Xion Island Carrier

Chapter 1

I am filled with hatred. It’s a state of being that engulfs me, and this island isn’t dissimilar to my mind. Both are segregated from the world to conceal the dark deeds inside them. This square-mile lump of Yucatán rock is cushioned by the water surrounding it, keeping evil in the name of science corralled. And my psyche is dulled with red and blue capsules, wrapping it in cotton wool to hold it in place. Because when the thing that rests inside me is released, they had all better run.  

The facility is located in the Gulf of Mexico, an ocean basin lying between the North American plate and the Yucatán block—you’ll find Xion Island on Google Maps—a dot among thousands of other landmasses in the sea, but it won’t be named.

The view of the water is panoramic, and my vision, stretching eight miles to the horizon in every direction, has nothing to break the monotony of the water apart from the staff ferry and an occasional pod of wildlife. It’s a vast and unbroken expanse, silent and still during this hour of breaking dawn. The ocean is a dark slate edged with an eclipse ring of pale silver where first light seeps into the sky. In the stillness of the morning, the Gulf is a swirling mass of depth and shadow, an indigo mirror undulating under empty stretches of cloud.

I pause at the shore and take in the sweeping isolation of Xion Island.

The world sees beauty here. There’s peace around the shouting waves and salt-tinged air. Xion gives you that: a place designed to inspire calm and isolate the mind from the hum of the outside world. But there’s rarely any tranquillity for me. Xion is my fortress. It’s a square-mile cage of steel and sand, and it suits me fine. The beast is caged—for now.

The circumference is fringed with electric fencing, topped with razor wire, and that’s angled inward to keep something inside—and everything else out. A net of barbed wire runs across the tops of the trees and as far as the beach to keep trespassers away. Sunrise paints the fencing in mottled nodes of orange, blending it with the mangroves. Tourists wouldn’t know such security was here if they sailed past waving their Prosecco glasses.

Nobody without clearance can land. And even fewer leave. The only way off our island is by ferry—Authorized personnel only—and the company-owned private helicopters that buzz in, bringing supplies from the mainland.

One of the boffins shouts to me from the path. He works from another building but thinks he knows me. ‘Bernstein,’ he shouts, disturbing my silence.

If last-name shouting is the norm, then he’s due a downgrade. ‘Dirk.’

‘Beautiful morning.’
            He shouldn’t be here stealing my moments of tranquillity as I clear my mind of rage. It’s part of my ritual, and I’m all about routine. I don’t answer.

‘It’s going to be a great day.’ Can’t he take a hint? Dirk’s so eager to talk that he’d drone on through a dental drill if it meant someone would listen.

And he’s too chirpy, like a chihuahua that runs around yapping and then shags your leg. I drag him into the ocean, waist-deep and baptise him, taking his leg from under him so that he falls backwards, and I smother his face with my hand, holding him under until the thrashing stops. And then the bubbles stop. If I were an animation, I’d shake my head to clear the urge, but I don’t. He’s still talking, and I turn my back on him.

‘Right then, off to the establishment for another exciting shift. The gates make me feel like livestock. But ours isn’t to wonder why. See you at the rock face, Bernstein.’

Rock face? It’s a laboratory, you twat. I smash his face with a rock as he walks away. I stamp his balls into the ground and kick dirt in his face. Dirk has no idea how lucky he is to leave unscathed. Imagination is a dear friend, but oh, to act on my desires.  

The air is tainted with brine and the earthy, humid rot of the mangroves. I take it into my lungs, and the dark, moist sweatiness of it knows me. It really knows me. It belongs inside me.

A new shift is beginning, and I’m sad that my days here are numbered. I’ve been happy on the island. I don’t have to deal with humanity much. The sky changes as I watch, from pale grey-orange to the faint blue of a drowned woman’s lips, and gulls fly low over the shore. Their cries are sharp and lonely, like mine would be if I let them out.

The path to the lab twists along the beach, winding through palms and underbrush. I have access to one of the quad bikes, but I enjoy the walk and this part of my day. The main building is visible around the next bend, its harsh lines softened by morning light. The lab housing is a daunting white concrete block standing brutally against the landscape. There’s enough death in that building to take out every person on Earth a billion times over. It’s delicious, and I get hard when I think about it.

From the outside, the compound could be any research facility, bland and unassuming. That’s by design to keep a low profile. A nondescript exterior won’t draw attention if anybody gains access to the island. Not that it could ever happen. Security. It’s tighter than a nipple clamp.

Inside is just as locked.

At the first gate, I swipe my badge and wait for the mechanism click to disengage. When I reach the second barrier, I show my clearance to the same guards I show it to every morning. They don’t speak to me, apart from barking orders and have no name badges, nothing to distinguish them from the rest of their army. We don’t send Christmas cards.

‘Are you taking anything in?’

I shake my head and hold out my bag. One of them searches it anyway.  

‘Spread.’

I open my legs and raise my arms. The strong silent type passes detectors over my body as I stand with my hands extended, palms up to East and West like an irreverent Christ, and he pats me down. Protocol. I’m waved through, feeling a familiar sense of control as the gate clicks shut behind me. I could take them out in a heartbeat.

The compound is arranged in neat rows, and everything is organised with efficiency. To the left of the lab—rapid access—is our staff hospital, top-level, no expense spared. It’s equipped with high-tech machinery because, in an emergency, time is of the essence. Tick-tock. We have minutes before the flesh liquifies inside the body. There are a few beds, IV drips, emergency care equipment, and locked cabinets stocked with antidotes and antibiotics. Not that it will help anyone contracting Genocytic Fever Syndrome. The disease rips through the body like a speedboat through a swell. It’s too fast, too efficient. But Xion’s medical setup isn’t about employee emergencies. It’s a token gesture to appease the nervous and a cover to placate the inspectors and auditors who tour the facility, nodding and smiling at the lab’s commitment to safety. It’s sterile and white with red and yellow warning labels. It’s never been used.

The staff quarters are as far from the lab hub as the ocean permits. Nice. Peachy. Beachy. A collection of prefabricated chalets painted in happy pastel colours. It could be mistaken for an island village, a serene holiday place to enjoy. For happy Plasticine people. The quarters are well-furnished, with every necessity and home comfort provided. It’s all the same: efficient, organised, and white. We have a clubhouse to cut loose after work, supply stores, a spa, sports facilities, and an all-denomination place of worship—but no playpark. There are no children here.

The labs are at the other end of the compound. They rise from the earth there, huge concrete bunkers against a dense wall of regency green trees. The buildings are designed in line with brutal functionality, sharp corners and clean lines, in contrast to the softer surrounding landscape.

The lab is all business. Everything has a purpose, and the chaos we manufacture is protected. The air is cool, artificial, dry and still, with the scent of disinfectant and metal. I move through the silent corridors, feeling the hum of machines reverberating through the walls and infiltrating my pores. It thrills me. The lights are harsh, illuminating stainless steel counters and glass.

Rows of workstations line the walls, arranged with microscopes, test tubes, and digital monitors flashing with data streams twenty-four hours a day. It’s all kept away from media attention and the world’s eyes.

I’m early. The first in, as is my custom. I like it that way. I’m less inclined to hurt somebody if I can acclimatise at my own pace and put on my Average Joe mask alone.

My workstation is near the back of an experimentation hub. A line of fridges holds our samples—little soldiers on parade. Every drawer is labelled and temperature-controlled. Mistakes are not permitted. Zero tolerance. No mistakes on my watch. No sir. To err is to die.

Horribly.

A sample-containing freezer has a steel door set into the wall. I key in my access code, and the heavy barrier releases with a hiss of cold air. Mist curls around my ankles as I open it, and rows of deadly samples sit in neat stacks, numbered with impersonal printed labels.

I pull out a tray marked Project 4729 and put it on the counter. This batch is mine—modified to tolerate freezing. Six glass vials, each holding a single tiny, frozen Amblyomma americanum—the Lone Star tic, altered by science. I feel an electric thrill at the thought of what those minuscule bodies have been probed with. I charged this additional half dozen myself—a great honour. Along with my DNA, they’ve been injected with a customised strain of Genocytic Fever Syndrome, a disease engineered to be fast and efficient. GFS was designed on a drawing board to mimic food poisoning. It makes the initial symptoms seem minor—nausea, vomiting, cramps. But within twenty-four hours, the major symptoms ravage the host: blood vessels rupture, fever climbs, and organs shut down. By the seventy-two-hour mark, it’s over. Death is unavoidable.

With some genetic modifications from a personal harvest, these ticks will deliver the virus to a specific subset of the population—my bloodline.

I pick up one of the vials. The tick inside is thawing but barely twitches in its frozen glass prison. She is beautiful in her simplicity. She’s the perfect carrier, small enough to be overlooked and resilient enough to survive freezing and thawing. I’ve tested them, perfected the strain, failed and tried again. I’ve found the right combination of hardiness and lethality. With a couple of tweaks to the genetic structure, she can carry GFS across thousands of miles. She’ll lie dormant until she sinks her mouthparts into her next host. They’ve never killed a human being yet, but I’m confident they will.

Holding it to the light, I watch as the tick glints in the sterile glow. She’s remarkable, a dark speck the size of a small flower seed against the glass—brown except for that beautiful light spot on her back—my aperture. I picture her coming back to life. She’s cold-blooded, so her body doesn’t warm as it thaws; it makes her more spectacular. She’s a parasite entity that can be frozen and thawed at will without dying. Her tiny limbs twitch as she prepares to feed. She’s hungry. I picture her latching onto my kith and kin’s flesh, her mouthparts piercing their skin and releasing her microscopic payload. The idea thrills me until my heart rate is a thudding part of my being, like the apparatus operating the lab.

My family won’t see it coming. An irritation. Though they deserve worse after what they did to me. Just a tiny scratch, hardly noticeable until the symptoms hit them like a bus. GFS will overtake them with clockwork precision, erasing generations of my bastard family until I am alone. Last Bernstein, standing. I smile at her. ‘Sleep, my children. until I come for you.’

 I am abandoned and alone, but this tiny army is all the family I need.

I take some measurements and put the tray back in the freezer, listening to the low hum as the unit powers back to the required negative temperature. The lab is silent except for the whir of apparatus. But the team will be here soon. White rats, invading my territory. I despise them all. My steps echo against the tiled floor.

I take out the samples I’m expected to work on, the catalogued ones, and line them up for the next testing phase. I examine the faint outlines of the ticks inside their vials, tiny legs folded and their bodies frozen in time. To the world, they are simple parasites, but I know better.

Six ticks are all I need. I’ve worked in secret, unobserved even under the scrutiny of the cameras. I’m trusted. My six special pets carry the genetically modified virus, and I’ve coded it to my family’s specific genetic markers. It’s beautiful. There’s a satisfaction in knowing the world won’t survive what’s coming.

I close my eyes, imagining the headline in the news reports. The doctors will scratch their heads, wondering what the contagion is. They’ll search for patterns, missing the one staring them in the face. The only constant linking them—is me.

Everything is sterile and controlled. It’s the only place I feel calm. I can focus without distraction. My family don’t know what’s coming. But they’ll find out soon enough.

Xion Island Carrier is book 6 in the DCI Nash series. They're all on KU. Hush Hush Honeysuckle is Book One, and this is the Amazon link.

https://books2read.com/u/4EB0zg