Antibodies 12

© Copyright BG Taff

Characters.
Verna Spiro Type one Virus
Nana Bev, Interplanetary prospector.
Jamie, Bev’s younger prospecting Partner.
Dennis Potter Freight manager and old friend of Beverly’s.
Jack Godfrey Yard foreman and walking boss.
Charlotte and Lucy - Jamie’s younger dancing & clubbing friends.
Rose and Violet. Cis-girl friends of Jamie.
Dr Williams Virologist
Jennifer Jamie’s girlfriend. (Sleeping partner.)

Chapter 12

As we stepped into the gloomy atrium Jamie grimaced as she sniffed theatrically.

“I can smell high security at a parsec.”

I smiled at her turn of phrase but she was right. The doors were heavy duty, the windows were small and the lighting was embedded behind thick glass panels. The police inspector nodded confirmation then explained.

“Lots of research goes into infectious diseases in this block. The Verna Spiro research is down through door ten.”

Even as she explained door number ten hissed softly and Doctor Williams emerged with a small group of colleagues. They were not wearing their bio-suit helmets which told me they were obviously beneficiaries of my or Jamie’s blood.

Jamie and I had kept our helmets on pretending to be ‘people at risk’ while in reality it was to avoid being recognised more than necessary.

Further to this, we had left our visor shades active to darken our faces.
Doctor Williams looked askance at our total ensuitment.

“There’s no need for biosecurity in here ladies. You can remove your bio-helmets.”

“We’d rather keep them on Doctor, until we can speak with you alone.”

“Why?”

“The less people who recognise us, the safer we are.” Jamie replied.

Dr Williams digested this and reluctantly conceded our argument.

“Very well ladies, anonymous you shall remain. Are those your normal voices or have you distorted them electronically?”

“They’re mildly distorted,” I confirmed, “but easily understood.”

“Yes indeed.” She agreed. “Would you accompany us to the conference room please?”

“You’d better take these first,” Jamie offered as she handed over our latest offerings of fresh blood taken only a couple of hours earlier that morning.”

“Oh thank you! And so fresh, we get better results if the blood’s fresh.”

Neither Jamie nor I chose to comment about the doctor’s implicit criticism about tardy blood samples and reduced potency. The doctor fully understood our dilemma. Instead we accepted the chairs around the conference table and started to hammer out the details of our continuing co-operation based on the deteriorating security situation.

We learned that several countries had already succumbed to the virus and death rates were virtually de-populating those countries. They had pandered to the ‘unbelievers’ and allowed such protesters to avoid the lock down. They were now paying the price.

The UK had tried to nip the deteriorations in the bud by supplying some precious supplies of our bloods but corruption and incompetence had immediately led to the wrong people gaining benefits. Their political leaders and military henchmen had grabbed the blood donations for themselves so our government labs had immediately curtailed supplies.

The consequence of this was that borders had closed planetwide and all international travel was banned. Things were really serious and getting worse by the day. The only good news was that the volunteers were beginning to show the necessary antibodies. The bad news of course was that there were only six hundred volunteers instead of the aspired to one thousand UN volunteers and three hundred of my country’s volunteers. So six hundred instead of thirteen hundred. Thanks to Islamist fundamentalist kidnappers.

Number crunchers will rightly say that thirteen hundred is a drop in the ocean anyway and the practical consequences of thirteen hundred or six hundred is of little difference. What the world desperately needed was a vaccine, probably derived from Jamie and my bloods. It was Jamie and my bloods mainly because Dr Williams and her team had been working for by far the longest period on our contributions.

ooo000ooo

For the whole of that first day, Jamie and I sweated in our bio suits as issues were discussed and possible rescues of the remaining survivors of the terrorist kidnapping known to be held in the Republic of Congo.

“We know their location,” Dr Williams confirmed, “but they’re too heavily guarded. Lots of the terrorists are ex-military and they are not likely to make silly mistakes if they are attacked.”

“Who’s running the rescue attempt?” Jamie asked the military man across the table.

“It’s an alliance of several countries, China, The North American federation, The European Union and The Central Asian and Siberian Confederation.” He replied.

“So lots of scope for confusion and Chaos,” Jamie opined cynically.

The soldier glared more with frustration than anger for Jamie’s remark contained more truth than the man cared to admit.

“If you can find a better ‘ole’ –“ He riposted. “Every move we make is checked and double checked by the politicians looking to avoid blame.”

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” I added in an endeavour to bring the meeting back to the main issue; - developing a vaccine.”

My country was NOT involved in any fanciful rescue attempt though we were of course lead investigators and researchers into producing a vaccine. The conversation returned to strategies and I began to sense an elephant in the room. Eventually, Doctor Williams came out with it. After several forays into tissue donations she suggested that Jamie made a bone marrow donation.

At first Jamie simply squealed her dissent.

“Flippin’ ‘eck. Haven’t you ‘ad enough of me?”

“Well yes, you’re right,” Dr Williams conceded, but we’ve come across a potential solution to grow some antibodies in a nutritious soup and the ideal starter culture would be some bone marrow from either of you two.”

“So why me and not Beverly?”

“You’re younger Jamie,” Dr Williams answered bluntly for she was certain of one thing; Jamie was not some supersensitive snowflake. After hearing Jamie’s life story earlier that afternoon, she knew Jamie had ‘walked the walk.’
“The truth is girl; your bone marrow is almost certain to survive what we intend to do. Beverly is older and her bone marrow stands less chance – we think.
If the process proves to be successful we will probably ask her to contribute as well.

We’re hoping to grow the ‘soup’ into a self-perpetuating culture that will produce antibodies faster.”

“Is this a ‘hail Mary’ pass?” Jamie squinted suspiciously.

“No. It’s an alternative strategy that some of the team have come up with. We’re exploring every possible avenue. The vaccine route will always be the first option but it’s taking a bit longer than we anticipated. You know full well that time is of the essence.”

Jamie nodded fatalistically and acceded to their request.

“I suppose I’ll ‘ave to. I don’t want to end up as the last person on Earth.”

I shared a knowing grin with my young co-pilot. We’d already chatted about such ideas since The Verna Spiro bug had come to curse mankind. I chuckled as I advised her.

“If you were kiddo, just think, no holier than-thou-s giving you earache.”

Jamie grinned as she flipped me the bird then turned and nodded to Doctor Williams.

“They say it’s a painful op, is that right?”

“No worse than transitioning I should think.” The doctor mused.

“What do you know about transitioning?” Jamie sneered patronisingly.

“Point taken,” Doctor Williams conceded. “Would you be prepared to undergo the marrow extraction tomorrow?”

“Bring it on.” Jamie agreed.

“I’m staying with her!” I declared adamantly.

Dr Williams turned to frown at me.

“Why.”

“Just call it caution. She’s valuable cargo.”

“What! You think they might kidnap her?”

“Define who ‘they’ are,” I countered. “Have you get a really secure intensive care unit hereabouts?”

Doctor Williams sighed and muttered something about paranoia but I wasn’t to be dissuaded.

“I sleep where Jamie sleeps; no arguments!”

She turned to Jamie with a questioning eyebrow.

“Is that what you want?”

“You bet!” Jamie concurred, Nana’s the only person who doesn’t have a reason to exploit my blood.”

Dr Williams’s eyes opened wider with the realisation of what to Jamie and me, was an obvious truth. She shrugged her shoulders with resignation.

“Okay. I’ll have an armed guard posted. Will that do?”

“Yes! Somebody you know and trust,” Jamie finished, “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

“Where did you start learning Latin!?” I nearly choked with amusement as the doctor looked askance.

“Since I realised they were after my blood.” Jamie grinned back.

As arrangements were made, the meeting ended and we were taken to a secure ward in the laboratory. We were forced to agree that the building; that resembled a Victorian cotton mill because it’s windows were so small; was an ideal choice from a security point of view.

That evening as Jamie and I prepared to bed down we were amazed at the variety of noises an empty, modern building could serve up.

“You’d think we were staying in a medieval haunted house,” Jamie chuckled.

“It’s the noises outside,” I hazarded as I noted a police officer take station at the door.

We both made ourselves known to him so that he would recognise us and for half an hour we chatted until we decided to bed down.

Jamie, being young, fell asleep quite easily but I lay awake for some time before my body demanded a call of nature. I got up and exchanged a brief word with the poli e guard and padded down the corridor to the lavatory. I pondered why the ward we were sleeping in did not have an ‘en ’suite’ lavatory but concluded that it was not ordinarily a hospital ward. The building was a laboratory not a hospital.

On returning to the ward I noticed that the police guard had left his post and I rushed along the corridor to learn that both guard and Jamie had gone!

ooo000ooo

To my horror I quickly learned that there was no alarm or emergency call button for the lab had never been destined to function as an IC unit. Fortunately, I had not left my phone by my bed and I quickly reached for it from my little ‘bum-bag’ which pretty much went wherever I went. Even so, it was a distressingly long time before Dr Williams answered her phone.

“She’s gone. She’s been kidnapped I think.” I shouted into my phone as I searched for the exit route.

“What about the guard?” Dr Williams demanded.

“What about him!” I almost snarled. “He must have been in on it!”

There was a curse on the other end but I paid no heed. When Dr Williams advised me to wait I did not even answer her suggestions or orders. I snapped my phone shut and dashed down to the main entrance to find the regular security guard bound and gagged. I was just relieved to find him at least alive which indicated that Jamie’s kidnappers were perhaps not hellbent on violence.

He could not tell me much except to describe the clothes the four kidnappers had been wearing and to his dismay, the kidnappers had obviously located the camera recorder and stolen the recording memory chip. The only thing he could describe about the getaway vehicle was that it was white and it was a levitator.
All that told me was that the kidnappers had access to sophisticated and expensive resources. Levitation craft were not very common amongst ordinary people for they gave an inordinate degree of freedom to the owners and operators. The security surrounding levitators had been tightened up considerably during my own lifetime and getting a levitation vehicle license was akin to getting a gun license. An operators driving license was relatively easy but an owners license was a totally different kettle of fish.

The ownership of such craft was usually a corporate or government privilege. Sadly, because the video evidence had been taken, we had no registration record of the kidnappers escape craft.

I Had nothing to go on and I was now stuck awaiting Dr William’s appearance. To say I was angry about the security failures was putting it mildly!

ooo000ooo