Day 2
#4 of Days
Back again, another three AM night, when the story starts flowing, I write :)
Please tell me what you think, give me thoughts on the plot, mainly so I know that people understand where its going.
I woke to the seatbelt light, and apparently in-chair buzzer, reminding me we were about to land.
"... and we hope you had a great flight, and enjoyed the drinks and meals." The stewardess was giving me a significant look and I gave her a small salute, admiring her anew. As I said, a very accommodating experience.
After departing the aircraft, and seeing the wonderful London weather through the terminal windows and shuddering, I made my way to the lockers.
This time there was only a brown paper bag in the locker, the accompanying note reading:
'Mr Thinker, it is with some regret that we were unable to secure a timely flight to your next lovely destination, Cairo, but since you have some time to kill, and you have a European travel visa, we would recommend exiting into the regular airport area and making your way to the travellers hostel situated therein. You flight leaves in twenty five hours, again you will have first class tickets, since we are so sorry about the layover, but we think you will be able to occupy yourself, maybe even catch a little sleep on this lovely earth.
The lamb of God.'
I sighed, no change of clothes this time, but then what I had was fine, and I could get the dirty suit dry-cleaned while I was waiting for the flight. I took the key, ticket and drug bottles and made for customs.
"Next please. Do you have anything to declare?" The official asked.
"Uh, just my briefcase and some medication." I replied, opening the case so they could see inside.
"We will need to see a prescription for those tablets." I must have shown my startlement, but as they started scrutinising my passport further a little grey piece of paper floated out.
"Ahh this would be it, sir?" The woman giving me the third degree asked.
"Oh, yeah, secretary must have slipped it in there." I replied, thinking quickly.
"Well, everything seems in order, how long will you be enjoying our city?"
"Oh, I am just heading to the hostel, my connecting flight doesn't leave for over twenty four hours and was hoping to catch some rest till then." I continued.
"Well then, tell them Jackie in customs sent you, Garry up there should get you a quieter room." and she winked.
"Thanks mate, will do" the woman's face absolutely lit up, the effect of saying 'thanks mate' in an aussie accent always, ALWAYS, made people instantly get a little cheer. I hope it was just them thinking of the 'larrikin aussie' and not sharing some private joke about convicts at least. The effect of a 'chuck-a nutha shrimp on th-barbie' in an aussie accent was the next level, usually reserved for extreme measures. I left with a little chuckle.
I got to the hostel and a man at the front counter asked me what I required, "Just a quiet room to relax and try and relieve some jet lag for a few hours, also need some washing done if possible. Jackie up in customs sent me here, said it was the quietest place around the airport to have a snooz."
"Oh did she now?" The man replied, "Well she was right of course, if you leave the clothes you want cleaned in a marked basket outside your door the maid will get them done at the laundromat and back to you with two hours." He passed me a key from the little rack under his desk, "Room twelve is yours." and he pushed a card swipe unit toward me, which I dutifully swiped one of the visa cards I had and continued to the room.
No sooner had I got my clothes in the basket and set outside than I started to notice my balance was a bit off and the whole event came back to me, I staggered back inside, locking the door behind me and reached for my case and the pills that were inside, I gulped down the dose and curled up on the bed wearing just my boxers.
I woke with small scream, then looked around, the world was still here, I wasn't going mad and eating people. I sighed and reached up scratching my itchy scalp. Pulling my hand back I noticed hair attached to it, my hair.
I ran to the little en-suit and checked the mirror, a large chunk of my hair was missing, was it the virus, or was it the drugs, I was still itching on top, and carefully I scratched again, not much more hair came loose, but a bit more did and I made sure the sink carried it away.
I heard a rustle at the door, and looked over to notice a pamphlet saying 'Your clothes are clean. Enjoy!' had been slipped under the door, I reached to my case and pulled out the carefully folded suit, putting it on and checked the mirror, my head looked a mess.
A quick search of the room found some thin hand towels in a small cupboard, I folded one and put it on as a makeshift bandanna.
Checking the time, I still had ten hours till the flight, I retrieved the clothes from outside, returned and started on my book.
The bedside alarm sounded, it was time to board.
Once again passing customs, this time having the script ready, and apparently Jackie had made a note for the duty-man that I would be coming back through because the guy just gave me a quick glance, barely looking at my passport before ushering me through.
Boarding the plane again was the usual hellish nightmare, the same as it is everywhere, although the expensive ticket again meant I got personal treatment by the airport staff and was seated.
It was shortly after take-off, I was bored of the terrible book, so flagged a hostess for headphones and watched the television. About ten minutes into the cooking show that was on, it was a great special on how to make a soufflé not fail, a special news bulletin came on.
'The World Health Organisation has declared a state of emergency in Paris this afternoon, quarantining off the city and shutting down all airports, speculation is ripe about the reasons for this but we can assume nothing short of a major epidemic would be the cause for such a drastic measure. James Cofield is on the ground at a checkpoint just outside the city, James, what's going on here?'
The static picture of reporter in the top right corner zoomed in and live footage overlaid it.
"Well Michelle the W H O officials on the scene are declining to comment other than to say no one is to enter or leave the city, but rumour is rife as to the cause of the blockade. But one thing is certain, they are very serious and this is most definitely not an exercise. We-"
There had been armed soldiers in UN gear behind the reporter guarding the road blockade, but it cut the man off and zoomed back to the news reporter in the studio.
"You will have to excuse me James, we have just managed to get a live feed secured by a civilian inside the quarantine zone, the feed is coming active..."
And it zoomed again to a static-y picture that all of a sudden came into full focus. It was showing people screaming on the ground, writhing in pain, blood pouring from their all their visible orifices, the camera quickly spun to the woman holding the camera, who did not look well herself.
She began, "We are dying, there's nothing anyone can do, you start just feeling sick, then you start bleeding, and you can't stop the bleeding and..." You could see the blood oozing down from her nose, it had been recently wiped away to try and clean herself, but it was now in a pouring flood, the camera quickly started shaking then fell, only to be cut off by a quick fade back to the studio.
The reporter looked shell-shocked, "There. There's nothing I can say to describe what we are seeing, this-" And once again, a quick fade, back to James in the field.
"Christ, they just gunned him down! Keep this filming!" You heard the reporter yell.
The camera was focused on a man many meters within the barricaded zone, you could see him try to rise to his feet again and the staccato sound of rifles firing causing the mic on the camera to overflow, sending some static noise.
"No cameras, turn this shit off NOW!" You could hear being yelled as the picture went dark, a hand over the camera obviously.
All of a sudden, an in-flight movie started.
I began to cry in my seat, this wasn't my fault, it wasn't my fault, it wasn't...
Thankfully, oblivion claimed me.
-
"Well we better find out what the FUCK this is before this moves to somewhere else." The head doctor said to our team, "I want a full spectrum of tests, we have to start narrowing down at least what is causing it."
"Sir, I think, well, we have found nothing in the body but the virus right?" I queried.
"Correct Ms Ellis. Except for the virus, but that's not even being attacked by the bodies own immune system." He confirmed.
"Well, perhaps its mutating other cells in some way, causing the immune system to attack those? Like a hyper-immune reaction, but instead of the immune system being false triggered, its actually finding the cells 'non-native' to the body and trying to eliminate them?" I postulated.
"Good thought, run some tests on tissue samples, check on that, its as good a guess as we have at the moment. The rest of you, keep at it within your field, we have to get this identified within the next four hours."
As one we all turned back to our stations. I started requisitioning samples, we had plenty of them, and started the tests to confirm my hypothesis.
My mind focused, I managed to block out all the muttered curses of people around me as they proposed tests and found nothing.
I noticed that my results were skewing exactly as my idea said they should, a few more quick tests and it would be con-
"It seems like your close to it, keep isolating it down, great work Karen." The lead scientist had been looking over my shoulder. Some people find that creepy, but to have the top researcher in the world observing you, just out of your doctorate studies, and praising you for your work, well its a bit of a thrill really.
"Certainly seems so sir!" I acknowledged, and kept at the painstaking work, documenting everything perfectly as I went.
An hour later, all told, I had produced the confirmation that the virus we had found was the direct cause of massive scale cell mutation, but it was odd, the cells weren't fully warping, it was like they were expectant, waiting for a different ingredient to change further. After finalising my findings and passing them on, I acted on a hunch, and retrieved a sample of cells of skin from a dog found within the quarantine zone, it was completely unaffected by the virus, but when I added a few cells to the cultured human infected cells a huge change occurred, the human cells started absorbing the canine cells it was amazing to watch, they then released a coded lump of protein that then sparked similar reactions in nearby cells, which after a minute or two fully stabilised.
This was amazing, I segregated some of the cells off and started the process to extract the DNA and examine it. Within a few minutes the process had completed and I read the result with amazement, the resultant stable cells were a mix of DNA from the canine and human, of course I couldn't tell what the code would produce structure wise, but it looked consistent across the few cultures I had processed.
I documented furiously, and after a further twenty minutes, managed to track down the head researcher to submit my further findings.
"Yes Ms Ellis but this is irrelevant, the time needed to complete these cell mutations would be days after the subject would be literally eaten by their own immune system, there's no way this would be any use to us in this, however file it, it may come in handy later, good work anyway, you have quickly demonstrated why we need to have fresh faces in our teams, new eyes for new problems." Dr Willins praised. Damn too much of this would make a girl blush.
I logged the notes to the system database and signed off, my roster actually ended over an hour ago, but when these sorts of things happen, you don't sit around on your arse waiting for answers to drop into your hands.
I was almost to the sleeping quarters when an aide to Dr Willins found me, "Reports are that this has begun in New York and there's one case of an air-stewardess already dead in London, she has been isolated and they don't believe she came into contact with anyone, but her flight was out of Los Angeles."
My blood chilled. "What's our status?" I asked him.
His reply was a strained look and a cup of what smelled like very strong coffee, along with a copy of our orders to move the research team to LA.
Now we find the second dancer for our little performance.