A Cry in the Crowd

by Steven Hemming

part 2 of 3

And in the early days the people watched their plasma-screens and flat-screen TV’s through an increasing hail of static, huddled together in a rising storm of international indignation, seeing their futures blocked by technological exclusion which, within a few desperate weeks, left every television, every computer, even radios, silent and inanimate, bereft of communication.

The Royal family fled, but their private jet was blown out of the sky by the French air force somewhere over the English Channel.

The Prime Minister tried to appease a baying mob and was stoned to death for his trouble. His once-loyal cabinet members faded away into obscurity and were said even now to be living among the populace.

Total anarchy became the norm. Neighbourhoods unaffected by disease became fortified enclaves. Small towns guarded their borders with deadly zeal as roving miniature armies scoured the countryside looting for food.

Some of the larger farms hired mercenaries to protect their fields in exchange for food, and they raided for land to increase their pasturage. Barter became the norm. A gold wedding ring might fetch a small bag of potatoes, a scrap of cloth once worn to protect modesty swapped for a worm-ridden apple or a dry crust of stale bread.

Mark’s step faltered briefly when there emerged from the sagging portal of a half-demolished house the stick-thin figure of a young boy maybe ten years old. In one grubby hand he held a loop of frayed rope. The other end of it was loosely tied around the scrawny neck of an ancient and withered man — a grandfather, perhaps — and when the old man raised his liver-spotted head and cast milky-white eyes about him, they could see he was blind.

With a gentle nudge from the boy, the old man held out a fingerless hand, brushing the sleeve of Mark’s jacket as they passed by. He received neither disgust nor alms but in the place of both a slight shake of the head and eyes turned quickly away.

Doubting the point of existence was a stubborn stowaway hitching a ride in Mark’s psyche. Strangely enough it had only become apparent shortly after he’d been saved by Peter. Such was the strength of it that sometimes he wished he’d been left broken and twisted with the imprint of rust on his cheek and with a snapped-off blade the only thing stopping him from bleeding to death. Sometimes he just couldn’t be bothered, and what scared him most was that the feeling was becoming more and more prevalent.

The smog was slowly lifting when Peter’s light-hearted banter with a couple of his constables was cut short by the wailing lilt of an ancient air-raid siren. At first it didn’t register, as things often didn’t these days, especially when Mark lapsed into the kind of self-pity he could never recognize as such. Only a sharp nudge in the ribs from Peter made him snap out of it.

Occasionally, feral gangs they called ‘the raggedies’ would periodically charge one or another of the flimsy gates that led into the city, and a call to arms was issued. It was one of the few times that feudal differences were forgotten in an attempt at unified defence.

From one of many watchtowers built into the perimeter wall they looked out over an urban wasteland.

Reaching to the distant horizon the conurbation of this once great city was a sprawling mass of derelict and shattered buildings. Roads were choked with secondary growth, littered with the detritus of an extinct community and dusty with the bones of the dead. A quarter-mile exclusion zone had been cleared years earlier from the base of the wall to where the depopulated outskirts began and Peter and Mark joined two excited constables who were gesturing frantically.

“What’s going on?”

“Over there, sir. Look.”

They stared in amazement. Instead of the expected horde of half-starved barbarians they saw two figures dressed in shiny white hazmat suits looking up at them through closed visors. Behind them, a short distance away, a helicopter stood with its rotors slowly turning. The chopper was surrounded by a half-dozen identically clad and heavily armed men, weapons trained on the forbidding ruins of the old city standing stark and silent a couple of hundred yards behind them.

An electronically amplified voice came from one of the figures. “Who’s in charge here?”

Peter called back: “Who wants to know?”

“We’re part of a Crisis Management Team from Geneva. It’s of the utmost importance that we speak to whoever’s in charge.”

Mark smiled wryly at Peter. “Guess that’d be you then, boss-man.”

Peter grimaced in mock amusement and lightly punched Mark on the shoulder. “Sod off, smart-arse. Get some men and we’ll take them to the station under escort.”

Mark leaned out over the wall. “Stay there a minute while we get things sorted,” he called out, receiving a wave of acknowledgement. Then, turning to Peter, he said: “Bloody funny this, eh?”

Rain began to fall from a leaden sky. It was dirty rain full of ash and smoke which felt oily on the skin. Beneath their feet dry dust and accumulated filth formed a thick paste.

The inside of the station was sparsely furnished with warped cork-boards on flaking plaster-board walls. Rickety, lopsided tables gouged holes in stained linoleum floors. As Peter lead the two newcomers inside Mark followed behind with a broad and strangely innocent grin. He couldn’t resist touching their silver suits with tentative fingers and he kept dodging from side to side trying to catch a glimpse of their faces. He seemed mesmerised, mouth open, eyes and head twitching with excitement.

He hardly noticed when Peter stepped in front of him and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Go and check on the crowd outside,” he said. “Set up a perimeter or they’ll be storming in here, wanting to know what’s going on.”

Mark dragged his gaze away from the two newcomers, and it took a moment for him to register Peter’s words. “Oh, yeah, okay mate. I’ll be right back.”

Once Mark had left, barking orders to the constables outside, and after the door had creaked shut behind him, one of the strangers said: “Hello, Peter. How are you?”

Peter gaped at the familiarity, then his face cracked into a broad grin as recognition dawned

The man was old, his head bowed by the weight of the helmet, rheumy eyes gazing with a mixture of fondness and concern from behind an hermetically sealed visor.

“I’m fine, Professor. Long time no see.” Peter smiled. He gripped the old-man’s hand. “It’s good to see you again Gordon, thought you’d never get here.”

“I never gave up on you.” The old man staggered a little and his companion moved in quickly but was waved away. “I’m all right, just a little tired. It was a long journey. More importantly, is he here?”

Just then Mark re-entered the room. His hyperactive exuberance was infectious, and all three of them smiled at his childlike excitement as he buzzed around them seemingly at a loss for words.

“Mark,” Peter said, “this is Gordon. Gordon, Mark Bartholomew.”

As they shook hands Mark saw the hint of a knowing smile crease the aged features of the old man but his attention was instantly drawn to the other white-suited figure, who also held out a hand in greeting.

“Hi, I’m Marie Laval.” Her voice was honey-rich with accent, and, though the light from oil lamps reflected off her faceplate, both Peter and Mark could see she was a rare beauty. Long blond hair coiled below her chin inside her helmet and when she smiled her teeth were the whitest they had ever seen.

“Hello.” Mark said. He shook her hand with over-eager enthusiasm. “Are you married? Got a boyfriend? Do you want one?” His grin was irrepressible, wide to the point of splitting. His right eye was one short twitch away from a lascivious wink.

Peter was on the brink of an apology on behalf of his friend when Marie laughed and shook her head. “No to all three,” she said. With difficulty she extricated her fingers from Mark’s over-friendly grip and was only brought back to the present by a sharp cough from her silver-suited companion.

The professor looked at Marie, nodded slightly. “Okay,” she said, “it’s basically this: there are people in the outside world who have never given up on the British Isles. Not many, but a few. And it stems from the fact that we’ve always believed in the existence of a man who is totally immune to the plague.”

“You don’t want a boyfriend then?” said Mark, his grin still fixed like a badly drawn caricature, his hand hovering, still feeling the touch of her.

A slap on his shoulder made him look at Peter and in an instant his grin was gone. He saw only eyes intent and piercing. “Listen,” said Peter, fixing him with a solid glare. “Just listen.”

Marie smothered her smile with a hand pressed to her face-plate. “No-one’s naturally immune,” she said. “Everyone in Britain is a carrier. Some die, some don’t. Only this one person is, we believe, totally resistant.”

“And he’s here, in this city?” asked Mark, a sense of wonderment in his voice.

Marie opened her mouth to reply when Gordon touched a gloved hand to the side of his helmet and cocked his head as if listening to somebody out of earshot of the rest. Mark and Peter could see the reversed image of the old man’s HUD as he read the information being transmitted to the inside of his visor. He said, “We have to hurry gentlemen. My pilot tells me there’s movement in the ruins. We have to get going.”

“Well okay,” said Mark with a rising pitch of excitement. “Haven’t a clue what you’re on about, but let’s go find him. Tell us his name and we’ll put the word out. Let’s just hope he’s not already dead. Of course you know it’s a bloody long shot don’t you?” His words tumbled out like those of a wide-eyed child finding out for the first time that there was more to the world than his immediate surroundings.

“ Mr. Bartholomew, please, we have to go. We’ll explain everything in the helicopter.”

“Just tell us his name,” insisted Mark. “We might know him.”

Mark felt a hand gently rest on his sleeve and he looked sideways into the clear grey eyes of Peter Jude. And in those eyes he saw something he had never seen before: sorrow, regret, remorse even? More than that, he thought. So much more.

Marie moved close; so close that Marks breath misted her visor.

“It’s you Mr. Bartholomew. Mark,” she whispered, “we’ve come all this way for you.”

Mark smiled, looking from face to face, expecting them at any minute to say: ‘Hah, only joking, you sad...’, but their expressions were strained and serious and a deep dread lodged in the pit of his stomach as his smile slowly faded.

“But. I mean, I don’t...”

Peter interrupted with a raised hand and a sad shake of his head. “I was sent here, Mark, all those years ago. To find you.” The light from the lamps flickered shadows across his face so his friend barely recognised him. The three of them rallied around him, stifling him.

Before he could speak the Professor said: “Mark, we really have to go.” His voice was tinged with panic. “We...”

“No!” Mark yelled, snatching himself away from the arms which had suddenly embraced him, suffocating him. He backed away, his hands held out before him, hating their pitying looks and expressions of desperate urgency. “No, you talk to me,” he hissed through gritted teeth. “How could you have sent Pete? How did you know he wouldn’t die like all the others? It makes no sense.”

“Mark, there’s no time...”

“I don’t give a damn! You talk to me now or I run, so help me God. Tell me all of it! Now!.”

They knew he meant it. Marie and the Professor glanced at each other and then to Peter, who shrugged and nodded.

“What do you know of your father?” Marie spoke softly.

“Not... not much.” Mark stumbled over the words. “I was told he was some kind of scientist but people wouldn’t talk about him.”

“You’re quite correct,” the Professor said quietly, “your father was a scientist specialising in hemorrhagic fevers. But while working in Geneva he met someone, a young researcher, and for a short time their attraction to each other was a stronger bond than anything they had ever felt before.”

“I don’t understand,” Mark rasped, a tinge of panic in his faltering voice. “Who are these people Pete, what the hell’s going on?”

“Peter was sent to find you,” Marie said, staring earnestly into Mark’s eyes, “because he’s your half-brother.” She paused, allowing the information to sink in.

In one fell swoop Mark suddenly understood all the tender moments and caring comments, the talk of a better life and why Peter knew so much about the world before.

“We couldn’t be sure.” Gordon took up the story quickly as if to continue the narrative before Mark had time to ingest the bombshell he’d just heard. “But when your father returned to England, his lab was targeted by eco-terrorists. The destruction of his facility resulted in the release of a lethal mixture of pathogens.

“The problem was that your father had illegally collected various deadly viruses, most notably the bacterium yersinia pestis, which was the cause of the Black Death pandemics of the Middle Ages. Everything conjoined and mutated, something which should normally never happen. But, of course, it did. Your father was a driven man, Mark, as all dedicated scientists are. But he took huge risks.”

Mark buried his face in his hands and accepted the arm laid tenderly across his shoulders. Peter held him close as if by contact he could share the burden of disbelief which shook Mark to the core.

“Go on,” he gasped, looking up, one hand clutched to his throat.

“Your father knew of Peter’s existence.” Marie spoke with soothing resonance. “He’d been sending money to his mother for years without having any actual contact. You see, he loved your mother, Mark, with all his heart, and he felt such guilt about the affair. But he was also an honourable man and had no wish to see Peter and his mother want for anything. He believed he’d found what he thought was an antivirus, and before everything collapsed he managed to send a small sample of it to my lab in Geneva.”

“So the explosion in the lab caused all of this?” Mark sobbed, tears running clear rivulets through the grime on his cheeks. “All this... this...”

“Not quite, Mark.” Marie spoke in almost a whisper. “The explosion only destroyed the inside of your father’s lab. It was a bunker designed to withstand terrorist attacks. The only person in there at the time was your mother. She was terribly burned, but the worst of it was that she was four months pregnant.” She paused. “Pregnant with you, Mark. All your father could do to save your life was to put her into a chemically-induced coma and pray she survived until you came full term.”

Marie stepped forward, slouched, as if the weight of her impending words were almost too heavy to bear. “He kept your mother alive for four months, until he was sure you were strong enough to be born. But before he did so he injected himself with what little antidote he had left, and you as well while you were still in the womb. The logical thing to have done was to abort you and then have you cremated along with your mother. But he just couldn’t do it.

“And when you were born, you showed no signs of the plague and so he thought the antivirus had worked. He was tired, burdened by grief, or he wouldn’t have come to such an arbitrary assumption without extensive tests and isolation. Instead he took you out of the lab and into the outside world. But he took you out too soon. The anti-virus took a lot longer than he thought to make you completely immune.”

Proceed to part 3...