by E. E. Giorgi
David bobbed his head.
Great.
At least they had blue skies here too. Blue skies and no water, the endless cloud of sand confined to the red floating sea just below the mesa. He walked briskly to the building two blocks up the road where the cafeteria was, and jogged up the stairs to grab a tray. The food was tasteless, whatever they could find in this isolated, looted, and forgotten part of the world. He grabbed coffee and a bagel, paid, and went scouting for a table.
There. The scientists.
All these big heads trying to find a cure for the zombie flu.
He spotted the usual solitary scientists spread across several tables, lunching on a burrito while leafing through their notes; small groups discussing frantically particles, gravity and other stuff in some strong accent that came with the obligatory rolling R’s; and then—
And then he saw his boss, Dr. Anu Sharma.
All alone, of course.
Who’d want to be in her company anyway?
Anu didn’t even look up from her plate as David walked by holding his tray, her eyes deeply absorbed in the paper in front of her. David surveyed the various tables, pulled a chair from one of the empty ones by the windows, then his eyes fell back on his boss, sitting in a corner all by herself. He sighed and pushed the chair back.
I must be out of my mind.
Or simply starved of any social interaction.
“Mind if I join you?” he said.
Anu looked up and frowned, her eyes almost dazed for a moment.
Jeez, maybe she’s right. Maybe I do objectify women if I find even her eyes to be pretty. What the hell, David, has it been this long since you last had sex?
Without waiting for an answer, David clonked his tray on the table and flopped on the chair across from her.
Anu closed the paper in front of her and pushed it away. “Some problems with the program?”
David slid the plastic knife out of its wrapper and started cutting his bagel in two. “No. Not at all. Just hate eating by myself.”
“Oh.”
“Unlike you.” He looked down on her paper plate—a half eaten salad and some old tomatoes—and purposely put on a judgmental face. Just because she’s the one paying me right now, doesn’t mean she’s the only one entitled to be judgmental.
Anu picked at her tomatoes. “I’m glad things are going well with the program. I’ve been waiting for a supercomputing expert like you for the longest time. With all the problems we’ve been having worldwide, things haven’t been easy lately.”
David spread a blob of cream cheese on his half bagel and bit it. “So. What’s your story?” he asked, with his mouth full.
“My—what?”
David swallowed, took another bite, and repeated his question. “Your story. You know. We all have one. What’s yours? You weren’t born a scientist, were you?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No. Of course not. I uh—Well.” She propped her elbows on the table and looked away. And suddenly she smiled. “Actually, I take that back. I used to go to the swamp when I was a child and collect tadpoles and newts. That counts for early scientific thinking, doesn’t it?”
David nodded. “Ah, the swamp. We all have one of those in our childhood.”
“What about you?”
David’s jaw froze around the bitten bagel. He’d tossed the question at her, but he hadn’t expected it to rebound. He put down his bagel and shrugged, realizing how little he had to say.
“Average Joe guy with a PhD in computer science, gotten for the love of video games, of course. Minecraft nerd. Thrasher. Love my dog Max to bits, even though when the mushroom popped out of the Bay I left him with my friend Alex so I could flee out here.” He sighed. “And now I miss him to pieces. Same thing with my mom. Not that she would’ve noticed, poor woman has been losing a piece of her mind every year since three Christmases ago when she stuck her cat in the microwave thinking its coat would look so much prettier after that.”
His eyes met Anu’s dumbstruck gaze.
He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m—I’m sorry. I just shared too much, didn’t I?”
She blinked, scratched a brow. “Uh, no. That’s—that’s okay. At least you still have your mom. That’s always better than not even remembering her.” She raised her hands, collected her shoulder length hair in a bun that fell apart as soon as she stopped holding it. “I hope you make some progress with the supercomputing program. The latest numbers from the CDC are disheartening. They say the bodies are piling up in the big cities. All rumors, of course, since the Internet has been down most of the time since the nuke attack. They’re not even sure how many deaths exactly, probably many more than we can possibly estimate.” She grabbed the sides of her tray and squeezed it until her knuckles became white. “I want to be able to run your program on my sequences as soon as possible.”
David poked his half bagel with the plastic knife. “Anu, why…” He swallowed, choosing his words carefully. “Everyone here is looking for a vaccine. But this program you want me to write—”
She instantly stiffened, the brush of softness he’d glimpsed a moment earlier in her eyes already a thing of the past. “We need to find where the virus came from. We can’t defeat it unless we know how it mutated from the last H7N7 strain.” She pushed back her chair and got to her feet.
And there she goes, all up yours again.
“I never meant to say I didn’t believe it was important,” he mumbled, returning his attention to his bagel. “And I’m sorry about your mom.”
She’d already stepped away from the table. She froze and turned around. “What did you say?”
He took another bite and waved the knife in the air, loudly chewing on his bagel. “Your mom. I’m sorry you never met her.”
And there it was again, that glimpse of softness. No, not softness, a weakness. She was good at keeping it buried. Most of the time, anyway.
“Good day, David.”
He shrugged, took another bite of his bagel and tossed the rest.
Did I mention how much I hate eating by myself?
* FOUR *
She was determined to succeed where her mother had failed.
Her father had fled India and started a new life in the U.S. after her mother’s suicide. It was all over the news, and the shame followed them even as they moved to the New World. Scientist kills herself in a spectacular explosion after failing to publish data from her claimed findings on the flu virus.
Anu clicked her mouse and logged into the influenza database, grinding her teeth in frustration. She needed more sequences. She needed more data, more samples, more experiments. Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco and Oakland had been collecting copious amounts of plasma from infected patients for the past three months, yet it was all lost now that the whole Bay Area had shut down because of the nuclear explosion. The Internet was down. She could no longer communicate with her colleagues, no longer get updates from the ongoing experiments on monkeys and mice, no longer count on the antibody data from the patients who’d contracted the virus and yet so far showed no symptoms of AVP, or acquired violent psychosis, as they’d dubbed the madness that had taken so many lives.
The lab was almost 90% evacuated, the scientists replaced by the Army Guards and Infantry National Guard Units. Only the nuclear weapon division and the biothreat group had remained. She could still do her job because H7N7 was indeed a biothreat, one of the worst in fact. But she needed more data, data to feed to the supercomputing unit with David’s program. If her theory worked, David’s program would prove the origin of this new strain of H7N7. Had it really jumped to humans from domestic chickens like they all claimed? Or was there a darker secret to it, one that could eventually solve the mystery of her mother’s death?
David was making good progress with the program, but without the additional viral sequences she was about obtain from the west coast, her chances of finding statistical significance were bleak. Her last hope was from a medical examiner at John
s Hopkins, who’d been collecting samples from hundreds of autopsies. Anu was eager to get brain samples in particular, to try and understand how the virus could possibly change human behavior so radically.
She was in a good mood today, hopeful again. Right before lunch she’d received a call from her colleague Jeff Harrett. The Infantry unit patrolling the wire just outside the lab had reported a truck driving through the dust storm and up the hill. The truck had been stopped for mandatory inspection. Jeff was optimistic that the driver was delivering their new samples.
Her phone rang, making her jump. For years she’d completely relied on her cell phone and now she had to learn to use landlines again, cell phones no longer allowed on the Lab’s premises for security reasons.
“Hey, it’s Christine, down at the genomics lab. Jeff was right. The truck was from your friend at Johns Hopkins. We just got a whole batch of new samples!”
Anu sprinted out of her chair. “Finally! Does Jeff know?”
“Yes, I already called him.”
“I’ll be right over,” Anu said, and hung up.
She could hardly contain her excitement. She sprinted out of her office and down the stairs. The genomic center was on the other side of the campus. She entertained the thought of getting her car, but then dropped it. It was a three-minute walk and it would’ve taken her longer to find a parking spot.
Jeff was going to be excited, too. For the past four months, he’d taken over and curated the flu database to include the new mutated H7N7 strain and all its variants. New data was going to make a lot more things possible, not just proving Anu’s theory on the origin of the virus, but also testing for new vaccines.
On her way to the genomic center, she passed buildings that only last month were brimming with people and activity. Evacuated after the nuke incident off the coast of California, the Lab now looked ghastly, its post-war structures old and badly in need of updates.
That’s what happens when you mix military and science.
The genomic center was one such boxy building, with the main entrance opening out to the street, while the back, surrounded by a small grove of ponderosa pines, slanted down into the canyon.
Anu swore impatiently as the badge reader failed to recognize her badge three times before it finally unlocked the door and let her in. By the double doors to the main laboratory she rose on her tiptoes and spied through the small window. Two security guards had just delivered the samples in large cardboard boxes insulated with polyester. Anu’s colleagues from the epidemiology and theoretical groups had come too, all garbed from head to toes in protective gear, hoods, and face shields. A little over the top, given that vials don’t sneeze all over the place like patients do, but rules were rules. She grabbed a gown from the cart by the door to the main lab, slid on gloves and facemask, and shouldered through the doors.
One of the figures garbed from head to toes waved at her. She waved back, recognizing Jeff from his bulky body build and wobbly gait as he walked over to share the excitement at the news. He tipped up the face shield, pulled down his facemask, and bobbed his head.
“So. This is great, isn’t it?”
“Can’t wait to see the sequences!” Anu replied, rubbing her hands together.
Jeff was excited too, she could tell from the way he rocked impatiently on his heels as he watched the lab technicians unpack the delivery. Despite the lines at the corners of his eyes, reminiscent of a time when grins and laughter lingered on his clean shaven face, in the four months she’d known Jeff, Anu had never seen the man smile. He wore a wedding ring on his left hand, but never spoke a word of his family, and Anu never dared ask. Losing someone to H7N7 had become the norm, not the exception. And contrary to most other diseases, deaths marked by H7N7 were violent and gruesome. Despite support groups sprouting all over the country, encouraging people to disclose their pain and find catharsis in sharing their loss with family and friends, to this day, most people preferred not to talk about it.
As soon as she saw them, Christine walked over carrying the procedure barcodes, fresh out of the printer. “Here’s the plan,” she said. “We start right away. We already have the libraries made from the previous batches, and all we have to do is the sample preparation before we can start sequencing.”
Anu nodded, her eyes on the guys unpacking the samples. She wanted to jump in, to handle them herself, make sure they were handled safely and carefully moved to the workbenches. Her hands prickled with excitement.
“How many did we get? Are there any tissue cultures this time?”
“Um.” Christina brushed a gloved finger along her right brow. She closed her eyes for a second.
“Are you ok?” Jeff asked.
“Yes. Sorry. Just a headache. I’ll never get used to the altitude up here.” She inhaled, collected her thoughts. “According to the log, they sent us plasma samples from thirty subjects.”
Anu bulged her eyes. “Thirty! That’s fantastic!”
“No tissue cultures, though. You know how hard those are.”
Anu’s excitement came down a notch. “You’d think they’d be pretty easy, actually, given the rising number of deaths.”
“It used to be,” Jeff said. “The fact that all deaths end up being murder scenes means we have to go through all sorts of loops with the forensic teams to get the samples…” His gaze fell on Christine again. She had closed her eyes again and pinched the bridge of her nose, a deep furrow crossing her forehead.
Anu touched her arm. “Sweetie, do you want me to go get you some Ibuprofen?”
Christine waved a hand. “Uh, no. Let’s—let’s get this thing started and then I’ll go lie down, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course.”
“Feel better,” Jeff said, and walked back to the workbench.
The techs finished unpacking. Christine distributed the barcodes and job tasks for the sample preparation. The lab was equipped with six sequencing machines, which allowed them to run several jobs in parallel. Anu sat at one of the terminals and started the first job queue, her mind reeling with excitement.
“Ok, you guys,” Jeff said. “You know the drill. These samples are vital. Let’s stick to our standard procedure and use all precautions to avoid contamination and deliver the best possible outcome.” He clapped his hands together. “Thank you all for coming and pitching in your time.”
And then there was a thud. A piece of glassware fell and shuttered into pieces. Somebody screamed.
“Christine!”
She had collapsed on the floor, her arms and legs shaking. Anu dropped by her side. “Christine!” she called again, and then to the frozen people around her, “What the hell happened?”
Jeff looked unreal, his face ashen and his mouth gaping.
“She just—fainted,” one of the techs said.
“Then call emergency!” Anu ordered.
“Y—yes.” The guy ran to the phone. Jeff brought a bottle of water from the fridge. Everybody else watched from a cautious distance.
Anu touched Christine’s face, gently slapping her. “Christine!”
A clump of three long, auburn hairs hung from the edge of the workbench above her, and blood was seeping onto the floor from the back of Christine’s head.
She fainted and hit her head. Anu slid a hand behind Christine’s neck and tried to move her. Jeff passed her the water bottle and crouched on the floor.
“The EMTs are coming,” he said. “If I were you, I’d let them handle this.”
Anu frowned. “What? What are you talking about?”
He pointed his chin to Christine’s hands. They were shaking wildly. Her lips were blue, her eyes, open, were swollen and bloodshot.
“Th—there’s people,” Christine stammered, her voice gargling from the depths of her throat. “P—people everywhere.” And then she jerked and screamed. “They want to kill me!”
Anu stepped away from her and gasped.
She’s delusional. Just like the others.
Oh no.
Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no.
* * *
The dust storm had rolled in from the canyon, painting the sky an eerie yellow as the sun started setting behind the mountains. The ambulance sirens blared ninety seconds after they called 9-1-1, the operator iterating over and over again how important it was that nobody left the building until the rescuers arrived.
The EMTs came right away. All garbed in protective gear, they evacuated the building, sedated Christine before she could harm herself or anybody else for that matter, and then whisked her away. The whole genomic lab was locked down. Anu watched with tears in her eyes as they taped off the entrance and declared it “a contaminated zone.”
Military police from the Army Guard escorted them to the nearest assembly area, a clearing between the multilevel parking garage and the now deserted administrative building. A man in military fatigues and a multi-decorated shirt with a medic’s red cross armband stood a few feet away from the whole group and explained that until Christine was diagnosed by a physician, they had to assume that this was a case of H7N7 and act accordingly. All people that had any contact with Christine today and yesterday had to be isolated and quarantined. The genomic center remained closed until further notice.
Anu couldn’t believe her ears. Her frustration mounted with every word coming out of the officer’s mouth. “What about our samples?” she protested.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am—”
“You’ve got to let us do our job! How can we find a cure if you keep us quarantined?”
Jeff put a hand on her shoulder to try and calm her down. “They have to do their job, too,” he said.
“If the patient tests positive for H7N7,” the officer insisted, “we will come up with a plan that will allow you to continue your work while in quarantine.”
“That’s bullshit,” Anu griped, ignoring the multiple requests coming from her colleagues to calm down. “The only way we know AVP is caused by H7N7 is because all patients test positive for antibodies against the virus. But by the time patients come down with AVP, they have cleared the H7N7 infection already and they are no longer contagious. It’s too late to quarantine us. You’d have to get the people Christine talked to and interacted with three weeks ago!”