Free Alien Virus by Steve Howrie

old phone. I thought that Tony would really have
liked to go up to Orkney to explore himself; but he knew it was
best for him to stay home at the ‘Control Centre’. I promised him
we’d get started on setting up the website as soon as possible. I
had contact details on my laptop for the Swedish Internet company
we had discussed, and I could email Frida Stronson from Orkney.
    *
    It’s a straightforward, but often tiring,
journey up to the Orkney Isles. The best route from Edinburgh is
across the Forth Bridge, then head up North on the M90 to meet the
A9 at Perth. That takes you all the way to Thurso – and the nearby
port of Scrabster, from where a car ferry departs for
Stromness.
    Kate and I made good time after leaving
Edinburgh, and after stopping off in Inverness for an hour – lazily
resting on the banks of the river Ness – we arrive in Thurso after
a winding, uphill road, negotiating several hairpin bends on the
way. We were in time for the seven o’clock evening crossing from
the port of Scrabster.
    On the way up we’d talked about the past,
and I asked her how she’d met the others.
    “Frank was speaking at a Seminar at Glasgow
University. It was on the reaction of Lymphocytes to external
stimuli. Half way through his talk he threw in an astounding remark
about the white cells being controlled by an alien virus. There was
very little reaction to this from the rest of the audience, but it
had a big effect on me. I cornered him after the Seminar and asked
lots of questions. He told me he regularly held meetings at a small
hotel in Edinburgh with interested people – and if I wanted to come
along I’d be very welcome. I couldn’t get there fast enough. My
Masters was on the causes of irrational behaviour in white blood cells, and I was intrigued
by his viewpoint. I came over to the meeting at the Minto Hotel in
Edinburgh, and that’s where I met Frank, Tony and Gareth.
    “Why do you think you were so interested in
Frank’s research when no-one else was?” I asked.
    “At the time, I didn’t really think about
it. I suppose I rationalized that it was right up my street – the
subject of my research. But that applied to others there as well.
Looking back, I think it was because it was it meant to be...
almost as if the lecture was set up just for me. Oh, that sounds
very self-centred, I’m sorry.”
    “No no, I do know what you mean. I had the
same feeling when I met Frank in London.”
    “I know I’m trained as a scientist, but I
believe there’s much more to life than scientific logic or reason.
Ancient civilisations knew this – the
Egyptians, the Greeks. They recognized there was a pattern to life
– and it didn’t end with the death of the physical body.”
    “Are you religious, Kate?” I asked.
    “No – not at all. My parents were a little –
but they never went to church. I grew up without any particular
beliefs – though I could never accept that when you die that’s it.
It didn’t make sense. So when I went into Science and saw all the
patterns in nature, it was just too much to believe that all this
came about through random events.”
    “Not a Darwinist then?”
    “No, not at all. But not a ‘Universe created
in five days’ person either. I’d never found anyone who shared my
view about the Universe – until I met Frank.”
    I hadn’t known this about Frank – that he
had wider views. I wondered how his philosophy fitted in with his
ideas about the alien virus.
    “I used to have such long discussions with
Frank. I’d often miss the last train back to Glasgow, and have to
stay at Audrey’s. The big question I had was this: was the
introduction of the virus a random event, or was it part of an
experiment?”
    “An experiment!”
    “Yes. If you take the view that there is
Intelligent Design in the Universe, then you have to ask the
question: did the intelligence allow or even arrange for the virus
to come to Earth; or was this a flaw in the Intelligence…