The Rise of Walsanto (Genetic Apocalypse Book 3)

by Boyd Craven Jr

  “Oh, I’m not interested in getting rich from this Dr. Greene,” she replied. “I just want to stop this thing before it destroys us all.”

  “Exactly the response that I expected from you Hannah, but I want you to do it anyhow. Use the money to fund what you see fit. We don’t know everything that we need to, do to get in front of this yet,” he cautioned her.

  “My turn to agree this time Dr. Greene,” she replied.

  “In fact, I’ll do the same for these new ideas this very moment,” he assured her. The screen went suddenly blank again.

  “I caught the tail-end of that Hannah,” came Rusty’s voice from behind her. “It sounds like you may have just saved the world!”

  “Not even close I’m afraid,” she said, spinning around in his office chair. “This is moving too fast. Do you think President James will let me go back to Clemson to work with my team on this now?” she asked.

  “The President is a very logical man, Hannah. I’m sure that he’ll see the merit of this just as fast as I have. I don’t see how he could possibly refuse. He’ll probably have conditions though. Like this guard detail going along or something. I think we need to go over this together, get it down, and then ask for a meeting with him. What do you say?”

  “I say, hell yeah!” she beamed.

  36

  Washington, DC

  Mon, Jan 18, 2021

  The Oval Office

  “How do I look?” Hannah asked, emerging from her room with a leap, and turning around on the toes of her polished black leather combat boots with tiny steps, like a ballet dancer. Her hair was a light lavender today, combed with bangs in the front and skinny pigtails poking out on either side that hung just below the front of both shoulders. She had done her trademark black eye liner, pointy in the corners, and dark, rusty red lipstick. She wore a simple black dress, cut just above the knees, with tall stockings also just above her knees of a matching lavender and black diamond pattern. Over the scoop-cut front, she wore a studded black leather dog collar on her neck. Over it all, she had on a short white lab coat.

  “Like you’ve been shopping online, and are back to your old self again,” Rusty said. “And you look relaxed.”

  “I have been shopping a little. Thank-you for hooking me up with your card,” she said. “This is, after all, the real me. I want the President to get an honest first impression of me!”

  Rusty just smiled and shook his head slightly. “Oh, he will!”

  “Hey!” Hannah said, fake punching him on the shoulder. “I like this outfit.”

  There was a light knock on the door. It was the guard telling them that the car was here to pick them up to go to the White House now.

  ~

  “Mr. President? Mr. Rusty Whitman and Miss Hannah Withers,” announced Chief of Staff Carl Johnson as he opened the door to the Oval Office.

  “Rusty, good to see you,” said President James, crossing the room quickly to shake Rusty’s hand. “And Miss Withers, so very nice to finally meet you in person,” he said, turning to shake her hand as well. “Come in, come in and sit, please,” he said, motioning to the leather coach next to the winged-back chair that was his personal favorite for conversation. “Can I get you something to drink besides this water?” he asked.

  “No thank-you,” Hannah replied. “This will be just fine.”

  Rusty smiled, wondering what kind of impression Hannah’s perfect manners, coupled with her Goth-Scientist look must be making on The President. ‘He didn’t miss a beat,’ Rusty thought.

  “We have great news for you Mr. President,” Rusty said. “Something that just couldn’t wait. Thank-you for seeing us so quickly.”

  “I can use all the great news I can get these days, my friend. Tell me, please!”

  “Hannah came up with a test for our anomaly in her head, (which she has now dubbed the GG-Factor) that is so simple that anyone can use it. She had Dr. Greene and her genetics team at Clemson prototype it and test it, and it works perfectly,” Rusty said.

  “So tell me all about it Hannah,” he said, turning his attention to her, smiling.

  “Absolutely. My reason for wanting a test was two-fold. First, we need a way to test food and feed for contamination with the GG-Factor, so people can tell the difference between what’s safe and what isn’t, very quickly and simply. Since it’s nothing that anyone can actually see, we need a way to make it so that they can. Second, people are going to want to know if they have been contaminated with it, and this will tell them if they are.”

  “Alright, I can understand the people’s desire to test livestock feed for this after seeing all of the hype on the evening news with green chickens and all. I think it’s something that would sell very well, but I’ll need some convincing before I’ll just agree to add fuel to their fears,” he said.

  “Convincing, Sir?” Hannah asked, a bit sharply. “What do you need to be convinced of? Of the fact that Walsanto has created something that will cause nothing short of an extinction level event? Of the fact that you hired my father to make sure that it was sent to every nook and cranny of the planet, or that he did that job very, very well?”

  That wiped the smile off of President James’ face immediately. He made eye contact with Rusty for a second, and it wasn’t a pleasant contact either. ‘Oh shit Hannah,” Rusty thought.

  “Miss Withers,” the President said, switching back to a more formal posture, “experiencing the extinction of chickens world-wide would be a terrible thing indeed. We certainly wouldn’t want that to happen, now would we? But before we incite panic by saying that this new strain of bird-flu or whatever it is might do that, we have procedures and protocols to follow. You must understand that mass hysteria over this could cause the collapse of a very important protein and revenue source, while destroying many people and many companies financially. We have to be very careful what we say and how we say it. If we do say something, it would be up to my director of the CDC to do the saying. Is that clear?”

  That got Rusty eye contact from Hannah that threatened to light him on fire, but she didn’t react, much to Rusty’s relief.

  “Yes, Sir. Very clear. Sir, you don’t really think that we’re just talking about chickens though, do you?” Hannah asked. “I was under the impression that you understood how far reaching this anomaly will be. The main reason for developing this test was so that people, as in humans, could test themselves to see if they have been compromised yet, and to allow them to test their food to limit further exposure.”

  Rusty didn’t know exactly what to say, or if he should say anything, but he sure was starting to sweat.

  “Are you saying that you suspect that this bird-flu might mutate and cross over to humans somehow, Miss Withers?” the President asked.

  “No Sir, I don’t suspect that. I’m positive of it. It already has. My test was given to Dr. Greene and the entire forensic team under him. They all test positive for it,” she said. “Another thing Sir, this is NOT a bird-flu. This is a monster, unlike anything the world has ever seen that has been released. Once you get just one cell in your body infected with this mutated virus, the DNA that it carries with it causes that cell to divide into two cells, then four cells, then eight cells, doubling each time. It will gradually turn you into something else. What, we’re not sure of yet. We haven’t had enough time to study its long-term effects on humans.

  “It’s going to be hard, if not impossible to stop. It’s already in the food we eat, and many of the liquids we drink. Even if you don’t ingest it, it spreads second-hand by you eating the flesh of an infected animal. From there, it spreads by bodily fluids, meaning that a sneeze, a kiss, drinking from the same cup as your wife or husband, wiping your child’s nose or changing their diaper exposes you to even more infected cells. That multiplies your rate of change enormously.

  “You won’t even know that it’s happening at first. Dr. Greene says that he can’t tell any difference in the way he looks or feels, but it’s there. He doesn’t kno
w what the changes will do to him yet. He just knows that he’s changing. I’m sitting here wondering if I have it in me, if Rusty has it in him, if you Sir, have it in you. We need permission to mass produce this simple test, so we can get a handle on how many of us have it, and how bad we have it, before it’s too late to stop it. Left unchecked, this will make the spread of HIV or the Bubonic Plague look like sissy stuff.”

  President James just stared at Hannah. Rusty could not read him. He could practically see the gears moving in there, but he couldn’t tell if he was shocked, frightened or angry. It felt very strange.

  “I’m afraid that’s all the time I have today Rusty,” the President said. “I’ll need for you to quietly, and I do mean quietly, gather the necessary formulas, directions and legal documentation for producing these tests domestically. Deliver it personally to Michael Lawson at Walsanto. He’ll be expecting to hear from you.”

  He stood, which was a sign of dismissal. Hannah didn’t get it. She looked at Rusty, who took her hand and stood up. Together, they silently left the Oval Office. Walking down the hall, she asked, “What the hell was that?”

  “Wait…” he said, fake smiling. She picked up on it and fake smiled her way out of the White House too. It was a quiet, short ride back to Rusty’s place in the back of the limo. Both were thinking furiously.

  As soon as they were inside Rusty’s house, Hannah let loose. “What the hell kind of game was he playing back there?”

  “Welcome to the world of politics Hannah,” Rusty said, “that’s exactly what that was; a game. That was his poker face. He knows and understands everything exactly as you explained it to me, but he apparently isn’t going to let on that he does. He was playing stupid, but rest assured, he’s not. I don’t know what he’s up to, but I don’t like it. Not one bit. I was as surprised by his act as you were.”

  “Remind me to never get into politics,” Hannah said.

  “Oh, too late,” Rusty told her, “way too late!”

  “Why give it only to Walsanto?” she asked. “Doesn’t that seem odd? I mean, they kind of caused this, right?”

  “I don’t know what the reason is yet,” he answered.

  37

  Iowa

  Mon, Jan 25, 2021

  Walsanto Headquarters

  A week later, Rusty found himself in the secure underground complex in Iowa again, in that same meeting room inside Walsanto headquarters at Camp Dodge, with Michael Lawson.

  “So Rusty, I’m hoping that you can shed some light on what’s up with your boss,” Michael said. “He’s been coming up with some pretty bizarre requests lately, and feeding them to me second hand; like this, today. First, he had us re-engineer the genetic make-up of our GM Hybrid corn and cereal grain seed to remove that terminator gene from them. Then he paid us to destroy everything we had on hand that hadn’t been shipped yet, both bulk and packets in front of an inspector from the CDC that videoed it. That creates a shortage domestically. We’ve already shipped almost everything for export for the year. The organic guys are gonna make a killing this year. Now he wants us to have enough of this test you’re bringing me produced “quietly” and in large enough quantity to provide every person with feet on the ground inside the United States with a kit, “to begin with”. We’re supposed to stockpile them here securely until further notice, then, be ready to distribute them as directed. That’s upwards of 400 million kits. What the hell Rusty? What’s going on? Are we in some kind of trouble or something? He’s throwing money around like a whole herd of rock stars.”

  “Mike, I’m here today authorized by the President, for your ears only, to explain everything that I know about it to you,” Rusty said. “I’ll tell you what I know, and I’ll tell you what I think about things too. I’ve got to be careful to let you know the difference between the two, so feel free to stop me and ask if that’s ever not clear.”

  “Fair enough,” Michael said.

  “So, we already knew that when the terminator gene is combined with the algae and bamboo genes, the result is that the cocktail of those three causes them to be added to the genome of the host. That makes the resulting second generation plants sterile, right?”

  “Right,” Michael agreed.

  “What wasn’t expected was that the plant virus used to deliver these genes to the plant in the first place was able to cross over from the plant to the animal that ate it. Thus, the green chickens that have eggs that won’t hatch.”

  “Correct,” Michael said. “That was totally unexpected.”

  “So the trouble we are going to have, according to very credible research, is that there is no reason that the same thing wouldn’t happen to humans who eat either the plant, the seeds from the plant, the animal that ate the plant, or the eggs or the milk from animals that ate the plant,” Rusty explained.

  Michael sat silent for a moment, his eyes wide, staring at Rusty. “Holy shit!” he said. “Oh no… What have we done? So, you’re telling me that chances are that we’re going to see gray/green humans that are sterile from eating any of those?”

  “That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Rusty said.

  “So that explains why the CDC wanted everything we had on hand incinerated. Are they going to tell the rest of the world that we’ve sold them to as well?”

  “That, I don’t know yet,” Rusty said. “That’s where I’m going to guess. My guess is, yes, but probably not until there is more conclusive evidence. If they just own up to it flat out, there’d be a shit-storm of repercussions like we’ve never seen before. My guess is that there’ll be some smoke and mirrors involved, but I don’t know that for sure. I recommend that you never discuss this with anyone else but me.”

  “Oh, no worry Rusty, I’m not in the habit of subjecting my company to financial suicide. Now, I’ll make a guess. I’ll bet that when these test kits come out, the corn and grain that will be tested will be the new stuff, not the old batch. See? Ours is good. Don’t know what happened to yours…”

  “God, I hope not Mike, but you never know. I’m learning that politics can be pretty ugly. I don’t like it much at all. Now, entirely off the record, before we get to the paperwork, I’m going to recommend that you be careful with what your family eats, using your new-found knowledge, without telling them why. If you tell one person, and they tell one person, and so on, it won’t be long before everyone knows what we know.”

  “I’ll be living that advice actively Rusty, trust me. I’m way out there in my head already with this.”

  “Good,” Rusty said. “I’ve never done what we’re going to do today. The lawyers have always handled the paperwork, but in the interest of national security and secrecy, you and I are authorized to broker this deal.”

  “I understand that completely,” Michael said.

  Opening up the folder of papers he had brought with him, Rusty started going through them one at a time. “This is a license to produce a patented test, invented by a PhD candidate at a major university named Hannah Withers. The license does not specify how you produce the kits, just the required formula. To make things as easy as possible for you guys to do this fast and big, licensing payments are not required until the product is actually sold, whether wholesale, or retail. Product must be tracked by production lot numbers and dates produced, for inventory reconciliation. Licensing fees are to be $1.00 per kit. The CDC will levy a flat rate special tax of $1.00 also. 100% of that tax will fund an initiative by them to undo whatever kind of mess this creates for us. You are to add these two fees to your cost of production and take a “fair and normal” profit for yourself. It requires you personally to sign a confidentiality agreement. Basically, make this look like another kind of Q-Tip or something being produced to anyone along the supply chain. Any talking will be done by the CDC at the time that they direct you to begin distribution. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” Michael said as he signed each paper in turn.

  “It’s incredible that this may be the second largest bus
iness deal done in the history of the world, and you and I are responsible for it, right here and now,” Rusty said.

  “No shit,” Michael responded, “but I wish we didn’t have to do this one.”

  That concluded the meeting and the business at hand. Rusty left one complete set of papers signed by both of them with Michael and took the other set with him in his brief case. All he wanted to do now is to get back home and tell Hannah the parts of what just transpired that he was allowed to. He was going to have to pretty much play both sides of this thing to “do the right thing” he thought to himself.

  ~

  One month later, to the day, Rusty was informed by President James that the CDC had been tasked with communicating to the entire medical community to be on the look-out for any unusual symptoms on humans that “reminded” them in any way of the gray/green chickens that had been all over the TV. They were warned that there was fear that whatever virus that caused it might mutate and spread to humans, but to follow standard procedure and keep it as quiet as possible, to help avoid a panic situation. President James also informed Rusty that there may be some changes to his job description coming up that depended entirely on the direction that this thing took.

  38

  Washington, DC

  Thurs, Feb 25, 2021

  Rusty’s Home

  Rusty requested that the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico, VA create a general profile of how different segments of society would react to a hypothetical situation in which a test like the GG-Factor swab test was announced and made available. The goal of the profile was to identify the least disturbing distribution path. Their findings were forwarded to him, and with permission, he shared them with Hannah.

  ~

  “It never ceases to amaze me how people fail to react to the news of health-care issues,” Hannah said, looking up from the laptop.