The Journey Home

Chapter 3

*****THE FOLLOWING EVENTS HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME ALEX IS BOARDING A PLANE TO NEW YORK*******

Nature is more alive than humanity could ever comprehend. And just like any living thing, nature has the sense of self-preservation. And when threatened, it will take the necessary actions to eliminate that threat, in this case humanity being the threat.

For the past centuries, ever since the industrial revolution, humanity has being nothing but destructive to the environment. Global warming being solely the fault of man. Look at it in this way, nature is a living body which was in perfect health until man crawled out of the mud, and man in this case is an infection, an infection that has slowly been spreading and consuming nature. And just like any living thing, nature deployed its defense mechanisms to deal with the infection.

Global warming, over the past years has increased the melting of polar ice caps and permafrost (permanently frozen ground). And in those frozen wastelands lay nature's deadliest weapon. A microbe that had been frozen for millions of years waiting for its release. And now it's finally out.

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Scott, an American marine biologist, was currently researching and documenting how polar animals such as polar bears and penguins interacted with their environment: their source of food, migration patterns and how they were adapted to live in conditions of extreme cold. He had been working on this for quite some time and he was beyond himself with joy and excitement when The University of Columbia agreed to fund his research. This meant that he could finally go to the North Pole to obtain more data for his research.

Two weeks after the university agreed to fund his research, Scott found himself on a helicopter that was taking him to a research station that was located in Greenland.

"I have been waiting for this for my entire life," Scott practically squealed to his assistant Claire.

"Whoa, take the excitement down a Notch will you?" Claire shouted to him because of the noise from the helicopter's engine.

Scott just laughed Claire off and decided to keep quiet since conversation in a flying chopper was next to impossible after all. Claire, Scott's assistant, had been sent by the University to monitor Scott's work and to ensure that the University's funds were well invested, not that Scott minded it anyway. As long as he got to do what he loved.

They arrived at the research station with no incident and Scott jumped into work right away. He took out his filming devices; his camera, infrared binoculars and his long range microphones and headed out to collect data for his research. This was exactly six hours after they arrived which was around 6.00am G.M.T. Being Scott's assistant, Claire had no other choice to follow Scott into the ice desert.

They walked around for about two hours before they found the first sign of life in the frozen wasteland. It was a small flock of emperor penguins that was just playing on the ice. They set their equipment down and Scott started taking pictures while jolting down notes.

"Your excitement about these things never cease to amaze me," Claire said while rubbing her gloved hands.

"They are not things, they are an important part of the eco-system. Life would be essentially impossible without these creatures," Scott replied while taking more pictures.

"Yeah, yeah I get it. What I do not get is why you could not have chosen a warmer..." Claire did not finish her statement as the ice she was standing on collapsed beneath her feet and sent her spiraling down a hole screaming. The sound of Claire's scream had Scott looking behind him to where Claire was, or so he thought. Where Claire stood only a few seconds earlier was now a hole in the ice.

"CLAIRE!!" Scott shouted as he ran over to the hole. Peering down the hole, Scott saw Claire lying on her back with her leg twisted at an unnatural angle. She was not moving and this made Scott panic. Since the hole was not that deep, about seven feet, Scott jumped down the hole and started performing first aid on Claire to the best of his ability.

"Claire, come on, please be ok." Scott said while shaking Claire.

After a few attempts at calling her name, Claire finally opened her eyes. Scott mouthed a silent thank you to his Religious Deity, retrieved his satellite phone from his bag pack and called for help from the station. The station said that they would send a medical team to their location immediately.

"My leg is killing me," Claire said after Scott had finished making the call.

"Here's something for the pain," Scott said as he gave Claire a morphine injection just on her hip, just above the broken part of her leg, from a mini-first aid kit that he had taken out of his bag. He then took out some bandages with the intention of making a splint for Claire's leg which was obviously broken. Scott looked around desperately for anything that he could use to make a splint and seeing no other option, he broke some ice that was shaped as a rod and then proceeded to make a splint for Claire.

"It's not much, but this should hold until the medical team gets here," Scott told Claire as he tied the last knot on Claire's Splint. Claire reached out and held Scott's arm, "thank you."

Just then, the pair heard the unmistakable sound of a Jet Ski engine approaching.

"Looks like our ride is here," Scott said as he stood up.

The medical team arrived, secured Claire and took her to the station where she was prepped for transport to New York since the station did not have the appropriate equipment to deal with her current condition. And Scott feeling that this was all of his fault, got into the chopper with Claire to escort her to New York.

What Scott did not know is that the ice he used to make the make-shift splint for Claire contained microfossils of a Neanderthal creature. The microfossils contained a virus that had been frozen in that particular place for millions of years. When Scott tied the splint, the heat from Claire's body slowly melted the ice releasing the virus. The virus made its way into Claire's body via point where Scott had injected the morphine.

Since the virus was so primitive, it had no chance against Claire's immune system. It had to find a mechanism with which to survive. It therefore looked for another virus to piggyback ride on. Claire had been bitten by a feral dog when she was young which resulted in her contracting rabies. The virus therefore fused with the rabies antibodies that were being produced by Claire's body, rapidly evolving to develop rabies like characteristics. Even though that the virus had evolved, it still needed to incubate in order to achieve infectivity. It also happened that Claire had had a lung transplant just the previous year hence her lungs were still recovering. The virus therefore found her lungs to be the area with the least immunity and therefore incubated there. Due to the virus' ability to evolve rapidly, its incubation was only a matter of mere hours. By 7.00 pm G.M.T Claire was now patient zero of the Nemesis 20 virus, as scientists later named the virus.

Since Nemesis 21 had incubated in her lungs, Claire's lungs had weakened which sent Claire in a fit of coughs throughout the plane ride to New York which the medical officers dismissed as a cold from being in the ice for too long. Little did they know that the Whole pane had just contracted the Nemesis 21 virus.

The plane touched down at New York international where an ambulance rushed Claire to Columbia General. At the hospital, the virus spread through the air vents to the rest of the hospital where it infected everyone. By now the Nemesis 21 had evolved and was now targeting the brains of its victims, corrupting it, twisting it. By moving from the lungs to the brain, Nemesis 21 was no longer airborne, and therefore it had to find new means of infectivity. Since it had evolved using the DNA sequence o rabies, Nemesis 21 was now transmitted through saliva.

BY 9.00 G.M.T, Claire passed away. But she didn't stay dead.