“Hello again, Brandon. Eugene expressed the same damning judgement to the heads of the Australian organisation as you have just outlined. He was ignored and side-lined from the main executive panel. However, he still had the ear of some of the scientists actually doing the work. Many of them were adamant that they would all ultimately succumb to the virus unless the mechanism for its infiltration of the human immune system wasn’t allowed become the sole focus, and the only step to protecting themselves. The advice pretty much fell on deaf ears, promises were made but never kept, and the decision-making team has been decimated. Eugene has been asked not to reveal any of this and I know there is more which he will not disclose at this time. He believes you are one of only a handful of people with sufficient relevant expertise to comment. But most of the others are already dead.”
“I figured as much. Ok, put him on.”
Eugene cleared his throat.
“Brandon, first of all, I’d like to say…”
“Forget it, this isn’t about you or me. I suppose your father told you I was excluded from post-mortems of the victims here in Japan.”
“He did. That’s a big part of the problem all over the planet now, at least as I understand it.”
“That’s right, but since I spoke to your father, I managed to get tissue from one of the victims, and although I haven’t got the full results of the analytical tests, I’m already thinking that we’re going to have to abandon any attempt to take on this virus by direct action. We need to learn more about its mutation protocols as well as the infiltration mechanism. You do know where I’m going with this don’t you?”
“It was the reason I asked my father to find you. Am I hearing you’re willing to work with me on this?”
“No, you’re hearing that you can work with me. There’s no other way. I have a girlfriend, parents and friends to think about, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking. If you want this, come to Japan. If you don’t, I’ll soldier on alone.”
“Ok, if that’s the way you want it I’ll check the flight schedules and see how quickly I can get there.”
“Oh, one more detail. Bring money, lots of it. We are going to need a lab without prying eyes. I know an old building which is suitable, but we need the money for the equipment and a couple of people to pull the sled.”
*
Zlatan watched Lydia as she slept under the floorboards of a long-abandoned shack. He’d been to a waterhole which was almost dried out. The shack was in total disrepair and yet it defied the principles of engineering merely by stubbornly standing there, while gradually decomposing. He looked at her differently today. She was marginally more attractive when her mouth wasn’t engaged. Or was it that he was entering the first stages of testosterone overload? He turned away, trying to banish the thought of forcing himself upon her, just because he could. He woke her.
“Time to move on. I’ve scouted the area and there’s a high point about two miles away. From there we should get a panoramic view of the options available. This shack must have been used for something which attracted people many years ago, you know, like a trading post. So, there could be a few of these people trying to survive out here rather than moving closer to civilisation. We might hit lucky. Come on, shake a leg, I left you a bird over there. It’s plucked, so you can pretend it’s a chicken.”
“I’m still in a trance, give me a break. I need half an hour to wake up properly and I have to take a shit somewhere. Why don’t you hike on your own to check out this high point. I feel like chilling out. What? Don’t look at me like I’m some kind of weirdo. I’ll be ok. Go on, scoot.”
He pondered the trade-offs. She was going to slow him down by talking the whole way. And, she was stupid enough to start singing unless he was there to remind her to keep her trap shut.
“Ok, you win. But don’t make any noise which could attract animals or worse still, scavengers who’ve crossed over. I can’t leave the gun with you.”
“I promise. Now piss off on your mission, Boy Scout. You’re so overprotective, get a life, but not mine.”
He turned away, straining to control his rage. He’d seen it before, an increasing spread of symptoms – a prelude to phase two.
The rising ambient temperature caused Zlatan even more difficulties. His blurred vision seemed to worsen, and the burst blisters on his feet began to sting as salty sweat found its way on to the raw flesh. He needed to rest awhile, but he couldn’t find any shade. Maybe he should have waited until the sun had dropped closer to the horizon. It all changed in an instant. A pall of smoke spiralled its way skyward from the windless scrubland. His poorer vision didn’t offer any clue as to the source, nevertheless he headed directly towards it. He heard the voice before he could see much detail. The dialect was a blend of English and some aboriginal words he was unable to decipher.
His mind raced. Was the person alone or speaking to someone else? Had he been spotted by the owner of this voice? What was the probability of such a person being infected? Why light a fire in this heat?
The voice adjusted to some kind of Pidgin English.
“Wadda want? Wanna cool?”
Zlatan relaxed a little. The man was alone. He seemed friendly.
“I need only shade. I don’t want to disturb you.”
“Yessa, I gotta some. You come.”
A few more yards brought Zlatan into focus range and he could see the man erecting a primitive awning, using sticks and a blanket. He was now close enough to differentiate the man’s heat signal from the relentless rising ambient temperature. He wasn’t infected.
The man welcomed him and seemed genuinely pleased to see him. It suddenly clicked, the fire was to smoke out bees from their nest. Perhaps the man was a honey collector. The shade enabled his vision to equilibrate and Zlatan felt less disoriented.
“Wanna bodu,” said the man.
“Bodu? What is bodu?”
“Bodu give good. Bodu magic.”
“Show me bodu.”
The man produced what looked like a water can. But it had a glass lid, through which Zlatan could determine the content. He quickly recoiled from the man. Although no expert, Zlatan recognised killer bees from photos he’d seen before.
“No. Thank you, but no.”
“Bodu betta, medicine man not good.”
“Bodu are dangerous, do you mean Bodu honey is good?”
“No trikka, Trikka nice – bodu good.”
As they spoke the man ran to the smoking nest and placed another container over the exit. He was actually collecting the bees.
Zlatan was eventually able to establish that the man was from a community not too far away. He explained with some difficulty that he needed to return to pick up Lydia. The man looked at the sun and gestured that they would have to hurry. He sealed the new container of bees and followed Zlatan to find Lydia.
Chapter 48
The frosty expression on the face of Brandon Mitchell was expected, but Eugene didn’t bargain for the opening words to be a demand for proof of money being instantly available.
“Listen, Brandon, you may feel you’ve every right to be angry at the way we parted company, but you weren’t exactly Mr Innocent. You kept information under wraps when it should have been shared. I hope I haven’t wasted my time coming here. The money can be transferred as soon as we have an agreed project outline and proposals for what it needs to be spent on. If that isn’t good enough I’ll just book a return flight now.”
“My concern isn’t about whether or not I piss you off. How many times do I have to repeat myself? We simply can’t afford a committee approach with this virus. Every day counts and we’re already on the back foot. Apart from that, I now have all the results from my examination of the tissue of one victim. Let me put forward my overview and if you don’t like it I don’t need to hear your ideas or scheme.”
“Well, that sounds like an ultimatum. Not a good start.”
“It is an ultimatum, not from me, from the results. Do you want to hear
me out?”
“Go ahead then, I’ll butt in if I have issues.”
“Right, feel free to do that. I’d like to start from the point at which you treated your sister’s schizophrenia – the genetic snip and stitch technique. In my opinion, that will be a valuable tool for us. Turning to my own work when I was at VB Aerospace, we should run over the project results again, because I believe that some of that technique may be helpful as a secondary blitz to confuse this virus. However, there are gaps of knowledge and bucket loads of uncertainty here. Your sister’s treatment only involved her, hence a single fixed DNA profile as a starting point. With my work, it was targeted at the unborn foetus, whereas here, we’re dealing with infected adults. So, we must accept that our work, which may offer hope, is nothing more than two tools in the box. Are you ok so far?”
“Yes, carry on.”
“The tissue analysis indicated that the victim was already going through significant changes in metabolism when termination occurred. It would be interesting to know exactly how he died. At least I can say that the virus not only has the ability to create more complex versions of itself by accepting or declining interaction with any piece of DNA, but it has an incredibly fast mutation capability. We’re going to need an overarching strategy of moving the goalposts. The best analogy I can think of which people might understand is the adaptation of bacteria to antibiotics. But that happened over several decades and generations, whereas with this man’s tissue there was already evidence of viral adaptation, and he was someone who was infected very recently. That’s why time is critical in getting started. Well?”
“Fine. Let’s look at this building you have in mind and then the equipment we need.”
*
The encampment was well disguised. Sitting at the bottom of a very long, east-facing slope made it possible to gain morning shade for a little longer each day. A natural fissure where the land began to rise again had been turned into a trench and covered with multitudes of branches, twigs and even roots from the surrounding terrain.
A dozen smiling faces greeted Zlatan and Lydia. Apparently, the man with the bees was named Olla, and he obviously was a person of seniority. There appeared to be three generations present, but only one of them could be described as a young man. Olla explained that the others were all away hunting and gathering.
Zlatan couldn’t quite understand the situation. Neither he nor Lydia had overreacted when they realised that some of the women and children were infected. The explanation would come, but via a circuitous route. Olla excused himself to tend to the bees. Tending wasn’t introducing them to a hive. The other members of this mini-society were totally in awe of these small creatures and surrounded Olla, asking to be first.
Once the clamour had been ordered into some kind of queue, Olla took one bee out from a container and handed it to the woman who had proclaimed her right to be at the head of the line. She took the bee and tightened her fingers into a fist. The sting was instant and she screamed with delight. The process was repeated, until every one of them had suffered the pain and returned their particular bee to Olla. He promptly returned each sacred insect to another container. The dead bees were revered as having given a quantum of life back to those who were ill. The next surprise was presumably a song of tribute to the bee god, after which they all returned to their own part of the trench for a short nap.
“What is happening with the bees, Olla?”
“Olla see you havva Norra. You not see I know?”
“Norra? I don’t know what you mean.”
“You verra hot, woman verra hot. From Norra.”
It began to dawn on them. Olla was infected, but they couldn’t see it, even though he could see they were.
“Norra is hot?”
“No, Norra makes hot.”
“Hot like the first woman who was stung by the bee?”
“Yessa.”
“Ah, so bee is bodu?”
“Yessa.”
“And trikka is honey?”
“Yessa.”
“So you know you are very sick?”
“Wassa verra sick. Not sick now. Woman sick now. Bodu make me not sick.”
“You mean the bee sting made the sickness go away?”
“Not one bodu, many time bodu must sting. Need many bodu. Olla finds many bodu.”
“I’m sorry, Olla. Can I just ask again? You had the hot sickness, which is Norra, and you found out that bodu stings many times and you don’t have Norra anymore?”
“Yessa. You and woman must have Bodu sting. Yessa?”
Zlatan and Lydia looked at each other incredulously.
“I must ask one more question, Olla. When you were sick with Norra, did you eat lots of different animals?”
“Yessa. Eat many animals and Feranna.”
“Feranna?”
He pointed at a primitive drawing on the trench wall, in which there was one figure eating a headless human.
“Olla stop eating Feranna. Bodu magic. Bodu stop Olla eating Feranna.”
Zlatan and Lydia asked for a moment to discuss this proposal.
“What do you think?” whispered Zlatan.
“You’re asking me what I think, is this for real? You’re always telling me what to do. Ok, here’s what I think. You should try out this mumbo-jumbo for a few days, and if it’s safe I’ll give it a shot. These people seem to like us so I can catch up on my sleep. They’ll probably get food for us too, and that really would be cool. Of course this Olla dude might just be high on bee sting juice.”
“No, he isn’t. We couldn’t see any heat signature coming from him.”
“Ok, let’s say he is off-heat, it could be temporary, like it comes back when you stop the bee stings.”
“I’d take that, it would allow me to get back into the exclusion zone to tell someone I trust, about what these people have stumbled upon. Unless there’s a miracle breakthrough soon, this is as good a second best as we’re going to get.”
He turned back to Olla.
“I want to start bodu stings.”
“Yessa.”
Proceedings were interrupted by the young hunter-gatherers returning. Zlatan noted that some were infected and others weren’t. He turned back to Olla.
“What happens if I start the sting and then…”
“Pay no attention to him, Olla,” said Lydia, “he’s just a fizz mouth, gimme a bodu.”
One of the young men intruded.
“Olla my father. He had bees all his life, taking honey from them. He cannot feel stings now. I must have care with the bees. Too many can kill. You need check before sting. I will give you check for bad reaction.”
He looked Lydia up and down, then turned his eyes to Zlatan, clearly making some kind of assessment.
“You have some of our blood in you, and you are hot, but him, he is different, very hot. He has sickness bad. Will need many bees. Come.”
Zlatan assumed the young man was going to offer a primitive check for an allergic reaction to the bee venom and was implying that Lydia may have more resistance to the virus because of her ancestry. She had her own take on the young man and whispered some advice to him.
“Listen, Zlatan, I don’t want to spend the rest of my time living and shitting in the bushes. If I’m going to die anytime soon, I’d better enjoy the now. This young dude, he kinda stirs my juices, and I wouldn’t mind being stung by him, bee or no bee. So, I’m ready to take my chance, and if you pass his test you should head back to see whoever this person is that you trust inside the exclusion zone. Maybe I can come back then, when I’m clean and ready. Deal?”
Zlatan nodded his acceptance. The very fact that deviants were living alongside norms convinced him that there was something important to learn from these people.
Chapter 49
The building Brandon had selected wasn’t ideal in many respects but at least it was pretty inconspicuous, which was crucial.
“What about the technicians?”
“There
are two excellent colleagues where I work, and they’re ready to help, but that’s another thing we have to consider. All three of us have to continue to work during the days, at the company. We can only do this stuff in the evenings, otherwise there will be suspicion. My two friends are taking a hell of a risk here and we need to pay them well. You can work here during the day and keep track of what’s happening with this virus around the world. The equipment we need is on order and can be delivered whenever you authorise payment. One other thing, the Australian project, and probably others, made a serious error in designing experiments with this virus. Trying out the actual ‘magic bullet’ before we have all the other constituents of a vaccine ready is doomed to failure. I’m stressing this to remind you of its incredible ability to mutate. We need our own Trojan Horse as part of the solution, administered at the same time as the first two components of the vaccine. Deception is an essential, but one-shot ally with this baby.”
“That’s quite a lot for us to swallow, four of us against the big companies throughout the world. But, I agree that the only way to stop this thing is to ignore the rules, or better still, accept that the first rule is that there are no rules. So, who do we have to see to rent this place?”
“It’s a back-street guy. He owns a number of rundown properties like this. It’s cash on the first of every month, no questions asked. I’ve paid the first month, so if you can reimburse me we’re already the tenants. You ok with that?”
“I don’t seem to have much choice. Let’s go and pay for the equipment. When do I meet your colleagues?”
“Like I said, there’s no time to waste. Tonight at seven.”
*
Brandon Mitchell wasn’t exaggerating, the situation was reaching a potential ‘no way back’ point. In particular, the centres of highest population density, urban areas, were witnessing massive numbers of reported abductions, disappearances, half-eaten bodies, and public altercations between deviants and norms. The inexorable result of the latter was clear; even if a norm managed to win a gladiatorial conflict, they would end up infected. In reality, they could never truly win or even tie, the norm count could only decrease by one, and this alone guaranteed the onward march of the deviants. A frightening prospect to be contemplated was precisely how far up organisations such as banks, law enforcement, and government the scourge had gained control.