Designated (Book 1): Designated Infected (36 page)

Spinning up onto one knee Williams snatched his pistol
from its holster and aimed stopping short as he watched Brooks
tangled fight with his assailant.

'
Go
I got this.
'

The anger filled roar stopped Williams in his tracks,
his eyes showing his conflicted state as he weighed up his options.
He knelt there, time dripping by his mind torn between the man who
was all but his brother and his ingrained need to finish the mission.
He made his choice as a strangled, pain laced, cry of anguish
floated out behind him; leaping to his feet he cast one last baleful
look at his still struggling comrade and sprinted away into the
strobe lit gloom of the corridor.

The
Van

Baker stood mute as he listened to the crackle of
gunfire over the radio, Davies bustled behind him manhandling his
ballistic armour over his head. 'Control, this is R.R.T. One,
respond.' Baker slammed his hand against the call button all but
driving the small plastic pellet back into the console.

'One this is Control, go for green.'

Gunfire blared through the speaker drowning out anything
else in the background, the anger filled roars fighting for dominance
as the fire fight ensued.

'We hit a damned nest here. Anyone above the first floor
is toast, no way in hell they could be anything other than Infected,
recommending Executive Order Six, evac and purge. Otherwise it's just
going to be a waste of lives and bullets.'

Baker weighed his options, he had only been forced to
use an E Six order twice before, and neither had been easy to gloss
over. The first in Goodmayes eight months ago, and the second was on
a commuter train eight weeks ago, none of them had been easy choices
and neither was this one.

'One, this is control.' Automatic fire rattled his ears
as he waited for a reply.

'This is One, go for green.'

'Is the E Six our only option?'

A muffled curse rolled out of the earphone at him as he
waited for Woodwrow's reply.

'It's the only one where we all walk out of here, of
course if you wanted to train up another R.R.T. team by all means
leave us here as lunch for this lot.' Baker sighed, his course of
action was clear, pushing the switch down once more he spoke.

'Pull your men out and fall back to the vehicles.'

'Acknowledged.'

Seventeen minutes later, they stood and watched as
B.C.T. agents sealed the building and began the slow and heart
deadening process of flooding the building with a G series nerve
agent.

Baker turned away from the scene. The thought of using
that weighing heavy on his soul as he made the slow walk back to the
Van.

He had no love for this method of warfare and was glad
it had been banned as a general purpose, or mass destruction weapon,
his only concession to it was that in these cases it worked and
worked well. He knew however, it still didn't mean he could willingly
condone its use or, in most cases, its very existence.

Sitting down he held his head in his hands and ran
through the days events leading to this conclusion. His mind burned
as he checked, re-checked, and scoured every possible scenario and
choice made, yet he couldn't find anything that resulted in any other
ending than the one with which he was faced; a snort of disgust left
him as he balled his fist, curling his fingers until his nails bit
into the palm of his hand.

'Tough end?' He glanced up and came face to face with a
packet of Benson and Hedges super kings, pulling one of the slim
sticks of tobacco from the packet he set it between his lips and lit
it, drawing the heady smoke deep into his lungs before breathing out
through his nose.

'Definitely was, it's never an easy choice to make, but
this time, it really was the only answer to an un-winnable situation.
The R.R.T. mandate is as a quick strike team. They aren't equipped to
deal with the drawn out siege operation, this was quickly becoming.
Just glad we got everyone out of there before the B.C.T. dropped the
curtain.'

Davies stayed mute as he watched the pumps hum into life
and their silent clouds of death slowly fill the building.

'Davies.'

'Yeah?'

'Why are you here anyway, I told you to take a week's
leave. It's been about a month since the last time and the one before
that was,' Baker paused for a second dragging his thoughts into
order, 'Christ, just after the tower block that's a good eight months
ago.'

'Got bored.'

'Fair enough.'

40

Broadhead

Biological
Studies Division

Lab
One

Baker, Davies, and Colinson strolled through the
hermetically sealed doors of the lab, the thunking of their booted
feet echoing around the room as they made their way across the
chequerboard surface. Marcus, his eye still a deep purple from the
bruising, glared at them as they made their way past. Davies turned
his head and glanced at the stick thin scientist a smirk pulling at
his features as he waved condescendingly. He chuckled slightly as he
watched the man's face contort with rage only to wince as his own
muscles rebelled against him.

'You called Anna. What's happened?'

She spun in her chair, her face drawn and haggard from a
lack of sleep, her usually pristine half length lab coat sat on her
frame like a limp dishcloth. The rumpled folds showed stains from a
hurried meal, the dried on stings of pasta clinging to the cloth like
a limpet to a rock. Her slightly wild eyed expression gave Baker
cause for concern as he took in her extremely dishevelled appearance.

'It's, it's,' She paused trying to collect her thoughts
and growled with anger as she confused herself ever further. Letting
herself relax, she drew in a deep breath, her chest rising sharply as
she did so. Her gaze alighted on Davies, she couldn't help but catch
the attentive look of concern playing over his features as she
struggled to calm her shattered nerves. She smiled before clearing
her throat and finishing her train of thought.

'The virus, parasite, whatever the hell we are calling
it, it's not the same.'

Baker looked only vaguely confused by the conjecture as
she spoke.

'The samples you sent me, the ones the B.C.T. members
had kept on lock-down, they are not the same as the ones we have been
testing.'

Baker's eyes widened perceptibly as he listened.

'The symptomatic changes are the same, but at the same
time they are different. In the original trials we were running on
the test subjects,' she shuddered at the memories of the men she had
watched die in front of her, 'They all showed pronounced tissue
degradation and extended organ damage in sync with their mental and
physical decline. Eventually this led to full bodily shut down and
death. These samples simply don't. I contacted my alternates in
America and Russia, as well as a friend in the French Biological
Containment Bureau and all have concurred with my findings.'

She looked pleadingly at Baker and the other two men,
almost begging them to prove her wrong.

'There is another virus strain, its make up is similar,
but that is where the similarities end. This one, well,' she stopped
not wanting to go on with her explanation. She pushed away wheeling
herself towards the far end of her desk. Davies wanted to step
forwards and offer some form of comfort but the firm warning grasp of
Colinson's hand on his forearm and the imperceptible shake of Baker's
head gave him pause.

'Anna?'

She looked up from the draw she had pulled open as
Davies spoke, despite the heated looks coming from his commanding
officers.

'Don't.'

Nodding she dropped the unopened bottle of single malt
scotch back into the draw, the heavy semi-metallic clang of the glass
against the metal draw bottom rang through the room like a gunshot as
she shoved the draw closed with and audible crunch.

'I allowed all three agencies access to my findings, and
the data gathered on the test subjects, it seemed only right to do
so.'

Colinson looked slightly aghast at the admission but,
when he considered the ramifications of what she had told them only a
minute before he let it slide, nothing could change what was
unfolding before them and he saw no reason to purposefully condemn
the only nations that were willing to listen. Colinson thought back
to the arrogant and condescending reactions of the Chinese. Only a
year ago it became apparent that the pathogen had spread across the
oceans and into mainland China. The pleas to the Chinese government
had fallen on deaf ears as did the rising body count being touted to
them from their own people.

He had pleaded with them over and over again, until
finally only six weeks after his pleading petitions began, he stood
impotent, powerless to help as China, the great dragon of the East
fell to the plague live on CNN.

'It's not a problem, I know for a fact none of us wish a
repetition of what happened in China.'

They all stood silently, a slim moment of reflection
hanging between them as they thought of where they were when the news
broke of China's demise.

Turning his attention back to the task at hand; Colinson
focused on Anastasia's findings.

'So this new version of the virus, what exactly does it
do?'

She sighed as she pulled up the data she had accumulated
on the new strain.

'It is essentially the same, yet drastically different.'

She held up her hand knowing that this made very little
sense, waiting for their protestations to die before carrying on.

'It doesn't react to the human body or human tissue in
the same manner as the other two variants; although to say two is an
understatement, each person effectively carries their own
personalised version. This one however goes one step further, it
works in a kind of pseudo symbiosis with the Infected host. Living
off them but not feeding off them.

'It seems to use the body as a breeding ground to
multiply, and spreads itself through liquid dispersion. We know that
a bite, scratch, blood spray, or shrapnel damage from bone fragments,
can cause transference of the pathogen. Even being spat upon, by an
unknown carrier is enough to transfer the virus. It would then
eventually, overtime, lead to the host's death.

This version simply doesn't do that, yes you can still
get infected in the same manner, but it actively works to avoid its
own destruction, it aids cellular regeneration, it helps the body
stay alive by actively improving the base survival functions and
motor skills.'

She stopped once more, gauging their reactions to her
findings.

'In essence it is a smart drug that drives you insane
and turns you into a carnivore.'

They stood there, all three men running through what
this entailed. Breaking through the mental block first; Baker drew
her attention to himself.

'Can they still be put down the same way as before?'

Anastasia shrugged, helpless to answer. 'I do not know,
one could hazard a guess as to the affirmative. The body can function
with superficial damage to the cortex and people have been known to
survive a shot to the head but without finding a host carrier and
actually shooting them, who knows; with all that being said, complete
and total destruction of the brain or head well it is no different to
pulling the engine out a car, without it nothing works.'

Davies stood puzzled.

'Hang on, we dropped them like flies back in that tower
block, not one showed any glimmer of differing intelligence to the
rest, aside from a few we encountered on the way out of there, and
they eventually went down when pumped full of bullets.'

Baker looked to Davies and then back to Anna as she
listened to him, an unreadable shimmer of emotions swirling behind
her near purple eyes.

'The samples never came from the Infected in the tower
block, they were from ones located in basement levels of the
building, they were “victims” of the purge not your
team.'

'Well we are fucked then, if these things are as smart
as you say; then good bye and good luck to the human race.'

Davies turned and perched on the desk, his hands
grasping the edge hard enough to turn his knuckles white. Sensing
where this was all heading, Colinson spoke up.

'They are still essentially human, and I have not met a
human yet who can survive massive blood loss, or a hollow point to
the head, this is still an equal war.

'Just because the enemy have been given a slight upgrade
doesn't mean we've lost. Besides, we've all fought opponents a lot
worse than this. At least these ones don't shoot back.'