by Jinkang Wang
“I hope this is a false alarm.”
“Let’s hope so. But if it’s real—even if Japan responded at once, with such a large area to cover, I’m afraid . . . As far as I’m aware, we’ve only stockpiled a hundred thousand doses of cowpox vaccine. But let’s not think about that for now. I’ll get in touch with some colleagues at the University of Tokyo, and analyze the flowers as soon as possible. Stay in touch.”
“Thanks. You too.”
He hung up. He Ying said, anxiously, “But our flight’s tomorrow.”
“We’ll have to postpone—we can’t risk bringing the virus back to China. Let’s go back after the test results are in.”
Meanwhile, Mei Yin had continued to worry, only letting herself relax after Jingshuan called again to say he’d been in touch with Mr. Matsumoto, and they were delaying their return.
In the morning, Jingshuan woke the children, and told them they’d be staying a little longer. There would be no discussion; the grown-ups had made up their minds. The kids didn’t mind spending an extra couple of days in Japan, anyway. When they headed into the bathroom, He Ying couldn’t help following them and urging them to use extra soap on their faces and hands. Jiaojiao protested impatiently. “Mommy, why’re you nagging so much today?”
Jingshuan dragged his wife out and whispered, “It’s no use. If it’s true, they were already infected yesterday.”
After breakfast, the kids played indoors. Jiji suddenly remembered the paper flowers from the day before. He’d carefully put them away in the nightstand, and now he couldn’t find them anywhere. He looked everywhere. “Sister Jiaojiao, have you seen my paper flowers? Uncle Sun, Auntie He, have you seen them?”
Jiaojiao cried out, “Mine are gone too!”
He Ying told the kids that the flowers might have germs on them, so she’d flushed them away. Jiji was unhappy about that, but since it was a grown-up who’d done it, he could only sulk.
A little later, Mr. Matsumoto called and came straight to the point. “The test results are in, and you guessed right. The powder on those paper flowers does indeed contain the smallpox virus.”
Jingshuan looked at his wife, who’d gone pale as snow. Matsumoto continued. “The density of the virus is very high. We’re still carrying out antibody and other tests, but the initial results leave no doubt. Mr. Sun, please stay where you are, I’m sending someone to your hotel with the cowpox vaccine for your family. Also, there’ll be a cabinet meeting this morning, to deploy an emergency response to the outbreak. The prime minister has asked if you will attend.”
“All right, I’ll be there.”
“The Ministry will send a car to your hotel. Once you’ve had your inoculation, it’ll bring you to the meeting.”
“I don’t need a shot, I have lifelong immunity. Just take care of my family.”
“All right, they’ll be there soon. Another thing,” he went on solemnly. “The prime minister asked me to convey his thanks, and the deep gratitude of the Japanese people.”
“He’s very welcome. Oh, that’s right, the Chinese businessman who paid for this campaign is staying at our hotel, we bumped into him yesterday, and he mentioned that he was responsible. I doubt very much he’s the mastermind—probably a pawn. But you could let the police know to detain him.”
“The police are already aware of him. We traced him through the Hanako Agency.”
Jingshuan hung up, and He Ying took his hand, her eyes full of fear. He reassured her. “Don’t worry too much. We discovered this early, so it shouldn’t be too bad. The smallpox vaccine is still somewhat effective if taken four to five days after first infection. Mr. Matsumoto said he’ll send someone to give us shots right away. Smallpox is no joke, but Mei Yin, Xue Yu, and I figured it out long ago. There’s no need to be frightened.”
He Ying seemed a bit reassured. The kids, playing in the living room, had heard the grown-ups’ conversation and now rushed over. Jiaojiao asked, “Is it really smallpox? Did Jiji actually get something right?”
Jiji said smugly, “What’s so surprising? That’s my sixth sense at work. Jiaojiao, don’t be scared, I’m immune, there are antibodies in my blood. If you get sick, I’ll give you some blood and you’ll be fine.”
“That depends what kind of blood you have. If you’re type O and I’m type A, how would you do that?”
“Idiot, you only need to transmit blood serum, it doesn’t have anything to do with blood type.”
They argued happily, without a hint of fear. Jiaojiao didn’t know much about smallpox, while Jiji, for whom it “ran in the blood,” had no real awareness of the awful nature of infection. He Ying’s eyes reddened as she watched them. Jingshuan hastily pulled her aside, signaling her to leave them alone.
Soon, an ambulance arrived, siren blaring, and two paramedics in white raced up the stairs, swiftly giving all four of them cowpox injections. Jingshuan and Jiji protested that they were immune, but the paramedics smiled, shook their heads, and insisted. As soon as the job was done, they hurried off. That day, after the prime minister’s cabinet meeting was done, all of Tokyo’s doctors and nurses would be thrown onto the front lines, and they didn’t have a moment to waste! As the ambulance pulled away, two police cars arrived, one to bring Sun Jingshuan to his meeting, and the other to detain the Chinese man, Mr. He. A short while later, he emerged from the elevator surrounded by four officers, his face white as paper. Jingshuan shook his head as he watched the poor man being taken away, then got in the second car himself.
Yaesu was close to the prime minister’s office, and Jingshuan was there in ten minutes. Mr. Matsumoto was at the entrance to greet him with a deep bow, and to usher him into the meeting room. More than twenty people were already there. At a glance, Jingshuan quickly identified Prime Minister Miki, whose face was often on TV and in the newspapers. Seeing Mr. Matsumoto lead a Chinese man in, the prime minister came over and bowed deeply too, in the Japanese manner, and said in English, “Thank you, Mr. Sun. You’re the savior of Tokyo.”
Jingshuan quickly bowed back and said awkwardly, “Oh no, you’re too kind.” There was no time for small talk, so they returned to their seats right away. A middle-aged man began his report again, a quick narration interspersed with one deep bow after another. Matsumoto explained in English that this was the general manager of Hanako Advertising, and he was telling them how this ad campaign had come about, while begging for forgiveness.
Prime Minister Miki interrupted and said a few words, and Matsumoto interpreted. “The prime minister says, ‘Let’s talk about accountability later, right now we have to take action.’” He sighed. “Hanako might have been negligent, but in the eyes of the law they’re completely guiltless—they did all the paperwork. They have permits from the Labor Ministry to promote Heavenly Fragrance, from Homeland Security to use the airspace, and from customs to import the paper flowers. We can only blame the terrorists for being too cunning, or Japanese society for being too inflexible.”
Next, someone spoke from the Emergency Task Force, clearly an expert who knew the field inside out, and cut straight to the essentials. “According to Hanako’s own estimates, at least three hundred thousand people will have come into contact with these paper flowers. To be safe, we’d need to assume the whole of central Tokyo, about a million people. There are two things we need to do right away. First, declare the center of Tokyo a quarantine zone and seal it off. Second, get hold of more vaccine and make sure everyone in the infection zone is treated. The difficulties are time and our limited vaccine stockpiles. There are only a hundred thousand doses in the whole of Japan, so we can only appeal to the international community for more. We need to consider that quite a few countries will want to keep some for themselves, in case the infection spreads to them. But no matter what, we need to put out an appeal to every other country immediately, gathering as much of the vaccine as possible, and prioritizing the people in the infection zone. All that’s fairly straightforward, but the main issue is time! Smallpox has an incub
ation period of fourteen days, while the antigens typically take eleven to thirteen days to build up strength. Which is to say, if the cowpox vaccine isn’t administered within three or four days of first contact, it’ll be much less effective. We have to get the inoculations done within that window, which won’t be easy, but we’ll just have to do our best.”
Sun Jingshuan and Matsumoto exchanged a look—each knew what the other was thinking, but there wasn’t time to talk now. The meeting continued in an atmosphere of tension. It had been sixteen hours since the first contact with the virus, leaving them only two or three days’ time. Decisions were quickly made, and the work delegated. Just before the prime minister dismissed them, Matsumoto stood to speak. “There’s another way to deal with this threat. Could I ask the prime minister, the minister of welfare, and the homeland security chair to stay behind for a few words with me and Mr. Sun? The strategy we’ve just discussed should be put into action at once, without delay. It won’t interfere with this alternative plan.”
Prime Minister Miki looked puzzled, but agreed. When everyone else had gone, Matsumoto said, “This would take too long to explain from the beginning, so I’ll be brief. Within the scientific world, there’s a semisecret group known as the Crucifix Society. In Nanyang, China, they came up with a rather unusual way of dealing with viruses, by releasing attenuated strains into the wild. They’ve now reached the stage of industrial testing, and have released the smallpox virus and plague bacillus into certain areas of Nanyang. The WHO is funding their research, but the theory behind the technology is still disputed, so they’re keeping a low profile.”
Miki exchanged a few words with the welfare minister, then said, “We’re aware of this technique. Is it reliable?”
“Fairly. Back during the sensational Mei Yin incident, there was only one fatality. The WHO has verified that the mild smallpox virus cultivated by Professor Mei Yin not only has a lower virulence, but can activate the human immune system in as little as ten hours, causing the body to produce large quantities of antibodies far more effectively than a vaccine—as long as you can accept a death rate of one in a hundred thousand, which is itself an upper theoretical limit. We could dispense the mild smallpox virus in an aerosol spray from a plane, and within an hour the seeds of immunity would be planted in a million people. We’re so close to China, we could get it here quickly. The only problem is whether there are enough stockpiles of the attenuated virus in China for a million people. I’ll leave Mr. Sun to speak about this. He’s one of the originators of this technology.”
Miki and the two ministers turned their gaze to Sun, who said, “I did help to originate this, yes, but I abandoned the cause later. I don’t know too much about recent developments. Let me ask.”
He called Mei Yin on his cell, and after a quick exchange, turned back to the prime minister. “By chance, it happens that the organization was preparing to carry out a spraying exercise on the whole Nanyang region, with a population of eleven million people, so they have more than enough for us. Last night, when they learned about this epidemic—I reported it to them—they began preparations. As long as the two governments can reach an agreement, the virus can be here within twelve hours.”
“Excellent!” the prime minister exclaimed. “I’ll get in touch with China at once.”
He led the four men into a soundproof room, where there was a direct line between the two powers. Picking up the red telephone that connected him directly to the highest levels of Chinese government, Miki expressed a sincere wish that China lend a helping hand to its neighbor. The Chinese side hesitated and didn’t answer right away, saying they’d have to check with the CDC first. Miki put down the phone, confused and worried, and the two ministers were obviously unhappy—in such a clear-cut case of humanitarian need, China ought to have readily agreed. Matsumoto was puzzled too.
Sun Jingshuan understood the Chinese better than they did. “You know why our side is hesitating? It’s not because they don’t understand the technology, or that they’ll ask you to pay the earth for it. The problem is that the technique doesn’t guarantee a death rate of zero. Particularly susceptible individuals could contract full-blown smallpox and die. The risk is low—one in a hundred thousand at a conservative estimate—and China could accept using it on its own people. But to deploy it abroad, particularly in Japan . . . that might cause problems. Japan has quite a large right-wing faction—even today, an inscription on the Yasukuni Shrine still claims that the Second World War was instigated by America and China. Now imagine if a ‘Chinese virus’ leads to the deaths of a dozen or more Japanese—those right-wingers would be baying for blood! They might even claim this was a biological weapon manufactured by China.”
He said all this in English. Miki and the others understood, glancing at each other in silence. The scenario envisioned by Mr. Sun was entirely possible. Japan had a free press, so he wouldn’t be able to promise the Chinese premier that such opinions wouldn’t be broadcast in the future. Not only that, if they administered the smallpox he’d obtained from China and it caused a few hundred deaths, his prime ministership would be over.
They said nothing, and the red telephone in front of them stayed silent too. When Noriyoshi Matsumoto could stand it no longer, he said, “Prime Minister, and the rest of you, at such a moment do you still have time to consider these surface matters? Even the ancients knew that a single life saved is worth more than a seven-storied pagoda!”
At that moment, the phone let out a shrill ring. Miki immediately picked it up, and after hearing what the other party had to say, his face split into a grin, and he nodded nonstop. “Yes, I agree completely with that plan. See you in Tokyo!”
He hung up. “Thank God for Chinese political acumen. You know what they’ve come up with? It’s ingenious: The attenuated virus will be shipped over right away, and disseminated by the Japanese air force. At the same time, a delegation from the Chinese government will come for a visit, and appear in public while the spraying is taking place, breathing in the same viruses as the Japanese people. That way, if there really is some sort of accident, no one will be able to say it was a plot.”
Everyone sighed with relief. “There really is no danger at all,” Sun Jingshuan reminded them. “The technology is fairly mature, and the Chinese delegation can take a little medical precaution by having a dose of cowpox beforehand. That way, their chances of contracting smallpox fall to zero. I do respect their ingenuity.”
He couldn’t hold back a smile, having also realized there was a deeper layer to this—if the Chinese delegation arrived with some issue that required negotiation, mightn’t the Japanese be a little more generous than usual, under the circumstances? But then he remembered Matsumoto and thought, Don’t be so cynical, have some faith in humanity!
News of the Tokyo smallpox attack spread to the rest of Japan, then the world. Tokyo was in a state of panic, but still managed to respond in an orderly manner. All flights in and out of the city were canceled, and the police sealed the roads leading to the center. The available vaccines were distributed, first to the doctors and nurses who’d be on the front line of this battle. More stocks were flown in from elsewhere in the country, and would be ready for use the next day. Urgent requests were sent to America and Europe for spare vaccine stocks, though that would still take a day or two.
The people of Tokyo had some good news in the late afternoon: their neighbor had sent a faster, more effective remedy. That evening, only a day after the three airships had scattered smallpox over the city, three C-130 Japanese military transport planes roared overhead. Behind them were three long red tails that dispersed, mingled, and slowly descended in a faint pink mist that enveloped the whole of Tokyo. Residents had been told to come outdoors and breathe in as much of the colored air as possible. The Chinese delegation had arrived too, and the timing was carefully arranged. After the welcome reception, they arrived at Hibiya Park near the Imperial Palace to “meet the people,” and the Japanese prime minister embraced t
hem as the red fog descended, then embraced his people too. For a moment, the normally reserved Japanese were practically Spanish or Brazilian in their enthusiasm: a singing, dancing, frothing sea of humanity.
Sun Jingshuan and He Ying were there too, with their two kids. Mei Yin, Xue Yu, and Xiaoxue had also arrived along with the goods. Amid such a commotion, there was hardly room for a quiet chat. Jiji hugged his parents, howling at the top of his voice everything that had happened over the last two days. He Ying respectfully hugged Mei Yin, whom she was meeting for the first time, quietly thinking that her husband’s first wife could practically be his mother. Jiaojiao came over and warmly flung her hands around “Granny Mei’s” neck. As the seven of them mingled, two plainclothes officers found their way to them: Chinese and Japanese security personnel who, with difficulty, escorted the seven people to the center of the park. Dressed in kimonos, representatives of both countries wanted to shake Mei Yin’s hand firmly. The Chinese official said, “Sister Mei, thank you. Your lifetime of hard work brought us to this point!”
Mei Yin’s eyes were moist. “Thank you. It’s all worth it, just for those words.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sun, and you too, Xue. And your families, especially you, Jiji, I hear you were the first to realize the paper flowers contained the virus?”
Jiji smiled foolishly. “I just read the words wrong, I thought they said ‘smallpox’ but actually it was something about heavenly flowers.”
His frankness made everyone laugh. The Chinese minister said, “Well, you still get the credit, even if it was a lucky guess.”
Prime Minister Miki came over to shake hands with each of them, then he scooped up Jiji and posed for a group photo. Finally, the leader of the Chinese delegation said, “We’ll be heading home in a couple of days, but would the rest of you be able to stay in Japan a little longer, until the infection is completely dealt with? Legally, a smallpox quarantine zone requires forty days to clear. I know that’s on the long side.”