Dying to Live (22 page)

The others agreed and Pete, Frank and Harry heaved the furniture around. Lucy found some candles in a drawer and, by the dim light they provided, she and Xin made warm drinks for everyone.

17.

‘I knew that Seahorse meant something. I was sure I’d heard of it before. When Xin first mentioned it I couldn’t immediately recall exactly what it was. When it did come to me, it really blew everything out of the water –if you’ll excuse the pun. It was something I had always been curious about, and evidently fate had allowed that one day I would find out more about it.’

The group, now feeling significantly smaller, huddled in the scant light offered by the candles and the screens. During their brief silence, as they nursed the steaming mugs, scratching noises had started at the door.

“They know we’re in here,” Lucy whispered nervously, with a glance towards the door. It was only a wooden door with a few bolts and she was not convinced that it would hold up against a horde if they didn’t decide to dissipate soon.

“It should hold for now, don’t worry,” Frank assured her, giving her elbow a gentle squeeze.

Nobody wanted to rush Xin. For the time being they were safe, and there was a lot for everyone to process. Harry watched the motion on the screens. It looked as though there were at least five of the dead things out there. He gulped anxiously and distracted himself with his cocoa.

“Okay,” Xin said resolutely, setting down her cup. “This may not be easy to explain, but I’m going to try and make it as simple as possible to avoid confusion. You may have to bear with me.”

Nobody said a word, but all eyes came to rest on her. Red eyed and troubled, Xin sighed and continued.

“First of all, I have to say that as far as scientific facts go there is very little that I can tell you. It’s not a big surprise but all the major details are completely absent. My guess would be that even the doctors, researchers and scientists up there were not individually privy to every aspect of the project and the bigger scape it.” She paused, measuring their reactions. Pete’s face gave nothing away. Frank looked a little dissatisfied but thoughtful. Harry and Lucy both just seemed anxious for her to continue, so she did. “I do, however, have a very, very, VERY,” she stressed, “rough outline of the absolute basics.”

Pete frowned. “Is it enough?” He asked.

“Well, I’ll let you be the judge,” Xin said, reluctant to state her opinion as a final decision. “Some of this we may have already covered but just for the sake of making sense I’m just going to go over it all. In the most basic of terms they have taken an extra-terrestrial life form with a far superior genetic matter and attempted to pass the inherent properties of it onto earth based life forms. I think we had already, to some extent, speculated on that, but it gets worse. Somewhere down the line, the mutation it caused in human cells was not quite the result they had been aiming for. It was something else, something in-between human and alien. I feel fairly confident in saying that the purpose of the tests was to overcome human mortality. We didn’t need the USB files to see for ourselves that, in some way, they managed that but not quite fully. My encounter tonight showed me there was probably another reason too. I think they wanted to give us the ability to renew damaged tissues.”

Xin took a moment to, again, measure their reactions and finish her coffee, whilst she puzzled over the wording of the rest.

“I know there must be more to this, but so far I’ve got to say that I am incredibly grateful that they didn’t fully manage the immortality they were hoping for. Can you imagine if those guys were... invincible?” Frank said with a sense of awe. The others cringed at the thought he had put forward.

“None the less, it still isn’t all good news,” Xin smiled sympathetically.

“What’s the bad news?” Harry asked.

“Just know that there is some hopeful news too. I refrain from calling it good, but it’s something,” Xin supplied, trying to soften the air of negativity.

“Could we possibly have the hopeful part before the doom and gloom?” Lucy asked reluctantly.

“Okay, through the human trials that they conducted using a serum made from the foreign genetic matter, there were a number of patients that did not fit the pattern. These patients were the people that were injected and did not bond with the formula. Most of those patients simply died. There was no reanimation effect at all. However, one patient, ‘Patient X’ they called them, broke all of the other rules. This patient did not reanimate because their body did not go through a period of death. Short of trying to kill them, there was no way to know whether it had the full effect or no effect at all,” Xin tried to explain. She had a feeling that the volume of information was threatening to overwhelm them all.

“I get the feeling that the hopeful part stems from this patient?” Pete questioned.

“Difficult to say for sure, but yes,” Xin replied. “There are reasons that I think this. Though, before I expand further, there’s a second part that you should all know. The serum isn’t the cause of our problems. I have fair reason to believe that it may actually be the solution. The people who are infected are not crazed, man eating monsters because of the serum. The next stage of testing was something to do with resilience and immunity. The details are unbelievably vague and sketchy but at some point they introduced existing contagious human diseases and they were mutated by the foreign cells.”

“Oh shit,” was a sentiment expressed in various forms by all three of the men. Lucy kept quiet but her mouth formed a perfect ‘o’.

“So, we may not be infected with the alien stuff, but we could still be sick?” Pete asked her.

“It’s a possibility, yes. I couldn’t say what diseases or viruses are in play, or whether the mutated versions can pass to us, but with no symptoms we should try to remain positive. None of us have had prolonged skin to skin contact with them and the fact that we didn’t become like them shows that we have not ingested any contagions.”

“Given the... specimens that we’ve encountered, could you make any guesses?” Pete again asked.

“Due to the fact that these illnesses could manifest differently now that they have mutated, I cannot safely say, no. I would be inclined, should I get the chance, to investigate the possibility of rabies as a starting point. But it is not realistic to think that we could solve all of this chaos by curing those diseases. For one; there are only five of us and who knows how many of them. Secondly, the diseases would have to be diagnosed in each individual and a multitude of treatments prescribed for them. The fact of the matter is, the mutations could mean that we have no cures that would work on them yet. Frankly, it’s just not feasible,” Xin expressed thoughtfully. Then she remembered. “There are a couple of other things that I need to mention also. However, these don’t relate to the files. They relate to my... my encounter.”

Pete, Lucy, Harry and Frank all came forth from their state of contemplation when she said that. Each face looked at her expectantly.

“The communication was... challenging. I don’t know how to go about describing it and I don’t see a reason to dwell fully on details of it at this point, but it spoke to me. That creature was from somewhere far detached from our ways. I could feel the total compassion and peace within its being. It went through a lot at the hands of our race, pain and torment that I’d rather not imagine. This life form, and presumably others like it, are incapable of death. As a result, the concept is beyond its comprehension. From the interaction I experienced, I gathered that it goes beyond immunity or immortality and that is what leads me to think it also encompasses regeneration. That is our main hope. Regeneration can reverse the deterioration we are seeing in the infected and maybe even cure them. If patient X survived and imbued the qualities of the serum in the proper way, if their genetics bonded correctly with the foreign ones, then that patient also holds the key to regenerative healing for everyone. This alien wanted to help, I’m sure of it. So I feel like the last part of the information it gave me is the most important yet.”

Lucy reached out absently and took Franks hand. They were all sat on the edge of their seats, optimistic and anticipating what she would say next.

“But I don’t know what it means,” She finished.

Their faces fell somewhat, but Pete reached out confidently and placed a hand on her leg.

“Tell us,” he said

Xin sighed deeply. “It said: ‘Go and find the seahorse.’”

Harry, Frank and Pete one by one slumped back into their chairs, utterly confused. However, Lucy frowned deeply. She let go of Frank’s hand and stood up. Frank turned questioningly to Xin, who frowned and shrugged as Lucy began to pace the room.

“Um... Luce. What’s up?” Frank asked her.

“I... I don’t know. It’s just... I’ve heard of that,” Lucy replied distractedly, hugging herself as she paced.

Xin’s head whipped around and she shot up out of her chair.

“You know what it is?” Xin asked.

Lucy made a noise of frustration and then explained. “I think it’s a code name, not a literal seahorse. A lot of the base’s projects have those types of names. They’re normally relevant somehow, so it’s probably a project that involves water in some way. I just can’t remember where I heard it!”

Their voices had become a little too loud, and the scratching noises that had gradually died out, started again with new fervour. Xin ignored this and walked over to place herself in the path of Lucy’s pacing steps. Lucy stopped in front of her and Xin put her hands on Lucy’s shoulders.

“You have to remember,” She stated simply.

There was another round of drinks and a few broken periods of stunted conversation, questioning and speculation mainly. Lucy didn’t join in whilst the men flung question after question at Xin. She simply sat with her head in her hands, beseeching her mind to bring forth the memory she needed.

Lucy interrupted Harry quite abruptly, when a small niggle worked its way to the forefront of her thoughts.

“It was a couple of years ago but I think I’ve figured out why I recognised the name!” She announced, her face beaming. “I should have remembered sooner, actually. It was an engineering venture after all.”

Everyone stared blankly at her, even Xin. Then Frank piped up cheekily. “If you worked in engineering, how did it take you so long to remember your own work?”

“More importantly, how is it relevant to all of this?” Pete interjected.

“No, no, it wasn’t something that I was ever actually involved with. Let me explain,” she said, trying not to be disappointed with the lack of enthusiasm about her revelation. “I remembered a day in my manager’s office. He was telling me about this project that was coming up. It was all top secret. He didn’t go into much detail with me, but he told me that they may have use of my talents if I was willing to travel to Washington DC to help out. I was asked to keep quiet about it and told that, if I needed to refer to it, I should only use the code name for it. ‘Project Seahorse’. As it goes, I wasn’t ever needed. So, all that I ever discovered about it was that it was some kind of a last resort. Sort of a ‘presidential escape plan’, for in case of an emergency or a national disaster.”

This was greeted by more silence. However, a smile was growing on Xin’s face.

“I think one of the pieces just fell into place,” Xin said, radiating with positivity. They were finally getting somewhere, even if the others didn’t know it yet.

“I really don’t think I’m following now?” Harry frowned.

“Me either,” Frank said, with confusion clear on his face.

“Admittedly, I can’t seem to connect the dots with this either,” Pete resigned, glancing from one woman to the other.

“I knew something was strange here,” Xin explained, “When I worked out that there had been attacks reported in the surrounding areas
before
the military had even arrived here.”

“...Because the military were dispatched to contain the outbreak?” Pete puzzled.

“Exactly! Why dispatch them to the base specifically, if the outbreak had already carried beyond that?” Xin enthused.

There was a pause. Lucy was the first to cotton on.

“Patient X... The military came to collect and transport Patient X,” she said slowly.

“It was probably not just Patient X, but anything and anyone important. Think about it,” she urged the bewildered guys. “The escaped subjects were already out there and could be anywhere. There was, no doubt, military sent out to the reports of violence and soldiers sent to work on averting a crisis. However, it made sense to expect and prepare for the worst. With all eyes focused on what was happening and how the government would respond, everything had to be taken care of quietly. They swept the military in to clean up and then they torched the evidence. Whatever kind of escape plan ‘Seahorse’ is, I’m sure that they used it, and that means it will take us to where we need to be.”

“I don’t mean to appear selfish at all when I say this, I mean protect and serve and all that,” Harry held his hands up. “But why are we thinking of actually going after them, when it sounds like the big guys have got it covered?”

Xin arched an eyebrow at Harry, and Pete and Frank looked somewhat disappointed in him. Lucy seemed to nod slightly at his question and then looked to Xin for her response.

“Look at those monitors.” Xin jerked her head in their direction. “Does that look to you, like a situation that someone is in control of? I mean, I’ve lost count of how long it’s been. Where is the help? Where is the rest of the military? Why have no safe zones been established? The radios are dead and the TV stations are gone, electricity and water will be following closely behind them and still nothing. If things were under control then I’m sure we would have foreign aid by now...”