"From the journal of Dr Jon Quayle Cornelius. I have begun work on a vaccine that will, hopefully, cure those poor souls infected with the Strangerville Sickness and...importantly...allow my team and myself to operate within the depths of the Secret Laboratory without succumbing to the illness ourselves....
To this end I have been working, alone, in that laboratory as their chemistry equipment is more advanced than what we have at the DPR."
Once he had synthesised a potential vaccine and had sealed it in a strong glass vessel, he headed back to Strangerville where he checked in with his colleague and houseguest, David.
"So, how did you fare, Cornelius?" David asked.
"Ta-daaaaaa, here it is. A prototype of a vaccine right here. All we need to do now is test it?"
"I hope you don't mean testing it on me!" said David, only half in jest.
"No, no, no." said Cornelius, shaking his head. "You don't have any of the sickness symptoms. We need one of our strange moving and disconnected friends to test it on."
"How do you propose to do that? The sickness gives the victim enhanced strength; we've tried stopping them in the past and each time we failed. How are you going to restrain them long enough to inject them with your vaccine?"
"Who said anything about injecting them?" replied Cornelius, with a knowing grin.
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A little while later Cornelius and David were standing on the front porch looking out over central Strangerville.
"At any given moment of the day there's at least a couple of them shuffling about" said David.
"Well, they are most distinctive. I doubt one will pass us by and we'll not notice...LOOK!"
Cornelius was pointing at a young woman whose eyes were wide open and bug like and who was walking in that strange, robotic way.
"Which one is she?" asked Cornelius.
David had a clipboard with him that had 6 sheets of A4 on it, each page contained a summary of all the sickness victims. David flicked through the sheets until he found the correct one.
"That's Alice Martin, age 22, artist. She lives at that hippie commune."
"Then Alice Martin, 22 year old artist, will be my first test subject. You stay here, David, pay close attention to what happens when I administer the vaccine and make sure you take detailed notes."
"Will do"
Cornelius went down to the front of his house and cautiously approached Alice, the glass beaker of vaccine medicine clutched in his left hand. Alice stopped still, her crazed eyes still fixed straight ahead and it looked like she was not aware of Cornelius' presence as he moved next to her. Then, as he was about to raise the beaker high, she quickly shook her head and her body relaxed. Her eyes went from crazed to looking normal.
She suddenly noticed Cornelius was standing next to her and she looked put out. "What are you doing? What do you want?" she said accusatorily.
"My mistake, madam, I don't mean anything...sorry to have troubled you." he replied. Cornelius screwed the lid back on to the beaker and turned to look in David's direction. He crossed his hands and made a signal of 'no go'.
As Alice Martin walked off instead of going back home, Cornelius remained on the street corner, looking for another person stricken with the sickness. Right across the road, near the library, was a victim he had encountered a few times before: Tre Stern. Cornelius turned to look at David again and signalled that he was going to try Stern this time.
He jogged across to where Stern was and was annoyed that one of the local scientists was getting in the way. He couldn't tell if she had stopped Tre Stern or whether he was trying to bother her but she was obscuring his line of sight to Stern and a good aim was what was required for his next move...
"MoThEr..." mumbled Stern. The scientist recoiled in horror and Cornelius spied his chance.
"Excuse me madam"...he said, gently pushing the woman to one side, "Tre Stern....take THIS!" and with a swift and smooth movement Cornelius threw the contents of the beaker into Stern's face.
"AAARRRGGGGHHHH! UGGGHHH! WHAT....I'M....IT BURNS!" yelled Stern as he recoiled in shock from the vaccine being in contact with his skin. For a moment Cornelius could detect a flicker of what looked like anger or resentment in Stern's face but, in a flash, that angry look turned into an idiot grin once more.
"MoThEr.....CoMe JoIn Us...." said Stern in a monotone voice. Cornelius sighed in frustration.
Stern jerkily walked away and Cornelius skulked back home.
"Did you log everything like I asked?" he said to David.
"Everything. Even took a couple of photos. Did it have any effect?"
"A tiny bit. This is going to need more fine tuning and testing but that is enough for tonight. I will resume work tomorrow." said a dejected Cornelius.
"I noticed one of those shadowy characters who have been walking around town a lot lately was closely observing you performing your experiment just now." said David, jerking his head towards the window.
"Were they now...I think I have one last task this evening after all...wait here." said Cornelius, suddenly becoming more lively again.
Stepping outside he saw the person David was referring to, indeed it was hard to miss her. Wearing a black pantsuit and sunglasses in the evening, she had government spook written all over her.
"Good evening, are you having a nice time?" said Cornelius to this woman, in an attempt to verbally disarm her.
"It's fine. Now if you'll excuse me..." she said, trying to walk past him.
"Hypersensitive to light are you?" Cornelius said, abruptly, as he took a step to his left to block her path.
"What?" she replied.
"The sunglasses...at this time of the evening?" said Cornelius with an outwardly pleasant smile which hid his sharp intellect.
The woman didn't take the bait. "That really is none of your business, Doctor..." and with that she took a step to her right and continued on her way. Without turning around Cornelius yelled out to her
"So you know I'm a doctor, do you?" He said without missing a beat.
He was preparing to go home when he noticed something coming down the street. Another victim of the Strangerville Sickness but this person was someone not on their records...now there were seven victims.
Journal update: My attempts to develop a successful vaccine continues but there have been only slight improvements since my first attempt.
Alice Martin proves to be a tricky customer: This is the second time I have attempted to administer the vaccine to her and each time she reverts to her normal state right before I do so. A most frustrating girl...
More people are succumbing to the sickness; a young man I encountered in central Strangerville did remain in his possessed state long enough for me to throw the medicine on him and I thought it might work this time...
But despite a marginal improvement in behaviour he soon reverted back to his possessed state.
...I must also add to my notes that the vaccine may cause drowsiness.
Alice Martin has, up until now, proven most resistant to treatment. However, I managed to sneak up on her before she transformed back to normal and was able to splash her with the trial vaccine.
Her reaction was one I was not expecting. One half of her seemed normal and the other still under the influence of the sickness. Her speech was slightly more coherent than those who fall prey to the sickness so this is is: This is a form of the vaccine that I will refine one last time before I will start administering it to the victims.
David has been keeping an overnight vigil of the town. The residents, both infected and the group of conspiracy theorists, can be seen walking the streets well into the night, well past 2am. He has also noticed that as night falls the infected make some kind of bizarre pilgrimage to the outskirts of town in the direction of the secret laboratory. My theory is that they are receiving instructions from the Mother Plant.
Late at night, the people in black suits patrol the streets. They obviously work for the government but refuse to say which department. I wish they'd leave us alone; the DPR is a US government agency but obviously held in low esteem and myself, a foreigner in these parts, is going to add to their suspicions. They bring with them a van with a radar dish on the top...what good that does them I cannot say.
Corporal Sigworth was my breakthrough patient. I administered the vaccine and she is cured! A eureka moment for me, which David, Peggy and myself celebrated with a bottle of Pol Roger '57.
Over the course of the last few days Cornelius had not been in touch with Peggy. He had immersed himself in trying to synthesise a vaccine and had little time for keeping in touch with the rest of his team. David was an exception, as he had set up home at Cornelius' house during the break in semesters and was an on-site field agent but there had been little need for a computer expert. He resolved to make amends with her.
She was surprised to see him. "Cornelius; you don't venture into the city much" she said.
"I don't and that's because I'm far too busy but I have come specifically to see you about a matter of importance" he replied.
"Well, you'd better come in" she said, ushering him towards her apartment. He followed her and then the two of them sat on her sofa.
"I don't think you've been here before" she said as a way to begin the conversation gently.
"I haven't. Much remiss of me. First of all I want to say I think you've done a fantastic job of computer analysis of my work...I do tend to write off notes, ideas and reports on any old bit of paper I can find. Your computer has sped up the process and you've managed to get the base's machines up and running as well. You're an invaluable member of the team."
"Somehow I feel like a 'but' is coming" said Peggy, who was not sure where he was heading with all of this.
"No buts I can assure you...I want to keep you up to date and rather than a phone call I wanted to see you in person. I believe I have a cure for the Sickness."
Peggy's face lit up with joy. "That's wonderful news, congratulations."
"That's why you haven't heard from me much in the last week. It's taken a long time to make and prepare one. But I've tested it and now we have a version that works."
"Great...so are you going to cure the victims and then we can all move on?" she asked.
Cornelius looked grave and shook his head. "Would that it were so simple. We still have the issue of the Mother plant to deal with. At the moment it is malevolent and hostile and barely kept under control at the laboratory. It's been sending out spores to infect people...recruit them as drones...and the vines are travelling further and further afield. When we next go down to the lab, we're probably going to have to fight it."
Peggy looked shocked at this revelation. "By fight do you mean calling in the army?"
"Conventional weapons will not harm the creature...it'll have to be the DPRs responsibility and where a large army would fail, a small but determined party might just succeed. I need a small team: David and myself will be at the vanguard but I will need 3 others down there. And I have a specific role for you..."
"You don't mean for me to fight this thing?" said Peggy, now alarmed.
"We're going down there with a lot of advanced equipment, Peggy. I want you to remain in the upper part of the lab monitoring the confrontation: Keeping tabs on our vital signs, analysing the movements of the Mother plant and keeping a close look on the monitors so you can co-ordinate our fight. You will be mission control."
"Don't feel you have to shield me because I'm a woman, Cornelius. If you need me to fight, I'll fight"
"Fighters I can get hold of, trained computer specialists I cannot, Peggy"
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