by Tim Flanagan
29. An Important Find
They took their first nervous steps into Coldred's research facility.
The corridor that connected the fire escape to the outside world was bordered on both sides by small cupboards, some filled with cleaning products, mops, buckets and brushes; others with unidentifiable boxes stacked on staging that sagged beneath the weight. They took a moment to check the boxes and see if any were similar to the ones that Steven had been given, but none were. A strong smell of disinfectant and bleach filled their nostrils, but there was also a faint stale smell. They left the door open to allow light and the fresh air into the corridor. At the end was a wooden door next to an adhesive wall sticker that listed many different hazard icons as well as the rules and regulations about the room they were about to enter. As Steven looked at it, he laughed to himself; they needed to add two more warnings, one for aliens, the other for power-hungry American Military Personnel. Tracker pulled the handle down and opened the door slightly. He peered through the gap and glanced around the room beyond. The ceiling was made up of metal reflective light panels which projected a strange blue glow over the room. A series of white desks each with a thin plasma monitor and chrome lamp, were neatly lined up down the centre of the room. Around the outside edges was another continual white desk with glass jars, fume cupboards and microscopes neatly arranged upon it. Although they knew this was a workplace, everything looked so neat and tidy it didn’t seem possible that up until only a few days ago it had been a working laboratory.
They moved into the room. Steven and Tracker stood protectively in front of Georgia. The laboratory was silent. They began walking along one side of the room towards the next nearest door they could see. It looked like some sort of security door. It had a shiny steel frame with an electronic keypad mounted on the wall beside the handle. At the top of the door was a circular glass window like a porthole in a boat. Whilst Tracker kept watch on the rest of the room, Steven looked through the window. On the other side of the door the glass was smeared with blood and handprints. The room appeared to be some sort of isolation booth. On the desk furthest from the door was a glass partition with two holes at waist height. Through these holes two rubber sleeves protruded into a glass cabinet where something small and white was lying on a metal trolley. The thing, which had obviously been alive at some stage, was now a contracted rigid body, about the size of a child's, with metal probes protruding from its sides. Steven pushed his face closer to the porthole window so that he could see further into the room. On the floor was the body of a man. His white lab coat was unbuttoned at the front and splayed out across the floor like a death shroud. By now, the man was as rigid and pale as the alien he had been probing. His hands were a mass of blood caused by his desperate attempts to escape from the isolation chamber after the power had gone down.
‘Let’s move on,’ said Steven as he turned away from the door.
They walked around the edge, keeping a wall behind them so they had full view of the room at all times. Steven glanced up at the ceiling, double checking they weren’t walking into a similar situation to the one they had found themselves in, in the canteen below MI6.
They moved through a pair of double doors into another lab room. This one was slightly different. Stacked on top of the units were various pieces of equipment with multiple syringes hovering over rows of miniature test tubes and shelves with glass dome-shaped bottles and multi-coloured plastic trays. Thick electricity cables hung down from the ceiling like the tentacles of an octopus, separated only by a series of metal tubes that bounced daylight from the roof down into the lab. There were also white cylindrical hinged arms that hung from above and attached to large round magnifying glasses. Along both sides of the room the walls appeared to be made of glass, giving an openness that made them feel vulnerable. It felt like they were walking through a hall of mirrors with multiple reflections and a never ending view. This room was not easy to check. To start with, they couldn’t see around the room because of the tall equipment blocking their view at various places, but because of the limited light they were constantly jumping at their own reflections in the glass.
‘Let’s work down one side first,’ whispered Tracker.
Steven nodded.
They moved towards a long window and tried to peer inside. There was even less light in the adjoining rooms. Tracker pulled his flashlight out of his pocket and shone it through the glass. They could see a row of stainless steel sinks, a hand towel dispenser, latex glove boxes and piles of neatly stacked pale-green operating gowns.
They moved along the window until they passed a metal partition, then looked into a narrow room with a row of isolation booths. Each booth had different things inside; one had an assortment of tropical plants, which were now beginning to wilt from a lack of care, another had petri dishes stacked on metal staging. The last booth had a large glass jar inside, although there wasn’t much of the jar remaining as the contents had overflowed and spilled onto the ceramic board it was standing on and were now creeping up the sides of the glass booth. It reminded Steven of the night the creatures attacked. He had seen something similar to this multicoloured fungus on Coldred’s computer. What he was looking at was the creature in its early stages of development as it grew from the bacteria.
They crossed to the other side of the room, cautiously checking behind each desk and piece of equipment and making sure there were no creatures. None of them knew to what extent the lab had been experimenting on the bacteria and it could easily be possible for a creature to have been grown in the lab and still be inside with them.
The other side of the room also had a long window, but they couldn’t see through to what was beyond. The glow in the room had prevented them from realising that they weren't actually looking at a window, it was a mirror that was reflecting the room. To the side of the long mirror was a door that was partly open. They moved towards it.
Tracker stood against the door frame listening. Then he slid silently through the gap and into the room with his gun poised and ready to fire. Steven and Georgia waited.
‘It’s ok. Come on in,’ whispered Tracker's voice from inside the room.
The other two entered. On top of a desk in the centre of the room, was a computer, a phone and a pen. In the corner was a tall grey filing cabinet whilst in the opposite corner next to a window was a matching grey stationary cupboard. Tracker was looking at a framed photograph on the wall. In it was a man in military uniform having a medal pinned to his chest. The face of the man was familiar to them all; it was Coldred.
‘This must be Coldred’s office,’ said Tracker.
‘From what he said at the bank about controlling who had the tablets and who didn’t, it seems likely that, if there were any here, he would have kept them near him,’ replied Steven. ‘Let’s search the room before we move on.’
As Tracker was nearest to the filing cabinet, he pulled the first drawer out. There wasn't anything unusual about the suspension folders and the files they contained. He began flicking through each file just in case there was any information within them that might be useful. Steven checked the desk. There were two small drawers hanging beneath that contained the usual items like pens, paper and keys, as well as something more unexpected. Steven lifted a blue plastic case from one of the drawers and placed it on top of the desk. Inside were two clear plastic syringes, both filled with a clear jelly like substance.
'What do you think this is?' Steven asked the others as he examined them. There was some handwriting inked on the side of each syringe.
Georgia moved over to the stationary cupboard and pulled at the door, but it was locked shut. Steven noticed her struggling.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Try these.’ He passed the small set of keys from the desk drawer to her. The first key didn’t even fit inside the hole; however, the second one slid in easily and unlocked both the doors. Inside were cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other. She took the first out and used the sharp edge of one of the keys
to cut the plastic tape that held the cardboard flaps down.
‘It’s here,’ she said, turning to Steven.
Steven and Tracker left what they were doing and went over to Georgia. Steven took a blister pack from the first box and examined it. The outside of the box matched what he had been carrying around with him for the last few days.
‘I think we should take some straight away,’ Steven said to Georgia. ‘Your wound could easily become infected with the bacteria unless we can get the antibiotic back into your blood stream.’
Taking out some bottles of water they had brought with them, they placed a couple of tablets in their mouths and swallowed. They then removed all the boxes of tablets from the cabinet and placed them on the top of the desk, before separating them into equal amounts and storing them inside each of their hold-alls.
With only one arm functioning, Georgia couldn’t help the other two carry the boxes so she continued to explore the room. Opposite the desk was another internal door that she assumed would take her into the room behind the long mirror. She pushed on the door allowing it to swing inward. Stretched along one side of the room was a long window where the mirror had been on the other side.
‘The mirror is actually one way glass,’ she said to the others who quickly appeared behind her.
‘Must have been Coldred’s way of keeping an eye on his staff without them knowing,’ said Tracker.
‘Maybe,’ agreed Steven who was looking at two chairs in the middle of the room.
Just then something on the other side of the glass caught his eye.
Steven looked out into the laboratory wondering if he was seeing his own reflection. But then he saw something again. A shadow moved from behind one machine to another. Knowing that they couldn’t be seen behind the glass, he continued to watch, gripping tightly to his gun.
‘Look,’ Steven whispered to Tracker. He pointed to a shadow across the floor beyond one of the desks. Everyone waited and watched.
Eventually the shadow dashed behind another desk. Then another, until it was almost level to where they were standing. They waited until it moved again. As it did, they noticed that it was a woman wearing an overly large white lab coat that swamped her skinny figure. Her hair was untidy and her eyes darted nervously from behind wire ring spectacles as she rapidly scanned the room.
Tracker moved back into Coldred’s office.
The lady must have heard movement because she turned her head towards the open door of the office and noticed Tracker carrying his gun. As she raised her hands in submission, she launched a glass bottle at Tracker then ran towards the exit. Tracker easily ducked the bottle, allowing it to smash on the wall behind him then leapt forward after her.
A couple of large strides and Tracker was close enough to grab onto the tail of the lady's billowing lab coat.
'Calm down,' he said. 'I won't hurt you.' He held onto her arms so she couldn’t throw anything else, but there was no more fight left in her. In fact, Tracker almost thought that she leant into him, glad of the human contact and too exhausted and weak to resist any longer.
30. Doctor Beth Stanton
'My name is Doctor Beth Stanton. I work here.' The woman now sat on a chair inside Coldred's office. She had taken a bit of reassuring from Georgia before she calmed down enough to speak.
'Are there any others?' asked Steven.
'No. At the end of the day shift they all left and never came back.'
'Why didn't you leave with them?'
'I arrived in the afternoon ready for the nightly observations. It was my turn for that shift. The lab is manned by one person every night so that we can monitor any experiments that are sensitive to changes in temperature, humidity, or if any animal reactions need to be logged.'
'Did you know what was happening outside?' asked Tracker.
'No,' Dr Stanton sobbed. 'I was inside the monitoring chamber watching the animals. There's a bed in there that allows us to sleep, but any change in the animals creates an audible warning that wakes you up.'
'Did you wake up at all?'
'I was woken a couple of times during the night, but not by the alarm system. It was only in the morning that I realised the power was down.'
'What was it that woke you?' Steven asked.
'Some of the animals were agitated, so I just increased their sedation and went back to sleep.'
'And you didn’t hear anything outside?'
'Not really. It sounded like there was a storm overhead. There was a lot of wind, the roof kept rattling. There are no windows inside the chamber, so I had no way of knowing what was happening outside.'
'What animals were you looking after?' said Steven.
'Various small animals, but I was mainly responsible for the cattle. We had two pigs I was to stay and monitor.'
'You said had. What happened to them?' asked Tracker.
'One died yesterday. The other's still alive.'
'Do you know what they were being monitored for?'
Dr Stanton shook her head. 'Not really. Someone just had to stay with them in case they became ill. Temperature and heart rate are monitored wirelessly to a computer. I think a vaccine of some sort was being developed. Both pigs had been injected with different strains of it to find out which one was the most effective. It's not an area I usually work in. I'm just a research assistant for Dr Kendal.'
'Do you know what the vaccine was for?'
'No. It was classified. All I knew was the code each pig was assigned.'
'What was that?'
'The pig that survived is called Tuttle4.'
'Tuttle?' said Steven. The name rang a bell inside his head. He was sure he had heard it somewhere before.
'What about your colleagues?' Tracker asked. 'Have you seen anyone else since you arrived.'
'There was no one else on duty that night. One of the scientists, Dr Lester, was still here after everyone else had left. He often stayed behind if he was working on something he was interested in. That's his body inside the isolation booth,' she pointed out of the room in the vague direction to where Steven had seen the body trapped behind the porthole window. 'I saw Dr Lester's body inside the isolation booth the next day. When the power went off, he must have been trapped inside the room. Poor guy.'
'Why didn’t you leave the lab?' Tracker continued.
'I did. In the morning, when no one came to relieve me, I tried phoning for an ambulance for Dr Lester, but the phone lines were completely dead. I walked round the whole site, but I saw no one. I tried phoning from the security gates, but the phones were down there too. So, I began walking down the road towards the houses. That was when I saw some dead bodies, or rather what was left of them. Cars seemed to have been abandoned by the side of the road. I also saw McRae6X-4.'
'McRae?' said Steven. 'That's the name of the man who found the meteorite.'
Dr Stanton shook her head. 'McRae was the name given to a strain of bacteria that Professor Ratzberg was working on. But, something had gone wrong. We were told that the bacteria had infected some of our animals and made them mentally unstable. 6X-4 was a mutation. I assumed it had escaped into the surrounding area. I saw the body of a mutated bat that had been run over by a car. I thought everywhere had been evacuated for decontamination so I returned to the lab to wait for help. So far no one has come. Each night I hear the mutants screaming and moving across the roof. The first night after everyone left, I saw some other infectious bats in the sky as it became dusk. They're still out there.'
'Beth, I'm afraid you haven’t been told the complete truth,' interrupted Steven. 'Several meteorites fell to Earth a few months ago. Inside the core of the meteor was an alien bacteria and that bacteria has been evolving. McRae is the name of the bacteria which has evolved into creatures that have attacked the human race. Not everyone has survived. There are lots of creatures out there. The meteor shower came from the tail of the Tuttle comet. The pigs you have been monitoring are probably the test subjects for the vaccine. If Tuttle4 is still
alive then it must be effective.'
Dr Stanton placed her head in her hands and quietly sobbed. 'I've not been part of the experiments that go on here. I'm just an assistant. There had always been rumours in the village about what went on, but I never really thought it was true. We were just told it was a research facility that developed drugs against infections like HIV and Polio. What about my parents, can we take them to a safer place?'
'As far as we know, everywhere is infected with the bacteria. There are no safe places.'
'How did you survive?'
'That’s a long story,' said Tracker.
'We came here looking for this supply of antibiotics,' continued Steven. 'It prevents the bacteria affecting you, but also acts as a deterrent to creature attack. But, this is only a limited supply, once it has flushed from our bodies we will become vulnerable once again. We need the vaccine to protect ourselves and every other human that has survived, for the sake of the future of mankind.'
'Before my shift started, there was quite a frenzy of activity. Some supplies were taken from the storeroom and loaded onto lorries.'
'You mean there is no stock pile of vaccine?'
'No, like I said, it was experimental. The only vaccine left in the building is inside Tuttle4.'
'Inside the pig?' said Tracker.
'Yes.'
'Is it possible to transfer the vaccine from a pig into a human?' Steven asked.
'Not really. There would be all sorts of problems especially with blood compatibility and rejection. Also, I don’t know how much of Tuttle4's blood would need to be transferred for it to be effective.'
Everyone felt deflated. Even though they had a stock of antibiotics, it would only give them protection for a limited time.
'It's a safe bet to assume that Coldred has the experimental vaccine as well as the remaining antibiotics,' said Steven. 'My guess is that he has probably got a scientist in his group who can develop more of the vaccine for the community once his antibiotics run out.'