Chapter 45- No Standard Solution Exists

Chapter 45

No Standard Solution Exists

Cavill, Virginia

The whirl of helicopter blades and the spray of dust and smoke, the old football field outside Cavill.  Doctors in hazmat suits, a flicker of light off the glass.  The slow ticking of the engine of a Stryker armored personnel carrier and the smoke from a cigarette.

A stream of meaningless static in a radio mic, a nervous look passes over Captain Thomas.  The day dragging on, the slow Virginian sun crawls across a gleaming cyan sky. 

A needle, another glint of light and an up-rolled sleeve.  A man volunteers and tests begin.  Beakers and jars, spinners and disks.  Lab techs look at readouts, close ups and tiny micro-scale organisms.

A test; a drop of blood on a screen and a thin needle.  Timers go off and on.  Reaction times and intervention times.  Another test, control subject and reaction times are measured against each other.

Captain Thomas leans back against the baking heat of the Stryker.  A bird chirrups in a tree.  A woman complains about the heat.  “Didn’t this used to be a free country?”  A soldier with a hard blank look on his face.  A days growth of beard, a dark blue assault rifle in his arms.

A small crowd of frightened and tired people, a test.  One by one they stand and are brought towards a tent.  A doctor, a soldier and a flamethrower, a needle and a beaker.  Blood goes into the machine and a reaction is tested.

The blood, the blood is tested and then burned.  Fires burn all over the town and smoke rises lazily like an accusing finger into a darkening sky.  Two planes roar overhead like vengeful Gods.

A cricket jumps and lands on an outstretched boot.  Soldiers burry another body and a line thins out some more.  A man, a man thought to be a hero stands in a line.  He stands in a line, in way he’s always been stood in a line.

The line that leads towards a tent; where a doctor waits with a needle and a beaker and a test that works.  Bodies are dragged away and then set on fire.

“Captain?” the crackle of a radio.

“Captain are you there?” comes the voice again.

Washington D.C

“There has to be another way,” breathed Jack Krane, sat behind the desk.

“The army are going to do it,” replied Hayden McDonald.  His arms were folded and his eyes were closed.  “I’m amazed they gave it as long as they did,”

“But the test, they said the testing was working,” replied Jack, his face gaunt and grey.

Hayden wondered about that.  How could they be sure what the tests were really telling them.  Hayden had read every report that had come in until his brain hurt from all of the paperwork, all of the numbers and all of the reports.  Even Colonel Carpenter seemed like he was running on empty.

“If they don’t secure things there, then it may be impossible to secure the situation at all,”

Said Hayden, repeating what Carpenter had said a day and a half before.

“You said it yourself Hayden.  If we sacrifice this, we’re not really saving anyone.  What happens if there is another outbreak?  Or another?  What happens if they just need an excuse to drop a bomb in the future?  They’ll always be able to say it was justified.  That it was a just war,” Jack stood up to make his point, arguing the point well as he had been trained to do.

“There’s no thing as a just war,” came Hayden’s empty reply.  “It’s all just a bunch of empty words and placards trying to justify what’s happened, what’s been done.  The truth is the truth.  The very action is its own justification,”

“What do you mean?” asked Jack Krane, afraid to hear an answer.

“That they are in power now and by dropping the bomb on Cavill, they demonstrate that power in the most real way possible.  The power of life and death,”

Jack dropped back into his chair.

“Is it already over then?” asked Jack.

“There may still be a small fragment of a chance left,” said Hayden McDonald, now quite sure that there was in fact, no chance at all.

‘You already know how this will end’ he had heard.  That was proving to be very true.  Nothing, nothing would be spared.

Cavill, Virginia

Tom McVay had stood in line and entered the tent.  The doctor, a pleasant open faced young man with sandy blonde hair asked him to hold his arm out.  Tom held out his arm, as instructed.

A needle appeared from behind the doctors back and went into Tom’s arm.  Tom didn’t even flinch.  He looked away into the distance, some old memory, some distant sensation.  Who knows what the memory looked like?  What sense had set it off?  What place it had taken him to.

“Does it work?” asked Tom to the Doctor.  Another man was flanking the doctor, a staff sergeant with an M4 carbine.  His face was grim and grimy.

“Yes it does,” replied the Doctor.  “It’ll take about ten minutes to get a result.  You may as well go and sit down again,”

“Would I know?  If was one of them, would I know?” asked Tom.

“That’s not how they work,” replied the Doctor.  “They don’t take you over.  They replace you.  If you can ask the question, then you are still human,”

“Doesn’t that mean I’m still human then?” asked Tom with a vague, exhausted smile.

“Maybe it does,” replied the Doctor as he kept the blood sample behind his back.

Tom looked at the hard faced Staff Sergeant.

“How do you think this will all turn out Sarge?” he asked him.

“I’ve no idea sir,” replied the Staff Sergeant.

“Me neither,” replied Tom but it was only half true.

Somewhere else in Cavill, a dog had burned.  But before it had burned, it had broken in half and the top half of it had grown terrible spidery legs, claws and dark black fangs.  It had never been a dog, of course. It had only resembled a dog.

What place did the dog’s memory take it before it died?  What sounds did it remember?  Where had it been?

Someone that looked an awful lot like Tom McVay reached slowly towards the shoulder assault rifle.