by James Harden
"Morphine is an opiate," he said. "A German physicist first discovered it in 1804 but it was not widely used until 1854 when the hypodermic needled was developed. The word morphine is derived from Morpheus the god of dreams in Greek mythology. He is the son of Hypnos, the god of sleep. Morphine is a highly potent analgesic drug and acts directly on the central nervous system to relieve pain. No other narcotic analgesic is more effective or superior in the management of severe pain. It also gives a feeling of euphoria, relaxation and sedation. On the downside it is highly addictive. Each hit will only last about four to six hours. So tolerance develops rapidly. Physical dependence develops rapidly. And psychological dependence develops very, very rapidly."
The match in his hand had nearly burnt down to his fingers.
"How do you know all of that?" I asked.
"I’m a doctor," he answered as he leant forward and dropped the match into a glass of water or maybe scotch. The match sizzled as the flame was extinguished. Once again it was dark.
"Where did you get that gun?" he asked me.
"From a cop."
"You ever fired a gun before?"
"Yeah."
"You ever killed a man?"
"Yeah."
The man laughed again. "I guess I better be nice to you."
He struck another match and stared at the flame. The cigarette burned steadily in his mouth. The ash lengthened. He took one long draw, exhaled the smoke out his nose and then threw the rest of the cigarette away. "I’ll start by not smoking around you. I know how non-smokers hate it when you smoke around them. Especially when you’re eating. And even though you’re not eating I still thought I’d put it out. Just to be nice. I used to be a non-smoker myself, you know."
"Thanks," I said.
"Not a problem."
The weird thing was he didn’t look at me. Not once. He just stared at the orange flame of the match in his hands. He was obsessed.
"So what are you doing here?" I asked him back.
He blew on the tiny flame but not hard enough to blow it out. "This is my humble abode."
The penthouse suite of a casino? "It’s nice," I said. "I love what you’ve done with the interior decorations. It doesn’t even feel like a hotel room."
He laughed again and snuffed out the flame with a short, sharp breath. He then continued to blow on the burnt end of the match so the embers glowed. "Blow and you can extinguish a flame. Blow and you can fuel a flame."
He took another match and held the head of it against the glowing burnt one. It heated up and sparked and ignited. The tiny orange flame danced and flickered and was reflected in the black pupils of his eyes. The man was definitely obsessed.
"Once upon a time," he said. "I wanted the big house, the penthouse apartment like this one. I wanted to drive a Ferrari and cruise around in a bright pink Rolls Royce. Everyone wants that. Well maybe not a bright pink Rolls Royce but everyone wants money. At least enough so they don’t have to worry about paying bills or paying the mortgage or saving for a rainy day. You ever bought some groceries not knowing whether you had enough money in your account to pay the bill? Money can solve that problem. No more stress. No more fighting or arguing over money and what we can afford and what we can’t afford."
I looked at the man looking at the flame in his hand and I wondered if he was talking about himself.
"But money doesn’t really mean a thing when you think about it. When you think big picture, money isn’t even an issue."
"Yeah," I said. "Especially when a virus starts killing everyone and turning them into psychos and the military conducts a clinic on how to execute a massacre."
"Do you know anything about loss?" he asked.
Like a reflex, a lump formed in my throat. I thought about my father, my mother. I thought about Kenji.
Did I know anything about loss? "Unfortunately."
"I lost everything," he said "And I mean everything. I’m not just talking about money. I’m talking about my life. My soul. I lost it. And believe me, when you lose your soul. When you say goodbye to that concept or whatever it is, you can never, ever get it back."
I lowered the gun and swallowed the lump in my throat. "What happened?"
He shook his head. "I’m not even really sure. My life had turned into a monotonous routine. One failure after the next. I didn’t even realize what I was doing until it was too damn late. Until I had already sold my soul to the devil."
"It must’ve been hard."
"It was easy, actually. All too easy."
I switched the safety on and tucked the gun back in my pants and the man lit another match. "What did you do?" I asked.
He stared at the tiny orange flame of the match. It continued to dance. It was hypnotic.
"I created the Oz Virus."
Chapter 28
Distant thunder rolled through the city.
A flash of lightning lit up the room and I counted the seconds in my head to gauge how far away the lightning was. I counted to three. Thunder crackled and rolled and echoed through the city. Did three seconds equal three miles?
The man was sitting there in the dark with a lit match in his hand. He just claimed that he created the Oz Virus. Why would anyone say that?
"Excuse me?" I asked in disbelief. "You created the Oz Virus?"
He nodded his head slowly.
"Why? Why would you do such a thing?"
"I told you. I sold my soul to the devil."
"What does that even mean?"
"It means I worked on the project from day one," he said. "It was just me and two other doctors. They called us the 'holy trinity'. I think some people thought we were miracle workers. At some point I started to believe the hype. At the very least I thought I was going to save lives. I thought what we were doing was for the greater good."
More thunder rolled and echoed and vibrated through the city and I couldn't quite make out what he said. It sounded like he said it was for the greater good. But I couldn't be sure.
I was just about to ask him what he said when someone turned the lights on. It was Kenji. He had the shotgun pointed directly at the man sitting on the couch.
"Step back, Rebecca."
I was relieved to see him but was also worried he was about to fire the shotgun. I had a feeling that this guy, as crazy as he seemed, knew something. "It’s OK," I said to Kenji.
"Is it?" he replied.
"Yeah. Well, sort of. How did you even know I was here?"
"Kim woke up and saw that you were gone," Kenji said as he kept his eyes fixed on the man sitting on the couch. "Then she realized her gun was missing. I went to find you. I heard your voices. What’s going on here?"
I nodded my head towards the crazy man. "He just said that he created the Oz Virus."
Kenji seemed to lose his composure. He lowered the gun slightly while the implications of what he just heard ticked over in his head. "Is that true?" he asked.
The man blew out the match in his hand. He picked up a bottle of scotch that was sitting on the coffee table and took a swig. "You look like a soldier who has seen some things," he said ignoring Kenji’s question. "Let me guess, you served in Afghanistan?"
Kenji furrowed his brow.
"And you were only recently called into Woomera as part of the containment crew. Shoot to kill were your orders, am I right?"
Kenji raised the shotgun back up. "How do you know that?"
"I can tell by the look in your eyes."
"Excuse me?"
"Your eyes are the gateway to your soul. If you look a man in the eyes, I mean really look him in the eyes, you can find out everything you need to know about him."
"Is that right? So you know everything about me, huh?"
The man was looking directly at Kenji. "That’s right."
"And what do you know?"
"Right now your eyes are telling me that you’ve seen things no man should ever have seen, that you’ve done things no man should ever have done."
Kenji was in
a trance, like he was being hypnotized by a sorcerer who was reading his mind and predicting his future or something.
"Your eyes are telling me you’re smart, that you were smart enough to run, smart enough to stay alive when everyone else died."
Kenji blinked a couple of times and shook his head. "OK, that's enough talk. You’re coming with us."
"What?" I said. "We can’t bring him with us!"
"I’m not leaving him here by himself. And if what he said about the virus is true then he needs to be held accountable."
The man chuckled.
"What’s so funny?" Kenji asked.
"You don’t get it do you? There’s no one left to hold me accountable. It’s over."
The man was starting to scare us both. I think he was drunk. So we decided it would be best if Kenji kept guard over him in the penthouse.
As I was leaving Kenji grabbed me by the arm and took me out into the hallway. He grabbed me kind of hard and went right off at me for wandering around on my own.
"What were you thinking?" he said, struggling to keep his voice low. "We haven't secured the rest of the building yet. And you know the security cameras don't show the rooms."
The truth was I wasn't thinking at all. I was sleep deprived, exhausted. I was in shock. "I'm sorry." I said. "I couldn’t sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes I kept seeing dead people floating in the water. Some of them were moving. Some of them were looking right at me."
He took a deep breath. "I know it’s hard. But that’s why we have to stick together. We’re stronger as a group. If just one person decides to act alone then we’re all in trouble."
I knew he was right. I don’t what I would’ve done if Maria or Jack or Kim went off by themselves. I had to stop being so selfish. I was part of a group now and we were all relying on each other to survive.
"Try and get some rest," he said. "I’m going to stay here and keep watch. I don’t trust this guy one bit. And try not to wake the others. They need their sleep. We’ll be making some big, important decisions tomorrow and everyone needs to be switched on mentally."
I descended the stairs to our floor in a daze and slipped back into our room as quietly as I could. Kim was the only one awake although she was fighting to keep her eyes open.
"What happened? Where did you go?" she asked.
"I just went for a walk," I whispered. "I couldn’t sleep."
"Rebecca, don’t scare us like that. Where is Kenji?"
"He’s still upstairs. He said he’ll be down soon."
I felt bad about lying but I could tell she was exhausted. Jack and Maria were still in a deep sleep and as soon as Kim knew everyone was OK, she passed out as well. I collapsed on my bed feeling angry with myself for putting the group in danger. What if they had all decided to come and search for me? What if something happened? It would’ve been my fault and I’m not sure I’d be able to live with myself with that kind of guilt. Coming to grips with how stupid I’d been was not making it any easier to sleep.
Chapter 29
The night seemed to drag on forever. It must've been late but I was still wide awake.
I was shaking uncontrollably and this time it wasn't because I was soaking wet. This time it was because I just found out that one of the people responsible for the Oz Virus and all the death and destruction and chaos was in this very building.
I was not handling this confronting fact very well. I continued to shake. I looked at the others sleeping. How did they do it? How did they just switch off?
I didn't know what to do. My body needed sleep but it wasn’t shutting down. It’s like my brain wasn’t listening. I suddenly remembered the morphine pill the crazy doctor upstairs gave me. The container was still in my pocket. I took it out and tried to read the writing on the label.
I popped the lid and put the tiny pill in the palm of my hand. I wondered if it would stop me from shaking. I wondered if it could make me forget about the virus, the destruction, the death. I tried to remember everything the Doctor had told me about it when he was rambling off all those facts earlier. I remember he said something about how it was highly potent and highly addictive. I remember he also said the word morphine was derived from Morpheus the god of dreams who was the son of Hypnos, god of sleep.
How could one little pill be so strong? How could it be so addictive?
I continued to shake uncontrollably. Next to me the others were sleeping and snoring. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to be sleeping and snoring. I wanted Morpheus and Hypnos to come and take me away. To send me to sleep and show me dreams where I’m lying on a beach on an island in the pacific. I wanted to hear the waves roll up the white sand. I wanted to feel the sun tan and burn my skin.
I wanted to forget everything I had seen today.
I raided the mini bar and found a bottle of water that according to the price list cost eight dollars. I took a deep breath and opened my mouth. I placed the pill on the end of my tongue and washed it down.
Outside, fat, heavy rain was falling and pelting the window. Another flash of lightning lit up the night sky, followed by some more thunder. It suddenly dawned on me then that maybe the lightning and the thunder were more bombs and explosions. It was a frightening thought. I tried to imagine what Sydney would look like in the morning, if it would ever recover from this attack. But I forced myself to clear my head. I needed to sleep. Kenji said we had to make big, important decisions tomorrow. I guess he was talking about our survival. Like whether we should make a run for it or hide out here for a few more days.
If we were smart and planned ahead we would have a greater chance of survival. If we made poor decisions it could cost us our lives. Up until this point I think we had been lucky. And that scared me. Sooner or later our luck was bound to run out.
I drank the rest of the eight dollar water and suddenly felt the effects of the morphine starting to kick in. It hit hard. I began to feel light headed. I don’t know why but instead of getting into my comfy bed, I decided to lie down on the floor to stretch my back out. A few minutes later my mind seemed to slow. All thoughts of the death, and carnage and wondering if this really was a zombie apocalypse melted away. Suddenly I thought everything was going to be all right. Even when I started sinking deeper and deeper into the carpet, I knew everything was going to be fine. My mind was finally empty of bad thoughts.
I remembered this one time when I snuck into Kenji’s house late one night for a movie marathon session. I had to sneak in a lot because his parents really didn’t like me and they didn’t like that we spent so much time together. Maybe because they thought Kenji should be with a Japanese girl or something. Anyway, he wanted me to watch this movie called Yojimbo. It was an Akira Kurasawa movie. It was the movie that The Bodyguard was based on. I’d made him watch it a million times so now he was making me watch the original version. But there was a problem. The only copy he had was on a shelf in his dad’s study. And his dad’s study was strictly off limits. We went to look for it anyway. I remember I was nervous, maybe even a little scared. If his dad found us in his personal office he would’ve killed me. I remember I found this ancient looking scroll on his desk. The writing was all in Japanese. I asked Kenji what it meant.
"It’s the book of emptiness," he said.
"The what?"
"It’s the belief that our minds should be empty. A cup is made from clay or glass. But it’s the emptiness of the cup we desire."
"Oh, like in The Bodyguard when Kevin Costner is in the snow at night and he closes his eyes to try and shoot the bad guy."
"Exactly."
That moment in Kenji’s dad’s study has always stuck with me. And just then I felt like I was that emptiness he was talking about. I felt like I was that cup. I was Kevin Costner, kneeling in the snow with my eyes closed.
Somewhere in the distance I could hear Morpheus and Hypnos calling to me. They wanted to recite the Iliad while we sat around a campfire. They wanted to discuss why the Gods amused themselves by interfering with the lives of
mortals.
The morphine was pumping through my veins and around my body. According to the crazy Doctor, no other narcotic analgesic is more effective or superior than morphine. I will vouch for that. I will testify. Praise the Gods.
As the morphine went to work directly on my central nervous system I could feel myself slipping into the black hole of sleep and unconsciousness. I felt like I was sinking and falling. And it felt good.
Just before blackness consumed everything Kenji walked into the room. He leant over me and tried to tell me something. He whispered into my ear, "Tomorrow, they're going to nuke Melbourne."
My eyes were closed and I felt like I was wrapped up in an invisible electric blanket that was turned way up on the highest setting. It sounded like he said they were going to drop a nuclear bomb on Melbourne. But I couldn't be sure. Because at that point I was lying on a beach in the pacific and the water was gently rolling up the white sand. The sun was tanning and burning my skin.
Chapter 30
Four to six hours.
That’s how long the effects of morphine are supposed to last according to the Doctor, assuming he was a Doctor.
Euphoria
Relaxation.
Sedation.
Four to six hours.
I wasn't sure but I felt like it'd been longer than six hours. Not that I was complaining. I was unconscious. I was in a black hole. I could've been dead for all I knew but it felt good and I didn't care.
I didn’t care because I was hanging out on Bondi beach with Maria and Jack. The sand was clean and white and there were no footprints. We spent the whole day surfing. And I could actually surf. When the sun had set over the water, we set up an outdoor movie theatre and watched all the greats. Rocky Four. The Karate Kid. Top Gun.
Morpheus, the god of dreams had come through with the goods.
But then something weird happened. Instead of landing his F-15 Eagle on the aircraft carrier at the end of the movie, Tom Cruise, aka Maverick, turned his jet towards Australia and hit the afterburners. He flew into Sydney Harbor low and fast. He blew up the bridge and everyone on it.
