The Apocalypse Strain
Page 5
“What are you, Molli?” Clara couldn’t take her eyes off her test subject. She couldn’t possibly fathom what implications the so-called virus would have for science. All she knew was that she was looking at something mysterious and wonderful.
As the cell grew, it formed a figure eight. Then it split into two spheres.
“Binary fission,” Clara murmured, working on the assumption that the organism was a prokaryote.
Cell division was happening everywhere under her scope at a fantastic rate. Two were four then eight then sixteen in fractions of a second. Their purplish color tinted the solution.
But the strangest thing Clara noticed concerned their movement: instead of bouncing around in random chaos, every one of the Molli cells beneath her scrutiny moved in the same direction – toward the amoebas – with tiny flagella wagging like happy dog tails, propelling them through the medium.
Then came the slaughter.
“Amazing!” Clara watched like a gambler at a dogfight as Molli overtook the amoebas and consumed them one by one, or so she first thought. However, she wasn’t witnessing consumption at all. “It’s not destroying them. It’s absorbing them.” She didn’t know what to make of it. “Or maybe it’s the other way around?”
Molli penetrated each amoeba it overcame and took up residence inside its new….
“Host? Is Molli some sort of parasite?” Clara looked away for a moment, lost in thought. She stared absently into the space in front of her. “No, that isn’t quite right.” The amoeba retained its essential shape. In fact, it seemed to have grown, appearing healthier, save for its color. The effects of Molli on the original organisms were magnificent, all visible processes seeming to function at higher levels.
She grabbed her Dictaphone and cleared her throat, then straightened and took several long breaths before she was calm enough to push the button and record. “Initial results of Test A002. Under no magnification, results of Test A001 appeared to have been replicated. Solution instantly disrupted, with appearance of boiling and purplish hue.”
Clara paused and took another breath. “The organism appears to have been misclassified as a virus. Closer to a bacterium, prokaryotic. Rapidly reproducing. Likely parasitic. The organism has invaded the amoebas, but thus far, no deleterious effects detected. Possibly ameliorative. Amoebas are larger and maintain integrity. At best guess at this early stage, the organism appears to be equivalent to a steroid for cell growth and development.”
And how impressive she is! Clara rewound the Dictaphone to record over her last sentence. “What are you, my baby?” she asked the specks in the petri dish.
“Are you symbiotic?” Clara gasped. The ramifications of what she was seeing pushed her normally reserved scientific mind into the realm of speculation.
She couldn’t help herself. “What if?” She stared back through the lens as the swells inside the dish settled. “What if this is the missing link? The catalyst for evolution?” Her breath caught in her throat. “The building blocks I’ve been searching for?”
Easy, girl. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Clara was nowhere near the point of working with such a profound hypothesis. She rained on her own parade. “Start with the basics. Work from there.”
At last, not a single unaffected amoeba remained in the dish that Clara could find. The new organisms congregated in the center of the dish. They arranged themselves into an oval that tapered off at each end. Like an eye.
It blinked.
“Mon Dieu!” Clara blurted as she pushed herself back from the table. After a second, she began to titter, low and unsure at first, but quickly building into something strong and real. “For a scientist, you can be so ridiculous sometimes,” she chided herself. “An eye….” She chuckled some more.
She wheeled herself back to the scope, her cheeks flushed and her muscles tight. She stared straight ahead, half afraid someone might have seen her silliness even though she knew she was alone. “I knew I shouldn’t have had that ham sandwich right before bed.”
She looked back into the lens. The Molli-amoebas were still congregating center stage. “You really are beau—”
Glass split. Clara screamed as her view went dark. She fell back in her chair so quickly the front wheels left the floor. She rolled backward, out of breath and trying to catch it. Did something just jump out of the dish?
She examined the scope from a distance. If the lens was broken, she couldn’t tell. A strand of what looked like chewed gum stretched thin extended from the scope into the dish.
“That…. That’s not possible.”
A sharp burst came from the hallway. It sounded like a gunshot.
“Monty?”
Something struck the door with a thud then slid down its surface. “Monty?” Clara called again. “What’s going on out there?”
A beep emitted from the keycard reader. Clara turned her chair toward the door. “No, don’t come in! It’s not safe in here!”
But it was too late. The hallway door opened, and a man entered the sterilization chamber. He stared at her with wild eyes, eyes that caused her body to tremble and her stomach to turn, spawning a fear not even the threat of viral death had provoked.
But the man wasn’t staring at her. He was staring at Molli.
Chapter Six
The man who called himself Dante sat in a metal folding chair in a room barely bigger than a closet with no windows. His hands were cuffed behind him, the metal clasps secured tightly around his wrists, far too tightly for him to wiggle free. He could probably dislocate his thumb and slide his hand out quickly, a trick that always seemed so easy to do in the movies. But he’d never tried it before and doubted he could pull it off without shattering the joint or causing some other permanent damage.
Times were not yet so desperate. He had a means of escape, albeit a tad more time consuming.
Plus, that has to hurt like a son of a bitch. Why would I want to dislocate my own thumb when I don’t have to?
Two burly men with bulging arms crossed over heaving chests stared at him, an aluminum table all that separated them from Dante. They were typical ASAP guards, serious-looking fellows with pronounced jaws and permanently scowling faces. They’d have no trouble dislocating his thumb for him. He thought better of asking.
Stearns and Romanov. Dante read the name tags over their breast pockets. Stearns was even uglier than the photo in Dante’s dossier had let on. Romanov was a great big question mark. Dante didn’t like question marks. They raised too many questions.
With big, dopey eyes and a sheepish smile that screamed, “D’oh, you boys got me,” without saying a word, he stared up at his captors. He offered them a respectful nod then laughed.
As Dante expected, the ASAP men made a tough audience. Stearns grunted and took a seat across from him. The guard clenched his hands together and slid his Popeye forearms over the table toward Dante, who had seen similar demonstrations of strength and authority a thousand times before. He rolled his eyes and snickered.
“You find something funny?” the guard asked, almost barking.
Dante’s smile curled bigger. “All of life is funny, my friend. Each of us is caught up in God’s ultimate joke: the plight of human existence.”
“You hear that, partner?” Stearns asked, glancing over his shoulder at Romanov. “We’ve got ourselves a philosopher.” He feigned a laugh then flipped into a sneer as he slammed a palm onto the table.
Dante faked a shriek then burst into laughter. That part wasn’t fake.
“Listen up, you fucking whack job. We ain’t exactly the police. We don’t give two shits about your rights or that pansy faggot party called the Geneva Convention. We don’t give a damn if you’re Saint Christopher, Mother Theresa, or the Pope himself.” Stearns leaned closer. “We just want to know one thing.” The guard drew a large Rambo blade from a scabbard as if he were some kind of pira
te. “And I’m going to cut and carve you until you give it up.”
“Now, now, Mr. Stearns.” Dante tsked. “Children shouldn’t play with knives.”
Stearns’s hand moved with a quickness unbefitting a man his size. With a flick of his wrist, he sent his blade through Dante’s flesh.
Though the cut was shallow, it succeeded in souring Dante’s mood, if only for a moment. Warm blood trickled down his left cheek. He growled low then checked his anger. I’m going to kill him for that. And with that, he let his humor return. “Roses are red. Violets are blue. You’ll soon be dead. So how ’bout fuck you.”
Stearns struck again, so fast that Dante had barely seen the blow coming. The backhand to his temple rocked his head back and left the room spinning, but he laughed it off.
“Where are my manners?” Dante asked. “That’s no way to speak to my gracious host.”
“No,” Stearns agreed. “It’s not. Tell us who you’re working with, and you have my word I won’t kill you. Or, I’ll at least make it quick.”
Dante let out a deep breath and leaned forward as if he were about to reveal all the universe’s many secrets. “Okay, listen closely. There are seven of them. One of them, well, he can be a bit bashful. I don’t know how to get him to talk. Another one, he isn’t too bright. Some of the others call him dopey, but I think that’s kind of rude. Don’t you? Then there’s that fellow who won’t stop sneezing. God almighty! My house looks like it has been invaded by slugs from outer space. And let’s not forget the doc!”
“You finished?” Stearns asked.
“I’m not sure. How many was that?”
Stearns jammed the point of his knife into the table, but as it was also metal, the blade just scraped sideways along the surface with a cringe-inducing sound akin to a nail across a chalkboard. He let it fall from his grip and lunged across the table. His hand clamped onto the back of Dante’s neck and slammed the prisoner’s face down onto the unyielding surface. Stearns circled the table and lifted Dante by his lapels. The guard gritted his teeth, his mouth so close to Dante’s that the latter could smell the eggs his captor had eaten for breakfast.
“You’re wasting your time,” Romanov said. “He’s obviously crazy. He’s not working with anyone.”
“Oh yeah, smart guy?” Stearns asked. “How many hobos you know that can acquire and wire plastic explosives?”
Dante smirked. Stearns wasn’t half as dumb as he looked. Easy to provoke, though. He shrugged. It didn’t matter what they thought. He wasn’t talking.
For a moment, he and Stearns locked stares. Then a gunshot broke the silence.
“Who in the flying fuck is shooting?” Stearns shouted. He glowered at Dante. “If this is one of your guys, I’m going to bring back his head for you. Maybe then you’ll talk.”
Not one of mine, Dante thought, intrigued by the unforeseen wrinkle. Perhaps he’d finally been given the distraction he needed.
What’s going on out there?” Romanov called into his handheld radio. “Someone report. Control?”
“It came from the direction of Bio-Lab 347,” a woman’s voice blasted back.
“Fuck! The clean room? Where’s Flint? Flint, report!”
Only static came back.
“Belgrade, Johnson,” Romanov said. “Head there now. Stearns and I will be close behind.”
“Sit tight, asshole,” Stearns said as he hip-checked the table into Dante’s stomach. “I’ll be back soon enough…with presents.”
“How thoughtful of you,” Dante said, grinning through the pain.
Romanov was already out the door with Stearns at his heels, when Stearns turned. “Almost forgot,” he said, winking at Dante. He grabbed his knife from the table and was gone.
Dante heard the door lock behind them. As soon as it did, he used the fingernail of his right thumb to begin digging out the pick he’d buried deep in the skin beneath his left. It hurt like a motherfucker, but unlike the whole broken-thumb technique, the pick method of escape wouldn’t render his hand useless.
As he worked the narrow, jagged shard of metal free, his thumb’s nerve endings sending vicious jolts of pain repeatedly to his brain with every millimeter of movement, he prayed he wouldn’t drop it. If he could pick the lock on his cuffs, kicking off the feeble doorknob would take half a second.
Piece of cake. He went to work, whistling while he did.
Chapter Seven
Papa, why haven’t you come for me?
Sergei clawed at his hair. He hadn’t slept for weeks. His eyes had glazed over. His clothes hung off his frame, baggy. Colleagues had taken notice, were constantly asking if he was all right, no matter how hard he tried to keep to himself.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten and had skulked into the cafeteria to force down a bite despite not being hungry. After ambling through a short line, he grabbed a tray and pulled a plate of food from under a heat lamp without checking the label over it to see what was on the menu. He started toward the dining area when he remembered utensils, then turned back again when he remembered coffee, which he took black.
Though he often found himself somewhere different from where he’d last recalled being, as if he’d been sleepwalking, real sleep had been a pipe dream – not that he wanted to sleep. Every time he tried, every time he closed his eyes if only to blink, Natalya was there behind his eyelids, just as he remembered her.
Maybe a bit more persistent than I remember her.
Sergei knew his daughter, and what he was seeing and hearing looked and sounded like her – yet not quite her, not quite right, though he couldn’t put a finger on what was off. Probably the fact that she’s been dead for two years.
He laughed shakily then shrank into a seat at the end of one of the dining room’s long tables. Several shorter tables and even some two seaters along the walls were more conducive to his desire to be left alone, but he sat where his body had taken him, the cafeteria mostly empty anyway. He chewed his nail down into the quick, barely noticing the pain or the blood. The question again. Always the same question. Always.
Papa, where are you? Natalya said through her direct line into his brain. For a second, Sergei thought she was giggling.
“It’s not that simple!” he said aloud, pounding a fist into his thigh. He skulked and sneaked a glance to his left, then right, still with it enough to know that others might be watching. He huddled over his lunch like a convict in a prison mess hall, never knowing if someone would make a play for it. He hadn’t taken a bite of the roast chicken with biscuits and gravy and didn’t want to. Its color seemed gray, like everything else, and smelled of rotting, maggoty meat.
It smelled like death – not just the food, but the room, the air…his own breath. He wondered if it was Natalya’s smell.
The intercom announced something about staff returning to their rooms, but Sergei’s attention was fixed on his daughter’s voice. She talked to him. Nonstop. Every single minute of every single day, without break, without rest.
She was haunting him.
It is, Papa. It is simple. I’m free now. The cripple feeds me, but it’s not enough. It’s never enough, Papa. I’m dying all over again and just as slowly. And soon, she’ll stick me back into the cold. Do you know what it’s like to have been trapped in ice for all that time, only to be stuck in a refrigerator the moment you’re finally free?
“Like a morgue?” Sergei whispered.
I’m dying, Papa. Dying!
“You can’t die, angel moy. You’re already dead.”
You’re so cruel, Papa. You’ve forgotten all about your little ballerina. You don’t love her anymore.
Sergei ran his fingers down his face, wiped the crusties out of the corners of his eyes. He sighed. “I do, angel, I do.” Her reproach made his heart burn and his head throb. The throbbing escalated into a splitting migraine, the pain manifestin
g in blinding white light searing into his retinas. “I’m sorry.” He cringed as he massaged the middle of his forehead. “I just…. I just can’t think straight with you always in my head. You never stop, darling. I can’t sleep, can’t concentrate. I’m so tired. It’s driving me crazy!”
He pounded both fists into the table then glanced around again to see if his second outburst had gone unnoticed, muttering a sheepish, “Sorry.”
No one was looking. In fact, no one was there. He wondered how long he’d been sitting in that spot, the breakfast stragglers already having eaten and left. He sipped his coffee, which had gone cold. Even the cafeteria staff had disappeared. He started to wonder where everyone had gone when his thoughts were once again interrupted by her.
Set me free. Set us both free, Papa.
Sergei tasted salt on his lips. “How? I can’t get in there. I’m not authorized—”
No, but she is.
An invisible hand lifted Sergei’s chin just as Dr. Mary Rose Thomas passed. Mary Rose was the center’s esteemed pathologist, part of the microbiological team assembled to analyze the pandoraviruses. Her status seemed more a precautionary measure and probably had more to do with the fact that she was American, a political placement, than with her other qualifications. Still, she was one of the nicest people Sergei had met at the research center, a heavyset woman in her late sixties with platinum-white hair always tied up in a bun. She greeted everyone pleasantly as she passed, acted as though she was everyone’s grandmother – never having an unkind word or an overbearing ego – and might have been accepted as such by more than a few. Her kindliness was a lot to expect from a scientist, never mind from an American.
She offered her polite, albeit uneasy, smile then. Sergei returned it with a forced, shark-toothed smile of his own. “I don’t want to hurt her,” he said as he slipped his fork into his back pocket and rose to follow.