The Barrier

by Shankari Chandran

  ‘I’m okay – it’s just things . . . Just things.’ He picked up the photograph of his wife again.

  ‘Rest a moment. I’ll fix you some tea and then we can tidy up, if you like?’

  ‘Tea would be good, thank you.’

  Noah stood up. ‘My masala chai is pretty average but condensed milk fixes most things.’

  Noah returned a few moments later with the spicy tea. Fat from the milk sat in oily droplets on its surface.

  Khan hadn’t moved or released the photograph, a shard of glass emerging dangerously from the frame. Cardamom-scented steam filled the silence. Noah took the photograph from him. Khan wrapped his hands around the cup and spoke, finally.

  ‘Tell me more about your father, Noah. I felt bad about our last discussion. I think I would have liked him.’

  ‘You would have liked each other. He had great respect for scientists. He thought science, mathematics and re– . . . philosophy sought to explain the cardinal organisation of all life.’

  ‘They do – they aren’t contradictory despite what many people think. They are all by-products of a search for meaning in our world of chaos. Those disciplines are different pathways to peace, I think. Your father was very wise – did you listen to him?’

  ‘Not always – not enough.’ Noah looked around at the mess in Khan’s study. ‘In 2023, when Ebola crossed the Atlantic . . . he didn’t survive.

  ‘It spread so quickly. The West lost twenty percent of its population but . . . it could have been much worse, I suppose.’ He blinked back tears.

  ‘Yes, I suppose. Africa and the Middle East lost more than seventy percent. The vaccine was developed by the US – you should be very proud of your country.’

  Noah shrugged. ‘Outbreaks are sporadic but cyclical now.’

  ‘Cyclical . . .’

  ‘Research by the WHO and Bio indicates that the virus emerges in a cycle. Like the one in Mexico recently – you knew about that one.’

  ‘Yes, information about outbreaks is available to us – it reminds us of the importance of the Global Vaccination Programme.’ Khan smiled. ‘I read the full report on the WHO portal. Apparently the village had been weakened by a particularly virulent strain of the flu. I’ve never been a believer in the Weakened Immunity Hypothesis.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me. You need to read more, Noah.’ Khan smiled again. ‘When Ebola spread into the West, the WHO told us that people who suffered from the flu were weakened by it and less able to fight off Ebola. Of course this created a predictable response – people rushed to get the flu jab.’

  ‘And the data showed that in the West where there was a higher rate of flu vaccination, there was also a lower rate of Ebola penetration,’ Noah interrupted.

  ‘Temporal sequence is often vital to causality, but not always an indicator of it. At least not in the way that we often assume.’

  Noah shook his head. ‘All epidemiological studies indicated that once you adjusted for factors such as better hygiene and nutrition in the West, greater influenza immunity through the flu jab slowed the spread of Ebola in that region.’

  Khan refused to be dissuaded. ‘The hypothesis is wrong because influenza sends the body into full-fight mode. Influenza is a superb killer but our bodies have learned to fight back, producing thousands of antibodies every hour to combat it. Many of those same antibodies would have been useful to fend off Ebola. Its pathology is similar. Sufferers of the flu are, in my opinion, more likely to be able to survive an Ebola outbreak. I wrote a paper on it, but it wasn’t allowed over to your side. I’m sure you have special access – you should read it the next time you are sitting on a bench somewhere.’

  ‘And the Mexico outbreak?’

  ‘Was deeply tragic, barbaric even. We don’t respect the flu enough. People fear Ebola but they have forgotten the flu. It wasn’t that long ago that it was used by colonising forces to wipe out millions of people in their own homes, their own countries.’

  ‘The flu wasn’t used. Like smallpox, it was just something that came along for the ride when people went from one country to another.’

  ‘Conveniently so for all those Spanish, Portuguese, British, Dutch and even American settlers, wasn’t it? They showed up, coughed and sneezed a lot, and “unwittingly” destroyed entire indigenous communities. They didn’t have to waste a bullet. Or a single Western life. The flu is very efficient. I’m surprised we didn’t learn more from that.’

  Noah stared at Khan in shocked silence. He didn’t seem to notice.

  ‘A cyclical occurrence,’ he quoted. ‘There are all kinds of cycles in this world, Noah, not all of them natural. Use your scientist’s eye to observe them carefully.’ He took his glasses off and pressed his fingers against his temples.

  ‘May I?’ Noah reached forward and placed both hands on either side of Khan’s head. He inserted his thumb into the eye socket pressure points, his index fingers at both temples, and then splayed the rest of his fingers around the zygomatic bone, near the auriculotemporal nerves. He pressed down with increasing pressure from finger to finger, pain zone to pain zone, as Khan exhaled into his grip. Noah bypassed the kill zone, held Khan for a few more moments and then let go.

  ‘How did you know?’ Khan asked.

  ‘I’ve seen it before. Terminal?’

  ‘We’re all terminal, I’m just on a faster track than most.’

  ‘Most – not all. My daughter,’ Noah began. There was no need; Khan had told him everything he needed to know. And yet he wanted to tell him.

  ‘My daughter – she was four years old. Inoperable, small secondaries but aggressive growth of the primary throughout both sides of the frontal lobe. She lost gross motor functions within six weeks. Speech and feeding by twelve weeks. The doctors said they hadn’t seen one that fast in a long time.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Noah. What was her name?’

  ‘Seraphina – Sera, after the angel.’ He closed his eyes.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Khan repeated.

  ‘I’m sorry too.’ Noah opened his eyes. ‘How much time do you have?’

  ‘Four months, five at most. Enough to refine the Devi Vaccine. I won’t be able to conduct the trials. But Devi has catalogued everything I know– she will be able to help another, better scientist test and perfect it.’

  ‘There are treatments you can try: chemo, new immuno-therapies, ultrasonic aspirators –’

  ‘Maybe it’s saving me,’ Khan interrupted him. ‘Life is killing all of us. Everything that is born must die.’

  ‘Everything that is born must be given a chance to live,’ Noah said, his voice choking.

  ‘Is that how you have lived, Noah? Have you given everything in your life a chance to live?’

  He looked at Khan sharply, afraid that the old man knew him too well.

  ‘This tumour has helped me see the virus in a way that I had never seen it before. It guides my hand and tells me what to do. It is urging me to share scientific truths with people, telling me to help people while I still can.’

  ‘Those people in your clinic at Anuradhapura,’ Noah said. ‘They have the same tumour – it’s killing them too, isn’t it?’

  Khan shook his head and went to the filing cabinet. He picked up an MRI scan from the floor. Noah quickly folded the journal into a tight roll and hid it inside his jacket.

  ‘Life without meaning is killing them.’ Khan showed Noah the scan.

  ‘And what’s the cure?’ Noah felt like someone was strangling him. He remembered the wall of MRI and CT scans at the clinic showing the brains of men and women, the same grey mass blooming within each one. He remembered the general. How could all of those people have the same tumour? And yet he didn’t doubt it.

  ‘The tumour is the cure – it is healing us in some way. I told you the vaccine was hurting us. The tumour is evolving, adapting to the vaccine and fighting back. It is giving back what the vaccine took away. It is teaching us who we are and why we’re here.’

&nbs
p; ‘You can’t just give up.’ Even in the final moments of his daughter’s life, Noah had kept waiting for something.

  ‘The tumour is giving me much more than it’s taking away. The cure for a life without meaning is death. Like me, all of those people at Anuradhapura have chosen a shorter life with . . . with faith – than a lifetime without it.’

  Noah’s chest tightened. He felt old emotions stir and swirl around him.

  ‘I will miss my morning swim, Noah. But I don’t fight the current anymore. I let it find me and carry me towards the lifebuoy.’

  Khan picked up Noah’s hands and placed them at his temples again. He had said faith. Hackman’s orders were clear: if the threat could not be contained it must be destroyed.

  ‘I’m not afraid. We all have to die – some of us can choose how we live. What a privilege it is to know that there is something within us, a current that carries us gently towards itself, if only we would let it.’

  Noah knew what he should do. He took a breath and tightened his hold on Khan.

  ‘Do you think . . . do you think my daughter felt the world differently too? Did she see what you see?’ Noah whispered.

  Her world was darkness and dulled pain at the end. Was she frightened? Or did the waves put their arms around her and guide her home?

  He let go of Khan and stood up abruptly. ‘You tidy up in here, I’ll make a start on the spare bedroom.’

  Chapter 28

  Noah got out of the tuk-tuk. The surveillance car was still parked outside his hotel. Seven cars behind that he saw Sahara.

  He pulled out his sat phone from his bag. It was 4 am in London but he called anyway.

  ‘Hello . . .’ her voice was thick and confused with sleep.

  ‘It’s me – sorry to wake you.’

  ‘Noah? Is everything okay?’ She was awake now. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing, Maggie. I just wanted to hear your voice. I’m almost done here. I’ll be back soon.’

  ‘Noah . . .’

  ‘Do you remember that raggedy bear Sera used to sleep with? Its leg kept falling off. You had to sew it back on. Six times, I think.’

  ‘Seven times, damn bear.’

  ‘Damn bear.’ It hurt to breathe. ‘Do you still have it?’

  ‘Of course I still have it. I have everything.’

  ‘Could I maybe have it sometime? Not to keep – just to see it.’

  ‘You want the bear?’

  ‘I just want to see it . . . Does it still smell like her?’ He closed his eyes and tried to recall it. Recall her.

  ‘A bit. You can see the bear. You can keep it. Or we could share it. Noah . . .’

  ‘You don’t need to say anything. I just wanted to hear your voice. I’m sorry to disturb you. Good night, Maggie.’

  ‘Good night, Noah.’ The phone went dead. He dropped it back in the bag as he passed the hotel manager’s desk.

  Later, he would remember that the desk was empty.

  *

  Noah secured all the windows and doors. He looked through the brain scans Crawford had sent to his handheld, his finger flicking the screen faster and faster. He studied each brain tumour, expanding it and then focusing on different segments.

  The tumour was located in the specific area of the brain where faith was generated – the specific area that should have been damaged by the vaccine given to the Eastern Alliance.

  What if Khan was right? What if the brain was adapting to the Faith Inhibitor, treating it like a virus and fighting it off with this tumour?

  Noah knew that region of the brain intimately. He had memorised his daughter’s scans. He knew the contours and shades of her frontal lobe, the tumour and the oedema, as well as he knew the lines of her lips when she laughed, the creases on her hands when she played.

  He knew the colours: the pinks, reds and blues of this section of the brain too, when he opened the heads of men who wouldn’t give him answers.

  Noah traced the lines of the tumour across his own forehead.

  What if the tumour was the body’s adaptive immunity response – its way of protecting the frontal lobe from the Faith Inhibitor – and maybe even regenerating the parts damaged by it?

  He remembered Hassan Ali’s words: ‘It yearns to be felt by others . . . It wants to be loved again. It told me what to do. It wants to come back.’

  There was a name for ‘It’. In the Eastern Alliance, before the Armistice and the Faith Inhibitor, there had been many names. He had called them out in reverence, and then when his daughter was dying, in despair and anger.

  He picked up his handheld and checked the shape of the tumour again. As Garner had identified, the tumour was not the typical amorphous mass that was expected from such cancers. It was a shape, a pattern – a familiar intricate circle. A cosmic design that spoke of a universal energy. A malignant growth, its blackness weaving through a man’s brain, killing him but restoring his faith.

  *

  Noah pulled out the crumpled New England Journal of Medicine from his jacket.

  ‘Mining the shadows’ by Dr Amir Khan and Dr Jack Neeson. They wrote it while completing a fellowship in London together.

  ‘The thesis of this paper is that the structure of any cell can be replicated to create an imitation or “decoy” that operates in the host as though it were the original cell.’

  Noah turned back to the front page of the journal – it was published in April 2018, two years before World War R began. Seven years before the borders came down; before the Armistice and the Global Vaccination Programme. He kept reading:

  ‘All cells have a DNA and a shadow DNA which is identical in shape but neutered in power, hence the name “shadow”. If properly extracted or mined, the shadow components of DNA can be used to develop complex structures that mimic their predecessor’s presence in the host without harming it.’

  The process had failed, but twenty years later, technology had evolved, giving Khan the ability to do this with Devi. Technology had also given that ability to Neeson.

  At the front of the article, there was a photograph of the two scientists seated at a lab desk. They were smiling the exultant smile of men who had discovered something; the easy smile of men who were friends.

  Noah flicked to the conclusion of the article. In an insert box was a polemic titled ‘Eradication is impossible; why immunity should always be maintained’. He recognised Khan’s words, or were they Neeson’s?

  ‘The virus has a place and a purpose in our ecosystem. It is Nature’s culling mechanism – it should be respected not feared . . .’

  He wished now that he had read all the papers Neeson had sent him over the years. He turned pages quickly, trying to find the Ebola case study. There it was – a photograph of the test vaccine that Neeson and Khan had tried to create.

  He remembered Neeson calling his attention to the structural tag attached to Hassan Ali’s decoy vaccine – the ornate circle that led him to Khan in the first place. Neeson had asked him if the ghost was just leaving a signature or if he was trying to communicate with them.

  The photograph in the old journal needed far greater magnification – but Noah was certain that if he could have expanded the image in front of him, he would see the tag: the scientists’ shared signature of a mandala.

  Chapter 29

  Noah logged on to the WHO portal and typed in a quick search. Nine papers came up, written by Neeson, many with research contributions from Khan. None of them were about DNA mining.

  He knocked on Crawford’s door.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Can you access any of Khan’s old research papers? Is there a database at Colombo General or an archive somewhere in the Eastern Alliance system that you could have a look at quietly?’

  ‘We’re always quiet, Chief, except for Garner – in my imagination she’s loud. Efficient but loud.’

  ‘Keep talking like that and it will only ever be in your imagination. Answer the question.’

  ‘Is there somethi
ng in particular you’re looking for or do you want every paper Khan’s written?’

  ‘Not every paper, I don’t have time.’

  ‘What exactly are you looking for?’

  ‘Research on DNA mining and cell replication. Also, any submissions for live trials that he’s made. And any applications for patents for new drugs. Also, Devi – I want to know why Neeson would requisition the new AILA for Khan? I think Sri Bodhi’s parent company is Abre de Libre but I’m not sure.’ Patrice had never called him back.

  ‘You mean the ADL that supplies the world with everybody’s favourite humanity-saving vaccine?’

  ‘The very same. If you have time, I want to see any research that refutes the Weakened Immunity Hypothesis.’

  ‘Chief?’

  ‘It’s just something Khan said. I want to look at the relationship between the flu jab and the containment of Ebola in the West during the Great Pandemic. Check Khan’s papers here – and Neeson’s when we get back home.’

  ‘I’ll look into it. We’re supposed to join the WHO team in an hour – they’re swabbing the maternity ward one last time. Perhaps I could pass and work on all this for you?’

  ‘Check in with the hospital first. Hackman’s called us back. Wheels up in less than nine hours.’

  ‘I saw that – he could have sent a nicer plane.’

  ‘Next time,’ Noah laughed.

  ‘I’ll have that intel for you in a couple of hours. What are you thinking, Chief – is Khan good for it?’

  ‘I think a lot of effort has gone into making him look like he’s good for it. I’ll catch up with you later.’

  *

  Noah went back to his room and inserted the battery into his sat phone. He paused before dialling the number. It was 5.07 am in London.

  ‘Neeson, it’s me.’

  ‘Noah, what a surprise. Is everything all right?’ Neeson’s day started early. Noah waited and listened again.

  ‘Everything’s fine. I’m getting to know Khan. He mentioned he did his fellowship with you. I asked him what he missed about the West and he said working with you.’