Vince Calhoun sat alone at a small table in the spacious Denali solarium. He’d staked out a spot near one of the tall, full, living ficus trees and relaxed in the gentle sunlight that streamed through the ceiling and walls made from adjustable-opacity WindoWall glass. Most of the other Denali researchers and scientists kept themselves in their ResearchStation pods to avoid distractions, but he found the openness of the solarium helped him think more creatively. With his PortiComm, he could access the Internet and his own files just as easily as in his own pod or office. He drew a deep breath and stretched his shoulders.
Today, however, he found himself with little to do. Despite Dan’s demands, he hadn’t yet started on a new designer pathogen. Something in his gut told him it would be better to wait, just to be sure their MRSA-II pathogen didn’t do anything unexpected out there in the population—even though Lucracillin was performing admirably to cure the victims. Rather than argue with Dan, he’d just hunkered down and made busy work for himself lately.
Vince decided to take a little stroll through the Internet and see what was going on in the world. He activated his PortiComm and the FloaTouch display appeared before him. He idly flipped through his favorite news sites with no particular destination in mind. Nothing notable going on. Just the usual Wall Street gyrations, corporate scandals, celebrity dramas, and the like. More dull tedium. Maybe he should leave early and go for a run or something.
Then a story caught his eye. At first, it looked like just another one of those Denali-bashing stories. Muckraking journalists loved to throw barbs at the successful kid on the block. He read further. A doctor in Vermont claimed he had a MRSA-II patient—a young waitress named Emily Lewis—who died despite receiving Lucracillin in the proper dosage just after the initial onset of the disease. If the story was accurate, this was the first case where the drug hadn’t been completely effective.
Not wanting to risk being overheard, he shut down his PortiComm and went straight to Dan’s office to tell him what he’d just read.
“I’m worried. If this story is accurate, then a resistant MRSA-II strain may have developed. If so, we need to get in front of it, and fast.”
Dan scowled. “Understood. Drop your work on the new pathogen for now and get hold of that doctor. See if you can get a sample that you can culture and work with.”
“Will do.” Rather than savoring a feeling of righteous I-told-you-so vindication, Vince found himself trying to shake off the unsettling sense of dread that had just swept over him.
* * *
“Paging Dr. Riley…paging Dr. Riley.”
Tom Riley groaned. He still had several critical patients to check on, and he needed a break two hours ago. He turned away from the door to his next patient’s room and strode down the hall toward the nurses’ station.
“Call for me?”
The nurse wore a puzzled look. “Yes, it’s an outside call. A Vince Calhoun from Denali Labs. He says it’s urgent.”
“Why are they calling me? I don’t have time for drug salesmen.” The hospital was supposed to have people to handle the endless parade of BigPharma salesmen. He sure as hell didn’t have the time—or desire—to listen to the song and dance.
“I had the same thought at first, and I told him so. In no uncertain terms. But he insisted that wasn’t why he was calling, that it was about a specific patient.”
“All right. I hope he isn’t trying to pull a fast one to get around the normal procedure. I wouldn’t put it past any of those guys. Pushy bastards. Patch it into my PortiComm, please.” Tom pressed a button to accept the call. “Hello, this is Dr. Riley.”
“Doctor, thank you for taking my call. My name is Vince Calhoun, and I’m the lead research scientist here at Denali. I’m calling about what might be a very urgent matter.”
“Mr. Calhoun, I’m very busy today, so get to the point. What is it?”
“I read in the news that you had a patient, an Emily Lewis, who apparently had contracted MRSA-II, but who died despite having Lucracillin appropriately administered.”
Tom wondered why someone from the manufacturer would be calling. Probably to see if there was any way he’d screwed up in administering the drug—so they could avoid any possible liability. That’s how these outfits worked. Granted, they came out with some really useful drugs, but if anything went wrong, their lawyers were the first to figure out some way to absolve them of any responsibility. They left the doctor exposed to the malpractice claim every time.
“Yes, I did. I administered the drug precisely as per the label instructions. I’ve been having excellent results with it in my other patients. But this time, it just didn’t work.” He sighed. “If anything, her disease process appeared to accelerate. She didn’t last the night.”
“Really? This is the first I’ve heard of the drug failing at all, let alone of any incident involving an acceleration in the pathology. I’d like to investigate this further and try to determine what made this case different. Would it be possible for you to send samples to me for culture and testing?”
“Well, of course I’d have to check with the next of kin before I could promise anything like that. The body is still in the morgue downstairs, so I’d still have ready access if they agree to it.”
“Please, Dr. Riley. I really hope you’ll be able to get those samples to me. I want to understand what happened here and see if a resistant strain has developed that we should be aware of. It goes without saying that we don’t want to ignore that possibility with a disease as dangerous as MRSA-II.”
“True enough. I remember all too well how it was before the drug became available. One hundred percent mortality. Lucracillin has saved many lives, just here at this hospital.” He gazed into the distance as he pictured his patient. “This case, though. It really was worse than anything I’d seen before. I sure hope there was some underlying weakness in the patient, because if the bacteria has mutated…well, let’s just hope it hasn’t. I’ll check with the next of kin right away. They’re pretty upset as you can imagine, so it might be a couple of days before you hear back from me.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
Tom took Calhoun’s contact information and ended the call. Funny, he’d never had a drug company demonstrate that much seemingly genuine concern over the performance of its product. In this case, he was glad they did.
He didn’t want to think about what it would be like if they couldn’t depend on Denali’s silver bullet for MRSA-II infections. He would be sure to get permission from the next of kin, no matter how much coaxing he had to do.
CHAPTER 41
Connie Morgan braked to a stop and opened the bus door. She watched as the passengers boarded. It never ceased to amaze her how zombie-like they all looked as they got on the morning bus to work and school. They all shuffled in and waved their pay cards at the reader like the walking dead. Come to think of it, they didn’t look much better by the end of the day. She smirked, confident none of them would even notice how she was looking at them.
Unfortunately, she didn’t feel so terrific herself this morning. She’d have loved to have stayed home in bed, but was running short of sick days. Just a few weeks ago, she’d been hit with some weird bug. Knocked her on her ass for days. She’d finally called a friend to commiserate about it, and her friend told her there was some great drug that would fix her right up.
So she’d gone to the nearest walk-in clinic and asked for whatever would take care of that awful bug. They gave her an injection and a vial of pills and sent her on her way. She went home and took the medicine as directed. And damned if she wasn’t feeling just fine by the very next day—this after days of lying in bed, barely strong enough to get a glass of water every few hours. Amazing stuff.
Connie wondered if she was having a relapse now, after such a miraculous turnaround. She made a mental note to get herself over to the clinic again after her shift. She didn’t have time now, and hoped she would make it through the day before she really started
dragging badly again.
A particularly stupid-looking passenger shoved a five-dollar bill in her face and asked for change for the machine.
She took the bill in her hand, raised it up and pointed to the sign at the front of the bus. “See that? We don’t take currency anymore. Don’t you have a pass card like everyone else? You just wave it at the sensor over here and it deducts the fare from your account. We stopped taking currency last year.” She handed the bill back to the passenger, who just stood there looking perplexed.
She waved her hand in exasperation. “All right. Go ahead and get on. But make sure you get a pass card before you try to get on the bus home tonight, all right?” Connie didn’t feel like arguing. Breathing took too much effort as it was, her stomach felt a bit sour, and she was developing a really intense itch on her back beneath her bus driver’s uniform.
This was going to be a long day.
CHAPTER 42
“Thanks for meeting with me, Phil. I really need to talk to you alone.” Jerry shifted in his chair. He didn’t want to say what he had to say, but he knew it needed to be done.
“Sure, Jerry. What is it?”
“We’ve done some more testing and the results are, well, disturbing. The mutant strain is resistant to Denali’s Lucracillin.”
“I was hoping we’d catch a break there. I suppose it shouldn’t be that surprising, though. Their drug was designed specifically to affect the MRSA-II bacteria. It was probably so specific to it that it couldn’t possibly work on anything else. Well, we’ll just have to—”
“Phil.” Jerry’s mouth went dry as cotton as he prepared to deliver the worst part. “There’s more.”
Phil frowned. “What?”
“Lucracillin isn’t just ineffective on the mutant strain. It actually accelerates its growth and pathological effects.”
Phil paled. “Accelerates?”
“Yeah. Its growth rate skyrockets—and its effects intensify in tandem. The Pathosym models indicate the mutant strain would kill a victim within hours instead of days. And it would retain its extremely contagious nature.”
Phil put a hand to his forehead and closed his eyes a moment. “Oh, that’s just great.”
“It’s even worse than that. Think about it. Patients will present looking like they’re infected with MRSA-II. Given that disease’s history and pathology, doctors will quickly administer—”
Phil’s eyes widened, then his hands dropped to his desk and lay there, impotent. “Lucracillin. Oh, Jesus. It’s a perfect storm.”
“Yes, it is. Sylvia’s gotten it in her head that the organism is sentient, that it planned exactly this scenario. I don’t believe that, of course, but if it were…it couldn’t possibly have designed its mutant version better for maximum spread and impact.”
Phil sat back in his chair and ran a hand over his mouth. Tiny beads of sweat appeared at his hairline. “My God.”
“We’ve already started analysis to design a drug to combat it. We’re moving as quickly as we can on that, of course.”
“Of course. But how do we know this very same mutation will happen in the population? I still don’t think we can know that for certain.”
“That’s true. We could be chasing a phantom. But dare we take the chance? I don’t know what else we can do.”
“No, you’re right to proceed as you are. I know Sylvia was pushing to call for quarantine. I still don’t want to go that route. There would be no way to even suggest that without tipping our hand as to why—and as to the fact that we designed the damned thing in the first place.” He stared down at his desk. “No. We do that and Horton Drugs might as well shut down for all the scandal and liability that will ensue.”
“We talked about that some more. Quarantine still could help prevent some of these cases, but mainly for those who contracted GIS or MRSA-II first and then the mutant version. That wouldn’t necessarily be the most likely scenario. The more likely scenario is someone contracting the mutant version that mimics MRSA-II, and then that person is treated with Lucracillin—the logical choice given the initial symptoms.”
Phil wiped the sweat from his hairline with a trembling hand. “We’d better hope you and Sylvia can design a drug in time.”
“Yes.” Jerry shifted in his seat again. “Phil, I want to say something else. I hope you understand where this is coming from.”
“What is it?”
“Well, you and I have both been here at Horton a long time. I’m not part of the Horton family, but I almost feel that way. I cut my teeth here and have been here my entire professional life. I just want to say…” He took a deep breath, then looked Phil in the eye. “I just want to say, I wish this hadn’t happened, and I don’t think Horton Drugs would have taken this route in the past. I really wish we hadn’t compromised Horton standards to try to keep up with Denali. It just doesn’t feel right.”
Phil suddenly stood and stomped over to his window. He put his fists on his hips and turned his back to Jerry before answering. “And what would you have done in my place, Jerry? I understand you’ve been here longer than about anyone, but it’s a different reality these days. If we didn’t play Denali’s game, do you think we would even now be sitting here talking about it? My CFO would say not. Do you have any idea how close to corporate oblivion we were before we released the GIS bacteria—and the Spectracillin to cure it?”
Jerry flinched at the sudden verbal assault. He’d figured Phil would have shared at least some of the same feelings, but he seemed to accept that keeping the corporation alive, no matter the cost, was the primary goal. Maybe he was less of a Horton than Jerry.
“Sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Maybe not. Maybe it isn’t your place to criticize what I’ve had to do to save this company. You think it was easy for me to cast aside Horton tradition?” He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture without turning to face Jerry. “Maybe you’d best get back to the lab. Before it’s too late.”
Jerry stood. “Yes, sir. I’ll do that.” He’d given his total loyalty to Horton Drugs all his professional life. Perhaps it didn’t deserve it.
But for now, he had to work to make sure that if the worst possible thing happened, they were ready.
CHAPTER 43
After Jerry left, Phil felt his knees threaten to buckle beneath him, so he returned to his desk and sat. He leaned back in his chair and noticed how tension had driven his shoulders up toward his ears. He took a deep breath and made a conscious—albeit unsuccessful—effort to try to relax them.
He hadn’t worked directly with Jerry before now, but he knew of his excellent reputation at Horton. He didn’t deserve to be treated the way he’d just treated him. Jerry was right and he’d struck a nerve. Phil knew perfectly well there was no way Horton Drugs would ever have stooped to designing a pathogen of any kind just so it could create a revenue stream.
And was it really worth it? What was he saving if he had to sacrifice Horton Drugs’ long-held ethical standards to do it? They were no better than Denali now. And what was worse, they may have unwittingly unleashed on the public a monster far worse than MRSA-II—and without a cure.
Phil leaned his elbows on his desk and held his face in his hands. He had to think through what he’d learned today, had to come up with a solution. And he had no one he could confide in. Not for the first time, he wished he’d never taken over as CEO. He’d never even been remotely interested in the position, but he’d felt obligated to take it and do his best. And now he’d made a good, solid mess of it.
He pressed a button on his PortiComm and called home. “Livvie? I’ve, uh, got some work to do tonight. I’ll be here late. Don’t hold dinner for me.”
He stared toward the window. “I think I’m going to be quite late…yes, it’s something major. I wouldn’t wait up if I were you.”
He hung up and decided he needed a change of scenery.
* * *
Phil settled into a booth in the back of the Harlow Lounge
, a little place between his office and home where he sometimes stopped for a beer at the end of the day. He’d hoped the change in setting might spark some much-needed inspiration, and figured because the Harlow was a quiet and cozy sort of place, that he’d be left alone to think. He hadn’t expected the place to be nearly devoid of other customers.
He signaled the waiter and ordered an IPA and some onion rings. As he waited for his order, he glanced around the room and wondered if any designer bacteria lurked on any of the surfaces—or if any of the staff or what few customers there were harbored the mutant version of the pathogen. He ran a napkin over the table in front of him, and tried not to think about how much he’d like to douse the entire booth in rubbing alcohol.
His order arrived in record time. The waiter set the glass of beer and plate of onion rings before him, then asked him if he needed anything else.
“No, this is fine, thank you.” He pointed toward the main section of the lounge. “Where is everyone? I realize it’s a weeknight, but it’s so empty.”
“Been a ghost town here for the past several weeks now. People are staying home more because of that GIS bug that’s been going around.” He sighed. “This keeps up, old man Harlow said he may have to close up until things settle down.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks. Well, enjoy your food. Let me know if you need anything else and I’ll get it to you right away. Personalized service, seeing as you’re almost the only one here tonight.” The waiter forced a smile, then headed back to the kitchen area.
If this place was losing business because of the GIS outbreak, imagine what would happen if the mutant strain started spreading. Phil took a swallow of the IPA, then set it down and stared at it, watching the bubbles form, rise, then destroy themselves. He picked up an onion ring and began to concentrate on his dilemma.
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