'You've given me a load of gas for Bertha and a bunch of coins that I can't spend 'cos no-one uses them as currency anymore. Don't think I'm not grateful for the things you've dug up for me, but honestly, your people skills are lousy. If you want me to continue putting my neck on the line you've got to talk to me. And not just about the mating habits of the local wildlife.'
'How do I know I can trust you?'
'Because I've saved your scrawny ass enough times and I haven't pulled over and dumped you in the middle of nowhere, in spite of you being the passenger from hell.'
Greaves shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Linda changed her tactics. 'And what about Anna? Don't you think you owe her an explanation? You drag her out of that cathouse and haul her across half a continent, as if she hasn't been through enough, because you claim she's going to save the world. Yet you haven't got the decency to tell her how she's supposed to do that. Or the rest of us who are supposed to be helping her.'
'You're right,' said Greaves. 'She has been through a lot. She doesn't need to be burdened with anymore unnecessary information.'
'Please,' said a voice from the back. 'Mistress Linda is right. I would be very beholden to you sir, if you would be so kind as to tell me why you think I can save the world.'
Linda and Greaves both turned around in surprise. Linda nearly took Bertha off the road. Greaves had no idea how close she'd been to pulling over and throttling him for being so pigheaded. He suddenly got all flustered and bashful as Anna put him on the spot. To be fair to him, it was the most any of them had ever heard her say.
'Well you see, erm Anna, it's that you're…' Greaves swallowed and tried again. 'Look, perhaps I better tell you a few facts about my past. As long as that's okay with certain PMT sufferers?'
Linda let that last quip go. She was too interested in what he had to say.
'Before The Cull I was a scientist. I specialised in genetically engineered bio-weaponry and worked for a secret laboratory run by a branch of the shadow government. My employers were above top-secret and answerable to no-one. The work we did was right on the cutting edge of science. Our branch was so far ahead of our contemporaries that few people outside of the lab could comprehend what we were doing.'
'What were you doing?' said Linda, hoping he'd get over himself and get on with it.
'We were constructing super-viruses, far deadlier than anything mankind had ever seen. The AB virus that wiped out nine tenths of the population was strictly amateur hour in comparison to what we were working on.'
'So what did you do?' said Linda. 'Go on, impress us.'
'We created many viruses. Some of them so infectious you just had to catch someone's eye to come down with it.'
'No way.'
'Way,' said Greaves, looking very pleased with himself. 'We could vary the exact symptoms from person to person and time to the minute the moment they would expire. The holy grail of the whole project was to create a virus that was self-aware. In the decade before The Cull we succeeded.
'The virus was not only a living entity, capable of almost infinite self replication, given enough organisms to infect, it was also unstoppably virulent. What's more, it could mutate to attack the actual DNA of any organism it infected. Nothing could ever develop an immunity to it.'
'Let me get this right,' said Linda. 'You created an intelligent virus?'
'Not intelligent. A virus by its nature can never develop a central nervous system. Therefore it's never going evolve a brain to deal with all that sensory information. Without a brain it can't have proper intelligence. We were able to make it self aware though, thanks to the creation of a biogenic field.'
'What's a biogenic field?'
'All multi-cellular life forms emanate a bio-electrical field as a by product of the biochemical energy they use. We were able to prove it was this biogenic field that drives their survival mechanisms and gives them a sense of themselves as separate entities. We went on to create a virus that can generate a unified biogenic field. A virus capable of seeing itself as separate from anything it infects, and of fighting to protect its survival.
'We even solved the problem of intelligence. If the virus was able to interact in a malignant fashion with the DNA of other organisms then it could also interact in a benign way. It could borrow not only the central nervous system of another organism, but also its intelligence. If the host organism were human this would give them direct control over the deadliest weapon ever created. They could choose whoever lived and whoever died anywhere on the planet.
'There were other things we coded into our 'Doomsday Virus'. Things not even our superiors knew about. The Doomsday Virus would alter the DNA of its human host and keep them alive indefinitely, making them virtually immortal. Not only that but it could grant immortality to anyone they infected by altering their DNA. They would have the power of a god.'
'So if this stuff infects you,' said Linda. 'You become a god right?'
'No. You die. There were so many determinate factors involved in becoming a host to a the virus that the likelihood of anyone being born with all of them was statistically impossible. So we had to genetically engineer a host from scratch. There were many trials and more errors than I dare admit, but eventually we were able to successfully create five human embryos capable of becoming a host to the virus.
'It was at this point that those of us working on the project realised our lives were in danger. The people we worked for thought they had what they wanted and, in order to maintain security, planned to expunge anyone with knowledge of the project. So we took the infants we had created, when they were nine months old and hid them where they wouldn't be found.
'I parted ways with my colleagues after this. Eventually they resolved the issue and most of them resumed working for the shadow government, coming in from the cold they call it. Before they could retrieve any of the child hosts The Cull hit and that was the one variable we could never have accounted for. It never crossed our minds that someone else would unleash a virus that attacked blood groups. That one simple mistake lost us four of the five hosts.
'Only one host had the Diego antigen. The single gene SLC4AI, most commonly found in certain ethnic groups such as Native Americans, that makes them immune to the AB virus that caused The Cull. That host had been placed in an Amish community as a tiny baby.'
'Why sir,' said Anna. 'You're talking about me.'
'That's right Anna,' said Greaves as though he were congratulating a bright child. 'Did you never wonder why you were the only Native American girl growing up in an isolated community?'
'My momma and poppa never spoke about such matters. My poppa did say God had picked me out with a special plan in mind though.'
Linda was so wrapped up in the conversation that she nearly missed the turn. A lot of things were starting to make sense, such as why Anna spoke in that quaint, old fashioned manner.
'After The Cull there was only one record of your whereabouts,' said Greaves. 'I got to it before they did. When the first outbreaks of the AB virus occurred, I realised what was going to happen. I knew it would quickly take out most of the population and I knew what would be valuable in the sort of world that would exist afterwards.
'So as civilisation slowly came to an end I spent every day that I could hacking into classified government databases, not to mention a few private ones. I found out where all the secret stashes were. Our former government and its branches had been stockpiling all kinds of things for years, from weapons to drugs and gold. I tracked down the sites that weren't likely to be looted and I've been living off them ever since.
'I used the same technique to find you Anna. By the time I got to you of course, you weren't there. I've been looking for you ever since. Now that I've finally found you, we need to get to Montana.'
'And what, pray tell,' said Anna. 'Is in Montana?'
'The only surviving strains of the Doomsday Virus. They're in a laboratory run by my former colleagues.'
'You mean they survived The Cull?' said Linda. 'How the fuck?'
'They are sponsored by an organisation with more resources than the combined former governments of the world,' said Greaves, dismissing her. 'You don't think a minor thing like the death of nine tenths of the population is going to stop them do you?'
'Sir,' said Anna. 'I don't hold to understand even half of what you've told us. So forgive me if I have this wrong. But you are saying that I was made by men and not of a mother and father, and that this was done so I could control a disease that could kill everyone left alive?'
