Philian Gregory

by Simon J. Stephens

  For the past few weeks they had been charged with investigating the cause of the cancer that was wiping out a generation of dementia sufferers. Or, to be more precise, they were charged with identifying why the magic bullet of Reforgin had done so much damage, despite it passing clinical trials with flying colours. Today, they had found the answer.

  It had been a painstaking process, demanding ridiculously long hours from them and forcing them to think beyond the narrow tracks of their training. Reforgin was just what it said it was. It was faultless in all the tests they conducted. That had baffled them at first. Knowing that the drug itself was not the root of the problem, they’d looked at its mass manufacture and its distribution. On the face of it, that too was a dead end. Reforgin was created in a perfectly sterile environment to whom few were granted access and from where nothing was transported for public use without being checked for contaminants.

  Only when the scientists widened their net did the solution present itself. Galen manufactured Reforgin and distributed it via a third-party supplier. That third-party supplier, PDR, had secured the NHS contract for Reforgin, beating off a number of competitors by offering a partnership scheme that subsidised the cost of the drug substantially. Those partner companies were Sterax and Whitehead. To them, Reforgin was a gateway into lucrative new contracts and the cost of supplying the equipment needed to administer the drug was one that would be recouped many times over as their brand names became synonymous with the new miracle drug. They put together ‘Reforgin Kits’ which they shipped out across the health service. That kit was what won PDR the contract, since peripheral ancillary costs threatened to put a strain on NHS resources.

  Reforgin had to be administered in a very precise way and directly into the frontal cortex of the brain. During clinical trials, this process had been performed by trained brain surgeons with teams to assist. The cost of using such a method, and the lack of qualified surgeons, was the major barrier to a national rollout of the drug. That is, until PDR came along with a self-contained kit, developed by Sterax and Whitehead, that could be used by GPs and nurses. The unit was simply attached to a patient’s forehead and switched on. A tiny drill made room for an even tinier needle to access the brain matter, into which the required dose of Reforgin was administered. No operating theatre, no surgeon on hand and no post-surgery follow up. It was no surprise that they won the contract.

  Once the Cambridge scientists widened their investigation to look at this method of application, they soon found out what had gone wrong. The methodology was faultless, as too was the performance of every unit they tested. Where they found an unexpected anomaly was in the interaction between the components that had been combined to make those units. Two plastics, each one perfectly sterile and inert on their own, were found to shed the tiniest amount of their mass during the drilling and injection procedure. The particles they shed, when combined, reacted with surrounding brain tissue and became the seed of the tumours that had killed or would kill every patient treated with Reforgin. This discovery would have been a cause for celebration at any other time, but it was something of a Pyric victory for them, given that their discovery of the cause would have no impact at all on the outcome.

  It was four in the morning when they signed off on their findings. From the outset of the project, they’d been authorised to do whatever was necessary and ordered to report any conclusions the moment they were reached. That had made sense at the time, but for Professor Charles Bridges it was now the cause of the sweat on his brow and the shaking of his hands. He wasn’t good with people at the best of times. Now he would have to make a call and wake up the sort of person that he didn’t think would appreciate the interruption. Still, orders were orders.

  “Sir.”, he spoke cautiously as the sleepy voice answered, “This is Bridges. From the lab. You asked us to call the minute we knew.”

  “Professor Bridges.”, the reply had no hostility in it, “Yes, that’s fine. Give me a moment please.”

  Bridges could hear the rustle of bed-clothes, the phone being placed on a dresser and the sound of clothing being hastily thrown on.

  “Sorry about that.”, the call resumed, “Talk to me.”

  “We’ve sent you our findings via e-mail, but you wanted to hear it from us first. We’ve confirmed the cause of the cancer.”

  He explained in detail what they had discovered and answered the surprisingly astute questions that were thrown at him.

  “So, in summary,”, he was asked, “you’re telling me that this is simply an unforeseeable accident. A freak reaction that nobody could have predicted?”

  “That’s about it, Sir.”

  “Well, thanks. It’s good work. And it makes some sort of sense, even though it doesn’t make things any better. You think the public will understand?”

  “I think that the public need to know that Galen are blameless, at the least. As to the rest, that’s really beyond my remit. We can brief your spokespeople as much as they need.”

  “And we can’t blame anyone?”

  “Again, Sir, and with respect, that’s not for me to say.”

  “No, no, of course not. I’m sorry. Look, leave it with me and pass on my thanks to the team. You’ve done well.”

  The phone call ended and the man who had been at its receiving end lit a cigarette as he considered his options. Accidents happened. Natural forces did unusual things. Tsunami’s rose and wiped out cities, earthquakes bought down buildings and viruses crept into the mass of humanity unannounced. But the public were the public and they no longer liked to think of themselves as helpless participants in an infinitely complex universal play. They would want someone to blame. They would need a focus for their anger and despair. If it wasn’t to be him, then it would need to be someone else. And one would probably not be enough. PDR would have to take some of the flack. Sterax and Whitehead too. But they would be for later. He needed a fall-guy now and he knew who it would have to be.

  “David. Sorry to wake you. Need to see you as soon as, please. My place.”

  The reply was well-rehearsed and flawlessly delivered, despite the early hour.

  “Yes, Prime Minister.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Silver-tongued politicians had never been Bob Dexter’s cup of tea. He’d dealt with too many of them over the years to want any more of their syrupy words and self-promoting negotiations. Nevertheless, he listened with increasing interest as the Prime Minister gave an impromptu speech. Stuck in traffic, trying to inch into the heart of the capital, Dexter actually welcomed the diversion. It was a speech from a faraway world, one that he had stepped out of, but one that he still felt too deeply attached to. Traffic light by traffic light, he progressed nearer to his destination, driving on automatic as the radio commanded his attention.

  Martin Roper was in the second year of his second term in office and looked likely to remain in position to secure a third victory when the time came. The economy had flourished under the stewardship of his team, and, when all was said and done, a thriving economy delivered more votes than any sharp slogan or passionate promise ever could. Adept at catching the public’s mood, he’d steered the nation through the tragedy that few had yet come to terms with and there were no hints of blame laid at his feet for what Reforgin had done. That was how it should be. He hadn’t created the drug. He’d allowed those in the correct positions to oversee its roll-out, and he himself had lost both of his parents to it in the past week.

  He shared that news with the nation as he spoke. The television crews were able to zoom in on his high-definition grief but even the radio broadcasts conveyed some sense of the loss he was feeling. He’d called the press conference early that morning, delivering his speech from the steps of Downing Street and grateful that the expected rain had held off. He began with sympathetic words. From these, he progressed to the main reason for his appearance, which was to tell the world that the cause of t
he brain cancer that had delivered such a blow to every family in the land had been identified. It was the product of an unforeseen combination of factors. Galen, he stressed, were at no fault. Other parties involved in the distribution of the drug may need to be called to account in future weeks. And yet, Roper was savvy enough to know that this wasn’t enough. He wept as he took on some of the burden of guilt in the affair, presiding as he had over the government that approved the use of Reforgin. With great regret, he announced, his Health Secretary, David Fowler, had tendered his resignation. He’d accepted that resignation reluctantly and understood why his colleague had chosen to take such a step.

  Dexter knew well enough how easy it was to fall from a great height. He smiled to himself as he listened, remembering similar names and faces who had also been encouraged to fall on their swords. Strangely, his respect for Roper as a political player rose as he continued to listen. But there was more to come. The finding a cause for unimaginable numbers of deaths and the departure of a Minister wasn’t the reason that this speech would be remembered:

  “And now,”, Roper’s voice attained the perfect pitch of delivery, “I must move on to a more disturbing discovery that we have made as a result of our investigations into Reforgin. I must stress that we do not see any signs of deliberate sabotage in the events that have caused so many deaths. However, we have sound intelligence that a new group of activists has arisen among us. A group who, and it sickens me to say this, almost seem to delight in the deaths of so many of our senior citizens. I want nobody to panic or be unduly fearful. Nor do I believe that there is an imminent threat to the nation. I do have a duty though, to ask every right-minded individual in this country to be open to the fact that the organisation that calls itself The New Progressives is a toxic force. Whether their malicious and evil chatter is simply that, or whether they intend to act upon a nation already suffering so much, we can’t be certain. Please join us in destroying this movement. Their philosophy and the actions they propose do not reflect British values. We have borne enough of our share of suffering already. Now is the time for us to join together in the true spirit of our great nation and not to allow opportunists to gain any ground amongst us. I thank you for the support that I know you will give me in this and I pledge to ensure that this movement is destroyed at the earliest opportunity.”

  To a stunned silence, and without taking any further questions, the Prime Minister walked away from the podium and the analytical chatter began. Others were welcome to their opinions on what had been said. Dexter had his own thoughts. He turned the radio off and continued his journey in silence, chewing over what he’d heard and thinking about the response that his two friends would make to the speech.

  At that time, they weren’t even aware that a speech had been delivered. Nor could Dexter have told them about if he’d wanted to. They were in a rare pocket of isolation at the time. A place where hard-wired communications cables had only just been laid and a place that would be several years in the waiting for reliable mobile signals.

  That remote spot, just shy of the bustling hubbub of Aberdeen, was the first stop on a marathon journey that they had committed to undertake in order to pursue the detail behind the names that Carrington’s self-directing computer had flung at them. They were names that spanned multiple disciplines, all social and economic classes and both main genders plus a few of the newer ones. They were also names that had no connection other than that they shared the absence of a connection between themselves. It was that aspect of the algorithm that Carrington now swore by that made it all a little too confusing for Philian Gregory. He chose to place his trust in Carrington and not try and make too much sense of the situation.

  The remote farmhouse that had to be their first destination was difficult to get to and required several buses and a long hike before they saw its billowing chimney. Two days it had taken them to get there. They expected to stay less than two minutes. But those were the conditions of the sale they had negotiated. Money had already been transferred anonymously by Dexter who had also used a former contact to order the goods that were now to be collected. The handover was actually completed in less than one minute. Carrington walked to the front door, knocked, was told by a disembodied voice to take the rucksack that was propped in the porch and then to leave. The rucksack appeared to be empty, but this was all about trust. And so, the two friends repeated their journey in the opposite direction.

  From Aberdeen, they journeyed to Glasgow. Glasgow became Edinburgh, which became Newcastle, then York, Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool. Travel was challenging at each point. Mourners in their thousands packed all available rail carriages. Added to that sad crew were a cheerier bunch who were making their way to solicitors and then on to inherited properties; mass death by Reforgin wasn’t a wholly negative thing.

  Arriving at Glasgow, they’d caught up with the news of the Prime Minister’s speech. It piqued their interest. For one thing, they were intrigued by the resignation of the Health Minister, whose name was somewhere in their lists. For another, they picked up on the reference to the New Progressives. They hadn’t needed to access the image of the flyer that they’d found in Farnham’s flat to study what it said, as they were being handed out at a number of places that they’d passed through. To listen to the PM, you’d think they were a terrorist group, hell-bent on death and destruction. When you read the flyer, you could only come away with a different impression. They simply wanted a fairer society. They wanted the young to have greater opportunities and the wealthy older generation to help support that. They were sinisterly radical in their call for voluntary euthanasia for the sick and the disabled, but it was that radicalism that rendered them harmless. It might have been a face-saving ploy by Roper to link them to the Reforgin issue, but the British public would never go for it.

  What the connection with terror that the Prime Minister had hinted at, was something they couldn’t see. It seemed to be a strange addition to a speech that was centred on something else entirely. They filed the information in their minds and chose to stay on the course they were currently taking. After all, they now had the tools they needed. With their own ingenuity and reckless confidence, they would make sure that those tools were used to best effect. If it all went well, they’d be back on the boat in a fortnight, much wiser than they’d ever been. If it went belly up, they’d had a good innings. They could only but try.

  That fortnight flew past. Only one person died as a result of their work, which was a surprisingly low level of damage, given the number of people they’d chosen to pursue. They didn’t dwell on that death, nor did they worry too much about the press picking up on the tragedy of such an end for one who had done so much for their country.

  The reason for that low casualty rate was simply that the tool they’d picked up in Aberdeen rendered direct human contact unnecessary. It was a highly-sophisticated flash drive that was capable of replicating a computer’s hard drive in a matter of seconds. They’d ordered, and received, more than a dozen of the units. Each one was now full of data that they’d pulled as they travelled around, none of which they’d seen, but all of which they hoped would give the computer on the boat the additional data that it needed. What was revolutionary about the equipment they were using was that it could do its job without the computer it was copying being switched on. That was the reason it was only available to some. There were people with deep pockets out there who wanted just such a tool and who would pay handsomely for it. To make it a mainstream thing would be too much hard work for only the same, or a lesser, level of return.

  Their travels had been a period of fairly simple breaking and entering. Most of the time, they hadn’t even needed to do the breaking part. It was all about observing people, biding your time and waiting patiently until the right moment came. When the home was occupied, they tended to find that late evening was best. That was the time when a drop of alcohol and a riveting television programme diverted the attention
of the resident enough for them to do what they needed to do.

  When nobody was at home, they were cruder in their approach. Their lock-pick guns worked on most doors, but when they didn’t they’d break glass if necessary. Where alarms rang, they let them hide the sound of their being in the property. It was a system that worked for them and gave them maximum results with minimum ingenious planning required. Those who knew that they’d had visitors would find something of high value missing and, after checking their stand-alone computers, would call the police and contact insurers. If there was a pattern to these events, the beauty was that those being targeted couldn’t see that pattern. They were all part of something bigger, and yet, for the most part, they didn’t know who else was in it with them.

  The death came about due to a series of unfortunate coincidences. Declan O’Connell had, despite his Irish heritage, captained the England squad in the seventies, carved out a successful career as a manager and was now in charge of the Football Association. His home, ‘Dunplayin’, was modest. That was odd. It should have been a detached mansion in the country, but it was a non-descript new-build detached on a small estate in a suburb of Manchester. Philian Gregory had chosen to be the intruder at this property with Carrington acting as support. The van they rented was an unmarked white transit that nobody would give a second glance to and the parcel they attempted to deliver looked the part. The next-door neighbour was more than happy to take the package in and also obliging enough to let Carrington in to use the toilet. This was what they’d found in their travels. Most people were nice and trusting. Sadly, that trust was misplaced this time as it gave Gregory time to enter O’Donnell’s house through the back door and make his way to the small home office set up in a box room. He’d read the drive of the computer there and was about to leave when he was disturbed. They’d seen O’Connell leave to go to a function but they hadn’t seen him return less than an hour later having succumbed to a virus that left him shaking and vomiting.