ARIA (41 page)

Tuesday 6 October 2015, late evening:

Anafon Centre. Most people outside Anafon will have lost up to twenty-five years’ memory.

I
N
THE
REFECTORY
AND
FIGHTING
A
STRESS
HEADACHE
, Ryder blurted out, “What a bloody mess.” Bronwyn lay on the floor with Teresa kneeling beside her with Gustav. Megan was making strong coffee for the survivors. Ryder looked at Abdul and Jena who, like him, were struggling to delay reality-denial sleep, slouched on canteen chairs at a table. He fought to keep his senses. He hoped his mighty headache was stress related rather than ARIA.

“There’s no need to keep repeating that it’s a mess,” Jena said.

“Leave him alone for once, can’t you?” Teresa said, tending to Bronwyn, who’d suffered shotgun wounds to her right side. In pre-ARIA circumstances, there would have been certainty of her surviving. Ryder knew the chance of her picking up a wound infection was high. They’d stemmed the flow of blood but had no idea of any internal haemorrhaging.

“Let’s have no arguing now there’s just six of us who are able-bodied,” Abdul said.

Ryder saw Megan shooting Abdul a stern look, but she had suffered too much to say anything.

“Let’s get this right then,” Ryder said, ignoring the percussion orchestra in his head. “Of those alive, Bronwyn has actual bullet wounds, and no one else has anything more than grazes, cuts, and bruises? In that case, we need to evacuate this place as soon as possible. Gustav and Abdul, get the case out of the mine. It’s shut and sealed in the padded bag, but if you want to suit up…”

“Just a minute,” Jena said, “we could leave it in the mine. No one else knows it’s there. Taking it with us just increases the chances of catastrophe on our journey, whether we reach Rarotonga or only Abergoggle-whatever.”

“Here we go again,” Gustav said. “Jena, it might be needed, if not by us, then by others.”

“It’s too fucking dangerous, Gustav. Let’s bury it in the mine.”

“Gustav is right,” Teresa said. “We have to accept that the case contents have halted Brian’s memory loss. And I know you’re going to point at Antonio, but we don’t really know what went on with him.”

“You’re damn right I’m pointing at that freak. I’m sure Ryder will back me up,” Jena said, looking at him for support.

Ryder shook his head. “Sorry, Jena. Abdul and Gustav, we’ve no time for debates. Get on with it.”

Ryder didn’t want to embarrass Jena in front of everyone, but they had to evacuate before anyone decided to investigate the shooting. Like the others, the trauma was hitting him in the guts, making logic difficult, but he had to try. The echoes must have reverberated for miles. He had to busy himself in the lab, trying to contact Manuel and gather equipment. The survivors included three ISS crew who were all experienced pilots. He punched the phone for the kitchen.

“Megan, will you load provisions and bottled water into the pickup?”

Between sobs, Megan blurted back into the phone, “I’m in here getting a drink for my aunt. Do your own jobs.”

“Megan, we have to help Bronwyn by getting her to safety. To do that, we have to leave. I know you’re upset. We all are. Please help.”

Jena came into the lab. “Do you want me to collect the ARIA and second-case evidence together while you play?”

“I’m collecting IT equipment that will be damned useful and rigging up an automatic-retry message for Manuel.” He avoided looking at her eyes, which were no doubt mocking him. “I’m evading contemplating the way our friends died. Especially Derek. We went back to my first year of work.”

“We’ll all need therapy. It’s forgivable to neglect confronting our demons now, but keep on going against me at your cost.” She blew a kiss at him, which Ryder accepted as if it attacked him.

After he’d done all he could with the computers and loaded his considered bare minimum into the boot of the Volvo estate, he helped Gustav move the bodies to a storage building outside. Megan finally came to help too.

“It’s okay,” Gustav said. “We two strong men can manage.”

Megan insisted. “You’d better not be suggesting that I’m a bloody weakling.”

Gustav held up his hands. “I’m sure you eat rocks for breakfast.” Ryder pulled a face. The poor man would have rocks in his muesli tomorrow.

“So, now you’re having a go at my cooking. You can make your own sandwiches from now on.” She used a trolley to move Antonio’s body, blood dripping. After draping a tarpaulin over the body, she turned to Ryder and pulled him outside. “What are we going to do with Bronwyn? She’s too ill to be moved out of her bed, let alone go on a journey to whatever airfield you and your new bitch have decided to go to.”

“It’s only RAF Valley, not far. I’m ignoring your rudeness. I’ll come and chat to her.”

Ryder followed her to the small dormitory—now with an antiseptic aroma—shared by Megan and Bronwyn. The fluorescent strip light cast a harsh brightness in the room. Bronwyn lay propped up by blood-stained pillows. Barely awake, her pale skin glistened.

“Hello, Ryder, you finished your holiday here then?”

“You could say that.”

“Don’t forget your travel-sick tablets, Megan.”

“I think Megan could stay here with you. You’re going to need a lot of looking after.”

“No, Ryder. Although I’m not leaving Brian, I want to know Megan is with you and the others.”

“Good God, Bronwyn, I hope you aren’t thinking we’re off to a sure safe place. We might not make it to the airport. Our refuelling in Canada might not happen. We might land again in that Pacific island and find everyone has ARIA after all.”

“No problem,” Megan said. “We’d open the case at them and they’d stop being infectious.”

“We don’t know that for certain. Just that Brian stopped forgetting things and the virus in his blood changed. But if Bronwyn insists, I suppose we’ll have to have some more weight,” said Ryder, dodging the pillow Megan threw at him. “We’ll put off leaving until you are well enough to come with us, Bronwyn.”

T
HAT
NIGHT
, R
YDER
MASSAGED
J
ENA
’
S
SHOULDERS
with lemon-based aromatic oil. A knock on their door, followed by a Teresa cough, interrupted them.

“She’s perfected her sense of timing,” Jena said, throwing a dressing gown on. Ryder didn’t bother, and wearing nothing, yanked the door open.

“No need to dress on my account,” Gustav said, who stood with Teresa.

Ryder grimaced.

A couple of minutes later, the four of them shared hot chocolate drinks in the refectory. Ryder tried to assess the composure of Teresa, whose red eyes gave away her loss. She was very fond of Laurette, and latterly, Antonio. A whirlpool of emotions. Gustav had shown them how strong he could be, his face immutable and stolid. Jena must have had angst for the murder of Dan, but she fought it well. Ryder couldn’t tell whether her bravado came from astronaut training or bloody-mindedness. He fought his own torment with Derek’s death. The whole situation was likely to worsen.

Teresa opened the discussion. “If we take the case to Rarotonga, we may be missing out on a big opportunity. By the time it is examined under intense lab procedures and security conditions down there, it will be months before the new virus would come back to Europe.”

“So, what are you saying? Expose some ARIA victims here, before we whip it away to the other side of the world?” Ryder said.

“Exactly,” Gustav said. “If ARIA-2 infects one person with ARIA, it might halt their memory deterioration. Then if they are infectious...”

“A lot of ifs,” Ryder said.

“I can just imagine the practical implications of doing this without exposing ourselves,” Jena said. “But I’ve been thinking along those lines too.”

“I’m not opposed to the crazy idea. After all that we’ve been through, I haven’t a clue of the difference between normal and bizarre. But suppose they react badly?”

“Then they aren’t worse off,” Teresa said. “We know that without this additional virus, they will continue to lose memory until they die via their own or others’ neglect.”

“Antonio?” Ryder had a nightmare vision of a world populated by psychopathic crazies. The Welsh hills would resound with weird animal cries, and they wouldn’t be sheep.

“Right,” Gustav said, “suppose they react like Antonio and become psychopathic? They might end up killing each other. This time next year, they’ll all be dead anyway. Whatever we do, or don’t do, is risky, but the case gives them, and so humanity, a slim chance of survival.”

“You’re right,” Ryder said. “But, how the hell are we going to do it?”

Gustav spoke up. “Let’s go for the simplest solution. Two of us suit up and go, with the case, into the nearest village at night.”

“Why at night?” Teresa said.

“Because it is easier to see which houses are occupied,” Jena said. “Especially just after dark before too many have gone to bed.”

“Exactly,” Gustav said. “So it’s too late tonight. Tomorrow evening, I’m going out with the estate car down the lane to the village and—”

“No, you’re not,” Abdul said, who’d come in from his patrol shift with Megan. “Jena and I will go because—”

“We have the space suits and more brains,” Jena said, holding up her hand for Abdul to high-five.

“You do have fitted space suits,” admitted Gustav, winking at Ryder. “Not sure about the brains.” He ducked as Jena threw a biscuit.

W
EDNESDAY
7 O
CTOBER
2015,  19:30
HOURS

Jena and Abdul drove all the way through the village without witnessing a single light behind a window. She spotted a dozen bodies on pavements and in the road.

Jena used her phone. “Ryder, we’re going onto the dual carriageway and heading east to Conwy. We’re bound to find some live ones there.”

“Maybe you should abort mission and return.”

But they continued. Gustav gave directions. “I’ve been here with students. Conwy is circled with a medieval stone wall. Head for the large houses on the left, with large gardens with hedges.”

They parked in a dark side street then they fixed helmets; incongruous on a Welsh street. Armed with guns and the case, they rounded a corner and saw oil lamps in two windows of a large detached house. Sneaking up the path, Jena hesitated and tugged at Abdul to stop. They couldn’t just open it on the doorstep and ring the bell, risking the householder stumbling on the case or taking it in.

Jena whispered. “There’s a low hedge near the door.” She opened the case on the side of the hedge away from the door and waited for a few minutes for the blue blocks to emit particles.

“To think this might be the start of a diffusion of more sanity for the planet or the acceleration to the end,” Abdul said. “I hope they don’t notice the blue fluorescence.”

“If they look as if they’re going to touch it, we’ll have to point our guns at them and tell them to go in the house while we run off with the case. Right, who’s going to play Trick-or-Treat?”

“Isn’t it Knock-and-Run? Although, we’re only hiding, and we are giving them a treat,” said Abdul. “All right, I’ll do it.”

Jena suppressed a laugh at the ludicrous vision of a NASA spaceman in full suit sneaking up to a door, knocking on its letterbox, and running back to her in the bushes.

“You could have just lobbed a stone at the door, you muffin.”

“Now you tell me.”

A moment later, the door opened and an angry, elderly man in a dressing gown stepped out on the path. “Who’s there? I bet it’s young Robbie, ain’t it?”

A woman in her thirties came out. “Come on, Daddy, it’s cold out there.” She joined him on the path, put an arm around him, and together they returned to the house and shut the door.

“I’ll count that as a success,” Jena said, as they retrieved the case and turned out of the gate. Across the road, The Glyndwr Arms released sounds of talking. Dim lights escaped through curtains from hurricane lamps.

They peered in through gaps in the curtains. Abdul said, “Four—no, five men and two women. They’re having drinks as if nothing has happened.”

“Probably a bit like that father and daughter back there. She’s lost twenty years, called the crotchety old feller, Daddy, and cuddled him like a young girl might. Are we up for it? Seven birds with one stone?”

“I’ll hold the case open while you point both hand guns, although the sight of us might freak them into a catatonic trance.”

“Shall we ask Ryder first?” Jena said.

“He’d refuse permission.”

“We could ask, let him refuse us, and do it anyway. It would really piss him off,” she said, grinning behind her visor.

“I thought you liked him.”

“So?”

They burst through the double doors and stood there facing the drinkers. Most were senior citizens with slow reactions. A middle-aged man about to sip from a bottle hesitated as if frozen. Abdul put the case on a stool and opened it. The six blue bricks shimmered. The drinkers’ eyes flitted between the mesmerising contents of the case, the astronauts’ space suits, and Jena’s guns. One of the men let his bottle slip out of his shaking fingers. It smashed on the floor sending a jet of liquid shooting back up. Jena took pleasure from the beautiful application of Newton’s Third Law of Motion: for every bottle of beer hitting the floor, there is an equal and opposite fountain of beer rocketing up.

Jena spoke, her American accent adding another oddity to the occasion for the drinkers. “You will find your memory loss will stop, and you’ll start remembering things from now on. Breathe on others, spread it around. When we leave, lock the door for at least half an hour.”

Abdul closed the case and said in his equally strange Qatar accent, “We’d buy you a round, but we haven’t any money. Have a drink anyway.”

They ran to their car. In between bursts of relief laughter, Jena warmed with the thought they might have done some real good. But then she remembered the aliens were responsible for both cases. Had she been an unwitting accomplice by implementing an awful plan?