by Greig Beck
She raised her hand to her cheek and felt the rash pimpling the flesh. Suddenly she became very aware of her body odour and the greasy strings of black hair that hung over her eyes. Alex, as usual, looked perfect…at least to her.
She sucked in a deep breath of humid air, squared her shoulders and pulled the cabin door open calmly and slowly.
I’m going to be relaxed and wait for him to come over to me. I’ll just shake his hand and maybe kiss his cheek, like old friends do. After all, that’s what we are now.
She stood on the top step, fidgeting. She felt as if time had slowed down. Oh, fuck it, she thought, and stepped to the ground with a casual smile and her hand outstretched. Her bare foot sank into a mud puddle. Yech, forgot the boots, didn’t you? She stretched her smile even wider.
Alex’s extraordinary senses were concentrated on the woman coming towards him, and as she approached he absorbed every bit of information about her – her eyes, her mouth, her heartbeat and breathing. She swallowed, then swallowed again. Her heart was racing in her chest.
She was as beautiful as he remembered, but tired; she looked so very tired. He probably should have expected that – the quarantine order, the power failures, the heat and humidity. But there was something else he could sense within her: fear. Not of him, or the jungle, but of something else – an instinctive fear of something dangerous. The same thing Alex could feel all around them – a hopeless dread hanging over the camp.
He kept looking at her, trying to see deeper into her, trying to read the woman who had once shared his life. Sometimes he was able to pick up potent mental images created by strong emotions. Unfortunately, Aimee’s mind was clouded with fatigue, fear and stress.
Alex flipped his gun over his shoulder so it hung at his back, prepared to fold her in his arms – a reflex from their past time together. He quickly adjusted the action as her hand came up for a formal greeting. Surprised, he took it but didn’t shake; he just held her hand and looked into her eyes, their familiar soft blue.
‘Aimee,’ was all he said, all he could manage. She had once been the most important woman in his life. A bond had formed between them in the ice caves in the Antarctic, and it had grown stronger during the time they’d spent together after that. Even though their relationship was over, that bond refused to break, at least for him. It was still so strong that he would have sensed her death as keenly as if he had lost a limb.
‘Thank God you’re okay,’ he said, continuing to hold her hand.
She just stood there looking up at him, her mouth opening then closing without any words coming out. Seconds passed before they both heard someone clear their throat at the jungle’s edge.
Alex got the message. ‘Okay, come on in,’ he called.
The HAWCs stepped out from the jungle and Alex saw Aimee’s smile when she saw his second-in-command.
‘Samuel Jackson Reid, he dragged you down here as well?’ she said in delight.
Sam had become a good friend to Aimee when she and Alex were a couple, and later had offered a rock-solid sounding board for her anxiety about Alex’s rages.
‘Of course I came, young lady. The boss here said something about nature walks, tropical fruit and sunshine – and, well, who could resist?’ He gave her a wink and a smile.
The scientists and the two local boys had followed the HAWCs into the clearing.
Aimee turned to look at them, then nodded to Maria Vargis. ‘I’m hoping you’re Dr Vargis. Thank heavens you’re here.’ She stuck her hand out, but Maria had looked away and seemed to miss the gesture.
Alex introduced Aimee to the rest of the team. He noticed that Michael Vargis blushed slightly when he shook her hand, and that Casey Franks also looked at her with admiration and interest.
By now many of the workers had poked their heads out of their tents, and their curious murmurs were waking the others. In a few more minutes, the camp’s remaining residents surrounded the HAWCs. A man wearing a creased piece of paper pinned to his T-shirt approached Aimee.
Maria Vargis’s shout startled them all. ‘Keep them back!’
Captain Garmadia seemed to take it as an instruction. He shouted in Spanish and put one hand on his sidearm, waving his other hand at Tomás and then at the rest of the men encircling them.
‘Leave them alone!’ Aimee shouted at the Paraguayan soldier. She waved Tomás closer. ‘He’s okay. He translates for me and has been very helpful.’
Tomás looked from Aimee to Garmadia, who kept his hand on his gun.
‘At ease, cowboy,’ Alex said softly.
When Garmadia didn’t immediately relax, Alex turned to lock eyes with the man. Garmadia slowly took his hand from his holster and folded his arms.
Maria brought her hands up in a placating action. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle anyone. It’s just that until we have a chance to examine the men, we have to remember we’re in a bio-hazardous area and everyone and everything is potentially infectious – including Dr Weir here. We should continue to live off our own food and water for a while.’
Aimee gave the scientist a flat smile. Like Alex, she probably now realised that Maria Vargis hadn’t missed her outstretched hand earlier. She turned to Tomás and said quietly, ‘It’s all right. Could you please ask the men to return to their tents and the doctor will come to examine everyone a little later?’
Tomás frowned for a moment, then nodded slowly and turned to speak to the men. Most shrugged and turned to leave, but a few continued to stare. Tomás spoke to them again, but they ignored him, talking rapidly to each other. Garmadia yelled at them in Spanish and Alex noticed Tomás cringe, as though shielding himself from a blow. The remaining men moved away quickly, but Tomás merely retreated twenty paces.
Alex had counted the men as they left. He examined the clearing: the dried mud churned up by hundreds of footsteps, the surrounding deep jungle, the burnt-out cabins at the rear – his eyes missed nothing.
‘Aimee, where is everyone? There’s supposed to be almost one hundred men down here. I count twenty-five, give or take.’
‘There are twenty-seven still here, counting myself. Another twenty dead or strapped down in isolation, and the rest…’ Aimee looked out into the surrounding green. ‘About a dozen ran off into the jungle; we don’t know where they went. The other forty or so went with the priest, and never came back.’
Garmadia looked both perplexed and annoyed. ‘Forty of the men went with a priest? What priest? We know of no current mission here in the jungle basin area.’
Aimee shook her head wearily. ‘I don’t know. He looked and acted like a priest, sort of. He said he had a mission nearby. He offered to hold a mass for the men, and they went with him last night, and they haven’t come back yet. That’s all I know.’
‘My orders are to ensure that the gas-extraction operation goes back online. How is that possible without any men? Mierda! Where is Alfraedo Desouza, the site manager?’
Garmadia’s voice was getting sharper as he addressed Aimee. Alex’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he kept quiet. He’d cut the Paraguayan a little slack; the man had a job to do, and it looked like it was going to be a lot harder than he’d expected.
Aimee sighed. ‘Alfraedo’s gone too. He went into the jungle to look for the men who destroyed our equipment, and he never came back. They’re all…just gone.’
She needs to sit down, thought Alex. He put an arm around her shoulders and guided her to the step of her cabin. He felt her lean into him slightly as they walked.
Garmadia followed them. ‘Have you looked for the missing men yet, Dr Weir? Have you questioned the remaining men? They may know—’
‘Fuck off,’ Aimee said, sitting on the step and letting her hair fall over her face.
‘That’s enough,’ Alex said to Garmadia, who looked as if he was about to get into interrogation mode. The edge to his voice pulled the Paraguayan up short and he backed off a step.
Alex kneeled down beside Aimee and spoke softly. ‘So, how’s the h
oliday going?’
Her mouth turned down and she shut her eyes for a second. ‘The margaritas are warm and the swimming pool is too cold.’ She wiped her nose and gave him a watery smile. ‘I’m glad you came.’
‘I’ll always come for you. Are you up to helping us?’
She nodded.
Alex mouthed good to her, then, still half-kneeling, turned to the group. ‘Sam, you and Mak check the communications and power – I want the generator back up before dark. Franks, you assist Dr Weir and our CDC friends in setting up, and get them anything they need. Captain Garmadia and I will walk the perimeter. One more thing: remember your quarantine procedures.’
This last was greeted with a ‘Yes, boss’ and the HAWCs dispersed.
Alex noticed Chaco edging forward to get a better look at Aimee’s face. He turned to Garmadia. ‘Captain, please pay the boys what we owe them and send them home.’
‘Sorry, they’re not going anywhere,’ Maria Vargis said. ‘Captain Hunter, this is a quarantine zone. You enter, you stay, until we give the all-clear.’
Alex realised he should never have allowed the boys to enter the camp. He thought briefly about arguing with the CDC woman, but she held his gaze and tilted her head, perhaps welcoming any challenge. He sighed and nodded. ‘You’re right.’
To Garmadia he said, ‘Cancel that order. Just tell the boys to stay out of trouble and not to touch anything.’
He looked around the camp again and spotted Tomás. When the man noticed Alex’s eyes on him, he looked as if he were about to flee. Alex gave a friendly smile and waved him over.
‘Señor Tomás, I am pleased to meet you. I am Captain Alex Hunter, a friend of Dr Weir’s.’
Tomás’s eyes slid to Aimee. She nodded to him, and he looked back at Alex.
‘I want to thank you for helping Dr Weir,’ Alex went on. ‘Now, we’re going to see what it is that’s making the men sick, and also try to get the power back on. The sooner we work out what’s happening here, the sooner we can all get back to work, or go home. Okay?’
After a moment, Tomás gave a small nod. Alex held his hand out and Tomás grasped it, flashing a quick, near toothless smile.
Alex glanced at the uneven muddy ground, then at the red stains on Tomás’s and Aimee’s legs. He scanned the camp perimeter, then looked back at Tomás. ‘I need your help, señor. We cannot work on this surface. If it rains again, we will be up to our knees in mud. We need to cover the cleared ground with some matting. Can you organise the men to cut down some fronds and branches to create a thatch…er, like a mat, a cover, over the ground?’
Tomás looked around the clearing and raised his eyebrows. ‘All of it, señor?’
Alex just nodded and smiled.
Tomás gave his best grin in return. ‘Yes, this is a good idea. The men have been complaining about the mud; it coats everything. This will give them something to do and take their mind off the sickness.’
Tomás squelched over to the tents and clapped his hands to call the men together. He seemed to be relishing his authority, Alex thought.
He turned back to Aimee. Maria and Michael Vargis had joined her, and Casey Franks stood a little apart watching the jungle, her weapon cradled loosely in her tanned, bulging arms.
‘We’ve got a bit of work to do, but we’ll get things back online and then see about flying us all home,’ Alex said to Aimee. ‘Maybe a hot shower first. How’s that sound?’
She nodded and opened her mouth, then glanced at the two scientists and paused. She gave Alex a small smile and said, ‘Sounds good. Let’s catch up later.’
NINETEEN
Aimee felt a lump in her throat as she watched Alex disappear with the Paraguayan soldier into the jungle. The green closed around him so quickly it was as if he had been consumed before her eyes.
Maria Vargis stepped up next to her and followed her gaze. ‘Strong, handsome man. You are close friends – lovers once, I think? But not anymore?’ Maria raised her eyebrows and gave Aimee a half-smile.
‘Yes, no…I mean, yes, we used to be friends and still are, but no, not that close anymore. Not like that anyway.’ Aimee exhaled and rubbed her face.
Maria folded her arms under her large breasts and nodded slowly. ‘Good. We all need clear heads now.’
Michael Vargis stepped forward as Aimee rose slowly to her feet. ‘Dr Weir, we’ve reviewed all the information on the Clavicula occultus microorganism you sent us. I have to say, we found it fascinating. We’ve had no up-to-date data since you went into a communication blackout though, so it’s critical you bring us up to speed on anything else you’ve learned.’
Aimee laughed mirthlessly. ‘Clavicula occultus, my little hidden key – what a joke. It would’ve been better named something like Infernum morbus – the Hades Bug – much more appropriate for this little beast, considering the hell it’s causing us. I can’t tell you how happy I am to have someone I can share this with. I don’t have the equipment or the training – it’s gotten way beyond my capabilities now. Let’s get to work. I’ve been saving my computer battery’s energy so I can show you the results of my latest analysis. Then we can take a look at the subjects we have in isolation.’
She stepped up into her cabin and reached for a towel on the ground that was already stiff with the reddish mud of the camp. She scraped as much of the stuff off her bare feet as she could, then threw the cloth down beside the door again. ‘All right, come on in, but be warned – it’s going to be a bit cramped.’
Maria and Michael scraped their boots on the edge of the step before entering the tiny cabin. Casey Franks poked her head inside, looked left and right, then stepped back down. ‘It’s okay. I’ll wait out here, Dr Weir.’
Aimee’s desk was covered with empty water bottles, dirty T-shirts, notebooks marked with red-mud fingerprints. ‘Maid’s day off,’ she said, and swept the lot of it to the floor. She sat down, lifted the lid of her computer and switched it on. After a few seconds, it gave the warning for low battery level.
‘Let me start at the beginning,’ Aimee said, selecting a document from the list onscreen, ‘and quickly bring you forward to where we are now. My work is in petrobiology. I specialise in seeking alternatives for our rapidly diminishing fossil fuels. I came down here for a number of reasons. My primary objective was to assist a friendly nation confirm a significant natural gas cavern and advise on its safe extraction, super compression, and plan for its delivery to the coast. My secondary objective was a little less official.’
She opened another folder and brought up images of molecular chains breaking apart and recombining with each other. ‘We know that at least twenty per cent of the world’s natural gas is generated from microbial activity. This process, called methano-genesis, represents the key to a possible renewable resource. To date we know a lot about the high-level process, but the actual microbial-related elements of the conversion are still a mystery.’ She flicked though some more screens. ‘To find trace evidence, let alone a sample, of the methanogenesis key could lead to the solution for synthesising the microorganic fuel-production process in a laboratory. Cheap and unlimited natural gas for everyone – the golden fleece of microbes for a petrobiologist.’
‘Impressive,’ Maria said, standing behind Aimee’s chair. ‘But let me guess. You found your golden fleece and it turned out to have sharp teeth.’
Aimee nodded slowly and switched to the samples from the drill head. ‘You could say that. I needed a primordial sample – deep, dirty and not yet fully cooked – to be able to detect and extract any living microbes.’ She sat back and ran her hands through her hair before swivelling to look at Michael and Maria. ‘Yeah, it has teeth all right. Turned out to be very efficient at converting polymers and hydrocarbons to the base components of petroleum and natural gas. Has a huge appetite for hydrocarbons. In fact, it turns out it has a taste for all types of carbon, even biological. One of the men must have gotten some into his system somehow – it literally ate him down to nothing. I’m not
talking about a bleed-out or even severe necrosis; it was more like some type of biocorrosive got into his body and converted him into…something other than flesh and blood.’
Aimee stood up, stretched her back and indicated that someone else should take her seat. Michael sat down and immediately increased the magnification of the bacterium on the screen. He studied it closely for a few seconds, frowned and leaned his chin on his hand.
‘Well, it’s got a weird protein coating, but there are certainly bacterial chains…and we’ve seen that primitive strep-type organisms are similarly linked.’ Michael shrugged. ‘After all, one of the haemolytic streptococci is responsible for necrotising fasciitis symptoms, and once that little monster gets established under the skin, its sole focus seems to be to liquefy flesh – at a rapid rate too.’ He looked up at Aimee. ‘There are documented cases of it destroying flesh at nearly one inch every six hours.’
‘An inch over six hours, huh?’ Aimee nodded wearily at the screen. ‘Well, this thing fully dissolved an entire grown man down to some type of black liquid in under twenty.’
Michael stared at her. ‘That’s ah, around one inch every fifteen minutes…definitely not strep-based then; and maybe too fast to treat by the time infection is identified. And, in any case, treat with what?’ He turned back to the screen and traced the outline of one of the microbes with his finger. ‘These are strange – the spheres are just slightly more oval than spherical, and there seems to be a rigid mobility filament.’ He swung around in his seat and looked at Aimee again. ‘Your Hades Bug is aggressive and seems in a hurry.’
‘For every attack there’s a counterattack,’ Maria said. ‘We just need to learn more about our little invaders. Let’s have a look at the men in isolation and draw some samples. Then we can do some further analysis. Is there somewhere we can set up, Dr Weir?’
Aimee thought for a few seconds. Cabins were becoming a scarce resource now the sick were multiplying and their infirmaries eventually became their funeral pyres.