Pathological

by Jinkang Wang

  The man ran straight for the sword. It was just a bamboo prop, but the man was moving so fast he actually managed to impale himself on it. The “warrior” looked shocked, and quickly let go of the handle. Seeming to feel no pain, the man pulled the bamboo out of his belly and flung it behind him, barely slowing his forward charge. He flung himself on the warrior, and took a bite out of his shoulder.

  Everyone froze. Jiji was the first to react. With viruses on the brain, as always, he shouted, “Rabies! He must have rabies!”

  This gave the adults around him a shock. It wasn’t impossible. They hastened to push the children safely behind them, and Xue Yu got out his phone to call the police. Only Mei Yin didn’t back down—she took a couple of steps forward. Her brain was spinning rapidly; this “rabies” lunatic seemed familiar, and now it was coming back to her. He’d had surgery, but those eyes and the outlines of his face were unmistakable. She knew that dark stare, more crazed than it had ever been before. Taking a couple of steps forward, she shouted, “Zia Baj!”

  Zia Baj froze. His brain was being consumed by the Ebola virus, and it had been a very long time since anyone called him by that name. Still, it was his real name, with him since childhood, and he turned to look. An Asian woman in her sixties was shouting at him. She looked familiar, dim recollections stirred . . . Then he realized: it was Mei Yin, his nemesis, the woman who’d crushed two of his attacks. Was it divine intervention, handing her to him, so the two old enemies could meet one last time? Without hesitation, he bared two rows of stark white teeth and dashed toward Mei Yin.

  Jiji struggled free of his mother’s grip and ran toward Mei Yin, shouting, “Granny, be careful, he has rabies!”

  Mei Yin kept her eyes fixed on the mad dog in front of her. No, what he had wasn’t rabies, it was Ebola hemorrhagic fever, and his symptoms were severe. The whites of his eyes and his gums were bloody, his exposed skin showed blood clots and was starting to peel off in places, a hideous sight. Mei Yin had seen the condition with her own eyes in Africa when she was twelve, and examined many patients personally. She knew the disease inside out. She’d been worried over the past few days; she had a gut feeling that Zia Baj wasn’t going to accept his second defeat so lightly. And it looked like she had been right. He’d turned himself into a vessel from which to spread Ebola.

  Baj had almost reached Mei Yin. Shouting, Jingshuan and Xue Yu both rushed to protect her, but they were too far away. Mei Yin was prepared—she waited until Baj had almost reached her, then launched a high kick that landed on his chest. This ought to have knocked him down, but Mei Yin was old, and her legs were no longer as powerful. Zia Baj only staggered back a few paces. He steadied himself, but decided against another assault on the “martial arts expert” Mei Yin. Instead, he made a grab for Jiji, who didn’t dodge fast enough. Baj grabbed his left hand and bit down hard. Jiji let out a stifled scream, in such pain he could hardly breath.

  Mei Yin’s breath stopped too, as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over her. Her brain halted, her mind filled with only one thought: Xue Yu’s uncle’s curse had finally come true—Mei Yin’s sins had been visited upon the child. But even as her brain stopped, her body continued to respond, and she executed a tae kwon do chop-and-parry move. One leg flew upward, connecting with the mad dog’s head. Baj’s eyes went blank, and he lost consciousness.

  The other four adults ran to Jiji. Mei Yin immediately reached out to hold them back, her face twisted in agony. Zia Baj was flat on his back not far away, the symptoms of late-stage Ebola plain as day. Jiji’s face was pale, and he clutched his left hand, four fingers glistening with blood. The six-year-old boy was very calm as he turned to his grandmother. “I need to get to the hospital for a rabies shot!”

  Mei Yin shook her head, heartbroken. “My child, you don’t have rabies. There’s no vaccine and no treatment.” She shouted at Xue Yu and the others. “Don’t touch him! It’s very likely he has Ebola.”

  Everyone, apart from Jiaojiao, knew what that meant—and what it meant for Jiji. Mei Yin approached him and carefully took his left wrist in her left hand, while her right hand lifted the crucifix from her neck, feeling for the secret catch, pulling off the sheath with her teeth to reveal the little blade. Her face was deathly white as she looked at Jiji’s parents, then at Sun Jingshuan. Knowing what she was about to do, all three took a step toward her, then halted. They were in Tokyo, and within ten minutes Jiji could be in one of the best hospitals in the world, but it wouldn’t do him a bit of good. Mei Yin thought of her adoptive father’s story, about the British official asking Professor Bradley: “Why not take decisive action, and slice off the thumb?” This wasn’t just one finger, but four of them. With a stroke of her knife, Jiji would be handicapped for life.

  Xiaoxue swayed, and her body slid to the ground. She was in shock—it was more than a mother’s heart could bear. Xue Yu moved quickly and caught hold of her, but his eyes were fixed on Jiji, and Mei Yin’s hands. Mei Yin stayed focused, gritted her teeth, and drew the short blade through Jiji’s hand. The four severed fingers dropped neatly to the ground. Jiji felt no pain at first, because the knife was so sharp. Jiaojiao shrieked and shut her eyes, unable to watch. He Ying did the same. Jiji’s face blanched, but his eyes steadily followed his grandmother’s movements. Mei Yin quickly inspected him, and finding no other wounds, ripped a strip of cloth from her blouse, quickly winding it around Jiji’s wrist to stop the blood, then another to bandage his finger stumps. “Get him to the hospital!” she rasped.

  Hearing this, Xiaoxue opened her eyes and struggled back to her feet. Now she screamed, pointing to the ground. Zia Baj had woken, and was struggling to crawl toward Mei Yin. Still some distance away, he had already opened his mouth, ready to take a bite. Still busy bandaging Jiji, Mei Yin glared at him and roared, “Kick him unconscious! I don’t have time for this.”

  Jingshuan walked over and kicked him viciously in the crotch. Baj yelped and fell unconscious again.

  A police van drove up, sirens blasting. Before he’d come to Yoyogi Park, Zia Baj had been biting people in the pedestrian areas of Ginza and Akihabara, and the police were searching the city for him. After Xue Yu’s call, the closest squad vehicle came immediately to them. A young officer leaped out and stared at the fallen criminal, then at Jiji’s mutilated left hand. Mei Yin snapped in English, “Quick, Xue Yu, get Jiji to the hospital, and the others who were bitten, too. Don’t let their blood touch anyone! I’ll stay here and take care of things.” She turned to the police officer. “Please drive these people to a hospital. That man on the ground is the terrorist who tried to infect us all with smallpox before, and now he’s turned himself into a biological weapon. It’s almost certainly Ebola, a dangerous hemorrhagic fever.”

  The officer shivered. Their orders had only been to arrest a lunatic who’d been going around biting people, and suddenly it had turned into a biological terror attack! He recognized Mei Yin from her many recent TV appearances, and knew to trust what she said. He ordered another officer to drive the victims to hospital. Xue Yu and the rest, including the now-revived Xiaoxue, bundled Jiji into the vehicle too. The officer suddenly thought of something and shouted, “Bring the child’s fingers too! They might be able to fix them back on.”

  Mei Yin shook her head grimly. There would be no way to keep the fingers alive long enough to reattach them and also rid them of the virus. But she said nothing, and Jingshuan carefully scooped them up in a handkerchief.

  After they’d left, the officer quickly reported the Ebola terrorist attack to the Tokyo Police HQ, which told him to follow Mei Yin’s instructions. Mei Yin pointed at Zia Baj, still lying on the ground, and said, “This source of infection needs to be kept strictly controlled. Handcuff him and keep him in quarantine. Be very careful! If you can’t get a containment vehicle here, just zip him into a body bag and bring him to any hospital, they should have an isolation unit for Level-Four viruses.”

  The young officer issued orders to his subordinates
, and they immobilized the terrorist, sealing his mouth with tape and calling for a body bag, then calling ahead to a hospital. Mei Yin added, “Has he bitten people in other locations? All the victims should be quarantined and treated for Ebola.”

  Soon the body bag arrived, and the officers stuffed the still-unconscious Baj into it, then hauled him into their squad car and drove off in a blaze of sirens. Mei Yin now staggered, hardly able to move. Her earlier tae kwon do moves had torn tendons and muscles—she was old, and thirty years out of practice, not to mention her bout with severe arthritis a few years ago. An officer stepped forward to support her, but she quickly motioned him back—having just performed an amputation on Jiji, she worried that her hands might be contaminated with the virus. Painfully, she maneuvered herself into the squad car. The officer said, “Professor Mei, I hope you’ll come to HQ first. Would you do that? As we come up with our emergency response to the situation, we could use your advice and scientific guidance.”

  Mei Yin was still worried about Jiji, but it was more important to deal with the big picture first. “All right, I’ll come.”

  The squad car sped toward HQ, Mei Yin slumped in the passenger seat, her eyes shut. After the day’s events, she was shattered. The police officer softly called her name, and her eyes snapped open. “What is it?”

  “Professor Mei, we’ve just had a call to say that including your grandson, a total of forty-three people were bitten today. Your grandson may be out of danger, but as for the rest . . . Can they be treated?”

  Mei Yin sighed, and answered bluntly, “I’d estimate at least half of these people will die. At most we can hope that the infection won’t spread beyond them.”

  The officer fell silent. He had guessed at the answer—if Mei Yin thought there was any hope of treatment, would she have sliced off the child’s fingers?—but the number was just too high. More than thirty days ago, the city had escaped a major terror attack with only two deaths. The people of Tokyo had escaped disaster, and had the right to savor their victory. Yet today’s “handmade attack” would lead to a few dozen deaths, plus the potential for a wider outbreak!

  Xue Yu phoned to say they were at the hospital, and Jiji’s wound was being bandaged and disinfected. The doctors had carried out a detailed examination, and confirmed he had no other injuries. Only now did Mei Yin calm down. Poor Jiji . . . but he was still lucky. If he’d had any additional injuries, those fingers would have been cut off in vain. As it was, four fingers was an acceptable price to pay for his life—in fact, it was a stroke of great fortune. She said, “Take good care of Jiji. And tell him Grandma will come to see him when she’s finished with her work.”

  The police car stopped at a hospital along the way to completely disinfect Mei Yin’s hands and her crucifix blade. She never made it to HQ: the prime minister’s office called, and they were diverted there instead. Prime Minister Miki met her at the door, and Mr. Matsumoto arrived around the same time. Miki smiled grimly. “Professor Mei, I hadn’t expected we’d need you again so soon. Tokyo has really suffered a lot recently.” Mei Yin came in, supported by two officers, and sat with difficulty on the couch. Miki came to the point. “I’m a layman, so I need you to tell me, is it true that Ebola has no vaccine or treatment?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Why is that? To my knowledge, it was discovered more than fifty years ago, even earlier than AIDS.”

  Mei Yin looked at him and Matsumoto, and said frankly, “Because the disease has so far restricted itself to African countries, and never threatened the West.”

  Miki blushed—he knew Mei Yin was right. If he received a request for major funding into Ebola research, knowing it wasn’t a threat to the Japanese people, he’d very likely turn it down.

  Mei Yin said, “Apart from thoroughly disinfecting the victims and putting them on a course of regular antivirals, the only effective cure is blood serum from recovered Ebola sufferers in Africa. As far as I know, there are stocks at the American CDC; hospitals in Nairobi and Kinshasa might have some too. This blood serum would contain antibodies that should be effective if injected into the victims. But it also might—”

  The blood serum also might contain other “pathogens of tomorrow.” The chances were low, but there were no guarantees—they hadn’t screened that blood. On balance, though, it was worth doing. Prime Minister Miki said, “I’ll tell the Ministry of Welfare to get on that right away. What else can we do right now? Please tell us.”

  Mei Yin asked about the condition of the other victims, and was informed that they’d been strictly quarantined. There wasn’t much else to be done at this moment. Given Japan’s strict health protocols, the infection probably wouldn’t spread any further. The difficulty was those forty-two victims, who had no guarantee of survival.

  The prime minister asked, “Since there’s no cure for Ebola, the terrorist is quite likely to die, is that right? The police want to question him at once.”

  “Yes, there’s no hope for him. From his appearance, he’s in the late stages, and only has a day or two left. He must have waited till he was at his most infectious to start biting people. If you want to interrogate him, you should do that as soon as possible.” She added fiercely, “Now I wish I believed in Judgment Day, in purgatory and hell. This psychopath is only fit to be roasted in the fires of hell.”

  As soon as the meeting ended, Mei Yin rushed to the University of Tokyo Hospital, where her family and friends were in a state of anguish and fear. Jiji burst into tears at the sight of his grandmother, and Jiaojiao started howling too. The four adults didn’t make a sound, but they were also weeping. Jiji’s left hand was elevated, and even though it was thickly swathed in bandages, it was obvious a portion was missing. Mei Yin signaled for Xue Yu and Jingshuan to carry her over so she could hug Jiji, sobbing, “Jiji, don’t cry, you’re a brave boy.”

  “Jiji,” Xue Yu said, “Grandma’s been injured too. Let her lie down for a while!”

  Mei Yin quickly shook her head, and insisted on sitting upright in a chair and holding Jiji close, her heart aching as she held his wounded hand. She didn’t mention the possibility of reattaching the fingers—it clearly couldn’t be done safely. Jiji would have to go through life with a mutilated left hand.

  The most sorrowful of them all was Jiji’s mother. Xiaoxue wept silently, and when Mommy Mei arrived, she avoided her eyes, refusing to let her Mommy touch her, recalling Xue Yu’s uncle’s curse: Keep away from Mei Yin, or her sins will bring retribution onto your child’s head! Of course, Mei Yin wasn’t to blame for Jiji’s mutilation, but no matter what, the warning had come true. If she’d listened to him at the time . . . but she had to abandon that line of thought. Still, she couldn’t meet her mother’s eyes. Mei Yin looked at her and knew what was going on in her heart, but could say nothing.

  Jiji’s admittance paperwork was done. He would stay here until he was confirmed free from Ebola. A Japanese nurse came in and softly urged the family to leave, saying that only one person could stay with the patient. Mei Yin said, “You should all go, I’ll stay tonight.” Xue Yu shook his head. “That won’t do! You’re badly hurt, you ought to go back and rest.” It was Sun Jingshuan who understood her, and her ties to her grandson. “Listen to your mother,” he said to Xue Yu and Xiaoxue. “Let’s go. Everyone can stop worrying, the hospital will take extra good care of Jiji. Xiaoxue, you should go too.”

  Xiaoxue was very reluctant, but Xue Yu persuaded her. She kissed her son, and told him not to bother Grandma, then finally tore herself away. The room grew quiet. Jiji’s hand and Mei Yin’s back were both in terrible pain and neither could sleep, so they talked instead. Jiji asked, “Grandma, will my fingers really never grow back? I mean, even with the latest techniques? Don’t try to comfort me, I can take the truth.”

  “At the moment, gene therapy still can’t grow back missing fingers—maybe in ten or twenty years it’ll be possible. But,” she said frankly, “in ten or twenty years, the parts of your brain in charge of
those four fingers might have atrophied or moved on to some other use, so even if you did grow new fingers, you might not be able to do anything with them. Besides, organ generation will have its drawbacks. Scientists say it might lead to an increased risk of cancer, and should be used with care. With regeneration, you’d have to reactivate cell growth that’s shut down, which is precisely how cancer starts. There’s no fundamental difference between the two. Nothing to be done about that. Each step of scientific progress has to contend with such problems. Science is a sharp sword, but it’ll always be double-edged.”

  “Like that crucifix you wear?”

  “Yes, like that.”

  Jiji said sadly, “I guess I’ll never be able to play the violin again. Actually, I never liked the violin. Mom made me learn. But now . . .”

  “Jiji, do you know about a woman named Helen Keller? She was deaf and blind, but managed to do what many other people couldn’t. And did you hear about the Soviet pilot who had no legs? Or the British physicist Stephen Hawking? Or the Chinese writers Zhang Haidi and Wu Yunduo?”

  “I’ve heard of some of them. Tell me about them, Grandma.”

  Mei Yin called the nurse and asked for another blanket, so she could support her lower back, and wrapped one corner around Jiji. She described those brave souls who didn’t allow the disabilities of their bodies to weaken their spirits. As she talked, she told him some other things, things that might have been too deep for a six-year-old to understand: the worship of nature, how tragedy is the flip side of good fortune, how God hates perfection, the bad debts of science, the demands of civilization, and the negation of negation. Much of this went over Jiji’s head, but regardless, the child was like a sponge, and what he didn’t understand would remain with him, to be recalled and digested as he grew older.