CHAPTER NINE

 

 

THE JET-BLACK LIMO wound its way through the tight lanes of the Oxfordshire countryside, incongruous amongst the fields of maize and rapeseed and the thinly populated farmhouses that dotted the landscape. Any motorists that passed it couldn't help but cast an eye over it and briefly wonder its business or destination, the fact plainly evident that the occupants were not local. The windows were mirrored, so they offered no clue as to the nature of those within the car, but its size and ostentation suggested it clearly wasn't a commuter or tourist. It could possibly be lost, a few observers mused, but it had come so far out into the country that it could only be here by design rather than accident.

If a villager caught sight of it as it passed through the four or five cottage hamlets that represented suburbia out in this rural expanse, then there was a glimmer of recognition; they'd seen vehicles of this ilk drive past their homes before on irregular occasions over the past two or three decades. Sometimes they had police escorts, a couple of motorbike cops stationed nose and tail, but mostly these dark limousines came alone, driver and passengers always obscured. However, anyone that had lived around here for any substantial length of time knew full well where these particular travellers were heading, and could even hazard a guess as to their occupation. Few, though, that had been born and raised in the area had ever gone near the place to which they were undoubtedly journeying - indeed, getting anywhere near it was nigh-on impossible - and while it was nestled away in secluded woodland, of interest only to those that were aware of its existence, its presence cast a pall over the surroundings. They did not know what was done there, or to what purpose these visitors made their periodic trips, but there was little argument that much good would ever come of it.

The car turned off the main road through a gap in the hedgerow onto a narrow track that was bisected by a metal gate a few feet later. The vehicle slowed, and the driver's window slid down, a hand emerging clutching an ID card, holding it up to an infra-red sensor that was positioned on the gate post. There was a click and the barrier shuddered open, allowing enough time for the limo to pass before locking itself closed again. The car bounced along the dusty, furrowed track, thick foliage pressing in on either side; occasionally, the man seated in the back seat noted, razor wire could be glimpsed between the trees, ten-feet high mesh fences that were strung with warning signs and keep-out notices. They completely encompassed the six acres of private land the limo was travelling across, ensuring that the curious public were kept at a sufficient distance.

It didn't always entirely dissuade those that were determined to gain access to the facility. Over the years there had been a small handful of security breaches by anti-government protestors and troublemakers (and even the odd broadsheet journalist), all trying to pierce the veil of secrecy that was necessary to allow the compound's work to continue. None of them had succeeded in getting within a hundred feet of the laboratories, unprepared for the number of armed guards that patrolled the grounds at regular intervals. Out in these deep, dark woods - as intruders were repeatedly told with the intention of scaring them out of their nosy habits - it was very easy for someone to vanish without trace, and those trespassing on Ministry of Defence property could be shot without warning. The strict new measures that had been introduced to defend the country against terrorism enabled government buildings to protect themselves with maximum force, a handy tool at their disposal. Nobody had been killed yet trying to break into the research centre, fortunately; but, as with most things, it was probably only a matter of time. A ruling party keen to be seen cracking down on those that threatened homeland security, an increasingly paranoid nation and an unruly section of the populace that insisted on sticking its beak into matters that didn't concern them was a volatile combination. Put them together and it spelt BOOM.

The man couldn't understand why there were those so insistent on broadcasting the country's defence secrets in the first place; the work that was being developed at this research centre was in Britain's interests, enabling her to protect herself against her many enemies. God knew, they needed all the edge they could get in an ever-unstable planet. Rogue leaders and power-hungry tyrants were ten a penny, always strutting before the world stage, swinging their dicks. Half were big-headed buffoons, admittedly, that posed minimal threat, as long as there were departments monitoring their movements; if they just stuck to torturing their own people and blowing their nation's assets on building monuments to their vast egos, then it kept them occupied and out of the world's hair.

But it was once they started having designs on expanding their empire and instigating pan-global hatred that they become a nuisance, a bracket that the remaining fifty per cent fell into. These were the foes that needed removing for the safety of international stability, and more often than not it was a process that was conducted well out of the media's spotlight. Wars never ended, despite what was released to the public. That was what few not in governmental office understood; surrenders were accepted, deals were signed, coalition forces claimed victory, but the fighting never ceased. It was a necessary fact of the political landscape that conflicts carried on past the point of the official end to hostilities to make sure the peace remained rooted, weeding out intransigents that could pose problems in the future. The warlords that Britain and the rest of the civilised world were in eternal opposition to were like cockroaches - stamp on one and a dozen more escape into the cracks. Thus, safeguarding the nation's position in the global community was an unending battle, one in which they needed the very latest technological developments at their disposal on the frontline; and creating such weapons required research far from the public's gaze, as much for their own safety as anything else, in secret MoD complexes.

Places such as this one, the man mused, as the car slowed before a checkpoint. Officially, it was called Monkhill; it had been established not long after the Second World War, very much at Churchill's behest - a man who knew that victory wasn't just achieved, it was maintained - and was one of several dotted around the country charged with building upon the military's arms reserves to tackle the new faces that enemies of democracy wore in the twenty-first century.

A guard with a clipboard strode from the booth beside the barrier and tapped on the driver's window. A fellow soldier remained on watch, a rifle held against his chest, his eyes roving over the vehicle. It was strictly a formality - the car carried an HM government seal on its windscreen and its registration would've been verified by the CCTV cameras that had tracked its progress from the road - but the security here was as stringent as the man had ever encountered. A lunatic with thirty pounds of Semtex strapped to his chest was more likely to be able to board a passenger jet than a rambler was to accidentally stray onto the facility's grounds.

The driver buzzed his window down. "Peter Sedgworth MP," he said, reaching across to the dashboard and retrieving a sheaf of paper, passing it to the guard. "He has an appointment with Doctor Gannon."

The soldier scanned the document, then affixed it to his clipboard, unhooking a pen from his fatigues' breast pocket and scribbling something upon it. He nodded, then said: "Wait there." He motioned with his head for his companion to join him and together they walked slowly around the car, scooting to their knees to check beneath the chassis. Sedgworth watched their movements impassively from the other side of the mirrored glass, the fingers of his left hand tapping an impatient rhythm on the briefcase on his lap. The driver was asked to pop the bonnet open so the engine could be examined, before being instructed to unlock the boot.

"Excuse me a moment, Minister," he muttered and clambered out. Sedgworth heard the boot yawn open behind him and felt the weight of the vehicle shift. He sighed and found his eyes running over the correspondence from Gannon that he'd been clutching for much of the journey from London. The doctor was uncharacteristically excited about developments they'd been making in a biological agent that he had insinuated could prove revolutionary in cutting the level of military casualties. He didn't go into much detail - was it a medical antidote? A compound that augmented a trooper's abilities? - but the scientific blather and optimistic rhetoric had pricked the Defence Minister's interest enough for him to come investigate it for himself.

In the decade or so that the two men had worked together, Sedgworth's experience of Gannon was that he wasn't one for waxing lyrical about the research centre's achievements, or promising unrealistic targets - indeed, the dour Scot had tested his patience on more than one occasion by failing to deliver new weaponry past the prototype stage, claiming that they were either unworkable or dangerous to the wielder. Several defence contracts had been lost because Gannon was a stickler for perfection, which hadn't made him many friends in Parliament. More than a few of Sedgworth's governmental colleagues had suggested that it was time the good doctor was retired for a younger replacement more amenable to rubber-stamping valuable army projects; but the Defence Minister had stuck by him because he could still pull moments of eclectic genius out of the bag. As long as he continued to demonstrate the forward thinking that had made him internationally renowned, Gannon still had a place in the department.

Which meant his enthusiasm for the current endeavour was well worth witnessing first-hand, if it was as boundary breaking as he claimed in his reports. In fact, the doctor's results couldn't have come at a better time for Sedgworth; with the various conflicts in the Middle East and central Europe dragging on year after year, and the British forces increasingly tied up in peacekeeping roles that were meant to last no more than the initial twelve-month period - they'd since ballooned into three times that - he was under substantial pressure from the PM to find a way to limit the numbers of soldiers heading overseas. Or at least make their job easier. Television footage of Union Jack-draped coffins being offloaded at military airfields was not the kind of publicity the Government needed, and it was an image that the voters were guaranteed to remember come election day. Sedgworth had been instructed to find a way to run the Army more efficiently, and preferably cut the casualty rate. As the PM told him, every war widow that was created was effectively a cross on the opposition's ballot paper. Quite how he was supposed to achieve this was unclear, short of withdrawing the troops from the crisis zones - his budget was stretched as it was. But the old man had been copping heat from all sides of the House and from the media over the mess the UK's forces were mired in, and had demanded that action be taken to stem the tide of bodies that were returning to these shores.

Gannon's breakthrough, therefore, could be the answer that would save his skin, Sedgworth believed, running his eyes over the documents before him once more as the boot was slammed shut and the driver clambered back into the front seat. The guards raised the barrier, and waved the car forward. The Defence Minister didn't claim to understand what the doctor was telling him in his letters, but if it meant he wouldn't be handing in his resignation in six months' time, then he was going to get behind it all the way. This could possibly resurrect his political career.

 

 

THE LIMO PARKED before the facility's glass doors, and Sedgworth strode through the reception area, stopping momentarily to have his briefcase X-rayed and himself patted down by a soldier. Gannon was waiting for him, leaning nonchalantly by the lifts, arms folded, and the politician raised his eyebrows at him in greeting as the woman behind the reception desk handed him a visitor's badge. He wandered over to the doctor, looking down momentarily to affix the plastic tag to his suit lapel.

"Minister," Gannon said by way of acknowledgement, terse as ever.

"Come on, Robert," Sedgworth replied, offering his hand, which the scientist shook. "It's Peter. Let's not stand on ceremony."

Gannon shrugged. "It's that kind of place. Enough rules and regulations to make you forget you're human. You'll have had the intimate probing, then?"

"Checked and double-checked, right down to my approved governmental underwear. Nobody could ever accuse security of being lax here."

"Aye, we run a tight ship, all right." He pressed the lift's call button. "Come on, I'll take you down to the labs. That's where all the fun stuff happens."

Sedgworth studied the doctor as he stood gazing up at the lights above the lift doors indicating its ascent. He was in his early fifties, but carried himself as if he were fifteen years younger; he had a tendency to slouch, which reminded the politician of his own teenage son, and coupled with his surly demeanour there was something comically grumpy about the man. He was thin and wiry, and a good five inches shorter than the MP, with a shock of black curly hair atop an angular head. Despite his position as chief research officer at Monkhill, he looked and acted as if he were the student intern, scuffing his trainer-bedecked feet through the lab corridors with his hands in his pockets, scowling at colleagues whose theories he frequently and arrogantly dismissed without a second thought. It was easy to see why he put so many powerful people's backs up. Once they realised that multi-million pound corporate decisions could rest on the say-so of this scruffbag, they wondered if somebody in the department wasn't having a joke. But while he clearly didn't pay much attention to his appearance, his weapons research work was exacting; every attention to detail that wasn't apparent in his attire was there in his experiments and conclusions, precise and often inspired.

The lift doors slid open and the two men entered, Gannon jabbing a button for one of the sub-levels.

"Did you have a good journey?" he asked, casting a glance at the minister.

"Oh yes. Well, as good as could be expected, getting out of London."

The scientist smiled thinly. "You don't like leaving the city, then?"

"Not if I can help it. I've got nothing against the country, it's just... I don't care for all that scenery. It makes me nervous. Too open."

Gannon chuckled. "Spoken like a true metropolitan. Never happier than when you're no more than five feet away from a black cab and a Starbucks." He leant against the elevator wall. "I appreciate you braving the heart of darkness today, though, Peter. Out here in the wild frontier."

"I had to come and see for myself what you were getting so excited about." Sedgworth lifted up his briefcase and slapped it jovially. "Your reports were so enthusiastic, as if you were anticipating big things from this latest project."

The scientist wobbled his head, as if he wasn't inclined to agree. "It's early days. I shouldn't have got your hopes up that I would have a solution waiting for you. The fundamentals are in place, it's just a matter of fine-tuning to the point where it's workable. It could go either way at the moment, but I'm cautiously optimistic."

The minister smiled to shield his disappointment. "I've been intrigued by the progress you said you'd been making in cutting troop casualties. You didn't go into much detail. What is it, some kind of amphetamine variant that boosts the soldier's resilience?"

"You'll see for yourself soon enough," the doctor replied cryptically. The lift shuddered to a halt and the doors parted, revealing a gloomy, bare-concrete corridor. Gannon gestured for the politician to step ahead of him, and the two men wandered down the passageway, Sedgworth's Italian brogues clicking loudly on the flagstone floor. There was a chill in the air, as if they'd emerged into some underground cavern, and the minister involuntarily shivered, goosebumps rising on the back of his neck.

Gannon noticed the government man pulling his suit jacket around him. "Yeah, sorry about the temperature," he said. "We find it helps with the work we're doing. You get used to it after a while. Let me tell you, you really wouldn't want this place to be an oven."

"Oh? Why's that?"

"It'd turn ripe in hours. You'll get the idea when you see what we're doing in the labs."

They walked further into the bowels of the research facility, windows set in the walls on either side revealing white-coated scientists peering into microscopes and sitting before computers. Sedgworth caught sight of a crimson smear on the front of one of their tunics, as if the person had come straight from an abattoir. He hesitated, watching the medic in question inject a solution into something strapped to a gurney, hidden by the worktable.

"Are you doing animal testing here?" the politician asked. "I thought it was agreed that animal subjects were only to be used in experiments expressly approved by myself?" It was one of the few issues he felt strongly about, and had pledged when he took office to substantially reduce the amount of weapons testing on living creatures. It had won him the looney-tune liberal vote and the derision of his more cynical colleagues, but it was a belief he was proud to have remained reasonably consistent on.

"No. Nothing... living," Gannon replied. He stopped and faced the minister, chewing his lip and clearly choosing his words carefully. "You asked us to find ways of cutting army casualties, something which isn't easy to anticipate. There's no way we can foresee what a soldier will face on the battlefield, or the conditions they will have to fight under. No amount of protective garments will protect an individual in certain situations, when death can come in so many forms. And the human body will take only so much damage before it becomes irreparable and medical technology can no longer assist it."

"I thought you were looking at performance-enhancing drugs? Augmenting a trooper's strength and stamina?"

"It's a route we went down, I admit," Gannon said, nodding. "But again it comes down to the body's inability to handle the demands that we're asking to place upon it. We were attempting to limit the subject's need for fuel and sleep coupled with a steroidal muscle-growth programme. We tried surgical procedures too, adjusting eyesight and hearing as well as certain... cerebral tweaks."

"Christ," Sedgworth exclaimed. "You're telling me you were looking into cutting into their heads? What were you hoping to prove?"

The scientist looked at the politician levelly. "We thought perhaps hormones could be modulated, turning the emotions on and off like a tap. Increase anger, decrease the level of fear flooding the brain." He tapped his temple. "Maybe even find a way to instil logical thinking, encourage the subject to think rationally in the heat of conflict."

"It wasn't successful, I take it?"

Gannon shook his head. "As I said, the human body couldn't handle it. The drugs were unreliable and the level of steroids required to boost the soldier's musculature would have sent them crazy. We delivered preliminary samples to a local barracks - nothing life-threatening, just mild prototypes to see if they noticed any improvement in performance - and the reports we got back were that the regiment complained of headaches, nausea, muscle strain and dizziness. The compound was trying to work on them, I think, but it was taking every cell in a direction it didn't want to go... or at least every cell didn't have the ability to expand beyond its means. There's a lot of potential locked up in our bodies, Minister, it's just that we're too fragile to explore it fully."

"So where do we go from here? From what you've just said, you make it sound like we should replace the armed forces with robots - logical, fearless, without need for food or sleep..."

"...and disposable. I agree that would be the ideal solution. But it's prohibitively expensive. Unfortunately, a flesh-and-blood soldier's life is right now significantly less costly than that of his or her cybernetic counterpart. But that's the thinking we began to pursue - if we couldn't substantially alter a subject's make-up to protect them, the only other way of reducing casualties was to send a proxy in their stead."

"A proxy?"

"A substitute. An army that was eminently expendable, that a country could lose in great numbers without the pressure of consequences."

Sedgworth frowned. "I don't see what you're getting at, Rob."

"Follow me." Gannon turned and headed towards a door at the end of the corridor. He laid his hand upon the handle and paused, glancing back at the politician as if he were about to add something, then thought better of it. Instead he walked into the darkened room beyond, the government man a couple of steps behind. Despite his proximity, he lost sight of the doctor for a moment, such was the gloom within; the only light available was that spilling into the room from outside, a source that was shut off when the door was closed behind him. He saw the outline of Gannon's white coat move amongst the tenebrous shadow, but could not discern any other detail in the space around him.

"Robert?" the minister asked querulously.

"I'm going to flip the lights on," a whispered reply came from somewhere to his left. "I'm going to ask you not to make too much noise. The test subject I have in here is quite easily distressed."

"Test subject? I thought —" His words died in his mouth when the fluorescents flickered into life above him and he could at last see what was in the room with him.

It reminded him of a dungeon - the walls and floor were bare grey stone, with no windows or furniture -- and manacled to the far wall was what at first appeared to be a human being. It was dressed in military fatigues, and so Sedgworth assumed it to be one of the guards that had volunteered for a drugs trial. He certainly sounded as if he was doped up, emitting a mournful groan and straining at his bonds, his arms chained above his head. But as the minister stepped closer, he noticed macabre details about the figure. His face was sallow, blue-green skin stretched over the skull; his eyes were clouded, and the way he moved his head suggested he could barely see, and that rather he was sensing that others were in the room by scent or some internal radar; and the nearer the politician got to the man, the more he became aware of the stench that was emanating from him. He smelt... rotten. Sedgworth opened his mouth to say something to Gannon, but the doctor interrupted him.

"Don't move any closer," he warned. "You'll get him riled up. He might not be able to grab you, but could still give you a bite if you're not careful."

The minister automatically retreated a few paces. "Is he being kept prisoner?"

"Of a sort. As I said, he's a test subject, but he's restrained for our protection."

"What in God's name have you done to him? He looks like he's... decaying."

"He is, though in our defence that was nothing to do with us. Nothing we can do to stop entropy." Gannon smiled as if at a private joke. "What we gave him was life."

Sedgworth glanced at the scientist as if he was mad. "Are you telling me this man was dead?"

"Three weeks ago, he was shipped back to the UK with fatal abdominal injuries. Car bomb in Baghdad. He had died instantly, and had no close family to miss him. Not long after we took receipt of his corpse, we injected it with a serum we've been working on, just at the base of the neck. Five hours after that he got up and walked."

The politician's mouth was hanging open, alternately studying Gannon and the moaning figure, struggling to be free of his cuffs. "Wait, wait, back up... where did you get the authority to commandeer the deceased?"

"That's kind of on a need-to-know basis."

"I think I bloody need to know," Sedgworth snarled.

Gannon shrugged. "It starts with your boss, and trickles down from there."

The government man's mouth snapped shut. The PM had evidently been putting wheels in motion over his head. "This... this is the grand scheme that could save our armed forces?" he said, gesturing around him.

"It's the ideal solution. They don't tire or feel pain, can survive numerous injuries as long as the brain remains intact, and resurrection seems to bring an enhanced aggression. They go for anyone." He nodded to the undead soldier. "He took a chunk out of my assistant's hand before he could be strapped down."

"They? You've got more of them?"

"We're monitoring several subjects. About a dozen, to be exact."

Sedgworth shook his head. "It's obscene, like something out of Frankenstein. How on earth can you imagine that the public will go for this? I mean, we're talking zombies here, for Christ's sake."

"We try to avoid the 'Z' word, Minister. It suggests voodoo. These are motorised cadavers; simply shells for the HS-03 virus that is putting their neurons back together. As for Joe Public, what makes you think they need to be told anything?"

The politician didn't reply. He turned and watched the dead man standing a few feet from him. It was grinding its jaw, drool falling from its black lips. "Is he conscious?" he asked finally.

"Barely. Next to no language skills or coordination. At the moment, it's pure instinct - it walks and tries to feed, which is redundant since it doesn't require the energy or the sustenance anymore. But we're working on it, see if we can kick-start its development."

Sedgworth strode towards the door. "This is insane," he muttered. "I cannot condone these experiments. Don't the dead deserve any respect anymore?"

"The dead are a resource, just like any other," Gannon answered, following the politician out of the room, flicking the lights off as he left and shutting the door behind him. The creature's cries drifted softly through the partition. "Or would you rather the country sacrificed more troops?"

Sedgworth rounded on him. "You're a doctor, Robert. You're meant to preserve life, not play with it. When did that change?"

"I am preserving life," the scientist replied angrily. "I'm trying to save the lives of every serviceman and woman currently operating in a war zone. I'm trying to create an army that can work for us." He dropped his head and exhaled wearily. "Anyway, what makes you think this is the first time that medical science has been put to use in this way? Others have been here before; in fact, their blueprints have proved most helpful."

"What others?"

"The German High Command, for a start. They thought they could claim Europe with their own special division in World War One. They called it Totenkrieg..."