by Tim Heath
Felix knew all about the reality of his situation, and if anything, it gave him a particular kind of freedom. Decisions were easier to make when you didn't have to question yourself or think about the effect on others. You've just got to do. His involvement in the project in the past had given him a high level of understanding, and his science background gave him a natural interest in what was possible with the human body, and with the mind in general.
After a quick break, where he grabbed some food and a drink of something that slightly resembled coffee, he was back at the controls. The program was primarily finished but now needed testing. He would be able to use the pre-programmed avatar to do much of the dialogue, but it was necessary to record the specific parts himself which would result in the actual conversation element, dropping the thoughts into the mind. He was still as yet unsure exactly how to play this role but wanted to test a few options and see how the effects looked. He was eager to get on with testing and implementation––there was still a long way to go.
6
Present Day
John had been awake for about ten minutes and had been discussing in detail with Lorna all that he'd seen in the latest vision.
It had frightened him. Up to that point, he hadn't been able to work out where this was going to happen. Now knowing it was his capital city made it all too real.
He was struggling to come to terms with the magnitude of it all.
They'd sat in silence for about three minutes, Lorna keeping herself busy, doing nothing in particular, but waiting for John to continue talking. In the long silences, of which there had been many, she had learned that it was best for him to speak first. Lorna had no idea what it was all doing to him on the inside. That didn't matter, and she reminded herself for the hundredth time that day. That is what needed to happen. It didn't matter what he was thinking, he would soon get through it, soon understand, or more to the point would quickly understand it from his limited point of view. He'd been taken to a place and had no way of knowing it was anything but what it seemed.
“Tell me about your husband,” John said, breaking the silence finally and catching Lorna in her thoughts. His eyes fixed on her, willing her to talk about herself a little, searching for some other connection point other than these visions he was seeing.
She moved her hair from her face with her hand, pushing it behind her right ear. It was a habit that occurred when she felt unsure of what to say.
“His name is James, and we met when we were studying. He's a doctor. He loved to help people. We spent time in Mexico during university. Such fond memories. He was such a good man.” She caught herself, realising her mistake and turned away automatically, tears building in her eyes.
“Did something happen to James?” he asked, picking up on the words, processing their application, and any significance they had to him.
“I really can't...…I don't want to talk about it,” she said, holding back tears as best she could.
'Can't or won't' raced through John's mind, but he didn't let it out. 'What is she not telling me?'
Lorna felt she'd said too much already. It made her uneasy, uncertain of what she should let on and what not.
“You don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to. I didn't mean to pry. I'm sorry,” John said.
“Don't be silly. It isn't your fault. It's just...complicated.”
Three Weeks Ago
The bodies of the first two survivors had been under intensive study for the past day. Foreign contaminants were found to be extensively in their bodies following the explosions and subsequent radiation poisoning. That, mixed with the high adrenaline levels, had magnified the effect and caused the fatal heart attacks. The cause of death had been no significant mystery, but everything needed recording and monitoring, all information kept and analysed in depth. What intrigued them most, was why either of them had survived at all in the first place, a fate not shared by anyone else in their situation, besides John, who was only the third known survivor, and the only one still alive. Tests were being carried out on different parts of the corpses, tissue samples sent to various labs, small teams of scientists mapping the DNA codes, looking for clues, looking for an explanation that for twenty-four hours, had so far eluded them.
To help the heart, they had been using beta-blockers, a commonly used drug to reduce adrenaline levels. John was closely monitored, and the signs were good. But if they could get a match from these two dead bodies, something connecting them, protecting them, then they could run the test on John and confirm that it existed in him, too.
Something inside these two men had shielded them from the poisoning, unique and as yet unknown protection. Was it just chance? Some right place, right time scenario that had, in some way, allowed them to live through it. With one survivor, you can allow that in your thinking, even if the odds are millions to one. In human history, as far as they knew, there had not been many precedents set. But with three initial survivors, the probabilities were impossible to calculate, and they were searching for some medical, physiological reason. There had to be a scientific solution, an answer for it all, and that was what the small team were diligently––and painstakingly––searching.
Present Day
John came around, fresh from another vision, to find Lorna sitting there, studying him, waiting. There was something different about her face, so much so that initially, as he started coming round before he could see clearly, he had thought it was someone else. Her eyes looked changed, somehow, it was just the smile, for the most part, that told him it was Lorna. He was happy it was not someone else, but there was slight fear there at the apparent change that had taken place from the woman he'd last seen.
“How are you, John?” she asked, with obvious concern in her voice.
“I'm good. I had another vision. Felix, that's the name of the man I see, showed me more things that will happen. There is so much death, Lorna and I still don't know when this is, but I saw what I think is this hospital.”
“You did, did you?” Lorna said with genuine surprise. She had no idea what the program showed.
They talked freely for about twenty minutes. Lorna was wholly engaged in the conversation, her focus never taken from him. John found this strange at first but began to enjoy this new side to her, and relaxed as he spoke, Lorna asking the occasional thing, but he was mainly doing the talking. And it felt terrific to talk, to share with her. He knew, from the first moment he had awoken from the first vision, that this was not something he could handle on his own. What helped massively was that she believed him and encouraged him to share. He wondered, at times, if there had been others like him that most people thought were just crazy. People who talked of hearing voices in their heads and having conversations about things that had not happened. What if there had been more like him? Others that did not get listened to, others thought crazy and locked away, others with different pieces to the puzzle, different information that might be vital to piecing together everything that was about to happen.
As their conversation drew to a close after thirty minutes, he came back to these thoughts. What if I am crazy he thought, dwelling on it for a moment. Lorna would have been instructed to listen to everything I told her––and to just smile. He thought how there seemed to be no other nurses or patients around, how he hadn't left the bed, let alone the room. The camera on the wall could have been for security––her protection if he turned on her.
Mulling it over a little, he let it drop. It was a door he didn't want to open, for fear of what he might find. And besides, John was in the hospital for a reason, even though at that moment he had no recollection of ever arriving, or why he was there, besides the apparent fact he saw these visions. These thoughts were now something that troubled him a little, as it became clear to him that there was much more he wasn't being told about his situation. At that moment Lorna came back in from the doorway, though she had never been far from him at all.
“Tell me, am I crazy?” he said, catc
hing her attention.
“No, John, you are far from crazy,” she said very calmly as if it was a silly thought. John didn't want to let it drop.
“Then, why am I here, I mean, why am I in this hospital?”
“Because of your injuries, John.”
Of course, that made a bit of sense. Something had happened to him, and John knew his head hurt. He hadn't got off his back since he'd been there.
“Can I walk?” It seemed a strange thing for John to ask suddenly, but he wanted to talk. “And why can't I remember anything about what happened to me?”
“John,” she said, ever so motherly, “you were in a serious accident, and your body has blocked it from your mind. It's perfectly normal for that to happen. Our brains are very complex things. And yes, in time, you will certainly be able to walk again, you just need to recover and get plenty of rest.”
He smiled at her. She seemed to be telling the truth, and he saw no reason why she'd have to lie to him, apart from saying to him he wasn't crazy. He figured no one would ever really answer that with a yes to a patient if they were crazy––to do that really would be mad.
Three Months Ago
James awoke before dawn, though a street lamp gave some light into their room. Lorna was working nights, which was fast becoming the norm, so he was able to turn on the bedroom light without disturbing anyone. They were both working more and more hours with schedules that didn't often complement each other.
After a quick cup of tea, James pulled on his jacket, over his jeans and black polo shirt and slipped out of the front door. His car was parked in front of the house, and he was away, off down the road before anyone could have seen him. There was no one around at that time of the morning anyway.
Forty minutes later, the sun still not fully risen, he pulled up to the security gates at the RAF base, two armed guards watching him come to a halt, the taller of the two walking over slowly to him, a sub-machine gun hanging loosely around his waist. James was not a stranger to the base. As one of only three registered doctors used by the forces in the area, he was occasionally called to the site but wasn't there too often. One of his senior colleagues was generally on duty there but had been taken ill about a month ago, so his responsibilities had been shared between the other two. James was therefore given more work to fit into his already demanding week. It was his fourth visit to the base that month.
His documents were checked, but it was just a formality. The soldier standing next to his red Mazda recognised him the moment he pulled up.
They exchanged a few words, but James did not want to hang around for too long. Not today. Moments later, the gates swung open and he drove along slowly, careful to keep to the five miles per hour speed limit in force on the base. He didn't need any unwanted attention that morning.
He pulled up and parked about fifty metres from the main doors. Two further armed guards stood there. He'd seen very few people going in and out of those doors.
Opening up a bag on the passenger seat next to him, he pulled out a camera, the type used by newspaper photographers, its long silver lens making it hard to steady at first, but he soon got it balanced. He took three snaps, unsure whether the camera had taken anything until he spotted the digital display still showing his last photo.
He didn't feel comfortable doing any of this.
He saw the Major coming from a building on the far side, talking with an aide as they made their way, slowly, to the main building that he was watching. His car was one of about forty that were parked there. He was quite sure he was relatively hidden but wasn't going to take any chances. He snapped away again, another two shots: the Major at the doors, entering the building, the aide turning back and heading the way he'd just come.
He sat there another ten minutes, but no one else showed. He was starting to think about leaving when two more cars came through the main gates. He observed them in his rearview mirror. They parked about ten vehicles down from him so that they wouldn't have known he was in the car. Two people got out: a man whom he guessed was in his early forties, and a woman who was much younger, maybe late twenties. They apparently knew each other and walked together to the security guarded doors through which the Major had just gone. Snap, snap, snap. James took some more photos and watched them through the camera. The guards hardly moved as they opened the doors and waved them both through.
He sat there a further half an hour, but there was no more movement. It was approaching eight, the news was just starting on the radio, and James decided he didn't want to stay any longer. Turning up the radio, he started the engine, and proceeded back up the road, through the security gates and was into the morning traffic, heading to a café about four miles from there. It was time for breakfast.
Three Weeks Ago
After much study, the test results had come back on the two bodies that had now been lying in the hospital morgue for nearly forty-eight hours. Due to some rare chemical make-up, each body had been protecting itself from the nuclear radiation by shielding itself with white blood cells and a chemical deposit, which was as yet unidentified. It was nothing like anything they had ever seen before. It would prove impossible to replicate.
But now that they knew what to look for, it was a simple procedure to confirm that John, their latest patient to come through the ordeal alive, also had this bizarre genetic mutation in his system. This Mysterious Chemical Presence (MCP), as they had coded it, was responsible for keeping each man alive, at least at first. As far as they could tell, the MCP absorbed the radiation on contact, sucking it in at the molecular level, and breaking it down, with part of the poison left harmlessly stored in the host body, the rest leaked as an odourless gas through the skin. They'd not been able to see this in practice, but it was their best-guessed theory at that stage.
Three Months Ago
James pulled up at the café and parked in the car park. There were not many cars around, which was not unusual for the place. It was midweek and early, but they made a good breakfast, and it was nowhere near home. He didn't want there to be the chance that anyone would see the meeting he was about to have.
The man was waiting for him when he walked in, and James made his way over to join him. It was only the third time they'd met, and he still did not know his name. It was to remain that way. They shook hands warmly enough, though they were not friends. James handed him back his camera bag, and the man took a quick scan of the camera, looking through the dozen or so photos that were on the memory card.
“Must you look at them here?” James said, his head looking around, though no one was nearby. He grabbed a menu and looked through the various dishes available to him. A pot of tea sat on the table, his companion already halfway through his first cup.
The man put the camera away again.
“These are good, thank you,” he said, looking up at James as he finished with the menu, replacing it on the table. He knocked over the pepper pot, a small pile of brown dust escaping onto the table.
“I don't like doing this. If I get caught, I'm finished,” James said nervously.
“Relax, you are not in any danger,” came the reply. James didn't believe it, jumping up to go and place his order at the counter. He paid with cash, and came and sat back down. They didn't say another word to each other for five minutes, the man opposite him drinking his tea, before pouring himself another one. James' food arrived, a full English breakfast, minus the egg. He'd never got on too well with eggs. The landlord then came back with his coffee and milk, before leaving them both in peace.
James took a small bite of sausage and had some bacon. He poured milk into his coffee and took a sip. Everything was being done very deliberately as if every movement was being monitored.
“So, who was in the photos today then?” James asked finally, wanting to break the growingly awkward silence.
“First it was the Major, as you've seen before. He's the highest ranked person on the RAF side there. In these photos,” he said, showing the display to James of the
man and woman he saw entering, “the guy is a scientist, they both are actually. Non-RAF personnel but they've been on the base for months. His name is Lincoln Knowles. The chick is Eleanor Jones, very bright girl.”
What he hadn't said was the fact he'd met Eleanor before, and they'd dated, on and off, for about six months. Staying there one night, he'd got wind of something, as only a reporter could, and had dug around the flat a bit, but there was very little there. He'd allowed the relationship to go on longer than he'd wanted, though he enjoyed the sex. He'd done some digging and soon got wind of her secretive placement at the RAF base. She had never discussed it with him, though he'd often asked about what she did and her vague answers only left him more intrigued.
