The Alt Apocalypse (Book 4): Affliction

by Abrahams, Tom

  She would outlive him. He’d be unconscious in a few minutes, and she’d be essentially alone under the debris of chain-link and corpses. That thought was now worse than any of the others that had washed through his head, the idea that his only true friend would suffer a more agonizing fate than he.

  Danny twisted his body one final time, trying to free himself, pressing his body against the interior of the Tyvek suit, straining against the material.

  It didn’t work. He was stuck in roughly the same spot. The pressing weight on his body was too much, and he realized with the last heave that the fence was the problem. It was sandwiched between him and the bodies above it. He couldn’t move the bodies because the chain-link between them and him wouldn’t allow it.

  The inside of his suit flashed red. A warning light strobed. The supply of filtered air was empty. He would be buried alive in a body-shaped coffin. Danny’s chest heaved as he hiccupped the beginning of a sob. He choked it back and told Maggie how much he loved her. He apologized for not taking better care of her. He grabbed a fistful of her fur with his gloved fingers.

  “You saved me too many times to count,” he told the whimpering dog. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save—”

  He couldn’t finish the sentence. It was too much. He pressed his lips together, tasting the salt from the tears he didn’t realize had welled and trickled onto his face.

  Danny was light-headed now. Darkness closed around him. This was it.

  These were his last moments. He was dying. He was as good as gone. The disease had killed him after all. Not directly, but it had found a way. Maggie whimpered. Her side rose and fell under the touch of his gloved hand. At least he was with her at the end. There was that. Small consolation as it was, he was—

  A shaft of light at the corner of his field of view brightened. Widened. Beyond it Danny thought he saw shadows moving, backlit by the light from beyond the pile.

  Then the weight shifted on his body, and more light poked through. There were voices.

  “Down there,” said one. “I think I see it.”

  Danny opened his eyes as wide as he could. The tingling sensation in his head intensified. It reminded him of the sensation he’d get as a kid when trying to hold his breath underwater for too long. He managed to stay conscious long enough to see someone pulling a body from atop the fence that covered him. Then he passed out.

  CHAPTER 12

  DAY 14

  San Francisco, California

  “I don’t understand what it is I’m looking at,” said Derek. “You’re telling me it’s mutated. Okay, fine. It’s mutated. It all looks the same to me under the microscope.”

  He wasn’t looking into the microscope. The microscope’s image was projected in a three-dimensional, high-resolution image on the wall of the lab. Robert Chang was standing against a lab table with his arms folded and his fingers pinched at the bridge of his nose. Albert Moss had a tablet in his hands. He was using it to manipulate the display.

  “You can actually see the mutation occurring,” said Moss. “Watch it. Before the bacterial cell divides, it duplicates. This happens within the cell’s DNA. Hang on.”

  Moss tapped on the tablet and the display changed. The live image was replaced with one recorded earlier.

  “This is from the CDC,” he said. “They shared this with me a couple of days ago when they suspected the mutation. We conferred and—”

  “I got it,” said Derek.

  Moss nodded and tapped the tablet. The video began playing. He stepped to the display and pointed at it with his free hand as he spoke. “We’re looking at the genetic sequencing here. This is the code. There are nucleotides here that make up the DNA. They pair up and match. But sometimes, because the copying happens so quickly, there are mismatches among the nucleotides. That’s when you have a mutation.”

  Moss turned his body so he was facing Derek to make sure he understood what he was explaining, as a teacher might a disruptive pupil.

  “A mutation here or there actually harms the bacteria,” he said. “But if there are enough of them, if there’s the introduction of new material, it can result in a drug-resistant bacteria.”

  “We already knew it was drug resistant,” said Derek. “We knew that tuberculosis and E. coli had somehow married and created their superbug with a ridiculous infection rate. That’s the mutation.”

  “That’s part of it,” said Moss. “But that was the beginning. It’s changed since then. It’s rapidly altering its sequence again with the introduction of another element. Watch this.”

  He pointed at the screen as little oblong blobs joined together, merging into larger blobs before they split into two, four, and eight different shaped blobs. The material in the center of the new blobs varied greatly from the originals.

  “Because the new drug-resistant bacteria has no competition,” Moss said, “it can multiply superfast. It’s sorta like natural selection, you know.”

  “How so?” asked Derek.

  “Living things that adapt, that have the most favorable characteristics, are the ones who survive,” answered Moss. “Survival of the fittest, for lack of a better way to describe it.”

  “So a mutation makes the bacteria stronger,” Derek concluded.

  Moss equivocated with a waggle of his head. “Sometimes. In this case, yes. There are three different types of mutations.”

  Chang crossed his legs at his ankles. “Do we need to get into this, Albert? Is this important right now?”

  “I think so,” said Albert. “Humor me for another minute. It’s not as though it will cost us anything. Time, as you’ve been so good at pointing out since I came here, is relative.”

  Chang and Derek exchanged glances. Chang exhaled. “Continue.”

  “There are multiple types of mutations. There is a point mutation. That’s when a single nucleotide is replaced with a different one. That, in turn, changes the information sent to the RNA and then results in a different protein that—”

  Derek raised a hand. “Move to the second type of mutation.”

  Moss swallowed hard and continued. “The second is what’s called a frame shift. That’s when an extra nucleotide is added into the DNA sequence. That shifts the reading of the rest of the code. So that, again, mutates the resulting protein. Frame shift has a more significant defect than point.”

  “And the next?” Derek prodded.

  “There are non-sense and missense mutations,” Albert said. “Again, there are changes in singular nucleotides. Missense changes the amino acids at the end of the process. The non-sense mutation is then the—”

  “All of this is nonsense,” said Derek. “I mean, it makes no real sense to me. And to be perfectly clear, Albert, I don’t need to know this.”

  Albert frowned. He looked at the toes of his running shoes, which stuck out from underneath the too-long hospital scrubs he wore along with his lab coat.

  Derek softened. “Look, I don’t mean to be short. Understand that we’re dealing with something here unlike anything we’ve confronted before.”

  Moss looked up from his shoes. He scratched his beard.

  “I’m sorry, okay?” said Derek. “I know you love what you do. It’s obvious. That’s why we hired you. But I need the basics here. What is the mutation?”

  “Campylobacter,” Moss said flatly. “TBE now has a third component, which is making it even harder for us to come up with a treatment. The CDC was on the edge of a vaccination using a live culture of TBE. Now, with the introduction of a new element—”

  Derek glanced at Chang for an explanation. “What is Campylobacter?”

  “It’s a foodborne illness,” said Chang. “It causes bloody diarrhea, fever, nausea, and vomiting.”

  “There was an outbreak in early 2018,” said Moss. “It started with dogs sold in pet stores. They contracted it and spread it to their humans. Nobody died, but it was a drug-resistant strain.”

  “And so is this one?” asked Derek.

  “Yes,”
said Moss. “Somehow, somewhere, the three elements combined. Now we have a bug transmitted through the air, latent contact, and bodily fluids. It’s a mess. I’m told we’re a week away from anything resembling a vaccine. That’s best case, with all of the top teams working on this, and by then the disease will be everywhere. We can’t contain it anymore.”

  Derek stared at the screen without expression. He didn’t say anything. What was there to say?

  “Are you working on a vaccine?” asked Chang. “I mean, given the new data?”

  Moss nodded. “My team is downstairs. We’re throwing everything we have at it. It’s not cheap, but you said cost wasn’t a factor.”

  “It’s not,” said Chang.

  “May I ask a question of you?” asked Moss.

  “Sure,” said Derek.

  “Why did you hire me?” he asked. “I mean, the money is good enough…was good enough, that it didn’t really matter how the pieces fit together.”

  Moss had the tablet tucked under his arm. He held his hands out in front of him, his fingers laced together like interlocking puzzle pieces. “Plus, I knew about Dr. Chang, so I was comfortable with the arrangement.”

  Derek raised an eyebrow. “You’re uncomfortable now?”

  Moss unlaced his fingers. His eyes found the floor again. He sucked in his cheeks, appearing to consider the question. “Not so much uncomfortable as I am confused. I don’t understand why Interllayar, a tech company with endless funding, needs an epidemiologist.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Derek.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the compensation,” said Moss. “It’s fantastic. You’ve given me carte blanche to build my team, my labs, pretty much everything. The coffee could be better. That’s my only complaint. And my company car. Couldn’t you have sprung for the turbo?”

  “We’ll get right on that,” Derek said with a hint of irritation. He wasn’t in the mood for Albert’s ill-timed sense of humor.

  Moss scratched his neck and smiled weakly. “You’re not involved in biotech. There’s no genetic engineering, no artificial intelligence, or anything like that, which might require someone of my ability. Again, I’m not complaining. I just, you know, I like to ask questions. I’m a scientist.”

  “Anything else?” asked Derek.

  “No,” said Moss. “I seem superfluous. That’s all.”

  “All true,” said Derek. “We’re not involved in any of those things you mentioned per se.”

  “Per se?”

  “We’re involved in some very advanced tech. It’s unpredictable. We have the need for people who can address any of the variables we encounter during…development.”

  Moss’s eyes narrowed as he met Derek’s. He shook his head slowly. “What are you not telling me? Before you tell me it’s top secret or classified or whatever, remember that I’ve signed fifteen different nondisclosure agreements. I can’t share anything with anyone. You’d take out my organs and donate them while I watched.”

  Derek chuckled at Moss this time. Although the response surprised him, Moss’s description of the NDAs, while hyperbolic, wasn’t too far from the truth. The agreements everyone at Interllayar had signed, including Derek Hoover, were as lock tight as any ever drafted. The repercussions were borderline draconian.

  Derek smiled at Moss, understanding his curiosity. He glanced at Chang for approval. Chang gave an infinitesimal nod.

  Derek sighed. “You won’t believe me when I tell you, Albert. To be honest, I think you have more important things to do than to focus on this.”

  “My team is working without me. They have plenty to occupy them.”

  “What I tell you will be a huge distraction. It will become difficult for you to refocus.”

  “Try me,” said Moss. “I spent a dozen years working in progressively more competitive environments. That’s after my undergrad but before I finished my schooling. I can focus.”

  “This is not like school,” warned Derek. “It’s an entirely different kind of education.”

  Moss folded his arms across his chest and raised his eyebrows.

  “Okay,” said Derek, exhaling as he spoke. “Everything I’m about to tell you is true.”

  Derek explained to Moss the true purpose of Interllayar. He told him about the earth-shattering revelations they’d uncovered and how it was both directly and indirectly connected to the TBE outbreak. He explained how they’d been working to understand exactly what it was they’d discovered or, rather, had built.

  The science behind it was mind-boggling, something straight out of H. G. Wells’s imagination but with modern theory supporting its abilities.

  “It’s allowed us to see the end of the world again and again,” said Derek. “Robert and I have witnessed—”

  “A wide variety of catastrophes,” Chang finished. “Some global, some more focused, more regional in nature.”

  “Without overloading you with too much information,” Derek said, “and I know it’s probably too late for that, but suffice it to say Interllayar is at the intersection of a new reality. It’s a reality in which we are able to alter the course of mankind.”

  Chang put up a hand and shook his head. He pushed himself away from the lab table. “That’s not entirely true. We have not altered anything as far as we know. Not yet. Even though the circumstances of the catastrophe change, the root causes are different, we still arrive at a game-changing event or events.”

  “We’ve been conducting studies with volunteers,” said Derek. “They’ve been a part of our trials.”

  “Even though they have no idea what’s going on,” said Chang.

  “Not really,” said Derek.

  “And there seems to be some connection between the technology and the subjects that we don’t understand and can’t rationalize yet,” said Chang. “These subjects, and those closely connected to them, are always at the center of what’s happening.”

  Moss opened his mouth to speak. Then he closed it again.

  “We’ve also discovered some sort of neurological connection,” said Derek. “The subjects, and Robert and I, all experience vague recollections of other catastrophic events. It’s like déjà vu, but more intense. And there are headaches. We don’t know if it’s related to the implants.”

  “They’re subdural,” said Chang. “Injected during a brief surgical procedure.”

  “They’re trackers,” said Derek. “Not in the traditional sense, mind you. But we are able to monitor them. That’s how we know what happens during each iteration.”

  “Of course, our symptoms are more acute because we know what’s happening,” Chang added. “We’re able to move between scenarios with the knowledge of past experience.”

  Derek nodded. “Except it’s not really past experience.”

  Chang shrugged. “Not really. You’re right.”

  Moss stood there wide-eyed and slack-jawed. He was also apparently speechless. It was as if the information had frozen him in time.

  “I told you it would be a distraction,” said Derek. “It’s a lot to comprehend.”

  Moss blinked. He started to speak and stopped. Again.

  “If you have questions, now is the time,” said Derek. “We need to get back to figuring out how this one ends.”

  “Subjects?” Moss said. “Where…who…are these subjects? Am I one of them?”

  Chang shook his head. “No. We did a study through the psychology department at UCLA. We got kids to sign up and paid them a nominal fee for participation.”

  “We also hooked up with some preparedness-minded people,” said Derek. “They’re vaguely aware of what’s going on, but not fully.”

  “There was also a prison program for a while,” said Chang.

  “And these were all volunteers?” asked Moss, hung up on that aspect of the incredible story he’d just heard. It was like focusing on the deck chairs as the Titanic sank.

  Chang and Derek eyed each other again. Then Derek held out his hand and wiggled it t
o indicate “sort of.”

  “Mostly.”

  “What do you mean mostly?”

  “There are a couple of people caught up in this that didn’t ask for it,” said Derek. “Their proximity to us somehow sucked them into the vortex of the experiment.”

  “Who?”

  “My wife’s ex for one,” said Derek. “We don’t know how, but he’s smack-dab in the middle of almost all of the iterations. Not every one of them. But nearly all.”

  “And my wife,” said Chang. “She dies at the onset of every apocalypse. Without exception she dies. We can’t stop it.”

  Moss’s eyes, still wide with disbelief, danced between his bosses. After a few moments of silence, he settled on Derek. “And your wife’s ex? Does he die every time?”

  “No,” said Derek. “Thankfully. But he has died.”

  Moss squeezed his eyes shut. He pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled loudly. “So you hired me,” he said without opening his eyes, “in anticipation of a plague-type event?”

  “Sort of,” said Derek.

  “Elaborate,” said Moss, opening his eyes. He blinked a couple of times and then narrowed his gaze at Derek.

  “With the technology Interllayar has built, we can see all iterations, or eventualities, at once.”

  “Theoretically,” Chang said with a finger pointed straight up. “Theoretically.”

  “Yes,” Derek admitted. “Theoretically. The iterations are limitless. There are too many of them, way too many, for us to absorb all of them at once.”

  “They’re infinite,” said Chang.

  “Yes.” Derek nodded. “There are infinite iterations.”

  Moss began talking about ethics, lecturing about what was right and what wasn’t. He suggested they’d crossed a line. That was when Derek tuned out. He didn’t need or want judgment.

  His mind drifted to the issue at hand, this disease that was destroying everything in its path. None of the other “iterations,” as he liked to call them, had been as hopeless as this.