‘I remember how it happened… like it was yesterday’, I contemplated to myself. The sun had dipped below the horizon fifteen minutes ago and the sky had begun to darken, unfettered by any clouds. I had been so focused on my thoughts that after wandering for who-knows how long, that I found myself walking through an empty park. The lumbering trees blew gently to a cooling breeze as I peered up at the stars, while feeling the individual blades of grass brushing between my fingers as they flickered from the wind. Gazing up at the night sky was a dreary reminder that despite the millions of stars and planets that hovered above, billions and trillions of kilometres away – no deity or immortal being was destined to intervene and save us from ourselves. It was only days ago that we came to the precipice of almost wiping ourselves off the face of the earth, all because of our compulsive nature to meddle with science we still hadn’t even begun to comprehend. I’d heard the proverb that ‘the path to hell was paved with good intentions’ but it wasn’t until recently that I realised that the human race will infinitely continue to repeat their fate, simply because mankind’s innate greed in wanting to help themselves will always, and forever trump helping others. I should stop my rambling and start from the beginning of this whole ordeal.
The whole incident began on a cold Friday winters morning in June 2017, when my alarm clocks incessant beeping snapped me out of my sleep – a dreary reminder that at some point I would have to get out of bed and begin the day. I grudgingly threw off the bed-sheets, pulled myself out of my slumber, put on my slippers and glasses before making my way down the hallway and into the kitchen. I walked straight over to the kettle and switched it on, hoping to sink down a cup of coffee in an attempt to jump-start my current level of awareness to the world around me. As the kettle started to boil, I could hear the faint sound of keyboard buttons accompanied by mouse clicks; and as I made my way into the office next door, there sat my father Patrick, mesmerised by the screen – focused like a Buddhist monk behind his Executive-style Mahogany desk.
My father was a world-renowned Professor of Genetics with two Doctorates in Molecular biology and Theoretical Atomic and Particle physics; a man who had spent his life examining the intricacies of the human body, whether they were biological, chemical, physiological or psychological. His seemingly endless pursuit to ever increase his knowledge; be it from majestic galaxies down to the infinitely microscopic particles that made our universe had driven him into the field of science from a young age. He was a short, black-haired Caucasian man, barely 5’9” of a semi-slim, but toned build. The light from the monitor highlighted his dark-greying moustache and beard, as well as the small grey hairs that had started to appear on the front of his fringe and around his ears. The light also reflected off the square-rimmed glasses that had slid half-way down the bridge of his nose. The ceiling light was switched off, yet the powerful glow from the computer monitor brightly lit up my fathers’ faintly wrinkled face, and eerily cast his shadow against the curtains behind him.
It was my father who had made the decision for us all to emigrate to Australia years ago to escape from the small-mindedness of Scotland, where the mentality of the people seemed as cruel and bitter as the weather was. Patrick believed that Scotland wasn’t the greatest place to bring up a family – wishing for something greater than a climate with approximately ten months of rain a year, the cult mindedness of Celtic & Rangers football supporters eager to tear each other’s hearts out and header each other; plus the housing was cramped, cold, expensive and dreary. We had been in Australia for almost fourteen years and I had spent most of my education here in Australia – which I now called home. My single remnant of Scotland was some distant memories of my extended family, snowy Christmases, and my accent which I held onto as best as I could through my primary and secondary school years, because the girls in class kept telling me it was cute.
I switched on the ceiling light, opened my mouth and yawned… before extending a morning greeting to my father. His gaze however remained focused on the computer screen in front of him, and I called out to him for a second time; this still didn’t stir him from his trance, so I walked up quietly to the computer and gently pressed the monitors’ standby button. After a couple of seconds, the screen went dark and Patrick eventually snapped out of his gaze before I tried once more to wish him a good morning. He was shaken at my sudden appearance and shocked by my interruption. He caught his breath while I jested, “Dad, you do realise there are easier ways of getting a tan?”
Patrick ignored the joke and grumbled slightly, “You spooked me Scott, that’s all”, he mumbled in a thick as porridge Scottish accent as he fiddled about at the rear of the computer monitor to switch it back on. “I won’t be up for that much longer – I’ll head off to bed in a couple of minutes.”
He seemed surprised for a second as I pointed out that it was already morning, to which he spun around to stare outside the office window and shrugged, murmuring, “Oh… never mind then”, before his face began to glow white again as the monitor illuminated and the document re-appeared on screen.
I questioned whether he wanted a cup of coffee, but his gaze had already shifted back to the computer monitor. I interjected, curious as to know what had captured his attention so intently, probing him on what was so important and due to my own inquisitive curiosity – I walked over the computer monitor to glance at the screen which was filled with formulaic equations, graphs and many complicated biological terms that to me were indecipherable, and for a second he looked at me gesturing with a shrug of his shoulders that it was of no real significance. I was curious nonetheless, so I pressed him further to find out what was so interesting. He eventually blurted out, “Let’s just say you wouldn’t be interested Scott. It’s a leaked paper on research on animal nucleotide extraction and genetic transmogrification; nothing you’d understand.”
I’ll admit that my father was a genuinely gifted man, who spent his lifetime reading countless biographies, journals, research papers and anything he could get his hands on; conversely this was also accompanied by a slight sense of pompousness, and a superiority complex he felt that only a rare few could understand what he knew.
“Oh come on,” I rebuked, “…you can’t tell me I won’t understand, if you won’t even tell me what it is I supposedly won’t understand?”
Patrick stared at me and bit his lip for a second concerned, thinking about it for a moment; I could see that he was apprehensive about telling me, but simultaneously eager to share it with another person, to which he eventually broke his silence.
“Okay… When scientists discovered that our DNA was the genetic map to who we were physically and biologically, this completely astounded the scientific world. The concept that being able to map out our human Genome to such a finite art, could ultimately mean we were capable of identifying and understanding the unique genetic strands associated with malicious diseases like cancer or Alzheimer’s, hopefully allowing us to begin curing genetic abnormalities in the human body years in advance, or identify the precursors that lead to environmental diseases later in a person’s life. The ability to map out our DNA could give us advanced warning and ultimately enough time to prevent illnesses from progressing. I mean, could you imagine a world without disease?”
He leaned back in his chair, while a smile formed across his face as he pondered that mental image. Nevertheless, I figured it went deeper than what he was telling me, so I pressed him gently for further information. He was proud of something, but I wasn’t sure of what; the only way to get him to open up was to feed his ego – I could tell he had a secret.
“That doesn’t seem like anything new”, I said to egg him on, “There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?” Dad gazed at me in a serious manner; unwillingly agreed but eventually continued talking.
“Okay Scott, but you have to keep what I’m about to tell you to yourself; no one else can ever find out about this. In the late nineties, when you were still just a wee lad, I became strongly interested in the Human Genome project; it wasn’t long before scientists began to genetically map the DNA of various living organisms to try identify if their genetic make-up had the same vulnerability to different environmental and hereditary diseases, or whether their DNA allowed for them to develop an immunity. I started looking at the possibility of combining genes from animals; mammals mainly, with human DNA in an effort to discover if they could be utilised to correct any genetic abnormalities. I had samples of different species and breeds of animals sent from Colleagues and research teams working at London Zoo, hoping to find strands of their DNA which I could use to inhibit the growth of diseases from spreading throughout the human body.
“I’ll admit that the idea did consume me for quite a period of time, but given that this endeavour could help to increase our quality of life, I was unwilling to let the idea rest until I had exhausted all possibilities. After a couple of months of research, I had the eccentric idea of merging all of the DNA strands together to form a multi-layered DNA strand, which at the time seemed—” he mused, before biting his lip momentarily and continuing on “…well, to say the least, idiotic; the further I experimented however, I discovered how malleable the human body was, and how easily it could be manipulated using DNA. I spent the next six years trying to find a way to implement it into the human body, eventually creating a viral infection that was capable of storing the multiple genomic strands which—”
“Yeah, yeah dad, I know”, I interjected, stopping my father mid-sentence. “It’s a sub-microscopic particle with the potential to infect and over-write the original DNA strand without being destroyed by the anti-bodies in the human system.” Patrick looked at me silently, rather perturbed that I had disrupted him during his little speech.
“Dae ya mind interrupting me”, he piped back. He normally hated the Scottish vernacular he grew up using, always trying to display a veneer of eloquence; nevertheless the slang usually slipped out when he was somewhat pissed off, frustrated, or in this case – disrupted when he was prattling on about something he deemed important.
“As I was saying, a viral infection is the most common way to trigger any mutation in the human body. In 2002, just eight months before we emigrated for Australia, the completion of my super-retrovirus eventually came to be. It contained DNA from about 1,000 different breeds and species of animals, which I formulated into the one single DNA strand which was implemented into a viral strain. I code named the virus—” Patrick stopped mid-sentence and took a second to think about how he was to phrase his response.
“I code-named the virus ‘Animalia’, a compound which could be stored as a gelatinous compound, in liquid form, as well as being converted into an aerosol if dispersed through a vaporiser, with the appropriate solvent gas, of course. The reason I was so drawn to what’s on the computer here is that despite never publishing my results or even telling anyone about my research; over the weekend – a team of scientists in New York have begun duplicating my experiment from the late nineties, hoping to cultivate the virus for themselves. I hypothesised that if anyone was infected by the virus, it would allow the pers—”
Dad stopped in the middle of his sentence yet again, and became a tad anxious as if he himself had trouble believing his own words, but after a couple of seconds he continued.
“If anyone was infected with Animalia, I hypothesised that they would have the potential to… to…”
He hesitated for another few seconds, allowing the room to go silent enough to hear the kettle click to signal that the water had boiled; and then sighed before telling me that ‘it didn’t matter’. I grudgingly let the matter go and simply shook my head while returning to the kitchen, muttering ‘whatever’ under my breath as I left.
I turned towards him and queried, “So I take it that’s a ‘no’ on the coffee then?” Patrick merely shrugged and continued staring at the monitor in front of him, as I left to make myself a quick cuppa before I headed off to university.
I had recently turned eighteen, and was a first-year university student studying a degree in Music performance, the piano being my passion. My road to learning piano was a rocky one, but once I performed a seemingly dinky and simple version of ‘Jingle Bells’ as a nine-year old for a few hundred people, I realised that I admired the praise and attention I received, figuring it was something that was worth continuing on with. My reasons for continuing on with piano as a nine-year old was purely because I enjoyed the adoration, but it drove me to excel in it and I eventually pursued it through the rest of primary and high school and now, at the tertiary level. Most of the day that followed was a blur sadly enough, the usual tediousness of being a university student – a number of boring lectures about Musical history from the Renaissance era which really didn’t interest me, hanging out at the café for a couple of hours between and after classes – not to mention being too cheap to buy real coffee; instead drinking the insta-crap freeze-dried that was on offer for fifty cents a cup. Our year group had finished one of our performance classes, and I was having one last drink with my friends before I started to head home for the weekend.
I made my way into our double driveway, parking my car beside my father’s Pajero before stepping into the house and pulling the jumper I had worn all day over my head to the sounds of my father still clicking away on the computer mouse. He’d apparently been home all day, glued to the computer in the same manner that I had found him that morning. I’d never known my dad to ever take the day off work for any reason – especially since he was the Director of a Biological research Centre on the outskirts of Perth. He often worked with the Department of Health, most of the hospitals and universities around Australia, helping to groom the next generation of young minds, eager to study the human body. He himself, spent most of the time with his team researching and developing cures for hereditary & contagious diseases.
Whatever research he had uncovered that morning had to have been seriously compelling, as the only time he’d ever taken off from work was the time he’d caught salmonella poisoning some years ago after eating a not too fresh Chinese dinner. I poked my head into see him, “Hey Dad, did you not go to work today – seems unlike you?” Patrick glared at the computer monitor for a few seconds before breaking his gaze.
“I’m just keeping an eye on their research, and to validate whether they’ve begun the preliminary stages of preparation or whether they have begun to synthesise the proteins that make up the retrovirus. It’s strangely odd that a lot of their findings and initial testing seems all-too similar to the theories and hypotheses I produced fifteen years ago. I actually thought for a second that there was the real possibility that they were stealing my research; which means they’re either smart enough to realise what this virus is capable of given further exploration, or their too stupid to realise what damage it can cause. Either way, I believed it was worth keeping an eye on, frankly because I can – don’t you just love the internet.”
I sighed, mumbling, “I’m beginning to worry about you now”, before perceiving my dad giving me the evil eye out of my peripheral vision as I turned and stepped away from the office, making my way into the living room before throwing my jumper on the grey leather couch, undoing the collar button on my shirt and half-lazily flopping onto the couch in front of the television. I picked up the remote, switching it on before undoing the laces on my shoes and kicking them off to the side. There was little on at the time that interested me as I flicked through the channels; a women’s talk-show, several adverts depicting products I would never buy, and the almost mandatorily scheduled after-school kids’ game shows that always aired around 4pm. However, as I continued to flick through the channels, I heard something that captured my attention.
‘…breaking story from our correspondent in the town of Glasgow, Scotland’.
I gawked in horror as I recognised the building in the background of the bulletin; it was my father’s genetic research facility in Glasgow. He’d built and operated the complex shortly after graduating from the University of Edinburgh, thanks to a reasonably generous grant from the British Government and a plethora of funds from various Military organisations coupled with a few wealthy benefactors. Despite being summer in Scotland, the sky was grey and dismal in the background, while the building continued throwing up clouds of toxic black smoke as the flaming ruins of what previously was a proud and sturdy structure lay in ruin. Three fire-engines were on scene with the last couple of fire-fighters doing what they could to extinguish the lingering flames that were flickering amongst the ruins of the building. In the foreground were several ambulances and police cars trying to contain the scene as on-lookers stared at the dozens of body bags and bloodied corpses being removed from the grounds. I broke the peaceful atmosphere of the living room with a sharp yell.
“DAAAAAAD, COME HERE – QUICK!!!” Patrick leapt off the office chair, and came bounding out of the office curious to see what was happening – panicked and worried.
“Scott, what’s the fuss, what’s the matter?” As he directed his attention to the television, it became clear exactly what was wrong. His face became more petrified at the slightly graphic images shown on the TV screen, and shock as the reporter continued to talk in a thick, Glaswegian accent.
‘A terrifying explosion has ripped through one of Scotland’s most prominent and most advanced scientific research labs in the field of Genetics, the Jensen Genetic Engineering Facility located outside the city limits. The Jensen Genetic Engineering Facility was a key-factor in developing vaccines for the Avian and Swine flu, as well as co-operating recently with international centres to develop a vaccine for the latest strand of the Zika virus. Witnesses watched helplessly in horror as the plant was blown apart by what Police and Bomb Squad members believed to be a gas leak just after nine o’clock this morning. Forty-seven people were killed in the horrific explosion, with two ladies surviving with severe injuries and third-degree burns, and one lucky gentleman Mark Hannah, an employee of Professor Patrick Jensen who has worked at the facility for over fourteen years. He escaped with minor scratches and bruising as he was outside fetching something from his car in the parking lot at the moment of ignition. So far, the police believe that the incident was accidental and have found no signs of foul play in this dreadful and devastating accident. The names of the victims claimed in today’s catastrophe are not being released yet until Police officials have notified the families of those who were tragically taken from us today. This is Nichola Stacy reporting for BBC One.
The anchor-man acknowledged the reporter before continuing onto an unrelated story, prompting me to pick up the remote and switch the TV off. Dad had one arm clutching onto the side of the couch, partially supporting his weight. His eyes were a tad teary and red as I turned to face him, desperately trying to think of something comforting to say but could only resort to generic comments. He slowly slinked over to the dining room chair positioned behind him as I tried to say something to ease the tension.
“I’m… really sorry dad, I don’t know what to say. Is there anything I can do?” A long moment of silence followed, but eventually Patrick brought that to an abrupt end.
“I can’t believe they’re dead… They didn’t deserve this. A gas leak in my plant…? Ooooh, that’s clever – I never saw that one coming”, he sighed as he wiped away a tear. “I don’t believe it, I don’t fucking believe it. No foul play MY ARSE!”
Patrick got up and began pacing around the room; deliberately trying to keep himself calm as his speech became irritated before bellowing, “This was too well timed to be co-incidence, waaay too well timed. I bet you the American Military was behind this attack.”
I was reasonably confused at his reaction, he’d always been someone who managed to keep his composure no matter how dire the situation was, however he was beginning to get fidgety as I attempted to talk some sense into him.
“Oh, come on DAD!” I yelled, interrupting him, “Snap out of it. What do you think this is… the Twilight zone? Some sort of CONSPIRACY THEORY?!? It was a gas leak; it’s tragic, it’s sad, but you can’t seriously believe that someone’s out to get you?”
Patrick stopped pacing and looked me dead in the eyes; his face red and seething, while he started to become considerably hostile, his breathing also becoming a touch exasperated.
“Scott, less than forty-eight hours ago, a team of scientists who were involved with the New York Army – YES, the MILITARY, successfully copied a feat I did fifteen years ago, in manipulating the Genetic coding of the human DNA strand, and in the same forty-eight hours, my complex in Scotland just happens to be destroyed in a gas leak! This isn’t co-incidence – IT’S SABOTAGE!!”
I didn’t know what to say in return, so I inoffensively gaped at him for a few seconds, his face hot with anger. He furiously attempted to process the whole situation as he sat himself down on the dining room chair. He furrowed his brow and asked, “Who was the survivor of the explosion, the man that walked away unscathed?”
It took me a couple of seconds to remember his name, my mind furiously trying to recall what was said on the TV. “Erm… it was Mark… Hamlin, Hannon? No, aaaaah – Hannah, Mark Hannah. What’s he got to do with this?”
Patrick bounced up from the dining room chair and bounded into the office, immediately opening the filing cabinet next to his desk, rifling through the folders before pulling out a whole pile of resumes, and sitting down on his black leather office chair as he began flipping through them. As he sifted through them he began to calm down somewhat.
“That’s because, I hired him shortly before we emigrated. I needed an employee to take up my position at the Facility in Glasgow before we left to come here to Australia.”
He eventually came across Mark Hannah’s resume, scanning through it. As his eyes stopped on one of the pages, he paused and groaned, before forcefully handing me the opened resume as he grumbled, ‘…how the shit did I miss that?”
As I read through the page, under previous employment was the statement:
‘Chief Genetic Microbiologist & Geneticist – FORT DRUM ARMY BASE OF NEW YORK’
I couldn’t do anything but look dumbly at the text, absorbing the implication, and opened my mouth to speak as Patrick leapt out of his office chair and grabbed his car keys off the bar shelf, opposite the office.
“Tell me that Fort Drum was not the institution that recently replicated the research about your virus over the weekend?!?” I stammered.
He focused his sights on me, looked me straight in the eye and responded, “Funnily enough, it was. How’s that for a co-incidence? You think it’s also co-incidence that Mark Hannah was the only person who walked away from the explosion unharmed? He was working for the American Military this whole fucking time.” He paused for a second and gasped deeply, before yelling, “That lousy BASTARD… I COULD MURDER HIM!!!”
As I continued to skim over the resume, Patrick made his way to the front door of the house and for a few seconds, I hadn’t realised what he was doing until his car door slamming shut could be heard outside; having already started the ignition as I reached him in the driveway.
“Where are you going?” I yelled as the engine revved, to which Patrick rolled down the driver-side window.
“An explosion for which I’m certain was deliberately detonated, killed forty-seven colleagues of mine at my Research centre in Scotland; friends and co-workers who I knew personally. I wouldn’t be surprised if they attempted to do the same here in Perth. I gotta warn them about this and evacuate the building”, he huffed as he pulled out his smartphone to call Yvette; my mother who was at this moment working at the Genetics Facility in Perth.
As he began driving speedily down the road towards his Laboratory, I quickly ran inside the house to slip my shoes on as fast as I could, grabbed my keys, locked the house up and attempted to catch up to him in an effort to help in any way I could.
It was a little before 5pm, and the sun was already sitting just directly above the horizon, waiting to set. The roads were chaotic as most people were driving home from work, not towards it. While I had been making my way to the building, my dad had already phoned and alerted my mother about the explosion in Glasgow and asked her to address everyone to explain and authorise the evacuation procedures. He beat me to the Laboratory by only a minute or two; racing inside to help ensure everyone was packing up and exiting the building in an organised, but swift manner. I pulled my car into the parking lot as the first few co-workers were quickly departing, giving me cautious farewells as they left. As I wandered into the centre, the place was filled with a semi-silent air of chaos as people seemed jittery, desperate to get to their desks to grab their personal belongings before evacuating the building.
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It was a small building, the size of a large gymnasium with a contemporary, clean almost sterile look where I could only presume the employees had been working diligently before my mother interrupted them; most of them at their computers, while the others dealt with the chemicals bubbling away in various sized test tubes, next to the chemical centrifuges. All of the facilities bacterial and viral samples had been loaded onto a Cryogenic storage vehicle which would transport the samples to the local University for preservation in the event that dad was right about a potential bomb threat. The walls were encased in a slightly off-white, but tinged with blue large stone tiles, separated by large vertical windows; while the main floor was covered in black seamless Marble flooring. The Main office was raised off the floor and accessible by a small metal staircase on the left hand side; the entrance and windows covered in glass which allowed my father to keep an eye on his employees as well as allowing them to clearly see into his office.
Yvette was already in with Patrick helping him to pack up the office in an effort to get his most critical research papers boxed up. She was several inches shorter than my father, and thinner; her short blonde-brown hair reaching a few inches below her shoulders. The evening sun was beginning to set and from inside the Facility, the tall vertical windows allowed most of the light to cascade inside the building, making her hair seem more bronze in colour than it normally appeared to be. My mother said ‘hello’ and hugged me as I entered the office.
“Seriously”, I commented, “…why are we still inside the building when dads worried it might explode?”
“Sorry son”, he explained as he was hunting through his filing cabinet, “…but we have decades of research notes on various diseases, outbreak patterns; not to mention strains of bacteria, anti-virals, and chemical compounds that need to try and be salvaged. We had the employee’s get as many of them into cryogenic storage before evacuating, as losing that would cost us years of data and research. A lot of my old notes haven’t been digitalised yet, so I’m here to salvage them before something does happen. The Emergency Response unit has already been called, as well as Bomb Disposal. They’ll be here in less than fifteen minutes, so we have till then to save what we can before they inspect this place from top to bottom.”
My mother quickly asked me how I was while she stood there demanding to know if there was anything she could help my father with as he continued to rummage through everything.
“Actually, yes—”, Patrick muttered. “Would you back-up the data on the server, primarily our sensitive data and research on the latest strains of the Zika virus? Start uploading our data to the cloud in case this bomb threat is real, we can’t lose that information.” He handed Yvette a portable, external hard-drive without taking his eyes off the drawers he was rifling through. “Take this as well; make a back-up of everything you can fit onto it, every document, in case the off-site backup doesn’t upload in time.”
Yvette took the hard-drive before making her way down the stairs to the server room. As Dad continued to bundle up years of loose-leaf papers and research documents, I offered my assistance, enquiring if there was anything I could do to help us get out of here quicker. Patrick heartily declared that I could be useful and handed me a Blank Blu-ray disc.
“Actually, yes – I have files on the computer, personal, financial and business files that are too sensitive to keep on the main server; can you make a copy of them while I finish dealing with this. You were here a fortnight ago, helping me and your mother with the administrative work – you know my password, it hasn’t changed since then.”
I slotted the disc into the optical drive before proceeding to burn the files to disc. Whilst I was doing this, Patrick pulled away one of the short wooden bookcases to reveal a hidden safe – one so secret, its existence I had never been privy to.
“Gee – we’re not paranoid, are we dad?” I chuckled, as Patrick began sifting through the combination to open the safe. He opened it up, pulling out a heap of documents, accompanied by dozens of old 3½-inch & 5¼-inch floppy discs; the kind that hadn’t been utilised in the last two decades. The papers looked pale brown in colour; obviously old and tarnished dossiers from his early years which he started piling into one of the document boxes with the other files and binders before the computer alerted me that the data backup had finished burning. I pulled the disc out of the drive, placed it in the jewel case and was about to place it inside the box with the other articles.
Dad stopped me however, “Actually son, put that inside my jacket pocket. Can you ensure the server shuts itself down after the off-site back up is complete?”
I made my way out of the office to the server room down the stairs where my mother had just exited, requesting for her not to lock it. The building was now almost entirely empty and the sound of cars driving out of the parking lot was audible in the background. I entered the server room; a dimly-lit plain coloured static room, filled with aisles and arrays of digital hard drives, and entered the command to shut down the main terminal computer in the middle of the room. The terminal stated that the backup would take eighteen minutes to upload, so I set a command timed to shut the server down in half an hour. I departed the server room, locking the 4-inch steel door behind me with the use of the keypad, before racing up to see if Dad needed further assistance. Upon entering the office, I could see his hands full as he attempted to grasp and carry two large boxes full of manuscripts. Yvette joined me in the office, grabbing one of the boxes off my father as she exclaimed, “I got a few staff members to load up a few crates of papers into the four-wheel since it’s more spacious than my vehicle, so I’ll drive that home and you can take my car, honey; here are my keys”, Yvette said as she palmed them into dad’s hand and commenced hauling the last couple of boxes to his car, leaving Patrick and I remaining in the office, and the last occupants in the building.
“Hey dad, are we all good here? I think it’s best to say the sooner we get out of here, the better!”
Patrick had calmed down considerably, relatively less stressed and flustered about the whole situation. He gently turned to me as he adjusted his grip on the box he was left holding and uttered, “So you no longer think I’m paranoid, do you? Yeah – I’m ready son. I think I’ve got everything; the Bomb disposal unit will be here in five minutes. I just need to grab my coat and I’ll be out of here. I’ll see you in the parking lot in a jiffy.”
I left the office and serenely walked through the building, past the empty desks and workstations, through the main entrance outside to my car. Yvette had just driven out of the parking lot in my Patricks white four-wheel drive, while my solitary grey sedan sat in the parking lot along with the blue hatchback belonging to my mother parked only a few spots from mine. As I fumbled through my pockets to find the car keys – using them to unlock the door and sat down in the driver’s seat, I paused muttering to myself softly, ‘I guess I got worried for nothing’, before proceeding to put the key into the ignition.
I had barely finished that sentence when a tremendous boom roared through the air and my car windows shattered from the shockwave of the explosion, which tore through the Facility. The explosion was so sudden and fierce that it knocked me forward, causing my head to bash against the steering wheel in front of me as the car jolted slightly. As I recoiled from the pain, I managed to open the door and stumble out of the car a little woozily; the explosion had been loud enough to cause a small amount of damage to my ears, and a prevalent ringing caused me further angst as I attempted to regain my focus – fixating my attention back to my father’s Genetics Laboratory behind me. Parts of the walls had been completely blown away from the building, and almost every window was shattered, cracked or blown out completely. Chunks of concrete were lying on the ground as a huge plume of smoke generated by the explosion rose into the air. In a panic, I raced urgently into the building hoping to find my dad still alive.
As I entered, the building was mostly charred and in a state of complete bedlam – computers and monitors completely blown apart, filing cabinets and desks thrown metres from where they stood a minute ago. The place looked unrecognisable after the explosion and small flames from burning research papers were gently wafting through the air, gently descending to the floor amongst what was left standing. The concrete roofing has been weakened in the explosion and only portions of it were still intact. As I attempted to cross the building to get to where my father remained who was lying in pain and groaning at the top of his office, I heard a huge crumbling sound above my head. I quickly glanced upwards to see a huge chunk of concrete and cement slabs beginning to fall to the ground, forcing me to quickly duck underneath one of the thick steel laboratory desks to avoid being crushed by the debris. After it collided with the desk and crumbled; narrowly missing me, I made my way towards the stairs to the office, which was still fairly structurally intact; apart from the bottom couple of steps which were somewhat askew and the railing had been slightly mangled by the force of the explosion.
As I reached the top, I could see my dad lying in a small pool of blood halfway between his office and the stairway entrance, where the glass pane used to be. The window had shattered during detonation causing Patrick to have fallen backwards from the shockwave onto the mini shards of broken glass that still lay in the frame, thrusting into his lower back. I checked to see if he was still conscious…
“DAD! GEEZ, are you ok? Talk to me for fucks sake!” I yelled, holding his hand to re-assure that he wasn’t alone. I pulled out my mobile phone with my left hand and began dialling emergency services, while I kept my right hand tightly gripped around my father’s lightly-bloodied hand. He was desperately trying to breathe steadily, but gradually losing blood as he laid there, half-conscious. As I gave our location to Emergency services and asked for the Ambulance & Police to respond, Yvette had begun to make her way through the entrance, her yelling and screams cutting through the slow creaks and various noises from the aftermath of the explosion as she raced towards my father and I. When she reached the top of the steps, she diverted into the office to grab one of the pillows and a couple of the towels that had remained lying intact on the sofa. She returned and propped his head up gently, while trying to position the towels underneath his back as gently as she could to put a little pressure on his back and slow down the bleeding, while talking to him in an effort to keep him alert. My hearing started to return slightly and the high-pitched ringing in my ears had decrescendoed to an acceptable level that it wasn’t inhibiting my aural abilities. We both helplessly knelt by his side hoping that the ambulance would arrive quickly, but as I thought the worst of it was over, another smaller explosion came from the parking lot outside.
As I turned my head, I see through the haze to the front entrance, only to glance upon my mother’s car, wrecked completely from the device that had detonated underneath it. I gently let go of my Dad’s hand and walked to the bent guardrail.
“I don’t think we’re alone—“, I muttered, as I began to panic. My heart started racing and my thinking became tensely erratic as I watched my mother’s car continue to billow out plumes of black smoke.
Patrick was gasping in pain and having trouble breathing but he mustered enough energy to utter the words, “Gun… bottom shelf… 1-9-5-8.”
I gasped in shock, stunned that he had possession of a weapon hidden in his office. I gawked at my mother for a second, to which she timidly glanced at me in the same appalled manner yelling, “I wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with the damn thing, you’ve played a hell of a lot of those violent video games – you’ve been to the gun range before; you’d have a higher level of proficiency with it than I would. I’ll stay here with your father.”
“I’ve been to the shooting complex twice… ever, and the first time was just because it was a Christmas present”, I cautioned before I immediately raced into Patricks office, pulled away the leather chair and began pawing around the drawers of his desk, finding a lockbox in the bottom shelf of the drawers and entered the code. Inside was a rich crimson velvet-lining which cradled a semi-automatic Glock pistol – with the magazine already loaded, including a spare clip. As I pulled it out and placed my hands around the butt of the weapon, I felt a shiver as the hefty-weighted weapon helped symbolise the heaviness of the situation we were in. I nervously gawked at it for a few seconds and attempted to study it, before disabling the safety. I pulled back the barrel clumsily, loading the first bullet into the chamber which let off a surreal but iconic, albeit clichéd ‘click’ sound all too similar with the action movies I had watched growing up. The barrel sprang into position as I let go, and I pocketed the spare clip, clambering down the stairs, taking cover behind a slightly battered desk and aimed at the main entrance; my hands trembling and sweaty. Through the settling smoke and dust, entered a shadowy figure – a Caucasian man wearing an army uniform, six-foot tall, with short, dark hair hidden under his army hat. He was of a thin but muscular build and had a side-arm in its holster, with his right-hand clenched tightly around it; and a sheathed hunting knife was also visible on the outside of his uniform. As he got closer, I could clearly see his face and yelled, catching him off guard…
“FREEZE!!!”
The Lieutenant reacted, shocked and surprised; his hand twitched in an attempt to grab hold of his sidearm as I stood up and commented, “Don’t even bloody well think about it!”
I had the barrel of the Glock aimed clearly towards him and he knew I had him in my sights, my hands trembling moderately as I moved from behind the desk and inched closer towards him. It had been a while since I last held a pistol, so the pressure on me to keep calm in such a tense situation was genuinely intimidating. He wasn’t aware however that I wasn’t confident with firing weapons, but I was hoping to bluff it as long as I could. Keeping my eyes solely focused on him, I neglected to take heed of the rubble lying on the floor and my footing slipped, causing me to stumble on a broken slab, barely managing to regain my aim on him as he again tried to pull out his side-arm. I was about to ask him to slowly unholster his weapon and to throw it away, however I didn’t want his hand going anywhere near that pistol. I didn’t have enough confidence in myself to pull the trigger in time if he did attempt to equip and aim it at me.
“Who are you and who do you work for?” I roared, my voice barely echoing against what remained of most of the structural walls. The Lieutenant was frustrated about being on the wrong end of the barrel, and glowered at me – fuming with reluctance and refusing to answer. For a few seconds the atmosphere was silent except for the creaking plaster and the almost inaudible wisps of smouldering papers, but I interrupted that by aiming the weapon downwards, pulling the trigger and firing a shot. I shuddered and tensed up as the exploding gunpowder that propelled from the barrel, was complemented by a sound of the bullet being blasted violently into the ground; catching me off guard. It had been a number of months since I had last fired a weapon, and the sound was quite deafening due to the absence of proper ear protection. The bullet dug into the concrete floor several inches in front of his feet – unbeknown to him, a lucky shot from me as I never expected the projectile to have hit quite that accurately. He glared down, noticing how precise the shot was; his face noticeably more anxious as he looked me square in the eyes – I had his attention now.
As he stood there stunned, I attempted to intimidate him, threatening, “Drop the sidearm, or the next shot will be in your kneecap if you don’t start talking.”
The Lieutenant apathetically unfastened the gun holster from his belt as I tensely began to squeeze the gun trigger in fear he was trying to take a shot at me, however as he threw the weapon off to his right, I relaxed while he reluctantly commenced talking in a big thick, unmistakable New York accent.
“Lieutenant Mark Hamilton, Soldier of the United States Army – New York Division.”
I started making my way closer towards him, desperate to press him for further information. “Who do you report to, and why are you here?”
I kept glancing down every from time to time to ensure I wouldn’t trip over more debris, afraid that stumbling would finally give him the opportunity to collect his gun, draw his weapon and finally take his shot at me. The Lieutenant continued to talk.
“The operation was authorised by Colonel Alan Corrigan. We had an informant working at the Facility in Glasgow who over the years had been leaking Patrick’s research to our research team and Colonel in New York. He made the discovery about your father’s retrovirus and smuggled it to our geneticists in New York a few days ago. My goal was to ensure no one left here alive, including yourself and your parents after both explosive devices failed to detonate at the same time.”
I hesitated for a second, after hearing the word ‘virus’ and eventually muttered the words hesitantly, “…what virus?”
I remember seeing his mouth open as he spoke, as if it was in slow motion – his lips opening even though I already suspected what his answer was.
“The virus code-named Animalia” the soldier declared.
The weapon continued to tremble in my hands as I suddenly realised that everything my father had said was actually fucking true. In shock, I took my eyes off the Lieutenant for a second, shocked at everything I had heard. As I did so, he attempted to side-step to his right in an effort to get close enough to pick up his side-arm. As he neared it and stretched out to grab the weapon, he said “I think you’ve heard enough.”
As he said it though, my eyes quickly fixated back to the Lieutenant who had managed to grasp his pistol. I came to the sudden realisation that it was kill or be killed and as I still had the Glock pointed towards him, I gasped in panic and impulsively pulling the trigger. I fired the first shot into his right shoulder, where the bullet ripped through his flesh and forced him to drop the weapon. As he recoiled in pain, I tensed up a tad – shocked and worried that I had injured him, but this quickly vanished when he looked up at me; his eyes full of loathing and aggression – forcing me to pull the trigger for a second time closing my eyes as I did so in fear for my life. The shot rang for a second in the empty building, followed by the sound of the empty shell casing bouncing on the cracked marble floor. As I opened my eyes, I could see he was holding his arm which was bleeding profusely, but his head was tilted ever so slightly to the left, and on the chunk of wall standing behind him, was the bullet hole; the projectile missing his head by less than an inch. He straightened his view before I attempted to shoot him again, yet each time I fired, he narrowly dodged the shots as if he was capable of anticipating the gun being fired – his lightning quick reflexes allowing him to dodge the incoming projectiles as he advanced towards me.
It wasn’t long before I had emptied the entire clip, only realising after hearing the firing pin ‘click’ against the non-existent bullet in the barrel. I panicked and attempted to pull the spare clip out of my left pocket and load it into the gun, but I couldn’t pull the barrel back to load the first bullet into the chamber before the soldier wrapped his left hand around my neck. I writhed as he started choking me with an iron grip; I remember flailing, frantically trying to prime the weapon before I passed out, which occurred quicker than I expected based on how fast my vision began to blur and darken. As I struggled pointlessly, the barrel of the Glock clicked against the desk behind me allowing the first bullet to chamber. With whatever strength I had left, I blindly pressed the weapon to the soldiers’ abdomen as swiftly as I could. A look of surprise could be seen momentarily on his face as he felt something press against him but before he could look down, a solitary ‘bang’ rung through the building as I pulled the trigger.
The Lieutenants face reacted as the bullet ripped through his flesh, causing his hand to lose its grip from around my neck while his face became red and sweaty and he began losing his balance. I half-collapsed against the desk behind me, coughing and spluttering, desperate to regain my breath after being almost asphyxiated. I slumped gently against the desk behind me but promptly picked myself up as he attempted to grab onto a nearby object, however he didn’t find one within close proximity and fell to the ground in agony against the boulders and blocks of rubble strewn across the floor. He lay there wheezing as he suspected his life was coming to an abrupt end; his blood pooling on the floor beside him – much like my father’s, except he was losing his far quicker.
It took a couple of seconds for me to come to grips with what I had done – I was a murderer; I had slain a man, another human being – regardless of his intent to execute us. I had crossed a line I never believed I would ever violate, but in the battle to fight for my life – I struggled to justify to myself that what I had done was necessary in order to live. I eventually gained a steadier breathing pattern before gently lowering my head and looked the soldier coldly in his eyes as he passively lay there, bleeding and gasping for life. I needed to get as much information as I could before it was too late.
“Tell me the name of the informant who was passing my father’s research over to your superiors in America. TELL ME NOW”, I yelled, impatiently.
He tried urgently to take in breath but was finding inhalation increasingly difficult. He finally managed to splutter out the words, “Please… make… the pain—“ He coughed deeply enough that his body partially spasmed before coughing up the last word in the sentence “…stop.”
I was still shocked and regretfully upset over the circumstances, however shaken up and anxious to find out everything I could, yelling in desperation, “The NAME!”
His last words were somewhat stammered due to his wound and the internal bleeding he sustained but he blurted, “The informants… name… was Mark… Ha… Han…… Hannah! Please—“
I gazed into his eyes one last time, knowing that he wanted me to end his suffering. I felt flushed and my hands started to shake considerably as I continued to aim the weapon at his head, while my eyes became teary, overburdened by what I was about to do. After a few seconds though, I realised I didn’t have the heart to do it; self-preservation was the natural response and shooting him to save myself was necessary, but knowing he was no longer a threat, and executing an unarmed man was something I couldn’t live with. I ejected the clip from the gun and pulled the slide backwards – allowing the unfired bullet to spring out and drop to the floor as I propped myself against one of the desks remaining on the ground, trying to purge the adrenaline that was still flowing through my body.
It was at this point that the paramedics could be heard arriving on the scene as their vehicle screeched to a halt on the gravel parking lot outside. I could hear the first of them yelling out ‘Holy hell, what happened here? Tony, get the stretcher’, as he burst through the entrance to the facility. The Lieutenants breathing quickly became stammered, then infrequent before eventually ceasing altogether. Both medics immediately saw Yvette calling for their attention as they entered the facility and could see Patrick beside her as they made their way up the stairs; he was unconscious and his breathing was sporadic as they put him on the stretcher, and Yvette followed the paramedics as they loaded him into the ambulance. On the way down from the office, one of them noticed the Lieutenant lying on the floor, but it was clear to them that they were too late to save him as they checked his pulse… or lack of it by that stage. Getting my father immediate medical help was now their sole priority and I told my mother to go with him in the ambulance and that I would meet them both at the hospital.
I remember the slow drive there… my mind only partially conscious about what was happening on the road and the other half thinking of every possible outcome of Dad’s situation; did he lose too much blood to save; did any of the glass shards puncture a vital organ; did he flat-line in the ambulance on the way to the hospital? The ambiguity of not knowing how his current condition terrified me and consumed my every thought but I desperately tried to put those notions out of my head, hoping for a positive diagnosis as I pulled into the hospital parking lot.
I vaguely remember the inside of the hospital – the beeps of the heart machines, doctors being alerted over the PA every thirty-or-so seconds, and the distant crying of a patients relative could be heard down the halls. I stood outside the room and watched as Yvette rested next to Patrick’s hospital bed after he had come out of surgery, her eyes closed and her breathing slow. He was lying there asleep, with the surgical liquid drip moderating his fluid intake levels and the morphine drip plugged into his left arm, as well as various sensors and wires checking his vitals and monitoring his health. His heart rate was maintaining a slow, but steady fifty-eight beats a minute.
As I kept thinking positively about my father’s recovery, I began reminiscing about memories of him and I together. I remember doing my science homework when I was eleven, sitting by the dinner table and using it to complete my homework with dad on the other side checking my answers as I worked them out. His jet black hair was thicker and he hadn’t opted for the whole moustache and bearded look back then, but as he sat there watching me, he chuckled for a second.
“What’s so funny dad?” I questioned, as he continued to stare at the pens and pencils lying next to my science books.
“How fast would you say that pen is moving, Scott?” He postulated. I glanced at the spare pen next to my textbook, somewhat confused by the question as I turned to him replying, “Erm… I’d say, zero, nothing, it’s stationary.”
My father grinned ever so slightly and exclaimed, “That pen is actually travelling at almost thirty kilometres a second”, and with that, he simply leant back on his chair, content with his answer as a look of puzzlement washed over my face at the statement.
I looked at him seriously and claimed, “WHAT?!? Are you kidding me? It’s just sitting there not doing a damn thing, it’s not moving.”
He boasted “Oh it’s moving incredibly fast… think about it for a second.”
Still stunned by the answer, I pondered over the statement for a few seconds, and eventually realised why. I eventually smirked and replied, “Good one – I’m travelling at thirty kilometres a second as well, aren’t I?”
“Of course”, he said, grinning from ear to ear. “That lamp is traveling at thirty kilometres a second, same with this beer I’m holding. I’m doing the same. Everything on this planet is travelling at approximately the same speed. To understand the ideologies of science, you need to look at things in the bigger context; view it from a different perspective.”
Without realising, I had dozed off by the waiting room chairs. My glasses had slid off my face and onto the floor below me, when a female surgeon came to wake me up by gently tapping on my shoulder. I flinched for a second at being woken, opened my eyes while I fumbled around on the floor to pick up and put on my glasses before propping myself up on the chair. Due to my grogginess, I mumbled the words, “What’s his condition, how’s he holding up?” in my still-bleary state of mind.
The Surgeon put her left hand on my shoulder to comfort me. “He lost a lot of blood; however none of the glass shards punctured any vital organs. We’ve closed the wound and he’ll have to take it easy for a few weeks, but he should be fine. You can go in and visit him now, but he may be quite groggy from the morphine we’ve had to administer in order to dull the pain.”
I was ecstatic about the positive diagnosis and let out a sigh of relief before thanking her, and quietly but unobtrusively made my way into Dad’s recovery room. As I entered, I could hear the slow beeping from the heart monitor as it pulsed with every beat my Dad’s heart made, while Yvette continued to snooze at the foot of his hospital bed. Patrick gently woke up in a weakened state, but conscious enough to recognise me as I snuck into the room. He managed to open his mouth and mutter in a debilitated and partially incapacitated state “Hey son… How you… doing? Did everyone… manage to get out of… the building okay???”
I whispered softly to him, “Yeah Dad, everyone got out okay, everyone except for you, heh heh.” I chuckled in a joking manner, to which Patrick grinned heartily before wheezing lightly, but he soon calmed down and smiled back. I walked up beside him and gently held his hand, to which he in return squeezed lightly to let me know that he was still feeling strong, at least mentally. He took a rather long breath in and closed his eyes gently as I finally gathered up the courage to say, “You were right.” Patrick’s eyes attentively shot open at this point and he stared at me for a second. I nodded my head to confirm that we were both thinking of the same matter.
“After the blast, someone had come to ensure that we… didn’t leave there alive”, I worryingly spluttered. “I finally got a few answers from him, before having to…“
I still felt a wave of guilt about my encounter with the soldier earlier on, but felt strongly convinced that it was the only course of action, “...before having to defend myself. What type of shit did you get us involved in?” I fumed.
Patrick struggled to lift his hand initially but mustered the strength to point to the coat he had been wearing during the explosion, which now hung on the garment rack, covered in his blood. He whispered in a soft, but relatively staggered manner, “You’ll find… the disc in my… left inside pocket. Try searching for the term… Animalia… which will give you… a few answers—“
He went quiet for a second and ceased talking, forcing me to glance at the heart monitor in a slight panic, only to relax as Patrick snored softly. I gently let go of his hand and walked over to the jacket, reaching into the left inside pocket to pull out the Blu-ray disc which was slightly damp and sticky from my father’s blood. I grabbed a moist towelette from the tray of supplies next to the jacket to clean the disc cover and my fingers, before exiting the hospital room.
It was after midnight when I got home, and I immediately made my way to the computer dad had been sitting at barely a few hours earlier. The house was completely dark, and the single source of light being emitted at the time was from the computer monitor which cast my silhouette against the curtains, similar to how I had found my father that very morning. I typed in the word ‘Animalia’ and started reading through various files that come up through the search function.