Noah's Ark: Contagion (25 page)

Janice held it together better; she was more used to dealing with death.

“I assume from your surprise that there was no scream when this happened?”

Mandy shook her head. She was leaning against the door frame, trying to regulate her breathing.

“Could you have been somewhere where you just wouldn’t have heard?”

The nurse shook her head again. “I was with Kiera, or just outside her door. I didn’t want to leave her. If he had screamed like she did, I would have heard it.”

Janice walked slowly around the bed. In the middle lay a black oily puddle, surrounded by a confusion of bones and shreds of muscle tissue. The man’s head, as much of it as remained, had become completely detached. Eyeless sockets stared at the women.

“You say he was admitted this morning?”

“Yes,” Mandy confirmed. She had regained her composure, and had entered the room to better see what had happened. “His legs became paralysed. It’s how all the other cases start. His son alerted me to his condition. He got some of the last of the painkillers, but that was all we could do for him. I felt sorry for the son, so when you left the second dose, and as Kiera looked like she was doing better, I decided to try it on him.”

“I need to take a sample of his blood down to the lab. Kiera’s too. We have to find out what the hell is going on here, because right now I’d have to say it looks like the antiviral is speeding up the effects of the virus.”

• • •

“This place is amazing! We never had a base like this. Ours looked more World War Two, and early era Cold War. This one is modern, clean.”

“How long were you in the Russian Navy, Lucya?”

“I served five years. And I loved every minute of it.”

The two of them were descending the stairwell. With the lights on, the base did indeed seem modern, almost friendly. It had the atmosphere more of an office block than a military installation. Some carpet on the floors and a few windows and it would have been impossible to tell the difference.

“So why did you leave? If you loved it so much?”

“Oh you know, the usual reason. I wanted to see more of the world. That’s what they promised me when I joined up. See the world, they said. But really, they meant see the Barents Sea.”

“Yeah, that sounds familiar.” Ewan nodded slowly. “The Royal Navy said more or less the same thing. See the world, make a difference, all that. And to be fair, for a couple of years we did get about a bit. But then, like you, we ended up patrolling. Same old same old. I probably would have moved on if I hadn’t had the chance to become a dolphin.”

“You mean a submariner?”

“Yes.”

“Surely you see even less of the world down there?”

“Yes, for the most part. But it’s different. It’s hard to explain. We’re more of a team on the
Ambush
. Like a family. Everyone is completely dependent on everyone else. And we know that we’re the last line of defence, too. The ultimate deterrent. Keeping the peace.”

“We’re like a family on the
Spirit of Arcadia
too, but I suppose it’s not really the same. Being cooped up in that tiny space, it must be difficult.”

“You get used to it. And we do get to go to some interesting places. Here, level three. This is as far as the stairs go.”

They exited into a brightly lit corridor that looked exactly like the one on level one. Ewan showed the way to the lift shaft.

“Jake’s down here.” He pointed to the hole in the bottom of the lift car. “Follow me.”

He climbed through the rip in the floor and descended the ladder hidden underneath. Lucya watched, eyebrows raised, and followed when he called her from the bottom.

The two of them emerged from the shaft into the hidden level’s main tunnel. The lights were on there too, taking the edge off the intimidating nature of the industrial space.

“Ah, now this? This is more like what I’m used to!” Lucya looked around, impressed. “This would be the height of luxury for us.”

“Come on, this way. He’s down here.”

• • •

“You said it was harmless, Vardy. You said that it was deactivated!” Janice was enraged. She stood up from the microscope and pointed at it. “Look! Take a look yourself!”

He did as she asked, without saying a word.

“You see what I mean? Oh sure, your mutated vaccine is attacking the virus. And then it’s annihilating the healthy cells too!”

“No, that can’t be right. That’s impossible…” Vardy adjusted the microscope. He stood up straight, rubbed his eyes, and bent down to take a second look.

“Apparently not,” Janice said sternly. “Or tell me, have I misinterpreted the situation? I mean, there are a lot of dead cells there. It’s like the antiviral is doing the same thing as the virus, just faster.”

“I can’t comprehend how this is possible. The vaccine
is
deactivated. It’s made of dead cells. Yet I cannot argue with your assessment. The effect is plain to see. I don’t understand the mechanism by which this is happening. The antiviral is mutating within the blood, turning into the very virus it is meant to destroy! We appear to have made the situation worse.” He stood up again, looking at her. “And the other sample? You checked that too?”

“Of course. It’s the same. We should never have tried this on a patient. We should have given the test samples longer, waited to see the full effect.”

“Maybe, but we were running out of time.”

“Running out of time?” Janice was raising her voice. “Running out of time? Now look where we are! We have a drug that not only doesn’t work, it makes things worse. We have to destroy the batches we’ve made so far, burn them. And then? We’re back to square one. We have no way to tackle the virus, and a deck full of people on the brink of death.”

“The batches, yes, we have to destroy the batches,” Vardy said, looking around. On the table were five small jars of antiviral, freshly out of the machine and ready to be administered. “We must mix them with bleach, then burn them in a controlled environment, it’s the safest way.”

• • •

“Jake? Captain Jake Noah? It’s Ewan, and Lucya. Where are you?”

They waited, but there was no sound, save a distant humming that seemed to be coming from a long way away.

“Are you sure this is where you left him?” Lucya was poking her head through the doors to the dormitory, office area, and kitchen of the laboratory.

“Yes, certain. I mean he was outside, in the tunnel.”

“He can’t have got far if he’s paralysed.”

“And yet, he’s not here. Come on, let’s see where this tunnel ends up.”

They left the lab and continued along the tunnel. Neither of them said it, but both were wondering if Jake had been found by someone else, someone who had been in the base all along.

It only took them a few minutes to find the first room Jake had come across.

“Wait here,” Ewan said. “We don’t know what or who is in there.” Gingerly, he pulled open the door and peered inside.

“What is it? What’s in there?”

“It’s another laboratory. Jake? Are you in here?” He called out three times, but in vain.

“Let me see,” Lucya said, and pushed past. She checked every corner of the suite, familiar with the layout from the previous laboratory. She looked in all of the smaller rooms, just as she had done minutes earlier. “He’s not here,” she said finally.

Without a word, they left the lab and carried on, deeper into the secret level.

“What’s that sound, Ewan? It sounds like the engines on the
Arcadia
.”

“Could be a generator. That would explain the lights.”

“You think Jake found one and started it?”

“In his condition? Unlikely. There must be someone else here, somewhere. I really wish I’d brought a gun.”

“I’m really glad you didn’t.”

As they walked on, the sound became progressively louder, until finally they came upon the door to the plant room.

“Okay, I’ll go first. Wait—” Ewan began, but before he could finish, Lucya had already opened the door and was inside.

“Jake! It’s me! Where are you?”

Ewan sprinted in after her, on high alert, eyes darting left and right, ready for danger. But there was no sign of life.

“You were right,” Lucya said. “A generator. And look, diesel reserves. We could have done with those after I crashed the ship and lost half our fuel.”

“He’s not here, Lucya. Come on, we have to keep looking. This tunnel can’t go on forever.”

Reluctantly, she left behind the noisy room and returned to the gloomy concrete passageway outside.

• • •

“Is that the last of it, Janice?”

“I think so. You’d made five batches, right?”

“Yes. And the one that was injected into Kiera and the other patient.” Vardy looked around the tables, to make sure no more of the lethal remedy remained hidden among the equipment and test tubes. “Sealing it here will keep it out of harm’s way until we have time to destroy it safely.”

Janice nodded. She was more concerned with how they were going to treat the patients upstairs than getting rid of their failed attempt at a cure. “Wait!” she exclaimed suddenly. “There are two more doses!”

“Where?”

“In the machine.”

“Shit, of course. You’re right.” Vardy pressed a red stop button on the front of the Gemini 5001. The machine complained with a series of bleeps before eventually shutting itself down. As it did so, the drawer at the front opened and it spat out the bottle of medication it had been in the process of preparing, along with the original jar of antiviral that provided the template from which it could fabricate more. He collected the two jars and added them to the collection of bottles in the box. On the lid he had already written in large letters:
“Biohazard. Do Not Open.”

“There. We’ll keep this in a safe place. At least we know that nobody else is going to be treated with this stuff.”

“Right. So, where do we go from here? Because I can tell you, I have no idea how we treat this thing now.”

• • •

Ewan and Lucya didn’t see the end of the tunnel until they were almost upon it. The down-lights in the ceiling were bright, but well-spaced. They created pools of light within a small radius, but did not illuminate their surroundings, making it difficult to see far.

“There he is! Jake! It’s us!” Lucya ran to him. He was collapsed, hanging off the transport trolley, unconscious. “Ewan, help me. Let’s get him upright, back on the trolley. Jake, can you hear me? He’s breathing. I think he’s breathing.”

Ewan put his ear to Jake’s face. “Yes, I can hear him. He is breathing, but only just.”

“It’s okay, Jake,” Lucya said calmly. “I don’t know if you can hear me. We’re going to take care of you. Vardy and Janice? They succeeded. They made a cure, with the machine you found. It worked, Jake. And I’ve got some here!”

She held up the syringe she had carried with her all the way from the ship. Inside she could see the tiny dose of antiviral. A few drops of milky liquid which, she hoped, would save the life of the man she loved.

“You think it really works?” Ewan asked.

“Yes, I’m sure. I saw the effect it had on Kiera. We need to get to a vein. Can you roll up his sleeve?”

Ewan tried. He removed the glove on Jake’s hand and began to roll back the tight black neoprene. “I don’t think this is going to work,” he said, frustrated. “These aren’t like cotton shirts, they don’t roll; they’re too thick.”

“Then work something out, Ewan! Come on, we need to get this in his arm.”

Ewan stood up and looked around for something he could use to cut open the wetsuit. It was only then that he saw where they were.

“Oh…my…Lucya, look!”
 

“What? What is—” She looked up and saw for herself the amazing room in which the three of them found themselves. She stood slowly, staring in awe.

The space behind the door at the end of the tunnel resembled a warehouse. It was filled with row upon row of sturdy orange metal shelves. They went from floor to ceiling, a ceiling which was double the height of the tunnel outside. Clearly this room extended well beyond the other levels of the base. The shelves were packed solid with supplies. Specifically, food supplies. There were bottles, tins, and boxes. They were loaded on crates, shrink wrapped and labelled.
 

“There’s enough food here to feed an army,” Ewan gasped.

“Or a cruise ship.”

Ewan set off down the nearest aisle, scanning the shelves and their contents. “It’s all food and drink. Dried stuff, tinned stuff. Things that keep. They must have put this here in case of emergency. Vardy was wrong. This level was hardened. It’s a bunker.”

“So where are the people? The survivors? If this is a bunker, why didn’t they use it, for the asteroid?”

Ewan had no answer.

“Ewan, it could take forever to find anything here. You have to get back to the lab, find a knife, or a scalpel. We have to give Jake the drug.”

He nodded and set off at a jog along the tunnel. Lucya returned to the trolley, turned it round, and with Jake balanced precariously on top, began to push it back along the passage towards the lift shaft.

The vibration of the wheels against the grated floor back in the tunnel were enough to wake him. “Lucya?” he asked, dazed.

“Jake! I’m here!” She stopped abruptly, circled the trolley and grabbed his hands. He had one eye open; the other was stuck closed. She could see that he was only partially conscious.
 

“Second…lab,” he managed to say.
 

“I know, Jake. We saw the second lab. And we found the food. You did good, Jake, finding all that. You’ve saved us all from starving to death!”

He seemed content to have got his message out, and his head drooped, his eye closing again. Lucya became aware of the sound of feet thundering along the metal floor. She turned to see Ewan charging towards her.

“Here! You were right, I found a scalpel.”

She grabbed the instrument from him. “Okay Jake, nearly there.” Very carefully, she cut a slit into the arm of his wetsuit, taking care to pierce only the rubber and not his skin. She wasn’t entirely successful, and when she peeled back the black neoprene she found she had drawn a little blood. It was deep red, almost black.