by Alex Scarrow
Except . . . it wasn’t coloured the faint greys and greens he would have expected to see at this distance. Its overall hue seemed to be a deep red, the colour of roasted beetroot.
‘Could be it’s a new volcanic island?’ said one of the guys in the back.
‘We’d have picked up the seismic activity,’ replied Talbot.
‘Yeah, right . . . like someone’s still listening out for that kind of stuff.’
‘Pipe down,’ said Jamie. He checked their altitude and brought them a little lower to a thousand metres. Low enough to get good detail as they made one large loop around the thing. ‘Cameras on, let’s get everything we can for the lab boys back home.’
He studied the object as the plane dipped lower and their distance from the sea dwindled to less than two kilometres.
No way that’s something geological.
And it didn’t look man-made. Which left . . . ?
Viral.
He could see textures emerging from the side of the tall central cone: bumps and ridges that looked like thick tendons, circular ribs that ran round it like tide markers of growth. He could see motion on the far side of the cone, something large, flickering every now and then.
As the plane began to bank to starboard, beginning a large clockwise loop around the ‘island’, the flickering object gradually emerged from profile.
‘Jesus Christ!’
He realized he was looking at a sheet of membrane, a vast triangular sheet of membrane, perhaps a kilometre on each side, fluttering like an impossibly large spinnaker sail. As the morning sun shone through it, it glowed a brilliant bloody red, silhouettes of dark branching veins spreading out across it, converging in a central knot of thicker, darker, material. The gigantic ‘sail’ was a crimson nightmare and with the knot of flesh in the middle, it looked like an enormous bloodshot eye staring directly at the approaching plane.
‘Looks like Sauron’s Evil Eye,’ breathed Talbot.
Jamie nodded. Staring malevolently at their foolish approach.
Above the tall central cone, he could see hundreds of ‘floaters’ all tethered to the structure, bumping and jostling together like the gathered party balloons of a fairground vendor.
The plane turned behind the island. Jamie could see a faint trail of white suds in its path, a line in the deep blue sea winding more or less in a straight line back towards the eastern horizon and the rest of the Pacific.
A wake, a telltale indication that this so-called ‘island’ was actually in motion.
‘It’s not an island,’ he muttered. ‘It’s a bloody vessel!’
Freya,
The guy who’s in charge here is called Lawrence. He reminds me of the guy who was running the Oasis place, what was his name? Oh yeah, Carnegie. He seems like a pretty decent type. Not a total power addict like Everett. We have chore groups just like at Everett’s castle too. Farming, fishing, cooking, foraging . . . repairing fishing nets (hate doing that!).
According to Lawrence, right at the beginning, just after the outbreak, the virus grew feelers up to the gap in the bridge, hung around for a few days, then went away. He said the approach road has been pretty much clear of it ever since – as if the virus has decided there was nothing to see here.
But we think it knows there are people living here now.
The old folks here are getting pretty anxious. They’ve had God knows how many town council meetings, each time it’s the same thing – ‘We have to go!’ ‘Right, OK . . . but where?’
I get why they’re so nervous. This is as close as the virus has ever got to them.
At the last meeting I stood up and told them that the bridge and its six-metre gap is the best defence they’re gonna find anywhere.
We’ve just got to stay calm and sit tight and stop the virus growing across the gap!
That’s me. How about you? Are you out there somewhere writing me letters I’m never going to read?
God, I miss you.
CHAPTER 26
‘And . . . there’s some of it sticking out over there,’ said Jake.
Leon swung the hose left. He aimed the spray of seawater at a thick knuckle of viral growth that must have been missed by last night’s shift, or had a huge growth spurt as the shifts changed over. It had meandered nearly a quarter of the way across the gap and was now bowing under its own extended weight. As the salt spray speckled the surface, its tough-looking leathery skin began to crackle and break up like popping candy. The branch began to drool thick strands of gelatinous pink down into the lively waves and froth below. Every now and then small and startled scuttling creatures tumbled out of the artery along with the slime and plummeted to their death in the sea.
Leon couldn’t help a slight grin of satisfaction as his spray of seawater wore the thick root down and pushed it back to the far side of the bridge within a couple of minutes.
‘Come on, it’s my turn now,’ said Jake.
Last night’s town hall gathering had ended with a resounding vote to stay put. If the one weapon they had against the virus was salt, then it made sense to stay right where they were, surrounded on all sides by an ocean of the stuff.
It had been a tense meeting. Some of the residents had raised concerns about the ‘snow clouds’ and ‘soap bubbles’ – the airborne manifestations of the virus that had started appearing more regularly out to sea. But, since everyone on the isle was still taking meds twice a week and they had a stockpile that was going to last years, stealthy infection seemed unlikely. A swarming was the main concern, and if they could keep the virus from establishing a bridgehead on to the isle they were going to be OK.
They had a four-person team on it all the time now – two to take turns hand-pumping the water into a plastic tank, one to maintain the hand-pumped air pressure, and one to spray. The milder weather was cooling fast and it looked like a long, hard third winter was on its way. If the virus followed the form of the last two, it would lie low and wait it out.
Leon passed the hose, rubbed his frozen pink hands together, then swapped places with Jake. He was now on the pump, pulling and pushing the handle to suck seawater up into the tank; it was back-breaking work.
Adewale was working the other handle, wheezing out a cloud of steamy breath into the cool air, exhausted from the exertion.
‘It’s enough now, I think,’ he gasped. Leon looked up. Jake was spraying down the road on the far side to push the viral growths further back.
He nodded and both of them stopped pumping. Finley followed suit and stopped working the foot pump that was maintaining the air pressure.
The hose died in Jake’s hands and he let out a groan of disappointment. ‘Crap, I was enjoying that.’
‘I didn’t get a turn,’ complained Finley.
‘You’ll get a turn this afternoon,’ said Leon. ‘It’ll take a few hours for that stuff to start growing back across.’
Adewale swiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead. ‘Is it growing across faster?’
‘Faster and thicker,’ said Jake. ‘I wonder if it’s trying harder to get across before winter kicks in?’
Leon nodded. He hoped Jake was right about that. If it was trying harder, throwing its full weight into getting at them now, and this was its very best effort, then it looked like they were going to be safe while it ‘died back’ during the winter, safe until at least next spring.
He wandered over to the edge and stared across the gap at the approach road towards the town. Six weeks ago it had been nothing but cracked asphalt and weeds. Now it was almost completely covered with a lumpy and dark lattice of viral threads of varying thickness. Here and there were arteries that converged into a knot, from which small termite mounds had grown upwards like thermal vents. The highest of them was about a metre tall and topped with puckering orifices that every now and then opened to release a small scuttling scout, or to allow one in. The virus clearly knew there was something good to be hunted down nearby, but so far it hadn’t developed any sophisticated plans t
o get to them.
He wondered if it was testing them, perhaps even toying with them. Or maybe it had decided that the recent onset of colder weather was an indication that conquest of this small spit of an isle could wait until the next warm spell.
Freya, even if you and Grace are alive, we’re never going to see each other again, are we? Different islands in different parts of the world. I don’t see plane flights being an option any time soon. What do we do? We just carry on existing on our islands forever? Is anyone, anywhere, fighting back, building up resources, reaching out to other groups? Are your rescuers coming back here any time soon? Or is that it – one rescue attempt and now we’re all on our own?
Maybe I’ll find my own way to reach you.
Somehow.
‘Ah now, Leon love, I’m getting to know that face.’
Leon looked up from his bowl of fish chowder as Cora sat down at the table next to him.
‘Huh . . . what face have I got on, then?’
‘It’s your I miss her face.’ She pulled a freshly baked brown roll into pieces and dropped them into her bowl.
Leon gazed out of the wide window, across the narrow cobblestone promenade at the wooden jetty beyond. The old seafront restaurant’s ‘Ocean Spray Chippy’ logo framed his view. Once it had served cups of tea and the occasional bag of chips to pensioners. Now it functioned as the community’s canteen with two meals a day served to over a thousand hungry mouths. The kitchen beyond the swing doors was constantly alive with the sound of freshly caught fish being slapped down, gutted and boiled or griddled.
‘I looked for her as well,’ said Cora. ‘When we got down to the camp. I looked for that anorak too.’ She smiled. ‘I didn’t see it either. I reckon she made it.’
‘I’ll never get to see her again, though.’
Cora blew on her spoon. ‘No. I suppose you won’t. But believing someone you care for is alive is something.’
‘True.’
‘I lost Iain, my husband of thirty years, in the outbreak. Then I met a lovely man called Dennis. And we survived the first winter and then I lost him too.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose the lesson I should learn there is . . . don’t get too close to anyone or you’ll break your heart again. When life becomes a matter of survival, best keep yourself to yourself. But . . . ’ She tested the broth with her lip and slurped some in. ‘But what’s the point in going on if you can’t allow yourself to love someone else again?’
‘Time to move on from her?’ He flung a hand loosely around. Apart from themselves, the isle was like one big geriatric home.
‘No. I’m just saying don’t give up on the idea of there being someone else.’ She shrugged. ‘I was thinking about this last night.’
‘Thinking about what?’
‘That nothing is permanent. We live for each day and can’t plan for a future. Especially now.’
Nothing was certain. Sure, it looked like they’d have the Isle of Portland for the winter. But what developments would the next warm spell bring? Maybe next summer the virus would’ve figured out a solution for its salt phobia.
‘You know,’ she continued, ‘I used to watch the news and see those stories of waves of migrants in their dinghies crossing the Mediterranean to get into Europe. I used to wonder why they’d put themselves through all of that. And now I’ve been a refugee myself . . . I think I understand.’ She looked out of the window. ‘If there’s a fair chance there won’t be a tomorrow for you, or a next week, or a next year . . . if your life is a constant struggle for existence, you’ve got to grab any opportunity, haven’t you, no matter how hard?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘And that tells me a lot about why they came. They were the ones who hadn’t given up, the ones who’d worked out that the future must be made better, or why bother living in the first place.’
She sank her spoon into the broth and stirred it. Steam wafted up between them. ‘When nothing is permanent or safe, or guaranteed . . . you give up. Or you move on.’ She laughed. ‘Or you can just hope, I suppose.’
‘Hope?’ Leon raised his brows. ‘For what? Another rescue fleet?’
‘Who knows? The Americans and the Chinese managed to do it once. They might try again?’
He shook his head. ‘They’ll have enough of their own problems trying to survive to worry about rescuing pockets of people from around the world.’ He looked out of the window. ‘That rescue went badly. I don’t see them trying it again.’
‘Oh, buggeration.’ She let her spoon drop back into the chowder.
‘What?’
‘I came over and sat down here to cheer you up. Now all that’s happened is you’ve got me feeling down!’ She was joking, he suspected, but only half joking.
‘I’m sorry. Before the world ended I wasn’t much better. My dad used to think I was a total emo.’
‘Emu?’
‘Emo . . . it’s what you call a self-indulgent, whiny-ass teenager who spends his life in his bedroom. Looking back, I think I probably was.’
‘Well, I certainly don’t recognize that teenager. I do see a young man who stepped up when we needed someone to. I think your dad would be proud if he could see you now.’
Outside, a fishing boat was slowly approaching the jetty. The boats went out half a dozen times every day, coming back laden with fish. The English Channel was brimming with cod, haddock and mackerel now. Two years left alone and fish stocks the world over were topped out. He watched as one of the fishermen hopped on to the jetty from the foredeck and began securing stern and aft lines.
They were never going to run out of food and drinking water here. If there was one outpost of humanity that stood a chance of outlasting all others, it was probably going to be this place.
Wait. That’s all they were going to be able to do now. Keep the virus from bridging the gap and wait for winter.
Winter is coming.
‘It’s good to plan, to always be thinking ahead,’ Cora added. ‘To be one of those ready to get on another boat if needs be.’
‘I s’pose.’
‘Seriously, if you’re not thinking like that, then what’s the point?’
CHAPTER 27
Grace was right; it was unpleasant. It was a lot like climbing out of a soothing warm bath back into a cold, draughty and unwelcoming bathroom.
Jing felt his consciousness wading towards a distant surface of rippling shards of light. If he’d been the kind to believe in notions of an afterlife, he might have interpreted those shafts of light as heavenly beacons. But he knew what they were – the reconnection of his supercluster cells with a tangle of optic nerves. He was in the process of disconnecting from the world within and reconnecting with the world outside. Grace had told him this process got easier to cope with and quicker with practice, but this being his first visit to what she’d referred to as her ‘bioverse’ . . . it was hard.
He didn’t want to return. She’d warned him about that too.
His foggy vision began to clear, giving him the blurred image of his own closed eyelids. He could now hear the soft fizz of the ceiling strip light and the hiss of the wall speaker. He could feel the cold, hard floor tiles beneath him and the shuddering cold blast of air on his skin from the air-filtration unit.
Jing opened his eyes and clenched them quickly shut again. The ceiling light was dazzling. It was overwhelming.
‘Lieutenant Choi?’ the wall speaker crackled deafeningly.
Jing winced in response.
‘Lieutenant Choi . . . can you hear me?’
The speaker sounded painfully shrill.
Now his sense of smell was returning, his nose ‘reporting in for duty’. He could smell a festering meaty cheesy odour that was almost overpowering.
He fought an instinct to gag at the stench.
‘Lieutenant Choi?’
He nodded, if only to shut up the sharp crackle of the isolation room’s speaker. ‘Yes,’ he replied hoarsely. ‘Yes . . . I hear you.’
‘How
are you feeling?’
‘Quiet, please,’ he rasped. ‘Give me . . . time.’
The speaker remained mercifully quiet as the last vestiges of his self gradually re-inhabited the body lying on the floor. He turned his head to one side, away from the light above and cracked his eyes open to see the bloody mess of his right shoulder and arm. In places it had been dissolved right down to the bone, but it didn’t shock him. Close up to it, he was witnessing repair work already going on: the rapid growth of fine strands of muscle tissue closing together to form thicker braids, the gradual creep of arterial tubes inching to join with each other. His cells all knew what to do, where to be, what to become.
I am becoming ‘human’ again.
But calling this fragile, inefficient frame ‘human’ felt as if he was cheapening the word. If it was possible, he’d felt even more human on the inside. More in touch with who he was, with those around him . . . with Grace. A sense of connection, communion, part of a whole that meant so much more than the mobile skin-sack of liquid that was Lieutenant Choi in this outside world.
‘Human’ felt too generous a word for such an outmoded form of biological transport.
The speaker crackled again. ‘Lieutenant Choi? How are you feeling?’
He turned his head towards the observation window and saw their faces; Captain Xien, the prime minister, Dr Calloway and a dozen others, all staring at him as if he was some monster dredged up from a dark lagoon.
At this moment in time, he wanted nothing more than to go to back down into the rabbit hole, into the darkness, to the inner world, to Grace’s bioverse. He wanted to climb back into that warm welcoming bathwater and . . . connect with an endless community of minds. To talk, to listen, to learn. To understand more. To be more. To be part of more.
‘How do I feel?’ he rasped.
Their heads nodded, comically, in unison.
‘Cold. Tired . . .’ He wanted to add the word ‘lonely’, but his observers couldn’t possibly understand what he’d mean by that.