ARIA (14 page)

“He does, Jena. Talk to him yourself. He’ll call us together to review the situation this afternoon. I hope your family have taken themselves somewhere safe. They might be out of cell-phone range.”

“Antonio, what did you disturb my rest period for?”

He walked to her family photo at the farm she’d stuck on the bulkhead wall. He turned and smiled. “Dan and I thought it would do no harm to give ourselves some vitamin and antioxidant boosters as a prophylactic for when we do go back.”

“I suppose this is a ten-day course; another diabolical reason why we can’t return yet. You related to Machiavelli?”

Dr Menzies produced his best bedside-manner wry grimace.

Friday 24 April 2015, evening:

UK motorway, eight days since amnesia started spreading in the US. Most US citizens and some UK citizens have lost up to a year’s worth of memory.

R
YDER
ALWAYS
HAD
THE
URGE
to be a van driver, so he was elated to be driving the latest super-transit, courtesy of his boss, Derek. Paying to use the toll motorway sections of the M1 out of London and M6 towards Wales helped to avoid the worst of the traffic congestion. Teresa’s biology department maintained a field study centre in North Wales. Dubious because of the high tourism factor on the North Wales coast, Ryder spent hours poring over maps and aerial photographs, which helped him change his mind. There was just one road, built by the Romans, more a track skirting a ridge close to the centre. The centre nestled in a mountain-fringed armchair hollow with a track ending at a small lake, Llyn Anafon. He would have preferred more trees for the centre to hide in, but they went centuries ago and kept away by sheep, feral ponies, and rabbits, who all loved tree saplings for breakfast. Since the vast majority of tourists stay within a few minutes of their cars, they’d only have to fend off the few dedicated ramblers.

“Are you sure it has electricity and water?” he asked Teresa, as he slowed behind a Perrier transporter.

“It has its own wind and solar power with a diesel back-up generator, local stream water supply with filters, a large store complete with sheep and bilberries on the hills. What more do you want? Oh, I get it. Yes, it has a great entertainment room and communications centre.”

Ryder looked at her in disbelief. “I was thinking of security arrangements.”

“There’s a burglar alarm. Not linked to the police, but I believe a red light might blink at the university maintenance office in London.”

“Great. Has it ever gone off?”

“I set it off when I forgot the code. I know it now, 1828.”

Ryder laughed. “Don’t tell me. The year London University started a biology department. It’s amazing how many institutes have the year of their inauguration for their door codes. Is there an alarmed security fence?”

“You having a laugh? The only fences around there are around trial seed patches to keep the rabbits and sheep out. But we do have Brian.”

“Ah, anagram of Brain, a robotic defence system?”

Teresa braced as Ryder had to abort an overtake. “Sort of. He’s Brian Wagstaff, the centre manager. Lives on site with his wife, Bronwyn, who does catering and repairs. She’d run rings round you on electrics and engines. In fact, although Brian is bloody strong though short, if I was an intruder, I’d be more scared of Bronwyn. She’s a fiery one.”

“Like someone sitting next to me, you mean. Oh my God, two feisty women under one roof.”

“Don’t forget Laurette in the pickup behind us with Gustav. She’s an impenetrable, French, post-grad chief techie for our department and Gustav Schmidt, from Leipzig, her assistant.”

Ryder swerved to avoid a rabbit then said, “Didn’t Gustav tell you Laurette was impenetrable?” He grinned; she laughed.

“It means she has someone to play with when we’re up there for months.”

Ryder heard buzzing. “That yours?”

She checked. “Gustav says they need to stop for fuel and provisions.”

“Hope they remember to use the self-serve fuel and shop. Hey, Derek, wake up. We’re making a pit stop.”

“Why have you brought him along?” she whispered. “You said you couldn’t stand him.”

“He’s a prat as my line manager; most media consultants are. But he’s a bloody marvel at communications. This super-transit came out of his budget and is full of his comms gear as well as provisions.”

“Right, here goes for the motorway services,” Teresa said. “I’ll remind Gustav and Laurette to put in their nose filters.”

“I still think we should wear our full protection gear but for the attention it would get.”

A swiped card let them in and the scanned goods debited prices from their bank account as they left. They refuelled, toileted, and shopped without approaching within five metres of anyone.

Derek O’Conner received pulled faces from the others as he piled boxes of cigarettes and whiskey into his trolley. Laurette and Gustav grimaced at the awful selection of cheeses and chocolates on the shelves. Teresa made sure the women had enough toiletries, and Ryder added concentrated fruit juices, biscuits, black beers, torches, batteries, music memory cards, and extra first aid stuff.

“That came to over four hundred pounds,” Teresa said.

“And mine,” Laurette replied, “but I bet Ryder and Derek’s even more.”

Derek avoided a response.

“All essentials for body and soul,” Ryder said. “Now let’s get going before anybody thinks we’re good for a hijack.”

Keeping to legal speed limits, Ryder followed the old M42 across the border into Wales then Thomas Telford’s route along the A5.

“This could be fun if it wasn’t so serious,” Derek said.

“Speaking of serious, Derek,” Ryder said, taking care to stay several seconds behind a meandering Volvo estate packed with whooping teenagers. “You are on a touchy-feely level with our PM, Brendon Stone, aren’t you? We’ve been trying to get to him to stop Atlantic flights, which I believe has happened, but what else?”

Derek finished a chocolate bar. “I know the government have had top level meetings, including a full cabinet meeting two nights ago. But though I coordinate much of the national Internet TV news coverage relating to Downing Street, I can’t find out anything that happened in the last two days. The absence of releases becomes news in itself but worrying nonetheless. I know that four days ago, one of the top M15 security policy makers happened to be in Washington.”

Teresa and Ryder “ahhed” together.

She said, “Just as well you do most of your conferences online, Derek. It has slowed down the spread of ARIA just a little.”

The mini-convoy motored through the spooky deep shadows of wooded limestone gorges, meeting little traffic until turning north on the A470 leading to Conwy on the North Wales coast. With mountains climbing up to their right and a valley falling away to their left, Ryder worried it made a perfect ambush opportunity. He looked to voice his fears, but both his passengers snoozed as if they’d come for a rest. He wondered if he’d packed his walking boots. Then he hoped he’d remembered his prismatic compass in case the batteries ran out on his watch-GPS and he’d bought the wrong sort at the supermarket. Had they brought the large-scale maps and had Teresa transferred enough funds to their instant-access current account? Would that matter in another week or so?

His eyes cried out for sleep too. He should have agreed to his passengers’ offers to share the driving. He knew he shouldn’t have been so arrogant as to assume only he would be cunning enough to drive without attracting attention. He’d been trained in the US by the FBI while on a documentary assignment and now trusted no one else to drive.

White and amber lights beckoned him from the coastal tourist town of Conwy. Even from five miles, he could see the castle ramparts and the suspension bridge, lit up as if a normal holiday weekend was about to begin. It was possible no ARIA-infected person had sat in one of the quaint cafés or pulled up a deckchair on nearby Llandudno’s beach. Getting closer, he could see the silhouette of Great Orme, an outlying hill where, 2,000 years ago, the Romans took over ancient copper mines. What would they have thought of ARIA? Would it have made much difference to them? ’Course it would. Imagine Proximus Septimus, or whoever, waking up not knowing the beauty next to him was his new wife, swapped for rights to graze cattle in a luscious meadow. Or a legion setting off on a three-day march then forgetting what their mission entailed when they arrived and their route back to base camp. Bummer.

He turned left onto the coastal dual carriageway. Accompanied by the occasional Irish articulated lorry travelling empty back to the ferry at Holyhead, he had a short drive to Penmaenmawr where he had orders to wake Teresa for detailed navigation.

The signpost said “Aber Falls” but an overgrown elderberry prevented anyone reading it. Ryder took satisfaction at the covert entrance, even though a scattering of homes meant less-than-perfect isolation. The lane wound its way through hills and past a couple of sheep farms until a gate barred the way.

“Excellent,” he said to Teresa as she jumped out. But qualified that with a “Not so good” when he saw that all she did was lift a rope to open the gate. “We’ll need to add more obstacles than that.”

“Unless you intend to install a three-metre electric fence around the whole valley and the mountain behind the centre, the determined intruder will get in.”

“Certainly, but let’s cut down the odds by having a solid padlock on this and a second gate around the bend.”

“We’ll do a reconnaissance with Brian and Bronwyn in daylight. They have local knowledge—hey, watch out, Ryder. The track meanders with a drop to the stream on the right. Go slow. It’s only another mile or so.”

“I assume Brian and Bronwyn have been briefed?”

“They’ve been getting our bunks ready as well as extra provisions.”

“I mean about ARIA.”

“They didn’t believe me. Especially Brian, but Bronwyn thought some of the TV presenters had acted oddly, especially on the satellite programmes from the States. And yes, they’ve been diligent when they’ve gone shopping. Luckily, although they’re Welsh, they’re not originally from round here, so we don’t have to take in two hundred family members.”

Ryder fretted as he drove. “How about locals or tourists in the valley?”

“No one in the past week. Occasionally at weekends, the odd fisherman will drive up this lane to the small lake a quarter mile from the centre, but if we block the lane, I’m sure they’d look elsewhere for somewhere easier.”

The transit rocked sideways as Ryder struggled to steer it in pitch blackness over the rubble making up the uneven track. The two pale yellow headlights did more to put rabbits into a catatonic state than illuminate the way ahead.

“Where the bloody hell is it, Teresa? I wish they’d switch on an outside light.”

“You told them not to.”

“Oh, yes. Wartime blackout rules. Ah, I see it. That must be Brian in the doorway with a torch. Must have heard the van.”

“I expect Laurette phoned him when we reached the gate.”

“You are all old friends here, aren’t you, except Derek and me?”

“We’ve known each other for five years. Not sure I know
you
at all.” She gave him a dig in the ribs.

Saturday 25 April 2015:

Anafon Centre.

Before breakfast, Ryder walked out of the door and strolled around the centre, long, cool grass tugged at his ankles. Swirls of grey mist trailed around the hills, allowing the morning sun to take its time burning it away. At a hundred metres, he turned to take in the centre. It lay beside a small stream trickling from a nearby lake. The steep, rocky Llwytmor mountain on the south side belied the northern, gentle, green-vegetated slope. He appreciated the way the centre blended into the environment. It might be modern brick and pastel shades inside but was constructed of local slate and gritstone outside. One floor but as large as a school in area, half hidden behind large grey boulders.

Still loaded with morning dew diamonds, the shrubs and scattered boulders wore aprons of bright green bilberry, ferns, and grasses. He warmed in appreciation of the isolation and tranquillity. Turning again, he followed a track to the lake in the basin of the vertical mountain walls. In the still water, fish gulping at flies disrupted the reflection of an old jetty.