Life Goes On | Book 3 | While The Lights Are On [Surviving The Evacuation]

by Tayell, Frank

  “You mean zombies?” O.O. said. “You’d want living zombies?”

  “Of course,” Avalon said.

  “By which she means we’d need them, but we don’t want them,” Smilovitz said, pointing at the refrigerator. “It’s bad enough having those samples in here. But we’d need more than can be gathered from the zombies shot by the walls. We’d have to capture some, contain them, and harvest the material. This presents obvious risks and ethical questions, but there is also the possibility, out in the wild, or in captivity, that the virus mutates.”

  “It’s not a virus,” Avalon muttered.

  “Mutates?” O.O. said. “You mean the zombies might learn to run?”

  “That’s a physiological impossibility,” Smilovitz said. “But viruses constantly mutate. If this one did, our test would become useless and we’re back to the problem of an infected frontline soldier thinking they’re immune, or someone immune thinking they’re infected. Either situation would result in a death.”

  “Then we test the soldiers before we send them to war,” the prime minister said.

  “And do you only send the immune to fight?” Avalon asked. “Or do you give the non-immune a fast-acting poison to self-administer if they are bitten?”

  “Testing is irrelevant,” Smilovitz said, “because within eight hours of infection, we’ll definitively know whether someone is immune. It’s too short a time period to transport samples to a lab. Theoretically, yes, we could create a test a soldier on the battlefield could self-administer. But it would be massively time, labour, and material-intensive compared to issuing everyone with a pair of plastic restraints.”

  “If testing is irrelevant, why are we here?” Vaughn asked.

  “And why don’t we send you two back to the Canadian frontline?” O.O. added.

  “You don’t want a test,” Smilovitz said. “You want a weapon. But the first stage was identifying what we are targeting.”

  “I’m listening,” O.O. said.

  “Due to the nature of the illness,” Smilovitz said, “no one will develop antibodies because no one will recover. This thing effectively kills you before it reanimates the corpse. There won’t be any cure. It might, in time, be possible to create a vaccine developed from those who are immune—”

  “The British have a vaccine,” Lignatiev said.

  “Bet they don’t,” Avalon said.

  “It’s another secondary issue which we can discuss later,” Smilovitz said.

  “Tell me about this weapon,” O.O. said. “You’re talking about something biological?”

  “They tried that in Britain,” Lignatiev said. “They emptied their labs and threw everything at the enemy. Nothing worked to any great effect.”

  “We should receive a sample of their vaccine any day now,” the prime minister said, turning to Lignatiev. “That’s correct, isn’t it, Ian?”

  “I believe so, ma’am, yes,” he said.

  “And with that,” the PM said, turning back to Avalon, “you could make more? We could vaccinate the world?”

  Avalon shook her head. “Seriously? Didn’t I just explain myself?”

  “A vaccine presents the same issues as an immunity-test,” Smilovitz said. “No one will know they’ve been successfully vaccinated unless they then get infected. There will, inevitably, be side-effects and some for whom it won’t work.”

  “But the Pohms have got one,” O.O. said.

  “It’ll be a placebo,” Avalon said.

  “They’re sending us a sample,” Anna said. “And when it arrives you can prove yourself correct. How long until we have a weapon?”

  “How short is a goalie’s temper?” Avalon said.

  “You only really know when the game is over,” Smilovitz said quickly. “It’s a hockey expression. It’ll be months before we have something you can spray from the back of a helicopter over a battlefield. We can provide a rough timeframe after we’ve begun. For that, we need your approval. We assumed you’d give it, which is why we’re relocating to the secure lab, but we’ll need more resources. Test subjects.”

  “What kind?” Anna asked.

  “Zombies,” Smilovitz said. “Only zombies.”

  “There’s no shortage of them,” Lignatiev said. “I think we’re done here. Ma’am, my protection detail will escort you back to Parliament House.”

  “Yes, of course,” the prime minister said. “Thank you, doctor.”

  Erin Vaughn held the door for the prime minister and followed her outside.

  “It’s not an idle threat, sending you back to the frontline,” O.O. said and trailed after Lignatiev, leaving Anna alone with the two scientists.

  “Why do people vote for men like that?” Avalon asked as she walked over to a tablet plugged into a pair of portable speakers. “Seven billion possibilities on the planet, and they always pick people like that.” She continued muttering, but her words were lost beneath the full-volume blare as she turned the music on. Sitting down, she continued writing on her notepad.

  As the lab filled with drums and guitars, and a weirdly atonal screeching, Anna beckoned Smilovitz to step out into the hall.

  The four grad students quickly followed. “Should we move the rest of the equipment?” one asked. She had a pixie-cut, elfin eyebrows, and a unicorn t-shirt. No, Anna realised. The text read Unicode, though it very definitely depicted a unicorn typing at a laptop. Early twenties, like the other students. One in command yellow, one in a suit and tie, both of which had seen better days, the third in a too-big shirt which was probably recently scavenged salvage. They weren’t much younger than her. For that matter, they weren’t that much younger than the scientist blaring music inside the partially dismantled lab.

  “Actually, Mel, I’ve a different task for you,” Smilovitz said. “There’s an ice cream machine in the lobby. Why don’t you hunt for the supply room where they stored the ingredients? Come back in an hour.”

  As the students scurried away, Anna walked over to the bench in the middle of long corridor. She sat, facing the glass-windowed and nearly soundproof lab in which Dr Avalon moved her head in time to the outrageous beat. “How can she work with that noise?”

  “She calls it sensory overload,” Smilovitz said, coming to sit next to her. “Helps deaden the other inputs, enabling her to focus.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s what she says,” Smilovitz said. “I think she does it mostly to annoy me.”

  “Ah. What did she mean that it’s not a virus?” Anna asked.

  “For one thing, it’s artificial.”

  “You mean it was made in a lab?” Anna asked.

  “Almost certainly,” he said.

  “So it was a weapon?”

  “Or an accident,” Smilovitz said.

  “Where did it come from?” Anna asked.

  “There isn’t enough data to answer that,” he said. “Has there been any news from Canada?”

  “General Yoon reached the Saint Lawrence a few days ago,” Anna said. “Her army has split. Some went north to secure Quebec. Others went south, towards the United States. More troops are flocking to the flags every day. And more are being sent behind the lines. Within a month, she’ll have secured most of the north and centre of the continent.”

  “From where I sit,” he said, pointing at the lab, “secured is optimistic.”

  “They’ll have millions of acres of farmland under their control,” Anna said. “And we’ll need it. Vancouver Island is expecting refugees from Japan. The islands of Hokkaido and Honshu were overrun. They’re evacuating to the island of Kyushu, but they’re also moving farm equipment to British Columbia. We’ll retrain, resupply, and enlist conscripts from across North America, but then Japan will become the next battleground in the northern hemisphere. The American Great Plains have to be secured or there’s no way we’ll feed everyone.”

  “I’m glad I don’t have your job,” he said.

  “All I have to do is find shelter, food, and water,” Anna said.
“You’re the bloke responsible for actually saving us all. Yep, if it’s a choice between the two, I’m glad I have my job, too. Between five and twenty percent are immune?”

  “I’d want to test at least ten thousand before giving you an accurate estimate,” he said. “Then I’d like to run another ten thousand tests to adjust for age, ethnicity, and gender. Ten thousand after that to factor in underlying health conditions, and look for a pattern in what causes immunity.”

  “We have that many people here,” she said. “The population dropped since the outbreak, since the fires, and since we sent people to the outback, to the airports, the harbours, and far beyond, but it’s rising again swiftly. We could test refugees as they arrive. Or test those working at the new factories.”

  “Let me refine the test first,” he said. “Rather, let her. And after we’ve relocated to the secure lab. Because it will require gathering samples from the… the… infected, I’d prefer we don’t begin until we can process the tests in a short period of time. I’ve seen too many horror movies to want large stores of infected material lying around. Zombies,” he added. “They’re zombies. I still can’t believe I’m having to use that word.”

  “Tell me about it,” she said.

  “But if you, personally, want to know, I can test you now.”

  “Did you test yourself?” she asked.

  “I did,” he said.

  “And you are…?” she asked.

  “Immune,” he said.

  “And Dr Avalon?”

  “She refused to be tested. Said if a zombie got close enough for it to matter, we were in far bigger trouble.”

  “She has a point,” Anna said. “Can you really make a weapon?”

  “She can, yes,” Smilovitz said. “But will it kill living people as well? Maybe. It’s why we’ve moved to the new lab. It’s a level-three rather than level-four, but I’ve added a few modifications to improve safety. But as development progresses, we’ll need to relocate to somewhere remote. You don’t want us wiping out the entire city, eh?”

  “Definitely not,” she said. “I intended to move some more scientists back in here. It’s such a large building, I truly can’t afford to let it go to waste. Embassies, offices, obviously hotels, they’re all full and we’re running out of space. Once the suburbs have been reclaimed, we’ll probably need the space here.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Two weeks, maybe three,” she said. “I’ll find you somewhere more remote before then.”

  Chapter 17 - A Conscripted City

  Canberra

  Outside, the drizzle had ceased, leaving nothing but a few puddles, evaporating in the warm midday. This year, their need for rain was greater than usual, but winter wouldn’t provide the usual pause for reflection.

  Other than the sentry guarding the building’s entrance, the camouflaged soldiers were gone, as was Erin Vaughn’s police patrol car, Ian Lignatiev’s army four-by-four, and the Prime Minister’s tinted-windowed SUV. The red convertible remained, as did her own, shabbily honest runabout.

  “That Avalon’s a strange sheila,” an unpleasantly familiar voice said. Oswald ‘O.O.’ Owen stepped out of the shadow of a pillar where he’d been lurking. In his hand was a paper cup filled with what looked like a nearly frozen ice cream, but he still managed to loom. Six-feet-two, plugged hair, and known for his looks in his youth, he was now better known for his appetites. Food, drink, women, though with a focus on the former as he approached the end of middle age. At fifty-eight, he’d twice missed his chance to be prime minister. Three times, counting the death which had led to the ascension of Bronwyn Wilson. During the midnight debate on a replacement, Wilson’s selection had been unanimous. But from O.O.’s demeanour since, he’d not abandoned his ultimate ambition.

  “I’d call Avalon someone walking a parallel path to reality,” he said. “But with a river of snakes between her and the rest of civilisation.”

  “Whereas a normal person would say she’s on the autistic spectrum,” Anna said.

  “A psychiatrist, maybe,” O.O. said. “And I never met one of them I’d have called normal. Want a slurp? It’s not cold enough for a bite.”

  “Thank you, no.”

  “Installing the ice cream machine in there was your idea, wasn’t it?” he asked. “You wanted to encourage kids to come to some after-school club?”

  “A Saturday science club,” Anna said. “But their teachers would encourage them to go the first time. The ice cream machine gave them a reason to come back the second week. Were you hanging around looking for food?”

  “No, I wanted a convo with those students, and their opinion on our Canadian scientists. Make certain Avalon really is a genius. I’d say the jury’s still deliberating.”

  “The papers of hers stored in the library here weren’t enough proof?” Anna asked.

  “You can’t beat the personal touch,” O.O. said, adjusting his coat, and revealing a pair of small pistols in a twin shoulder-holster rig.

  “Where did you get those?” she asked.

  “Gift from a constituent,” O.O. said. “Just the holsters, of course. Anything else would have been illegal last month.”

  He was, as usual, trying to provoke her. And, as usual, she couldn’t understand why. “I’m sure I’ll see you later.” She took a step towards her car.

  “Hang on,” he said. “Have you heard any more from those Yanks?”

  “Who?”

  “The pair of Americans who took that jet up to Canada.”

  “Not for a while, no,” Anna said.

  “I’d like to see the footage they recorded,” O.O. said.

  “Of course,” Anna said. “I’ve not seen it all myself, but it contains nothing we haven’t heard reported by others. A large portion were interviews with the people at Nanaimo airfield where Dr Avalon was stranded. You could ask her.”

  “I’d rather have my eyes licked by a wombat,” O.O. said. “But I’d settle for watching a film. I’d like a copy.”

  “I’ll add it to my to-do list,” she said, but she’d put it at the bottom of what was growing into a book.

  O.O. took another unpleasantly loud slurping sip of the mostly melted ice cream. “Aaron really topped himself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shame. Bright kid. Didn’t seem the sort. Know his father-in-law. Awful man. No redeeming qualities at all. Good for a donation or three, but even I didn’t feel clean afterwards. Aaron was all right, though. A decent bloke.”

  Anna said nothing, uncertain as always whether O.O. was trying to ingratiate himself or simply trying to goad her. Before the outbreak, as an independent politician elected as a protest in a truly rural constituency, her vote had been courted by the minority government for which O.O. was Chief Whip. But since she had always courted the views of her constituents, and tried to vote in accordance with their long-term best interests, she’d rarely voted with him.

  “Yep, shame about Aaron,” O.O. added. “So that makes five.”

  “We have to recall some of the politicians from Hobart,” Anna said.

  “Nah, they’re useless, the lot of them,” O.O. said.

  “It’ll be easier to recall them than to bring back those politicians sent to run projects in the field,” Anna said.

  “Yes, but I’m saying there’s a reason we sent them to Tassy,” O.O. said. “Five of us means an odd number, we can make decisions ourselves. Might even be a blessing. Speaking of which, I wanted to trade you a favour.”

  “I knew you were waiting out here for a reason.”

  “Always more than one,” O.O. said. “I want your vote on the tank design.” He took a last slurp of ice cream, then dropped the cup on the footpath, wiped his hands on his coat, and reached into a pocket for a large tablet. “I’ll show you,” he said, tapping in his code in, and handing the device to her.

  Ignoring the sticky case, she swiped through the images. “Three designs?” she asked.

  “All based on mining vehicle
s,” he said, unnecessarily captioning what she could see for herself. “Two have tyres, one has caterpillar treads. All have a two-metre-plus clearance, a platform built around the cab, and storage for medical gear, food, and ammo. A wall adds more protection and the top is modular. You can fit and remove a rain canopy or walls depending on whether the machine is deployed to the snow, the desert, or the jungle.”

  “How would these fare in cities?” she asked. “Singapore, Taiwan, and Japan are the most probable locations for the initial deployment.”

  “Swipe again. No, again. There. That’s the picture. Do you see the ladder? It’s essentially a siege tower. We can ride that up to a skyscraper and make entry on the third floor. Fight our way down rather than up.”

  “Except most tower blocks have more than three storeys,” she said. “I was really asking about the turning circle, whether it would get stuck in alleyways.”

  “Probably not, but there’s one way to be certain,” he said. “The engine’s rated at over twelve-hundred kilowatts. That’s more than an M1 Abrams. Slower on-road than an MBT, but faster off it. And we’ve got ten thousand tyres ready to be installed. Based on the chassis the production line is already set up for, I reckon we can get a thousand machines on the road in two weeks. The next thousand will take two months, but it’ll be two thousand a month after that.”

  “Assuming no bottlenecks,” Anna said, swiping back through the pictures. “But a thousand in two weeks?”

  “They won’t be as pretty as a picture, but these days, who is?”