ARIA

by Geoff Nelder

  “I get it. Neither of you are around at the right time. We can’t take him with us; he must be one of the first to get ARIA. I’m looking at it now, Ryder. There are brown and blue tinges with bursts of red flame in it. Too pretty for chimney smoke or a bonfire.”

  “He’s lost over twenty years’ worth of memory, but at fifty-four, he’d have enough knowledge to help us at the airport. I left a few messages on the ISS message board. But I tend to leave it to Derek to let me know when Manuel replies. I reckon it’s a building on fire. So many different combustible materials are going up over there.”

  “Okay. I’d say that he’s a likely way of getting us refuelled so we could get to Rarotonga. When we get back, we’ll take turns pinging his systems. Hey, can we buzz his speakers with a signal?”

  “I’ll give Derek a call now. Looking at that fire, the sooner we are out of here...”

  “No arguments there,” Jena said, shocking herself with such a rare phrase. “But I hope you know of another airfield with a strong likelihood of available aircraft because that smoke means people between us and where we left the Marimar. Pity, because we know she would do the job.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Ryder, risking a dig in the ribs. “It might have been discovered and trashed, and it’s not been for a check up since you took it to space and back.”

  “Okay, let’s suppose you’re right, where else?”

  “Valley. It’s a large RAF airbase on Anglesey. If you look over there,” he pointed west, “and made a hole in Llwtymor Mountain, you’d be able to see it. At around thirty miles, it’s half the distance to the Marimar.”

  “What? Why did we go so much farther when we landed, then?”

  “Valley is military, and back then, it stood a better chance of having people with guns pointing at us than now. Anyway, I’ll see if I can get Derek to buzz Manuel.”

  Ryder’s mobile phone startled him just as he tapped at it to ring Derek.

  “Hi, Derek, I was just calling you. What’s all that racket? I can’t hear you. Are you having a party?”

  Jena grabbed her mobile, thought for a second, and called Dan, while turning to look at the centre. She tried to use the binoculars with one hand, but couldn’t steady it, so she put the phone on a boulder. As soon as she brought both hands up to concentrate on the centre, she heard Dan answer the phone. She let the binoculars dangle from her neck just as she thought she saw someone open the centre door.

  Ryder looked at her. “I can’t hear Derek talking with all the din going on down there. You talking to Dan on yours? Can he ask Derek—”

  Jena gave him her pitying look. “You are an idiot sometimes. Something’s going on down there and it can only be because of one person.” They both put down their phones to focus on the centre.

  Tuesday 6 October 2015, 18:00 hours:

  Anafon Centre. Most people outside Anafon will have lost up to twenty-five years’ memory.

  ANTONIO KNOCKED HIS HEAD AGAINST THE REFECTORY WALL as if the blow would dissipate the skull-tightening pain he’d developed. If he had a drill to hand, he would have trepanned a hole to let out the demons. His brain annoyed him. He’d always a good memory, but being able to recall everything was too much. Huge movie reels of his experiences would flood his consciousness, whether or not they were significant or relevant to the moment.

  “It’s all your fault,” he said to Dan. Since he’d smashed the microscope and obliterated his blood sample, he’d noticed the commander following him, like a poorly-trained spy. But he had detected Laurette’s mind telling him she’d already run the analysis and found a virus. He couldn’t read thoughts, but he could sense the tenor of their cognition—the intent behind their false smiles.

  “Antonio, you are in turmoil. I understand.”

  “You have no idea. You should not have brought Brian to me when you did. It was too soon after my acceptance of the case’s gift, transcending my being to a superhuman—enriched human, beyond your experience.”

  “You agreed to have Brian. It was to expose him to the case to see if it would halt the retrograde nature of his amnesia. It did. We suggested you should suit up. You said it didn’t matter. Do you really consider yourself an enriched human?”

  “I wouldn’t go as far as to call myself Superman.” He laughed like a demon. “My strength and body functions are no different than before, but I have a mental acuity and other functions making me an enhanced human.”

  “Mon Dieu, Antonio,” Laurette said, “you’re more egotistical, that’s all. A bighead-human.”

  Antonio saw Abdul and Bronwyn trying not to laugh.

  “Shut up!” Antonio bellowed at them. “Sheep, all of you.”

  Dan spoke to the rest. “You aren’t helping. Haven’t you got work to do?” Bronwyn, stifling a laugh, ran into the kitchen. Dan turned to Antonio. “Are you saying you wouldn’t have this turmoil in you if Brian hadn’t been brought to you?”

  “You did it to test me.”

  “That’s unreasonable, and if you could read my mind, you’d know I tried to help you.”

  Antonio sneered. “You’re too cunning to let me know what’s going on in your commander’s head. You hide so much up there.” He used his right forefinger to poke at Dan’s forehead, making him stagger backwards into the wall.

  Abdul jumped up, making his chair fall back with a crash.

  Antonio spun round with his arm still extended. He flexed and jabbed out his right arm once more, and even though Abdul stood two arm-lengths away, he staggered back as if punched. Three mugs on the nearest table tumbled away as if Antonio had a telekinetic force emanating from his fingertips. A silence gripped the room, broken by a laugh from Antonio. He grinned, knowing his superior abilities were being revealed one by one to the mere mortals before him.

  Antonio’s smugness was short-lived as Bronwyn stormed through the swing doors from the kitchen and threw herself at him. He stood his ground as she punched him in the left arm.

  “Laurette’s just told me!” she shrieked. “You killed my Brian!”

  “He had no future.”

  Bronwyn screamed, and with a short kitchen-knife hidden in her left hand, slashed at his face. He sensed the attack through her rage, but not in time to stop the blade lacerating his right cheek, causing an instant spurt of dark-red blood. He pushed her away and ran down the refectory towards the kitchen.

  “Bronwyn, you shouldn’t have,” said Laurette at the kitchen door, stepping sideways to avoid Antonio.

  “He killed my Brian.”

  Although Antonio heard her, a deep pain jabbed at his brain. Not the cut, it was nothing, except a red mess on his white shirt, but his head meant something more sinister. Through his agony, he detected snippets of brainwaves from the others. Their fear reasoned he’d dashed into the kitchen for the first-aid box. The fools hadn’t bargained on him ignoring the green box. He reached for the cupboard down on the left. The loaded shotgun leapt into his clutching hands. The cool steel represented the solution to his problems.

  Antonio looked for the revolver he thought was kept in the kitchen. He muttered to himself, “As contaminants, they should be eliminated. A danger to the cause.” He had a notion that along with being impregnated with the new, enhancing virus, some data about the source had shot into his brain. His head hurt too much for him to work it out—maybe later. He supposed a coded brain transmission might have occurred when the case first opened, which made him more special than Brian was, but he couldn’t be sure. The only thing of which he was confident was that he had a duty to destroy the centre occupants. He’d have to give up on the revolver—it was either too well hidden or one of the others had it. He’d have to take a chance.

  He looked through the small window in the door. In the refectory sat and stood the tea and coffee drinkers, stabbers, and village idiots, all ripe for disposal.

  Antonio readied the shotgun, kicked the door open, and marched in blasting away.

  Dan had been sitting facing him and cau
ght the full blast in the chest. Splatters of his blood and stray shotgun pellets caught Bronwyn, who had sat beside him. She fell, spinning. Antonio’s second shot was aimed at Vlad, but he had a moment to duck, so just his scalp and some bloodied brains splattered the air while the main shot hit Laurette, sending her backwards into the lab. The opened lab door revealed Derek, who had started to level the missing revolver at Antonio. They fired together. Antonio spun to his left, from a hit to his upper arm, but Derek doubled up as a hole opened in his abdomen. The odour of cordite and burnt flesh pinched his nose. He staggered outside looking for the others.

  “Un minuto,” he said, even though no one was there to listen. “That bastard Abdul was in the refectory...fuck, fuck, when that cow, Bronwyn, stabbed me. So where did he go while I was in the kitchen? Jena and Ryder are...fuck, fuck, out of the way in the valley. I’ll get them when they return. Teresa and Megan must be hiding here.” He checked the magazine, turned, and re-entered the centre, ignoring the blood oozing down his right cheek and neck.

  Abandoning the use of his bloody left arm, he shouted. “Where are you, Abdul? I have a surprise for you...fuck, fuck, where are you? I’m not going to hurt you! Just kill you! Hah! Did you hear that, Abdul?”

  He heard a crash from the lab, so he charged in. Derek’s body lay to the left and a streak of blood led to the right. “So, Bronwyn. Are you a little poorly? Fuck, fuck. Teresa, you are in here too. I can sense you, smell you, suck out your thoughts. Hah!”

  He ran to the right along the blood trail, but the lights went out, and the long room with its benches and computer screens created a difficult place to find people who insisted on hiding. Another set of doors led through the back to the outside stores.

  Antonio sensed the presence of Teresa and Abdul outside. Synapses fired in his brain, forcing both pleasure at his discovery and anger that they hid from their necessary destruction.

  “Got you, got fuck, fuck you!” he shouted as he crashed through the doors, his shotgun levelled. A newly acquired instinct made him dive as a scaffolding pole slammed onto his back, followed by Teresa and Abdul running back into the centre.

  “You can’t fuck, fuck escape. Non lo permetto!” He turned to find they’d shut and locked the doors, leaving him in the outside storage area with no access back in or out of the centre complex. The single-floored building had its roof razor-wired to keep visitors out, and there Antonio found himself trapped. Nonsense, it merely slowed his progress. Picking up the scaffolding pole, which would have crushed his vertebrae had he not been superior, he swore-assisted it to punch holes in the door until the lock gave way. He could have used the shotgun but the irony of using their weapon had given him more satisfaction.

  He didn’t need his telepathic-like abilities to know they wouldn’t be hiding in the lab when he re-entered. He knew they’d have made it outside to hide—the cowards. But once he was out there, he’d be able to track them down and they’d not want to leave the security of their precious valley. Hah! Fuck, fuck.

  Checking his gun, again—obsessively—he approached the door to the outside. Hah! He detected their presence behind the boulders up near the lake. He’d pretend he didn’t know the cowards were there. Wander over to the higher ground at an oblique angle and blast the fuckers by surprise.

  He sneaked the door open and crept out. A bullet hit him in the chest, and one in his right arm, sending him staggering back into the centre. As his life energy ebbed, he worked out that Jena and Ryder had fired their rifles from the other side of the lake. Fuck. And Gustav shot him from inside the pickup. He’d forgotten all about him. They’d fucking won. Hah! Had they really? Fuck, fuck.

  Tuesday 6 October 2015, late evening:

  Anafon Centre. Most people outside Anafon will have lost up to twenty-five years’ memory.

  IN THE REFECTORY AND FIGHTING A STRESS HEADACHE, Ryder blurted out, “What a bloody mess.” Bronwyn lay on the floor with Teresa kneeling beside her with Gustav. Megan was making strong coffee for the survivors. Ryder looked at Abdul and Jena who, like him, were struggling to delay reality-denial sleep, slouched on canteen chairs at a table. He fought to keep his senses. He hoped his mighty headache was stress related rather than ARIA.

  “There’s no need to keep repeating that it’s a mess,” Jena said.

  “Leave him alone for once, can’t you?” Teresa said, tending to Bronwyn, who’d suffered shotgun wounds to her right side. In pre-ARIA circumstances, there would have been certainty of her surviving. Ryder knew the chance of her picking up a wound infection was high. They’d stemmed the flow of blood but had no idea of any internal haemorrhaging.

  “Let’s have no arguing now there’s just six of us who are able-bodied,” Abdul said.

  Ryder saw Megan shooting Abdul a stern look, but she had suffered too much to say anything.

  “Let’s get this right then,” Ryder said, ignoring the percussion orchestra in his head. “Of those alive, Bronwyn has actual bullet wounds, and no one else has anything more than grazes, cuts, and bruises? In that case, we need to evacuate this place as soon as possible. Gustav and Abdul, get the case out of the mine. It’s shut and sealed in the padded bag, but if you want to suit up…”

  “Just a minute,” Jena said, “we could leave it in the mine. No one else knows it’s there. Taking it with us just increases the chances of catastrophe on our journey, whether we reach Rarotonga or only Abergoggle-whatever.”

  “Here we go again,” Gustav said. “Jena, it might be needed, if not by us, then by others.”

  “It’s too fucking dangerous, Gustav. Let’s bury it in the mine.”

  “Gustav is right,” Teresa said. “We have to accept that the case contents have halted Brian’s memory loss. And I know you’re going to point at Antonio, but we don’t really know what went on with him.”

  “You’re damn right I’m pointing at that freak. I’m sure Ryder will back me up,” Jena said, looking at him for support.

  Ryder shook his head. “Sorry, Jena. Abdul and Gustav, we’ve no time for debates. Get on with it.”

  Ryder didn’t want to embarrass Jena in front of everyone, but they had to evacuate before anyone decided to investigate the shooting. Like the others, the trauma was hitting him in the guts, making logic difficult, but he had to try. The echoes must have reverberated for miles. He had to busy himself in the lab, trying to contact Manuel and gather equipment. The survivors included three ISS crew who were all experienced pilots. He punched the phone for the kitchen.

  “Megan, will you load provisions and bottled water into the pickup?”

  Between sobs, Megan blurted back into the phone, “I’m in here getting a drink for my aunt. Do your own jobs.”

  “Megan, we have to help Bronwyn by getting her to safety. To do that, we have to leave. I know you’re upset. We all are. Please help.”

  Jena came into the lab. “Do you want me to collect the ARIA and second-case evidence together while you play?”

  “I’m collecting IT equipment that will be damned useful and rigging up an automatic-retry message for Manuel.” He avoided looking at her eyes, which were no doubt mocking him. “I’m evading contemplating the way our friends died. Especially Derek. We went back to my first year of work.”

  “We’ll all need therapy. It’s forgivable to neglect confronting our demons now, but keep on going against me at your cost.” She blew a kiss at him, which Ryder accepted as if it attacked him.

  After he’d done all he could with the computers and loaded his considered bare minimum into the boot of the Volvo estate, he helped Gustav move the bodies to a storage building outside. Megan finally came to help too.

  “It’s okay,” Gustav said. “We two strong men can manage.”

  Megan insisted. “You’d better not be suggesting that I’m a bloody weakling.”

  Gustav held up his hands. “I’m sure you eat rocks for breakfast.” Ryder pulled a face. The poor man would have rocks in his muesli tomorrow.

  “So, now yo
u’re having a go at my cooking. You can make your own sandwiches from now on.” She used a trolley to move Antonio’s body, blood dripping. After draping a tarpaulin over the body, she turned to Ryder and pulled him outside. “What are we going to do with Bronwyn? She’s too ill to be moved out of her bed, let alone go on a journey to whatever airfield you and your new bitch have decided to go to.”

  “It’s only RAF Valley, not far. I’m ignoring your rudeness. I’ll come and chat to her.”

  Ryder followed her to the small dormitory—now with an antiseptic aroma—shared by Megan and Bronwyn. The fluorescent strip light cast a harsh brightness in the room. Bronwyn lay propped up by blood-stained pillows. Barely awake, her pale skin glistened.

  “Hello, Ryder, you finished your holiday here then?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Don’t forget your travel-sick tablets, Megan.”

  “I think Megan could stay here with you. You’re going to need a lot of looking after.”

  “No, Ryder. Although I’m not leaving Brian, I want to know Megan is with you and the others.”

  “Good God, Bronwyn, I hope you aren’t thinking we’re off to a sure safe place. We might not make it to the airport. Our refuelling in Canada might not happen. We might land again in that Pacific island and find everyone has ARIA after all.”

  “No problem,” Megan said. “We’d open the case at them and they’d stop being infectious.”

  “We don’t know that for certain. Just that Brian stopped forgetting things and the virus in his blood changed. But if Bronwyn insists, I suppose we’ll have to have some more weight,” said Ryder, dodging the pillow Megan threw at him. “We’ll put off leaving until you are well enough to come with us, Bronwyn.”