Autumn The City Page 0,48

heavy and powerful machine roared up the access ramp, climbed a steep incline and then followed the track away from the concealed base. It took the troops more than an hour to travel the thirty or so miles to the city. They followed a direct route along major roads littered with the wrecks of crashed cars and the decaying remains of countless bodies. Occasionally figures appeared in the near distance and at the sides of the road but they were lethargic and painfully slow, seeming to drag themselves along with considerable effort. The soldiers didn't stop to offer assistance or investigate. The driver of the transport had his orders, and those orders were to go directly to the heart of the city. It didn't seem to matter anyway. What could they do for these first survivors? What could fifteen soldiers possibly do to help millions of plague victims? Cooper turned to look at Mark Thompson sitting next to him.

He looked frightened. Even though the tinted visors on their cumbersome full-face breathing masks Cooper could see that the other man was scared. He could see it in his eyes - the way that although his head remained perfectly still and fixed forward, his eyes were darting frantically around the inside of the transport, never daring to settle on any one thing for fear of catching sight of whatever it was that was terrifying him. And that was still the problem, Cooper decided, it was not knowing. They'd been trained to deal with the aftermath of nuclear war, conventional war, terrorism and many other types of conflict or attack, but it was obvious that this was very different. The details of cause and effect were sparse, but it was already clear that no-one could have been trained to deal with anything like this. It was uncomfortably hot in the protective suit. Cooper knew that his life depended on the protection, of course, but the oppressive atmosphere beneath the layers of treated material and rubber did nothing to calm his nerves. The initial burst of adrenaline he had felt on leaving the bunker had died down now that they had been away from their protective prison for some time. He now felt claustrophobic and wanted to return to the base.

His mouth was dry and he needed to drink but he was afraid to risk compromising his suit. Eating, drinking, going to the toilet and many other simple and ordinary tasks would be difficult and risky until they were back. To remove any part of the suit for even a few seconds might be enough to let in the vicious virus that, if the information his officers had was correct, could quickly end his life. Judging by the number of bodies scattered on the ground around them as the drove through the suburbs and into the city, this was a disease that had killed many, many thousands more than it had spared. Heavy rain clattered down constantly on the metal roof above the soldier's heads, echoing around the transport. There was next to no conversation. Other than the rain and the sound of the machine's groaning engine there was an oppressive and all-consuming silence which was only disturbed by sudden brief explosions of static conversation from the radio and equally brief and factual reports to the officers back at the base.

The soldiers were sat in two rows along either side of the transport, facing into the middle. Thompson suddenly got up out of his seat and leant across the inside of the machine to look out of a small square window between the heads of the two troops sitting directly opposite. 'Bloody hell,' he said, loud enough for the others to hear. There was sudden movement throughout the vehicle as rest of the soldiers immediately turned to see what it was that their colleague had spotted deep in the murky-greyness of the late September afternoon. All around them they could see movement. Slow and laboured but still very definite movement. They had reached what Cooper called the 'inner-suburbs' of the city - a ring of small shopping areas and high streets which had once been villages in their own right but which had since been swallowed up and consumed by the ever-expanding city centre. These areas were the first real pockets of civilisation that the soldiers had driven through since leaving the base. There were many more bodies on the ground here, and there were many more figures moving nearby too.