Contagion

by Contagion (retail) (epub)

  Callie hopes to find an office or some trace of Dr. 1, some clue to his identity, but nothing has escaped the fire.

  The further down she goes, the more complete the destruction. When she finally reaches the tunnels below, the worm is dead. The place where it was encased is completely obliterated.

  This is where everything started, isn’t it? There was some sort of accident down here, and the accelerator was blown to smithereens. This either caused the earthquake or was the earthquake; in turn, this caused the destruction of one of the largest oil reservoirs in Europe. With both the oil reservoir and the accelerator up in flames, much of the island was destroyed.

  Some people must have escaped from underground and with them, the epidemic—brought to mainland Scotland with the evacuated islanders.

  And the proof lies here, buried with the dead underground.

  CHAPTER 30

  CALLIE

  “YOU’RE REALLY SURE?” Kai asks. “That the Aberdeen flu actually started here, from injecting people with some sort of antimatter out of a particle accelerator?”

  “Yes. Absolutely sure,” Shay says.

  “Will knowing this help stop the epidemic?”

  “I don’t know. But knowing the cause has got to take us further along toward doing something about it, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do we get word out? We can’t screw this up. It has to get out.”

  “Right. My mother?”

  “And JIT. Yes and yes. But that’s not enough. I think we should go to the air force, here on the island.”

  “Isn’t the air force like the army and likely to shoot first, ask questions later, as far as you’re concerned?”

  “I don’t think so. Listen, that Lieutenant Kirkland-Smith wasn’t in with the rest of the army. He wasn’t informed when a car was found near Killin—if he had been and he’d brought the dogs, they’d have had us. And that policeman in Inverness didn’t believe the lieutenant was doing the right thing either, did he? When he looked into him, he whisked you away.”

  “What, are you saying that the lieutenant has gone rogue or something?”

  “Maybe his special alternatives were so secret that no one else knew what they were up to, and now that things have gone wrong, they want to keep it that way.”

  “When you put it all together like that, it makes sense,” Kai says, and straightens his shoulders. “All right, then. Tomorrow I’ll go to the air force and tell them what we’ve learned.”

  “No. I have to go.”

  “Listen, it’s you the army was after, not me. In case you’ve gotten things wrong and the air force agrees with Kirkland-Smith, it makes sense if I go.”

  “But I’m the one who worked out what they were doing with the particle accelerator; I’m the one who saw Callie’s memories. I can explain it better.”

  Kai and Shay are staring at each other in a way that says neither will give an inch.

  Will they both end up going?

  I’m scared. What if Shay is wrong, and the air force won’t listen? What if the whole government is in on the cover-up, and the first thing they do is kill both of them to keep it quiet?

  Kai and Shay seem to think that can’t be the case. They can’t believe the government would take people like me and experiment on them—that if the authorities knew what was really happening, they’d have put a stop to it.

  They also seem to think it is somehow worse if the point of it was to make weapons instead of trying to cure cancer. Dr. 1 may have used the cancer story to trick people like Nurse 11, but what difference does why really make to what they did?

  They injected me and made me sick. When I survived, I was burned alive, leaving me as I am now. I don’t care why.

  Even though I’m scared Kai and Shay are wrong about going to the air force, I don’t say anything. We have to—we have to tell them what we know, and hope they’ll find Dr. 1.

  Dr. 1 must pay for what he’s done.

  CHAPTER 31

  SHAY

  I HAVE TO GO, DON’T I? Kai is doing the man thing: that the man must be the one who puts himself at risk. Even when it’s not logical. We can’t both go, in case we get disappeared and there is no one left to tell the story, and I’m the obvious one to go: I’m the one best able to explain it all.

  I sigh and put off the argument. “Look, let’s leave deciding who does what for now,” I say. “First up, we need to work out how to contact Iona, Lochy, your Mum, anyone else we can think of, and tell them everything that we know. I think we should try Dr. 1’s laptop again. Maybe we can work out the password.”

  We try everything we can think of: the name of each of the islands, this peninsula, Dr1, Drone, DrOne; the door code again; author names and titles from his most thumbed books. After every three attempts we’re blocked and have to restart the laptop to try again, but nothing works.

  I sit back and rub my eyes. It could be any random string of numbers and letters that we have no chance of finding.

  But Dr. 1 isn’t a random sort of guy. Who has absolute zero as his door code, just because there is a manufacturer’s mark on the window? There must be some way to work this out.

  What else could it be…?

  My eyes trail around the room to his telescope. This whole house—its position, the design, the retractable shutters and roof—was designed to accommodate that telescope: a telescope that was programmed to track beautiful Albireo. Could that be it?

  I enter Albireo—no. I try it in all uppercase, then all lowercase—no.

  Frustrated, I flick the switch on the laptop again and rotate my stiff shoulders while I wait for it to restart.

  “Take a break,” Kai says. “Tea?”

  I shake my head, unwilling to stop trying. Somehow I felt sure that would be it, but—

  Wait. I read in one of those astronomy books that Albireo is also known by another name: Beta Cygni, the swan.

  The laptop is ready again. I enter Betacygni—no. betacygni—no. One last chance before I have to restart again. I bite my lip and enter BetaCygni.

  Hand already on the way to hit the switch to restart, I stare at the screen, then blink and look again—yes! It actually worked!

  “I’ve got it! It’s the alternative name of the binary star system the telescope was tracking!”

  “Of course, how obvious,” Kai says, one eyebrow raised. He shakes his head. “However you worked it out, good going. And now?”

  “I’ll try Lochy’s web group login first—that’d be a way to get in touch with both Lochy and Iona,” I say, and go to the web address and follow the steps.

  It doesn’t work. I try again in case I miss-hit a key; no.

  “Damn. Maybe it only works on Lochy’s computer? I’ll go to JIT and Iona instead. It’s evening, a good time to hope that Iona might be on her computer.”

  I start a new post.

  Shay: Are you there?

  Pause. Hit “refresh.”

  Iona: Oh thank God, it’s you! Are you both okay?

  Shay: Yes. We got to Shetland, solved all the mysteries, and now need to tell everybody what we know.

  Iona: Go.

  And I tell Iona as much as I can as fast as I can type.

  Iona: Wow. I can’t begin to understand how you worked all that out. Are you sure about the particle accelerator and everything?

  Without telling Iona about Callie—something I can’t do without risking she’d then discount everything else I said as craziness—it’s hard to explain how the pieces came together. Yet it feels wrong to not tell her everything. I bite my lip and go on.

  Shay: Yes, I’m sure; not enough time to get into the reasons just now. Can you spread the word? We’re going to tell the authorities on the island tomorrow—there is an air force base. But just in case—well, you know—they aren’t very friendly, can you tell Lochy and friends, and Kai’s mum, and everyone else you can think of?

  Kai gives me his mother’s details, and I post them up next.

&
nbsp; I hit “refresh” again and again, but there’s nothing there. Just when I’m starting to panic that something has happened to Iona, a new paragraph appears.

  Iona: Sorry, sorry. I had trouble answering. Lochy died. Of the flu. It’s spread so much.

  I stare at her words on the screen, unable to take this in. Lochy is…dead? I finally type back.

  Shay: No. It can’t be.

  Iona: It is. I’ll do what I can to spread this around, Shay. I never told you: I loved Lochy. I know he was a hopeless case, but I really did. I need to go now.

  So Iona has secrets too. I want to reach down the internet all the way to her bedroom and hold her.

  Shay: I’m so sorry.

  Kai, reading over my shoulder, slips an arm around me. I hit “refresh” again and again, but Iona must be gone.

  I look up at Kai. “We knew him for such a short time, but Lochy was amazing,” I say. “And all that stuff he did for us; we never could have gotten here without him. And now he’s gone? How can this be?”

  “I can’t believe it either,” Kai says.

  I stand up, and Kai’s arms are around me, holding me. I hear his heart beating th-thump, th-thump in his chest in a way that Lochy’s never will again.

  We have to stop this epidemic from spreading any more. Stop it from taking more lives.

  You need to find Dr. 1—maybe he knows how to stop it, Callie says. Can you find out where he is from his computer?

  Good question. I tell Kai what she said and sit down again, turn back to the computer, but there is nothing personal I can find on it. No email or social logged in. There’s not even any browsing history beyond what we’ve done.

  “I bet if Lochy were here…” I start to say, then stop.

  “Yeah,” Kai says. “He’d be able to figure it out, wouldn’t he?”

  * * *

  Kai and I go up to sleep. I’m exhausted like I never have been before. All those books I’ve taken in, all the delight of working things out and thinking about them and coming up with answers—and then Lochy.

  I’m saddened by the news of his death more than I even understand. Beginning with Mum, so many people have died. But it is like he is one too many—the one that makes me feel the other losses all over again.

  And I’m troubled in a way I can’t put together. Not yet.

  I wake up a few hours later, places in my dreams spinning in my mind on an endless loop: Aviemore…Inverness…Elgin…

  There is a knot in my stomach like I’m going to be sick. My head is hot with fever. There is fear inside, and horror. I can’t face any more; I can’t.

  I can’t stay still in bed either. I slip downstairs and turn the computer back on.

  Callie appears and looks over my shoulder. What are you doing?

  “There’s just something I have to check.”

  I do a search and find the government website with the quarantine zones. They’re marked in red. I draw in my breath when I see how much they’ve grown.

  There’s a date function. I can see how they were yesterday, the day before, and so on. I put it back to the day we left Killin.

  And then forward, a day at a time.

  I trace the zones on the screen with my finger, hand shaking, stomach rising. I swallow, trying not to be sick. I put the dates back and forth again to be sure, watching how the red shrinks and grows on the map.

  What’s wrong?

  “Look, Callie: look at the path we took to get here. From Killin, to Aviemore, and Inverness. Then Elgin. The quarantine zones grow to cover all the places we’ve been, a day or so after we were there. It’s us: the epidemic is following us.”

  What? What do you mean?

  Tears spill down my face. I flick them away.

  “It’s me, isn’t it? I’m a carrier. I must be.”

  CHAPTER 32

  CALLIE

  SHAY, A CARRIER? Could it be true?

  I study the maps and get her to take them back further in time.

  There are lots of places people got sick that you haven’t been, I point out.

  “But there have been other survivors. Don’t you see? It must be survivors who go on to carry the disease.”

  Shay does another search: Scottish refugee fishing boat.

  She gasps. “There’s a photo of the boat we took to get here: it’s the same one, I’m sure of it. And the headline: ‘Plague Ship Turned Away From Norway.’”

  She touches the screen. “That was posted a few days ago. All those people; that mother and baby too. They’ll be dead by now…because of me?”

  She’s crying silently, tears running down her face.

  But I’m still staring at the quarantine zones, the maps, and remembering when and where it all began.

  The explosions on the island; I escaped.

  I went to Aberdeen.

  Then Edinburgh.

  Then Newcastle.

  Back to Edinburgh; then to Killin with Kai; then from Killin to Aviemore, to Inverness, to Elgin.

  All the centers of the epidemic: I’ve been to every single one of them, and it appeared the next day. Every single place I went; every single time.

  Ages ago in Newcastle, Kai and Mum were talking about the spread of the disease. They’d wondered then if there could be someone Mum called a Typhoid Mary, someone who carried the disease wherever they went—someone who spread it quickly, while sick people only spread it slowly.

  If there is a Typhoid Mary…maybe it’s me.

  But that’s crazy. I’m a ghost.

  Even if it is crazy, it’s the only answer that fits.

  It’s not Shay who is the carrier at all. It’s me.

  It must be me: everyone I go near gets sick and dies, unless they’re immune like Kai—or a survivor, like Shay.

  It was me who made Shay sick, wasn’t it? And then her mum must have caught it from Shay before Shay got better, since I never saw her mum until after she died.

  I’m stricken. It’s still my fault her mum died, isn’t it? I gave it to Shay; she gave it to her mum.

  But I didn’t know! I didn’t know that just by going near someone, I could make them sick.

  It was bad enough under the island, even though all those doctors and nurses deserved what they got.

  But everyone else?

  Not all people are good, I know this, but it was whole families—not just mums and dads, but little children too. The pain—the pyres. The smoke rising into the sky.

  I have to go and be somewhere alone where no one can get near me; no one can get sick and die ever again…

  But then what about Dr. 1?

  Dr. 1 made me like this.

  If we find him, I can infect him: making him burn is too easy. I can infect him and watch him die—slowly, in pain.

  Dr. 1 must die: this is the most important thing, more important than anything or anybody.

  Once he’s dead, then I’ll go away, stay away from people so they won’t get sick and die anymore.

  I study Shay: has she been listening to what I’m thinking? No, she’s still wrapped in on herself, crying, in shock.

  I shield my thoughts. Shay is so close to the truth. I have to make sure that she doesn’t find it. She doesn’t want people to get sick; if she knows I’m the carrier, she won’t help me anymore. But she’s so clever, how do I stop her from working it out?

  She can’t think straight if she’s upset.

  Yes, it must be you! That’s why SAR was trying to kill you. They must have known survivors are carriers.

  Shay flinches. “But I didn’t know,” she whispers.

  It’s your fault that Lochy died.

  Shay gets up from the computer. She paces the room, arms crossed tightly like she’s trying to hold herself in.

  And my mum. She thinks the words she can’t say out loud.

  What are you going to do?

  “I don’t know,” she says. She’s shaking, her arms wrapped around herself, but then, moments later, she stands straighter. “I do know. I have
to turn myself in.”

  CHAPTER 33

  SHAY

  THE SUN IS WARM, but the waves are lively today. I’m sitting on a rock above the cliff, watching them roll in and out again far below.

  The sea has an aura too, an emerald green that chases the waves. It calms the tumult inside me—a spinning that echoes the white froth as the waves break on the cliff below.

  A door opens. There are footsteps behind me.

  “There you are.” Kai’s voice. He lowers himself to sit on the rock next to mine, reaches a hand to my chin. I turn, kiss him. Eyes closed, I feel his aura; eyes open, now I can see what I always felt. It’s as though opening my mind to what was there has made it plain.

  He starts to move away, but I slip a hand around his neck, pull him closer and kiss him again, and his heart beats faster, like mine; his aura deepens to clear red. I stop and look at my hand: mine too.

  He takes my hand and holds it.

  “Shay, stop distracting me and listen up.”

  “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “You have to let me go to the air force on my own. We can’t both go.”

  He starts detailing a list of reasons, but all that is behind them is that he doesn’t want anything to happen to me. Blue protectiveness shines bright around him, an integral part of who and what he is.

  This is the moment. This is when I should tell him that it’s too late; it already has happened to me, and to everyone around me. I’m a carrier, and I must be the one to go.

  But I can’t tell him what I must do. I know who he is—I can see it shining clear in his aura. It would destroy him to let me go alone, like it destroyed him that he wasn’t there to save his sister. I have to take the decision away from him.

  “Things are changing, aren’t they?” I say. “I agree that only one of us can go. If whoever goes…doesn’t come back again, then the other must carry on, get the word out and do what they can. So whether you go, or I go, we might not see each other again.”