Panspermia Deorum (43 page)

Sophie tugged
her father’s sleeve.

“What about
Reuben? He’s at the hardware store.”

“Shit! I’d
forgotten about that. Call his mobile and warn him not to come back
until you can give him the all clear.”

She made Reuben
aware of the situation but he said he couldn’t just wait for her
next call.

“I’m coming
back. These creatures are very cunning, and I’m not sure your dad’s
panic room will prevent them from getting in if they really want
to. I can’t take that chance, I’m on my way.”

“No, Reuben,
you have to… oh no, he wouldn’t listen, Dad.”

“That’s all we
need. What the hell does he think he’s going to do against three of
them? Appeal to their Beta side? The three of you have to get into
the panic room now, so just do it. When I see Reuben come into the
hallway on the camera, I’ll go out there with my pistol. If we stay
calm they may be gone before he gets back.”

Sophie, Elise,
and Geraldine entered and locked the panic room door from the
inside. They then acknowledged Julien’s instruction not to open it
again unless he said so.

The situation
became more confusing when the deviant who’d used the elevator
didn’t return. Julien then figured that the other neighbours on his
floor must have been out, because the second deviant came out of
the apartment with a green bag full of food, but no victims. This
deviant seemed to be in charge, and he shouted instructions to the
one next to him to break down Julien’s door while he took both
green bags to the elevator. Julien braced himself. It seemed to
take an eternity for the reinforced door to concede. As soon as he
could get a clear view, several rounds were fired and the deviant
dropped to the floor. The hits to the body hadn’t killed him and he
began to struggle to his feet. The elevator doors opened just as
Julien raised the pistol once again, and shouted, “Stay back, don’t
come any closer.”

Reuben calmly
walked out of the elevator and over to the stricken deviant. He
pulled the cord. The chainsaw roared into gear and Reuben hacked
off the deviant’s head.

“There are two
more somewhere,” said Julien.

“Four more,
actually. They are on the ground floor.”

“Do you think
they’ll come back up?”

“Not unless
they grow new heads. They just came at me one at a time. They
didn’t seem to stop and think about their numerical advantage.
There would have been an almighty mess if they’d charged at me
together. They behaved like gladiators rather than wild animals. It
was almost as if there was some kind of seniority to honour or
respect. Strange.”

Julien simply
couldn’t believe the casual manner in which his normally laid back
son-in-law had disposed of these terrifying deviants. He gave the
signal to open the panic room door and Sophie rushed out, throwing
her arms around her husband, simultaneously chiding him for being
so stupid.

His sardonic
reply was priceless. “I just decided to forget the drill I was
going to buy and took the best tool for the most urgent job. I’ll
get the drill this afternoon, stop fussing, it’s only a short
walk.”

*

The obligatory
report of the incident to the police was made by Julien, even
though he knew it would do nothing but gather computer archive
dust. After giving such a meaningless statement he felt the need to
relieve some of the pent-up stress, and it provoked him to call his
son.

“Hi Eugene.
We’ve had a bit of an incident here but I’m not calling you to
cause further alarm. I just thought it might interest you to think
about a specific part of what happened.”

After going
through every detail, he got to the pertinent point.

“Young Reuben
is so cool and I had to let you know about his observations. If it
had been anyone else they probably wouldn’t have noticed this, and
I include myself in saying this. He ripped the heads off the four
deviants on the ground floor, as I said, but then he quietly
mentioned that they almost formed a queue to tackle him when he
arrived in their midst with a chainsaw. His explanation was that
there seemed to be some kind of unspoken hierarchical understanding
between them. He had the composure to lop off their heads as they
each stepped forward. Now, before that, when I watched three of
them on our floor, trashing my neighbour’s apartment, they were all
involved in separate tasks, yet one was barking out orders to the
others. I thought that such behavioural observations might interest
you, since you are looking at the schizophrenic nature of Alphas
and Betas. I thought about this, because the one I shot was taking
instructions from the one who disappeared into the elevator with
two green bags full of food. Reuben said there were four on the
ground floor, so I assume this leader was one of them.
Unfortunately, we can’t say if he ordered the others to attack
Reuben one at a time.”

“That really is
weird, Dad. If Reuben’s take on this is accurate, then it has to be
significant. Thanks for the tip. I’m just about to meet with my
co-workers and I’ll bring this up. I’ll call you back. But are you
sure you don’t want me to come back? You’ve had a serious
warning.”

“Maybe, but
what could you do about it? You can do something where you are. I
think the panic room will hold firm and anyway we’ve now got
Chainsaw Charlie, he’ll be in there with us if there’s a
repeat.”

*

Brandon and the
two Japanese researchers were open-mouthed when they listened to
Zlatan’s story backed up by Eugene’s scan results. One of the
Japanese held up his hand to ask a question.

“Do you have
name of variety of bees which give this result?”

Zlatan
hesitated. “Not exactly, but if you can get a book with pictures of
bees and their description we can compare it with a dead one I
kept. You must understand that I was in a hell of a hurry to get
out of Australia.”

Brandon queried
the assertion that the bee venom per se should be attributed the
title of ‘wonder cure’.

“Once we know
which variety we’re talking about, we need to analyse it to isolate
each organic compound. Some will be completely useless but others
will surely have the potential we’re looking for. It will be a lot
of work because there will be a hell of a lot of different
ingredients. This is urgent; it’s the best break we’ve had. Anyway,
when did you last take stings?”

“Not long ago.
I think I know what you’re going to say. The infection will gather
momentum again unless I get more bees. Then I’m a risk to you
guys.”

“Exactly,”
exclaimed Brandon, “so it’s even more urgent than I thought it was,
to identify the strain of bees we need. Let’s get googling right
now.”

All four of
them began with the search engine and it didn’t take long for
Zlatan to match the dead bee with a picture and description of an
African strain. Brandon then immediately looked in the sub-menus
for the venom composition.

The general
information fell under the name of Apitoxin, noted as a bitter,
colourless liquid. The active portion was listed as a mixture of
proteins, causing local inflammation, as well as acting as an
anti-coagulant. Further breakdown substances revealed certain
peptides, one of interest being Mellitin. However, another stand
out individual protein he spotted was Apamine, a mild neurotoxin.
His mind was engaged with the relative properties of these two
constituents, then he finally found what he was looking for.
Phospholipase A2, a highly destructive compound, particularly
effective in degrading cellular membranes.

“Gentlemen, I
believe we have our Trojan Horse, and it happens to be ready made.
It’s fantastic news that there is a natural source in the bee
venom, but we can also synthesise this stuff from simpler
molecules. So, Eugene, your infiltrator is ready. We need a bit of
luck with my chaos distraction technique, and now we have the
knockout blow with the Phospholipase A2.”

Zlatan
interrupted. “But isn’t the bee venom only keeping my infection in
check?”

“Yes,” said,
Eugene, “it isn’t in itself a cure.”

“Indeed,”
quipped Brandon, “but if Eugene’s stuff kicks off the war, your
Phospholipase A2 temporarily immobilises the virus so it can’t
mutate. Then I have to deliver a mortal wound to the damned scourge
while it is inactive. We are within touching distance. But there
remains a challenge – as you are the only infected patient we have,
are you brave enough to allow the virus to recover and then allow
us to nuke it?”

“Well, I… I
mean…shit, I thought I would only need an injection or something
like that. What you seem to be talking about is more like a major
operation.”

“Correct,” said
Brandon. “And one you may not survive. But let’s face it, if you
don’t have an inexhaustible supply of bees, you’re dead anyway.
Even then, bees or no bees, the virus will adapt to it. I’d give
you a few months at most.”

Zlatan slumped
into a chair. “When you put it like that I suppose it’s a
no-brainer.”

W
hen the euphoria had died down, Eugene approached
Brandon while he was on his own.

“My father’s
apartment was attacked by deviants. None of my family members have
been hurt, but the people next door to them weren’t so lucky. My
sister’s husband took down four of them and finished off a wounded
one with a chainsaw. Dad said this young man, Reuben, was told by
phone about the attack, and he had the presence of mind to buy the
chainsaw instead of a drill he was seeking. Anyway, while he was
dismembering these deviants, he was amazed that they just came at
him one at a time even though they saw the previous assailant cut
down right in front of them. I haven’t been able to stop thinking
about this. I saw first-hand in Australia how these infected people
operated before and after they transitioned to phase two. They
always acted as a group, especially when threatened. This account
makes me think that there may be an intermediate stage. We already
know that there is a third phase, one of sophistication, hiding in
plain sight. Any comment?”

“I can’t really
process this at the moment, my head says get on with finalising our
three-part offensive. Could they have been siblings?”

“I’d never
thought about that. Ok, let’s get back to work.”

Six Weeks
Later

Zlatan had
reverted to phase one deviancy. Unfortunately, Brandon wasn’t
completely ready with his distraction technique. One part, the
creation of temporary metabolic chaos had been successful. However,
they had been handicapped by not being able to test out part two on
the actual virus, because of mutation fears. They’d had to use
designer stem cells to simulate the process. Creating ‘benign’
physical deformation was proving a step too far. One of the
Japanese researchers came up with an alternative completely out of
the blue.

“Why can we not
cause a sporadic interrupt protocol for specific stimuli which
demand instant cerebral response? We already have drugs which
perform such functions for short periods. We only expected the
distraction project to offer this deception for a similar amount of
time. So, instead of deception – nothing!”

Brandon looked
pensive, then a switch flicked.

“Yes, yes,
Eugene, think back to Chainsaw Charlie for a moment. If there is an
intermediate stage, as you suggested, that would be the time to
strike, for example, a stable orderly period before transition from
phase one to two.”

“Right, and our
guinea pig is phase one. There were tests in Australia which gave a
few days warning of the actual jump from phase one to two. That’s
when we need to plant our seeds.”

“So, can you
alert us at the start of this period?”

“I’m pretty
sure I can.”

“In that case,
I think we’re finally ready to roll.”

Zlatan timidly
asked how much science backed up this decision.

Brandon kept a
straight face when he jokingly said, “We have one shot at this. If
we fail you will die in a few weeks. But so will the rest of us
within a couple of years. If the science you’re talking about is
mathematics, we’re entitled to say it’s a straight fifty-fifty. But
hey, it has to be better than doing nothing.”

Cometh the
Hour

Zlatan was
connected to just about every piece of monitoring equipment in the
building. This was by no means comparable with a hospital
quarantine unit in terms of sanitation or front line medical
expertise. Also, the patient was not given anaesthetic, they needed
him to be able to communicate with them at all times. The infusions
could begin, the first precisely seven minutes before the second.
They had estimated a window of between three and five minutes for
Eugene’s test to indicate signs of any intermediate transition
symptoms after injection one. This left them a minimum of two
minutes and a maximum of four minutes for the second infusion and
subsequent monitoring of cerebral response lag, before considering
the third. Brandon asked Eugene to start the process.

The
infiltration serum went smoothly, Zlatan was calm, the readouts
were good and the clock ticked down to infusion number two. The
metabolic chaos delivery produced a very sharp reaction in the
readouts, although the patient felt no different. Two and a half
minutes before the Trojan Horse infusion was about to be added to
the mix, Zlatan noticed an abrupt change in his visionary
capability, followed by a drift to unconsciousness. The group
debated this and Brandon suggested they should delay the third
infusion until the readouts began to normalise. They didn’t have
to. Zlatan opened his eyes, and when asked about the blackout he
had no recollection of such an event, thinking he had remained
conscious the whole time.