Strain 13 : Dominant Species (wip)

Strain 13 : Dominant Species

Prologue.

Nobody knew where the illness had come from – if that was what it could be called. Of course, they had all speculated – it was a Commie conspiracy, a terrorist dirty bomb, the Chinese and their poultry again, BSE mutation, or even The Reckoning – but no-one really knew for sure.

And after the first few weeks or so it ceased to matter.

In the initial few days, all the countries of the world activated their Centres For Disease Control or equivalent body procedures, isolating communities with lines of troops – both local law enforcement and military – blocking the roads with long coils of barbed wire and the barrels of guns waving about in the hands of nervous individuals swathed in hastily despatched NBC suits, that either didn’t fit or were missing the important parts to seal the suit up.

They closed the airports and suspended all the flights until further notice, leaving frightened and confused passengers to wander aimlessly around nearby towns and cities where no-one would give them shelter or sustenance. The ports shut their harbours to new arrivals, and the sea lanes were guarded by armed sea patrols of Navy ships, Coast Guards and the few volunteer fishermen that would venture forth from the security of their homes. Train and coach hubs were locked down and became ghostlike museums of how far man had come in modes of wheeled conveyance, free newspaper pages sweeping across the platforms and bays like tumbleweeds in the gusting winds.

But, it still failed to control the spreading contamination. The damage had already been done and the infected digital display numbers continued to rise without pause, whilst the hastily and hourly constructed pie charts continued to show the uncontaminated sectors diminishing.

Containment changed to sterilisation, with great swathes of communities and townships levelled by the flick of a button, the untended fires burning night and day, pyres of both man and mortar reaching up in the sky and merging with the grey clouds that seemed to have come out is sympathy for the destruction of mankind.

But, the public outcry was muted to the action being taken, for people viewed the unfolding situation as ‘it was better that it be them than us’, and turned away a frightened and blind eye.

At some point in the fourth week, the name of the game just became survival. The government collapsed. Law disintegrated, troops deserted and anarchy started to reign for the first time in a millennia. Armed and well organised gangs started roaming the roads and motorways, doing little to help the situation, other than giving out their own version of justice to the remaining people still striving to survive in the apocalyptic landscape.  Murder, rape and destruction became the brutal edicts of a new callous and ruthless society.

Some pockets of survivors  – mostly military with a rag tag assortment of civilians – managed to retreat into a few secure locations, most of which were below ground or buried into the sides of mountains.

They ventured out now and again for supplies into a world very different from the one they had known, and aware all the time that their numbers were slowly dwindling,

However, in underground laboratories others also used their own skills and knowledge to try and find out a way to fight back. To retake what was theirs.

*****

Satuday, 7.12 pm

Doctor Elizabeth Chambers took the high-grade military binoculars away from her face and rubbed her tired and dark sleepless eyes. She did not need the super zoom-in lens feature to see in more detail what was happening in the city streets below her.

Chaos. Death. Despair.

The seething zombie horde beneath her ebbed and flowed, a sea of misery that lapped the base of the building where she stood some thirty feet or so above. Clouds of flies hovered in the air around them and perched on their exposed and rotting flesh.

The Autumn evening wind was quite strong up on the top of the building complex, the breeze ruffling errant strands of her shoulder length auburn hair across her eyes, bringing with it the putrid odour of decay and corruption. It ran through her mind not for the first time that it had been a mistake to have turned down the nose plugs that had been offered to her prior to coming here. She certainly would not make the same mistake again.

When she had arrived in the appropriated, small four man ISN Radio Station helicopter that stood nearby behind her – its rotors still slowly rotating for a quick get away if required – the writhing crowd had at first clawed at the walls, arms raised and nails scratching gouges in the brickwork, fruitlessly trying to get at them. Now, though, the seeming mass of what had once been her fellow man, woman or child simply stared up at her with only the occasional limb elevated above the rest of cadaverous mob.

Chambers could only reason that something in the ruined brain of those grimacing and rotting heads could somehow still discern what was attainable and what wasn’t. The uncomfortable moaning that emanated from their desiccated throats however had not dropped in pitch or volume.

It was quite amazing she thought, at just how quickly everything in the city began to crumble apart without any order or maintenance, and how quickly mother nature had began to reclaim back what she had been deprived of for so long.

A sunny and rainy summer had the grass already reaching out with tender pointed blades in the cracks in the pavement, Ivy had started creeping up the walls of buildings with leafy tendrils, even the potted plants in some window boxes were now unkempt and hanging down in straggly lines of growth. Broken branches hung down like the wooden claws from some nightmarish children’s fairy-tale. Rotten tree fruit lay squashed on the floor, their juices and pips staining the walkway a colour the same as dried blood.
         
Automobiles – some on the road and others half buried in storefronts or resting against bent street signs - had been stood motionless now for the longest time since rolling off the production assembly line, their chassis now littered with dust, bird droppings and other airborne debris.

A war memorial stood in the centre of the crossroads below, the dried up wreaths long since blown away, the sculpture toppled from the plinth and now just a jumbled mess that mimicked the disarray of its surroundings. The solar powered lights surrounding the monument slowly started to come to life in the dwindling sunshine and highlighted the empty space, where once had stood the marbled tribute to an unknown war hero, a war that seemed so very different to the one now.

The shops and offices now lay dark and foreboding, with the occasional glimpse of something moving inside, something unable to escape from it’s retail tomb. Shop-floor dummies stood motionless in windows, staring out sightlessly at the detritus walking past.   

There was a skyscraper in the distance, standing like a black monolith, with the tail end of a passenger jet sticking out of one side. It brought back appalling memories to her of the 9/11 attack, and watching the horrific television coverage as it unfolded live  to the terrified and captivated audience.

The city was slowly and inexorably approaching a precipice, where if the apocalyptic survivors could not start reclaiming parts of the city back soon, it would decay further like the human monstrosities she currently saw stumbling around aimlessly in it.

An essay she had once written back in her high college days had been entitled ‘Monuments were not built to last forever’ – and she felt it would have been an apt title for a snapshot of what she now saw below her.

The doctor rolled back the sleeve of the coarse army jacket that she had appropriated for the trip and looked at the time. With her back to the clamour of the helicopter blades, she did not here the approaching footsteps, and she jumped a little when a figure stepped into her peripheral vision and spoke.

“Not long now, doctor”.

Sergeant Hennings was a middle-aged, tall and barrel-chested man, coming in at about six-feet three in his laced-up black combat boots. He had blonde hair in a buzz-cut style, clear bright blue eyes and looked like he had walked right out of a professional football team and into the street camouflage cap and uniform he now wore, but he was well respected by the rest of the remaining military personnel, and respect carried a lot these days. 

There was a communication head-set attached to his ear, and he tapped it a couple of times as if there was an issue with distortion or clarity.

“No, not long. Are the others in position ?” asked Chambers.

The plan was quite simple. All roads leading out of the crossroads had been blocked with large container trucks a few days ago, corralling the ‘un-dead’ into a make shift but secure test enclosure. Four small teams of three would then be dropped onto the roof-tops of the structures that made up the corners of the crossroads and make their way to pre-ordained positions. Then, on the go-ahead from Dr Chambers, Hennings would give the command to each unit to fire syringed darts at pre-agreed targets – male, between twenty and forty –  who also did not have any limbs missing or were too far wasted away.

All teams had also been outfitted with the mini shoulder cameras on the doctor’s orders, to record data that the scientific people and Chambers would pour-over later after the operation.

Hennings raised his arm and pointed a finger towards the building to their right. “Beta team, are on the third floor, second window in. Just above the ‘D’ in McDonalds”.

Chambers followed his directions, and saw the three men that made up Beta team. Two were sat on the concrete sill, the other stood slightly behind them in the shadows. She had not spotted them before, but then again she had been looking at the test subjects – not the method of delivery. 

The sergeant then went on to indicate the location of the other two teams, Gamma diagonally opposite them and Delta in the building to their left, a structure which had suffered relatively little fire-damage compared to the charcoaled remains of those connected to it. 

A lot of the city was left to burn unchecked during the outbreak, the fire-fighters refusing to attend for fears of their own safety.

“And Subject W?”

“On schedule, Ma’am. Due here at about 7.25 am”

When neither of them said anything else for about half a minute, the sergeant turned to the third person in their team – Corporal Ramirez – and told him he should quit talking to their copter pilot McCafree and take up his position. The small Latino gave him the thumbs up and trotted over to the roof-edge.

Hennings seemed to be on the ball as far as Elizabeth was concerned. He kept a tight ship and knew his stuff. He had not been the highest ranking person left after the zombie incursion ten days ago in the COG (Contingency Of Government) bunker, which had reeked havoc in the underground base, but he had stepped up to the plate, re-organising and restructuring both people and defences alike.

He had promoted - and demoted - those around him, to posts he felt they were more suited to in light of the strange new reality they found themselves in. World shattering Zombie Apocalypses were not really something the military had planned for in any great detail. 

Chambers thought the best words to describe the Sergeant were ‘Efficient, Reliable and Trustworthy’. He was also a man that kept himself shaved, even when most of the rest of his compatriots had given that up the minute the world had gone to Hell.

It also ran through her mind occasionally that if she had been twenty years younger or him twenty years older ……….. She let that thought drop, it was unprofessional.

“Excellent!” she said, refocusing herself. 

She reached into the breast pocket of her coat and pulled out a crumpled packet of cigarettes, withdrawing one and offering the packet to Hennings, who shook his head in the negative.

She lit up.

“You think it will work?” asked the sergeant.

Chambers withdrew the cigarette from her mouth, blowing the smoke out in a long and continuous stream.
 
“I hope so hun, I surely hope so”.

*****

Two weeks previously.

“What do you mean it’s not dead?”

General Winters turned his head from the observation window to look over at Dr. Elizabeth Chambers who was sat behind her desk, studying something on the computer screen in-front of her. An ashtray full of cigarette butts stood next to three ceramics coffee mugs, their contents dry and stained. Winters’s face was red with a released frustration that he had been keeping in all day, chorded veins now standing out and pulsating on his temples.

“I don’t know much about biology, but that thing is walking around in there with half its head missing and totally disembowelled with its intestines dragging along behind it. So, how the fuck can it still be alive?”

Chambers took her eyes away from the screen. “That ‘thing’ in there as you so aptly describe it is – was - Private Jenkins, and..”.

Winters cut her off.

“I don’t give a shit who he was. I know what he is now and that’s enough for me. I’ve just about had enough of you and your team keeping these dangerous bastards in here, where we live and sleep and I’m growing tired of your lack of progress, your longwinded claptrap and the arrogance that you and all those who report to you seem to hold. I have plenty of other things for your people to do rather than the cushy number they have currently – guarding my inventory for that stealing arse-wipe Brannan for a start!”

The General stopped, panting and out of breath.

She did not reply, but, motioned with her hand for him to sit down in the chrome padded chair across from her, which the General did after a short pause. She took the horned rimmed glasses she had been wearing off and placed them on the desk.

Chambers was sure that his face showed more lines in it every day, but that was not surprising considering the weight of the responsibilities on his shoulders. As a doctor and scientist she understood this more than most, and had allowed him to voice his frustrations unchecked.

There was a water cooler a few paces from her desk and she rose, filled a white plastic cup and offered it to Winters. He accepted the cup and took a long and deep drink from it, his free hand running through his sparse hair that seemed to be thinner than when they had first met a short time ago. His grey eyes looked a little haunted, but that was pretty much the standard with everyone these days.

Elizabeth knew from other people that she had talked to during meal times that Winters’s health was not what it had been prior to the dead rising up and walking. Some said that before he had been a mild, humble and polite man, but not a push over or someone that took crap lightly.

Now though with his dwindling resources and the even more dwindling moral, rumours abounded that he was drinking heavily and taking tranquilisers, others that he was self-harming himself in private. .

“Better?” asked Elizabeth.

“A little. Look, I’m sorry for the way I just said what I  said, but I’m not sorry about the content of it. We cannot go on like this. Something has to change and if that means ending your crusade to find some sort of cure, then that has to happen”.

Chambers steepled her fingers and leaned forward over the desk on her elbows.

“Do you actually read any of the reports that my team sends up to you, or listen to anything I vocalise when I am occasionally deemed important enough to attend one of your ‘Crisis’ meetings ?”

Winters absently picked at a scab on one of his fingers. “Well, I..” he trailed off.

“I’ll spell it out for you again. THERE IS NO CURE! The people we knew are dead. They will not make some miraculous recovery, or be anything other than what they are now”

“You just told me… ” he threw a thumb over his shoulder to the observation room “that the thing in there is not dead”

“He is”.

“OK, now I am even more confused. It cannot be both”.

The doctor stood up, walked round to his side of the desk and perched her rear end on the corner.

“Look, the person – the people - you knew are dead. No amount of research, medication, trials or effort if going bring them back. From what we have seen, the…” she sought for a word, “the spirit if you will, the soul, the life essence that made that one individual that particular individual has gone. And believe me as a woman of science that is really hard for me to say!”.

She sighed, and then continued

“I have seen the transformation of many of the people who have been bitten – sadly a few of them even my own colleagues - some took hours to change, others days, but eventually they all succumbed to this ‘soul stealing’ virus. In simple terms they might be up and walking about, but the tenant we knew has been evicted from the building!”.

The Generals eyebrows lifted, wrinkling his forehead.

“It’s a virus ?”

“Yes”.

“So that means you could potentially kill it ? Or create an anti-body or something”.

“No”.

“Why ?”.

“Look, once infected – predominantly from a bite – the virus starts to takes control of the body and it shut down some of the bodies systems – it is irreversible. The patient then dies not from the wound but from the system shutdown of necessary organs, such as the heart, kidneys, liver, etc. My research on monitoring the final stages of ‘the change’, has clearly shown me that normal brain activity deadlines at the point of death of the infected individual. But, it kicks off again several minutes later, firing off a very different series of commands. I have the printouts here for you to see if……….”

Winters’s waved a dismissive hand in the air.

“I believe this is the time that our new ‘tenant’ so to speak has taken hold of the lease. Some of this is a bit hypothetical, but it fits in with what we are seeing.  We also now have clear evidence that although the heart has ceased beating, the blood inside the body is still continues to circulate around the body.

“That’s not possible”.

“And nor is the eviscerated Jenkins walking around in the room next door”.

Winters took another sip from his drink.

“OK, I asked for that”.

“Furthermore, though they show some signs of decay – mostly around the edges of the infection area – I have done some research as to why they just don’t simply bleed to death. After-all, if any of us ‘normal’ people were badly bitten or received any of the severe wounds the infected have received we would simply bleed out”.

“So why aren’t they then ?” asked Winters.
 
“From what I postulate” said Chambers, “the infected cells move towards the damaged region and seal off the area. If you will imagine you had your arm cut off, you would more than likely bleed to death within minutes without seeking any urgent medical aid – your blood just does not coagulate that quickly. The infection, however, is quite clever in this respect – it alters the coagulating effect of the blood cells, sealing off arteries and veins within moments, allowing far less deterioration of the host. And this explains why body shots are quite useless against it and why even a head-shot may not result in the death or incapacity of an infected individual unless it hits the parietal or occipital lobes, the cerebellum, the brain stem or some other important part of the cortex.”. 

“You sound quite impressed by it”.

“I am, if truth be told. From a scientific standpoint that is”, replied Chambers. “We need to understand how it works like it does, both its weak points and its strong points”.

“And, do you understand any of it?”

Chambers sighed and took a deep breath. “Yes. And no. It is not like anything we have ever seen before, so a lot of my theories are just that – theories. But they are now theories based somewhat on the evidence I have”.

“OK, then. Explain it to me as best you can – in words I will understand and not some scientific mumbo-jumbo that is going leave me with more questions than answers”

“OK. Do you know what a symbiote is?” asked Chambers.

The general shook his head. It was not a great start thought Elizabeth.

“It derives from the Greek term for ‘living together’. There are numerous examples in nature – fleas on a cat, mites on a cow, tape worms, fish on sharks and so on – and there are numerous classes of symbiote ranging from commensalistic, mutualistic and parasitic. One lives off the other, mostly in harmony with the host. But, in nature there is also a symbiosis where an organism joins with the host and over time gradually takes control of the host. The host now does what the symbiote tells it to and it cannot be removed. For all intents and purposes the original organism’s individuality is now dead. And that is what I think we are battling against”.

“So, if it is irreversible, and it is not removable, what do we do? How can we combat it? Or are we - as my people seem keen on telling me regularly – fucked?’.

Chambers smiled at his colourful use of grammar and got off of the corner of the desk, walking over to what appeared to be just a table with scientific equipment strewn haphazardly all over it.

The Continuity of Government facility was an enormous underground bunker, that not only had huge barracks and garages, but a very well stocked and spacious research area, but it seemed Elizabeth Chambers had made a very good attempt at trying to bring as much of it as possible into to her small office and dumping it on the one table.

Chambers indicated a microscope among the clutter. There was a desk-lamp next to it, the bulb unlit.

“Here, look at this”.

She beckoned Winters over and after his knees cracked on rising he came over and placed his right eye over the eye-piece.

“I don’t see anything”.

“Oh, sorry, hold on a moment”.

She quickly placed a slide in the holder and centred it as best she could.

“This is a slide of my own blood. It is quite fresh and you can see all the blood cells and their regular and even structure. Now, take a look at this one ”.

She swapped the slide for another.

“Oh!”

The view now was completely different. Deep browns and purples now dominated the slide. These new cells were odd sizes, having nowhere near the same configuration as the previous slide.

“And this is?” asked the General.

“Jenkins’s blood. Taken just after his final transformation into what he is now”.

Chambers added a different slide.

“And this?”

“This is Jenkins blood again. The red cells you can still see are mine that I added about an hour ago after agreeing to have this meeting with you. You can clearly see the progression of Jenkins’s infected blood assimilating mine. Another thirty minutes or so and mine will have completely disappeared”.

Winters raised his head.

“You say that it is not treatable. What if we caught it immediately after infection?”

Chambers shook her head.

“I cannot confirm that – and I do not think we would get a volunteer to test the thesis out on anyway - but I think it extremely unlikely. In the first instance I have not seen anything close to an antibody in any of the infected blood samples I have screened, and neither have my colleagues working on it in other isolated communities. The answer to the second part of your question is, considering that the heart pumps the blood around the body at a fairly swift rate, the infected part of the body would pretty much have to be amputated instantly, which I would imagine, once again, is unlikely”.

The general looked like he was about to ask another question, but instead put his head back down again to renew his study of the slide.

“So, we can’t kill. We can’t cure it once infected. Do you have any good news?”

“There is something I have been working on, but I am along way from making any official announcements on it”.

“Which is doctor?” asked the General.

A new slide was swapped into the microscope.

“What the..”.

In this slide the brown and purples cells – Jenkins’s - covered less than a quarter of the slide, the other three quarters of the slide had cells that were pale blue, more uniform and seemed to making inroads into the other side where the two met.

Elizabeth absently curled a finger in her hair.

“As I said earlier I have been working on the assumption that we could not bring people back, nor could we stop the progressive infection of those bitten. Neither do we have the resources to simply hide away until the infected stop wandering the streets and waste away from malnourishment or fatigue – something that in the three months of watching these creatures from a distance we have still yet to see”.

“So?”

“So, I tried to come up with something radical that would hopefully solve as many problems at one time as I could. I came up with what you see on the slide. The cells only show up in blue due to a dye that I have inserted in the infected cells for demonstration purposes, in reality is looks very similar in colour to the original. I took the current infection virus apart, and tried to splice in parts of different strains of other viruses. What I produced was basically an equivalent of a ‘Frankenstein’ virus, aimed specifically at the one we are trying to eliminate. It targets the infected virus at cellular level and reproduces copies of itself – very similar to the HIV virus. I call our cobbled together virus, Virus 13”.

“Is it safe ? To us, I mean”.

Chambers went back over to her desk and sat down again.

“No, I’m afraid it’s not. Should you be infected by Virus 13 you will get basically the same symptoms as the original and turn into the same ‘zombie’ like creature that we currently have a problem with, just with a different – albeit more potent - strain of the infection. Certainly ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ is not applicable in this scenario”.

“So we would be dealing with two viruses rather than one then? I may not be well educated in biology, but how is that going to be better for us than the single one we currently have?”

“Both viruses need a host to survive in – remember what I said about symbiosis”.

Winters nodded his head.

“Well, currently our cities are full of these things, shambling along on their merry way to their next meal with no reason to move on. My estimate is that they outnumber us now about sixty or seventy to one - minimum. Hell, we probably don’t even have enough bullets for all of them We have no safe way to fight them without getting hugely over-run, nor do we have any other  way to cleanse it other than nuking it, which in-turn brings on its own problems, radiation, fallout, etc, etc.”.

The general held his hand up as though he was in school again.

“Err, what about a neutron bomb?”

Chambers shook her head.

“One of the very first things our people tried back in the first days was the study of a Neutron bomb on the infected. A small one was dropped on an insignificant little town miles away from anywhere, but that was known to have a major outbreak. Our people went into the town shortly after, only to discover all the uninfected dead and infected still wandering around the streets in limbo with no food source. And I have absolutely no idea how or why that happened, so please don’t ask me”.

“I did not hear about it”.

The doctor conspiratorially tapped the side of her nose.

“Anyhow, my hypothesis and which my extensive test data backs up in the form of live subject tests  - and I use the word live in a very broadest sense - is that the non-Virus 13 and Virus 13 could now see each other as either opposing forces or potential future hosts. This, in itself, is a huge break-though for us, as it pits one virus against the other in a fight for dominance of the host”.

Winters rubbed the stubble on his chin thoughtfully, but did not say anything.

After what seemed an unnaturally long silence Chamers added, “There is one other thing I would like to show you”.

She replaced the slide with the one she had shown him containing Jenkins’s infection and her own blood”

“Please look again at the slide”.

After a few moments the General asked “Looks the same as before. What am I supposed to be looking at?”.

“You saw before, the virus is very slowly – but progressively and relentlessly - eating away at the healthy cells. Not fast, but consistent. Now, watch this”.

She flicked on the lamp next to the microscope and bright light flooded the table, the microscope and slide.

Immediately the virus speeded up its infection of the healthy cells

“My God”, the General said “That’s incredible”.

“Yes, it is, isn’t it? Now watch the cells as I turn off the light again”.

The light went out.

“Now what do you see now?”

“The rate of infection seems to be slowing again. But am I not sure as to what it means”

She switched it on again.

“It means General, that the initial virus is somewhat photosensitive and may be more active in the light than the dark. You will also note that any damaged cells in the infected side are now also repairing themselves. And if this is true for the body as a whole, our assumption of the dead needing to eat to survive could be wrong and we need to approach it from another angle”.

Chambers took a long breath and continued.

“Ones of the other theories I have been working on – and that fits in with ‘new look’ of them not needing to eat to survive or repair themselves - is that the infected in the poorest condition are not like this because of their assailants felt the need to eat more flesh as sustenance, but because the carriers felt some need to infect the victim with larger volumes of the virus. I can only postulate that this is down to the victims immune system – the stronger it is, the more virus the infected feel they needed to pass on to the victim, which results in more bodily mutilation . I think it highly unlikely the infected would choose to ‘overkill’ something if they sensed they did not need to. How they sense it I once again have no clue. But, something else that backing this up is that the majority of the poorer condition examples are women, and women have a slightly higher immune level than men”

“Man flu”, butted in the General.

Chambers smiled.

“In essence there is some truth in that. The immune system is counted by the calculation of CD4 in the blood, and in truth women do have a stronger immune system. But, that is not to say the virus would not have succeeded if the victim had a high immune system and received only one bite – it may just have taken longer. But the infected cannot know that for sure. My theory of the ‘light’ powered regeneration is backed up also by the fact that their consumption of ‘food’ per head is far less than a normal human would need to survive on. A fully grown man may take in about two-thousand five hundred calories a day. The un-dead take in far less when they attack their victims to try to turn them – a few mouthfuls at best. Science tells us we burn calories when we work out or our body is repairing itself – but if we eat less, we therefore have less energy for exercise or for repair ourselves. It’s simple mathematics.”

“So, you are essentially saying the virus and the infected cells are manufacturing some of their energy from the light, sort of like as solar-powered battery. It seems a bit far fetched to me.”.

“Yes, I know. But I think this also explains some of the rationality as to why they are not wasting away at the rate that we expected they would. It could also mean that rather than all of the infected just withering away in a period of weeks or months, they could potentially be here and staggering around our cites for years”. Elizabeth paused to let the revelation sink in, before continuing. “ Additionally, I have had some reports from some of your own people out in the field that they have witnessed the dead turning on some of their own on occasion, which also lends credence to this theory. They may use the sun-light somehow but they still need some, shall we say, some ‘solid sustenance to keep them operational’.

The General took a deep breath and let it slowly, and somewhat noisily “So, does this theory of yours also means that any offensive against them would be more successful if it is done in the evening - or more ideally at night - as they would be less active than they would be in the day ?”.

Chambers nodded, then added “As I said, it’s mostly theory based, but I think I…, Sorry, we are on the right track”.

Winters went back to the chair again and sat down again.

“So what do you need from me ?”

“I have done some in-house testing on a small scale, to prove that I am on the right track. I now suggest that we do a trial on a much larger scale than we could possibly do here under laboratory and infect some of the turned with our new Strain 13, sit back and see what happens. If I am right the two viruses will oppose each other in someway – in these viruses I feel conquest or acquisition is the prime directive. I have the Virus 13 in liquid form and I am currently working on making more for test purposes. I am also in the process of making an airborne variant, which should be ready in a few days. The lungs still continue to work after death - probably to help with the new variant cell production – and this will help with distribution.”

Winters’s eyes widened.

“Isn’t that going to just ‘turn’ us into them a lot quicker if we breathe it in? We have a choice to run away, we don’t have a choice in breathing.

“I would hope that by the time the airborne variant is ready for dispersal, we would have organised appropriate protection for our people on the ground. I am sure you probably have plenty of NBC suits hanging around in store cupboards somewhere if you are worried about it”.

The general’s lack of response to the contrary gave the doctor her answer.

“But anyway, the virus – like HIV – once it is outside of the body is dead within minutes without a live host, so infection this way is highly unlikely. Obviously there are exceptions to this rule – mostly involving vacuums, which is something that really does not concern us. Some of your people probably have experience of being covered in the infected’s blood and have lived to tell the tale – so ask around”.

“I will”.

“It is unlikely that our people would be in the vicinity if and when it was released the airborne version anyhow, they would simply just ride in a day or so later to mop up the ones that had survived the our ‘Royal Rumble’. Dealing with a few dozen of them with either variant is a lot easier than dealing with several hundred or thousands”.

“So, what you are proposing is basically ‘Risk management’ ?”

“Yes. I am offering you a potential aid in our fight against the un-dead. And who knows, if Strain 13 does what we hope it will in reducing their overall numbers, what’s to stop us from creating strains 14 and 15 subsequently to reduce them even more. But I need an opportunity to test distribution, reaction and interaction – both pre-infected Strain 13’s and newly infected Strain 13’s  -with their counterparts”

From inside her lab-coat Chambers removed a memory stick and held it out to Winters.

“This stick contains some examples on video of what happens when the old virus meets the new virus Strain 13 in infected hosts. It also contains some other proposals moving forwards and some other data which I have written in quite simplistic terms. The film clips will speak for themselves. It is not for the faint hearted General, but I think you’ll be picking up the phone after seeing it”.

Winters took the memory stick from her hand.

“There seems to be an awful lot going on – here and beyond these walls - that I am unaware of these days. I need to be kept more informed - personally. So, to stop any possible rumour mongering in the facility and after seeing that you do ‘seem’ to be making some sort of progress, I want to arrange a daily meeting in my office between the two of us. I in-turn will talk my own people and give them the version of the truth that I see to be most the appropriate for them. That is of course assuming that the data on the stick is as interesting as the slide-show you have just provided me with. Do we have a deal?”

“Agreed”, said Chambers.

The Generals proffered his hand as he got up to leave. She shook it, the grip was firm, but a little clammy.

“Goodbye” he said, turned smartly and left the office, brushing the creases from his jacket and trousers as he went.

“Goodbye, General”

She heard him say “Now, where’s that bloody arse-wipe Brannan” as he walked off down the corridor, his boots squeaking on the polished floor.

Chambers had not told him everything that she could have, she had merely shown and given him a ‘teaser’, in the same way a cinema trailer might influence you to go and see a movie.

As she expected, her phone rang no more than thirty minutes later. It was Winters. He said he did not need to read the data she had provided, he had seen the clips and was offering her as much help as she possibly needed. Anything within his power to give her was hers. And he emphasised ‘anything’.

She never did have another meeting with Winters though or even hear his voice again after the call – except on playback – for he was dead within the next twenty-four hours.

*****

Satuday, 7.24 pm 

They heard the Chinook CH-47-2 helicopter before they saw it, its deep drone starting faintly and building to a crescendo as it drew nearer. It had returned back to the base after dropping off the three other teams on the rooftops as planned, but now it was coming back with another load in the form of a metal crate that dangled from a steel cable twenty feet underneath it.

The crate – which had been made to Chambers’ specifications - was about ten by ten feet in width and depth and stood around eight feet in height. The boys in the engineering department had hastily knocked it up within a day from various bits of metals and other scraps they had rounded up from somewhere, which they assured would not impact on the bases integrity in any way.

“Subject W”, said Hennings without realising he had said it.

The Chinook slowly approached and went over the heads of Doctor Chambers and Hennings, looking like some mammoth airborne leviathan. The sergeant could have sworn he heard something banging from the inside of the crate as it passed overhead, but with the nose from whirling blades, he could have been mistaken.

The helicopter positioned itself about forty feet above the centre of the cross-roads and hovered patiently, waiting for the order to lower its cargo. Hennings looked to the Elizabeth who merely nodded her head.

He pressed the talk button on his head-set and spoke into the microphone

“Alpha to Santa. Santa, this is Alpha. You are cleared to drop the present”.

The pilots voice came over the earpiece. 

“Roger Alpha, this is Santa, dropping down the chimney now”.

The crate slowly began to descend, rotating slightly in the high wind. The creatures below it looked up, but they did not move as it came nearer, or even when it started brushing their putrefied scalps and forcing them to the ground. Hennings could not here the squishing noise from up on the top of the building, but he saw the blood burst out from underneath it like ripe fruit as it touched the tarmac.

The helicopter released the tethering line, which heavily fell to the ground, landing half on the top of the crate and half coiling among shuffling un-dead.

“Alpha, this is Santa. Present delivered. We are off home now.”

“Thanks Santa, safe trip home. Alpha out”.

Chambers turned to the sergeant. ”Santa?”

He smiled. “Seemed appropriate, with Christmas on the way and all”.

“Well let’s just hope the present we had delivered lives up to our expectations!” replied Elizabeth.

As the Chinook rose gradually to roof level, the pilot waved as he reached their height before banking the helicopter sharply to the right and flying off back the way it had come.

“If you don’t mind me asking” said Hennings, “why are we bothering with the crate and Subject W. Isn’t the idea to see the reaction of Strain 13 as it is introduced to new hosts in a heavily infected area?”

Chambers gave him a lop-sided smile.

She was a little unsure as to how he would react to what she was about to say. It was not that she had openly lied to him previously about it, it was that she had just not told him much about it at all.

“Our lab tests have shown that Strain 13 takes hold and replaces the original virus very quickly, and whereas the original virus could take up to a few days to work its way into the hosts system and take control, Strain 13 can do the same within minutes. But, even though Strain 13 is much more virulent than its predecessor there is still a small dormant period as the viruses fight each other for control of the host, which could leave our John Does vulnerable to those without 13. Do you follow that?”

The sergeant slowly nodded his head.

“Your people are not only out here to infect the pre-agreed targets with Strain 13, but to give them a little support if our test subjects ‘Do’ need a little buffer zone from any encroachment in this transition period”.

“Okay, I sense an ‘And’ or a ‘But, coming here”.

“But, some of my other research from the early days has led me to believe that the victims of the original virus might also share some sort of collective hive mind and act together on occasion when in numbers. This may also impact the way they react to the newly infected with Strain 13 – the whole having more experience than the individual. Those infected with the old virus may still recognise those newly infected with the new strain until the internal war has finished and the original virus has been supplanted. We don’t know just a what point the one infected with Strain 13 will be recognised as different in an individual – could be at infection, could be much later”.

“That still does not explain Subject W” said Hennings. 

Chambers was quite impressed that the Sergeant appeared to understand what she had said so far.

“In the case of Subject W, I have made some minor adjustments and changes to the basic make-up of Strain 13, in so far as splicing in some mutated cells from some ‘hush-hush’ enhanced steroid experiments I was involved in a number of years ago. The idea at the time was to increase the body mass, strength and agility of the average G.I. Joe”.

She frowned.

“It didn’t work. We ended up with ten ‘volunteers’ all with the bodies of Arnie Swartz in his early years, but who just sat dribbling saliva and twitching their heads for six hours before heart failure. And before you ask, their families were told they died from roadside IED’s in Iran or Afghanistan and the bodies unrecoverable.

A frown appeared on Hennings’s face.

“The families were well taken care of financially, if that helps”.

Hennings did not respond, he just stood watching the shambling collection of human detritus below them.

Chambers continued.

“We have on many occasions seen what looks like orchestrated aggression by the un-dead and so I have created Subject W – a pre infected original virus victim but with a Virus 13 and steroid combination -  with the intention of testing to see if a hive mind exists in the whole. Will they act as one to remove him first, if they perceive to be him more of a threat with his enhanced body and infection, Will they divide their attention, between him and the newly infected 13’s. Will they act just randomly. Will they be confused, Does any one of them take any leadership role, etc, etc. Or even will Subject W make an effort to move and make a stand beside those others newly infected with Strain 13. There are endless possibilities. So with this in mind, I have done my utmost to give Subject W as much of a chance as possible to defend himself until we have witnessed enough to help build up our data-base. And we didn’t have to worry too much about giving Subject W the steroid mix that was such a disaster to our volunteers, as he was already sort of ………dead”

“Since Arnie 13 is here, I take it your virus and steroid mix was a success in some way?”

“Yes. Oh, yes! And even better than I had ever hoped for”

“In what way?” asked Hennings.

“Well, let’s just say, our new Strain 13 soldiers maybe the nails in the coffin for our friends below, but Subject W is the Hammer”.

On hearing that, the Sergeant pondered if maybe he had heard something banging in the crate as it had gone overhead after-all.

*****