ARIA

by Geoff Nelder

  Jena whispered to Laurette, “He thinks he’s destroyed his sample before you could examine it. Don’t let on just yet. I know it’s unlikely, but there wasn’t any trace of alcohol in his blood, was there?”

  “Jena, there’s not been a drop in the centre for weeks—unless you know different—but I didn’t test for it. I could do though.”

  “I don’t fancy taking another sample.” Jena could feel her heart pounding from the fracas and didn’t want any acceleration.

  “His blood is on the floor from where he broke the slides.”

  Ryder rushed in from the kitchen followed by Abdul, who said, “I just returned from patrolling the perimeter. We watched smoke from bonfires, house chimneys.”

  “Yes, but from miles away on the coast,” Ryder said, looking concerned at the blood-decorated glass on the floor. He held out an arm to comfort Jena.

  Abdul toed broken glass to one side. “I saw two, several miles apart and one from the nearest village. What’s its name? Aber-gobbledygook.”

  “Abergwyngregyn,” Ryder said. “We gave you a map so you could give an accurate report. Three miles isn’t far.”

  “It is autumn now,” Jena said. “People need more fires to keep warm. It doesn’t mean they are creeping in on us. We have something else to report. Something important. About Antonio’s blood.”

  Tuesday 6 October 2015:

  Anafon

  WHEN ANTONIO AWOKE FROM ANOTHER DAYTIME SLEEP, Jena noticed everyone being wary of him. She couldn’t avoid him: his maniacal character was more virus than a reaction to being isolated. They had to know if it would happen to them. Megan was the sole member of the centre who didn’t break out in a cold sweat at the sight of him.

  Abdul and Vlad played poker in the refectory when Jena saw Antonio stagger in, half-asleep. She saw Dan sitting, reading a book. He looked up but didn’t move. She had told him about the presence of a new virus in Antonio’s blood.

  “Hey, Antonio, make up a threesome. I’m getting bored with this Ukrainian’s crazy playing,” Abdul said.

  Antonio stuck out his bottom lip as if thinking about acceding while he filled a large glass with water. He buttered some freshly-baked bread and leant against the counter, stuffing his face, watching the game. It could have been the aroma of Megan’s bread-making that drew him from his bunk; it generated saliva in everyone.

  Megan came out of the kitchen, saw Antonio, and rushed back in again. Within a minute, she had emerged with a jar.

  “Antonio, try my homemade blackberry jam.”

  “What? You’ve made this from the blackberries you picked yourself?”

  “Yeah, well. They were going to waste around here with just the birds eating them.”

  Jena watched from across the room. She’d seen moon-struck looks like that before.

  “Megan, you are a star,” Antonio said, giving her a kiss on her forehead.

  “Antonio, put the staff down and let us take your money,” Vlad said.

  Jena was amused at the stake money. They’d found a cash drawer in the office with hundreds of old pound and silver coins. No use to anyone now except to play with.

  “Come on, Doc,” Abdul said, “we’re playing—”

  “Seven-card stud, I can see that. There’s no point.”

  Vlad was on the third betting round, so each player had four cards each played face up, and three down. Each tried to bluff the other with winks, grins, and groans. Apart from the played face-up cards, neither had revealed their cards to the spectators. After watching for a few minutes, Antonio spoke up.

  “It is obvious that you, Abdul, have the better hand with two sixes, Queen, seven, three, and two Kings to choose your five-card hand from. Vlad, I’m afraid, has two Jacks, two tens, two fours, and a two. Shame. But too predictable. Boring. I’m going for a walk.” He left. Dan followed him out.

  Abdul scowled. “How did he know my hand?”

  “And mine. Jena, were you waving your make-up mirror around, again?” Vlad risked a thump, knowing she never used cosmetics. She looked around, but there were no mirrors in the room.

  Abdul persisted. “So, he worked it out from watching from the first deal.”

  “And he saw me shuffle the cards when he first came in,” Vlad said. “Has he got magic eyesight, now, Jena?”

  “I believe some card sharks and illusionists can train themselves to memorise a pack when it’s being shuffled,” she said. “I’ve never known Antonio to be interested in cards or magic tricks on board the ISS.”

  “Nor me,” Abdul said. “What’s the odds against him getting those hands right, Vlad? You’re a better probability theory man than me.”

  “There are over four million combinations of any seven-card hands. You know, I don’t feel like playing any more. Sorry, Abdul.”

  Jena walked past the two would-be winners and followed Dan and the doctor outside.

  Though still overcast, the usual Welsh drizzle held off. Dan and Jena scanned the valley and mountainsides for signs of people, sheep, feral horses, and dogs; in that order. They’d have work to do, with rifles, had they spotted any.

  Antonio turned. “Ah, Jena. Sorry about earlier. Not myself, you know.”

  “I understand. Really,” she said and risked linking arms with him to put him at ease. All three strolled towards the lake, a few hundred metres away.

  Dan risked a direct approach, “Antonio, you have the opposite of amnesia.”

  “There’s an interesting concept: the opposite of amnesia. Does that mean I remember more than I knew? You might be right in some ways, Dan. I remember things I didn’t know I knew. Like all the medical notes I’d ever made. You know, it is hard for medical students. So much recall of anatomical trivia and procedures rather than problem-solving. But now I only have to think of, say, hypertension, and I can see all the pages of my notes, the screen data, case studies. I wish I could have done that for my finals.”

  Dan stooped to pick some bilberries. “You didn’t do so bad, if I recall your record. You came top in your year.”

  “Si, but to have had a hundred percent. I could do that now. Hah! That would show those pompous asses at Milano.”

  Dan looked at Jena as if he was willing her to take an interrogative turn. “Antonio, what would you like to do to those tutors who annoyed you?”

  Dan’s dark, bushy eyebrows lowered so much, Jena couldn’t see his recriminating eyes. She assumed she played the bad guy and he the good. Oh well.

  “There’s plenty I’d do. There was a know-it-all woman from Torino. She wore such tight clothes to get us steamed up—even the women students—then she’d have killing put downs. Si, I’d take her down all right. Tie her to a chair. Remove her clothes with my teeth...hah!”

  “Steady on, Doc. You’re in the presence of a lady.” Dan gave Jena a wink. Her question revealed more of Antonio’s depravity.

  “Oh, Jena can take it. I bet Ryder is having the time of his life with you, isn’t he?” Before Jena could answer, Antonio fell to his knees on the slate chippings path, clutching his head.

  “Madre Teresa, why don’t they go away? Go! Go!”

  Jena put her hand on his shoulder. “Who do you want to go away, Doc?”

  “The demons in my head. I want to remember things at the right time not all at once.” He lay on his back on the wet path, beating the stones with the palms of his hands. “You’re right, Dan. My memory is perfect. I have to work hard to try and stop recalling every minutia of my life. I have to exert energy to block my first words, first steps, biting my mother’s nipples to stop her pulling me off her after a suckle, being born! And—Dio mio!—before that!...I have to stop it. But I can’t. It’s like that trick, Dan, Jena. You know when someone tells you to not think of a pink elephant?” He lay there, quiet for a moment, eyes shut while Jena had a mental image of a pink elephant and tried not to.

  Antonio sat up. “I am enhanced, aren’t I? An enhuman. Hah.” Then he fell back down in the wet again.

  Dan
sat cross-legged on the wet path beside Antonio; an act that impressed Jena, but she just concentrated on hearing better from her vertical position. She noticed Ryder had come out of the centre and was walking towards them. She held up a hand to wave and indicated that this wasn’t an emergency, although in some ways it was.

  Dan adopted his commander’s voice. “Antonio, you’ve been through a lot. You have a new virus, which while not destructive, is kinda supercharging your brain. Maybe all the poor connections we usually have blocking memories have been cleared for you. But it needs time to adjust. I bet in another couple of days you’ll be fine. At least you were functioning logically when you put the case safely away. Now, come on up, or we’ll both get dropsy or whatever these wet Welsh hills give you.”

  Ryder held out his hands to Antonio and helped him up. “There’s a message from Charlotte to say she’ll be live in ten minutes and has some exciting news.”

  On their way back, Jena updated Ryder, who said, “Did you believe any of that?”

  “Not about Antonio coping with his enriched-humanity anymore than Dan did.”

  GUSTAV AND LAURETTE LEFT TO PATROL THE PERIMETER and Antonio hit his bed again. Ryder joined the rest clustered around the computer to greet Charlotte. The ISS linked with a NOAA satellite allowed the signal to pass to and fro. Derek logged in during the potential communication window every day but Charlotte responded only when she had news. Ryder knew most of her news was that she’d seen no one, the small town was deserted, as was the once thriving USAF base in Australia. When she did see anyone, she kept out of their way. At Laurette’s request, she’d searched the base for a microscope to examine her own blood.

  “Hi, gang,” she said, as her image flickered on screen. “Sorry to read the messages from you about Brian, but it’s good news about Antonio, isn’t it? Wow, you must all be so chuffed.”

  Ryder looked at Derek, not wanting to tell her what they thought, outvoting Jena on letting Charlotte have all they knew.

  “I’ve been thinking about my alleged immunity to ARIA. I could just have been lucky and not been near enough anyone with it. I can’t find a microscope. Is there any other test I can do?”

  Dan leaned towards the microphone. “We’ll get Laurette on to you tomorrow. Was there any other news? You indicated there was.”

  “Yes, there is, as we expected, another group who’ve been on the ISS message boards, have been bantering with me overnight, so Derek won’t have got it yet.”

  “Those strange IP addresses that log in but say nothing?” Derek asked.

  “One of them is. Anyway, there is a group of New Zealanders and local people on a remote island in equatorial Pacific. They’ve had no visitors since March this year except the odd boat whose crew is also uncontaminated.”

  Dan’s face lit up. “That’s the best news we’ve had since we heard your sweet voice, Charlotte.”

  “Aw, Yankee, you big flirt, lover boy,” Charlotte said with an exaggerated Australian accent. Everyone laughed except Dan, who’d flushed deep pink.

  Ryder took over the mike. “Charlotte, if Dan could stop choking to death after that, he would have liked to ask the name and location of the island?”

  “Dunno that myself, Ryder, just like I don’t know where you are. I’m the only one anyone could send a postcard to. Not that it would be delivered for a while.”

  Derek took over the microphone. “Charlotte, I’ve been going through the message board, I found a message from some Kiwis. So that’s them?”

  “Sure is. Hey, you can’t track them backwards to their satellite dish, can you?”

  “Afraid not, but it means we can talk to them like we do for you if they have a standard voice setup on their system.”

  JENA FOLLOWED DEREK TO HIS OWN CONSOLE, leaving the others nattering to Charlotte.

  “You can, can’t you?” she said, noticing Ryder coming over too.

  “You think I tell lies?” Derek said, looking offended.

  “Sorry, I just—”

  “Got you!” he said, and she hit him on the shoulder. “It doesn’t mean I can track them, but there is a way using the ISS equipment and a NAVSAT-GPS satellite, but only when they are on-air, and depending on the type of upload equipment they use. I can set it up and wait for them to leave a message on the board again.”

  “I’m not sure we should,” Ryder said, who’d followed them. “They might have the equipment to tell they’re being traced through that GPS satellite and decide we are untrustworthy.”

  “There’s no logic there, honey. After all, if they see we’ve located them, what are they going to do? Pack their bags and go where? They must be on a secure and safe island—they wouldn’t want the risk of finding somewhere else.”

  “Good point, but it puts our relationship on a sour starting point. Let’s try negotiating with them first.”

  “With the aim of what?” Derek said. “Are we really going to leave here and hitchhike to the Pacific?”

  “It looks like a good option, considering our insecure future here,” Ryder said, and basked in the pleasure of seeing Jena grin.

  “RAROTONGA,” DAN SAID TO JENA AND RYDER as they returned to the others crowding the console. “Charlotte has just been chatting to us. They want to talk to us direct and they’ve agreed not to ask for our address given our vulnerability here.”

  “Rare what?” said Ryder.

  “Rarotonga is a small Pacific Ocean island almost on the equator,” said Dan. “One of the Cook Islands.”

  “How come you’ve become an instant gazetteer, Dan?” Ryder said. “Just a minute, aren’t they all atolls and about to be swamped with the rising sea level from global warming?”

  “I’m surprised at you, being in the media. The population were temporarily evacuated last year because its volcano grumbled. A few stayed behind manning the new combined optical and radio observatory there. It isn’t a sea-level atoll like most of them. In any case, the sudden demise of industry and vehicle emissions will have already reduced carbon dioxide levels. Global warming is slowing down.” He grinned at this benefit of ARIA.

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Ryder said. “Do you think the aliens might be some sort of intergalactic green police?”

  “Unlikely,” Dan said, taking Ryder’s quip more seriously than he intended. “But they are close to wiping us out without damaging the planet.”

  Jena held her nose. “With the exception of a few million rotting bodies.”

  “Hey, look at the time, 17:00 hours. Jena, we should have left for a tour of the estate.”

  “We can go from here, up the slope to The Drum mountain on the old Roman road.

  “It’ll be dark by the time we get back, so we need torches, rifles—”

  “Sandwiches. Ryder, how come our shifts are during dinner?”

  “We’ll be back in time for briefing.”

  “Whoopee, you know how to swoop a girl off her feet.”

  “Yeah, sorry, Jena. Maybe we can go down to the pub instead. A tropical island is like a dream too far.”

  Jena thought for a moment. “It would mean driving again to that airport we landed at, a refuel, say somewhere in Canada...”

  “Canada? Is that on the way between here and the mid-Pacific?”

  “The shortest distance is via one of the Great Circle routes, which from here would cut across Canada. In fact, it would be the only large country to pass over, so we’d have to land at a major airport and refuel. How do we arrange that without bumping into anyone? So, yes, maybe it is only a dream.”

  “Hey, Jena, collect our rucksacks and the weapons, will you? I’ve just got a little job to do.”

  THIRTY MINUTES LATER JENA AND RYDER reached one of the highest points of their perimeter. The clouds had cleared, giving them a surprise early-evening light. An enchanting golden glow sent sharp shadows marching across the otherwise bright green valley. Bursting out from the last cloud in the west, the brightness made Jena shield her eyes. The Anafon lay before he
r as a valley of stark optical contrast as one side sunbathed and the other fell asleep in the dark. She sat on her rucksack absorbing the desolate grandeur while Ryder checked a CCTV post and nearby fencing.

  She used her binoculars, looking for anything that moved.

  Ryder pointed at a track to the northeast. “It’s quite possible intruders would come this way rather than up the lane from the village.”

  Jena smiled when she saw that the low sun had projected her shadow way down the grassy slope as if she were a giant. “I suppose we’re vulnerable.”

  “But are we more vulnerable with time or less? As the months pass, there is an increased chance of random-movement opportunity to find us, but then they’d be less organised.”

  “Ryder, I bet there are plenty of people out there in isolated farmhouses who might have escaped interference from marauding gangs. They might employ strategies to keep their minds alert, especially those old enough to have skills and survival memory but not so old as to be infirm.”

  “You’re right, which brings me to one such case like that. I’ve talked to you about Manuel?”

  “The NASA media mogul. I’ve met him on a couple of public-relations events, but he was much more of a friend than a colleague to you, wasn’t he?”

  “Last time I managed to talk to him, he’d managed to get to an isolated tourist log cabin. Infected, but like we were saying, coping by using a NoteCom to update himself each day. He’d picked up a female companion too.”

  “I know it’s grim, honey, but there’s no point dwelling on past friends and family who are both way out of reach and dead by now. I know it’s hard but...”

  “This log cabin is near Banff, which has a long runway at its airport, and in western Canada. Ring any bells?”

  “Interesting, and yet it hammers my alarm bells. Are you suggesting we attempt to use Manuel for the refuelling stop?” said Jena, refocusing her binoculars on a newly spotted wisp of smoke to the northeast.

  “Sadly, I haven’t been able to contact him for a while. He has a satellite Internet receiver. I have the IP addresses of his PC and NoteCom and can tell they’ve been turned on. It gives me hope that I’ll chat to him. You seen that smoke?”