Yes, I’m fine. Just fine. It’s so nice out here.”
“Out where?”
“Out here.”
“Annie. Wake up.” I shook her arm.
“I’m okay.” She opened her eyes and came back to me.
My heart pounded painfully in my chest.
“Don’t do that to me,” I said.
“Do what?”
“Go off like that.”
“I’m sorry.” She smiled. “But Michael, I want you to promise me something?”
“What’s that?”
“That you’ll take care of the children.”
“Of course I’ll take care of the children. We’ll both take care of them. Together.”
“Especially Harvey and Shy. I know I shouldn’t pick favorites, but they are my favorites; even Harvey who hasn’t been modified. I want you to adopt them.”
“Why don’t we talk about this when you’re better, and we can adopt them together?”
“I want to talk about it now. In case I don’t make it. I want you to promise me that you’ll adopt them, and that you’ll make sure nothing happens to them.”
“Okay, I promise.”
The antibodies and natural killer cells I’d been working on were finally ready and we had nobody but Annie to test them on. Her defenses were so weak that I feared her body wouldn’t be able to handle them.
“What do you want to do?” I asked her.
“Give them to me,” she said. “If I die, I die. I’m ready.”
Beatrice and I looked at each other.
“Let’s do it,” I said to Beatrice. “She’s not going to survive otherwise.”
We injected her with the mixture and then I sat down in the chair nearby to wait, my heart on edge. For a few hours nothing seemed to happen, and then slowly, one decimal point at a time, her temperature started dropping.
For the next four hours this continued, and by 1am the next morning her temperature was almost back to normal. I was so happy I wanted to wake her, but she looked so peaceful, a tiny smile in the side of her mouth as if she were having the most wonderful dream she’d ever had in her life.
I fell asleep in my chair, but a short time later I was woken by the screaming of her heart rate monitor.
Beatrice, Richard, Tania and a couple of other nurses came running in dressed in hazmat suits, and I was ushered quickly out of the room. I stood behind the second door of the airlock, just able to see through the two small windows to where they were tearing open the quarantine bubble and giving Annie CPR.
I remembered the time we’d ridden out to that lake together and she’d gone off with those boys and I thought I’d lost her forever. And then I thought about all the times we’d spent together since then. Her desire, like mine, to do something good with her life, something worthwhile, something which she would be remembered for, stronger than the fear of death.
After nearly five minutes of CPR, Annie’s heart finally started responding. I wanted to rush into the room, but I didn’t have a suit on and I didn’t want to leave the window to find one. After a few more minutes, Beatrice and Richard came out and closed up her quarantine bubble. They went out through a side door into the rinsing off area, leaving the nurses to monitor her. I knew I should go and find a suit in case there was any residue virus in the room, but I rushed in anyway, going over to Annie and putting my hands through the plastic gloves to touch her.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” Tania said.
“Michael, is that you?” Annie opened her eyes and blinked.
“Yes. It’s me. I’m here for you.”
“My chest hurts. I feel like I’ve just been run over by a bus.”
She drifted off again, a smile on her face, but her heart stayed strong.
The next morning Annie woke up and her temperature had nearly returned to normal. Not only was she over the flu but it seemed her viral load was dropping faster than it ever had before and her platelet and white blood cell count was on the rise.
“How am I looking?” she said to me when she woke.
&nb
sp; “More beautiful than ever,” I told her, and then without even caring I opened up the bubble and went inside to hold her.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A WEEK LATER, Sophie and Dylan met Annie and me on the landing strip of the island we’d visited nearly three years earlier, and they drove us back to their house. It was very similar to the one we’d stayed in last time: earthen walls and wooden roof, brightly colored rugs on the floor and rough-hewn furniture made on the island itself. On the verandah a few hammocks swung in the sea breeze.
That night, Dylan prepared us a dinner of roast chicken and home-grown vegetables, and after dinner we retired to the lounge room where he opened a bottle of wine.
“Where’d you drag that up from?” I said.
“It’s probably the only bottle left in the whole world,” Dylan said, and we laughed.
We chatted for a while, and then I came to the purpose of our visit. I explained to them everything that had happened at the clinic.
“We need to quarantine the children,” I said. “If the government finds out what happened they’ll either destroy the children or they’ll want to keep them for their own purposes.”
“What are you asking me? If you can put them on the New Church havens?”
“Yes.”
“What makes you think this won’t happen again? That they won’t keep breeding viruses?”
“If we separate them, it won’t happen. It is only because of the close proximity of so many kids that it happened like that. With a few children on each haven, that wouldn’t be a risk.”
“I’ll have to discuss it with Rowen and the other leaders. Now’s a difficult time, though.”
“Why?”
“Rowen’s funeral’s on Saturday.”
“He died?” I was shocked. Why hadn’t Dylan mentioned this?
“Not yet,” Sophie said.
“What do you mean?”
“He’s going to euthanize himself,” Dylan said. “He wants to speak at his own funeral, and then he wants to die and for us to put his body in the ocean.”
“Where? Here?”
“No. He’s at our main military base. There’s an aircraft carrier and a sea-stead about two hundred kilometers from here.”
We talked about other things for a while, then Dylan said, “Enough of all this talk. We should dance.” He got up and changed the moody jazz to some upbeat swing music.
“I can’t dance,” Annie said.
“Of course you can. Everybody can dance. Here.” Dylan took her hand and lifted her up off the ground, cupping her in his arms and spinning her around the floor.
Sophie and I looked at one another, and Sophie reached out her hand and I took it and we pulled each other up. We clasped on to one another and started jiving around the floor, and I could hear Annie laughing for the first time in months.
“See, told you you could dance,” Dylan said.
“But you’re doing everything,” Annie said, laughing again as he spun her light body around in circles.
Then a waltz came on, and I could feel Sophie getting closer to me. At first I kept a respectable distance, but then I looked across and saw Annie swaying gently against Dylan, her chin nuzzled up against his neck, and I let my inhibitions go and felt the tingling pleasure of Sophie’s body pressed into mine.
The next morning we all went down to the place where the land met the ocean, and swam. I watched and cried as Annie splashed in the waves, laughing and then screaming at them over the sound of their relentless onslaught.
Annie wanted to see the macaques, and we drove out to the small patch of forest where they usually hung out. There were a number of fruit trees there, and apparently the monkeys never ventured too far from them.
We got out of the car and it wasn’t long before we could hear their playful screeching.
“Toby, Sika,” I called out. “Sika, Toby.”
The play in the branches continued and we could see a group of them up there swinging around, resting, or grooming one another. And then I saw Toby — looking down at me from one of the highest branches.
“Toby, it’s me. Toby, come.”
“Sika,” Annie called out. “Sika.”
Just as I thought he wasn’t going to move, Toby swung down from the branches and slid down the nearest trunk and came running across to us. He leaped up onto my body and before I knew it he was sitting on my shoulder and had his arms wrapped tightly around my head.
“Toby!” I lifted him down and hugged him tightly against my chest.
Annie came over too and we both embraced him.
“Where’s Sika?” Annie said, half to me and half to Toby. “I hope she’s alright.”
Just then we saw another set of eyes peering at us from a lower branch, and then Sika too was coming across to us and climbing up onto our bodies.
We spent the next few hours playing with them and enjoying being in the forest.
“A couple of local scientists have been out here observing them,” Dylan said. “Apparently, they’ve been seen helping out their sick. A few months ago one of the older ones got some kind of a fever and wasn’t able to move for a few days, and instead of leaving her alone the others took turns in bringing her food and sitting with her.”
“Not only that,” Sophie said, “but apparently they’ve been seen helping other animals as well. There was a dog out here that got caught in an old net a while ago and some of them helped free it.”
A few days later, a small plane carrying twelve of us circled over an aircraft carrier and a sea-stead in the South Pacific ocean. I gripped my seat tightly as we swooped down and thudded gently into the runway, and the engines brought the plane to a grinding halt just meters from the railing.
Dylan climbed down from the pilot’s seat and as we disembarked he held out his hand to Annie. The other passengers all seemed to know their way around, and they headed off in the direction of a swing bridge which connected the huge floating hulk of the aircraft carrier to what looked like a floating town.
I stared up at the gray metal turret of the ship’s control tower. At the top was a row of windows and above them three radar dishes slowly circled. Along the sides of the landing strip fighter jets stood at the ready. Groups of soldiers were doing exercises in front of them.
“Training,” Dylan said, following my gaze.
“You’re expecting an attack?”
“You can never be too sure.”
“A few soldiers are hardly going to be able to prevent an attack. You’re pretty exposed out here.” I looked out at the ocean surrounding us in every direction.
“There are two submarines equipped with long range tracker missiles and anti-aircraft launchers just a few kilometers away. And under the runway here are another twelve F-37 bombers.”
“All for this platform?”
“This is the main hub. If this place goes then many of our key people would die. But there are other places like this a few hundred kilometers from here that our forces could get to easily enough if required.”
“And governments allow this?”
“Most of them are too caught up in their own problems right now to worry about us. Our main concern is if some dictator takes over a well-armed country and decides to invade us.”
We crossed the long swing bridge between the aircraft carrier and the nearest floating platform, and I looked down at the waves below, crashing against the hull of the ship and the floating pylons under the town.
“So do these things move around?” I said.
“They’re designed to be towed if necessary. If the climate gets much worse we’ll probably need to move them further south to cooler waters.”
On the other side of the bridge was a small park with a four-story office building overlooking it. Dylan led us over to a golf cart. The streets were just wide enough for two golf carts to pass one another.
We stopped outside an apartment building. Our room inside was barely twenty square meters, but it contained a bed, a desk, a sm
all dining table, a kitchen and a bathroom.
“Space is limited, I’m afraid. But hopefully this will do.”
“This will be perfect.” I went over to a window that looked directly out onto the ocean. Waves were at a meter and a half but ran underneath us without causing any noticeable effect on the stability of the platform.
“Would you like to rest, or to have a look around?”
Annie stayed to rest, but I decided to have a look around and I followed Dylan and Sophie back down to the street. It was a warm, sunny, slightly humid day, but the sea breeze provided cool relief. Dylan had some business to attend to, so Sophie offered to be my guide.
The town was just like a miniature version of any normal town. Most of the fresh produce was grown hydroponically, inside greenhouses, although they apparently got a shipment of dry foods once a month. Water was collected from roofs and stored in the pylons which held the platform aloft. Their main source of food was fish, which they got from floating fish farms. Sewerage was treated on board and then discharged into the sea. The whole place ran on solar, wind and wave power, and they had communications-dishes that linked them via satellite to the net. There was a school, a university and a hospital, as well as a small shopping centre where people could get food and essential household items.
The next day, nearly twenty thousand people stood on the decks of the aircraft carrier. People had been coming in by plane all night, and hundreds of boats floated in the ocean around both the sea-stead and the carrier itself.
“Welcome to my funeral,” Rowen said over a loud speaker when the noise quietened down. “Thank you all very much for being here. I’ve always found it disturbing that the dead never get to hear the eulogies at their own funerals, or get to have a say themselves, so I thought I might change that!” People chuckled, and then Rowen’s brother came on.
Over the next two hours he and nine other people all spoke passionately of Rowen’s love for life and of his unlimited generosity and optimism. Finally, Rowen himself came on again, and people clapped and cheered.
Perfectible Animals: A Post Apocalyptic Technothriller (EidoGenesis Book 1) Page 21
