The Lingering (9 page)

Location: Bass Strait. Coordinates 39.232253° South, 145.722656° East

Date: June 23
rd
2013

Time: 2 a.m.

Like an ominous black shadow, the EH-101 Merlin chopper hammered towards the Australian mainland. In spite of the fact its underbelly travelled just feet from the waves below, it maintained its maximum speed of one hundred and seventy-five miles per hour. At that speed it would travel the one hundred miles to their destination in less than an hour.

Archer gripped his weapon tightly, and closed his eyes. He tried to work over possible outcomes and options for the mission, but as with all his other assignments, his thoughts turned to his parents and the day he lost them.

His mind was no longer in the chopper. He had become the seven-year-old boy in the back of his families Ford Zephyr. They were on their way to a holiday camp, was it Pontins, or Butlins? It didn’t matter to him, they were all fun. They all had rides, activities, shows, candyfloss and lots of kids. There would be kids everywhere, and they would all want to play. He loved the summer holidays, but then again, what kid didn’t?

“Nate, do you fancy a sing-along?”

The boy laughed, and said, “No, mum, I don’t.”

She looked over her shoulder at him and smiled that smile of hers. “Well I do.” With that she broke into a chorus of the song she sang each and every year. “We’re all going on a summer holiday, no more working for a week or …” Without warning, his mother abruptly stopped her singing, and grabbed his father’s shoulder. “
Bill
– watch out!”

Suddenly, the car swerved, and smashed into a power pole. Nathan never found out what caused his father to swerve so violently, but the results of that action would haunt him all his life.

The child he once was, awoke from his lapse into darkness and smelled petrol and smoke. He shifted position, and a shaft of pain pierced his right arm. The young Nathan looked down at it, and his eyes went wide. He could see a bone protruding from his forearm. Panicked, and again feeling faint, the boy began to franticly yell, “Mum, dad!” Nothing, so he yelled again, this time louder. “
Mum, dad!
”

The two in the front began to move, and groan.
Thank God, they’re alive
, thought the young Nathan. He reached and touched his mother’s shoulder lovingly. But instead of his mother returning his tender touch, she turned and lunged for him. Nathan scrambled back in his seat, his screams now filled with true terror.

His father began to move and groan. The abomination, which had once been the woman who had cared for his every need, stopped its attempts to grab him and turned to the man beside it. In one lightning quick move, it latched on to his father’s neck and ripped an immense lump of grizzled flesh from his throat.

His father’s eyes locked on his son, and even at Nathan’s young age, he recognized real pain in them. Not the pain of the attack, but the pain of losing his family to a nightmare. “Nate — run!”

His father’s voice seemed to be coming from below water. The words seemed to gurgle from his lips. Again, the foul creature at his father’s side lunged, and his father said no more.

Nathan’s shaking hand battled with the handle of the door, but the child safety locks were on, and the door did not yield to his command. He began to hammer on the glass, and suddenly the door burst open. Strong hands grabbed him by the shoulders, and he was wrenched free of the car. He realized he was in the arms of a man, and the man was now running.

“My mum and dad, they need help,” cried the terrified boy as he looked back at the flaming vehicle.

“I’m sorry, there’s nothing anyone can do, not now,” replied his rescuer coldly.

The car exploded into a fireball, and the panting hero finally stopped running. He placed the injured boy on the ground, and looked at his badly broken arm.

Nathan stared at his face. It was pale, and sweat beaded his brow. “Are my parents … dead?”

The man looked over his shoulder at the flaming wreck. “Yes, I’m sorry.”

A woman appeared at their side, and wrapped a blanket around each of them. “I’ve called for an ambulance,” she said as she stroked Nathan’s hair out of his eyes. “Are you his dad?”

The man looked up at her, and Nathan could see tears in his eyes. “No, they were both trapped in the car. He saw his mum attack his dad.”

The woman looked at Nathan, and pity scarred her face. “You mean the poor thing saw her change?”

She kissed Nathan on the forehead, and the boy began to cry. No, not cry. He began to vent his anger and hurt through great bellows of grief and pain.

Startled by his outburst the woman stepped back from him, and her face betrayed her. She was clearly shocked by such an animalistic expression of grief from someone so young.

She began to edge away from them both. “I’ll get you both a hot drink, that’s always good in situations like this.”

As she ran back towards her house, the man wrapped his arms around the still bellowing boy. A crowd of onlookers had now formed around them, and someone had turned their garden hose onto the burning car. Sirens could be heard in the distance, and a low murmur began to resinate through the horde of nosy spectators.

“Let it out,” the man whispered in his ear, “let it all out.”

Nathan gripped the man with his one functioning arm, and unleashed another guttural wail.

Archer’s eyes jerked wide, and he let out an unintentional gasp. He looked around the chopper as his hand went to his sweat drenched brow. Fairclough caught his eye, and nodded to him reassuringly.

Why do I have to keep getting that fucking memory before every mission?
thought Archer as he nodded back at Fairclough.
It’s the same thing every time, I need to let it go.

He jumped slightly as a hand touched his shoulder. Archer turned to look at the person by his side. Dr Bartholomew looked back at him, and he could see she looked concerned.

“Are you alright?” she asked as she released his shoulder.

“I’m okay, just pre-mission jitters.”

“You still get the jitters, even after all the missions you’ve been on?’

He looked her deep in the eyes. “If you don’t get jitters, then all your fear has gone. If all the fear is gone, you get sloppy, and people die. Trust me – the jitters are a good thing.”

Bartholomew nodded slowly. “I know I’m terrified. It’s not that I’m scared of The Lingering, because I’m not. I’ve dealt with the infected all my working life, and I know how to handle them. I’m terrified of what we’re going to find.”

“What do you mean?”

She looked at him for a moment, then said, “The Lingering are easy to predict, people aren’t. No one, except Westbourne’s employees have set foot in Australia for close to two centuries. No one really knows what they’ve been up to all this time. I’m terrified we’re going to find something that no one expected.”

Archer pondered her words. He felt sure she was trying to tell him something, but what? “Kathryn, do you know something that we don’t?”

For a long time she just stared at him. Finally her shoulder slumped and she nodded.

Archer’s heart began to pound. “Well spill it, or I’ll order this chopper to turn around.”

“During my research I began to see signs of sentients among The Lingering. Well, maybe sentient is a strong word, but they certainly seemed to be exhibiting signs of independent thought.”

Archer shook his head. “No, that’s not possible. We’ve known for decades that their higher brain function is gone; they’re just running on instinct. If what you say is true, then why have you kept it to yourself? Surely you realize this information affects the mission.”

Bartholomew could no longer look him in the eye. Instead her gaze fell to her lap. “I took my findings to my superiors, but they disagreed with my conclusions. They said I needed more evidence before making such bold claims, so they ordered me to keep my opinions to myself. I can no longer obey those orders, this information is simply too important to keep from you.”

She nodded her head, as if convincing herself of her own words. “I’m completely sure of my findings. I’m sure the cases I’ve discovered are more evolved than the other Lingering. I’ll admit I’m not sure if this new level of awareness is due to the natural evolution of the virus, or whether it’s due to intervention of some kind. Either way it’s alarming.”

“Why is it alarming?”

She returned her gaze to his face. She looked surprised by his question. “If they are evolving of their own accord, then we will need to class them as a new species. If that’s the case, then eradicating the virus becomes a questionable thing to do. We would be committing genocide.”

“But what if it’s a man-made change?”

“Then that’s even more alarming. Why would anyone want Lingering who can think? I can only come up with one reason, to form a controllable swarm.”

Archer slumped back against the wall of the chopper, and rubbed his hands over his face. Things were quickly going from bad to worse.

“We’ve faced swarms in Africa, and they’re all but unstoppable. Thousands of Lingering, all driven by hunger; it’s a terrifying sight. Add to that the ability to think and to plan … I don’t even want to imagine it.” He looked at her and asked, “Do you think Westbourne is experimenting on The Lingering?”

She nodded. “The virus has never shown any signs of evolution beyond normal mutation. I think Westbourne may be trying to control The Lingering. He may just be doing it to make the management of them easier, but for some reason I think he has a more sinister intent.”

“Like what?”

She shrugged. “Maybe he could use them to threaten governments for more money. I don’t think he could use them as a controllable force, but he could certainly spread a lot of fear with them. Imagine Lingering who could open doors, climb ladders, or hunt in organized packs. The public would demand even more stringent measures put in place. His empire would become unstoppable.”

Suddenly he felt very tired, and more than a little concerned. Finally he said, “Do you think we might encounter organized swarms on this mission?”

“Possibly.”

“Fuck, why didn’t I become an accountant. I could’ve had a nice house, a pretty wife and two kids. Instead I have to deal with this shit.”

He stood, and his team’s eyes instantly fixed on him.

“Dr Bartholomew has some new information for you. Listen to her carefully, because it affects our mission.”

Bartholomew went over what she had just told Archer with the rest of the team. After a few minutes of stunned silence, Dallas was the first to speak.

“Boss, turn this bird around and get some more fucking men.”

Archer shook his head. “We don’t have enough time for that. The way I see it is this – nothing much has changed. Sure, some of the biters may have the same IQ as a dog, but at least most of us are smarter.” He looked at Dallas and grinned. “We just have to stay sharper. I’m guessing that these brainiac biters will be kept close to our target, so most of our trip will not be affected.”

Bouchard raised his hand. “Boss, do we ‘ave permission to use extreme prejudice on these new biters? I mean the doc says they may be a new species.”

Archer looked at Bartholomew, then back to Bouchard. “I don’t care what they are, if one of those things comes at you – put a round in its head.”

Bartholomew got to her feet and stood beside Archer. “I really don’t think they’re a new species, it’s just a possibility. I would say the likelihood of this mutation being natural is around three percent. I’m sure the changes are due to Westbourne.”

Fairclough checked his gun. “I don’t give a damn if they are a new species, they don’t belong here. If it were up to me, I’d put a bullet in the head of every one of them.”

Bartholomew stared at him angrily. “What if it was your family?”

Fairclough stared at her coldly. “We were meant to die. What’s happening now isn’t natural, you said that yourself.”

Her face coloured with anger. “I know it’s not natural, that’s why I’m trying to stop it from happening to others. But for those who have already changed, well they should be treated with respect.”

Archer held his hand up, gesturing for silence. “
Enough!
People have argued about this for nearly two hundred years, we’re not going to settle the debate here, so shut it! As far as I can see, our mission hasn’t changed. We have twenty minutes until target. So I suggest you
all
use that time to get your heads back in order.”

Location: Westbourne Corporation’s Hobart control centre

Date: June 23
rd
2013

Time: 2:20 a.m.

Mathew Samson checked his display again. His screen showed a large number of slow moving dots, each with a name and number. The dots represented every ship moving in and out of waters controlled by the Westbourne Corporation. However, it wasn’t the moving dots that interested him. No, what held his attention was the stationary dot, which symbolized the HMS
Singleton.
For close to an hour the ship hadn’t moved more than an inch. Clearly the ship was anchored.

Samson reached for the phone just to the left of his keyboard.

“Hello, Ops, could you patch me through to the
Singleton
please?”

Several seconds passed, before a voice filled his ear.

“This is Captain Jacklyn Coonan of the
Singleton,
how may I help you?”

“Yes captain, my name is Mathew Samson. I’m the chief in control of maritime traffic. I’ve noticed your ship appears to be anchored.”

“That’s right. We have had some engine difficulties, so we’ve anchored while our engineers fix the problem.”

“I see. Can we offer you any assistance?”

“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. I believe we will have the problem fixed within twenty-four hours or so.”

“Okay, Captain. Please keep us apprised of your situation.”

“We will.”

Samson placed the phone back on its receiver, and tapped it with his finger. Finally, he picked it up again.

“Hello, Ops, patch me through to Mr Markus.”

Almost a minute passed, and then Samson heard the tired sounding voice of George Markus.

“Yes, what is it?” yawned Westbourne’s aid.

“Sir, a ship has made an unscheduled anchoring, and I know Sir Richard wanted to be informed of any unusual happenings.”

“Did the ship’s captain give you any explanation as to why they’ve anchored?”

“Yes, sir. The captain said they’re having engine difficulties.”

“And do you believe the captain is lying?”

Samson glanced at the dot representing the
Singleton
. “I don’t know, sir. I just know that we have orders to report anything out of the ordinary.”

“Thank you for your diligence, but I don’t want to wake Sir Richard for something that may simply be a mechanical failure. Give them until daybreak, and then send our closest boat to take a look. If they say something looks odd, I’ll inform Sir Richard.”

“As you wish, sir. I’ll dispatch a patrol boat now; they’ll reach the Singleton around seven, which is just after first light.”

Without another word, the line went dead. Samson removed the phone from his ear and stared at it. He felt sure Sir Richard wouldn’t be happy with Markus’s decision, so he instantly logged his call, and his concerns. If someone was going to lose their job over this, then he didn’t want it to be him.