Arisen, Book Six - The Horizon (27 page)

The hatch to the briefing room opened briskly. In walked an alert-looking NSF guy, carrying an assault rifle.

Behind him were Sarah Cameron and Dr. Park.

Both were wearing blue jumpsuits.

And Handon knew for certain that wasn’t what Sarah had put on when they got up that morning.

* * *

“What happened to you?” Park asked the banged-up-looking Drake.

“I just got creased,” Drake said tiredly, again. “It’s nothing.”

Park didn’t look reassured. “Until it gets infected! Are you not worried about germs yet?”

Drake ignored this, quickly introduced Park to Professor Close, and then shuffled the two of them off – along with the armed NSF guy – so they could coordinate and get to work down in the lab.

After that, Sarah gave those who remained the short version of the close call she and Park had belowdecks. Then she asked Drake to call up ship’s blueprints, flipped to the lowest level, and scrolled to the stern, pausing at Stores.

“I’m not saying your ship is crawling with them,” she said, gazing down at a map display on the tablet computer. “But I wouldn’t exactly call it secure, either.”

“What are we looking at?”

“You’ve got destroyed ones here… and here…” she said, pointing, Drake and Fick following her finger. “And a live one, trapped in this companionway here.” She looked up at Drake. “And we need to keep it alive. Park needs a virus sample.”

Drake nodded. “Well, that’s some good luck, anyway.”

Sarah refrained from sharing her sense of how good their luck had or hadn’t been. Going back to the map, she said, “I’m afraid you’ve also got a dead hospital lab technician… in this compartment here. Depending on how much of him is left, he might be back up by now. Dr. Walker knows about it. He was one of her people.”

Gunny Fick straightened up. “The capture shouldn’t be a problem. I can’t say we’ve done a ton of that, but we’ll work it out.”

Sarah looked up at Fick. “Be careful. It’s a runner.”

Drake looked at Fick. “How did these get missed?”

Fick straightened up and sniffed. “My guess would be they got infected by splashback in the battle, started feeling bad later… then slunk off to avoid a bullet in the head. They might have even been listed as MIA in the battle, when they didn’t show up for their next duty.”

Drake just sighed. He didn’t suppose there was much point in issuing orders to protect themselves from those infected but not yet turned. There was no incentive you could provide, no order you could give, to someone who was already dead on his feet.

At the same time, he couldn’t risk losing the ship.

“We’ve got to do a full sweep. The risk of another serious outbreak below decks is too great. And we might not survive the next one.”

Fick mumbled, “Maybe we can get another mutiny to go along with it. Blow another hole in the boat.”

Drake ignored this. “Can your guys take the sweep? Coulson and two fire teams, maybe?”

It looked like it physically pained Fick to turn down a mission. “Coulson and his men are prepping for the scavenging op in Saldanha Bay. And since the objective of that mission is supplies for the Somalia mission…”

Drake finished the thought for him. “Then that makes Coulson’s mission a critical-path task.” Fick nodded.

Handon spoke up. “I’ll take it. My team can do the sweep. Or else we’ll take over the scavenging op, and free the Marines up for that.”

Fick shook his head slowly. “No way, Handon. You just hold the horns. We’re fucking this goat.” But what he really meant was that Alpha had to get, and stay, healthy for Somalia. He looked over to Drake. “Let’s let NSF do it. They’ve got the people, weapons, and skills for this type of bug hunt.”

“Agreed,” Drake said. “Somebody alert that British dude – Lieutenant Weasley or whatever.”

“Wesley,” Fick corrected.

“Whatever. He’s accomplished every mission we’ve given him. Get him briefed and tasked.”

Finally, Drake pinned Fick with his unsteady but still unamused eye. “And just to be clear, Master Gunnery Sergeant: you are
not
personally going on the scavenging mission. We clear on that?” Basically, Drake did not want Fick pulling that shit again where he got himself to Beaver Island by leaping on the bomber as it was taxiing, too late to stop him.

“Whatever,” Fick muttered, sounding like a child who has been told he’s too small to ride the roller coaster.

“
We clear on that
, Gunny?”

Fick snapped a smart salute. “Aye aye, skipper.”

Drake just grunted skeptically in response: “Uh huh.”

* * *

After leaving the briefing, Handon and Sarah stepped out onto the platform that overlooked the flight deck. Below them, the recovery effort was winding down and cleaning up. Most of the bodies, debris, and wounded had been cleared off. But it still looked a little like what it had recently been: a disaster area.

“I saw all this on the way in,” Sarah said. “Just didn’t have time to ask. What the hell happened?”

“You’d hardly believe it,” Handon said.

“Were you there?”

“Yes.”

“Were you in danger?”

Handon shrugged. “Not like you were.”

Now, the professionalism they had carefully maintained in the briefing room evaporated, and they embraced, squeezing each other tightly, and not letting go. Once again, the thought of losing what they had miraculously found, so soon after finding it…

None of those down on the flight deck really looked up at this public display of affection. But one who did, due to her habit of scanning all angles and planes constantly, was Ali. She and Henno had come up top to lend a hand with the recovery. Having done all they could for now, they were walking back toward the stern, about to head below and return to their own work.

They kept walking. But as Ali craned her neck up at her commander and the Canadian woman… instead of seeing those two, suddenly what she saw was – Captain Ainsley. Ainsley, who had sacrificed himself for their mission, and without a second’s hesitation. Ali never had any doubt, and had no doubt now, that Handon would do the same. He would spend his life in a heartbeat, if the job required it.

But what she suddenly doubted now, and doubted terribly, was: would Handon be willing to sacrifice
her
?

What would happen if and when Handon was forced to choose between Sarah and the mission? Would he still be able to make that choice, do what was necessary? Would he be strong enough?

And even that wasn’t what she was really seeing up on that platform. What she was really seeing was: her and Homer. That other dangerous relationship within the team.

It was all getting too goddamned complex… And too damned risky…

Weight Gain 4000

JFK
- Biosciences Lab

Professor Nigel Close did not give the impression of being in the most state-of-the-art lab he had ever enjoyed. He walked in, looked around, and seemed to struggle to keep his nose from twitching. It was transparent to Park that what Close was thinking was:
Why aren’t we back at Oxford right now – like I told them we should be?

Park almost smiled at this.

Because something else was transparent to him: that he and Close had been keeping very different company lately. Close had been amongst academics – and Park had been with the operators. And as a result, he perhaps knew now the value and necessity of making do – of adapting and overcoming. And he knew that if you could not adapt and overcome, then you were totally hosed. Because conditions were always going to change on you.

These days, probably for the worse.

Basically, Park was not the same man he had been. And he was pretty pleased with the new one he was slowly becoming. He rubbed the inside of his arm, and touched the bandages on his side, wrapped tightly around his waist. Even those didn’t hurt – strangely, they almost felt good.

Like badges he had earned. Trials he had endured.

And, for once, he had played the lead in his own drama. And doing so had been transformative. Though he didn’t necessarily have any desire to do it again anytime soon.

He offered Close a stool, took the one next to it, and went straight into addressing the man’s concerns. The sooner Close stopped being upset about them, the sooner they could focus on what they had to accomplish there.

“The reason we’re here in the south Atlantic,” Park said, “rather than in a proper research lab, is that I need a very early virus sample to finish my vaccine.”

This seemed to bring the older man around. He nodded seriously as he spoke in response. “Yes, your vaccine – a dsRNA interference technique. Based on alleles from early in the outbreak – but far from the point of disease emergence. That, plus the abnormally high mutation rate, means we need a sample from the source.”

“Exactly.”

Close squinted. “Do you also have a very recent sample – for comparison with the very early one? We actually brought a whole menagerie with us – cultures of every sample we have, a wide variety of temporal and geographical points in the pandemic. Bottom of the ocean now, I’m afraid.”

“It’s all right,” Park said. “Ultimately, all I really need is a current sample from anywhere – that is, an ultimate point of mutation; along with an initial or very early one, to show me the starting point. Between the two, I’ll know enough about which genes have stayed the same, and so which ones to target the vaccine on. Now the early sample we can only get—”

“—in or near Hargeisa.”

“Precisely.”

“And the current sample?”

Park checked his watch. “Should be on its way up any time.”

* * *

“This is some
bull
shit,” Sergeant Lovell muttered into his chin mic, as he and another Marine, Lance Corporal Burris, both of them decked out in full-body MOPP suits, wrestled the flailing runner to the ground. The bulky MOPP suits were designed to provide comprehensive protection from both chemical and biological agents, which happily included infectious pathogens.

“Just get it done,”
Fick said, overseeing this operation through the porthole glass at the end of the short companionway.
“Get the damned thing trussed up, get it in the bag, and get the bag in the box.”

His two guys had been provided with flexicuffs and duct tape, as well as a protective polyvinyl-chloride body bag. Finally, they had a plastic Tuff-Box of roughly the right shape and size for an animated, but restrained, dead body.

Fick watched as Lovell held the Romeo on the ground, pinning its arms with both his own, while Burris tried to get the flexicuffs on it from behind. Finally, cursing, he gave up on those and tossed them away, going instead for the duct tape.

“Damn, dudes!” he said. “This guy’s seriously strong for a skinny motherfucker.” He started wrapping the writhing, hissing dead man up like a maypole, starting at the ankles. As the tape came ripping off the roll, and Burris wound around and up, Lovell struggled to keep his hold on the thing – and continued to gripe over the radio.

“I heard the Brits brought their own virus samples, and we don’t even need this shit.”

Fick pressed his transmit button.
“Stick a dick in your ear, and fuck what you heard. Over.”

Lovell gave him a sullen look from his position down on the deck, beneath the increasingly slimy dead guy. The animated corpse was relatively fresh and unrotted, but all the tussling was starting to squeeze stuff out of him.

Fick squelched again.
“You screw this up, Sergeant, and I swear I will come in there and personally fuck-start your face.”

Sergeant Lovell, his face already beet-red from exertion, looked if anything less happy. Also slightly confused.

“It’s like a jump start. But with a fuck. Over.”

By this point, Burris had the runner more than halfway trussed up. But there was now a fair bit of disgusting, black, viscous fluid on the deck around them, and his feet shot out from under him. He sprawled out on top of both the runner and the other Marine. Lovell, with his head now stuck in Burris’s crotch, continued to bear-hug the wriggling dead guy for dear life.

Fick checked his watch. He did have other shit to do.

Then again, this was pretty damned entertaining to watch.

* * *

“Okay,” Professor Close said, sounding resigned and maybe borderline happy now. “Assuming the Keystone Kops who run this ship get you the early samples, and you work out the etiology of the pathogen… let’s talk about what equipment you’re going to need to finish your design, undertake testing, and start prototype production of the vaccine.”

Park watched the older man for a second. There was a light behind his eyes now. Park finally realized what it was. Scientists were puzzle-solvers at heart. And this man seemed to sense that they were on the verge of solving what was perhaps the most important scientific puzzle in human history.

That they might be on the verge of saving the species.

Moreover, Close seemed to sense that this younger scientist had very nearly succeeded, where he and all his colleagues had known only failure, for two straight years. And that kind of success was the source of all scientific respect.

Park drew and exhaled a breath. “Okay. I’m going to need a lab with a full suite of drug-discovery facilities. Protein-purification system, electrophysiology suite, environmental test chambers… GC-MS, ICP-MS, mass spectrometer – ideally a Q-Star. A genome analyzer, ideally Illumina.”

Close nodded. “No issues with any of that.”

“Some type of high-end bioinformatics computing cluster.”

“Easily done.”

Park cocked his head. “I’m also really going to need a Biacore 4000, or equivalent, for antibody analysis.”

Close looked vexed, but also as if he understood. “For screening and ranking of antibodies and antibody fragments. Yes/no binding and selectivity. That type of thing.”

“Exactly,” Park said. “Ideally, screening direct from crude supernatants or lysates. Because, basically—”

Close finished for him “—we don’t have a vaccine we dare give anyone until we fully understand the antibody-binding properties of the drug.”