Chapter 12 – Weeping may last for a night

Paul awoke with a start. He felt as if some one had hit him. His senses reeled and the room span. The floor seemed uneven and he felt as if his face was burning. A shadow shot across in front of him and he reached out to grab it but there was nothing there.

“Who’s there?” he called out as he banged his head. Everything was swimming and he could only sit very still and wait for it to pass.

When his vision cleared he realised he was on the floor in his kitchen with whisky dripping onto his face.

He stood on the second attempt and picket up the bottle. It was empty now.

“Oh god, I feel like death,” he exclaimed looking around the kitchen. The answer phone light was flashing urgently at him and with out thinking he pushed the play button.

“Paul, it’s your mum - call me OK.” Beep. “Hi there I’m just phoning to tell you about our exciting new offer-“ Paul pushed the delete button. The answer phone beeped twice and moved on to the next message.

“Paul, it’s John, when you get this message could you give us a call. Ricky has a new experiment he wants to try out, but we think you should be here to see the results personally. He thinks he’s cracked it.”

“Bloody hell!” exclaimed Paul, “I gotta get up there.” He staggered at speed out of the kitchen and headed for the bathroom.

A quick splash of water and some clean clothes later and Paul was picking up his keys and looking for his coat. It was on the floor in the front room. Paul retrieved his coat and was most of the way out of the door when the phone rang.

He let the answer phone get it: “Paul, it’s your mum again call me soon, it’s important.”

Paul was out of the door before the message was finished. He looked at his car in disbelief. Who had done this to it? It was badly scratched and dented down the entire right hand side.

Paul winced as he remembered the activities of last night. He had been an idiot.

He opened the car door and looked in the back of the car. He was sure that he had his sports bag in the back.

There was no time to worry about that now, however, as Paul’s desire to be at the lab complex and to find out the results now came before anything else.

He started the car and pull out onto the road. It was just possible that they had found a cure for the HIV virus and it was just possible that he would be the very first human test subject. Life could be his again.

He accelerated steadily all the way to the lab as music blared on the radio breaking only for the sharper corners.

He pushed the car towards its top limit decelerating just in time to sloppily take the corner into the car park.

Jackson sat drinking a coke and eating crisps while sat on an inflated sofa with a blanket around his shoulders looking at a man, who’s name he did not know, move fitfully from time to time on a camp bed set in the corner of the room.

He felt better than he had done all day. He was a little worried about the man now. He had failed to wake up and Jackson wondered what would happen if they let him die.

Angelina watched Jackson from the door of the room. She felt in control of the situation again now. It was her house and she was its queen. The doors were secured far better than they had ever been and all she had to do now was find out why the building smelled so damp.

She looked at Jackson. He seemed quite concerned for his friend. Was he really this man’s friend? It all seemed a little too strange to her and she hoped she would get a chance to sort through the fictions to get to the facts.

He was sweet if a little naive and she suspected that she liked him in spite herself.

She had discovered a warn out old folding table in the back room and had set herself up an office in there. She had piled up the papers neatly and was now prepared to sort through them. This was more like her old job than she cared to notice but it was familiar and something she could do with great efficiency.

Paul raced past the reception crew and milling police officers and was soon running down the corridor past the no running sign and into John’s office.

John was not there. Paul’s mental gears greeted as her sought for answers. He turned and speed out down the hall.

He was moving so fast that he almost bowled John right over.

“Nice to see you too, Paul,” said John, “I see you got the message.”

“Damn right, mate,” said Paul, “This is our moment.”

“Indeed.”

“Have I missed the experiment?” He asked.

“No, Paul,” said John, “It has started and we are in the middle of the hours of hanging about until some answers are available.”

“So fill me in.”

“I’ll let Ricky do that.”
They walked in silence for a while until John said: “What’s bothering you mate?”

“What d’you mean?” asked Paul.

“You’ve been drinking heavily and acting…”

“Acting?”

“Acting… not quite your usual cool and laid back self.” Said John

“Just some stuff” said Paul.

“Stuff?” Asked John sceptically.

“Yes. Stuff!” Insisted Paul.

“Really? So, the fact that the sample that got broken was a HIV culture is just a co-incidence. And the fact that Mark killed himself because he found out he was positive is also just surplus to the issue?”

“Eh?”

“Don’t give me that, Paul.” Said John stopping, “I know you too well for these kind of games. Have you been tested yet?”

“Yes.” Said Paul. “It came back positive. Now just drop it and lets find out what Ricky has to say.”

They walked into the lab in silence into the lab and past Johnny who was looking a little red.

“You ok, there?” asked Paul glad of the change of conversational partner. He hated himself for thinking it but he just wanted John to go away.

“Yes, sir,” replied Johnny, “I’ve quit smoking again. The therapist said that I might get a few hot flushes as the cravings passed.”

“Therapist?” asked John.

“Hypnotherapist, sir, he’s really good apparently he can cure anything.”

“Curing things is the job of a doctor, maybe with some help from us.” Said Paul sharply. He did not have time for any of this silly idiot talk. He wanted to know about this cure.

Ricky waved to them from across the lab.

“Ricky,” said Paul, “you know the drill, give me the short version.”

“Well,” said Ricky, “you already know that we’ve been infecting cultures of human cells with the virus. What we have done is used rare cultures with genetic disorders. Sensitivity to aspirin, lactose, even a pre disposition to allergies.”

“Yes,” said Paul, “I authorised those myself.”

“What we are trying to do is create a version of the virus that carries that sensitivity when it picks up the DNA from the hosts.” Said Ricky.

“And?” Asked Paul.

“Oh we’ve definitely succeeded.” Said Ricky. “What we are testing now is samples of the virus against compounds of different things it might have become sensitive too. Ironically they are all fairly common drugs, many available without any prescription.”

“So?”

“So, sir, we are hoping that we may be able to kill at least one sample.”

“Meaning that we can cure it.”

“Yes.”

“Fantastic,” said Paul, “When will we know.”

“Test results will be ready in about two hours.” Said Ricky, “but we’ll need to do some live animal testing to see if the virus has time to destroy an infection before changing too much and losing sensitivity.”

“Assuming it has any at all.” Said Paul. “You do realise that it is all highly unlikely.”

Hypnotic man stood at his window and scanned the streets looking for the pigeon. The man should have been back by now and there had been no reports of any arrests at the lab.

All this delay was upsetting his plans. He had not expected so many interruptions. He was sure that the instructions had taken a strong hold and he was sure that the man was more than able to go fetch a simple jewellery box. His clients would soon get very upset with him.

He looked towards the lab with maximum zoom. Nothing unusual was to be seen other than a few police cars sitting idly in the car park. Hypnotic man wondered if he still had any active patents from within the police force.

He watched the entrance as two girls walk out hand in hand. He adjusted his focus and tried to see what was going on. One was crying and the other seemed to be comforting her.

Shannon felt broken, Linda had been a good work college but more than that she had been teasing her, playing with her emotions and leading her on. She had planned to finish for good with Mary if Linda had not given up so easily every time, however, now Linda was dead. Linda had been murdered by the serial killer and no-one had caught him yet.

Mary thought it best not to say anything. She new that Shannon had taken a shine to this girl and it had been she that had wanted to leave Linda behind and slope of early. She felt a little guilty. Things were going o be difficult between them for a while now, she knew. All she could hope for was that a little time and space would get things back to as they were but secretly she knew things had changed a little for ever.

Some of the other staff members had looked like they were going to come and swamp them with unwanted sympathy. It was bad enough that a close friend was dead without people swamping them.

“Mary? She asked. “Could we just go back to your house?”

Mary led her lover down the steps and to the car. Who says good could never come of bad, she thought, the question now was a far simpler one – how far could she push things?