Hybrid

by Brian O'Grady

  “That’s where things start to get a little fuzzy. She turned up only two names; one here in the States: David Moncrief. He’s a French national living in upstate New York.” Martha paused to see if Martin recognized the name. “I hadn’t heard it, either. Avanti never even knew these guys existed, so I’m guessing she’s found herself another source.”

  “It was nothing like that,” Maria said unexpectedly. Her words were slightly slurred, but she was starting to speak on her own volition. “We knew of the Group of Eight from Igor Nachesha.”

  Martin looked at Martha for an explanation. “Ugo oil,” she said without elaboration. Martin was still lost.

  “He used his stolen fortune to join the group. One billion American dollars was the enrollment fee.” Maria said thickly, trying to shake off the effects of the drugs. “You can release me. I am not your enemy.”

  “Your handgun says otherwise,” Martin answered. “Why did Avanti send you here?”

  “On a fool’s errand. I altered your computer files, but there was nothing in them. He knew much more about the virus than you did. After that, he just had me watch you. We used the Internet to communicate.”

  Martin was disappointed. He had hoped that she had taken something or destroyed something that they could use. “So what was your escape plan, or were you supposed to die along with the rest of us?” Martin couldn’t believe a Russian agent would allow herself to die just to preserve her cover story.

  She looked into Martin’s eyes with a gaze as steady as the drugs in her system would allow. “I knew nothing of this. For two years, I worked as a translator for him, and later as one of his aides. Then he sent me here. It was only supposed to be for a couple of months, just long enough to gain access to the computer files.

  “I may be a Muslim, but I am not a fanatic, nor am I suicidal. If I had known about any of this, I would have reported it to my superiors and disappeared.”

  She may have been putting on an Emmy-deserving performance, but Martin believed her. “Why don’t we let her go,” Martin said to Martha, who nodded her head in agreement and then undid the cuffs. “Once you found out what was happening, why didn’t you come to one of us?”

  “I found out when you found out. Apparently the bastard wanted me dead as much as he wanted you dead.” She looked up at Martin and adjusted her torn scrub top.

  “The military is coming to get you.” He was starting to lose interest in her. Twenty minutes ago, he had thought she would have all the answers, but now she was just another dead-end.

  “Why would this Group of Eight want to destroy the United States?” Martha wasn’t done yet. She wanted every last bit of information before the military claimed her.

  Maria smiled. She had been blown and would soon be a prisoner of the United States. She needed a bargaining chip. “I don’t think I want to share that just yet.”

  “Young lady, people are dying, right here, right now, and if you think I will hesitate in using all means available to me—”

  “Knowing the motivations of the Group of Eight will not stop people from dying. When the time is right, and the crisis is past, I will tell the appropriate people what you want to know.” Maria was a well-trained professional and knew how to play the game better than Martha did.

  Martha’s blood pressure was topping out just below the level that caused strokes in healthy people, but she knew Maria was right. “Fine, but I want you to remember that in a short while, you are going to be taken out of this sealed environment and brought to a place where the likelihood of infection is high. If the

  virus is released, you die along with the rest of us.”

  “I am well aware of that,” Maria said, her voice taking on the slightest trace of an Eastern European accent. “As I told you a moment ago, I have no desire to die, or to see any of you die.”

  “What happened to the real Rachel Hill?” Martin rejoined the conversation.

  “That is a very good question.” She turned to face Martin, who had sat back down into his chair. “When I first came here, I met a man named Kameel Neser. He gave me all of Rachel Hill’s papers and accompanied me to Tampa. We spent four days together setting up her new identity in Florida. Just before he left, I asked him about the real Rachel Hill. He said that he had taken care of her, and that there was no possibility of her reappearing. He left no doubt in my mind that he had killed her. I passed on his name and photograph to my control officer, and I forgot about Neser. Two months ago, my control officer contacted me; Neser had been arrested. I was told that he was in possession of a firearm that had been used in a double homicide, and that I was exposed. I was supposed to come in, but I had invested five years of my life getting close to Avanti, and I wasn’t willing to throw that away.”

  “Kameel Neser. Was that his real name?” Martha was writing again.

  “That is his real name. He introduced himself to me as Alexander Stone, and that is the name he is using in the federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland. I am guessing that Neser took care of more than just Rachel Hill.”

  “You should have told us this earlier, Maria,” Martin said as his phone began to ring.

  Phil was awake, wide awake. In fact, he was more awake than he had ever been. He tried to move, but the restraints were still holding his wrists tightly. They should have taken these off already, he thought. He pulled and felt first the Velcro and then the fabric rip. His right arm came free first, and a moment later, his left was free as well. He undid what was left of the straps from his wrists and tried to sit up, but the monitor screwed to his scalp pulled taut. It probably wasn’t wise to remove it, but that didn’t stop him. He twisted the small flange, and the monitor unscrewed like a bolt from his skull. A small suture had been thoughtfully placed around the four-millimeter wound, and he expertly tied it, closing the incision as well as any surgeon could have done it. He finally sat up and looked around. He was in an isolation room, with negative pressure and laminar flow, and knew that Reisch had infected him with the Hybrid virus through George Van Der. The German’s thoughts still floated through Phil’s head.

  He remembered the struggle with Reisch, and grabbing the German’s neck, and then unimaginable pain; after that he remembered nothing more—until now. His head was bursting from pain, but a dozen voices talked through it. His Monsters had been replaced.

  One of the voices exploded in volume, and he looked up to see a nurse pointing at him. She began running towards the isolation anteroom. Shock and amazement filled her mind, as well as Phil’s, as she donned the isolation suit.

  Phil began to disconnect himself from every piece of medical paraphernalia. He stood on shaky legs, his gown open to the back, which made him feel self-conscious. That was a feeling he was used to. He tied up the gown and turned back towards the glass door and locked it. His nurse alternated between cries for assistance and orders for Phil to get back in bed.

  “You can’t come in!” Phil yelled in a hoarse voice. Now that his breathing tube had been removed, every exhaled breath released millions of viable virus particles into the room. He was surprised that no one had been infected thus far. Maybe the fiberglass masks were more effective than he thought.

  She started banging on the door hard enough to threaten the seals. “Stop!” Phil yelled, and she was suddenly flung against the opposite wall. He watched her fly through the air and realized that he had done that. “I’m sorry!” he shouted. “I didn’t mean to do that.”

  The nurse climbed to her feet, her elbow bleeding where it had struck the edge of a table. People were running to her aid, and she stared at Phil, confused and very angry. “What did you do?” she demanded in a high, indignant voice.

  Her fellow nurses didn’t understand the accusation.

  “Did you see what he just did to me?” she turned and asked them.

  No one answered her because they could see that there was no possible way that Phil had done anything to her.

  “I need a phone, now!” Phil yelled through the glass. The
nurses stared at him and their bloodied colleague and no one moved. Phil began banging on the glass with enough force to threaten the seals. “Get me a phone!” He demanded again, and finally, someone passed him the cordless extension through the airlock.

  Martin’s first thought was to let the phone ring, since it couldn’t possibly be as important as what he was doing right now, but then someone answered it.

  “Dr. Martin,” some vaguely familiar lab tech called from Martha’s desk. “I have a Dr. Rucker for you. He says it’s important.”

  The name sounded familiar, but his focus was on the young girl in front of him, and he didn’t want the distraction of searching his memory. “It’s always important. Tell him we’re closed,” he said gruffly, and then thought better of it. “Don’t tell him were closed, take a number and someone will call him back.” He turned back to Martha. “What do we do now?”

  Before Martha could respond, they were interrupted again. “I’m sorry, Dr. Martin,” said the lab tech, “but I think you need to take this phone call. He says he’s infected with the Hybrid virus.”

  The name Rucker finally made a connection in his brain: Colorado Springs.

  “This is Nathan Martin.”

  “Phillip Rucker; I am the Coroner for Colorado Springs. I’m calling because I have information about both the Colorado Springs virus and the Hybrid virus.”

  “How do you know those names?” asked Martin.

  “I got them from Klaus Reisch.”

  “That means nothing to me,” Martin said. “I’ve already been duped once this week, and my suspicion level is running at an all time high.”

  “How about Amanda Flynn?” Rucker said with obvious annoyance. The phone line was silent and Phil went on. “The Colorado Springs virus incites a severe encephalitic process; it’s as bad as herpes encephalitis,” Phil said.

  Martin’s mind raced with the mention of herpes.

  “A mixture of herpes and Ebola,” Phil said suddenly.

  “How do you know that?” Martin said angrily.

  “That’s not important. Look for a third component. The infection stimulates the formation of a thick layer of stem cells lining the ventricles. The Colorado Springs virus stimulates cell growth in the brain. It’s that growth that kills people.”

  “Germinal matrix?” Martin said skeptically. “There has to be another explanation. No one has ever found viable stem cells in an adult brain.”

  “That’s not correct. There have been several reports dating back to 1957.” Phil said. “There are large pluripotential cells interspersed among the ependymal cells and the subependymal layers below. Whether we call them stem cells or not is irrelevant. I believe that this virus interacts with those cells and stimulates their growth.”

  “Interesting theory. I haven’t seen any specimens, but you have, so for the moment I’ll entertain it. Any clue what this third component might be?”

  “It has to be human DNA.”

  “Possible,” Martin said thoughtfully. “The original virus was created under less than optimal conditions. It’s possible that their herpes specimen came by scraping someone’s mouth. The herpes virus inserts itself in the donor’s DNA, and when they tried to recover the virus, they got a little more than they had expected. Gene therapy.” It had taken billions of dollars and millions of hours and experiments to trick small viruses into incorporating pieces of human chromosomes, and then delivering those genes to specific sites. Avanti had managed it without even trying.

  Adam Sabritas had followed Martin to the phone and had been quietly listening. “I found it,” he said, vibrating with nervous energy from head to toe. Martin turned towards the young man. “I finished sequencing part of the Colorado Springs virus. About half of the DNA is human.”

  “Did you get that?” Martin asked into the phone, watching the frequency of Sabritas’s vibration increase. He looked like an elementary student who had an answer and would explode if his teacher didn’t call on him quickly. “What else did you find, Adam?”

  “It’s the short arm of chromosome eleven.” Sabritas was breathless with excitement. “It’s a purine receptor locus, but it’s incomplete.”

  “A purine receptor?” Martin questioned thoughtfully. It was possible; purine receptors were small protein complexes within the cell membrane. When the correct key was fitted into the receptor, a cascade of chemical reactions within the cell occurred, most of which were involved with cell survival.

  “That would account for the various presentations,” Phil said into the phone.

  Sabritas had spread out his computer sheets across Martha’s desk and kept stabbing parts of them with a thick, stubby finger, saying, “Look at this,” over and over again. “I’m sorry, what did you say, Dr. Rucker?”

  “I said that an incomplete purine receptor gene would explain the various presentations. In most people, the virus acts in typical fashion. It invades the cell, inserts its DNA into the host’s DNA, creates millions of new copies of itself, and then destroys the cell. The immune system does the rest. As other cells become infected, they begin to display bits of the virus on their MHC proteins, and the cells are destroyed by immune cells. That’s what causes all the destructive changes and the inflammation. The psychiatric presentation makes sense as well, because the cells most vulnerable to these viruses are located primarily in the limbic system.”

  Martin had pushed aside Sabritas’s chart and turned the speakerphone on. “I’ve put you on speaker phone. I want some of my staff to hear this,” he said while sitting in Martha’s chair.

  “The limbic system?” A Ph.D. candidate had overheard part of the conversation and had drifted closer to the phone and Adam Sabritas.

  “Emotional centers of the brain,” Sabritas answered automatically.

  “I know that—” the student answered defensively, but Martin’s glare cut off the rest of his thought.

  A crowd had gathered around the speaker. “Go on, Dr. Rucker,” he said.

  “I’m guessing that in a few cells the purine receptor gene is repaired and activated. Instead of producing viable viral particles, the cell produces the actual receptors.”

  “This sounds a little like Borna Disease,” the graduate student said much too loudly. Every head turned towards him. Even Phil hadn’t heard of Borna Disease. The student’s face flushed with the sudden attention. “It’s a viral infection in sheep and cattle. It causes unusual behaviors in the animals.” He stammered a little. “Years ago people thought that it might cause depression in humans.” A dozen faces stared at him, waiting for the relevance of his interruption. “It’s an RNA virus that replicates in the cell nucleus, but it doesn’t destroy the cell. It causes unusual proteins to be elaborated across the cell membrane.”

  Satisfied, people started looking at one another.

  “Interesting . . .” Martin said stammering over the grad student’s name.“Yes, it is,” Phil added. “Most of the purine receptors are associated with apoptosis of neuronal cells, but some, instead of initiating programmed cell death, cause the normally inert neurons to either grow or to differentiate. It stands to reason that with the additional receptors, the cells become hypersensitive to their ligands. That’s what causes the reformation of a germinal matrix, and it is this unrestrained and rapid growth at the base of the brain that kills people.”

  Everyone was silent for a moment, digesting Phil’s theory. “I have to tell you, I’ve barely heard of purine receptors.” Martin looked around the crowded office. “So now we know how it kills, what do we do about it? Fighting the encephalitic process with the usual anti-inflammatory agents isn’t going to help. How do we stop these cells from dividing?”

  “I don’t think we can,” Phil said.

  Most of Martin’s staff nodded their heads.

  Phil continued, “The key is to start treatment before the combination of inflammation and growth are fully developed.”

  “Two people have survived this infection untreated. For the moment, let’
s leave them out of this. How did you survive?” Martin asked Phil.

  “Discounting the possibility that I shared the same resistance to these viruses Amanda and Reisch had, my survival was based on standard medical management. I was also given the antiviral agent Acyclovir, but that was only after the onset of an altered mental state.”

  “So do you think it was the antivirals?” Martin asked.

  “Yes, I do. The core of these viruses is still the plain herpes simplex virus. The Ebola component seems to allow the virus to survive within the cell nucleus, away from the usual cellular defenses, and improves its overall transmissibility.

  “Once a cell has been infected, it will do one of three things: die, in which case it will release more of the virus; differentiate into a harmless form; or begin to divide. I’m guessing that before any cell is induced into growth, there has to be a minimal concentration of viral particles in the brain. This is where the antivirals can be effective. There’s nothing we can do once a cell starts dividing, but if we keep their numbers low, the immune system should be able to deal with them effectively, and should be able to control the overall infection. The key is that the antivirals have to be given as early as possible, otherwise too many of these stem cells will have been induced into growth.”

  “I’m not sure there are enough antivirals to go around,” Martin said.

  “Then a lot of people are about to die,” Phil answered.

  Lisa was leading the way and Amanda followed. “Is there something wrong, dear?”

  “No, nothing wrong, but I have to do something before we leave.” She turned back down the hall and headed for the emergency room. She walked through the double doors as if she belonged. Lisa, not knowing what else to do, followed.

  Amanda found Phil almost immediately. His powerful mind filled the cavernous space and Amanda smiled. Phil was much further along than Oliver. She approached the glass and Phil turned towards her.

  “Come in,” he said while placing the phone back into the airlock. He reached over and unlocked the door.