The Radical (Unity Vol.1) (23 page)

He caught his breath, clutching his throat and chest,
‘We got the feeling that the locals knew of some terror hiding in those mountains and were afraid that we’d caught it and would pass it on to them. However, for the two guides not to have been struck down like we were, they must have had some sort of immunity. I honestly don’t know how I’ve gotten through the past few days. I’m sure I’ve suffered palpitations and my mind has been so troubled I’ve been hallucinating, waking up in pools of sweat, having to talk myself into trying to beat whatever it is we’ve been plagued with. I feel like my skin is hanging off me, having had no appetite. It must still be well over 100 degrees out there and yet sometimes I feel as though I could have easily been in Siberia one minute, and the Attacama desert the next. I’ve often felt as if some virulent creature has been gnawing away at my bones and tissue. My lungs have strained to take in oxygen and even my eyesight seems to have suffered. The worst off of us all was Ed. With all the trips to the toilet, he suffered extreme dehydration and passed out a few times. Harley was so weak he couldn’t even lift himself out of bed but had to keep trying to keep liquids down. It seems we are recovering slightly now, God help us.’

He
fell back onto his camp bed and into a violent coughing fit before the video cut out.

*

‘Hi, Tom Bradbury here… probably for the last time. It’s very important I record all my findings in New Guinea, so here goes…

‘It’s now December 13
th and I’ve been stuck on this island for more than a month, despite only intending to stay here for a couple of days or so. My colleagues and I had to prop each other up as we battled the life-threatening illnesses we each came down the mountain with. We struggled to open tins of food and drinking water was painful. Between the insect bites, dehydration and hunger, each of us nearly gave up and died in that jungle. There was no help whatsoever and it was only two days ago that we felt strong enough again to pack up the camp and venture back into civilization. Even then, the journey was tiring and the relentless rain drove us to despair almost. We somehow made it back to Jayapura yesterday after hitching a lift on the back of a wagon. We’ve checked into a hotel and we all feel much better thanks to some hot food, warm beds and a bath.

‘If we weren’t all fit and healthy, I’m sure we would
have died out there of whatever it was that struck us down. The fact we survived in those conditions is testament enough, but overcoming infection too, that was not easy. I still don’t feel myself and I’m not sure I ever will. I feel as though something has eaten away at my very core and I will never be the same again. Out here, all I could keep thinking about was my first love, Eve Maddon. She was a beautiful, red-headed creature with a figure to die for. The memory of her has haunted me for years. I always regretted us breaking up and now I realize I still love her, I’m going to find her when I get back. Life is so precious and I never realized it until now.

‘
We’ve still got the samples we took from the bird, along with a few images, and we will be flying back to the UK tomorrow. I’m sure there will be a lot of questions to answer and a lot more to ask ourselves. Whatever this thing that struck us down was, it was a force of nature unlike anything anyone has ever seen the like of before. Wish me luck getting back to some sort of normal life. Goodbye.’             

I
passed the xGen back to Mara and shook my hands out to try to rid myself of the shock I felt. Tom and Eve’s wasn’t just a love story, it was something else.

‘I t
hink I know what this means, but I want you to tell us in your own words, every detail. Leave nothing out. It is now or never.’

I stared into her eyes to show my cousin the depth of my own internal battle. Mara
’s eyes softened and she rose to take the floor, letting Ryken take the seat beside me as we awaited her version. He grasped my hand and I felt him shaking. This was enormous for him, too.

2023 and why it really happened…

‘My father went to New Guinea on that expedition when they were still finding all kinds of new species out there, having been previously unable to tackle the treacherous and uninhabitable environment. When he returned to England after that trip, he took some time off and found Mum again. They married quickly and had me not so long afterward. His near-death experience made him realize what he really wanted out of life.

‘He took a job at
Durham University and used to travel up there for work three days a week. When he would come back after that time away, I’d always be sent off with some babysitter or other, leaving Mum and Dad to have their alone time together. They couldn’t be without each other, you see, they were so passionate, so in love. I realized that from a very early age and it both bewildered me and left me in awe of their bond. They both worked very hard at their marriage. Mum was from a broken home, and Dad, well, he had survived against all the odds. They knew what was important. I think if Mum hadn’t suffered complications during my birth, they would have had several more children!’

Mara smiled and I saw such love emanate from her. Her coolness, and that mischief, she had gotten from Eve. The two hadn
’t fought in broad daylight or on the streets because they’d had so much happiness to protect. Something, so simple, had always eluded me.

‘He tried to forget his experience in
New Guinea but there were always people emailing or phoning – wanting to question him about the infection he had suffered. He and his colleagues didn’t want to dwell on it and indeed each of them was determined not to talk about what they had been through. They wanted to get on with their lives and leave it all behind.

‘
Tests carried out on the bird’s samples didn’t reveal much, except its genetic make-up did seem to suggest an immune system beyond comprehension. Having suffered so terribly at the hands of the disease, neither Dad nor his colleagues wanted to contemplate any further research. Having nearly met death, they simply wanted to ignore its existence and hopefully protect humanity by not revealing the extent of their struggle.

‘In 2022, a British team brought back one of those rare birds from the
Foja Mountains. You might have heard it mentioned – the “Poison Fowl” or “Devil Fowl”.

‘Anyway, specialists at a secretive laboratory somewhere in
Manchester were carrying out research on the creature when a lot of the nearby chicken and turkey farms were overrun with sick animals. Obviously those scientists did not contain the bird and its deadly virus as well as they thought they had. Either that, or it was purposely released. It was around March 2023 when hundreds of thousands of fowl all over the country were culled out of a fear that quickly spread across the rest of the world. This greatly devastated the food chain. Between the spring of that year and the winter, the flu had time to develop and mutate. It soon became so pathogenic that it was easily passed from person to person, and as if overnight, billions of people were struck down.

‘Mum and Dad were holed up with me at the shop at the time. He instantly knew what was going on and we hid indoors, only going outside if absolutely necessary. When Dad heard one of his
Durham colleagues who lived in York had been struck down with the disease, he left us and went to nurse him. He knew he would certainly have some immunity having had it before, and didn’t worry about suffering from the mutated strain so much. His colleague Stephan had an underlying heart condition, and even though he was only in his forties like Dad, he succumbed to the disease and died. Dad returned home to Mum after Stephan’s death, leaving the body in the man’s house, unable to do anything with it because of the overrun hospitals and funeral homes. Stephan was an eternal bachelor and had no family.

‘Anyway,
while Dad was away nursing his friend, some men visited the bridal shop looking for him. They were dreadful looking and aroused Mum’s suspicions straight away. She sent them packing with a story about Dad having gone missing on hearing about the flu. Dad was terrified when he heard and phoned his former colleagues, Harley and Simpson, but was unable to get hold of them. Then it broke on the news that the two men had both been shot dead… probably because they posed a threat, knowing what they did. Officium were intent on taking full control and needed to clear a path for them to be able to do so. That meant ridding themselves of blame and any leads back to the source…

‘
Mum and Dad had Stephan’s body and they passed it off as Dad’s. In the chaos of the flu, nobody had the time to question whether it was Dad or not, and that kept the emissaries of Officium at bay. Yes… even back then Officium were scrambling their security forces. The fear of a pandemic brought so many into the fold because Officium promised to guard against any future outbreaks. Yet in truth, they were medical men gone mad. The idea that they let the virus loose is now a suspicion universally spoken. Yet, in a time of utter despair, Officium appeared the saviors, a rule to straighten out the chaos.

‘
Instead of leaving the disease to rest out there in the jungle, they couldn’t resist bringing it back to the UK for testing. Whether intentionally or not, they enabled it to spread across the globe, seemingly with ease. The population explosion of 2022 may have helped its spread.

‘Dad as good as died in Officium’s eyes, saving him from interrogation, or worse yet, certain death. But it meant the loss of our lives as we knew it. I went with my father to live in that cottage in
Stratford – the real Stephan’s holiday home. My parents decided I would be safer there than at the shop. Though she had declared Dad dead, people followed Mum’s movements for months after that, until they finally gave up and left her alone – convinced she knew nothing and wasn’t a threat. Once things had calmed down, she used to visit us at weekends, and whenever she could, but we always knew we had to maintain a cloak of secrecy. It was difficult, but we felt lucky to still be alive, to have survived such a traumatic event. So many people died during 2023, that nobody asked Mum what had happened to me and Dad. They just assumed we’d passed away like so many others and she adopted the guise of a singleton. I was schooled at home by Dad, and Mum threw herself into her work at the shop. We all took on new identities.

‘I studied medicine at King’s College before pursuing a PhD in virology at
Manchester University, sure that was my calling. I saw what it did to my father having to hide for all those years and I knew I had a responsibility to get to the truth. He grew a beard and long hair, but even then, he feared for his life whenever he walked out on to the street. Mum saw the change in him too and it devastated us both to see it. Before that, he was such a jolly kind of person, laughing and telling jokes, always playful and chatty.

‘Being the daughter of Tom Bradbury, I had some insider knowledge of the virus
that attacked humanity in 2023 and I used that to my advantage. I gathered people about me and made headway into viral research, but it was so difficult to achieve anything. Officium were very careful to remove all trace of their own research, and if the virus didn’t kill its victim, all it did was neutralize so there was nothing to work with… no remnants of immunity. The organization tried to recruit me but I refused a number of times, knowing I’d be risking Mum. The swines were calculating enough to take my name for their own gain when I too was forced into hiding after Dad’s death. They were desperate to keep their secret hidden and even more anxious to keep the world trapped beneath a blanket of fear – seeing to it that anyone who came close to investigating that particular strain was dealt with.

‘Now, you may be asking, how does
the shop tie in with all this? I guess when Mum and Dad married, they hadn’t expected the business to take off as it did. It seemed Mum’s decision to do something unheard of earned her a reputation that got people flocking to her doors. I remember being very little and often waking up in the middle of the night to find Mum sat in a corner on a chair, having fallen asleep over some creation or other she’d been working on. She was so dedicated and she used to tell me it was because marriage had saved her and given her so much, that she felt an overwhelming desire to help other people achieve that. She wasn’t a romantic, no, she wasn’t a romantic at all. She saw the practical benefits of partnership and love, of security and solidity.

‘Mum
built up so many acquaintances through her work at the shop that she saw an opportunity to quietly make enquiries about Officium. So many felt, as we did, that the new way of the world was corrupt and that something had to be done to bring the truth to the fore and reassure others that they need not live in fear. Trying to prove Officium’s culpability always seemed impossible. The bastards used the aftermath to their advantage, despite knowing they would arouse suspicion in anyone who knew about their secretive laboratories across the world. Taking over surveillance, intelligence services, even food and clothing chains, the world was at their mercy, and Officium did whatever it took to hide their part in the catastrophe. I guess it is true what they say about hiding something in plain sight.

‘
UNITY had to operate in absolute secrecy to prevent Officium finding out about its existence. We’re only one of many resistance groups, but I suppose the success of ours was down to Mum’s curious profession. They never suspected her because she was a simple spinster as far as they were concerned, and I think you’ll agree she carried off the ruse quite well.

‘We all undertook courses and training to
maximize our skills for the benefit of the cause. Mum’s ultimate skill was literally as a weaver of webs, a networker. She brought people together in the correct way, and was able to see what skills they could bring, as well as how they could be used. But our work has been a constant waiting game, a test of faith requiring extreme patience, a task we knew would only be accomplished if we could realize how to operate within the realms of seeming impossibility. It is only in recent years that Mum allowed her codename to be leaked, to instill an element of fear into their ranks following Dad’s death.

‘In the early years s
he spread the word amongst her customers that a resistance group existed trying to change things and they would be sent on their way with contact details if they wanted to join. They never knew it was her running the show. Only if they proved their worth would they get to meet her. With Camille’s help, they expanded the building and set up a surveillance team beneath the shop. So many people offered donations to the cause, but she and Dad were so careful with money over the years. They invested in renewable energies – ironically the commodity that Officium are so desperate to make headway in.

‘
She constantly battled to protect him, but nobody could stop the evil bastards killing my father in broad daylight, all because Officium found out the Plaza was a known meeting place of UNITY. They spotted him leaving the hotel and most probably killed him because of his connection to me… and they wanted me to fear them. The same happened to your parents, Seraph… they were spotted and paid with their lives. They were UNITY too. Eve learned that someone had betrayed the cause and she sent Camille after them. The
Principal
killed the man with one fatal blow. She spared no mercy for the person who betrayed both your parents and my father, the most brilliant man I’ve ever known.’

While Mara
collapsed into a chair and looked down at her lap in silence, Ryken lifted up the armrest that was separating us and pulled me toward him. He held me tight like I might crumble but if either of them were expecting me to cry, they would be waiting a while. I felt free. I knew the truth. I still had an inordinate amount of questions and a black hole in my head, plus a numbness I didn’t ever think I would be rid of, but I realized my efforts had never been in vain.

He kissed the side of
my head repeatedly and I pulled away from him to find out his game. Then I saw the look of fear in his eyes. I looked at Mara and saw her foreboding countenance too.

‘What is it? Why are you two l
ooking at each other like that? Tell me!’

He remained silent while
Mara appeared uncomfortable, as if she were plucking up the courage to say whatever it was she still had to impart.

‘Seraph, this won’t be easy
for you…’ she paused. Time stood still. My heart pounded so hard I saw spots. I felt the rush of blood like a volcano erupting in my chest. I willed her to tell me and she muttered guiltily, ‘Ryken was an emissary. They didn’t sack him, he just got another job…’

Her subsequent words evaded my senses. I heard echoes once more, bits and pieces
of lies and truths all driving me out of my wits, nothing lucid or meaningful.