Tankbread

by Paul Mannering

  ‘I guess. I’ve lost track of the days.’

  Donna and Singh pushed the gurney into an empty space along the wall. Moving quickly they connected adhesive pads to Else’s chest and forehead. IV lines went into her arms and clear fluid began to drip from hanging bags.

  ‘Get Wainright down here,’ Donna ordered and Singh left us alone.

  ‘It’s been a long time since we have seen a fully functioning clone around here.’ Donna pressed a stethoscope against Else’s chest and moved the silver cup around, listening intently.

  ‘Her name is Else, she’s Tankbread. But she’s smart and she’s one helluva fighter.’ I felt stupid explaining this to a geek. ‘She’s important. Josh sent us, told us to come here.’

  ‘I don’t know any Josh. Why did he tell you to come here?’

  ‘Because she’ll die.’

  ‘Of course she’ll die. She’s a clone,’ Donna slipped the stethoscope out of her ears.

  I reached out and grabbed the geek’s arm. ‘She can’t die.’

  Donna stopped and regarded me with her full attention for the first time.

  ‘You need to understand she was designed to fail. Thirty days is the best you can hope for. Then it’s system shut down. Renal and hepatic failure, neuro-physiologic degeneration. Internal tissue breaks down, the immune system turns on the host and she slips into a coma and death occurs within twelve hours.’

  My grip on Donna’s arm tightened. ‘Not this time.’

  The ward door opened and a white-coated bald man with a hippy length beard to compensate strode into the room. Singh hurried along behind him.

  ‘Doctor Preston, where is the subject?’ the new arrival asked.

  ‘Right here, Doctor Wainright,’ Donna stepped back, pulling her arm out of my grip with a smirk that said she was going to tell.

  Wainright probed and pressed with his fingertips up and down the length of Else’s body. He opened her mouth, peering into her eyes. He listened to her chest with a stethoscope. He lifted and then tapped her knee and elbow for reflexes before stepping back and regarding her thoughtfully. We waited in silence for him to speak.

  ‘Malnourished, dehydrated, and in late phase multiple system failure, but an otherwise perfect example of my work.’ Wainright announced. ‘How did she get out here?’

  ‘This man carried her in.’ Donna made it sound like an accusation.

  ‘Explain yourself.’ Wainright seemed to notice me for the first time. I took a deep breath. ‘We came from Sydney. I met a Doctor Haumann at the Opera House, right before they were attacked by a big mob of evols. I took her to Josh at Moore Park. Told him about how the peace treaty we had with the dead was gone. Then a big mob of zeds arrived and tore up the place. Josh told me to take Else and head for Woomera. Find Wainright he said. Said if she could be saved, you could do it.’

  Wainright folded his arms and tapped his hairy lip with a long index finger. ‘Notify me when she has expired. I’ll be interested in a post-mortem examination.’ He dropped his arms and started out of the room. Singh and Donna accepted this decree and relaxed.

  ‘Wait.’ I don’t think anyone had ever questioned Wainright before because he didn’t stop until I ran after him.

  ‘Josh told me you could save her. That you could save all of us. The evols have been following us. All the way from Sydney, more and more dead. Something’s making them hunt us down. If you don’t help me then they are going to come here in numbers like you have never seen. They are going to tear through your fence, through your steel doors. They’ll come straight down the lift shaft and they’ll chew your fucking face off.’

  Wainright blinked. I guess he didn’t hear threats very often.

  ‘The evol threat is minimal. There are a few scattered individuals out here. We have thousands of square miles of desert and wilderness. The dead congregate in urban centres, it’s where their food supply is. Their reduced neurological function guides them through familiar routines and patterns.’

  I got up in Wainright’s face. ‘Don’t lecture me. You’ve been buried a mile underground for so long you haven’t got a fucking clue of what is happening out there. When did you last go up and take a look outside?’

  Wainright actually flinched, a crack in that cool intellectual facade. ‘My work has kept my busy. I haven’t had an opportunity to go to the surface in some time.’

  ‘So you really don’t know?’

  ‘I receive regular reports from Sergeant Arbuckle. I am quite confident that he is maintaining a secure facility.’

  I laughed. ‘The zombies got through today. Arbuckle lost three of his men. Two of them in a crash, and one who got bit when the bulldozer stalled and the dead came through the gate.’ I watched his face, seeing the colour drain out of it as I leaned in until I could smell the minty freshness of his breath. ‘You came this close. This close to having a full blown security breach. You want to know the worst thing? There are over a hundred walking corpses pushing against that fence. How long can Arbuckle and his men keep them back? How much ammunition do they have? There are no reinforcements coming. There is no re-supply, no relief. No cavalry coming over the goddamn hill!’

  Wainright jerked back when I yelled, flecks of my spit hitting him in the face. He wiped his cheek with a bleached white handkerchief.

  ‘We must maintain our research protocols. We have an obligation, a duty to mankind and to the advancement of science.’ Wainright spoke like a man convincing himself of an uncertain truth. He mopped his brow with the handkerchief.

  ‘You might want to start by doing every thing you can to keep that girl alive. Doc Haumann and Josh said she was important. They told me to come to Woomera and tell them that she’s your answer.’

  ‘The answer?’

  ‘Haumann said the Tankbread are the cure, the way to destroy the evols.’

  Wainright looked past me and studied Else’s still form. ‘I will need to do some tests,’ he said and walked back to her bedside.

  ‘Preston, Singh, take blood and tissue samples. I need a full workup and DNA analysis as soon as possible. Oh and get a sperm sample from him too.’

  ‘How much do you want?’ I said.

  CHAPTER 25

  Doctor Donna Preston woke me on the morning of the fourth day. ‘Doctor Wainright will see you now,’ she said. I grunted and rolled over, slipping an arm over her smooth hip and pressing against the moist warmth between her thighs. ‘And I have to go to work,’ she murmured and kissed me on the head before slipping out of her bed.

  I dressed and stumbled out into the glaring fluorescent light of the corridor, following her crisp, white-coated back down to the hospital section. Donna had followed orders, obtaining a sperm sample from me and she’d explained that fresh genetic material was essential for both their ongoing research and for the continuation of the human race. After she got her specimen jar load we had a lot of sex. Donna explained this matter-of-fact seduction by saying she was at the right time of her cycle; if I had turned up a few days later I would have gone to bed with another woman. She showed me a round adhesive patch she wore, stuck to her ribs near her armpit, with a green coloured disc on it.

  ‘This is an invention of Doctor Wainright’s, it measures hormone changes through the skin. Right now it’s green because I’m fertile. If I get pregnant, it changes colour.’

  We met Doctor Wainright outside the ward. He looked tired and irritatingly pleased with himself. I wondered if he was also contributing to the facility’s fertility program. Pulling me aside he said. ‘We took some valuable samples from the girl. She really is quite the prize for our bio-engineers. Quite the prize indeed.’

  ‘Is she alive?’ I hadn’t seen my weapons since we arrived, but my hands felt plenty strong.

  ‘Yes and she is going to be just fine. We have been feeding her some genetically engineered stem cells. Tankbread are made of highly active cells, a furnace of stem cells, burning brightly. When the evols eat the clones you call Tankbread, they replace much of
what is lost to the trauma of reanimation. Think of Tankbread as being like a protein shake for the dead.’ Wainright smiled at his little analogy. My scowl deepened.

  ‘She’s going to live? A normal life?’

  ‘Normal? Hardly. We had to remove all the terminator sequences on her DNA. She should outlive all of us, barring accidents. However, in all other respects she is a normal human female.’

  ‘When can she travel?’ I asked.

  ‘Today, tomorrow, whenever you like. But I would like to request you display some restraint.’

  ‘Restraint?’ I almost grinned. ‘In case you haven’t noticed there is very little use for restraint out there.’

  ‘I have a proposition for you, a you-scratch-my-back, I scratch yours. And trust me, I have scratched yours long and hard already,’ Wainright smiled with a confidence I didn’t share.

  ‘What do you want?’ Walking out into the desert without supplies and Else in an unknown state would be suicide.

  ‘I want you to go back to Sydney. There is one thing you need to do.’

  Then I did grin. ‘Sydney? Back to that shithole? You’ve got to be kidding!’

  Wainright barely shrugged. ‘Why did you come out here? It wasn’t because of any sense of duty was it?’

  ‘I came out here for her. Because Haumann said Tankbread were the answer and Josh said I needed to find you. You would know what to do to help Else.’

  ‘I have helped Else. Now you need to help her too. Take her back to Sydney. Take her back to Haumann, tell him she is ready. Tell him she is the cure.’

  ‘Haumann is dead. The evols attacked the Opera House. We barely got out alive ourselves.’

  ‘Did you see him die?’ Wainright’s hands gripped my arm. ‘Did you see him die!?’

  ‘No! But it was all going to hell. The evols were breaking in all over. We got out while we still could. I didn’t look back. I just took Else and ran.’

  ‘So he might be alive…? You mentioned a Josh. Who is he?’

  ‘Josh, he used to be a scientist, said he worked with you and Haumann.’

  ‘Joshua Mollbrooke?’

  ‘I guess, PhD in genetics and bio-chemistry he said.’

  ‘If Haumann is dead, you can take her to Mollbrooke. Mollbrooke will know what to do.’

  ‘And what if Josh is dead? Moore Park was getting hammered when we left. They might not have survived.’

  ‘Then goddamnit you do what you must! Get the girl back to Sydney! She knows what she must do!’ Wainright’s entire head turned bright pink when he lost his temper.

  Else stirred when I came into the ward, Singh was making notes and taking readings from the various sensors hooked up to her.

  ‘Hey!’ she squealed in delight when she saw me, and ignoring Singh’s protests, tossed the covers aside and leapt out of the bed. Wires went taut, machines teetered and electronic alarms beeped. I hugged Else tight, feeling my ribs creaking under the strain of her embrace. ‘I felt sad when you were not with me,’ she said.

  ‘I missed you too Else,’ I smiled at her, a sick feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘I missed you too,’ she smiled at the new phrase. ‘I’m hungry,’ she announced.

  ‘Yeah, how about some food?’ I asked the two doctors.

  Donna and Singh looked at each other and then started unclipping the cables from Else’s forehead, chest and arms. They dressed her in a thin robe and we ate in the facility cafeteria with the rest of the population.

  Scientists, technicians, engineers. Only the soldiers who lived top-side, tasked with keeping those that dwelled below secure, were absent. Breakfast was fresh eggs, toasted bread and some kind of tea.

  While Else was being worked on, I’d explored the underground base and found hydroponics and a working farm yard. Under lights they grew everything from wheat and rice to potatoes, lettuce and apples. Chickens, goats, pigs and an aquarium provided meat protein. Else cleaned her plate and then politely asked for more. I stood up, took her tray and the lights went out. I froze. Else growled at my elbow. ‘It’s okay,’ I said gently. ‘The lights go out some times. It’s okay.’ The place always stopped when the lights went out; the first time I nearly climbed the walls until they explained that the generators sometimes failed. The power came back on after ten minutes that time. Donna told me it could have been hours.

  ‘I can’t see… where are the stars?’ Else’s voice cracked slightly. I felt her next to me, and slid back down into my seat. ‘It’s okay Else, we are inside. There are no stars inside. It’s why we have the lights on.’

  ‘I want to go outside,’ Else said, the crack in her voice widening.

  ‘Hey does anyone have a torch?’

  ‘Hang on, there’s a lantern here…’

  I sat in the dark, surrounded by invisible people who were used to long periods of complete darkness. No one said a word or sniggered. If they had, I would have tried to kick the shit out them, pitch-dark or not.

  A glow flared at the end of the table, casting shadow puppets of our faces along the wall.

  ‘I want to go outside,’ Else found my hand, her grip cinching in tight. ‘Sure,’ I said, keeping my voice calm. ‘Let’s go. Donna? Doctor Singh?

  Can we get out of here now?’

  Donna sighed and stood up, dropping her napkin over her unfinished breakfast. ‘Sure, I’ll tell Wainright and we’ll get your escort down here.’

  I borrowed the lantern as Donna walked off into the dark corridor without hesitation. Leading Else back to the room I had been sleeping in I gathered the last of my clothes.

  ‘You cut your hair,’ Else ran her hand’s through it. It was still down past my ears, but now it was about as long as hers. ‘You look like me,’ she said smiling.

  ‘Partners in crime,’ I said and lead her back to the ward. Else dressed. The quartermaster stores of the station had allocated her two pairs of khaki cargo pants, four t-shirts, two pairs of socks, canvas top sneakers, cotton underwear, a light jacket and a knapsack to carry it in. All of it in the same shade of faded military green. The underwear allocation included a sports bra. Else amused herself by tucking her breasts away and then jiggling them up and down while admiring her enhanced cleavage. Five minutes later Donna returned and guided us through the dark corridors to where Doctor Wainright waited by the security station at the bottom of the elevator shaft.

  ‘Well I guess this is goodbye,’ I said to her while Doctor Wainright cranked the handle of an old style telephone mounted on the wall.

  ‘Sure,’ Donna said. ‘I’ll name it after you,’ she said suddenly. ‘What?’ She couldn’t know already, we’d only been doing it for four days. I glanced at her flat belly an eyebrow raised.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, the batch.’

  ‘The batch?’ I echoed.

  ‘Yes, your gene sample, it’s going into a new round of cloning experiments. With your genetic material and the data we have gathered from her we are going to commence a full body cloning program. What did you think it was for?’

  ‘Well I kinda thought you might make babies with it.’

  Donna smiled at me gently and put a soft hand to my cheek. ‘We are going to make babies with it silly, hundreds of them.’

  Wainright hung up the phone. ‘Something is wrong. I can’t raise Arbuckle or his men on the phone.’

  ‘We can activate the lift from down here though right?’ I stepped past Wainright and pushed the up-down button.

  ‘Yes, but it’s an electric elevator. So it requires electricity to make the car go up and down,’ Wainright had a way of explaining obvious things that made me feel stupid. I went and tried the door next to the security station window. It was locked. Peering into the glass, I couldn’t see if the guard was still inside.

  ‘We’ll take the stairs,’ I said.

  The stairs turned out to be thick with dust. The metal door took some opening. It had a large wheel on it and the hinges had stiffened from disuse.

  I never step straigh
t into the unknown, so I paused a moment and sniffed the stale air on the other side of the door. It smelt of dust.

  ‘Okay,’ I said softly. ‘Let’s go.’ Else followed at my heels, and to my surprise Donna and Wainright brought up the rear. ‘What are you doing?’ I hissed.

  ‘I haven’t seen sunlight in so long, I’ve almost forgotten what it feels like,’ Donna responded.

  ‘We need a status report from Arbuckle, it is unacceptable that he allow communications to break down,’ The geek found his courage when he had something to be incensed about. I gestured for Wainright to close the door behind us. He wound it shut, good and tight.

  ‘Stay behind me, keep quiet and… just keep quiet.’ I went up the concrete stairs. Looking upwards, the flights crossed over each other, rising at least a hundred feet to the surface. There was no sound, until we were five flights from the surface. Then I heard the wind and the soft whistle of sand whispering across the roof high above us. I paused at the bottom of the last flight. From here I could see a door similar to the one we had come through down below, except that this one had a porthole window.

  ‘Wait here,’ I whispered. Keeping low I moved up to the door. The wind was blowing hard outside, visibility was low, the sand and dust coated everything. I peered out the thick glass of the small window, barely able to see through the patina of fine desert silt over it. The Woomera compound appeared deserted.

  ‘Okay, come on up.’ I kept my voice soft, nothing out there seemed right. They all took turns looking through the window. Wainright quickly got his bearings and sketched a map in the dust of where he wanted to go—the power generator building, which was in front of us and diagonally to the right.

  ‘Ready?’ They all nodded. I twisted the stiff wheel and with an ear-shattering squeak, the door pulled inwards.

  Donna gave a small scream and stumbled backwards. I stepped around and saw a fresh arm hanging on the outside of the door, the hand still clinging to the outside door wheel.

  ‘Shit,’ I muttered and scanned the dusty compound outside, but nothing moved except the wind and swirls of dust. I thought about pushing the door shut, spinning the wheel until it locked, and going back down. Except down there we would be trapped. If the evols had broken in through the fence and over-run Arbuckle and his troops, down below was a good place to die. Or at least go crazy in the eternal darkness.