by Tim Heath
Lorna read through her notes once more. It had been the fourth time she'd read them that day. With her patient completely unconscious, there seemed little else to do.
Three Weeks Ago
“I don't understand it,” Robert said, charging from their small office, Eleanor barely raising her head. She, meanwhile, continued to work the screens, pulling data and monitoring the situation with all her usual grace and brilliance. The RAF had been very fortunate to have secured her services, their offer coming at a time when she was being head-hunted by some of the most significant business empires on the planet.
Robert walked up to Lincoln who was looking at the main output screen, standing there silently, as if words had no way of expressing what was entirely going on internally. He was terrified. His own career aside, this had been a flagship British project and trillions had been invested already, a fact little known by the general public but now sure to get out if anything went wrong. And it had gone badly wrong. The self shut-down of the probe while set in its orbit had been a major failing of its onboard system command. There was, it had been thought, no scope within the system hard drive to have acted like this. It was as if it was creating its own commands and following its own orders. That, they knew, was impossible. And yet, from what they were reading on the many screens, they still had no idea what had in fact taken place.
It was early afternoon on that same day, the day after the initial launches when the rest of the satellites went offline and then each started slowing down. The original probe was at this point beginning to re-enter the earth's atmosphere. There was now a gallant effort to regain control. However, their efforts were fruitless. The base got put on high alert, and all non-essential personnel were evacuated, which was still only about a third of the people. As it was a closed circuit nuclear probe, there was no real fear of the reactor detonating on impact, but they were taking no chances. What they didn't know was that the malfunction, as yet undiagnosed, had in fact engaged the nuclear reactor, making it, in essence, a falling atomic bomb. This would be discovered too late to save anyone.
By half-past two the probe had entered European airspace, on the locked-in coordinates that would bring it back to the very base where the concept was first conceived and from where it had launched just seven days before. It was never designed to return to Earth. There was about thirty minutes left before impact, its re-entry doing very little to slow its speed or change its trajectory.
It was only in the final two minutes, as everyone waited silently, literally holding their breath, that the true extent of the imminent disaster was known. Just ninety seconds before impact, stunning the watching crowd, a message appeared on their main terminal, the last communication they had from the probe––it merely declared:
“THIS WAS NO ACCIDENT––GOODBYE...”
A cry went up, people started running, desperate for a way out, though they had no chance. Significantly, no one reported the message. It would die with them.
The probe impacted the ground just a few metres from where it was launched, in the centre of the base. A small explosion shook the ground, and for a couple of seconds there was nothing before the nuclear core detonated, the immediate area obliterated as a mushroom cloud rose in the afternoon sky, it's ominous image captured and beamed around the world.
5
Present Day
John opened his eyes and found himself hovering over the ground, flying as it were. He was having another vision. As far as he could tell, he was alone. His view was locked onto the ground; it was a scene of destruction. Trees scorched, blackened and dead looking, some broken in two as if just tossed aside by some giant force moving through.
Now cars were visible; crushed and twisted, the roads they had been driving on hardly noticeable under the layers of debris that sat on top. Maybe there was going to be a tremendous storm, the thought flashed through John's mind, but didn't stay for long.
Through the smoke, its dense cloud making visibility very difficult, he caught a brief glimpse of a snake-like river running down below, and froze at the realisation:
“This is London,” he said aloud to himself, “I'm looking at London!” The panic was short lived. Up above, to the right of the window he was looking out of, a giant ball of fire came into view, dissecting the sky at an alarming angle, showing no sign of stopping, and in what seemed like seconds came crashing down into the smoke and destruction below. A bright flash broke through the smoke clouds, the force of it such that he felt the place he was sitting in shake. Then a mushroom cloud arose in the distance, and his world tumbled, spinning around and around, falling to the ground, heading into the destruction. He closed his eyes; this was becoming too real.
In those final seconds, knowing he was about to wake up, John determined to remember it all, though what he saw was hardly something he could forget. London, destroyed below him, smoke everywhere, and then a nuclear explosion.
He drifted off to sleep at that moment, as the images in his head were meeting the ground, and there were stillness and darkness. Nothing happened for an age, it seemed.
He felt his heart racing, then calming. His hearing came back, his eyes beginning to open. He was back in the hospital room.
Three Weeks Ago
News from London was going all around the world. All flights were cancelled, not that anyone dared to venture into this active disaster zone.
Various news teams were still trying to record the events, and an American crew were scanning the city from a four-person helicopter.
The scene below them was carnage. The first explosion had destroyed a small area and smoke was pushing up. The camera on the helicopter was beaming live images to its news show, which was being relayed around the world. London had taken a severe blow.
The pilot navigated as best he could, keeping high and away from the enormous columns of black/grey smoke billowing in their direction.
The Thames came into sight briefly, its curves and turns picking up reflections of nearby fires burning, and a few boats were seen floating by.
One of the news crew suddenly spotted something in the sky and directed the cameraman to the fireball that was appearing from the right. Although it was a little restricted by the helicopter's reasonably small windows, the camera caught the object descending, as an eerie quiet fell upon the crew. Seconds later, after the object had dropped from view, there was a blinding flash of light, the force of it shaking the helicopter as it hovered there in the sky. Warning buttons started sounding all over the dashboard, and the pilot had to fight hard to keep control. The cameraman picked out, to everyone's horror, a giant mushroom cloud appearing on the horizon. Just moments later, the full force now engulfing them, the helicopter was thrown about violently, the pilot being slammed hard against the control column, losing consciousness. Then the aircraft plunged head first towards the ground.
The last thing the cameraman was able to do, was to point the camera to the ground, so the camera recorded through the front window of the helicopter the approaching ground, and then there was nothing.
The helicopter exploded, and the blades were thrown at high speed in different directions, smashing into burning buildings, adding to the carnage.
Felix had been watching the television while editing some clips when the news helicopter had crashed. He was one of the millions of people shocked and alarmed by what he was seeing. The screen went blank for a while, before returning to a silent and subdued studio. The two news anchors lost for words before regaining some composure.
Felix quickly stopped what he was doing and went to work on the most recent footage. He put together the two-minute clip in no time, as the helicopter covered the city, then the river, then the flash and explosion.
Felix hoped it would feel like his patient was flying. Seeing everything that the camera saw as if with your own eyes, there would be no understanding of what was going on.
Felix finished by adding the special touches that he hoped would bring an element of consiste
ncy to all the images, these visions that he was putting together, this program he was perfecting.
Running back through it about half an hour after first seeing it, he was most impressed at his handiwork. He did a little more editing on it, taking out small bits of detail that might make it look obvious, and ran the final version through once more, just to be sure, before saving it, labelling it clearly, and inserting it carefully into its correct position in the final program.
Felix checked his watch. It said that it was nearly six, though you wouldn't have known that from outside. The smoke and clouds made it much darker than it was, giving everything a night time feel.
His health was starting to worsen. For him it was now a race against time to get things working; testing, he hoped, could start tomorrow. He would indeed be around for that. He just wasn't now sure of how much longer he'd be around after tomorrow. Pushing that thought from his mind, knowing it wasn't doing him any good, he returned to what he had been doing before the latest interruption. He would work as late as he could before tiredness would get the better of him
Present Day
John lay awake and conscious on his bed, though Lorna was not initially aware of it as she prepared some fresh sheets and tidied away some of the things that had been brought into his room. As she moved freely, with her guard down, John spotted something in her, something like a deep sadness, and was watching her intently when she noticed he was awake and returned the gaze. Her automatic smile took up its station on her face once again, but what he'd just seen in her eyes, told him a whole lot about the reality of her situation. It was still a mystery to John, but with only Lorna for company, he hoped he'd get the chance to get to the bottom off it.
“How are you feeling, John?” she said, trying to shake off the fact he'd been watching her, and sensing he'd probably already read through her obvious disguise.
“I'm doing as well as can be expected, right?” It wasn't a question, and she didn't give him an answer. She instead smiled away, slightly turning as if to continue her needless work, before saying:
“Is there anything I can get you, John?”
He shook his head. What he wanted to know was why was she so sad. Was it his condition, though he felt he was improving all the time? There was indeed something she was hiding from him, and it was apparent now in everything about her; the way she hung her shoulders, the way her body frame seemed deflated as if the life was draining out of her.
She carried on with what she was doing, but her heart wasn't in it. What she wanted to do was talk, talk to anybody, but right now talk with John. She needed to pour out her heart and how she was hurting inside. She wanted to tell him that she didn't want to be there with him. She wanted to say all that to him, and yet that would mean acknowledging stuff he wasn't, however, expected to know.
But what was reality now, anyway? She'd not asked herself about the morality of what she was involved in; she had just followed orders. Still, she was acting under her own control, choosing to use her skill and training to bring something right out of it all. And she'd convinced herself, nearly anyway, that it was a numbers issue and not a point of moral truth. One life for the lives of millions. And yet in all those millions, her James was still gone. After it all, if they were even successful, she was still alone. Lorna stopped herself. She hadn't thought of herself as alone at all until that moment. How could she return home and live in the same house? Lorna would be expecting James to put his key in the lock and walk in at any moment. Thoughts were racing in and out in a random fashion. She was just standing there, looking at nothing in particular, when John's voice pulled her back to reality.
“I said, are you okay? You've been standing there for twenty seconds just refolding that same sheet over and over.”
Momentarily embarrassed, she turned and faced John. Changing the subject, as she was now in the habit of doing, she said:
“You need some more medicine. Let me see if I can find a vein, shall I?”
“Look, you can talk to me if you want, you know. I'm a great listener. I mean, lying here, what else can I do?” He laughed, which brought a small smile to her face.
“I'm sure you are, John. I'm sure you are. But you need your rest and must keep your strength up. You don't need me unloading my issues on you, that's for sure.”
“I don't know, try me,” he said, but it was clear he wasn't going to have any luck, this time. Lorna rolled up the sleeve of his right arm and tapped it with her two fingers, before rubbing a small amount of local anaesthetic on it and then slowly injected him with the latest cocktail of drugs he was being required to take. They would, amongst other things, help reduce the stress on the heart and the overload of brain activity during the visions, which would significantly reduce the risk of a heart attack.
“Look, John, you get some rest now, and we can chat when you wake up, okay?”
“Okay, if that's what you want,” he said, as the drugs were already getting into his blood system. His eyes felt heavy as the room went dark, the sounds fading as he dropped off once again into his drug-induced state of unconsciousness.
Three Weeks Ago
Felix had seen enough of death. His cough was also getting worse. He was under no illusion that his life too had been affected and that he had days, at most, left. It made every hour all the more critical. He had to complete the program and get it operational. There might still be a chance that it would help. And besides, he had to do something with his remaining time.
The reality of his situation made it a lot easier to proceed. The thought of future ethics committees and court cases held no threat, as he knew he would never be around to face them. It meant he could focus on the pure science of it, a rare opportunity for someone in his field of operation, and he was not wasting any time.
Most of the program had already been written in draft form, though with a very different purpose in mind. Felix had already collected as much material as he could––much taken from the hours of television exposure the disaster had had from around the world. Where those cameras had no access, he'd added his own footage with a simple enough hand-held camera, recording the bodies, the burning, the destruction and death of anything previously living. He had used this footage to create a backdrop in the program, and once uploaded onto the central computer, hoped he would be able to develop walk-through scenes with these very images.
Present Day
With her patient asleep, Lorna had taken a long walk around the grounds of the facility she was working in, taking in the small pockets of nature that remained. Nearly all the trees had gone now, but a few smaller ones retained some form of life.
She hadn't been able to process everything that had happened to her over the last few days, and she knew that there wouldn't be a chance now either. If she walked that path, she did not know if there would be any way back. It was a door she didn't want to open for fear of it being more than she could bear. It certainly felt like it would be. In her unconscious thoughts, she knew there lurked a monster of hurt, rage and bitterness that she had so far subdued, or more to the point, ignored.
She had always wondered how people dealt with the death of a loved one, having been faced with it many times with her patients, and those left behind. Now she was sure she didn't want to know. Work gave her the perfect excuse, but it was more than that. This was survival. Not just herself, but for the nation and millions of others affected by this catastrophe. There was so much going on inside the walls of the hospital, that for once she didn't know what would happen. Humanity, or more to the point, humanity closest to her, was caught up in the same battle to survive, to live, to come out of this thing still intact. And deep inside, she knew that if there were a chance this world would survive, then she would survive it too. She determined that her survival was now intertwined with the rest of the world. If the ship were going down, then she would go down fighting; but if they were to survive, she determined that she would be there with them, not a victim, but a survivor. A winner. One of
those lucky ones who get to see the sunrise after the storm of the night before. The Lorna of one month ago was gone. If she were to come through this and indeed get through it, she would have to adapt, have to change, have to fight. In the natural world they say only the strongest survive; so she would have to be the strongest. To allow her emotions to control her, or distract her, let alone hurt her, was just now, not an option. In those few minutes of walking, thinking, and peeping through that door in her soul, she made up her mind to be stronger, to bury those thoughts and hurts, to lose them and forget them if possible, and then to do what she needed to do. If that were to follow orders, she would do it. If that were to cause others hurt for the greater good, she would do it. If it were to let someone die, she would do it.
Head down and with a speed and purpose to her walk, she returned to work, in through the main doors, but she was returning as a very different person. The crowded waiting area was full of people, some already checked in, others just waiting. But these were no longer patients––these were victims. They were all victims. And together, they would fight to survive.
Three Weeks Ago
Felix had been working for seven hours straight, unaware that it had been that long, but he'd been left unnoticed and unchallenged. People just didn't know how to deal with the clear-up, let alone ask what he was doing. Many of the first body bags were now starting to be removed, for fear of health issues, and also the need to create more space. The lack of numbers significantly hindered the clean-up. Outsiders were now not allowed, and not willing, to come onto the site as authorities started to implement disaster management plans, in limited places, still overwhelmed by it all. The radiation in places was still high, and the risk of further explosions was very high. Those who were helping, the people located on so far unaffected parts of the base, were now starting to show signs of extreme, and fatal, radiation poisoning. Just two days after the initial explosion, there was less than half the workforce there had been. Most were now sick, a small number had fled, but that would not save them, even if they avoided the usual army discipline. They would all be dead in a matter of weeks, if not days. It was not as if breathing fresh, clean, countryside air would be enough. They'd already ingested lethal amounts of poison, alien to the body and killing it one cell at a time.