Guinea Pig (27 page)

Chapter Thirty Two.

“I don't get it? Where did that fog come from?”

As they finally drove out of the underground car park and discovered the fog on both sides of the driveway, Sister Etta asked the obvious question. But maybe not the most obvious one Reginald thought. How could there even be thick fog on both sides of the driveway out of the parking level and yet not on the driveway itself? Or for that matter as he sat in the back of the ambulance holding William down and making sure that he wasn't knocked about too much by the ride, why was it just on both sides of the road? Looking ahead through the front of the ambulance he could see a straight stretch of road ahead of them, complete with white walls of fog lining its sides. That wasn't natural.

“Who cares? Just drive Pastor!”

James was a practical man, and he seemed to have a clear grasp of things where the rest of them didn't. And they had to drive. After having spent far too long trying to navigate their way out of the underground car park they were all worried. There could be soldiers right behind them.

Fairly quickly Elijah had them moving down the fog lined road at a steady clip, though nowhere near as fast as they wanted to go. But the simple fact of the matter was that the road was full of holes, wrecked cars and hunks of rock that had once been lava bombs. They had to weave their way around the obstacles and in places it was quite tricky. In fact in some places they were down to first gear and everyone was nervous each time they started crawling. Worried that the military would be  chasing them down in their hummers.

Reginald though wasn't so worried. Not when he looked out the back window and saw the fog settling in behind them, covering their trail. It seemed that their escape was being aided in some way. That no one would be giving chase as they couldn't see them. He told the others the same.

It was the who, how and why that he didn't get. And it troubled him.

He'd spent years in his lab, working night and day and thinking he was doing God's work. And in all that time he'd never doubted, never known a moment of uncertainty. This would have been nothing to him back then. Just more proof that he was doing what he was meant to. But then he'd finally spoken to William, and the terrible truth had hit him. He wasn't walking with God. He was walking with madness and delusion. He had caused an innocent man terrible suffering. And the fog helping them made absolutely no sense to that older, wiser and guilt ridden man. If he was walking with madness why were they being helped?

And it was obvious that they were being helped.  This was no capricious whim of chance. Someone was covering their tracks, hiding them, and letting them make a clean getaway. Someone with inhuman power.

He had no answer of course though he wanted one. And he desperately wanted to believe that he'd been right the first time. That he had been guided. But the quiet moans of his patient said otherwise.

William was in pain. Not the terrible pain he had been in after the attack. His injuries were almost completely healed. In fact the scans could barely even show a trace of them any more. The pain he was suffering was from the transformation as his body slowly shed the last parts of his humanity. His mind too. William Simon did not want this. He had never wanted it. And Reginald had forced it upon him against his will. That was not the act of a man of God. It was the act of a man who had lost all reason.

But now that he had recovered some of his reason, Reginald remembered the plan.

“We should turn right up ahead. My lab is about five miles south of here.” And there he had all the medical equipment they would need to help William as his transformation continued apace.

“Ahh Doctor, I don't think we're turning right.” Reginald looked up as Elijah told him the news, and briefly wondered why. As did the others. They had a plan. They'd agreed to it. Why was he changing it?

Then came the next question; why was the ambulance slowing down? Reginald looked to the road ahead thinking that there must be some sort of obstacle ahead, but his view was obscured by the partition between the front and the back and by the high seat backs. If there was something blocking their path he couldn't see it.

The ambulance came to a sudden stop and Reginald's heart almost stopped with it as he worried that their escape had just ended. That despite the fog and the evidence that someone was helping them, that the road was so badly blocked that they couldn't go any further. But he didn't ask. Neither did any of the others as they sat squashed together like sardines in the back of the ambulance. Probably because they didn't want to know.

Then the passenger door suddenly opened. James hadn't opened it though. He was just sitting in the seat staring to his side, and while Reginald couldn't see his face through the back of the seat he had a horrible feeling it would be screwed up in horror. Could they have run into a check point of some sort? Were armed soldiers about to pull them out and maybe execute them?

“Scoot over you.”

A woman's voice came from up the front, and whatever else it was it didn't sound like the command an angry soldier would give. It sounded like a friend wanting to get in. And strangely Reginald thought, it also sounded like a voice he knew.

James quickly did as he was told without saying a word and they all watched as he unbuckled his seat belt and wriggled across to the middle seat as someone climbed in. The woman presumably. But Reginald could see nothing of her, just a quick flash of white hair as she sat down. She was too short for her head to rise above the back of the seat.

“Drive on please. A place has been prepared for you.”

Immediately the pastor did as he was asked, still without saying a word, while James was busy fumbling with his seat belt and they took off again, driving down the fog lined road. The rest of them just looked at one another, wondering what was happening.

Eventually Reginald decided he had to find out since no one else was going to.

“Ahh, hello?”

“Doctor! It's good to see you again.” The woman turned around to stare back at him through the seats, and immediately she did he knew her.

“Agent?”

It was her. He knew her face. He knew her white hair. But he had no idea what she was doing there or what she could possibly have to do with the fog.

“Sort of, though perhaps not an agent for the people you thought I was. But we can discuss your fraudulent activities another time.” She grinned as if it was some sort of joke, and maybe it was. After everything else a fraud charge was almost an afterthought. But he still didn't understand.

“How? Why are you here? And how are you controlling the fog? And who are you?” The questions just poured out of him.

“Well I'm Elia and I don't think you could understand the answers to the other questions. Just accept that my friends and I are helping you. We want William's transformation to go smoothly so that he can finally do what he must.”

“Oh Lord!”

The Bishop suddenly started praying loudly and a little hurriedly and Reginald wondered why. He didn't understand who the woman was or how she was doing what she was doing. But she didn't seem terribly frightening. Unless she was going to put him in jail for fraud.

“Bishop Benenson, there's no need for fear. I am not one of the Fallen as you call my disobedient siblings. But nor am I one of the Choir either. I'm just here to help. As are my brothers and sisters.”

Immediately she said it there was a thump on the roof, and they all jumped. And then when they looked they could see a pair of legs hanging over the edge of the windscreen as they drove. Someone was sitting on the roof! While they were driving!

Reginald would have asked except at that point he heard several more thumps and when he looked out the side windows he could see more feet hanging down. Apparently they had a number of passengers. What he couldn't figure out was how they were landing on the roof of a moving ambulance.

She said she wasn't of the Fallen. And she wasn't of the Choir. Two names he knew to be types of angels. Could she also be an angel? He didn't want to ask.

“If you're not one of the Fallen then why are you helping us?” The bishop had stopped praying at least, but his question made little sense, at least to the doctor.

“You think the Fallen are helping you?” The woman sounded surprised. “The Fallen have been trying to kill William here ever since the doctor infected him with our essence. Haven't you realised that every attack has been aimed right at him?”

“What?!”

The bishop was caught by surprise and he wasn't the only one. Reginald was stunned. They had an enemy. Finally, someone to blame for everything that had happened to the city. And it made sense. Sort of.

Reginald had never understood how William could be causing all these disasters. It just wasn't in his nature to do such things. Besides which he didn't have that sort of power. But if instead he was the target and others with much more power were trying to kill him, well that explained a lot. Except of course as to why they were trying to kill him. He asked.

“Because they're scared of him of course.”

Her explanation struck the doctor as somewhat ironic considering they were having to help the man escape the military. “There seems to be a lot of that going around.”

“So he's not going to bring about the end of days,” Reginald asked?

That was the bishop's fear after all, and something of that fear had made it through to Reginald. Especially after he'd heard of the second hospital falling into a sink hole.

“End of days? Doctor, are you sure you should be taking care of patients?”

“I … ah –.”

“Look, long story short as you say Doctor. My disobedient brothers and sisters are trying to kill William. We have been protecting him. And everyone else has been caught in the middle. But now that's over. Our brothers know they can no longer succeed. Not with so many of us protecting him. Now can you all please stop asking silly questions and drive? We have a long way to go.”

But there was still one more thing Reginald had to ask. In all the time since he had finally realised the truth of his crimes, Reginald had come to understand that there was one crime that stood out head and shoulders above all the rest. And it actually wasn't to do with implanting the angelic DNA in Mr. Simons or the fact that he had been playing God as he had been. It wasn't that he'd truly had no idea what the outcome might be. It wasn't even abandoning him to his fate.

It was about the fact that Reginald had done it without his consent. The rest were crimes and mistakes, there could be no doubt of that. But doing this to an innocent man without his knowledge or consent, that was the true transgression. And Reginald was desperate to make things right for William.

He had lied to him. He had let him believe that what he was doing was nothing more than what had been done to the others in the trial he was supposedly a part of. He had deceived him in every way.

William Simons had asked him one question on the day Reginald had told him what he'd done. One question that had resonated with him ever since. Who had given him the right? And he was right to ask that question, because the answer was obvious. No one had. Reginald might have done something truly terrible. He might have violated the laws of man and God. But in the end he had done one thing perhaps even worse.

He had denied the man the right to say no. And he would have said no. Anyone would have. And what the woman was saying sounded a lot like the same thing happening all over again.

“Elia, William is nearly unconscious. He's suffering. And he never agreed to any of this. Can you stop it? Reverse it?”

And of course there was one other question – if they could would they?

“Doctor! You're finally learning!” She smiled at him through the rear view mirror. “You bring me hope. But no we can't stop this. William is on a journey and all we can do is make it as easy on him as possible, and keep him safe until the end.”

“The end?” Reginald had to ask.