Bioterror! (an Ell Donsaii story #14)

by Laurence Dahners

  Rick stood up, “I’ll go talk to Dr. Barnes. We should start making as much as we can!” As he started for the door he glanced at Alice, “Can you look over the methodology to see if we’ve got what we need here to start cranking it out?”

  Zage said, “We’ve got everything we need. I ordered more and started the CFPS making a batch early this morning.”

  Alice and Rick turned to stare at him, “You started a batch without Dr. Barnes permission? Or letting her look over your set up? That stuff’s expensive, you know?!”

  Zage shrugged unconcernedly, “I figured it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission. Besides, I’m pretty sure my mom can get Dr. Donsaii to donate money to support a vaccine production program.”

  Rick turned to Alice, “Why don’t you check his work while I go talk to Dr. Barnes. I’m pretty sure she’ll be okay with it, but not if we run out a bad batch.”

  Alice had been eyeing Zage speculatively, “I’ll check it, but I suspect Zage’s set-up’ll be fine.” She got up and headed toward the CFPS.

  A few minutes later, Dr. Barnes and Rick came into the lab, Barnes looking excited. For the past few weeks pretty much everyone’d been going around looking like they had a sentence hanging over their heads. Alice had a feeling that the mere possibility they themselves could do something to ameliorate the bioterrorism disaster had perked her up. Barnes looked at Alice, “You checked his set up?”

  Alice nodded.

  “Let me look it over too,” she said turning towards the CFPS equipment. “Did you find any problems?”

  “No…” Alice said. “I started over there too, but as Zage said, if you really want to check his work, you need to start over at the DNA synthesis and PCR set ups to make sure he programmed in the right DNA and chained it up correctly.”

  Barnes stopped in her tracks and turned toward the DNA set up, “Oh, yeah, if they just sent us the sequence it’s obvious we’d have to start by making the DNA. Can you walk me through what he did?”

  As Alice took Dr. Barnes through the steps Zage had been using, she had the surreal experience of correcting her professor each time Barnes thought she recognized a mistake or had an idea for a better method. Several of them were mistakes or ideas that Alice had considered when she looked it over. Zage had already pointed out where Alice misunderstood or why her idea wouldn’t actually work. Alice was able to explain those to Dr. Barnes but Dr. Barnes had a couple of ideas Alice hadn’t thought of. Zage came over and explained why the way he’d done it was better than what Barnes wanted to try. This’s just freaking bizarre, Alice thought, like I’m in some alternative reality. A place where a five-year-old schools professors on their own specialty…

  Then Barnes sat down, looking at the vaccine protocol on the big screen and occasionally glancing at the various pieces of equipment. Speaking as if to herself, she hoarsely whispered, “Sweet mother of Mary, that’s elegant methodology. That Gordito’s… just blindingly brilliant…” Leaning back in her chair, she shook her head, “Someone’s got to find him or her…”

  ***

  Dallas, Texas—The wife and children of Tom Milner, the first person to die of modified smallpox, have also now succumbed to the disease. Unfortunately, like Milner, they also did not respond to the antiviral medications which scientists had hoped would be effective against ordinary smallpox. However, in what appears to be good news, the classmates and teachers of the Milner children, all of whom were vaccinated after Mr. Milner first became ill, have either shown no evidence of the disease, or have become ill but only mildly so. This suggests that the vaccines will successfully ameliorate the disease in people who’ve been recently exposed but haven’t developed symptoms. The health care workers who cared for Mr. Milner and were vaccinated within days have also remained healthy, though a few developed some pustules. CDC reports that both the live virus and the protein vaccine seem to have been effective.

  Unfortunately, three contacts of the Milners who refused vaccination are now in the throes of the disease and it does not appear that they’re going to survive. In light of this, President Stockton has authorized forcible administration of the vaccine to exposed individuals, though there are certain to be legal challenges to this policy.

  Homeland Security reports that they are relatively confident that they have successfully isolated and vaccinated all individuals in the primary layer of containment due to the firecracker incident in Buffalo, New York. The city remains on lockdown while everyone in the secondary layer is vaccinated. The mayor reports that adequate food and other supplies have been donated and delivered to the city. “No shortages have occurred, and any sense of isolation is much reduced by the pervasive availability of electronic communications. Nonetheless, the people of Buffalo look forward to being able to rejoin their families and returned to workplaces outside of the isolation zones…”

  Although isolation and vaccination programs appear to have been fairly successful in Dallas and Buffalo, similar programs in Durban, Budapest, Mumbai, and Busan have been fraught with problems. The four countries involved have all resorted to martial law with each of the cities now encircled by their own country’s military. The military forces enforcing the quarantines have in some instances resorted to lethal force in order to keep individuals from leaving the cordoned areas. There remains concern that some persons who were exposed to the virus exited the quarantined areas before the cordons were fully established. In addition, the encircled populace is panicking, with widespread riots reported in Mumbai. The people there have been demanding vaccine, but availability has been severely limited. President Stockton has said that the United States will supply some vaccine to each of the four locations and called on other developed countries to do so as well. She said, “It is worth some risk to the people of our own countries to keep the breakdown of societal norms from expanding this disaster into a worldwide epidemic…”

  LaQua’s AI said, “You have a call from Gordito.”

  “I’ll take it… Gordito, our first run with your new gene and methodology’s far more efficient at synthesizing the antigen. We haven’t confirmed its quality yet, but it’s looking good!”

  “The quality will be fine as long as the described protocol’s followed,” Gordito said, giving LaQua the impression that other people were already making the vaccine, but maybe hadn’t been following the protocol exactly.

  For some reason this gave her the sensation that he was from some other country. Homeland Security’s going to have a cow if it turns out that Gordito’s a Russian, she thought. Then she started wondering about the one change she’d made in the protocol they’d received. What if that’s the reason we’re only getting seven times as much protein, not Gordito’s claimed ten? To Gordito, she said, “How can I help you?”

  The synthetic voice said, “We’d like to deliver the vaccine I talked about. Could someone come to the entrance and pick it up?”

  She was busy and didn’t want to take the time to go out there, but would if it gave her a chance to meet Gordito, “Are you out there?”

  “Um, no. Anonymity and all that, you know? The package’s sitting at the end of the reception counter with a bunch of UPS deliveries, but it’s unlabeled except for your name. We’re a little worried that, in the crisis, someone might just trash it.”

  “I’ll send somebody.” Then, suddenly hopeful that it might be a really large amount, she wondered if whoever picked it up might need a rolling table to set it on so they wouldn’t have to carry it, “How much does it weigh?”

  “Just over 600 grams.”

  “Oh,” she said, disappointed, then worrying that her feelings showed in the tone of her voice.

  Obviously it had, because the synthetic voice said, “It’s a purified and lyophilized protein powder. Enough for a little over 40 million doses. I know it’ll take some work to confirm its purity and sterility, then put it in actual syringes for distribution and vaccination, but we’re hoping that, knowing you had this vaccine available for the State
s, you could immediately free up enough of your own doses to treat the people in Durban, Budapest, Mumbai, and Busan.”

  LaQua was stunned into silence for a second by the amount of vaccine, then she turned for the door. “I’ll be right out to get it,” she said, “and once we have initial confirmation that the protein appears to be good, I’ll really lean on people above me to free up vaccine for overseas. Um, do you mind if I imply that you made future deliveries of vaccine contingent upon our using our own vaccine to help the poor devils overseas?”

  “I don’t mind your implying that, but I’m not planning on making any more vaccine right now.”

  “Why not?! Are you running out of precursors? Something else we can get you to enable you to make more of it?”

  “Well, no. I’ve been working on a way to synthesize some of the antibodies that the vaccine induces. Instead of vaccine, I thought I’d make the antibodies so you’d have something you could use to treat people in the active stages of the disease.”

  LaQua almost stumbled. Vaccines essentially only prevented the disease by stimulating the patient’s own immune system to produce antibodies. They’d often ameliorate and sometimes completely prevent the disease if they were given to the patient after the patient had been exposed—but before they were actively sick. However, giving a vaccine to stimulate antibody production to a patient who was already sick and already desperately trying to make his own antibodies to the virus rarely made any difference. Giving the actual antibodies would be great but producing antibodies was difficult and expensive.

  “You’re trying to generate monoclonal antibodies?” she asked, trying to understand what Gordito intended. When a lab grew up a clone of B lymphocytes that’d been sensitized to an antigen, then harvested the antibodies they produced, the product was called a “monoclonal” antibody. Growing sufficient quantities of the lymphocytes to make very much of the antibody was difficult and therefore expensive.

  “No, that seemed pretty hard. Instead, I vaccinated myself, then selected some of the antibodies I generated and sequenced them. It took a little while to work out a protocol that would synthesize and assemble actual antibodies in a CFPS but…”

  LaQua’d stopped walking so she could try to follow what Gordito was describing. Her mind boggled at the concept of actually constructing an entire antibody in quantity. A complete antibody not only consisted of several proteins, they needed to be assembled to one another in a kind of a “Y” configuration before they functioned correctly. Incomplete fragments of an antibody molecule could attach to the antigenic sites on a virus, but they weren’t nearly as good as an entire antibody at “opsonization” of the virus—a process in which the presence of the antibody on the surface of a microbe attracted white blood cells that ingested and destroyed the germ. Scientists had generated synthetic antibodies in the past, but it generally took an extended period of research, then generated small quantities of very expensive molecules that were most commonly used in research. She just couldn’t imagine that someone was about to start manufacturing synthetic antibody in quantity this soon after the vaccinia virus had been identified! She suddenly wondered, Could Gordito be able to do this because he’s the one who created the virus, and he’s been working on the vaccines as well as the antigens and antibodies for years?! It’s awfully convenient, the Gordito website suddenly appearing at nearly the same time as this disaster.

  Not noticing her own bias in assigning Gordito a male pronoun when she suspected him of something appalling, LaQua started walking again. Entering the lobby, she looked around for someone who might’ve delivered the package, but the lobby was empty except for the receptionist. “Where is it?” she asked through her AI.

  “Right beside the stack of UPS packages on the end of the counter closest to you,” Gordito said, confirming that he had a camera or some other way of watching what she was doing.

  When she glanced at the stack of packages she saw a bag like someone might bring their lunch to work in. It had “Dr. Kelso” written on it with a Sharpie. A brown paper bag?! she thought in astonishment. She reached in her pocket and pulled out some gloves, realizing it might tip Gordito off to her suspicions, but unwilling to touch the delivery without that minimum amount of protection. She picked up the bag, judging the weight to be somewhat more than a pound which would be in the range of the 600 grams Gordito’d specified. She didn’t try to look in the bag, opting to leave its top rolled closed. For just a second, she considered asking the receptionist if he’d seen who delivered the bag, but then she realized she’d do better having someone review the security camera video. She lifted the bag as if toasting Gordito, then turned and headed back into the hallway. “Thanks,” she said, “I’ll get our people started on confirming the product.” She wondered if she should say anything else, then realized she should act as if she believed the therapeutic antibody story. “I’ll tell my higher-ups you might give us some antibody if they send some vaccine to the people overseas.”

  She took the package directly back to the Level IV Biosafety Lab to be opened, at each step dreading the possibility that she was carrying a one pound bag of modified smallpox virus.

  Or perhaps something even worse…

  ***

  Homeland Security, Washington DC—Today, Homeland Security spokesperson Francis Dorchester announced that they’ve accounted for all but two of the packages sent from the site in Dallas where modified smallpox was being grown. Also, she said that the CDC believes the epidemic has been brought under control in the United States. Early isolation of exposed persons, urgent vaccination of their contacts, and the layered approach policy to containment of disease epicenters appears to have been successful. The isolation of the contained sections of Dallas and Buffalo is expected to be discontinued early next week if no further cases appear…

  The news is not as good in the so-called “four cities” around the world where modified smallpox was disseminated by giving children firecrackers. Although intense programs of vaccination are finally underway in those areas, there is little doubt that they were started late enough that many people will develop fulminant forms of the disease. If so, hundreds and likely thousands will die. Perhaps hundreds of thousands or even millions.

  Efforts to isolate affected people in the four cities were less successful due to slow implementation of quarantine policies. Finally, with such large populations, especially in Mumbai, the huge numbers of people who have made deliberate efforts to escape quarantine areas have resulted in a moderate number of successes. It is unknown how many of those quarantine escapees harbored latent disease and will serve as new epicenters for further breakouts.

  LaQua Kelso and Abe Cohen were meeting with Mary Wu, Homeland Security’s representative here at CDC. Abe called the meeting when LaQua’d explained her concerns that Gordito might actually be involved in developing and implementing the plague. Perhaps “Gordito” might even be a pseudonym used by the infamous Adin Farsq. LaQua’d just finished outlining the issues that’d raised her concerns:

  That the Gordito website’d been set up not long after the vaccination virus appeared on Little Diomede.

  That Gordito’d been unbelievably quick to recognize the viral genome when LaQua put it up on the Gordito website, and to understand what it might mean in terms of bioterrorism.

  That Gordito’d been able to identify antigens on the surface of the virus in a matter of hours.

  That he’d been able to provide CDC with a gene sequence for producing a vaccination protein with multiple antigenic sites on it, also within hours.

  That Gordito’d been able to recognize that the virus wouldn’t grow in bovine serum without even growing the virus himself.

  That Gordito’d just delivered a brick of lyophilized protein he claimed contained enough antigen for 40 million vaccination doses.

  “Essentially, whoever’s behind the Gordito website knew far too much about the virus far too quickly.”

  Wu frowned, “But it sounds like everything this
Gordito’s done has been directed at limiting the epidemic?”

  LaQua nodded, “Unless it was all just to get us to trust him. Now he’s delivered this huge brick of lyophilized antigen that he expects us to vaccinate people with. What if it’s only antigen on the surface of the brick and contains active virus in the middle? Or something even worse? We’ve been keeping it isolated and testing it very carefully.”

  “Have you found anything bad yet?”

  “No, but… I’m still worried. If he’s the genius he seems to be, maybe he’s slipped some other joker in the deck somehow.”

  “If he’s an astonishing genius like he seems to be, then maybe he’s capable of doing all these good things. That’s really your only source of suspicion, right? That he’s done things that don’t seem possible for ordinary mortals?”

  “Yeah,” LaQua laughed, “it’s a circular argument. If he’s really some kind of super genius, maybe he really is a good guy. If he’s not a super genius, he probably isn’t smart enough to trick us with something deviously atrocious in that brick of vaccine protein.” She shrugged, “I’m bringing it to your attention because Dr. Cohen says that’s something we’re supposed to do. I really hope he is a super genius who’s helping us out…” After the little pause, she shook her head and said, “But, I just don’t think anybody could actually be that smart.”

  Wu chewed her lip for a moment, then said, “Okay, I’ll look into it. Tracking down that kind of thing’s my specialty. You get back to controlling the epidemic. I may need some scientific help to be able to send plausible queries to the Gordito website. Do I need to come to you for advice? Or do you have a minion who could help me do that kind of thing?”