Plague World

by Alex Scarrow

  Rex stared at the first image in the presentation. A grainy black-and-white picture of a young, small figure with dark hair walking up a boarding ramp. The image was very poor quality, probably taken from some CCTV. Stark light from a nearby floodlight cast hard-edged shadows across the ramp. In the background he could see what looked like blurs of light, possibly the glare of other floodlights, or possibly flames.

  ‘The subject came from among the contingent of civilians gathered in the United Kingdom. I believe you have all read the report about the departure from Southampton?’

  Heads in the audience nodded. Rex certainly had. It sounded like the whole thing had been a disastrous screw-up; too many people waiting to be rescued, too few boots on the ground. Too little known at the time about what the virus was capable of.

  ‘In the chaos, the vetting system broke down, many civilians were taken aboard that could not demonstrate they had been successfully tested and cleared. The subject took advantage of this disturbance and managed to board our aircraft carrier.’

  The Chinese officer moved to a TV monitor. It showed shaky footage taken from aboard the Chinese carrier, down at the quay. Rex could see figures rushing in all directions. He could see flames dancing up from rows of tents.

  Jing muted the sound, and they watched the rest of the short clip in an uncomfortable silence. When it finally ended, Jing spoke again.

  ‘As you see, the departure was very chaotic. The American end of the enclosed perimeter was closer to the containment pen. They were completely overrun when the outbreak chain reaction occurred.’

  Next slide. A much clearer picture of the same small figure in a surgical gown, huddled up on a bunk in a small empty room.

  ‘We repeated the testing procedure on all the British civilians that boarded our ships, several days later. It was during this process that the subject indicated that she was infected. Before her blood could be taken she made the following announcement.’

  Jing looked down at a clipboard of notes.

  ‘These are the words she spoke: I’m remade. I’m a viral manifestation. A human copy. [. . . ] Tell them I’m here to help. Tell them I won’t move a muscle.’

  He looked up at the audience, then directed his gaze to Rex. ‘Prime Minister Williams, she offered no resistance. We were able to quickly lock her in the carrier’s radiation isolation chamber. To date she has cooperated fully to all our requests.’

  Rex decided it was the right moment to step in with a question. ‘I read the report. It appears a large number of the people who gathered in Southampton in response to the radio message were infected, possibly without even knowing about it. So, obviously, I have a concern about all the refugees that were picked up. Are we certain she’s the only one who’s infected?’

  ‘Yes, Prime Minister. All have been tested for saline coagulation response, and oestrogen levels.’

  The refugees were all currently in a floating quarantine camp. Rex’s administration was taking no chances. The camp was a P&O cruise ship, hastily retooled and refurbished to carry the refugees and a small complement of soldiers and medical personnel.

  ‘What about the American ships? The report said they were overrun in Southampton?’

  ‘Mr Williams . . .’

  Rex twisted in his seat to look down the front row of seats at Captain Xien.

  ‘We were in range for radio contact on the first week.’ His English was not as comfortable as the lieutenant doing the presentation, delivered staccato as he struggled to find the right words. ‘Most of the American ships also escaped and they made these same tests on their people. The report overstates when it says they were . . . “overrun”.’

  ‘Well, thank God for that,’ sighed Rex.

  It really was ridiculous how tight-lipped and paranoid the Americans appeared to be. He knew the current ‘acting president’ was a man called Douglas Trent. But he knew nothing much about him. He presumed it was the large presence of Chinese in their alliance that was making Trent so bloody paranoid.

  Jesus. You’d think 99 per cent of the population being wiped out would change things. Apparently not.

  Rex turned back to face Lieutenant Choi, waiting patiently to continue with his slides.

  ‘Please, continue with the presentation,’ said Rex.

  The next slide made him gasp. Not just him, the entire audience.

  It took him a few seconds to make sense of what he was seeing on the projection screen. It was clearly another image taken in the same small, sparse room. There was the bunk on which the girl had been huddled in the previous slide. But there was no little girl now. Where she’d been was her green gown and what looked like her bones, most of them on the bunk, some scattered across the floor. The white bed sheets were stained a dark crimson. Glutinous meaty strands dangled over the side of the bunk, down to the floor where a glistening pile of what appeared to be organs sat in a pool of dark blood.

  Rex had once seen a picture of the unpleasant aftermath of a hiker in Yosemite meeting a grizzly bear. It looked a lot like this, as if some large voracious predator had entered this small room, killed and eaten the girl, and left the pieces it didn’t want.

  ‘The subject, “Grace”, has demonstrated she is precisely what she claims to be. Not someone merely “infected” by the virus, but a manifestation of the virus that is able to change form and structure at will.’

  Jing turned to point out several details in the image. ‘This is a more natural condition for her. She has explained to me that maintaining the human form is . . . a tiring experience for her, so she often chooses this.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ said one of the Australian officers. ‘You’re saying that . . . this mess is actually alive?’

  Jing nodded. ‘Yes. It is a less exhausting, less energy-consuming state for her. She is able to re-form her human state, but this takes several hours to achieve.’

  Rex felt his stomach queasily flipping over. The abattoir scene in front of him was grotesque enough, but the fact that it could somehow pull itself all back together again like some grisly movie of a person being butchered in reverse was hideous.

  ‘If you will observe closely,’ continued Jing, pointing to locations on the screen. ‘The skeletal framework is actually a mixture of real bones and components made from a tough resin-like substance. The skull is real. The ribcage, the pelvis, these are also real bones. But you might be able to see from this photograph that some of the larger limb bones – the femur, the fibula, over here, the humerus, the radius – these are different and made of the resin substance.’

  Rex could see that they were darker and thicker, like the bones of a Neanderthal.

  ‘The subject has explained to me that the virus prefers to use the existing skeletal framework of a form it wishes to mimic where possible. Where this is not possible it is able to fabricate resinous approximations, but this requires much more time, and also the sacrifice of living matter.’

  ‘Sacrifice of living matter?’ asked someone in the audience. ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Sacrifice. Yes,’ replied Jing. ‘The virus is able turn some of its biomass into this hard resin. But the resin cannot return to become part of the biomass again. It is in effect dead tissue, spent biomass.’ Choi pressed his clicker again to reveal the girl huddled on the bunk once more. ‘This next slide is footage of a time-lapse sequence showing the subject deconstructing from human to resting state, then reconstructing. Please note the running time in the corner as the process advances . . .’

  Rex sat back in his chair and wanted to close his eyes. This was too much. He really didn’t want to see a child melt before him.

  You have to. You’ll be meeting her very soon. You need to know everything They have.

  He opened his eyes and watched, and immediately wished he hadn’t.

  The room was completely silent, the breath of everyone in it held while the sequence lasted. When it was over, breaths were released; a stirring filled the small conference r
oom.

  ‘At the moment the subject is only able to communicate in human form. In this form she prefers to be addressed as “Grace”.’

  ‘Why has the subject picked that name?’

  Lieutenant Choi shrugged. ‘She has told me that is her name.’ He looked down at the clipboard he was carrying. ‘This concludes my observations and my part of the presentation. I must hand over to someone else now?’

  ‘Dr Calloway?’

  Rex heard a chair scrape the floor behind him and in the half-light of the room he saw someone take the place of the Chinese Navy officer. Tall and broad-framed, in perfect contrast.

  ‘My name is Doctor Kevin Calloway. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I’m a doctor of psychology and I specialize in clinical neuropsychology, child psychology and psycho-social dynamics.’

  He took in a deep breath, paused for a moment.

  ‘Since we are not dealing with psychosis or a mentally disturbed child, but, in fact, a brand-new form of life, my expertise on “Grace” is arguably of limited value. I haven’t been able to communicate with the subject so far. It appears she is only prepared to – for the want of a better term – assemble for Lieutenant Choi. But I have reviewed the recordings of their discussions over the last fortnight aboard the Chinese carrier.’

  Calloway paused, steepled his fingers beneath the bristles of his clipped beard as he appeared to ponder on how to continue.

  ‘What it seems we have here is some form of community intelligence. Or “hive mind”, to use a bloody awful science-fiction term. “Grace” represents a colony of minds, of which her identity is the most dominant. In the conversations with Lieutenant Choi, she has explained that the girl she assembles into is her . . . or, I should say, was her. She was a girl called Grace who was affected by the virus in a slightly different way to most other infected people.’

  ‘Different way? Can you expand on that?’

  Rex turned to see that the interjection had come from the health minister.

  ‘In some rare cases, it appears that there is a form of slower-rate “dormant” infection. The pathogen gets into the body and then appears to do nothing for some time. Now, whether that’s down to some level of immunity, either natural or from the effect of medications that might be taken, I don’t know. Grace hasn’t talked about that. She has said, though, that this slow infection has allowed her to act as a go-between, if you will, an intermediary between us and . . . Them.’

  ‘Them?’ Rex Williams spread his hands, exasperated at the term. ‘I’ve heard that word used several times before. Can you explain to me why we’re calling a bunch of microbial life forms “Them”?’

  Calloway hunched his shoulders. ‘Because it appears to be intelligent, Prime Minister. It can strategize. It can plan. It can reason. But, more than that, it’s not one intelligent entity, but many millions, billions even.’

  He let those words sink in before trying to put it into another context. ‘We may have to start thinking of any exchange between ourselves and what’s inside this girl as communication with another civilization. What I’m saying, Prime Minister, is we should start thinking of this as a First Encounter scenario.’

  Rex could hear breath being taken in all around him. ‘You mean like . . .’ Rex didn’t want to say the word; it would sound idiotic, gullible. ‘You’re talking about an alien encounter?’

  Calloway nodded. ‘It is alien, insofar as we have never encountered life in this form before. Whether it came from outer space, whether it’s a life form that’s been lying inert for millions of years in permafrost, and with global warming defrosted and came to life . . . we can’t say. Either way, it’s our first encounter with another form of intelligent life.’

  ‘That’s a load of crap!’

  Rex turned to his left. Front row, three or four seats away. It was Bullerton, the Australian defence minister, one of only a handful of cabinet ministers who had managed to get the last plane out of Canberra. ‘We can make a whole load of fanciful bloody assumptions about a goddamn bug . . . or we can just sterilize the bloody thing!’

  Several heads nodded along with that.

  ‘This is a bloody pathogen! It’s a lethal, liquefying bastard of a plague that’s managed to nearly wipe out the whole world! For crying out loud, it was probably engineered in some North Korean lab!’

  ‘Hold on—’ began Rex.

  ‘We got a thousand miles of salt water around us,’ the defence minister continued, ‘and we know this thing can’t swim through it or fly over it against prevailing winds, so what the hell are we doing playing around with it? We need to just incinerate this subje—’

  ‘Yet,’ Rex cut in. ‘It can’t swim through it or fly over it . . . yet.’

  Other voices chimed in. The room suddenly became noisy.

  Rex, you’d probably better get a hold of this.

  He stood up and raised his hands. ‘Everyone . . . please!’

  The noise increased.

  ‘Let’s not piss around here! Flame the bloody thing before someone gets careless with it!’

  ‘. . . it gets out and we’re history . . .’

  ‘. . . we need to evaluate what we’re dealing with . . .’

  ‘. . . nearly lost our rescue fleet, for Chrissakes!’

  ‘. . . not worth the risk of . . .’

  Rex cupped his mouth. ‘Everyone! SHUT. THE. HELL. UP!’

  He had a quiet room again.

  ‘I’m satisfied that the subject, “Grace”, is securely contained,’ he said calmly. ‘I presume we can obtain a sample to analyse further. In the meantime, if the virus wants to actually “talk” with us . . .’

  He turned to look at the frozen last image of the time-lapse sequence still up on the projection screen. He was staring at the ‘disassembled’ form: the strings of flesh, the pile of organs on the floor, the stained sheets and ropes of bloody growth climbing the wall beside the bunk.

  ‘. . . If this thing wants to talk, it can’t hurt for us to listen.’

  ‘Prime Minister?’

  Rex saw a hand raised. ‘Yes?’

  ‘If the virus does want to talk with us . . . how much of what we learn are we going to share with the Americans?’

  Good point. His eyes met Xien’s. Giving the Yanks everything and getting nothing back wasn’t going to go down well with anyone.

  ‘Let’s find out what we’re going to learn first, all right?’

  CHAPTER 20

  Freya stared out through the rusty bars of the tall window at a row of jetties on the far side of Havana’s bay. The three US Navy destroyers and the USS Gerald R. Ford were berthed there, the aircraft carrier making the three other ships look like mere tugboats by comparison.

  The warehouse, until the outbreak she was told, had been used solely for storing tobacco products. The tangy smell of the dried leaves seemed to have permanently infused itself into the crumbling plaster walls and the hard ground. The long, empty building was divided into three equal sections by floor-to-ceiling wire-grille partitions. There was a door at the bottom of each partition left wide open. The one concession to free movement they’d been allowed was the ability to walk the length of the warehouse. The partition walls of rust-coated mesh were a part of the old building, not something recently installed to contain or segregate people, but presumably there to separate bundles of drying tobacco leaves.

  Freya was losing track of the number of days they’d been held here, fifteen at least. She let go of the bars and stepped away to let someone else have a turn at feeling the cool air on their face.

  As they’d been escorted off the ship, she’d caught a glimpse of Leon’s father arguing with an army officer. He’d seen her over his shoulder and gestured something quickly: a fist to his cheek, little finger pointing to his mouth, thumb to his ear. In normal times, that would’ve meant I’ll call you.

  Freya presumed it meant I’ll be in contact, or I’ll get you out, or something, since mobile phones were a thing of the past now.
/>   That had been two weeks ago and she’d heard nothing from him since.

  They were being fed in the same chaotic and ill-conceived way they had been back in Southampton. Every morning several snarling forklifts rolled into the warehouse accompanied by a platoon of edgy-looking marines who held their guns ready to use. The forklifts deposited wooden pallets laden with bottled water and canned food, some of it with sell-by dates stamped on them from the 1970s, then reversed back out of the building. Then it was a free-for-all for the 800 or so people that were being kept in there.

  God help me. From Mr Carnegie’s exclusive Oasis, to their Norwich hideaway, to Everett’s doomed castle, to the containment pen in Southampton . . . now this ghastly place. Every step seemed to have taken Freya to a place worse than the last.

  She’d had a chance to look at every one of the faces in here at one time or another and was now certain of it: Leon and Grace weren’t in Cuba. They were either stuck back in England or well on their way to New Zealand.

  She wondered how much longer they were going to be kept here in these unbearable conditions. So far she’d kept herself to herself, not wanting to make friends or even acquaintances. She’d assumed they were being held here for a few days while arrangements were made to assimilate with the rest of the population. Two bloody weeks so far and no sign of that.

  Oh, God, Leon . . . why did I ever suggest we leave Norwich?

  Duh, because you’d probably be dead by now, stupid.

  Well, maybe there’s something to be said for finally being out of the game? Dead.

  Freya balled her fist and smacked her thigh for such a weak and pitiful thought. Freya, you’re alive, right? So shut up with give-in shit like that.

  She trawled for a positive thing to think about and managed to find one. At least her hips and legs weren’t aching half as much as they had been months, or even weeks ago. She wondered whether the warmer temperature was somehow helping her move more easily.