Mother Russia

Chapter Twelve

Arkady felt like he was adrift in someone else’s nightmare. It was like the entire world was spinning out of control around him and he was just trying to find solid ground to stand on. The woman Jeanette – or whatever her name really was – had his arm in a vise-like grip and was practically dragging him down the street as police sirens echoed all around them.

“Where are we going?” he asked her. He wasn’t sure if he had asked her that already. In the hectic, frantic moments after they had abandoned his car, he had babbled question after question, barely aware of what he was saying. Who was she? How did she know about his work with Umbrella? What were they going to do? How could the virus have escaped? She didn’t answer him, instead pulling him away from the chaos at the restaurant with a determined intensity that was utterly at odds with the charming young lady he had asked out on a date a few days before.

He kept thinking over and over: This can’t be happening. They had only been working with the viral samples for a few days, and all they had done was catalogue and unpack them! It was impossible to him to believe that somehow one of the viruses had infected someone and spread to the public. It was absolutely impossible.

But he could not deny the evidence that was right in front of his eyes. He saw the waiter at the restaurant, who had all the signs of secondary infection by one of the Progenitor strains. He saw the creature that had attacked the crowd at the nightclub, something that no longer looked even human. And he saw what was happening in Yatovska all around him. Police sirens screaming, cars racing down the streets, absolute pandemonium gripping the entire city.

Jeanette had called someone on her cellphone – Arkady had been too dazed to really register what she said – and then demanded he call his superiors and tell them what was happening. Too scared to argue with her since she had a gun in her hand, he took out his phone and dialed the number to a special Umbrella office in Moscow. But what was he supposed to say? Hello, there’s been a outbreak? The virus is loose, can you send someone to help? Once the answering system had verified his identity, he found himself on the phone with a woman who asked for details about the emergency. He told her in a dull voice that an unknown viral contagion had somehow escaped their laboratory and infected an unknown number of civilians.

Not more than ten minutes later, their cell phones lost signal. Jeanette laughed fatalistically when she realized they could no longer call anyone else for help. She knew – as Arkady knew – that Umbrella had blocked all communications in and out of the city in response to the emergency. It was part of their outbreak protocol. When Arkady had first read up on the procedures in case of an emergency like this, he felt that it made sense to shut down internet and phone access, but now that he was actually in the city while the outbreak was going on, it all seemed insane to him.

“Where are we going?” he asked again. “We should … we should hide or something. We should find a safe place, and ...”

“There are no safe places,” Jeanette said. “If we lock ourselves up somewhere, then we’re as good as dead. Trust me on this.”

“Then where are we going? Do you think we can make it all the way out of the city on foot?”

“My apartment,” she answered. “I have weapons there. I also need to change clothes. I’m not about to fight my way out of this city in an evening dress and heels.”

At least she was answering his questions now. He already had a dozen more pop into his head that he wanted to ask. Weapons in her apartment? What kind of weapons? Why did she think she would have to fight? What did she mean when she said trust her on this? This entire situation was getting more confusing every second that passed.

“Listen,” he said, “I don’t understand how there could possibly have been a breach in our system, but Umbrella knows what’s going on now, right? They have … they have procedures and plans in case of an outbreak. All we have to do is –”

“Oh, yeah,” Jeanette scoffed. “I know all about their plans. Unless you’ve forgotten, the last time this happened, they blew up an entire city. You’ll forgive me if I don’t trust Umbrella’s plans.”

“But this isn’t the same thing ...”

Jeanette stopped and spun around to face him, her eyes blazing. “You don’t get it, do you, Arkady?” she snapped. “The virus is loose. And you have no idea how it got outside your lab. You have no idea how it’s spreading.”

“Of course we know how it spreads,” he started to say.

“How did that waiter get infected, then? Who did he come into contact with? That other man in the restaurant was infected too, so how did he get exposed to it? We don’t know who’s infected or how they got infected. My point, Arkady, is that you and me might already be infected. Half the entire goddamn city might be infected already. Do you really think that Umbrella has a plan to deal with this that’s any different from what they did to Raccoon City?”

His mouth opened to speak, but nothing came out.

“What about him?” Jeanette asked suddenly, looking over Arkady’s shoulder at something behind him. She pointed, and Arkady turned to see a man walking on the other side of the street about fifty meters away.

At first, Arkady didn’t know what she meant. Confused, he was about to call to the man, but before he spoke he realized something was wrong. The man was walking unevenly, his feet shuffling across the concrete. He staggered over the curb and began to move in their direction. When his face became illuminated by a street light, Arkady saw the slack, empty expression on his face.

“He’s infected too,” Jeanette said emotionlessly. “Come on, we’d better go.”

Arkady hurried after her. “Wait! Shouldn’t we … I mean, we should stop him! We can’t just let an infected host wander the streets!”

“What do you want me to do? Shoot him? I only have a few shots left in this and I don’t want to waste them.”

Arkady looked back at the man in the street, who had turned in their direction and was slowly coming after them, although it was simple enough to stay ahead of him. He was wearing jeans and a black shirt, and as far as Arkady could see, he had no marks on him at all. No injuries, no wounds, nothing to indicate that he had contracted the virus by another host biting him. But one look in his vacant eyes and Arkady knew that he was a second-stage host. But he was recently turned, so he still looked otherwise healthy. By tomorrow, decay would start to set in.

“I don’t understand,” he said in despair. “How could this be happening?”

“Someone in your lab contracted the virus,” Jeanette said impatiently, like she was talking to an obstinate child. “He passed it on to other people in the city, and they passed it on to others, and now God knows how many are infected.”

“But how could they pass it to others? The viruses only transmit through bodily fluids!”

Jeanette just tilted her head and looked at him. “You sure about that? Are you willing to bet your life on that?”

Finally, the reality began to sink in. “My God ...,” he whispered. “The virus … is it possible it’s mutated into an airborne form?”

“You’re the scientist, Arkady. You tell me.”

He struggled to keep up with her as the ramifications became clear to him, settling on his mind like a huge anchor hanging from his shoulders. He felt like he was hyperventilating, his heart pounding uncontrollably at the thought that the Progenitor or one of the other strains might actually be airborne.

Viruses and other pathogens have a latent period, which was the time in between when someone got infected and when they were infectious to others. In most cases, this was a few days, since it took that long for a virus to replicate in a host for it to be capable of spreading. But the Progenitor was not like most viruses. It killed the host within hours. Arkady wasn’t sure if anyone had attempted to even calculate the latent period of the Progenitor. But if the virus replicated enough within a few hours to kill the host, then how long would it really take to become infectious? He had the terrifying thought that once infected with an airborne form of the Progenitor, a host might be able to spread it within minutes. If it was true that one of Arkady’s coworkers – which meant Konstantin or Pavel – had somehow gotten infected, then only God knew how many people they might have passed it onto before their own symptoms even set in.

“Where are … were are we going?” he asked.

“My apartment. I already told you that.”

“How far is it?”

“I live on Kodoskaya Street. It’s at least four kilometers from here.”

He built up the courage to ask, “So who are you, anyway? You’re a spy or something, aren’t you? You were hired to … to infiltrate Umbrella? To get information from me?”

Jeanette just shook her head. “I already told you, my name doesn’t matter.”

He suddenly had the crazy idea that perhaps Jeanette had released the virus herself. If she was in the pay of one of Umbrella’s competitors, was it outside the realm of possibility that they might order her to cause another outbreak to further damage Umbrella’s reputation? Arkady still could not believe that his own lab had somehow caused the outbreak, so it was a tempting thought to believe that someone else had intentionally done it.

Of course, if Jeanette really had released the virus, she probably wouldn’t have been foolish enough to stay in the city and let herself be caught up in the outbreak. And she wouldn’t have bothered to befriend him and show up to their date. No, Arkady decided, Jeanette wasn’t a terrorist, she was just a spy hired to manipulate him in the hopes of getting information.

“So who do you really work for?” he asked, sounding bitter. “Not some consulting firm, that’s for sure. Which company hired you? WilPharma? Tricell?”

“None of your business,” Jeanette said. “Besides, we have more important things to worry about right now.”

“Was I the first person you approached? Or do you target someone else first?”

“Come on, Arkady. Don’t take it personally.”

“Don’t take it personally?” he sputtered. “You lied to me! You … you tried to manipulate me! You tried to seduce me!”

Jeanette scoffed at that. “Don’t flatter yourself. I absolutely did not try to seduce you. I just talked to you when you went to lunch. You’re the one who asked me out.”

“You were trying to get information from me!”

“I wanted to learn more about you,” she said with a shrug. “Isn’t that was people normally do when they go out on a date with someone?”

“You know what I mean!”

“Don’t yell at me, Arkady. I’m already in a bad mood.”

“Or what? You’ll shoot me?”

She looked right at him. “I wouldn’t waste the bullet. But if you say one more word, I swear I’m going to kick your stupid ass.”

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