by Ian D. Moore
“Ahem!” Nathan imitated a cough, smiling at the tank crew from the hatch.
“Nathan!” Tom shouted, wriggling from between the tank commander and weapons officer and smiling broadly before looking at his feet, realising that he might be in trouble.
“Have you seen this tank? It’s brilliant. They let me push buttons and look through the thingy too.” Tom was speaking with so much excitement that Nathan thought he might actually burst. Nathan couldn’t help but smile.
“You’ve given us quite a scare, young man. Half of the base is out looking for you. I guess the lure of the tank was just too much for you to bear, eh?” Nathan said, laughing with the tank crew. They'd realised he was a stray and had radioed his presence to the control centre.
“Say goodbye to the tank crew, Tom, and say thank you for letting you stay with them. They are very busy, you know.”
Tom took a last look at the tank and thanked the crew for letting him come and take a look around it. The tank commander lifted Tom towards Nathan, who hugged him and set him down on the armour as he jumped to the ground. He then turned, with open arms, to lift the boy down.
Holding Tom's hand as they walked back towards Steve, Janey, and a relieved-looking Corporal Simms, Nathan spoke to the boy gently.
“We were very worried about you, Tom; you left your sister alone too. If you want to go for a walk or feel the need to go look around, it’s okay, but you must tell an adult and they will take you, I’m sure. This is a very big base with an awful lot of people that we don’t know on it. Anything could have happened to you, do you understand?”
“Yes, I, I’m sorry, Nathan. I went outside and then this group of kids came so I joined in, and we ended up somewhere I didn’t know, so I came to the tank.” Again, he spoke in one uninterrupted stream. The barely concealed excitement in his young voice forced Nathan to double his efforts to retain a straight, serious face.
“You did right, young man, and I’m proud of you for that. Just remember to tell an adult if you need to go out in future. No real harm done, but I think it might be polite to say sorry to Steve, Janey, and the nice Corporal there, who have been running all over the base trying to find you.”
As they approached, Steve came and ruffled Tom’s hair and Janey came to kiss his cheek. A knowing smile decorated Corporal Simms's face.
“I’m very sorry for the trouble,” said Tom, addressing all three.
Nathan walked the boy back to the hangar to check on Holly, with Steve and Janey not far behind. As Tom approached the craft table, Holly looked up.
“Hi, Naffam. There you are, Tom, I thought you got lost,” she said.
She was busily adding finishing touches to her creations. Nathan stood at the table, gazing over her shoulder at what she had made and was impressed. It was clear that she had put much effort and detail into the work.
“Look, Naffam, do you like them?”
“Ahh, Holly-Polly, they’re beautiful. You’ve done a fantastic job, and I think it deserves a bit of a treat. What say we head to the cookhouse and see if we can find ourselves something sweet?” Nathan said, needing a hot, strong coffee himself.
He would take the children for a treat at the cookhouse first, and then he'd need to try and grab a couple more hours sleep.
***
Colin Snape had been pacing all morning since his hot-tempered session with the chief engineer and press relations officer.
They are completely incompetent!
He’d decided a walk and some air would be good, so wandering aimlessly, without any sense of direction, he looked up to find himself in what looked like a dormitory, created inside a huge aircraft hangar. He decided to take a look, being sure to tread carefully between rows of mothers with babies, bags, and small children not yet of school age. He followed the main rear wall of the hangar and turned to his left, walking along the far wall, towards the main entrance. Plans and posters of aircraft covered the walls. Tools were taped off out of reach of little hands, including manuals, wrenches, grease guns, spanners, and sockets on the benches. It was as if work was being done on aircraft when the call had come to clear the area.
As Snape passed the workspaces, he came across a small bed area, consisting of two single blow-up beds on the floor, with rumpled sheets and dented pillows atop them, and to the side, a canvas folding bed, beneath which was a bundle of sheets. Unbelievably, right there between the folds of the sheets could be seen the letters GFC emblazoned on a black case; it had to be one of the laptops.
Stretching his arms, in an attempt to make anyone who might be watching think that this was his bunk, he bent down to retrieve the device and tucked it down the top of his trousers to secrete it from view. Blatantly setting the sheets on the beds straight, he stood and began to move as inconspicuously as possible towards the exit, keeping watch for anyone staring in his direction. Snape knew there were two missing machines; he wondered if this was the right one. Exiting as fast as he dared, Snape proceeded in the direction of his quarters, intent on seeing if the device had any battery life left. He'd delete any incriminating evidence, completely.
***
Leaving Nathan to take the boy back to the crafts and play area of the hangar, Corporal Simms turned, just in time to see a man enter the dorm hangar wearing an ill-fitting suit. He looked out of place. She walked towards the building, staying just outside the main doors, watching the figure as he shuttled between the bed spaces. She noticed that his eyes were constantly scanning around him.
The man moved along the back wall and turned left to come back towards her. She walked innocently across the front doors to the cover of the opposite side, which would allow her to see him for longer. Sixth sense told her that he was looking for something or someone, and when he stopped, stretched, and then disappeared from view for almost a minute before returning with his jacket buttoned and holding his stomach, Corporal Simms’s internal alarm bell began to chime.
For now, she had no evidence to suggest that the man had done anything wrong; she knew who he was because she'd met him briefly upon their arrival and had been the one to allocate quarters to him and his colleagues. She would keep her ear to the ground and find out what he was seeking and whether he found it.
Walking back to the main offices before the man left the hangar, the corporal remembered that she had been asked to locate Dr. Shepherd and inform her that her presence was required in the meeting room; for now, precedence called.
***
Evie sat in a side office, preparing her notes on acquired paper. She outlined the symptoms of the virus she had spent the last ten years creating and developing. She illustrated her report with bullet points to denote the items she needed to highlight, plus potential questions and a plan for the immediate future. From a polystyrene cup, she took a sip of the chilled spring water, enjoying the sensation as it passed down her throat.
Evie snapped back from her work when someone called her name.
“Dr. Shepherd, Lieutenant?”
“Corporal Simms, how are you? Is anything wrong?”
“I’m well. Thank you, Ma’am, and no, nothing is wrong. It’s just that Lieutenant Colonel Connell has asked that you join him in the meeting room.”
“Ah yes, I’ve been expecting the summons, thank you Corporal Simms,” Evie said, rising from her chair with papers in one hand and water in the other.
She pushed her chair into place with her knee. Following Corporal Simms to the meeting room, Evie thanked her as she held the door open for her. On entering, Evie glanced around at the faces seated behind the long desks in front of her.
“Ah, good morning, Lieutenant,” said Lieutenant Colonel Connell, standing and then continuing.
“You won’t know some of these faces. They are the base medical team and are likely to be working with you. I’ll leave the introductions to them as and when you come across them. Based upon what Major Sower has already told me, I've requested the presence of Sergeant Nathan Cross and Staff Sergeant Chris St
ewall, two of the best marksmen we have. They have permission to sit in towards the end, so let’s get the sensitive stuff out of the way first, Lieutenant.”
Evie came to the front of the desk, half-sitting on the lip to support her weight before she spoke clearly and slowly, to allow the additional staff to take notes.
“As you may already know, I am Lieutenant Dr. Evelyn Shepherd, the chief medical officer at the Salby Facility a little way down the road from here. You may also be aware of a recent incident at a wellhead fracking site nearby, which has resulted in the bio-chemical storage tank containing the Salby virus strain to be damaged. I’m here to provide information about the virus and to assist us all in finding a solution to our current problems, but first, let me explain about the virus, how it works, why it was designed, and the outcomes as we track events following a release like this. If you have questions, please ask them at the end of my briefing, and I’ll do my best to answer them for you.”
She took a breath and picked up a whiteboard marker pen so that she could construct simple diagrams to help her explanation. She began to address the assembled officers, medical staff, and colleagues.
“When we started decommissioning nuclear arms in this country, the government defence budget was cut in half. I was tasked with creating an adequate defence mechanism to protect the United Kingdom, within the funds available. My field of work is neurological and microbiological science, specialising in some nasty viral agents that could be used as chemical weapons against any future aggressors. The Salby virus strain, this is important so please remember this, is an acronym for Saliva Activated Live Blood type Y. After initial gaseous dispersal into any environment, its primary method of regeneration is by saliva transfer. The virus, on entering the human body, will attack the brain shutting down all unnecessary functions such as emotion, feeling, memories, disciplines, conscience, and the requirement to sleep, allowing the infected subject to remain active night and day.”
An audible gasp echoed throughout the room. Evie waited for the group to settle before continuing.
“Having disabled the brain, leaving only basic functions needed to survive, the virus then infiltrates the bloodstream, seizing control of the blood cells, assimilating them into its own genetic cell structure. The blood becomes a thick, jelly-like substance, which accomplishes two things. It transfers oxygen to the body and eliminates the likelihood of a subject bleeding to death if the body sustains ordinarily fatal injuries. In infected subjects, the eyes lose their natural colour. This is to limit brain activity and allows only black-and-white sight to be used. Anyone exposed to the gaseous or saliva transferred form of the virus has between twenty and thirty seconds before it takes control of their body. After that point, the effect is irreversible and will eventually result in the death of the subject. We designed this virus to last for a maximum of three hours in the open air. However, it is not the open air that neutralises it after that time. It is ultraviolet light, coming from sunlight.”
Evie paused, looking at Lieutenant Colonel Connell, who clearly wanted to say something.
“Colonel?” she said simply.
“Lieutenant, that’s quite a creation you came up with. Are you saying that sunlight will kill this thing?”
“No, Sir, it will all make more sense shortly. So far, that is not the worst of it. You see, infected subjects feel rage and a desire to kill all living things, with the exception of other infected souls. It was designed to tap into what we call the red room, a specific area in the brain that records every incident in a person’s life that has resulted in anger, frustration, or malicious feelings.” Another gasp of disbelief engulfed the room.
“Simmer down, simmer down. Allow Lieutenant Shepherd to finish please.” The deep tone of the C.O. boomed out, quelling the outburst.
“Thank you, Colonel. Finding the red room, the virus uses it to create a feeling of raw rage in the subject. Everyone, no matter rich, poor, black, white, male or female has, at some point in their lives, felt anger towards another for whatever reason. It could be something major, like an acrimonious divorce, or it could be minor, like being cut up on the road by another driver, even simple things like a partner leaving the toilet seat up. The greater the incidence of anger in the life of the victim, the more brutal that infected person becomes. The virus then assembles and unleashes the rage for one sole purpose, to kill anything and everything that lives. We have created an almost perfect soldier. We designed it so that we could drop a single dispersal device into any hostile country, then sit back and wait while the infected simply tore each other apart, and then, within two weeks, we could simply march a small force into that country. All of this without the fear of infecting our own troops and without firing a single shot.”
“But then, Lieutenant,” interjected the colonel, “how would you get rid of the infected if they don’t kill those already infected? Surely you would be left with tens of thousands of still infected to deal with?”
“That’s a very good question, Sir, well observed,” she said, before continuing.
“The C.O. has asked the million-dollar question and one that had me puzzled for a long time. How do we get rid of the infected? What we did was make the virus disable the urge to sleep. Sleep is a basic human requirement. Without it, we die and we will do so long before we starve to death. Depending upon the physical condition of the infected at the time of infection by the virus, it will take three to five days at a maximum before their body shuts down through lack of sleep. Since it is impossible for them to sleep without medical assistance, the result is certain death. The main organs begin to fail and the body eats itself to stay alive. There are some things in this world that we wish we could uninvent ladies and gentlemen, and this virus is one of them.”
“This is frightening, Lieutenant. You mentioned UV light. Will that kill the infected? If not, what is the most efficient way to defend ourselves against the effects of this weapon?”
Major Sower asked the question. He was clearly disturbed by what he'd been told.
“Major Sower, Sir. That is another very good question. The virus itself in any substrate, either gas or liquid, can maintain stability for a maximum of three hours in sunlight. Once active in a victim, it will begin to degrade, causing physical signs in the infected, ranging from dead or loose skin to sunken eyes, muscle wastage, and poor co-ordination, commensurate with the lack of sleep. This is visible usually within three days of infection. There's some variability because of natural protection of the skin oils from UV light and because of the subject's ethnicity. To answer the second part of the question you posed, Sir, the most effective way to kill any infected person is to take out any of the vital organs. The heart, lungs, brain, or nervous system would work. Shooting around the organs will not cause blood loss as the virus creates a self-sealing coagulant jelly. This means that the victims can sustain massive injuries and they'll not be fatal unless destruction of a major organ is involved; they are effectively super soldiers.”
This raised the eyebrows on the senior officers and the medical staff alike, resulting in a deathly silence as Evie adjusted her position on the edge of the table. The characteristics of a model soldier that Evie was describing did not fit those required by the military men present.
“Are there any further questions anyone?” she said. She was ready to sum up with proposals.
Again, the colonel motioned that he wished to speak.
“Lieutenant Colonel?” Evie said, ready for the question.
“Lieutenant, do you have any proposals on how we should proceed to deal with this, from a medical point of view?”
“Yes, Sir, I was just about to get to that. You will have noticed that, over the last few days, the attacks have been more consistent through the night. While the infected have no idea why, they will try to avoid prolonged exposure to direct sunlight, although there will be some who simply don’t have the capacity to resist the urge to kill. They will still venture out in the daylight hours and this will
shorten their life. It is crucial that we capture some of the infected alive. We’ll need a secure area in which to keep them, good security, and sedatives. Can I suggest a tranquillizer rifle perhaps? All front-line staff should be given instructions on how to kill any of the infected aggressors, to ensure effective use of ammunition and prevent infection.”
“What about off base activities, Lieutenant?” the C.O. added.
“All night supply sorties must be moved to daylight hours as there will be a lower chance of contact for those on the missions. We should erect high-power UV lighting stands at intervals around the most vulnerable parts of the base. This will help to funnel and corral the attackers into the heavier armed places along the fences. Finally, perhaps of the utmost importance, it is imperative that we regain control of the Salby facility where we have secure chambers to allow us to work on the infected safely. We also have all of the equipment needed to formulate a vaccine and maybe a cure other than inevitable death. Can I leave the planning to you, Sir?” she said, with a smile and a glance to the lieutenant colonel.
Evie stood, grateful of the pressure release at the back of her legs. She walked to the opposite side of the desk to fold away her notes. The C.O. stood, addressing the entire meeting to bring it to a close.
“We aim to attempt entry to the Salby facility first thing tomorrow, Lieutenant, which will be day five from viral release. We’re aware that food and stock supplies within the compound will be running out by now, so an attempt must be made to get to any survivors. I’ll brief you later this evening in the company of Sergeant Cross and Staff Sergeant Stewall. I’m assuming that they were on the fences last night, which would explain their absence here. Corporal Simms will come and find you. Thank- you for the detailed heads up, Lieutenant. That’ll be all everyone, dismissed.”
