Lockdown Nation

by Lim, Candice

  “Let’s get to the point, Quillon.” Ronin lost his patience. His curiosity about Quillon’s proposal got the better of him.

  “I thought merely editing the genes is too unimaginative and unambitious.”

  Ronin shifted in his chair, slighted by the comment. Quillon lived up to his pretentious reputation. “And what sort of big vision have you got in mind?”

  “By combining both our expertise, we might come up with some groundbreaking invention that could shake up the world.” He did a little dance. When Ronin continued to stare at him like he had gone out of mind, Quillon sighed. “To put things more simply, we might be the pioneers of biological machines.”

  Ronin arched his brow. “You’re talking about controlling what―animals with artificial intelligence? Turning them into slaves? Soldiers?”

  Quillon winked and gave him a gun finger. “You’re getting there. Machines are programmed with AI so they behave like us. Living things already have natural intelligence, all we need to do is find a way to control and exploit them for the benefit of mankind. But no, we don’t want troubles with the Ethics. We can start small. Maybe with a single-cell organism. If things go according to plan, we can talk about upscaling later.”

  Ronin facepalmed. “You’re mad. Guess what, I’m down.”

  The rest became history. Quillon and Ronin had been best buddies for decades. But right now, when he looked at the President, he couldn’t recognize him anymore.

  As the sorrow seeped into his system, Ronin hardened his heart and glared at Peyton. “I’ve known you too long to not know what’s on your mind, Quillon. You are being poisoned by your wicked dreams.” He didn’t even hold back his disdain for him.

  Peyton stared at Ronin for a brief while and laughed. “I would have thought you would be less naïve for someone with your knowledge and education. I stand corrected. You are as naïve as the rest of your people.”

  “Deny as you wish, Quillon. You just can’t accept you have failed, that you are not the smartass you thought you were!”

  Peyton’s red eyes were about to burst out of his skull. Gnashed teeth, he lunged at Ronin, grabbing him by the collar. He slammed him against the wall behind him. Pain burst in Ronin’s spine, knocking the air out of his chest. He momentarily lost his balance before he grabbed onto Peyton’s arms. Being the older and weaker male, his effort went futile.

  Ronin and Peyton locked glares. The red in Peyton’s eyes reminded Ronin he had the Cranax in him, though he had displayed less than the usual symptoms of those in the other spectrum. The realization burned a hole in his stomach though he fought to conceal his sudden fear.

  Some way or another, Peyton must have smelt it. A sneer curled up his lips. “You of all people should know better than to make uninformed assumptions.” Peyton came in so closely Ronin could smell his breath. “You were right your friend Quillon wouldn’t have even dreamt of half of what Project Hive Mind has achieved. Your assumption of the mastermind is insulting.”

  Ronin’s eyes widened briefly. “Who―who are you?”

  With a dismissive laugh, Peyton let go of the old man and dusted his clothes. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”

  For the first time, the raw fear for the fate of humanity expanded in his chest and bristled his heart. “What good will it do to anyone if everybody is infected with Cranax? What are you planning to do with a mindless society? Send them off to fight aliens on another planet?”

  A wicked laugh boomed across the room, ringing hollow in the dark space. “As a scientist, you are too unimaginative. No wonder with your qualifications, you’re still stuck in ANNUS.”

  He clenched and unclenched his fist at the cocktail of frustration and distress building up in him. “I’m not in the mood for your wicked games. You have won now. The fate of humanity is in your hands now. What more do you want?”

  Peyton suddenly turned and glared at Ronin. “Not yet! Thanks to some rogue indie scientists who think they’re so clever to take things into their own hands, a group of people seems to have gained immunity against the virus.” He looked away and glared in the distance in the dark. “And now, we have extra work to do.” When he spun at Ronin again, his eyes turned bloodshot. He staggered back in shock. “But it won’t be long.”

  Ronin’s head whirled with thoughts. “What about the other scientists from ANNUS? What have you done to them?”

  “Don’t worry, Prof. Ronin. They are safe…for the moment. After all, we need a control group.”

  Ronin gulped, unsure if he could trust him. He wanted to cling to his last hope. “Where am I?”

  “Oh, you don’t recognize this place?” Peyton splayed his arms. “You initiated this whole project.”

  Ronin stared at Peyton. The reality sank in him, filling him with raw fear for his life. “No, it can’t be.”

  Peyton pulled out a tablet from inside his coat. Though infected, he still dressed well in his tailored suit, without a wrinkle in sight. “You’re welcome, Ronin. It’s probably the safest place you could be with the pandemic out there.” He thrust the tablet into Ronin’s palms. Red dots spreading like bacteria and covering every inch of Asia Nova on the Cranax distribution map.

  “I’ll leave that with you, so you have a little something to do awaiting the end of your time. Though I didn’t think you want to spend the rest of your days watching your beloved nation crumble while you couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

  Peyton’s laugh reverberated through the walls, planting daggers into Ronin’s heart. “Oh, and if you’re thinking about calling for help with that tablet, good luck with that. All the communication programs have been disabled.” He spun around and left the room.

  Ronin could only glare at Peyton’s retreating back. The door closed after him, sealing the last light from the room.

  The blue light from the tablet illuminated Ronin’s face. The number of cases jumped up with every second, rising the hairs on his arms. As his worries grew, an idea sprang to his mind.

  3

  ROXY

  An unsettling uneasiness crawled into my stomach as the door opened to Dr. Jane Hershey’s lab. The familiar toxic smell of chemicals lingered in the air, resurrecting the memories of the last time I had been here. We were saving Axon’s ass from Vaxine, who happened to be infected and under the control of the Cranax virus at the time. I thought would be our last time here. Who knew, we would be back so soon.

  I stared at the same blank faces of the furniture I met when I first set foot here with Vaxine. Every time I passed through the door, someone pushed the replay button on my mind and rewound the incidents taken place over the few months.

  “Welcome home, everybody.” Axon plopped down and sprawled on the white sofa. The panoramic window overlooked the golden sea where the sun set on the horizon.

  Vaxine locked down the facility with a tap on her phone.

  Axon arched his brow at Vaxine. “Hershey sure trusted you enough to let you have so much access and control to her secret lab.”

  Vaxine rolled her eyes, not in the mood for bantering. “Put all your Zappers and electronics to charge. Then, have a shower and get some rest. We don’t know if we will ever get this privilege looking at the current state.”

  I looked out at the ocean that reminded me of Whiteshore. My thoughts went to Ronin and what happened in ANNUS. I wouldn’t have imagined this would happen in ANNUS back in Whiteshore.

  “Okay, I’m going to use the shower first if no one else does,” clamored Mandy. She glanced at us in turn―Axon on the couch, Sam and Vaxine at the pantry, and me at the window. When no one protested, Vaxine nodded in the direction of the bathroom.

  Once Mandy disappeared around the corner, Vaxine pulled out her laptop and checked the news. Sam stood next to her, arms across his chest. When Vaxine tapped ‘Enter’, the page went blank. Sam and Vaxine exchanged frowns.

  “It seems like the news website is down.” Vaxine’s fingers furiously tapped on the ke
yboard to retrieve different websites but the same white page returned.

  Axon looked up from his phone. “Maybe the internet is down? Try restarting the router.”

  “No, it’s not.” Vaxine gave way when Sam pulled the laptop in front of him. His fingers blurred on the keyboard. “It seems like the websites have gone dark.”

  Axon sprang to his feet with a cuss. “You’re right. I got booted out from my Social Sense. The Infected are taking control of the official websites. They’re trying to cut off public access from all information about the pandemic.”

  “Looks like the Infected are smarter than we thought,” said Vaxine.

  I withdrew my tablet to check the Cranax sequence database. Still online. I scrolled through the list of new sequences I’d added when I noticed a red fine print on the last one. I clicked into the sequence to see the activity log. Someone else had edited it 20 minutes ago.

  ‘5.3201N100.3189E’

  I stared at the number trying to make sense out of it. Nothing came to mind.

  “Hey, guys. I need your help. Someone added a weird number to the gene I uploaded to the sequence website.” I turned to the group gathered around at the pantry deciphering the missing websites.

  “They probably assigned a new ascension number to the gene.” Vaxine looked at the tablet and passed it to Axon.

  “Yeah, it looks like an ascension number to me.”

  “The other uploads don’t have it,” I protested.

  “They probably haven’t assigned them one.” Axon passed the tablet back to me, but Sam snatched it.

  “Glad we have experts here. If you’d asked me, I would have thought they were coordinates,” laughed Sam.

  It hit me like all the nerves in my brains finally connected at once. “It must be Ronin!” I copied the number into the GPS program on the tablet. When the hourglass image disappeared, a red arrow pinpointed an island on the map.

  I tapped on the island but found no information. My shoulders slumped along with my excitement. “I guess you were right it’s an ascension code.”

  Axon snatched the tablet. “Hold up. You’re on the right track.” He snatched the laptop from Sam and typed on the search engine. “Yes! You’re right. It’s a rehab island.”

  “A rehab island?” Sam arched his brow.

  “I overheard a conference held by the emergency coalition. They were planning to conduct experiments on the Infected in these islands. They were going to deploy the National Service recruits there,” said Axon.

  “Islands? More than one?” Vaxine raised a brow.

  “I believe so.”

  The chill picked up in the room bristled my hair. “And what if there’s an outbreak? All the recruits will die there?”

  “At least the outbreak would be contained this way,” said Axon. “I believe you were right, Roxy. Ronin must have sent out this cryptic message to tell us where he is.”

  “He could’ve called like a normal person instead of playing these mind games thinking you guys would solve his puzzles because you were in the Community,” said Sam.

  “Maybe it’s his only way of communication,” said Vaxine.

  “If there is a fully functional facility on the island to conduct experiments on the Infected, why did you think it wouldn’t have the most basic communication infrastructure? Unless…” Sam glanced at us in turn. “Unless he’s not running the place himself.”

  The missing pieces of the puzzle were slowly falling in place in my head.

  “You’re right, Sam,” I muttered. “He wouldn’t have conveniently cut out all contacts and go on an island getaway to send some cryptic message to screw with us. This has to be more complex.”

  Vaxine folded her arms over her chest. “The sudden outbreak in ANNUS is telling us something. Some residents of ANNUS must have contracted the virus, programmed to remain dormant in the host until a specific time.”

  “Ronin must be in grave danger now. We need to go and get him outta there,” I cried.

  “We know nothing about this place.” Sam looked up from the laptop. “I can’t find any information about this rehab island.”

  The panic welled up in my chest. I sucked in a deep breath to calm myself. “So now what? We pretend nothing happened? We let Ronin die?”

  “What if this is a trap?” Sam said. “What if the mastermind behind Project Hive Mind sent out the code to bait us?”

  My head spun quickly the floor wobbled and tilted out of axis. I pulled a chair to sit down and massaged my temples. Ronin held the only ticket to my parents’ whereabouts. “Only he can help us stop the pandemic now. If we don’t take the chance now, we might all fall to the virus.”

  “Sam is right. How sure are we he isn’t dead, and the message hasn’t been sent out by an Infected? We’ve lost too many lives. We cannot afford to take another miscalculated risk.”

  “Then, what should we do now?” I asked.

  Axon and Vaxine traded looks, then she said, “We should understand the virus more first. Axon, you were in the project. You know the virus more than all of us combined. Maybe you can shed some light on it?”

  Axon took a deep breath. “Trust me, I know as much as you do. The project and virus have evolved beyond recognition.” He shrugged. “I guess that’s grad school for you.”

  “We should give the lab a spring cleaning, comb out any clues Hershey might have left and see what we can conclude from there,” said Vaxine.

  Axon and Sam nodded matter-of-factly. No one else had a better idea.

  All heads turned to Mandy walking out with her hair tucked in a towel. “I forgot how nice it is to feel fresh and clean again. Are we gonna order some food in?”

  “You came right in time. We’re about to start hustling,” said Axon. “You could help with some setup.”

  Mandy slumped. “Do we have to do it now?”

  ☣☣☣☣☣☣

  After Axon, the last to shower returned to the lab, Vaxine 3D-printed our dinner with the Atom Mancer―some beef and chicken burgers and chips. Unsure if I was famished or Vaxine had changed the settings on the machine, the burger tasted so good, I wolfed it down within seconds. Even Axon hadn’t protested through the meal, so I assumed the latter.

  We sat around the bench in the pantry and ate in silence. Too tired for small talk. Even the most talkative in the group, Axon, had resigned himself to his thoughts.

  At 8.45 pm, we finished eating and Vaxine dumped our plates into the incinerator.

  “Time to work.” Vaxine led us into Hershey’s room where she flicked on the lights.

  The memories of what happened the last time we had been here flooded back. The mental pictures of Vaxine suddenly point a gun at Axon’s temple flounced in my head. My tired eyes didn’t help me with the pounding in my head.

  I pinched the bridge of my nose and focused on why we were here.

  “Sam and I will see what we can scrape from the computers.” Vaxine glanced at the rest. “You guys can dig around and see what you can find.”

  Axon shuffled around the room with Mandy tagging along behind him. When Sam and Vaxine jumped into their seats and got to work.

  With five people in it, the already small room shrunk so much it became claustrophobic. Next to the door, the multiscreen computer station occupied half of the space. A display cabinet boxed between two massive bookshelves on the opposite wall.

  Mandy dropped to a crouch and picked the locked drawer. I could barely stand let alone squeeze in to have a closer look at the shelves, so I retreated outside the room. “There’s not enough room here, I’ll look around the facility.”

  Vaxine merely nodded. The rest engrossed in their task.

  I turned around and left the room, not wanting to interrupt them. I didn’t have any special skill to offer so I might as well stand out of their way. Once back in the common area, my attention drew to the panoramic window where the sky and sea melded into a black expanse. Stars studded th
e black velvet sky and dusted the black wobbles with their reflections.

  Staring into the abyss, I allowed myself to be hypnotized by the mesmerizing sight and let it take me away from all the troubles haunting me. It never crossed my mind I would live in a pandemic, what’s more, to be involved in the behind-the-scenes.

  My mind strayed to Ronin and the rehab island. If Axon had been right about his whereabouts, why would the mastermind behind Project Hive Mind want him there? Ronin said the culprit could be my grandfather, but he died. Nothing even made any sense at all. If only I could look up some answers like how I did for the exams and quizlets.

  If only someone could tell me what to do now―wait a minute. The sudden idea catapulted my feet down the corridor towards the lab.