by A. T. Avon
Presumably, it was like that with all Tang’s soldiers. She realized just how little power she had here. Given the ability to work with her father and Houellebecq, trusted, uninterrupted, it had been easy to fall into the delusion she was in control in some way, calling the shots. She had let herself believe she was needed. Why else would Tang allow them to work alone like that…? But the idiocy of these assumptions had just been laid bare, and Missy realized she had a choice to make. Either she formed an alliance with Tang, maintaining her access to research tools and information, or she ended up following her father and Houellebecq to… where? She didn’t even know where they had been taken. For all she knew, a prison cell exactly like the one Tang had put her in the day they first met.
Or was that even necessary? The facility was one giant prison.
She asked: ‘Where’s Kilgariff?’
‘Kilgariff betrayed me,’ said Tang, ‘so she’ll be sitting this experiment out.’
‘And my father, Houellebecq, where are you sending them?’
‘For the time being, your father and brother aren’t required.’
Brother.
The word hit Missy like a shove to the chest. She stumbled back, aware that her face had scrunched in confusion. Tang made no effort to hide his amusement. ‘To be honest,’ he said, ‘I’m surprised and a little disappointed you didn’t figure it out for yourself. Same age difference, a similar ability to heal.’
‘My brother died,’ she said.
Tang nodded. ‘Yes, initially, for a time. Long enough, in fact, to find himself in not simply a hospital but a morgue. But unlike your mother, your brother woke up.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘You should. I spent years searching for your brother. He’s like you, Missy. The two of you are incredibly rare – or at least you were until this substance overran the planet. Living samples.’
‘No.’
Tang continued. ‘I only needed one of you. You were always there in reserve, though, a lab rat if my first one died. But my first one didn’t die. In fact, he proved rather charming in his blunt, nicotine-laced way. People took well to him, and it was clear he would do anything to keep you out of my clutches.’ He laughed and held up his hands. He waggled his fingers in the air. ‘Clutches. I’ve been watching too many American movies. You’re very fond of your superheroes over there.’
Missy hardly heard this. She was rewinding through her childhood, looking for the clues she had missed. What did she feel right now? Disbelief, obviously, but beneath that…? Something else, something she didn’t want to admit to herself.
Guilt?
No.
Hope?
Maybe.
Yes.
The loss of her brother had haunted her all her life. And yet she had never once referred to it with quite the same certainty she had reserved for her mother. Why was that?
Tang said something in Chinese to one of the soldiers sitting at a console, and the soldier brought up information on a DNA test. ‘Whether or not you choose to believe the information on that screen is up to you, Missy. I don’t deny that I could’ve doctored it, but I didn’t. I ran it purely as a formality, ahead of this conversation – for your benefit.’
Missy was back to her choice. ‘What do you need from me?’
‘I need you to run the experiment again. Properly this time, without your father’s interference. I’m gambling here, Missy, as you know. I have no intention of going into details with you, that would only color your experimentation. But suffice to say, we’ll only get one shot at this.’
‘This?’
‘This,’ Tang repeated, smirking at her attempt to get just a little more information. ‘Like I said, details can wait. It is you who needs to give me details. I need your findings to confirm my own.’
‘Why can’t you do it?’
‘Frankly, it’s unsafe work.’
‘And how long do I have? What if I don’t do it?’
Tang smiled patiently. ‘By my count,’ he said, ‘that’s two questions. The first one, I don’t know the answer. You’ll provide that in time. The second one, though – well, I think you already know, Missy.’
Missy just nodded. She understood. Her family was larger than she thought, but it could be made smaller. ‘Where?’ she asked. ‘Where will I run this experiment?’
‘Same pen your father used.’
‘Starting when?’
‘Today. Now. The experiment has been reset. Or rather, transferred. We bred up rats in reserve. The natural social order has been preserved in the transfer, though there will of course be some disturbances as they settle in. You know what rats are like, Missy. They need to piss on things, establish a new hierarchy.’ He rolled his eyes theatrically. ‘Social animals, as your father would say.’
Missy felt something jab into her side, and turning her head she saw it was the muzzle of an assault rifle. One of the soldiers was nodding for her to exit the control room.
‘I’ll be watching,’ said Tang. ‘Don’t disappoint me.’
‘I don’t know where to begin. I…’ Missy felt a spasm of panic. She was suddenly flustered. ‘I don’t know half as much as my father.’
‘That’s fine. That’s why I chose you. Just follow your instincts.’
‘I need the information I stole from the Japanese lab, from the filing cabinet. I need the results of the sample I took, the flesh bite. And the young girl’s hair – from Mrs. Liu’s house. I need more to work with, Tang.’
Tang shook his head. ‘I’ll be watching,’ he repeated, before gesturing for the guard to take her away.
Missy wanted to spit on him. But she restrained herself. If Tang was to be believed, a lot was at stake. Perhaps everything. And for this reason alone, her mind was already moving ahead, on towards the pen, towards that ever-present, overriding question. Why? What did the substance want?
If she could answer that, maybe, just maybe, she could save her father and brother.
Chapter 12
Somewhere in the Gobi
Missy didn’t waste any time. She went back to the small apartment Tang had given her. She made noodles, so she’d be able to suit up and stay longer in the pen without hunger getting in the way.
Then, while she waited for the water to come to the boil, she started searching. She knew what she needed. She just didn’t know how best to find it. There were no spiders on open display today, nor any behind her bed. In fact, she didn’t have success finding a spider until she checked behind the small chest of drawers.
In all likelihood, it was the same spider she had seen earlier. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe there was a parade of spiders coming through her small apartment. Whatever the case, this one was a good start.
She looked around, wondering what she could use to catch it. She didn’t have a ready supply of containers and she didn’t relish the idea of simply reaching behind the chest of drawers and grabbing the spider with her bare hands.
She crossed to a small kitchenette and went through the drawers. Even here there wasn’t much, but in the end she settled on two small plates. She carried them back to the chest of drawers, pulled it out a little, and slid the first plate up under the spider. It was nerve-wracking. She kept imagining it jumping free of the wall, down onto the inside of her forearm.
But in actuality, it didn’t move – not for the longest time.
She nudged with the plate, and when it’s hard edge finally made contact with the spider’s long, hairy legs, it darted away from her.
Missy wasn’t fond of spiders, but in this case her instincts worked to her advantage. Her other hand, the one with the second plate, went up and blocked the spider’s path.
It stopped, as if considering this new obstacle.
Then it made a mistake. Confused, it stepped onto the second plate.
Missy quickly brought the first plate up and slid it over top of the second, creating a sort of crockery UFO.
Only then did she breathe.
&
nbsp; She realized she had been operating with her heart in a mouth for close on a minute, though of course she had always been good at holding her breath. It came with the abnormally low heart rate, with the track record of perfect health, all of which was beginning to make more sense.
Carrying the spider back to the kitchenette, she realized it went further than that. Also making sense now was the natural strength, along with the fact the only person in the world who had ever successfully ambushed her was her own brother.
Setting the spider down, she recalled the fight in Houellebecq’s private jet. She smiled. He might well have got the better of her to begin with, that needle out of nowhere, but she had certainly obtained revenge. It was a feeling of satisfaction only enhanced by her growing anger towards Houellebecq. Now that she had found time to think, she was hopeful still, but angry, too. He had deceived her for so long, prolonging her guilt, her anguish.
Had he ever planned to let her know?
She ate the noodles quickly, then used the bathroom. Again, the logic was the same. She wanted to be able to stay at the pen for as long as possible. Ideally for a few hours. She would presumably be back in a full Hazmat suit, so the last thing she wanted was the intrusion of her bladder.
When done eating, she changed into the facility clothing in the closet, then met her armed guards back in the corridor. She nodded for them to guide her to the pen, and five minutes later she suited up and walked back through the airlock with her crockery UFO.
If the soldiers were intrigued, like always they hid it well.
On the other side of the airlock, she was surprised to find West. He was in a Hazmat suit like her, standing over the Perspex roof of the five-foot-deep pen. ‘It’s ready for use,’ he said.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Good to see you, too.’
‘I want nothing to do with you.’
He grimaced. ‘Is this about me shooting you? I was only following orders, Missy. These people mean business.’
‘So that makes it okay to shoot me?’
‘Trust me, had you been in my situation, you would’ve made exactly the same decision.’
‘No, had I been you, I would’ve shot you – not me.’
He rolled his eyes. ‘You know what I meant.’
‘I want to work alone.’ She directed her words to the CCTV cameras, but if anyone heard them there was no reply. ‘Tang, can you get this jerk out of here please, so I can concentrate?’
Again, no answer.
Missy realized she was wasting her breath.
‘They’re not going to pull me out, Missy.’
‘But you can leave. So do me a favor and leave.’
‘And if I don’t?’
‘I punch a hole in your face mask.’
He laughed. ‘I’ve heard about your martial arts skills. But they didn’t do you much good, did they?’
He had a point. His physique and demeanor suggested he’d win a fight, armed or no. And if he wasn’t going to leave, Missy realized she’d have to work with him – or better yet, put him to work. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Get around the other side. See if you can find a container of some kind.’
She moved to the contraption which delivered food and other objects into the pen, before taking a quick look inside. The rats were there, as promised.
She noted all the compartments and tiny electronic devices on the pen’s inner, hexagonal walls. Hopefully it’s all as high-tech as it looks, she thought, fully intending to put it through its paces.
She raised her crockery UFO, then edged the two plates apart, expecting the giant huntsman spider to dart out.
It didn’t.
‘Okay,’ said West, ‘I’ll take the bait. What’s with the plates? What have you got there?’
‘A spider,’ said Missy. ‘Did you find a container?’
‘Not yet. They don’t exactly have Tupperware lying around in here.’
‘There must be something. And find me more spiders. They’re in here. I’ve seen them in here.’
‘Spiders for what? Rat food?’
‘No, yes. Maybe. I don’t know.’ Missy decided to give the spider a little more time before forcing it into the pen. She activated the water, misting the pen instead. She recalled what her father had said about it being a two-part process, something about a protein in the water.
One way or another, she would need to keep the water up to these rats, though she wasn’t sure how much was needed. Was a light layer of moisture enough? She had no way of knowing and was just going to have to experiment.
‘No spiders,’ declared West.
‘You can’t have looked very hard in that time.’
He appeared around the side of the pen. ‘I confess – my heart’s not in it.’
‘Just shut up and look for spiders, will you?’
She glanced up. He’d been leaning on the pen, one leg crossed over the other, like some modern-day Marlboro man. All he was lacking was the hat and cigarette dangling from the lips.
Was he flirting, even now?
He straightened up, mumbling something about her being a ball-breaker.
She twisted and addressed the ceiling. ‘Tang, what virus did you put in the pen?’
‘Plague,’ came the reply, echoing from unseen speakers in the ceiling.
So he was up there, omnipotent, God-like.
On the one hand, Missy was a little creeped out, but she was relieved, too. She would need all the technical help he could offer.
‘And the substance is already in there?’ she asked. ‘You can deploy it from wherever you are?’
‘It’s already in there.’
‘What other viruses do you have?’
‘Countless.’
‘Good, put them all in.’
There was a long pause. ‘What’s your aim here, Missy?’
‘You give me something, I’ll give you something.’
‘You want to infect the spider?’
‘I’m not sure.’ She thought for a moment and finally shrugged. ‘Maybe we hope for spider bites or…’
Tang sounded unimpressed. ‘More American movies.’
She let the remark go.
‘I don’t fully understand the mechanism, but I get the feeling that’s what you want, right? You want someone coming at this fresh? So do what I ask.’
‘Give me a minute,’ came the weary reply.
Chapter 13
Somewhere in the Gobi
It was a long minute, but after it passed Tang was back. He rattled off a list of viruses which had been set free in the pen. There must’ve been fifty different viruses, but Missy only recognized a handful of names. Flu, Malaria, Deng, SARS, measles, rubella, chickenpox, roseola, smallpox…
She had been sitting with her back to the pen while all this happened, able to hear the tiny motors whirring inside as each virus was delivered from its pre-installed position on the inner wall.
‘Find any more spiders?’ she asked West. She couldn’t see him, sitting and resting as she was, but could hear him clomping about in his suit, grumbling.
He reappeared beside her, breathing heavily, looking miffed. ‘No. You’re messing with me, aren’t you? This is punishment, because I shot you?’
Missy didn’t reply. She stood up, turned and settled herself down on her haunches. She once again tried to insert the spider, and this time she had success. It crept from the small, bizarre enclosure she’d created for it with the two plates and now seemed relieved to make its way into the food delivery device. ‘It’s in,’ she told Tang. ‘Can you send it down?’
‘Already doing it.’
Again, Missy heard small motors whir within the pen. She stood and peered down, but couldn’t see the spider. ‘Shit,’ she said under her breath. She had forgotten to turn the water off. The pen was still full of mist.
She didn’t know much about huntsman spiders, but she was willing to guess they didn’t like water. At least, not the sort of water which was now filling the pen.
She doubted it was good news for the viruses that had just been inserted, either, though she didn’t have the first clue about most of those.
‘The water,’ she said. ‘There’s too much.’
‘No,’ said Tang. ‘I switched it off earlier. It’s just residue. I’ve upped the heat a little, that’s why it’s fogging. But it’ll clear quickly.’
‘Will it mess things up?’ she asked.
‘Shouldn’t.’
‘Okay.’ She took a deep breath, slowly blowing out. ‘Okay, good.’
This just might work.
She turned and made her way back towards the airlock, confusing the soldiers waiting for her on the other side. They ran her through the standard process, washing her suit off with chemicals, then peeling it from her. She had been wrong about needing to stay with the pen. She had made that plan before she knew West would be there with her.
She would wait it out in her own apartment.
Chapter 14
Somewhere in the Gobi
That night, Missy couldn’t sleep. Partly, it was the murmuring of the guards outside her door. That, and the stench of their cigarette smoke. But it went beyond simple irritations. Her mind was on the pen. What was happening in the pen? Tang had refused to let her connect her phone to the pen, as her father had done. She didn’t know the reason for this and he hadn’t been forthcoming with an explanation. But whatever the case, if she wanted to know what was happening with her experiment she was going to need to get dressed and return to it.
She put this off for as long as she could, but sometime around 1 a.m. her patience ran out. Curiosity beat out the desire for sleep.
She spoke with the guards outside, and they reluctantly took her back to the airlock. She suited up, passed through and quickly crossed to the pen.