by Tim Heath
Lorna let those happy thoughts come in for just a moment. Memories of walking hand in hand with James. The cobbled streets of the Old Town in Tallinn. The medieval cafés and bookshops. The six-hundred-year-old chemist that they'd come across, with an array of dried animal parts that sat in glass jars; ranging from whole hedgehogs and dried toads to deer penis. They'd laughed so much in that little chemist that day. It was a very odd assortment but such a fond memory. Just another memory. And then came that point of remembrance once again. James was gone. The knot in her stomach twisted and tugged as if to drag her from that happy place she'd been in just moments before. It would not allow her to be satisfied for long. Her pain was intense again.
Lorna got up, not that those on her table noticed, anyway. Her place was filled before she'd got to the door as the crowds pressed into an area a quarter of the size it should have been.
To Lorna, the loss of James felt such a waste. She was aware that he had died doing what he enjoyed doing. He was great at his job and genuinely cared for others. And even though she felt selfish for thinking it, she now wished he hadn't been a man that cared for others as much as he did. He'd died for others, and yet it was not them that was hurting, it was her. They had sacrificed so much of their happiness for others, that now Lorna was wondering if it had all been worth it.
Had she known the last time she saw him that there would be no more times, she would not have left him. She would have told him how she felt, how she loved him.
Tears were now running down her face again. She didn't mind that others were looking. She wasn't the only nurse crying that day either. She knew life would never be the same again, and that was only too evident from the activity at the hospital that day. What she didn't know yet was the true extent of the disaster. And it was a race against time.
Three Weeks Ago
The main hangar stood eerily quiet on a day that had seen so much death. The body bags filled the giant floor space. With a change in staff and the sheer number of inbound deliveries, the count had been abandoned somewhere around three thousand. It would be confirmed later that there were, in fact, three times that number at that point.
It would take weeks to process all that had already happened entirely. Months to repair the damage. And years before the legacy would stop claiming lives.
Felix May was a middle-grade officer who had just weeks to live. He had been on the other side of the base, running an errand, when the explosion happened that had killed his whole unit. He'd been working almost non-stop since then.
Felix was a bright lad, university educated, a doctor of physics. He'd pursued that path and the girl he loved, into a glittering career. After two years, when it was clear the girl wasn't interested, the profession lost interest too, and to the surprise of all at the time, Felix suddenly quit and took a job in the RAF.
His potential had been seen early on, and the Major had him earmarked for big things in the future. He was made an officer and was popular among the guys.
As he stood silently in the hangar at the end of that day, the cameras gone, the trucks now stopped, he looked out upon the rows of body bags. The vehicles would be back tomorrow, he was sure. Space was running out.
In his growing role within the RAF, he'd been heading up a team working on a programme that could help pilots who were suffering from a range of post-war syndromes. They'd just been getting to understand the Gulf War issues when he'd joined at twenty-five.
Some of his patients came in with little memory of the incident with which they were struggling to come to terms. His experiments helped to understand that these were the most accessible type with which to deal. Memory blackout allowed them to reprogram the mind to anything they wanted, within a strict code of practice that had been cleared at the highest levels with direct intervention from the Prime Minister. It was highly sensitive research and one of the RAF's best kept secrets, along with the true nature of its space probes project.
It was later that night, hearing news about the rising death toll, and the projections of even worse to come, that Felix first started thinking about making a revised program.
Present Day
John opened his eyes and found himself in a bright room, the walls white, light everywhere. It was hurting his eyes. He was standing up. He put his arms up to his face to shield it. Things didn't hurt anymore. That told him as if he needed the confirmation; this was another vision.
From the left, a figure slowly emerged through the brightness. The man came over to John and smiled.
“Hello, John. My name is Felix. And it's my job to tell you everything that you need to do and the reason why you see these visions.”
John fixed him with an intent gaze. There was something different about the figure standing just three feet in front of him. Was it the same guy as before? He wasn't sure nor had he the time to process that. The conversation continued:
“Okay, I'm ready for that now, I think.”
“Yes, you are. That's why you've been selected.”
John thought about it for just a moment. To be selected means to have been actively chosen for something, him over someone else. Him over everyone, for all he knew. And if there was a selection then someone, or something, was doing the selecting. That thought scared him for a moment.
Up until the visions started, John had not been a religious man.
“Walk with me, will you,” Felix said.
They walked into the light, towards the walls, but they were bright windows, sunlight and floodlights pouring in. John could feel the heat from the lights. He didn't say anything about it. He just followed.
“You have a gift, John. Something you were born with and didn't know. Something that has kept you alive for this very reason. Something that will save millions of people.”
John realised the visions were extraordinary and unusual, but to hear them called a gift made him feel an increased level of pride in himself as if it was all somehow his doing. He ignored the fact that a gift always comes from someone else anyway; otherwise, it couldn't be called a gift.
“How will I save these people? I don't know what it is I am to do.”
“You will, John, very soon. You will know what it is you need to do, and you will do it, because the fate of all those you know and love, and millions of others, rests on your ability to do what you need to do, to do what you must do to save these people. What I want to know, John, is, when the time comes, do you have it in you to save these people?”
How was he supposed to answer that question? There was much he was yet to know.
“I will be,” he determined. These visions were coming to him for some reason, some higher purpose that he was yet to be made aware of, but which, he was convincing himself, was all now happening for a grand plan.
“Good, John. You have it in you. You just don't know that yet. But it's been in you for a long time and is about to make itself known. We are having this conversation because of that fact. You have nothing to worry about. You'll be a hero.”
A hero. He'd never been called that before. Far from it. He was the man who got his head down and got on with it. He didn't go looking for fights. He didn't want to win medals or trophies. There were no prizes on display at his home. He was no one's hero. What Felix was saying now had him floating as if he was ten feet tall. Maybe this was his moment? Perhaps this was why his life had been so ordinary up to that point; so normal––so dull.
Now that John let himself believe it, he knew he was made for higher things, for greater things. And if he really had it in his power to do this, to save all these people, millions of unknown strangers, then he was game. John would do it. He was all in.
“Tell me everything I need to do,” John said, turning to Felix. Felix smiled, and putting his arm around his shoulders, walked him out through a door into the light.
The sunlight was starting to fade now, but the floodlights were still giving out their full power. Felix and John had been walking and talking for quite a while.
/> “I'll do it,” John finally said. Felix stood there in silence.
Felix had been explaining what would be needed and how the millions would be saved. For this to happen, one person would need to sacrifice their own life, to make the ultimate sacrifice and give himself to keep the rest. Unless this was done, everyone would perish. There would be no future for anyone.
John was still a little unsure of the specifics, but having been told plainly and matter-of-factly, it finally gave him a handle on things and an understanding as to why this was happening. He was still unsure when this would happen. But his mind had been made up. He'd taken just moments to process it all.
A large part of him wanted to be the hero. Finally, he'd get to be the one others talked about, others praised, others noticed. No longer the quiet guy who kept himself to himself. No longer the last one to be picked for the sports team. This was his moment, his world. Time to be a hero at last. Time to be who he was made to be.
“I'll do it.”
John awoke with a start. Sweat was running down his right cheek from his forehead. Lorna came rushing over to him, and with a gentle touch, damp cloth in hand, she wiped his face. It felt cold and refreshing.
Nothing like how he was now feeling inside. Focusing again, he looked at Lorna. She was starting to feel real concern for her patient.
“I know what I have to do now, Lorna.”
She lowered her head a little but then recollected herself and caught his eye once again, eye contact so crucial for communicating trust and relationship.
“I'm going to have to die.”
She knew it already but hearing him say it so plainly, little emotion if any in his voice, caused her stomach to turn. Steadying herself, she composed her feelings and responded:
“What do you mean?”
“The man in the vision said that millions would die. He said that I could save them. That it would cost me my life but I could save them through this. He said that I would die anyway if I didn't. He said I was born to do this. And you know what, I feel that now. I still don't know when this will be. And I don't know how I can have a normal life after all this, knowing that one day I will be called to do this. But I'm ready. I would do it today if it meant being the hero for once.”
She took in how he said that last bit. There was pride in his teary eyes. There was passion. This meant the world to her. Lorna didn't know what to say. She didn't know how to respond. This moment had been everything she trained for and everything they were hoping. And yet now it felt wrong. It felt like they were cheating him, giving John just half of the story. She wanted to say something, to tell him what she knew. She wanted to stop what she'd been part of starting. But something in her was preventing her from doing that. Maybe it was the loss of her husband. Maybe she wanted an end to all the suffering and death. She knew if John didn't do what he needed to do, then what they'd seen up to now would be nothing compared to what would be; what would undoubtedly happen. And that thought alone was enough to keep her from saying anything, even though the reality of her actions now would haunt her for the rest of her life. There had been some who had questioned tricking anyone into anything. Their views had been drowned out by those saying this program gave them a guarantee. End of story.
“You are a hero already, John. I'm glad it's all beginning to make some sense.”
She passed him a drink and then placed a tray of food next to him on the table, without saying anything else, and then quickly walked out of the room. Tears were running down her face before she was even through the door and into the corridor. She kept going, looking for somewhere quiet to hide for a moment––anywhere would have done.
Three Weeks Ago
Lincoln's last recorded status had been stable. His wounds hadn't had too much time to heal before he was brought into the program that Felix had adapted and put into operation. As his nurse, Alison was not too impressed.
It was getting late in the afternoon when Lincoln had his first vision. He woke with a start, causing Alison to stumble in fright. It was like a corpse rising from the dead. Fear gripped Lincoln's face. Huge beads of sweat sat on his forehead, kept in place by the large wrinkles that were there, a combination of middle age and excess weight.
Alison comforted him, laid him back down, and seeing his eyes were processing and working through what he'd just seen, went to the door where a nurse awaited her.
“We have another one coming in, similar to your patient with no obvious signs of serious injury. They want you to check him over.”
Alison glanced back at Lincoln, who while still looking shocked, was at least lying down and seemed to be doing okay.
“Okay, show me the way,” she said, following the other nurse down a corridor to another room where the latest patient had just been brought.
There was blood all over his face, and his shirt was heavily stained. Two nurses were cutting away his clothes to get a better look at him. An open break in his leg would need some work. There were fire burns to his back, but like Lincoln, there were no apparent signs of radiation burns.
As the activity in the room continued, Alison's beeper that all nurses wore around their waist started vibrating away. It notified her that there was a severe change in her patient. She ran back down the corridor to investigate.
She could hear the heart monitor before she got to the room. Two other nurses were also racing in as she got to Lincoln. There was a flat rate on the heart monitor showing no pulse. One nurse was bringing over the ECG, both pads now placed on Lincoln's chest.
“Stand clear,” Alison called as the first shock got administered. Plenty more followed, and then Alison took over, doing CPR.
By now the room was filling up. Alison's manager was also in, a surgeon herself, coming over to check the patient. Still, there was no response. They continued for twenty minutes.
“Call it,” came the instruction from her manager.
Alison looked up in disbelief. She continued on a little, pressing harder with her hands, pleading for life to return, for his heart to start again; willing him back to life. The instruction got repeated, louder this time and an arm placed on her shoulder, pulling her away from her patient.
“Time of death,” she started, reluctantly, then looked up at the clock on the wall, “five fifteen.”
She took off her gloves and threw them into the bin. She went to the far wall and pressed against it, arms above her head, unsure of what had just happened. Her manager took charge of the room.
“Take the body to be examined. We need to know what went wrong, why and fast. Alison, come with me.”
With that, she left the ward. They were already starting to wheel the bed out of the room. The machine and wires and tubes, disconnected from the patient, were left hanging. Alison came away from the wall, taking one last look at Lincoln, who now seemed at peace, and went off in search of her manager.
It was only after the second patient died, also from a heart attack, that they understood. In the seconds and minutes after waking up from the vision, there was significantly increased brain activity. This was causing the body to generate vast amounts of adrenaline. This, in turn, resulted in the heart rate rapidly increasing, leading to cardiac arrest, the heart attacks that killed both the patients.
With two bodies in the hospital morgue, it was easier to see what they had in common, to work out what made them unique.
Alison was quietly removed from the program. She had been solely responsible for two valuable patients whose conditions had suddenly changed; Lincoln being left in his room alone while he had his fatal heart attack. She'd been made the scapegoat and was angry at being the apparent easy target, but threw herself into the care of the hundreds of other patients they had. Lorna was called into the programme as they rapidly built up a new team.
She spent the next day in intensive training, told everything they had learned up to that point, going over all the readouts, looking at how the other two patients had reacted.
It was decid
ed that a constant presence was essential, and Lorna needed no training in this area, as her bedside manner was second to none. She felt it was strange, being taken from hands-on work when nurses were already short, and far too overstretched, but she kept her thoughts to herself. She had been made aware of what had happened with her manager Alison.
It was at the end of Lorna's day of specialised training that news came in about another survivor pulled from the rubble. It was a reporter, whose whole team had been killed. All of them were in very close proximity to the blast, situated just a few hundred metres downwind from the main nuclear reactor. They'd all been exposed to lethal levels of nuclear radiation, and all had died, but one.
Because of the location of the damaged news van, it had taken days to get that near, and as the chemically suited clean up crew made a check on the truck, body bags at the ready, they were shocked to find one of the guys still breathing. Lacking food and water, and physically thrown about as their van was smashed and flipped by the explosion, he was in a bad way. Entirely broken but, amazingly, alive.
An hour after being pulled carefully from the crushed van, John was being wheeled into his room, Lorna checking the vital signs of her new patient, who remained unconscious.
A crew of two mechanics worked at fitting a camera high up on the far wall, the latest plan to try to record and monitor what was happening to their most prized patient. John would be watched closely by a team of military personnel who were overseeing this project and keeping a watchful eye on everything, and everyone, involved.
