Vigil (20 page)

Chapter Forty-Six

Year 0046

Fallon Corp. Research Facility

‘Strap me down,’ said Tom
Fallon, lying back on the bed. The frame had been coated in silver. There was blood on bars. It was vampire blood, but it couldn’t hurt anyone now. Vampire blood soon dried. Its nanoparticles, starved of fresh nutrients, could not survive for long without a human host. The blood was the ultimate parasite. The most successful of parasites keep the host alive. This one was unique. It made the host stronger, faster, even eternal. It took humanity from the host but it kept it alive so that the virus could breed, infect others. It was complex in design and yet extremely simple in function. Evolution curving to a razor sharp point. 

             
Jean nodded, although it was clear he still had deep reservations. The security team, their weapons slung on their backs for the time being, placed the straps over Tom’s arms, his legs, around his head and his torso, then across his thighs. They tightened them until Tom was firmly bound and could not move at all, apart from his jaw, which was free. He could not even rotate his head to see the people surrounding him.

             
He closed his eyes for a moment and prepared himself for his final challenge. If the infection could be contained, mankind had a chance. The slimmest chance imaginable. It rested on fantasy more than fact, although the research was all there in black and white. He should know. He had spent every waking hour pouring over the material. At first he had been shocked, then understanding had dawned. There were no miracles. Only science.

             
All his adult life he had been set on the path of science. Now he was trusting his life to a disease, taking a chance. His life was in God’s hands now.

             
‘Do it,’ he said.

             
Marie leaned over him. ‘Tom, you don’t have to do this.’

             
He smiled for her. The special smile he had once reserved for his daughter. The smile now was Marie’s, and hers alone. If things went badly, even if they went well, he would never know it. Perhaps, in some other world, she might live a life to the full and grow to love again. She had no chance to live it in this world.

             
But were there other worlds, other realities, or just this one? He had to believe. He had to have faith. There was nothing else left to them.

             
‘I do. Do it now.’

             
‘Okay, Tom.’

             
Tom felt the needle go in. He closed his eyes and waited.

             
Everyone waited silently. There were seven other people in the room. The doctor, Marie, Jean and a security team of four. They could not really spare four fighters, but some things were just too important to risk to chance. Tom knew that above him on level two of the complex the remaining security teams would be waiting, weapons at the ready, for the vampire force to break through the stairwell. The team watching over Tom might have to do the same job. There were no guarantees that Tom would not turn.

             
Tom closed his eyes and felt the liquid, cold, rushing through his veins. He imagined he could feel the silver travelling through his blood, into his cells, seeping through the blood to his lungs, his brain, his bones.

             
Would the inoculation just kill him outright?

             
Nothing seemed to happen.

             
‘Tom? How do you feel?’

             
‘It’s no different. Just cold. It feels cold. I can feel it travelling through me. Wait…my heart…it’s beating more slowly…’

             
‘Get the defibrilator ready,’ the doctor told his assistant.

             
‘No,’ said Tom. ‘Let it take it’s course. Wait.’

             
There was no point in further conversation. There was nothing anybody could do to change the outcome. All they could do was wait, and watch.

             
Tom wished somebody would speak. He felt adrift and alone. A man apart. He concentrated on his body and his breathing, trying to keep calm, be clinical. Scientists hadn’t experimented on themselves since the twentieth century. He tried to imagine the braver that those pioneers had felt, if only to bolster his own failing confidence.

             
He could take the silence no more. It felt like he was the corpse at a wake.

             
‘How long has it been now?’ he asked.

             
‘Three minutes.’

             
‘It’s long enough. Take some blood. See if there’s been any change.’

             
The team trained their weapons on Tom as the doctor drew some blood. Tom didn’t flinch. He didn’t want someone to jump and to take his head off by accident.

             
The doctor left the room, carrying the syringe carefully, so carefully. He knew better than to take foolish risks.

             
Tom waited, uncomfortable, strapped to the bed. He had an itch, but he knew better than to ask anyone to scratch it. Nobody would come near him now. He could be infectious. Even though the end was in sight he understood all too well how insistently the human body wants to go on living. He could sense it in the room, the refusal to accept defeat, the will to live.

             
But the vampires would be through soon, and the gunfire would start again. Tom knew they could not stand for much longer. He could almost feel the minutes passing with each beat of his heart. Soon the vampires would break through, and chaos would reign. They only had enough explosive to collapse one more level. They could retreat to hub and hope to hold it long enough to blow the vampire’s prize to pieces, but by then everyone in the complex would know it was over. The end of all hope.

             
At least Tom could have a future. These people had none. 

             
The doctor returned.

             
‘It’s amazing. It has taken. The virus is attached to the blood. I do not have time to run full tests, but his blood has definitely changed.’

             
Tom noted how the doctor had stopped speaking to him. They all knew the next step. From now on, he was a non-person. It did not bother him. People had been ignoring him for years. He knew they thought he was an old fool, even if they only spoke the words behind his back. He was the one who had warned them the vampires would evolve, eventually by necessity forming a society of their own, even if that society would be unrecognisable by human standards. He was an old fool, there was no doubt about that. Even now, when he was the most important person in the whole complex…

             
‘What’s funny, Tom?’ asked Jean.

             
‘Nothing, Jean. Nothing.’

             
And always full of pride, he told himself.

             
‘Inject me with the cure. I’m ready. Be prepared. I might be wild. You know what to do.’

             
The doctor didn’t waste time asking if Tom was sure. Tom was glad. His resolve was wavering. But he gritted his teeth and said a small prayer.

             
Then he felt the cold needle against his arm. It sank into his vein, pumping the virus through his blood, into his heart. FE612. The cure. Mankind’s salvation. The end to all disease, but at such a price.

             
Marie watched carefully for signs of the infection taking hold. She unstrapped her weapon and held up a hand for the others to back off. As she had once before, she waited for him to change. If he was going to, she would be the one to end it. She owed him that.

             
Tom’s mouth opened wide and he roared, suddenly, incoherent words jumbling out of his mouth. He bucked against the restrains and the leather and the silver filaments running through them creaked and stretched as Tom’s power and strength suddenly grew. The strap holding his head snapped and his head began to whip from side to side.

             
Everyone was wearing full protective suits, but they stepped back just in case. Marie trained her weapon on Tom’s heart. She shook her head at Jean’s unvoiced question.

             
Not yet.

             
They waited and watched, their hearts hard as Tom screamed and gagged. His hair began to sprout where it had thinned. The remaining hair began to darken. An old crown fell from his mouth as he bucked from side to side, the tooth beneath, long filed and deadened, growing back. He spat out fillings. There was a loud crack as Tom’s long ago broken leg healed itself.

             
The pain must be immense, thought Marie. Even from his teeth mending themselves, repairing dental work and filling in cavities for which there had been no cure for the last forty years. The body was repairing itself. Tom was getting younger before their eyes.

             
It was a by-product of the cure that ageing was often reversed. The cure removed genetic abnormality and rewrote human structure after its own ends. It was a parasite, yet it seemed to improve the host, rather than withering the body as so many other parasites did.

             
Tom’s screaming began to quieten. His breath came in ragged gasps. He let out a long burst of breath. Then he turned his head and looked at Marie.

             
He smiled and she knew it was OK. What came after wouldn’t matter. She was loved, and, she thought, in these last days there was nothing else that mattered.

             
‘I’m ready,’ she said, and put her weapon down. ‘Let him up.’

             
Jean still looked suspicious, but Tom stalled his question. ‘I’m fine, Jean. The pain is phenomenal. Can you imagine your body healing the hurts of life? Perhaps you can, Jean. We can’t delay any longer. This is the last thing. We need to know.’

             
‘OK, Tom,’ said Jean. He laughed, his voice cracked and shaking. ‘I never thought I’d see the day. Tom, you’re a vampire. Jesus, I’m having a conversation with a god damn vampire.’

             
‘Better get over it quick, Jean. I can smell them. It’s like I’ve been asleep all my life, and I’ve just woken up. I can smell them even through the security doors, even through the rubble and steel and earth. I believe they can smell us, too. Come on, do it. We haven’t got time to waste.’

             
Jean motioned at the security team. Warily one of the men approached Tom and freed him. Three of the team covered their friend. They were prepared to shoot. Tom took no chances. He rose gingerly on what to him were new legs.

             
He marvelled at the change. Even now he could recognise the advance that the inhibitor along with the cure could have made for man. Had these people time they could have become a new race, the first new humans. Better, faster, stronger. With none of the problems of the cure. The hunger was there, lurking in the background, but it didn’t mean much to Tom. It was just something that went along with the firm limbs, the straight back, his healed heart pumping slowly and steadily within his chest.

             
‘Do it,’ he said to Marie.

             
Tom pulled the sleeve of his shirt up to the elbow. Marie took the knife she wore at her hip from its sheath. Before Tom could flinch she slashed him across the forearm.

Tom gasped. It burned. His skin sizzled around the cut, but he grimaced and took the pain. It was his own fault. He had forgotten that all their blades were augmented with silver.

             
Even so, the wound began to close. He watched in amazement as his blood took control. The hunger seemed to amplify, but it was still controllable. He said nothing. If they knew of the hunger this would all stop now. He could control it. He could not let them know.

             
‘It works, Jean. I wish we had time, but we need to get moving. Marie, are you ready?’

             
‘I am, Tom. Make it quick.’

             
She hopped onto the bed and the security team once again strapped a person into the vampire’s bed.

             
She closed her eyes for a moment and pictured her family. Then she opened them and saw Tom looking down at her.

             
His eyes were soft and shone with an inner light. She closed her eyes and she felt his lips on hers. A father’s kiss. It could easily be a kiss goodbye.

             
If the inhibitor did not jump hosts along with the cure, it would mean Tom’s life. And her own.