Trevor Baxendale - Something in the Water

‘Government scientists?’ said Owen scornfully, sliding into a chair.

‘-A spokesperson has denied that the outbreak indicates that bird flu may have made the transition to human beings, although it has yet to be confirmed whether or not this is the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus … Blah blah blah,’ Gwen trailed off.

‘They’re fudging,’ agreed Owen. ‘They know it’s something serious, so they’ve let slip the bird flu thing. It’s a cover for the fact that they haven’t a clue.’

‘And we do?’ said Jack.

‘We know it’s something to do with Saskia Harden.’

‘Do we?’

Owen leaned forward, wincing for a moment as he cleared his throat. ‘It’s my guess Saskia’s the original carrier — Patient Zero. She went to her GP, passed it to him. That’s two infected people. Now a contagious pathogen in the middle of a doctor’s waiting room, full of people who are already sick or rundown, is the perfect breeding ground. Little or no resistance. Everyone there is infected. They go away, infect other people. And so it goes on.’

‘My God, it’ll never stop,’ whispered Gwen.

‘Do you think it’s deliberate?’ Jack asked. ‘Or just an accident?’

‘Does it matter?’ Owen said. ‘Either way we’re up the proverbial creek. Remember what happened when the Rift was opened — an entire hospital was brought to its knees trying to deal with fourteenth-century patients with bubonic plague. Something like this could cause the emergency services to go into meltdown.’

‘It’s deliberate,’ Ianto said firmly.

‘Why?’

‘Think about it. The whole thing boils down to this Saskia woman. Before this week we’d never heard of her — but neither had anyone else, except for the police and her GP. And the records they hold for her are all false. She doesn’t really exist.’

‘Which is why we have to find her,’ said Jack, clicking his fingers.

‘And Toshiko?’ asked Gwen. ‘What do we do about her?’

Jack turned to Owen. ‘How do you think she caught it?’

‘She must have been exposed to the virus. I don’t know how, but it’s my guess our dead friend from Greendown Moss is responsible.’

Gwen coughed. ‘But if that’s the case then we’re all infected, aren’t we? We were all there in the Autopsy Room.’

They all looked at one another.

Jack opened a link to the Hothouse. ‘Tosh? Any news?’

A barrage of strenuous coughing came through the loudspeakers. Eventually, Toshiko’s voice, tired and ragged, followed: ‘Nothing yet. I think I’ve managed to isolate a non-human cell, though. It’s a slow process. The cells are mutating all the time, almost as if they’re trying to disguise themselves as human cells.’

‘The likelihood is that we are all infected,’ Jack told her.

‘I’m the only one showing advanced symptoms so far. I need to stay isolated.’ There was a heavy, lonely sigh. Gwen pictured Toshiko lowering herself onto the stool as she talked. ‘I’m keeping notes — it starts with a sore throat, then a cough. The cough gets worse … like there’s something at the back of your throat but you just can’t clear it.’

‘Exactly what I’ve got,’ said Owen, and then coughed as if to prove it.

‘The cough gets progressively more painful. You begin running a temperature. Eventually you’ll find you’re coughing up blood.’

Gwen was rubbing nervously at her throat and swallowing repeatedly. ‘You know, I’m getting a sore throat too …’

‘It’s the first sign,’ Owen said, looking around the table. ‘We’ve all got it.’

Ianto came into the boardroom, a handkerchief held over his mouth and nose.

‘That won’t do you any good,’ said Owen. ‘Holding a hanky over your nose isn’t going to protect you against this kind of thing.’

‘It’s too late for that,’ Ianto replied. He showed them the handkerchief — it was full of bright red spots. When they looked back at him, his face was flooded with anxiety. ‘What’s going to happen to us all?’

‘After a while, there will be mucus as well as blood,’ croaked Toshiko before dissolving into another fit of coughing. ‘From what I can tell, it’s at this stage the pathogen becomes properly contagious.’

Gwen felt herself starting to panic. As always, her first instinct was to call Rhys, but she had to shut her eyes tight and ruthlessly close the lid on any thoughts about her immediate future. She wouldn’t be any use if she was frozen by fear. Look at Tosh, she told herself. Cool and professional to the end.

To the end … A thought suddenly struck Gwen. ‘What about Jack?’ she said.

Everyone turned to look at him. ‘I never get sick,’ he said. ‘When you can’t die, you don’t get bothered much by the common cold.’

‘This isn’t the common cold,’ Gwen said.

‘I don’t get sick,’ Jack repeated. ‘Usually.’

There was a long pause. ‘Usually?’ Owen prompted.

Jack pulled a face and rubbed his neck. ‘I’ve kinda got a sore throat coming on now.’

Owen’s mobile rang and he flipped it open. ‘Owen Harper.’ He listened for a moment and then redialled. ‘Voicemail,’ he explained, pulling a ‘don’t know what this is about’ face. He waited for the connection and then suddenly had to pull the phone away from his ear as a series of harsh squawks and shouts came out.

It was loud enough to make the others look up. ‘What’s that?’ said Jack. ‘Dial-a-fight?’

Ianto had already run a computer check on the signal. ‘It’s from Bob Strong.’

Owen switched his phone to loudspeaker and replayed the voicemail message. At first, it was difficult to tell what was being said, apart from the fact that it was someone shouting.

‘Some kind of argument?’ wondered Gwen.

‘No, Jack’s right, it’s a fight,’ Owen said.

He replayed the message. They heard a long, inhuman screech which overloaded the phone’s mike and then a series of frightened yells — the sound of a man in fear of his life. ‘That’s Bob Strong,’ Owen said. The sounds grew incomprehensible — except for Strong’s one, final word, which echoed loudly around the boardroom:

‘Saskia!’

Then there was a heavy thud, followed by a long, wet ripping sound. Silence. Coarse breathing approaching the phone. A click and then nothing.

Owen shot out of his seat and was already halfway to the stairs by the time the others ran out after him. ‘We’ll all go,’ Jack called after him. ‘Get the SUV.’ He turned to Ianto. ‘Stay here, keep an eye on Tosh, let me know the moment anything happens. Got it?’

‘Anything?’

‘Yeah — like if she finds a cure, I’m the first to know.’

‘Actually, she’d be the first to know, technically. And I’d be second. That would make you third, at best.’

‘OK, if she finds a cure, I want to be the third to know. Happy?’

‘Anything else?’

‘Get onto the traffic police, clear a route to Bob Strong’s house.’

Jack drove, flooring the accelerator, sending the SUV tearing along the night-time roads towards Trynsel. Owen sat in the passenger seat, coughing continuously into a handkerchief. ‘We won’t get there in time,’ he gasped. ‘He’s dead. Saskia Harden killed him, you all heard it.’

Gwen sat in the back, checking the monitors linked to the Hub, massaging her burning throat. She immersed herself in the work, trying her best not to think about what was happening to her — to all of them. ‘We don’t know what’s happened yet, Owen. That’s just supposition. All we know is that he said her name. Doesn’t mean a thing.’

Owen said nothing. He felt too ill to argue.

Ianto had done his usual superb job with the police. The roads were clear, and Jack kept the SUV on or around 80 mph where he had to, pushing it up to the 100 mark on the longer roads.