“Thank you,” she whispered. Her brown eyes were still brown beneath the lenses, regarding him. They hadn’t yet begun the process of changing colored pigments to white.
“How are you feeling?” he said, sitting down and adjusting his own damaged glasses.
Her mouth moved underneath her surgical mask. “As good as somebody who is infected with a fatal super virus can feel.” Even now, after everything that had happened, she smiled underneath her mask, and it made him feel so much worse than he thought was still possible.
He sighed. “We’ll figure something out.”
Her eyes looked sad. “I’m sure you will.”
Already writing herself off. “We will,” he corrected.
Dr. Weinroth’s eyes closed slowly. “Don’t be foolish. We know what this means. The virus, however slow it changes a person in its original state, is infecting my cells one by one. You shouldn’t be here. You should be working on a vaccine so this doesn’t happen again.”
“I know,” he muttered. He chanced a glance at the door and whispered, “Colonel Byrnes has taken over the research. He’s pushing to begin massive tissue harvesting. Without you and your vote, he will succeed.” Joseph ran his hands up, over, and through his hair.
“Joseph.” He looked up. “Without you there, he will succeed. You know what you’re doing is right. Find a way.”
“I’m going to need your help,” he said. He looked to her for affirmation. She nodded. “Take a look at these first test results.” He handed her a manila folder. She pushed herself upright with her elbows so she was seated. She adjusted her light blue medical gown over her shoulders.
Rebecca flipped open the folder as if she were the doctor and not the patient. Her eyes skimmed down the page.
“This can’t be right,” she said, looking over her mask at him.
“Every test result is the same.”
Her finger poured down the page. “Did you see the genome of this virus? It’s not monkeypox. At least not in its entirety.”
“I know.” He leaned in and pointed at the page. “Look here. These sixty pairs of DNA match the genome of monkeypox. But here.” He pointed again. “And here.”
“Those are entirely different genomes,” she said excitedly.
Joseph couldn’t help but be excited by uncovering its inner workings that were like a puzzle with a billion pieces. “It’s true. We’re looking at a satellite virus. A virus that uses the platform of another virus to pass on its genetic code.” He scootched his chair closer.
She eyed him. “Don’t get to close,” she said.
“I don’t care about that. You have time yet. I need you to hold on. We need your help to unravel this nightmare.” Her eyes judged if he meant what he had said. She knew that he knew she was doomed and that she would rapidly degrade over the next few weeks, maybe even faster.
“Look at the DNA. I know it’s a lot. Try to untangle its evil code. Monkeypox was only a vector to whatever this,” he tapped a finger on the paper, “whatever this thing here was trying to do.”
“I’ll try,” she said. As if her body realized she was making promises she couldn’t keep, she coughed hard into her hand. He watched her squirm in pain with suffering.
“I have a meeting with Colonel Byrnes and the team in a few to discuss our options. I will check in a bit later.” He stood and made for the door.
“Joseph.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t let it win.”
“I won’t,” he said, softly closing the door behind him.
Joseph stepped outside, noting her room number C-3EB before walking away, trying not to think about the monster she would become. His feet padded down the white sterile hallway, unique to this part of the facility, installed with the purpose of making it feel like a lab or hospital and not the deep windowless mountain cavern it actually was.
Joseph stopped at a room with a sign on the wall that read BSL-C1. He pushed the handle down and walked inside. From the first step he took into the room, his senses were pounded by the force of the man already there. Colonel Byrnes sat at one end of the conference table. His hands were neatly folded in front of his body. His ACUs were neat and crisp as if he feared a superior officer would inspect him at any moment.
Heads turned toward Joseph. Dr. Desai peered guiltily down at her hands.
“Sorry I’m late,” Joseph mumbled.
“Dr. Jackowski, thank you for coming to this emergency meeting. How is Dr. Weinroth?” Joseph pulled his chair out and sat down. Dr. Nguyen eyed him through the tiny slits of his eyes and Dr. Hollis appeared adrift, lost in a sea of his own thoughts.
“She’s doing well, all things considered.” Her infection hung over the Mountain Integrated Medical team like a black cloud of locusts. It was only a matter of time before they landed for feeding on their lush plant-stalk minds and souls.
Byrnes lips pursed. “What happened was very unnecessary.” He took a pile of papers in his hands and stacked them on end. He continued to do so until they were straight and orderly. Joseph envisioned that the colonel was shaking and straightening him out until he had fallen in line.
“Yes, it was. A most devastating accident,” Joseph said.
“Accident. And preventable. Joseph. The team has been in deep discussion about the way forward from here.” I bet you have.
The rest of the team looked at Joseph as if they expected him to give them an explanation of what happened to Dr. Weinroth or some sort of glorious speech about the merits of human life. He gave them nothing.
Byrnes’s head lowered and his eyes narrowed.
“The team believes that we should change tactics to a more aggressive approach, one that keeps the patient in a more comatose state. It will help prevent any further issues.”
Joseph shook his head. “No. We voted before that we should try a less lethal approach. Patient Zero is not like the other infected. The information we discovered only yesterday points us to a satellite parasite-like virus attached to the host monkeypox virus.” He collected himself and sucked in a deep breath. “If we can unlock the genome behind the satellite, we may be able to figure out the riddle behind the epidemic.”
Byrnes nodded. “While this is true, there is much more that needs to be discovered before we can move forward. We need more information now.”
Dr. Nguyen nodded his agreement, his eyes larger than normal behind his thick but small round glasses. “We should move forward with invasive tissue harvesting. Since Dr. Weinroth’s infection, we not only lost an important asset, but it set us back on our research timeline. We don’t have a choice now.”
“We always have a choice,” Joseph said. He quickly scanned the room. They all avoided his eyes like he was one of the deadly infected.
“Dr. Jackowski, the time for half measures is over. He’s only one man. Certainly you can see the higher mortality rates associated with high tissue harvesting mean little compared to the lives of millions,” Dr. Nguyen said.
Dr. Hollis rubbed the corners of his mouth and flicked away a crumb. “He is right. The risk is worth it.”
“He’s alive, Dr. Hollis. We’ve only scratched the tip of the iceberg with our first few tests, and the data is fantastic.”
“But not enough,” Dr. Hollis said.
“He also assaulted and infected Dr. Weinroth.” Byrnes’s index fingers sprung up in front of his folded hands, running up the center of his mouth to his nose. “We do what we must. You said yourself you would support more intrusion if non-invasive harvesting did not work. It hasn’t worked, Doctor. It’s time to move forward.” His eyes brained Joseph. There was no debate in them. “All in favor, say aye.”
A resounding echo of “ayes” met Joseph’s ears. Not one person voted to continue less invasive procedures. Dr. Desai couldn’t look Joseph in the eyes. Joseph took his glasses off and rubbed his tired dry eyes. He had been up with Dr. Weinroth all night and was losing his will, not to the virus but to his peers, to fight the battle. He wa
s beginning to accept the fact that he was going to assist in dangerous procedures in the name of “science.”
“I can’t argue this any longer. I defer to the team. But let me speak to Mr. Thompson. Perhaps I can make him more compliant to our research needs.”
Byrnes nodded. “I believe that’s fair. Dr. Desai, will you start analyzing the lymph node biopsy? Dr. Nguyen and Dr. Hollis, please prepare for surgery.” He said nothing to Joseph.
Joseph stood up and left, leaving them behind. He walked down the hall and alone to the changing antechamber. He stripped down his clothes and hung them up in his locker. The locker next to his had a brown nameplate on it that read Weinroth. It sickened him to think of her as one of the infected. He slammed his locker closed.
He grabbed a fresh pair of green scrubs from a white cabinet near the edge of the lockers. They would be incinerated later, never reaching this room again. He washed his hands and picked up a soap brush. He picked his nails with one end and then vigorously scrubbed his fingers, hands, and forearms. He reapplied soap that was a nasty bile color, and it left his skin orange until he scrubbed it off. He tossed the brush into a biohazard trash bin. He repeated the process again with soap. The other doctors began filing in and he left them behind. Soldiers followed them in scrubs.
He entered the next chamber. Blue HAZMAT suits hung on the walls. He pulled his down and put his legs inside, pulling it up and around his shoulders. He said nothing to the lab technician as she checked his suit for leaks. He ignored the other doctors as they prepped to go inside the room with Patient Zero.
Thirty minutes later, they all stood silent as the air was sucked up and out through ventilation ducts and pumped outside the facility. The doors rolled open and the team of doctors, along with two soldiers, walked inside.
Patient Zero was strapped to a table. They had doubled down on the bindings and kept the man under a different twenty-four-hour sedation. Joseph’s blue suit crinkled like a flapping tarp in a windstorm.
He stopped next to Patient Zero. His eyes were closed. His skin pale. He infected her. He killed her with his bite. He deserves what is coming. No. His ethics battled his need for revenge. Remember why you are here.
The other doctors stood back. Soldiers stood behind them with long batons. “Ahem.” Joseph placed a hand on Patient Zero and shook his shoulder. “Richard. Wake up.” When he didn’t, Joseph shook him harder.
Richard’s eyes cracked open. They were glassy and white as if he had shaken them up like snow globes. His voice was dry and broken. “Dr. Jackowski. Water.”
Joseph snatched up a bottle and held it to his lips.
“Thanks,” Richard whispered. “Where’ve you been?”
Joseph gulped and set down the bottle. “I’ve been attending to Dr. Weinroth.”
Richard’s eyes shifted to the other doctors.
“She seemed nice. Where is she?”
“She’s in another observation room.”
“She sick?” Richard asked. His eyebrows limply shifted up.
Joseph looked over at Byrnes. The colonel tapped his wrist impatiently.
“She was infected.”
“How?” Richard groaned.
“You don’t remember?”
“Remember what?” Richard groaned. He shifted on the table, testing his bindings.
Joseph’s brow furrowed. “You, Richard. You ripped off her mask and bit her face.”
Richard blinked back tears. His eyes stared straight up at the ceiling. “I didn’t. I can’t remember anything.”
Joseph squeezed his shoulder. “You did. You threw me into the wall. We couldn’t stop you.”
“I suppose that’s why you brought the reinforcements this time.” The two soldiers looked ready to let him have it at any moment. Pistols on their hips reminded Joseph that lethal use of force would be authorized, regardless of Patient Zero’s importance alive.
“The doctors are here to continue researching you and the virus. They have a series of tests they need to run.” He paused. “You understand why we must conduct these experiments, right?”
“Yeah. To create a vaccine for the virus.”
“That’s correct. Some of the tests we have to conduct may be painful.”
Richard bit his lip and tried to nod. “I understand. You know, I didn’t ask for any of this.” Then quieter, he whispered. “I didn’t want this.”
“We didn’t want this either.” We don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this, but my team has overridden me. I must keep it together for the team. “Will you try to hold it together for us? The American people are depending on you.”
Richard tried to nod again, but his head was secured to the table. Joseph turned to the doctors and nodded.
Byrnes walked forward and Joseph stepped back.
“Dr. Nguyen. Let’s start with a portion of his liver.”
“Partial biopsy?”
“No. I want a sizable portion. Let’s get him open.”
“You aren’t going to sedate him?” Dr. Jackowski questioned.
Byrnes regarded him over his shoulder. “No more than he already is. You of all people saw how that affected him last time. We will use a local.”
Joseph’s jaw stayed in the dropped position.
“Dr. Jackowski?” Richard yelled. Joseph took a step farther away from them all.
“Dr. Jackowski? Come back,” Richard yelled. He squirmed in his restraints. “Don’t leave me here alone.”
Joseph took another step away from the table.
“Scalpel.” The doctor colonel held out his hand.
Dr. Hollis handed the stainless steel cutting tool to Byrnes.
“Dr. Jackowski? What are they doing?” Richard screamed.
“Dr. Nguyen, find something to gag him with. As stimulating as the conversation may be, that’s not why we’re here.” Dr. Nguyen put gauze into his mouth. He unrolled tape and pressed it down onto Richard’s cheeks. Richard’s yells came out muffled.
“I’ll place the incision here,” Byrnes said. His free hand massaged near Richard’s right side, feeling for the perfect spot.
“There it is,” Byrnes said. His hand pressed down and his blade sunk through the layers of Richard’s skin, fat, and muscle.
Joseph’s back hit the wall as Richard’s muffled screams echoed in the operating room.
STEELE
Northern Michigan
The rope creaked in the wind. The body slowly spun, suspended in the air by a thick blackened rope. It was shrunken and charred, skin peeling and cracking in ashy flakes. Its limbs were frozen in a final death spasm, fingers curled near its neck, feet pointed, mouth posed in a scream.
“Looks like Rat-Face,” Tess said.
“I wouldn’t know one way or another,” Steele said. He looked on the ground for any clues. Overturned leaves and footprints littered the forest floor. She walked close, covering her mouth. She tugged on his hand and rubbed his finger. Bits of silver peeked out from his hands beneath the soot.
“It’s him. He had a skull ring on each hand.”
“Someone’s killed them, but why?” Steele said. She didn’t answer. He scanned the thick dune woods, peering past trees and shrubs alike. Each tree could hide an enemy human, infected or otherwise.
“We should keep moving. I see tracks here,” she said.
“A blind man could follow these. There must be twenty or thirty pairs of feet here.”
“Or more.” She squeezed her brow together, trying to read him.
Steele took a deep breath, touching his head scar. “That’s what I am afraid of,” he said.
“Only one way to find out.” She walked off following the tracks.
He marched after her deeper into the forest.
They pushed tree branches from their path. Mile after mile they ranged, tracking the mass of people that had gone before them. The people had steamrolled the forest undergrowth without a seeming care in the world. Brazen or stupid or both and we are walking right down th
e middle.
It wasn’t long before he passed Tess and took the lead. Long distance races were not his specialty but a low-intensity ruck was well within his wheelhouse. It was just something he could do. It was more of a mindset than actual conditioning that allowed someone to complete feats of endurance but conditioning always helped. Keep gutting it out one step at a time.
“Hold up there, Steele. I need a break,” Tess said, hands on her hips. “Whew. Haven’t had to go this far in a while. I prefer shorter walks to the bar.” She gave him a grin.
“Can’t keep up?” he said. He knelt down and rested his M4 over his knee. He never really stopped passively listening, looking, or feeling the surrounding environment for things that were out of place. He let all his senses ping. He let his guard down as her lips curled into a mischievous grin.
“I would run you into the ground,” Tess said.
Steele couldn’t help but feel embarrassed. He knew what she meant and it wasn’t a marathon race. She knew what she meant, and yet, he couldn’t resist her banter.
“You sure of that?” he said, standing and meeting her eyes. There was something about her eyes. They promised something. A good time. A carefree life. Above all passion. She took a step for him, her hips moving enough to draw his eyes downward across her chest and lower.
Her hand reached up and tugged his beard downward, closer to her face.
“You wouldn’t last five minutes with me,” she whispered. Her lips pursed a bit. Branches cracked and broke in the distance, giving way to intruders. Her eyes went wide and Steele pushed her to the side. He ripped his M4 to his shoulder, eye aiming with his red dot optic. Ugly faces and decrepit decaying bodies filled his optics.
“Infected,” he snarled. Dozens of infected marched their way, dead eyes glaring his way, blaming him for his living, breathing life.
“Raaarrr,” vibrated in their ears. A tall infected man crashed through the leaves, grabbing them both together. The infected’s jawline was stripped clean of all flesh, revealing only ivory bone in its place. Its skin was greenish brown, destroyed by sagging black pus sacks. Gunshot wounds leaking cold black blood lined his chest.
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