Igor's Secret Laboratory, New Milton Keynes, 1:30AM, Thursday the 11th of March, 2055.

Everyone gets ready to crash out for the night. Shen pops out briefly to get something in for his breakfast, gets back within about 20 minutes and hits the sack on his return.

The night passes uneventfully. Yuki has been getting up every hour or so to keep a check on her patients, but she's managed to avoid disturbing the rest of us.

It's around 7 when we all start to wake. Once everyone is up, Yuki gives us all a blood test to check for signs of nanite infection and to see if those already infected have got any worse. Roland and Crash are in the worst shape.

In Roland the nanites have spread throughout his nervous system and have now reached his brain. Some people might ask how they managed to find it, what with his spinal cord seemingly only wired to his trigger finger, but that would be cruel.

Crash isn't quite so bad, but he's not far behind. I doubt he could play guitar with no nervous system. This could be a blessing in disguise!

When it comes to Sykes, Yuki can't tell whether his condition has worsened or not. Both me and Shen are still clear of infection and once again Yuki doesn't check herself. Or at least not in front of us. I'm starting to worry about her.

Time rolls round to 9 o'clock with little happening. To be honest, I think we're all a little tired still. Those of us who have succumbed to the nanites even more so and we're hoping to hear some positive news from Sheila soon.

Shen heads out, just for a change of scenery, I think, but he slowly seems to be drifting away from the group. Maybe he's just homesick and wants to go and sit in his TV-less front room for a spell.

Roland makes a call and arranges to get his car picked up and the crash damage repaired. He goes to go outside to give the car the once-over before they come to get it, but Yuki doesn't want him to. She feels that there must be a chance that the nanite infection could be airborne and she'd rather he was in quarantine. Roland isn't having any of that. He won't even wear a face mask and just goes outside.

Meanwhile, unknown to us, Shen has been on the phone to Biotechnica. He tries to call George McKensie, but only succeeds in reaching his voicemail. He leaves George a message saying he'll call again at noon.

9:15AM and the guys come to collect Roland's car. They have a look at it, decide that the damage is largely superficial and say it'll cost 500eb to put right. Roland says that's alright, they tell him that they'll call when it's fixed and then they tow the car off.

Around 10 o'clock Yuki gets a call from Sheila's lab. It's a data transfer of the initial analysis that Sheila's been able to do. Unfortunately, it doesn't even tell Yuki as much as she already knows. So Yuki sends all her latest data up to Sheila and tells everyone she's gonna run another round of blood tests.

It's Roland again who seems to be deteriorating the quickest. Yuki says Sykes looks okay, but she's not entirely certain. Crash hasn't got any worse, I'm still in the clear and Shen isn't around. I don't notice whether Yuki tests herself this time, but I guess as we don't have to be there for her to test herself, she could have done it anytime.

The 11:00AM beep sounds from some piece of equipment I haven't identified yet. Sykes is on the phone trying to get in touch with some of his business contacts. He swears loudly as his phone dies on him. He goes out to get himself another one.

I make a call to a friend on the force, Sgt. Morgan Reeves. He's more of a desk jockey than a beat cop, but I was always able to trust him and he's one of the few cops for whom I'd actually go so far as to call him a friend. He's one of the few I've had some contact with since I 'resigned'.

He tells me he was looking at my picture just yesterday. I ask if it had anything to do with the incident outside Joe's Diner, and he says that's the one. I say I've been expecting someone to call about that, but he tells me that with everything that's happening, the Diner incident is way down the priority list.

Apparently the military took over the harbour precinct about 30 minutes ago, and have got it locked down tight. It seems that some kind of degenerative plague has broken out in the area, and the harbour police seem to be at the centre of the outbreak. He tells me the police are not happy about the military taking over because of what happened back in the UK. He's busy so I say I'll call back this afternoon to find out the latest.

Shortly after, Sykes gets a call from a very angry, and probably a little bit scared, Jake. He wants to know what it is that Sykes has got him involved with. There are military types crawling all over the dock area and two of his men have come down with the plague. Sykes just denies all knowledge.

BEEP! Must be midday. I've found the bit of kit that beeps every hour, but I'm damned if I know what it's for and I'm not gonna bother Yuki with anything so trivial at the moment.

Speaking of Yuki, she wants to check everyone again. There's no change in anyone's condition except for Roland, who's continuing to get worse.

Shen, who's still not back, makes another call to George McKensie. George isn't there and Shen gets a message saying that George is no longer an employee of the Biotechnica corporation. His call is forwarded to the Corporate Affairs department.

He explains his situation to them and says unless they provide some assistance or let him know how he can contact Leon Kronsky, then he'll take the story to the media. They just tell him to come into the office to discuss it, but he's certainly not willing to do that.

Shen goes shopping and picks himself up a suit. Then he calls Yuki and tells her that he intends to take the story to the press, along with the small sample of blue goo that is still in the fridge at his house. She tells him that she doesn't think he should be acting alone, but he's not listening.

He decides to head off to the hunting lodge, to find out if it's still there and if there's anything that he can use for further evidence to back up his story to the media.

I place a few calls to some of my contacts on the street. Some were informants when I was in the force, others are people I know from growing up on the street. They all tell a similar tale. There's panic just bubbling under the surface of society because of the plague. But the more immediate danger is the dockers.

Because the docks have been sealed off by the military, the ships in port can't be loaded or unloaded, and no non-military vessels are allowed to dock or depart. That means that the dockers can't work, and the vast majority of the dockers are paid daily on the basis of how much work they've done during that day.

So along with the anxiety they feel about the plague, as some of their number have already fallen ill, they face a complete loss of income for an undetermined length of time. They're not happy about it and the feeling on the street is that something will happen tonight.

Shen reaches the track to the lodge and finds it barricaded. He pulls up and can see the barricade carries the Biotechnica logo. Going round the barricade, he starts up the track, but turns around and heads back to the city when he spots an approaching AV-4.

On reaching the city he finds somewhere to change into his new suit. He then goes to the Daily Tabloid and explains to the receptionist that he's got a scoop regarding the situation in the harbour area. She calls one of the reporters over, a guy called Damian Day, and he takes Shen to an interview room to get his story.

Basically Shen tells him everything and supplies him with footage from his MicroVideo Optic and the sample of blue goo that's been in his fridge.

BEEP! Blimey, it's 2 o'clock already. Doesn't time fly when you're busy calling people to find out why the Apocalypse has arrived early.

Yuki tests everyone again, and it's Roland who's still in the most danger of becoming a blue stain on the soles of our shoes. Yuki doesn't test herself, but she's looking a bit shaky. I ask her if she's okay and she says she's fine. I'm not so sure, so I'm gonna keep an eye on her.

Crash is no worse than before and I'm still in the clear. Sykes though, has got the nanites present in his blood, but they appear to be inactive for some reason. He starts getting all excited and dashing about like a mad prairie dog type thing, crowing that he's immune to the nanites. Bit insensitive that, what with Roland slowly dissolving a few feet away.

I get a call from Shen and he explains what he's done. Idiot! I calmly inform him that it probably wasn't the most sensible thing he could have done and that he should probably go and find somewhere to hide. Then I hang up. Hell, we're in trouble now! He doesn't seem to understand that he's given Biotechnica a scapegoat for the plague. Us!

Still, we have more urgent concerns. I can see Yuki is unwell, so I go and say to her, "Yuki, I can see you're ill, but how bad are you?" "Not too bad at the moment", she replies, "Just a bit shaky, but I can't stop working to cure us."

I give Morgan another call. He says the city has gone quiet, with people keeping off the streets and staying at home because they're afraid of the plague.

Shen makes a call to a female government official he knows, and starts asking about the situation. The official hints that the military force that occupied the docks area had been on standby for some time and that the operation had been planned. They were just waiting for the signal to move.

She also gives some useful background info. Apparently Leon Kronsky's daughter Diana is married to the NMK's Prime Minister, Paul Magnum. And Paul has been suffering from a degenerative disease for several months now.

Shen calls me to let me know what he's found out, and in my mind I can hear tonight's top news story...

A small group of radicals break into a secret Biotechnica lab hidden below a hunting lodge, a safe distance away from the city. They steal a medicine that is under development to cure the degenerative disease that has afflicted NMK's beloved Prime Minister, destroying the lab and killing the scientists there in the process.

They then open fire, in the middle of the street, in broad daylight, on the Biotechnica staff who have gone to peacefully try and retrieve the, not yet finished and tested, medicine. One of the Biotechnica staffers manages to escape, the car riddled with bullet fire, but the other is captured and tortured. He is later rescued, by a Biotechnica team working alongside the city's law enforcement agencies, from an abandoned warehouse, where he has been tied to a chair and left to die.

This radical group then travels around the city, with the potentially dangerous unfinished medicine, having dealings with suspected smugglers and hiding out in secret laboratories deep in the heart of the city. Unsurprisingly, with the lack of care they've shown carrying it around the city, some of the people they have contact with are exposed to the experimental medicine, and succumb to the unfortunate side-effects, which Biotechnica's scientists had been working hard to eradicate.

It seems that the harbour police, who had been assisting Biotechnica in finding these radicals, got the closest to them and have suffered the greatest exposure to the medicine. Here are pictures of the radicals, captured during their downtown attack on our employees. If you see them, do not approach. Call either the police department or the NMK Biotechnica office and give them the fugitive's location. Until apprehended, these radicals are a danger to the entire city.

Or something like that!

The 4 o'clock beep sounds, and ushers in another round of tests by Yuki. Both Roland and Crash are now worsening. Sykes appears strangely immune to the continued presence of nanites in his bloodstream, while I am still free of infection. I watch Yuki test herself this time, and she assures me that there is no change in her condition.

But looking at Sykes' apparent resistance to the nanites, seems to have given her an idea and she sets to work with redoubled effort.

A short while later she says that she thinks she knows how to stop the nanites. She holds up a syringe and tells us that its contents should prevent further degeneration. She's gonna test it on herself first...

This page © Greg Aldridge, 2 July 2003