Vigil

by Saunders, Craig

  For many years he had travelled. He had allies in countries across the world.

  The vampires were no longer lone hunters. They were legion. They controlled the world and slowly it was falling under their dominion. The vampire leading the convoy was their leader. Vampires in each continent of the world bowed to his will.

  Where human kind had failed to pick up the pieces of a fallen civilisation, he had succeeded. Together with his vast army he had succeeded in turning the power back on in key cities. His communications network was vast.

  But their food was learning, too, and it was becoming more difficult to find food. The blood, as always, drove his every move. But he was more intelligent than most. Far more intelligent.

  He knew where the food was. The blood was calling to him. Across the miles.

  Across the ages.

  The end was in sight, and a new beginning for the vampire nation. A world to mould into one that they ruled completely.

  Fallon Corp. was the key. It was the alpha and the omega. Finally, after so many years, it lay within reach.

  *

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Tom handed most of the responsibility for researching the inhibitor over the rest of the science team. He wasn’t sure he could cover all the ground necessary to understand the workings of the LHC on his own. He didn’t head into the chamber, or even go down that path. He was undecided as to whether he ever would, although part of him knew that he must, and that he was just putting off the inevitable.

  At the end of the day the research team would update him on their various discoveries and he would listen intently. Three days passed in that way. At some point it became his team, not Jean's. He didn’t mind. At least if he was going to be responsible then he would do the best job of it he could. He didn’t trust anyone else to make the right decisions.

  The bulk of the files on the computer were vague reports on what he knew from the secret files. He didn’t learn much that was new, but he filled in a lot of the blanks in his knowledge. Pierre Dupont, the dead man, had helped with notations and explanatory files in many of the folders on the computer. None of the files were encrypted. There wasn’t anything in there that his father’s team of scientists would not have known anyway. Mainly they were reports and saved emails from others.

  His father’s thoughts on the subject must have remained in his head. There was nothing to say what had gone on in that head. He had kept his own council. Occasionally there would be a response to an email from him that he had saved in his inbox. These, Tom soon realised, did not so much enlighten as obfuscate the issues.

  Tom had spent most of his time in deep thought. It was the particle accelerator that fascinated him. He grilled the Hub computer, ordering it to restrict its responses to his office.

  He had been afraid when he had first read the file. Now he was terrified.

  The first particle accelerator, CERN, had made some interesting discoveries. They had succeeded in a small way, creating a miniature nuclear explosion in a controlled environment, by accelerating and colliding particles at phenomenal speeds, powered by the accelerator itself, nearly 30km long. Tom didn’t understand the science behind it, and much of his understanding was just guesswork, but it seemed that the long tunnel was basically the bore of a gun, firing particles at each other, reaching nearly the speed of light.

  What they had succeeding in doing was to create a controlled explosion, at exactly the point of impact. The point had remarkable properties. They managed to stabilise it, so that it did not expand or contract. It was stuck in time.

  The point itself could be sped up or slowed down with an influx or decrease in power. It required no input, however, to remain constant. It was unchanging. The applications of the discovery were mind blowing.

  But the scientists based at CERN never had that chance to experiment further. Their findings ended up on some colonel’s desk, and the army came in and shut it down.

  It was not the end of the story, though. John Fallon had immense power throughout the world and many ears. He found out about the results of the test and he had an idea. The idea took nearly two decades to put in place, but he managed it. He had nearly unlimited resources and power – if anyone could have achieved such a goal, it was John Fallon.

  He had created a network of reactors. The focus, the nexus of that combined power, was down the corridor from Tom.

  There had been trial runs, and startling results.

  The pinpoint could be expanded, under control, and things could be put into the point. They vanished without a trace.

  But John had a theory. He had tested it.

  He had never been able to carry out his final piece of research, or prove his theory was correct, because he had had a thunderclap coronary.

  Tom understood the theory. He was not a stupid man.

  He also understood something else.

  If his father really had been injected with FE612 before he could finish the job of dying, wasn’t it possible that he had healed? Wasn’t it possible that he was still alive?

  And if he was, he had had nearly forty years to think and perfect his theory.

  Would his father continue his work?

  Of course he would. It was his obsession. Tom thought it would have more power over his father than the hunger.

  And now he was afraid, and not just for the people of the complex. He was afraid for the world.

  ‘Tom!’

  He jumped and clutched his chest as pain blossomed there.

  ‘Jesus, don’t do that!’

  ‘Sorry, Tom. I knocked, but you didn’t hear me. You’ve got to hear this. I think it might work. You won’t believe it, though.’

  Tom sighed and pushed himself to his feet. ‘You’d be surprised at what I’d believe these days. Show me.’

  The man dashed off ahead like an excited puppy. Tom walked at a more sedate pace. He didn’t want to die just yet, but he had a sneaky suspicion that his heart might have something else to say on the matter.

  *

  Chapter Thirty

  The man, Phillipe, Tom remembered, was nearly jumping with excitement. His team were all looking at Tom, eager for his approval.

  Tom resolved to give it, no matter what they had discovered. He knew all too well how hard his team had worked over the last few days.

  ‘OK, go ahead. Blow me away.’

  Phillipe beamed. Tom found himself smiling, too. He had precious little to smile about since reading about the accelerator, but the young man's enthusiasm was infectious.

  ‘Right. We have read and reread everything about the inhibitor and the cure. We’ve read all the notes on their experiments. It’s unbelievably advanced.

  ‘All along we’ve been calling the cured 'vampires'. There didn’t seem to be anything else to call them. They drink blood. They heal. They don’t like the sun…it’s like a story book. It’s a myth come to life. Legends walking the earth, feeding and infecting anyone who comes into contact with their blood. But the blood doesn’t bring people back to life. It doesn’t work on the dead.

  ‘I’m with you so far.

  ‘We call them vampires, but nobody really believes in legends. But that’s precisely what they are, Tom. Real vampires. This UnSub One, he was the first. They believed that he had survived for hundreds of years, and that all along there had been other vampires throughout history. They didn’t think that he was the only one. They worked on that assumption, and through sheer chance they discovered what we had, long ago – silver inhibits the production of the virus.

  ‘The virus itself is a compound, nanoparticles in viral form, unbelievably contagious. They fell down because the inhibitor was discovered afterwards, then it was too late to produce it on a large scale. They didn’t have the facilities for that here, and the facility was soon abandoned. They could have saved the world from the contagion, but they didn’t have time!

  ‘Instead, they shut the facility down and walked away. Why did they do that?’ ‘Well, why?’
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  ‘Because they saw that there was no hope, Tom. It was too late by the time the infection had spread. The inhibitor doesn’t cure the afflicted of their hunger. It stops them from being contagious, but what good was that? They didn’t have enough, and by the time the cure had spread, who had the power to round up the infected? No one. There was no one left.’

  ‘They could have tried.'

  ‘No, Tom. It wouldn’t have worked, because it was so complicated to create the inhibitor. It required nanotechnology. The answer was simple. It was something we had right there in front of us. Stories as a child, mythology provided the answer, with a solid scientific base – silver, Tom.'

  ‘In the inhibitor?’

  ‘Sub-microscopic. Particles of silver in a titanium compound that are so small they can travel into a person’s cells. They inhibit some of the properties of FE612. It’s a cure out of legend, a time old remedy to ward off the bogeyman, kills werewolves, burns vampires…the old tales were true all along.

  ‘Silver has purifying properties, as you well know. Ancient people knew this. They used to use silver to purify water. It’s something that people have just forgotten over the years. The silver halts the infection, Tom! We can cure it.’

  ‘That’s brilliant. Can we produce it?’

  Phillipe's face fell. ‘No. We don’t have the technology or the expertise. We can’t recreate what the scientists here did. We just don’t know how. Perhaps if we had years…’

  ‘Well, we can test it.’

  The floor rocked underneath them.

  ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘Hub One?’ said Tom.

  ‘Yes, Tom,’ replied the computer’s cold voice.

  ‘What’s happening up there?’

  ‘I believe the upper level is under attack. Turrets are currently operational.’

  ‘Can you see above ground?’

  ‘My systems are independent of the main facility. My responsibility is to guard the gateway.’

  A tremor ran through the walls and the steel beneath the scientist’s feet.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘An explosion. The eastern turret is no longer operational. Defensive systems above ground are running at 54% capacity.’

  ‘I think we just ran out of time ourselves,’ said Tom, more calmly than he felt. ‘Come on. We need to test it now.’

  *

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Marie’s computer went down. The last thing it had shown was seven armour vehicles rolling in from the east. She’d booted up the defensive systems and then there had been a massive explosion above ground, whiting out all monitors for a moment, followed by nothing.

  ‘Run a diagnostic.’

  ‘Jean, it’s dead. I can’t do anything.’

  Jean wheeled himself over to the main computer and typed for a few moments. The central view of all turrets came up.

  He hit replay.

  They watched as the turrets came up out of the ground. It was an automated response to a threat. Then all monitors went down for a second. When they came back on line the turret was a steaming wreck in the centre of a huge crater.

  ‘What the hell could do that?’

  ‘A missile.’

  ‘From a tank?’

  ‘No. Long range. They’re learning. They came within range so that the turret would raise, then they hit it with a long range missile. We’re totally unprotected from the east.’

  Samson swore and stood up.

  ‘Stay at your station, Samson.’

  ‘They’re coming in, Jean. The security team needs me. They know our systems. They know the way they work. They did this smoothly. We can’t fight from the safety underground. We need to retreat from the first floor.’

  ‘Not yet, Sam. There might yet be some good we can do from here.’

  ‘Well I’m not wasting my time.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Jean, looking at central monitor. 'Incoming. Tanks. A lot of them.’

  Sam waited while Jean held his head in his hand. When he looked up there was fear in the leader’s eyes. He saw none in Samson’s eyes.

  ‘Go, then. Get the teams ready. Marie, help me.’

  Marie took the second’s chair next to Jean and they began typing in commands, setting the ground level defence systems to fully automatic.

  When they were finished Jean turned to Marie and took her hand.

  ‘God help us, Marie. Sound the alarm. We’re going down to level two. Abandon the surface. We need to put our trust in Kappa and his men now.’

  Marie squeezed Jean’s hand.

  ‘There’s nothing else we can do, Jean. We knew it might come to this. Come on. Close it down.’

  ‘I’m staying.’

  Marie shook her head and grabbed the handles of his wheelchair. She pulled him away from the consol.

  ‘No, Jean. You’re not. We need you.’

  ‘Leave me be!’

  ‘No.’

  Marie ignored their leaders protests and pushed him toward the elevators. If the first floor fell they would have to blow the elevators.

  They had long known it might come to this. Fighting in their home. Fighting for their lives. But nobody had believed.

  Except Tom and Marie.

  She wished they had been wrong, but there was no time for recriminations. Even if they had been better prepared for a well-equipped attack from the vampires, they could not stand against someone who knew their defensive capability and planned an attack so well.

  It was up to Tom, now.

  *

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Tom carried compound IH237 in his left hand and a syringe in his right.

  There was only one way to test the theory. He didn’t have time to check with Jean, and it wouldn’t matter what he said anyway. Tom planned on carrying out this experiment with or without permission.

  The klaxon sounding throughout the complex only confirmed what he’d feared before long. It was the signal to abandon the entry level. It was only a matter of time before the vampires made it down to the lower levels and the slaughter began.

  He knew there was no saving them now. But he had to know. He had to be sure. There was only one chance, and he meant to take it if he could. But he wouldn’t run blindly into the future, not while there was a glint of hope, no matter how dim.

  They brought out frozen samples of the compound and took it up to the isolation ward where the vampire was being held.

  It was a sad sight. Tom knew their hearing was extremely acute. The klaxon’s wail must have been torture for it. Tom felt pity for the creature, but he could not stop. Was he any better than his father? Was he driven to cruelty, too, for altruistic goals?

  It didn’t bear thinking about.

  The creature struggling against the silver chains holding it down against the bed. Its eyes rolled wildly. It snarled and slavered as they came close to it.

  'Do you think we can inject it? The way it’s moving around, the needle will just break.’

  ‘You’ll have to hold it down,’ he told the young men on the science detail he'd brought with him.

  ‘We’re not security detail.’

  ‘I don’t fucking care. You know as well as I do what that alarm means. Kappa and his crew are likely busy elsewhere. There’s only us. Hold it down.’

  There was no more argument. Tom stepped forward and swiftly hooded the vampire. The rest of the scientists strained against the vampire, keeping clear of its head which snapped from side to side. They had all taken the precaution of wearing face masks, but the chance of infection was still high.

  But there was no time. No time for caution.

  Tom loaded the syringe and without checking for a vein or a kind word to his patient he plunged the needle into the writhing vampire’s arm.

  ‘Back!’ he shouted and they jumped back, staring at the creature, waiting for something to happen.

  The vampire began screaming. It was the most pitiful and frightening sound Tom had ever heard.
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br />   Then it began to convulse, crying out in German at the top of its voice. Tom didn’t know much German, but he understood that the beast was pleading for its life.

  The pleading went on for a minute, then the pain became too great and the vampire reverted to screaming again, but it didn’t last long. Soon, it fell quiet, its limbs shaking. As Tom watched the skin began to mottle, darkening in spots. Where there was whiter flesh, wounds that FE616 had healed, the flesh began to fall away. Then blood began to leak from the old wounds. Everyone took a step back. Nobody wanted to get anywhere near the blood.

  The vampire’s breath hitched, once, twice, then it fell silent.

  Tom approached the creature, carefully avoiding stepping anywhere near the blood, and pulled the hood from the creature’s head.

  The face had melted away, down to the bone. Where the eyes should be were only sockets, dark and full of a slick substance that must have been dissolved eyes. The teeth were crumbling as they watched. Then the rest of the skin began to peel away, slewing off onto the bed.

  One of Tom's team was noisily sick on the floor.

  ‘Jesus. What the hell happened?’ said another, a young man with a pock-marked face. Tom could not remember his name right then. He stared in shock at the ruins of the vampire on the table before them.

  ‘An adverse reaction to the serum, I would imagine,’ he said without humour.

  Were they reaping what they had sown?

  ‘Why did he melt? He just melted, for God’s sake. What is that? Acid?’

  'I assumed that there were too many changes for the cure to reverse them.'

  ‘Well , what does that mean for us?’

  ‘The cure won’t work on an old vampire. It might work on someone newly infected.’

  ‘But you don’t know?’

  ‘Of course I don’t bloody know,' said Tom to the man. 'I only know what we read, that this was a cure.’

  Tom fell silent for a moment, thinking. It was difficult, but he had been thinking of it for days now. He didn’t really need to see the cure on the vampire.