The doctor Sharon had spoken to via tablet met her at the entrance to intensive care, and helped her into an isolation suit.
‘I didn’t realise this would be necessary.’
‘It probably isn’t. I doubt we can save him. But just in case the antivirals we cooked up manage to make any headway against his pathogen load – bloody enormous, I’ve never seen anything like it – he’s going to be very vulnerable to secondary infection.’
Sharon turned round. Dr Ohoruogu had round, kind brown eyes in a round, kind brown face. Both eyes and face looked very worried.
‘So this isn’t for my protection, then? There’s no risk of it jumping from him to someone else?’
‘No, there’s no transmission vector. Once it’s woken up the artificial virus maps to the host’s epigenetic matrix and starts replicating. It’ll kill whoever it finds itself in, but it can’t infect anyone else.’ He shrugged helplessly. ‘Trouble is, anything we use to hit the virus also hits his immune system, which makes it harder for him to fight the virus. Or anything else that comes along. It’s a race to the bottom.’
‘How long does he have?’
‘If things continue as they are? Not long. If we hadn’t had that call from you, worked out what to give him, he’d be dead already. But we’re not winning, Inspector. We’re just slowing things down.’
Sounds a lot like police work. Sharon kept the thought to herself as the doctor guided her under the sterilisation lamp. She stood on the mat, closed her eyes and remained still for the first burst, raised her arms and turned slowly for the second. He repeated the process on himself and ushered her through into the room where Nance lay, barely visible beneath a mass of tubes and sensors. A clip in his nose directed oxygen-rich air down into labouring lungs. He did not move and Sharon dropped her voice to a whisper.
‘I thought you said he was conscious?’
‘He’s in and out. More out than in, to be honest, but I don’t think you’re going to have any better chances.’
She moved over to the side of the bed and looked down at the dying man. His skin had taken on an unhealthy, greyish pallor. He looked half the size of the suspect who had bluffed and prevaricated and sworn at her just a few hours ago.
‘How would he have been infected in the first place? Food? Drink?’
‘Possible, but this has moved so fast I’m more inclined to think he breathed it in. The nanites could’ve been sitting in the bottom of his lungs for years. They aren’t pathogenic themselves, they just contain the instructions. The body doesn’t notice them until they’re activated.’
‘And how are they activated? I thought the victim had to be exposed to something else, a trigger?’
‘Generally, yes. My guess is he would have breathed that in too. Would explain why the onset was so sudden.’
The man on the bed shifted. His eyelids twitched, and twitched again, and finally fluttered open, as though with enormous effort. Sharon bent over him, hoping he could see her clearly through the tight bioplastic mask that covered her face.
‘Mr Nance? It’s Inspector Varsi. Can you hear me?’
A nod that was more a suggestion than a movement. His breathing was so loud Sharon had to speak above it.
‘Mr Nance, your brother’s been informed that you’re ill, he’s on his way. Do you understand what’s happened to you?’
Again the fractional acknowledgement, and she looked over at Dr Ohoruogu in surprise. He spread his hands. ‘We haven’t told him.’
‘Heard,’ Nance whispered. It was a croak, as though just saying the word had cost him several breaths.
‘You heard us talking?’ A nod.
‘Then you know what your situation is.’ A dull, dark stare, full of exhausted resentment. She wondered if it was still all aimed at her. ‘Mr Nance, I’m sorry. I truly am. We had no idea, and I’m guessing neither did you.’ She pulled up a chair and sat, leaning forward so that her masked face was only inches from his own.
‘You know what’s at stake here. You know who did this to you. I can make sure they don’t get away with it, but you need to help me out, Mr Nance. You need to tell me who you think put these things inside you.’
He opened his mouth and tried to speak, but all that emerged was a rasping croak. ‘Duh … duuh … duuhhn …’
The effort dissolved into a fit of coughing and Dr Ohoruogu moved to the other side of the bed, tilting it up slightly and adjusting the flow of oxygen. His eyes met Sharon’s and she nodded to acknowledge the message.
He can’t take too much of this.
The spasm eased. ‘Take it easy, Mr Nance,’ she said, as soothingly as she could manage. ‘Don’t wear yourself out. Now I’m going to say a name, and I want you to nod or shake your head to let me know if I’ve got it right. Okay? Okay.’ He was so limp she wondered if he was even still awake, until she caught the glint of eyes peering at her through slitted lids. ‘Dunmore? Is that the name you were trying to tell me?’
A nod, tiny but unmistakeable.
‘Thank you, Mr Nance. Thank you very much.’ She sat back, took a deep breath. As deathbed accusations went it wasn’t much, but everything would help when it came to the warrant.
Warrant. Paperwork. Station. She leaned forward again.
‘Mr Nance, I need to ask you something else. About this morning, while you were at the police station.’ That dull stare again, flat and emotionless, too tired now to be angry. ‘After you and I spoke, but before you were taken ill. Did anyone come to see you? Anyone who wasn’t a police officer?’
He looked away and she thought he was shaking his head No, but his eyes were wandering, vacant and unfocused. His lips moved.
‘Raj,’ he mumbled.
‘Who’s Raj? A friend?’
A nod. ‘Solic … soli …’
‘Raj is a solicitor?’
A blinked yes.
‘Did he bring you anything? Give you anything? Any medicines, inhalers, anything like that?’
A shake of the head.
‘Come on, Mr Nance, think. Someone at the station this morning gave you something that triggered this. Something you would have breathed in, smelled—’ She broke off because his eyes were resting on her again, and this time seeming to see.
‘Cof-fee,’ he managed, and coughed. ‘Raj …’ And he was out of breath again.
She waited through the recovery, thinking, and made a leap. ‘You’ve known Raj since the old days, yes? He worked for the company too?’
He was halfway through another painful nod when the realisation hit him. This time the coughing, sputtering spasm was so bad she stood up and moved the chair back to give Dr Ohoruogu room to work.
When he straightened up there was no question of continuing the interview. Nance’s eyes were closed and he was breathing in harsh, whooping gasps.
The doctor lowered a mask over his nose and mouth, increased the oxygen flow again, checked the monitors and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid that’s all you’re going to get from him, Inspector.’
‘It might be enough. I’m sorry—’ She broke off with a sigh. The brother would arrive just in time to hold his sibling’s hand at the end, maybe; but any last words he might have heard had been spent instead on her. And she was not sorry. She needed them more than he did.
She went back through to the clean room, ripping at the isolation suit in her haste to get out of it, get out of here, get to somewhere where she could work through the implications of this latest twist.
An old friend who just happened to be a lawyer. Someone who could find out what he’d told the police. Someone he would trust to defend him. What a clever fucker you are, Dunmore. Or do I have Zavcka Klist herself to thank for this?
The sound of a throat being gently cleared whipped her around. Dr Ohoruogu stood there, gazing at her with his warm, worried eyes as he peeled off skinpaint gloves. He pitched them into a recycler festooned with biohazard labels and rubbed his hands together. No, wrung. This kind, conscientious doctor was literally wringing his hands
at her.
‘Inspector, can you tell me … is this a gang thing? I mean I know maybe you can’t say, but this … this pathogen … we’re not prepared for this. If this is the start of something …’
She could almost have laughed. Oh, ordinary criminals! Violence for profit! Vendettas! How I wish. Instead she peeled off her own and chucked them after his. ‘No, doctor, I think it’s the end of something. I just don’t know exactly what.’
*
Rhys slipped along the alley Sharon had described to him earlier, noting the metal panel and apparently sealed aperture of the defunct postbox, his own enhanced awareness checking for and confirming the lack of surveillance. He reached the corner where the passage emptied onto the bustle of the street, slouched casually with his back against the wall that ran between him and the Bel’Natur building, and pulled out his tablet. It was no different from the pose seen at any hour of day or night all over the city, that of one who had simply paused to check messages or directions; but he had pulled up a reflective surface and was using the tablet as a mirror, scoping the side approach to the round black tower. He located the security cams, calculated angles, observed the patterns of foot and vehicular traffic. The heat was oppressive, and he could feel the pressure building in his eyes and sinuses. Thunder rumbled in the distance, well below the hearing of most. He wrinkled his nose at the prickling that told him rain was on the way.
I’ll be long gone before it gets here.
It took only about five minutes for him to find the combination he needed, moving at the right relative speed to ensure the cover they provided would be complete, and he felt a glimmer of satisfaction. Gwen would no doubt have accused him of being excessively cautious, but no one ever came to grief that way. He did not look up as a group of office workers, hurrying to or from some meeting perhaps, came towards him along the main road. They were bunched up on the narrow pavement, chattering away, and he was confident that most were completely unaware of him swinging without fuss around the corner of the alley as they passed, and falling into step behind them. One young woman, trailing on the outside and to the rear of the group, glanced across with a flicker of interest; he kept his own gaze vacant, unseeing, and her attention shifted away just as quickly. It might not have if the ruby glow of his hair had been evident, but he had reclaimed his hooded jumper and it was as concealed as Gwen’s had been.
He was keeping an eye on a passenger van that was coming towards them, and a delivery lorry paralleling their progress on the other side of the street. The one should slow down just there at the intersection, the other speed up right now as the road widened slightly. Here was where the group he had hidden himself in would spread out as the pavement broadened, but here also came the big man he had spotted, hurrying along so that he cut across their path at exactly the point that allowed Rhys to slide up on the inside and peel unnoticed away from the group, the man, the vans – the lenses of the cams perfectly if only momentarily blocked – and into the sudden gloom of the Bel’Natur service entrance.
He was moving fast now, because there would be at least one more cam set into the ceiling that he could neither avoid nor risk glancing up to locate. He needed to be no more than a shadow himself, easily missed or dismissed as a trick of tired eyes if the cam was being monitored. A watcher would have seen only a blur, like a bird whizzing through on the wing, gone before it could be brought into focus. He judged the first infrared beam to be about knee-height and jumped it without breaking stride; the second was at around the level of his chest and he went through it as he had been instructed. The jump had barely slowed him down but he had to brake sharply for the door, heart in his mouth. Here’s where it could all go horribly wrong. He had crossed twenty feet of monitored space in the blink of an eye, but if it took more than that to get inside all his speed and subterfuge would be wasted.
The glass panel slid aside, instantly but only partially, just enough to let him slip through. He twisted his hips to clear the narrow opening as it whooshed back and sealed shut again. It would likely not even register on the system as having been opened; like his passage across the entryway it might at best be recorded as a glitch, a gremlin in the system.
Thank you, Herran.
He had been let into a small lobby, with the drab, utilitarian look of back offices the world over. It was deserted, and he heaved a sigh of relief. Herran’s message had given him a narrow window within which he could enter without risk of immediate discovery, but he did not understand how the little gem could have been so certain. Now, though, he saw that the blast doors across the central corridor were closed, and heard muffled swearing beyond them. A flashing light on the control panel to the side of the doors, another above the lifts. Herran had sealed this entrance off from the inside, probably made it look like a fault in the fire safety systems. A minor annoyance, easily corrected and therefore unlikely to arouse suspicion, but guaranteeing a few precious, unobserved minutes.
He glided around the side of the bank of lifts, found a door with no lock. The stairwell. He pushed it open gently, crouched low and slipped through, blurring again into a flattened sideways leap that took him across the landing and halfway down the first flight of stairs. It was a jump that should have sent him pitching headlong to crash, bruised and broken, on the landing below. Instead he touched down with perfect balance, feet spread three risers apart, and peered cautiously back up at the space he had just crossed. The cam was aimed at head height on the door he had come through. He reviewed the line he had taken, the angle of the jump, and was satisfied that he would not have been seen. But there were voices, clearer than those in the corridor and growing louder, along with the tramp of feet descending from above. He turned, still crouching, and slipped down the stairs.
Genetype not in datastream or archive or trash, Herran’s message had said, so quickly in response to his question that he wondered if Ari had already asked the little gem, if he had already looked. Not deleted; not there. Somewhere else, maybe.
Any idea where? he had asked, as hope faded in him, and he had had to wait for the answer. But when it came it had kicked him out of the apartment and across the city, and down here.
Empty under ground. Empty but full. Lots of space, lots of secrets. Too much power for no use. Something to not see. No cams, no streams, no good for me. Maybe you look?
The stairway curved down and down, and he followed it into the dark.
ESCAPE
It is both easier and harder than she imagined.
There has been a distraction in the air of late. Something has them worried, and it is not her. Unease ripples through the underground laboratory; indignation, embarrassment and, yes, she knows the scent of this one well: fear. It hastens their steps as they hurry to and from the lifts and in and out of meeting rooms, prods them into a shuffling half-run that looks like panic. Recriminations echo behind closed doors.
She has tried to learn what has happened, concerned most of all for how it may impact on her own plans. She senses danger in the way Dr Panborn looks at her, and then looks away as though pained. There is no more fellow feeling in it than there ever was; it is the customary look of avarice, merely uncoupled now from ownership. Panborn is not the strident, cocksure chieftain that she was. Dr Owen, who should be gratified by this, is if anything even more anxious. He mutters some bitten-off complaint about interference, and explains in small words that they are part of a bigger company and the bigger company has decided to take an interest in their work. Then he adds, ‘But nothing whatever to concern you, Aryel!’ with a false heartiness that is anything but reassuring.
So change is coming, and she has no desire to be there to meet it. She does not for a moment entertain the thought that their unknown overlords might disdain her captivity as much as she does; her secret excursions on the infostream have taught her better. She has learned enough of the world to know that liberation does not lie on that horizon. But the upheaval has won her one advantage: their preoccupation has made them less vig
ilant than usual.
So she slips from her bed in the early morning darkness of the complex, which she knows mimics at this hour the pre-dawn gloom of a sky she has never seen. A strip of tape salvaged from a rubbish bin has kept the door unlocked. She makes a brief stop in the closet where the cleaning fluids are kept, then on to the small lab crowded with centrifuges and incubation trays, and the old autoclave which is never used any more. The lab itself is set aside for blood tests and tissue sampling, the grimy wet work delegated to the most junior researchers. Except no one is junior any more, there have been no new staff for years, and everyone thinks themselves too important for so mundane a task. It has become a petty punishment of Panborn’s to assign it to whoever is out of favour. Even so they have managed to make it only a monthly chore, and the rota will not come up again for weeks.
She mixes what she has carried from the closet with what she has pilfered over months, carefully hidden behind the panels and in the crevices of machinery. Then she sets the autoclave, time and temperature selected for maximum effect, and pauses by the door, listening for any sound in the corridor outside. All is silent. From where she stands she can look back and see the numbers on the face of the machine, counting down. She whispers a benediction, and slips out.
It is the waiting that proves hard. The chemicals cooking behind her need to come to the point of full, explosive potency just when the layers of security between her and the surface are dependent most on people, who can be panicked and tricked, and least on locked doors with the finger-and retscanners that she knows she cannot fool. She can do nothing with the time but fret about the risk of discovery, and ponder the unknown into which she is about to step. But she has picked a good day, it seems: as the hours pass oh so slowly she notes that their agitation is even greater today than it has been. There is a scurry and a bustle and an anxiety that builds as the day goes on, until it borders on hysteria. It is almost as though they know something is going to happen.
‘It’s sent,’ she hears Panborn say to Owen, brusquely but with a note of defeat in her voice, and glances over to find herself being glared at with such fury it gives her an excuse to slink meekly around the corner as though on her way back to the dorm, where she is supposed to stay until she is required to present herself for inspection at the odd hour of five o’clock. She has spared no curiosity for this new indignity, whatever it may be. She will not be available.
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