Designated (Book 2): Designated Quarantined (30 page)

24
October 21
st
Broadhead barracks

Biological studies division
Laboratory one
 

Anastasia stared into the lens of the microscope; the sample swimming through the slide made her skin crawl. She watched as the cells collapsed in on themselves, folding as their bodies twisted. The tentacle-like protrusions latched onto one of the last surviving normal red cells, drawing it into its oval embrace, the waving black tendrils piercing its walls as they broke free and slithered their way towards its fragile core.
 

Anna lifted her gaze away and let her eyes linger on the stack of reports and manila folders. The laundry list of cases made her soul ache, the litany of Infected team members weighing heavily on her as she lifted the top folder.
 

Her eyes brimming slightly as she took in the name and all that followed it. Rawlings, James, post-death fluid analysis showing no sign of Infection, although white cell and adrenalin levels were far above the normal. She sighed as she set the folder to the side. A smiling photo of Rawlings slipped from the pages, landing with a soft hushed swish on the top of the desk.
 

With a harsh grimace, Anna slipped the photo from the top and it pushed between the leaves of paper as she dragged another folder from the stack.
 

Anastasia listened to the wheezing, rasping cough of the man who now claimed residence in the observation cell at the far end of the laboratory, the whirring oxygen filters in the ceiling adding a hideous cadence to the noises that filled the room.
 

Leaning back in her chair, Anna sighed as she pressed her open palms into the middle of her back, feeling her spine pop and ripple as she stretched.
 

With a deep groan, she pinched the bridge of her nose, massaging the tender slip of skin between thumb and forefinger as she stared at the glass and chrome-panelled ceiling. Shifting herself into a more comfortable position, she grasped the cold, chrome steel rims of her chair's wheels and swung herself into the aisle.
 

The tread hummed over the tiles as she pushed herself closer to the rasping form behind the clear reinforced wall. His hunched and weary visage perched on the edge of the wall-mounted cot.
 

'How are we feeling today, Joshua?'
 

As he lifted his head to stare at her, his eyes glowed with a menacing light, which filtered through the very core. Anna felt her stomach lurch as she watched his skin waver and pulsate as the bulbous swellings heaved and peeled open.
 

The viscous sludge slid over his skin as Joshua slowly pushed himself to his feet. A grin wormed its way across his features as he leant his arms against the wall, sore-cratered nose scant millimetres from its powder-blasted surface.
 

'Why, if it isn't the Doctor.'
 

His voice was smooth as silk; the undercurrent of bubbling mucus that coated his lungs lent a slightly snake-like rasp as he spoke.
 

'To answer your little query, I feel fine. Never better, in fact; are you here for more...'
 

He paused as he lifted his middle and index finger to one of the weeping sores, coating them with the bilious excretion. He ran his thumb over it, feeling the thick gelatinous muck slid across his battered fingertips.

Joshua's gaze never left Anna's as he lifted his fingers to his lips, his tongue languidly rolling free as he flicked it across his fingers. Sliding the ooze-laden digits into his mouth, his grin broadened as he watched the fleeting spectre of utter disgust dance behind Anna's eyes. Pulling his fingers free, Joshua continued speaking.
 

'Blood samples, hmm?'

His smile faltered as he watched the woman before him; with a nod of her head, she motioned for Joshua to slide his arm through the hole. Anastasia callously pushed his sleeve up past his elbow as he watched her, his skin wrinkling as he rested his forehead against the cold plastic wall. Anna moved forwards, her movements precise, almost mechanical as she slipped the heavy elasticated band from her pocket and looped it round his arm.
 

Her eyes tracked the flowing river of veins that bulged against his sallow skin. Anna's gloved fingers pressed into his cold flesh. The hollow tube was cold against his pliant skin as she aligned it with her chosen target.
 

'You'll feel a sharp pinch.'
 

Anna's words rang hollow and meaningless as she pushed the needle through and into the waiting vessel below.
 

The slick, steel tube pierced his flesh as she moved it slowly, searching for the wayward vein. Blood flowed into the vial as Anna pushed it over the rubber tip. Joshua watched with bored detachment as the smooth metal twisted in his flesh, his arm twitching involuntarily as Anna brushed the needle against the bundled fibres of his muscle.
 

A hollow clink made both of them flinch, a deep sigh rolling up from Anastasia's chest as she lifted the broken syringe to the level of her eye.
 

'Sorry about that; I'll have to get it out.'
 

Joshua smiled as he pulled his arm from her grip, the cold grip of the Lexan sliding over his skin as he set his thumb and index finger either side of the pin-sized hole. Squeezing the punctured flesh with a soft muffled grunt, a glint of pleasure glittered in his eyes as he watched the hollow tube slowly push itself free of his flesh.
 

'I must say, it has become rather malodorous in here. Is there, perchance, a way for me to maybe take a sojourn from this well of a human sideshow and maybe take a walk? After all, it has been over three weeks since I stopped soiling myself.'
 

Anastasia didn't know what to say; the spectacle and the man that stood before her were so far removed from what he had been that it was like talking to a completely new person. His head dropped to the side as Anna moved away from the Lexan wall, a cruel and vindictive smile twisting his features.
 

Joshua paced towards the centre of the room, his soft-soled, slip on shoes whispering against the floor as he moved; his back was ramrod straight as he shuffled to the cot once more, perching on its edge as he waited for the tray to appear.
 

'So that's a no to the walk then?'
 

His humour-laced words made Anna shiver. Her ears burning and her skin tingled with the cold press of fear as he continued to call out across the vacuous expanse of the room.
 

'Please, dear heart, do consider it. I am most dreadfully bored in here. You never know, you may get to like me once I am out of here. I know I am getting excited at the notion of knowing you, more... intimately.'
 

****
 

Her pen rasped over the pre-typed page on the desk in front of her, the dull glow of her desktop lamp casting a halo of yellowed light over the form. Glancing to her left, she paused as her eyes lingered on the photograph at the corner of her desk. A winsome smile teased at her lips as she felt herself begin to drift on the subtle ebb of an unbidden memory.
 

A low, hushed creak made her start as he door swung open, the shadowed form filling her doorway, sending a shiver through her very soul. The dull, soulless eyes that locked on her own filled her with a fear so primal that if she could have, she would have run in fear of her life.
 

The soft almost ivory coloured lips curled into a smile so filled with malice that it would have made the devil cringe in fear. With near silent steps, it advanced with eyes glittering and smile slipping into a grin as the soft glow of the desk slide lamp shone off the polished steel of the chef's knife clutched in the shade's grip. Her violet eyes widened as she watched it rise, a soft laughter-tinged voice filling her ears as it descended.
 

'Finally, dear heart, we have our time alone.'
 

Anna jerked awake, her eyes streaming as papers fluttered around her head, the echoing clang of her desk lamp colliding with the unyielding surface below making her jump. A cold jet of fear-laced adrenaline coursed through her as the light bulb burst with a sudden snap.
 

A heavy hand clasped her shoulder, eliciting a shriek of surprise and fright from the already shaken biochemist.
 

'Hey, what's that all about?'
 

Anna tentatively turned her gaze, alighting on Davies' grinning form, the inch-long thatch of black briar coating his chin giving his features a slightly haze-ridden form in her watery gaze. Pushing her glasses away from the bridge of her nose, Anna rubbed at her eyes, the cool rivers of her tears sliding over her fingers as she sniffed sharply before turning her gaze back to John once more.
 

'Just a very bad and very vivid dream. That is all; it was nothing to worry about.'
 

She smiled as she took his hand in hers, turned it over, and planted a soft kiss in his palm before resting her head against his forearm. He stepped around her, perching on the edge of her desk, his hand cupping her chin as his eyes searched her face. His dark-green orbs scanned her visage for any sign of deception or hidden meaning, his brow furrowing as he caught the repressed glimmer of whatever was plaguing her mind. Davies shifted his weight to the right as he brushed against the empty plastic photo frame, a dull clack rising from behind his left hip as it tumbled down the back of the desk.
 

'Right... if you say so.'
 

Davies kept his eyes locked on her for a moment longer before hoping back to his feet and grabbing the back of Anna's chair. With a sudden jerk, he pulled her away from the desk and pushed her out into the hallway.
 

'Day shift can take over; you, my lovely, are going outside. I cannot remember the last time I saw you outside of that sterile cube you call a laboratory.'
 

A wane smile teased at Anna's lips as she felt the burgeoning worry and fear begin to slowly melt away. The vibrant energy and lust for life that poured from the man who now had hold of the back of her chair filled her with a simmering hope that the future she saw in the lenses of her microscope, the red smear of wanton decay and chaos, would remain just that—a smear of dead blood on a sliver of glass.
 

But try as she might, Anna couldn't shake the devil from her shoulder any more than she could stop the whispering voice in her ear, a voice that carried with it the seeds of doubt and prophecies of death and wanton destruction.

Joshua watched as Anna and John slid past the window, Davies' silent laughter making Joshua smile as he once more gazed at the slip of photographic paper in his hands and the raven-haired woman who stared up at him with a set of iridescent violet eyes.

October Twenty-ninth

Broadhead Barracks

Experimental Testing Labs

Colinson stared at the plans laid out before him, his eyes narrowing as he studied the white and blue image.
 

'Okay, I can see its merits, but how would we feasibly deploy this in the field? It can't be trailered in; it would totally defeat the purpose. That only leaves an air-drop, but to have this on a parachute would be a disaster waiting to happen.'
 

The three technicians glanced between themselves before their gazes drifted over to Rook as he leant against the table's edge next to David.
 

'Way I see it is we have an excess of Chinooks out there; we retrofit the belly hatches with the clamping configuration these boys cooked up and carry it in that way. They are carried in the chinny, it hovers at, say, twenty-five above the deck, and then the guy inside hits the go switch and—boom, instant fire base.'
 

Colinson nodded as he stared at the plans, scenarios already forming in his head. The implications of what he was looking at were extremely pleasing, if it could be done with minimal risk to the crews manning them.

'Okay, have three working platforms ready for me in two weeks then we will do some dry drops into the village with Simunitions. You reckon on a drop ceiling of twenty-five feet?'
 

Colinson glanced at Rook as the technicians nodded emphatically, the operator merely shrugging in acknowledgement.
 

'Okay then, we will start at thirty-five and see if it takes it. If not, drop it by five feet on the next run. How much ammunition do you expect to be toting in the hoppers?'
 

Rook again shrugged, his nonchalance grating at Colinson's nerves slightly.
 

'I'd estimate around two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty thousand rounds. That gives us a healthy margin on the ground. That's not counting, of course, the munitions for the riflemen or the backups for the chair gunners. If you are counting them, then I'd wager in at three hundred and fifty thousand. That's my best guestimate.'
 

Colinson winced as he ran the figures through his head. Sighing, he nodded, drumming his fingers against the table as he subconsciously chewed at his lip.
 

'Okay, if you think we can make it work and the chinnys can take the load, you have my GA. Just don't make me regret this.'
 

Turning away from the quartet that flanked him, Colinson began to leave as a small tentative voice called him back.
 

'Uh, Colonel, there is one more matter; the package from our operative in the United States...' The technician coughed into his fist. 'It is still waiting in the armoury stores. We as yet haven't had permission to pull it from isolated storage.'
 

Colinson pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation. Sighing slightly, he stared at the trio of white-coated men and women.
 

'You waited this long to ask me? Dear god, I am dumbstruck that you lot are actually able to get anything done. Go pull it from I.S and bring it through to room D. We can sort it out there.'
 

The two techs disappeared out the door before Colinson had even finished speaking. They appeared moments later, followed by an entourage of slightly red-faced techs, the heavy cases clutched in their hands still sealed with black and yellow hazard tape around the centre seam and locks.
 

A soft hissing filled the room as the tape split, Colinson watching with wry amusement as the locks were eagerly snapped open by the waiting men and women around him.
 

He watched them bunch together like children around a Christmas tree, each jostling for a new position from which to better see their waiting prize. A collective grunt of annoyance spread through them as one of them lifted an empty box magazine from the crate, its square form falling to the table with a clatter as he tossed it aside.
 

'Check the next one; we have got to have something of use in these damned things.'
 

Crate after crate fell open to the gathered throng, exposing more and more of the boxed receptacles of copper-laced death, until in one of the final ten crates, gold was struck. The exultant yelp of one of the women drew many a curious glance as she slowly raised above her head the source of her glee.
 

Packed in protective foam and surrounded by dozens of dehumidifier pouches sat twenty Keltec RFB carbines. As the other crates fell open to the elements for the first time in four years, their oiled and greased forms made more than one member giggle with unrepressed glee as they were, one by one, lifted from the crates.
 

'These are a work of art. The eighteen-inch, chrome-lined barrel, short-stroke gas piston and semi-automatic fire make this a rifleman's wet dream. Coming in with a 7.62 mm NATO round, this thing will stop just about anything in its tracks.
 

'Only drawback we have is the FAL magazines, which although "drop free" and thus do not need to be tilted in, only hold twenty rounds.
 

'But I think if we can adapt the magazine heads on the Beta C magazines we have in stores then these should theoretically be able to carry up to one hundred rounds a piece.'
 

A fluttering of paper filled the room as the woman plucked one of the manuals from a mesh pocket in the lid, reading aloud as she scanned the pages.
 

'The muzzle is threaded 5/8x24 TPI and comes equipped with an A2-style Flash hider...'

She tapped the muzzle with her index finger as she continued to babble.
'Longer barrel lengths of 24", 26" and 32" will be available in the future...' A snort left her and, under her breath, she muttered, 'Not likely.'

'It says here that all controls are fully ambidextrous and the reciprocating operating handle can be switched to either side. There is some other typical blathering about the trigger mechanism. That's just publicity tosh, but it looks like the safety disconnects the trigger and blocks the hammer action, so we will want to let the boys in the field know that if they need to strip it in country, other than that a Mil-Spec picatinny rail is attached rigidly to the barrel. No surprises there; on top of that, it says—and I quote—"No open sights are provided, allowing the user to select from the very best new optics and sight systems available." Isn't that nice of them? But it does come with a plethora of other gubbins that may prove very useful.'
 

She stopped reading and dropped the pamphlet back into the box as she cocked the rifle and let it dry fire, repeating the process for all of the twenty weapons in the crate at her feet.

Colinson stepped forwards, plucking the glossed pages from where they lay discarded in the top of the box, his eyebrows rising as he scanned the last small paragraph the tech hadn't paraphrased.
 

'Okay, so a four-sided Picatinny fore-end, bipod mounts, a removable bayonet lug for use with NATO style bayonets, including their own Folding Bayonet, not bad.' Turning from the paper in his hands, Colinson called Rook over to him and spoke, gesturing to the rifles on the table. 'Think these could be used in your drop boxes?'
 

Rook scanned the weapons his lips tightening as he thought it through.
 

'Well, Keltec is a bloody good armourer. Their shit doesn't cop out under pressure; more than one unit in my old division used them in place of the type 0 carbine I carried, so I should think so. Plus, the shrunken dimensions will make carrying them down easier on the guys hitting dirt. As long as we can get the issue with the mags sorted, I don't see any problem with them. Obviously need to send a few rounds down the spout before we dish 'em out; no one is perfect a hundred percent of the time.'
 

Colinson smiled as he walked past Rook, his parting words making the man groan slightly as the he left the room, the door closing with an echoing clunk. 'See to it then. This is your baby; you clean its mess.'
 

Token sat with his back to the window, hunched and contorted over his workbench. The magnifying lenses over his eyes made him look like an amorphous hybrid of man and insect as he peered through them. The curved glass bringing the small drone in his hands into sharp focus as the scent of hot solder filled his nostrils.
 

Sweat glistened over his shaven head. The dark brown of his scalp almost glowed as heat radiated from him, sending trails of misty vapour into the crisp air around him.
 

'How they looking Ibrahim?'
 

Kweku's thick accented voice was little more than a mumbled whisper as Colinson approached the workbench.
 

'They are shaping up nicely, sir; although, I am not able to fit as much explosive in them as I would like to. The casings have made it a very pleasing challenge.'
 

Colinson stopped as he reached Token's shoulder. He watched the soldier's hands moved with a self-assured confidence, the intricate wiring and circuitry making David's eyes blur as he strained to follow its passage through the minuscule drone.
 

'If you want to test one out, I have at least a hundred done and some more with another drone operator. The explosives won't detonate unless you command them to.'
 

Colinson shook his head as he stepped away and moved back towards the door. 'No need, Kweku; I trust in your abilities. You should have come forwards sooner with your technical skills. We could have used these a while ago.'
 

Token sighed as he set the soldering iron back into its stand and carefully laid the drone down on the rawhide mat. 'I know, sir, and for that I apologise, but for me, it is a source of shame and pride. My father, he was not very accepting of my choice to become a soldier and even less so of my skills with electronics. He wanted me to follow after him—become a paediatrician—and for a while it is what I did. But, well, when I signed up to the medical corps, he was ashamed and has not spoken to me since...'
 

Colinson nodded as he let the door slip from his grip, the pain on the young man's face making him pause. A small sigh slid through him. Colinson moved back towards the bench, pulling a wheeled office chair with him.
 

'Go on; when was the last time you spoke to your father?'
 

Token stifled the tears that glittered behind his eyes as leant forwards, his elbows braced against his knees, a pain-racked draw of breath filling him as he started to speak.
 

'Not for a very long time, sir; not for a very, very long time.'