Argent holds up a matte-black hand. “Let’s take this slow,” he suggests. “You say it’s not precisely like anything you've seen before. Is it vaguely like anything else?”
The street doc smiles wryly. “I hear you,” she says, “and yes, the thought had crossed my mind, believe me.” She pauses, as though she doesn’t want to voice her conclusion. “It is similar in some ways to VITAS 3. In some ways,” she stresses again.
“VITAS 4?” The question’s out of my mouth before I can stop it.
She scowls at me. “Meaningless label,” she snaps.
“But it says it, doesn’t it?” I shoot back.
“To the uneducated,” Dicer ripostes, and the battle’s joined . ..
Or it would be, if Argent doesn’t raise another metallic hand. Both the doc and I shut up instantly. “We’re both uneducated when it comes to this kind of thing, Mary,” he says softly. “How about giving it to us in words of one syllable?” Her hard expression softens, and she nods. “This is a retrovirus,” she says after a few moments. She glances at me. “Like VITAS 3, yes, I’ll admit that. But there are other retroviruses too. Some are nasty—HMHVV causes vampirism, for example—one causes a kind of meningitis, but then there’s the retrovirus that causes recurrent dandruff in trolls, and one that seems to convey a severe allergy to peanuts. Popular media to the contrary, ‘retrovirus’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘global pandemic,’ okay?”
“Okay,” I agree. “But is this particular retrovirus like the particular retrovirus that causes VITAS 3?”
“Sometimes,” she says grudgingly. “I’ve seen some modes where it looks remotely like the VITAS 3 virus. And I’ve seen some modes where it looks nothing like it. It’s this damn antigenic shift thing.”
“Yeah, moving target, I get that.” I pause for a moment. “You’re saying that in this mode”—I hit the words hard, earning me a scowl from the doc, but what the frag—“it's not contagious. But it may have been, and it might get that way again. So even if it’s not a—what did you call it?—a global pandemic, it can still get pretty fragging nasty?” Dicer doesn’t want to, but she nods. “Theoretically,” and she hits the word pretty fragging hard herself. “And, also theoretically, it might antigen-shift itself into something totally harmless . .
“Or something that causes recurrent dandruff in trolls. Yeah, right.”
Dicer looks at me curiously. “Why do you want this to be VITAS 4?” she asks quietly.
That shuts me up for a moment. It’s sure as frag the way I’ve been sounding, I realize, reviewing my last few comments. Then a new thought hits me. “Hey, wait a tick,” I say suddenly. “It had to be contagious at one point, right? Paco caught it, nine or ten other people caught it. That’s contagious, isn’t it?”
Both Argent and Dicer are shaking their heads, but it’s the doc who answers. “Not necessarily. Not necessarily at all. ‘Contagious’ means you can catch a disease from someone who’s already infected. But there are lots of other vectors— that’s ‘ways of transmitting a bug’,” she amplifies. “Off the top of my head, I could list you a dozen diseases that are nasty as drek but aren’t strictly contagious.”
“I don’t get that,” I admit.
“There was a nasty bug that decimated the hemophiliac population in France back in about 2037,” the doc explains, her voice taking on a dry, lecturing tone. “A virus with a long latency period—decades, in some cases. You couldn’t catch it from someone infected, not normally. You could suck face with them, jam with them, share eating utensils, whatever. But if you get a blood transfusion from them, bingo, you’ve got the bug.” She pauses. “Okay, that’s still contagious, strictly speaking, because you can catch it from someone who’s got it, even though only through special circumstances,’'
“Tsimshian two-day fever,” Argent suggests, and the doc nods
“Good example,” she agrees. “That’s a kind of bug you find in certain streams in the Queen Charlotte Islands in Tsimshian—or whatever they call those islands now. The experts think it might be a retrovirus, but nobody’s sure because the Tsimshian government has outlawed research, for some wrong-headed reason.
“Anyway, if you drink the water, you get the bug. you get the fever, and you're probably dead in forty-eight hours. But even while you’re honking up your stomach lining,” she goes on, “you can’t infect anyone else. Not by breathing on them, spitting on them, honking on them, drekking on them, bleeding on them . . . nothing. The sole vector for the bug that’s ever been found is the water of those particular streams. If you don’t drink the water, you’ll never get the bug. Got it?”
I nod. Explained that way, it’s an easy enough concept to grasp. “So what’s the ... the vector ... for what Paco’s got?” I want to know.
“Yes, that’s the sixty-four thousand nuyen question, isn’t it?” From her expression, I figure Doc Dicer’s got an answer, but I also figure it’s one she doesn’t like at all.
“Go on, Mary,” Argent prompts, his voice quiet, and I know he’s scanned it the same way I have.
The woman nods and makes a grim face. “This is all tentative,” she starts, “without more study ..
“Received and logged,” Argent interrupts gently. “We’re not holding you to anything here.”
Her smile combines gratitude and embarrassment, as she goes on, “Okay, I'm assuming this isn’t contagious, and it wasn’t when the subject . . .”
“Paco,” I correct.
Her gaze meets mine for a moment, then she glances away. “Sorry. It wasn’t contagious when Paco was infected. Granted, it could have been, but I think the odds are small.
“So that means some other vector,” she goes on. “I’d guess it’s either airborne or ingested.”
“Lots of mucus,” Argent points out.
Dicer nods. “His GI tract’s a nightmare too,” she says, “though I don’t know which is primary and which is secondary.”
“Paco said they thought it was food poisoning,” I say.
“He also said they all ate different things,” she comes back fast. Then she relents, “Okay, it’s possible . . . Maybe something in the water. But I still put my money on airborne. I think the ... I think Paco breathed it and it got into the bloodstream through the lungs.”
“So the question becomes, where did it come from? Right?” I press. “How did it get into the air, or the water, or the food, or whatever.” I glance at Argent, see his frown. From somewhere I get the feeling he’s wondering the same thing as me—a connection with the elves here?
Dicer nods, but slowly, like she’s not totally convinced. “What?” I ask.
She doesn’t answer immediately, and I feel a kind of cold twisting in my gut. Suddenly I don’t want to hear what she’s got to say. Just keep me comfortably and reassuringly ignorant, thanks all the same. “Yes,” she says finally, “that is important. But there’s another question. What triggered it?”
Argent and I go, “Huh?” in unison.
“Some viruses and bacteria are infective all the time,” the doc explains slowly, as though it’s something she doesn’t want to think about either. “They get into your system and they make you sick, end of story.
“But then there are some that act differently,” The dry lecture-tone’s back, and I get the sudden strong feeling she’s using it to numb out her own emotions. And that’s even scarier. “Some bugs—viruses and bacteria—can get into your system,” she goes on, “and just stay there for months or years or decades . . . sometimes your whole life. They’re totally latent—they’re there, but they don’t do anything. Until something happens to trigger them. Then they start to replicate, and they start to make the body sick. AIDS was like that before the T5 phage treatment was discovered. HMHVV is like that. Harmless until triggered, then they go on a rampage
“You can have all kinds of triggering conditions. Some are internal—the body’s immunological response to another infection can trigger a latent form of viral meningitis, very nasty. Some
are external—like a certain chemical or combination of chemicals in the diet, for example.’" The doc’s voice trails off.
“And this bug has a triggering agent or condition?” Argent prompts quietly after a moment.
The shadow cutter nods. “Magic. A spell.’’
“Impossible,” Argent counters.
“Why?” I demand, and they both look at me. “There’s Awakened animals,” I explain hurriedly, “and insects, and even fragging plants that are sensitive to magic, or resistant, or can use it—or all three. What do they call it?”
“Paranatural.” It’s Argent who answers.
“So why not viruses?” I finish.
Dicer looks at me, and her expression seems to hint she's decided I’m not a congenital idiot after all. She nods. “Why not?” she echoes. “Okay, granted, this isn’t quite MIT&M or Berkeley, and I’m not exactly Dr. Derek Maclean either.” (Who? I want to ask, but I keep my yap shut.) “But it certainly looks like there are several sections in the virus’ RNA almost directly analogous to the magic-sensitive introns in the DNA of Awakened species.”
“Which means?” Argent asks.
“Which implies,” she responds, “that this particular retrovirus is latent—no, more than that, totally inert—until it’s triggered by magic.”
The shadowrunner clenches his metal fists. This is worrying him a lot more than it is me, and I don’t understand why. Frag, at the moment I’m still dealing with the relief that I’m probably not going to kick off from VITAS 4. “How certain are you of this?”
“Not certain,” she replies, “not certain at all. I can’t be, based on one case, and with the limited resources at my disposal. But,” she emphasizes, “I’d definitely say it’s indicative. Strongly indicative.”
Argent nods soberly, and I remember he knows more about her background than I do. He seems to consider that as serious drek.
In contrast. I feel like I’ve missed the fragging meeting. “I don’t get it,” I blurt. “What’s so fragging important? It’s an Awakened virus, and its triggering condition is magical activity nearby, right?”
“Wrong.” The doc turns a cold and steady gaze on me. “The trigger isn’t just background magical activity or magic use in the vicinity.”
It hits me then. I glance at Argent, and he’s nodding again. He’s got it, too. “You said the trigger was magic,” I say slowly, “a spell. A spell. A specific spell.”
“A spell specifically tailored to the particular RNA subsequence of this particular retrovirus,” Dacia confirms. “Until the virus is in the area of effect of that specific spell, it’s totally inert.”
“But that’s impossible, isn’t it?” I say, and my words sound lame in my own ears.
“Evolutionarily speaking,” she amends, “I’d agree. This retrovirus couldn’t have evolved naturally. Which means ...”
“It was engineered.” It takes me a moment to realize the voice is mine.
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Doc Dicer’s eyes are steady, Socked with mine. For a moment she doesn’t say anything or react in any way, like she’s trying to stare me down.
She’s the one who blinks first, then looks away a Sittle uncomfortably. “Maybe,” she says. “There’s a whole lot of ‘ifs’. If I’m right that the trigger is magical. If I’m right that it’s only a specific spell and not just generalized magical activity. If, if, if . . She tries to smile, but there’s no humor in it, the expression ending up more like a grimace. “If I had a real lab, with a trained staff, and all the bells and whistles ...” Her lips twist back from her teeth, and she spits, “Frag it!”
Argent and I both react. It’s the first time the doc has cursed, which adds immeasurably to the impact.
“But you said it was ‘strongly indicative,’ ” the shadowrunner points out, echoing her own words back to her.
She glares at him for an instant, then her hard expression softens. “I did say that, didn’t I?” She takes a deep breath, and I’m momentarily distracted by what that does to the lines of her white jumpsuit. “I stand by it, too. I could be wrong. But I don’t think so.”
Argent sits back down on the couch, and again he seems immune—or oblivious—to the grievous bodily harm it tried to inflict on me earlier. “Okay,” he says slowly, his voice even more tired than it was when he first arrived at the shadow clinic. “Let’s assume you’re right, Mary. The virus is geneticaliy engineered—whether from scratch or just tweaked doesn’t really matter at the moment—and only a single, specific spell will trigger it, presumably developed in tandem with the bug itself.” He glances at the doc, and she nods confirmation. “Then where does that lead us?”
Nobody speaks immediately, and the silence grows heavier and more tangible. Finally I have to say something just to break it. “It’s the perfect murder weapon, isn’t it?” I ask. “Unattributable. Silent. Fragging elegant, almost. The victim doesn’t even know he’s dead until later.”
“I don’t see it,” Argent says thoughtfully. “It’s a two-step process. You’ve got to get the bug into the victim’s system, then you’ve got to hit him with the spell. Too complicated, too much to go wrong.” This from someone who’s probably got some hands-on experience at assassination.
But I still think I’m right. “The first step’s easy, because you don’t have to worry about nailing collateral targets,” I insist. “Infect as many people as you like . . .”
“The entire Cutters gang?” he puts in.
“. . . a whole fragging city, if necessary,” I override him. “It doesn’t matter, they’re not going to get sick, are they? Then, as much later as you like, you nail the victim with the spell. He gets the bug, and keels over.”
The shadowrunner shakes his head firmly. “No good, Wolf. You’ve got to get a mage or a shaman within range of the target. And if you can do that, why not just cook him in his boots or turn him into a tree or something?”
“It’s a good way to keep your assassin alive,” I say doggedly. “No manhunt, ’cause there’s no murder . . . not one that's obvious at the moment.”
“Okay, point,” Argent concedes. “But it still doesn’t scan right. To trigger the bug, you’ve got to hit it with a spell, right?" Dicer nods. “Which means the spell’s got to get through any magical resistance or shielding or whatever the target’s got up. A serious target’s going to have that shielding—because if he didn’t, you could get the same effect by acquiring an astral link and slamming some nasty ritual sending into him from the other side of the world. And if the target's too inconsequential to have serious astral security, this is just way too much technological overkill. Just hit ’em with a power bolt. Or better yet, knife ’em in an elevator if you really want them gone.”
Which leaves me grinding my teeth. The fragger’s right, and that slots me right off. “Then how do you scan it?” I snap.
To my surprise, it's Doc Dicer who answers. “It seems to me it’s the perfect terrorist weapon,” she says quietly.
We both turn to look at her. "Why?” we say, almost at once.
For a moment it looks like she’s going to back down in the face of our scrutiny, but she visibly grabs some guts and soldiers on. “Several reasons.” She ticks them off on slender fingers. “One. Maximum impact, maximum penetration. Terrorists have tried bioweapons in the past, but they’ve never had full impact. Mainly because some people always come down with the bug before everyone’s been exposed to it, which cues the authorities to what’s going on, and leads to precautions to stop the spread. With something like this? Drop some into the water supply or wherever, and wait a few days—weeks or months, if you feel like it—until a large percentage of the target population’s been exposed.”
She shakes her head. “Hell, you could even wait years, couldn’t you? Then, when you’re ready, you hit the group with the spell—some area-effect thing, probably—and that’s it. Okay, sure, important people—the people who go around with serious astral security—aren’t going to get sick, because the spell won�
�t get to the bugs. But what percentage of the population is that? Pretty small, I’d say.
“Two.” Another finger. “It’s not a quick kill, which has all sorts of advantages from the terrorist’s point of view. First, there’s the hysteria. Panic, xenophobia, scapegoating of various groups—all the stuff you read about with every plague in history. You’ll probably end up with lots of casualties among people who weren’t even exposed to the bug or the spell, and much greater demands on a city’s or country’s infrastructure.
“And then there’s the medical load. Terrorists kill somebody, and he’s dead. Put him on ice until the ruckus is over, then incinerate him. But this way isn’t anywhere near that clean. This bug doesn’t kill people, it makes them very sick. They go to the hospital or to a clinic, where they tie up a bed, the time and energy of doctors and staff, and other resources, for as long as it takes them to get better or die.” She looks really sour, and I don’t blame her. “If the bug has a high fatality rate, if there were an epidemic, the logical thing to do would be triage—simply don’t treat bug victims, because they’re going to die anyway. But no society could do that. And if a society got to the point where it could, the terrorists have basically destroyed it anyway.”
She sighs, a deep, heartfelt sound. “And there are other advantages, too,” she goes on steadily—dully now, almost mechanically, as if suppressing her emotions. “Theoretically, you could spread the bug in advance, years before you even start your terror campaign, whatever it is. The society or government doesn’t know it’s in trouble, so its security is low. After you start your campaign, security's tightened up, but it doesn't matter—you’ve already infected the victims. Then, when the time is right, you trigger the bug. Hell, you could even withhold the epidemic if you get what you want by other means, and nobody would ever know about it.” She shudders. “You could bring down a government with this.” I exchange glances with Argent. Neither of us say anything—there’s not much that needs to be said. Doc Dicer’s right, her analysis makes perfect sense, and I can’t punch any holes in it. I find myself shuddering too. The perfect terrorist weapon is right. Except . . .
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