The Virus

by Janelle Diller

  EddytheWebMan: yup. but probably after. i think you’re only contagious when the scabs appear till they drop off ... so unless these salida cases were in prison, they couldn’t have gotten it from him.

  MRiderZAAN: Were they?

  EddytheWebMan: maximum security and exposed to the smallpox cases there? then out on the streets? don’t think so. don’t think there’s a chance.

  MRiderZAAN: Very, very weird.

  EddytheWebMan: yup.

  MRiderZAAN: Gotta run. My Breezy friends are whining.

  MRiderZAAN: ... I mean calling.

  EddytheWebMan: later ‘gator.

  MRiderZAAN: Keep me posted ...

  EddytheWebMan: as always. XOXO

  MRiderZAAN: u2

  Weird. It was my new word for life.

  CHAPTER

  03

  I CAME HOME TO A STACK OF EDDY CLIPPINGS. Well, “stack” is probably a charitable word since they were randomly scattered in the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and my office chair. Being the generous man he is, Eddy always leaves information tidbits for me to peruse since I can go an entire travel week and not even turn on the TV. Not only do I not remember to look for forests; most of the time I forget there are trees out there.

  I guess I’m hopeless.

  “The one on your chair is the most important one.”

  “I knew that.” Although I couldn’t exactly figure out why since it was just a stapled list of Googled headlines that went back ten or twelve years.

  “Something, isn’t it?”

  I looked at Eddy out of the corner of my eye. It was ten thirty on a Friday night. My flight from San Francisco to Denver had been delayed, which meant I had barely caught the last flight into Colorado Springs. I hadn’t eaten since one o’clock in some time zone that wasn’t the one I was standing in. I wasn’t in an insightful mood.

  “I’m sure it is.” I nodded encouragingly. “Just help me out with this.”

  “Count how many articles there are each year.”

  “I don’t know if I can. I’m pretty tired.”

  It was as if I hadn’t said anything.

  “Look. I made a little graph at the end.”

  I flipped to the last page. Ten years ago, people were panicked about bioterrorism because of an anthrax scare. Ninety-two articles showed up that contained “smallpox” somewhere in the content. As anthrax became old news, bioterrorism references dwindled. The next year only sixty-eight articles referenced “smallpox.” The number of articles dropped to fifty-six the next year and forty-seven the following. The last few years, posts about smallpox became almost nonexistent.

  This year, 846 articles or posts popped up on Ixquick—Eddy’s least worrisome search engine du jour—prior to September first. “In other words,” Eddy, ever the gentleman, leaped to my conclusion for me, “there were more articles or posts written about smallpox from January to the end of August than were written the year of the anthrax scare. All before this prisoner died.”

  He poked hard at the paper. “Plus, look at the headlines. In the past, the search engine pulled up these articles because they referenced smallpox. This year, smallpox showed up in the titles. I’ve highlighted them.”

  He was right, for whatever that meant: next to zero highlighted headlines on the earlier pages, lots of highlighted headlines on the most recent pages. My insides did a jolt when I spotted a number that hinted about where the world still held live smallpox vials. Others noted at how little true security surrounded these labs, including a series of very ugly headlines about how a lab near Washington, D.C., “lost” a smallpox vial.

  “So for some reason, this was becoming an issue before it was an issue?”

  Eddy just nodded and gave me his look.

  A week with a messy client and six hours of awful travel had left me in my usual Friday night zombie state, I was too tired for this discussion.

  I love this man. I’ve loved him since some university chemistry class we both took before the beginning of time. Believe me, the real chemistry in that class didn’t happen in any test tubes. But I discovered too late that along with his genetic predisposition to pessimism, he’s also paranoid. Pathologically so.

  “Eddy.” I couldn’t think clearly at the moment, and I knew I’d be bested by his latest conspiracy theories. Web design work aside, he spent way too much time on the Internet, or “doing professional research” as he preferred to have me refer to it. “Isn’t it possible that it’s just a bigger deal again for some reason? Maybe there was an outbreak in some third-world country. Or maybe with all that ISIS stuff, they’re worried about what’s cooking in those Middle Eastern labs. Turns out they would have been right about that one.”

  “Look at the titles, Maggie.”

  I skimmed the first page:

  Smallpox: Apocalypse When?

  Dead Disease Rises again: Smallpox Vaccination Must Be Revived

  W.H.O. Panel backs Gene Manipulation in Smallpox Virus

  Smallpox Vial Goes Missing in CIA’s Backyard

  Smallpox: Without immunizations, the REAL bioterrorist threat

  Smallpox Immunization for Life? Think Again

  White House Has New Concerns about Smallpox Readiness

  Test of Experimental Smallpox Vaccine Begins

  Bioterrorism Researchers Build a More Lethal Mousepox

  Russia, Iran, and North Korea Admit to Secret Stash of Smallpox

  White House Urges Shift of Focus in Preparing for Smallpox

  Not 50, not 40, not even 20; Try 10 Years of True Smallpox Protection

  Time’s Running Out: Rebuild Vaccination Supplies or Risk Smallpox Epidemic

  Eddy’s eyes shifted over my face, trying to read my expression. “Do you see it Maggie? Do you see the thread?”

  I wanted to make him happy, but I was too tired.

  “It’s all about immunizations. It’s not about the disease. It’s about getting vaccinated.” He took the sheaf of papers out of my hands and paged to the headlines from earlier years. “Then look at these article titles.” His finger ran down the list, stopping at the highlighted lines: “Less Lethal Cousin of Smallpox Arrives in US”; “Smallpox Worry Misplaced”; “Forget Smallpox; Anthrax Has Greater Potential for Death and Destruction”; “Smallpox Vaccination Program Halted Amid Safety Concerns.”

  “Do you see the shift? Before the message was that smallpox wasn’t that big of a scare. Now there’s a panic about getting immunized. And all this before that al-Sherhi guy is ever a blip on the news radar.”

  “Maybe it’s a slow news year.” I meant it to be a joke, but it landed flat.

  “Something’s going on here. I don’t know what it is. Yet.”

  I wanted to tell him that what was going on here was that he needed to get his medication adjusted, but I didn’t. First of all, he wasn’t actually taking any drugs for his paranoia, and second, I’d used that little joke years earlier and we had a two-day fight about it. I knew when to keep my mouth shut, although I sometimes couldn’t follow my own advice.

  So instead, I kissed him on the cheek and told him I was headed to the shower and then to bed. He could join me either or both places as long as he didn’t bring up the subject of smallpox.

  Fortunately, even in his bleakest moments, Eddy could be easily distracted.

  CHAPTER

  04

  THE ZAAN PROJECT TEAM FIGURED OUT WITHIN ABOUT SIX HOURS that Keri, the Baja Breeze project manager, wasn’t kept for her project management skills. Her entire first day on the project included a two-hour lunch where she went AWOL.

  Women like her made it harder for women like me.

  It didn’t matter though. The Zaan team was stuck with her and her non-existent project management skills.

  That week, I’d barely gotten settled into my guest cubicle when Michael de Leon, the Zaan project manager, stopped by. “How’s the shipping software going?” The crisis from the previous week was always my first question in the new week.

  “It�
�s a red herring.” Michael shook his head. I liked Michael. If he’d lived in Colorado Springs, he would have been a regular at our dinner table. As it was, Eddy had never met him.

  “So you can get it fixed by the time we go live with the rest of the software?”

  “Piece of cake.” He paused and then grimaced. “Well, not piece of cake, but very doable. The real problem is that Baja Breeze is way behind on their data conversions. They want someone to blame for a delay.” Michael was a transplant from the Philippines. His soft brown skin and charcoal eyes somehow matched his slightly sibilant speech. “Better us than them, right? Anything to divert the shareholders’ attention.”

  “So will it impact go-live?”

  Michael laughed. “Of course. They were supposed to have cleaned up their customer information and be ready to convert the data into the new system by now.” He paused, then sighed. “Maybe they’re at thirty percent.”

  “You want some help documenting that?”

  “An email draft would be nice.” He smiled. I loved those white teeth.

  I got it now. He hadn’t just happened by. He wanted some help but even though this was exactly my job responsibility, it wasn’t his nature to be bold enough to ask. Which was another reason that thirty-two-year-old vamp got away with her miserable project management style.

  “I’ll put something together. Give me a couple of bullet points, and I’ll translate it.”

  “Thanks.”

  This was my job. I put out fires on both sides. I finessed messages. As one client told me, I was good at turning chicken shit into chicken salad. I think it was a compliment.

  I plugged away for the rest of the afternoon. The agony of working and living in different time zones is that regardless of the time you wake up, you’re held to the time zone you’re working in. And the Zaan style is that there’s no such thing as an eight-hour day. By 6:00 p.m.—seven Mountain Time—I was totally fried. I’d been up since 4:00 a.m. to catch my flight and then worked an eight-hour day once I got to San Francisco. The glamour of travel had disappeared within months of my arrival at Zaan.

  I closed down everything I was working on and checked email one more time. Before I could hit the X and be gone, Eddy pinged me on gtalk.

  EddytheWebMan: hey mz m. u there?

  I debated a minute. I really wanted to get to the hotel and crash. But I put off the packing up for another five minutes.

  MRiderZAAN: Yup. Whassup?

  EddytheWebMan: you still at work or at the hotel?

  MRiderZAAN: Work. Just getting ready to leave, though. What’s up?

  EddytheWebMan: had an interesting conversation today.

  MRiderZAAN: Yeah?

  EddytheWebMan: ran in to cindy marshall at costco.

  MRiderZAAN: ...And?

  EddytheWebMan: turns out she finally married that guy she’s been living with for a hundred years. they’re living in salida these days.

  I waited for the next comment since this one didn’t seem to expect a response.

  EddytheWebMan: u there?

  MRiderZAAN: yes

  EddytheWebMan: salida, mz m.

  EddytheWebMan: where those 2 guys contracted smallpox so randomly.

  MRiderZAAN: Ohhhhh ... was Cindy worried they’d been exposed?

  EddytheWebMan: not anymore…but she said there was real panic in the town at first. she told me some pretty amazing gossip.

  MRiderZAAN: Yeah?

  EddytheWebMan: call me ... how long?

  MRiderZAAN: I’m leaving as soon as I close down my computer. My brain’s fried. Give me 20 minutes.

  EddytheWebMan: ttyl

  Talk to you later. What I really wanted to do was check in, order room service, have a glass of wine, and go to bed. But we'd talk because that's what we did every night. This time we'd actually have something new to talk about.

  MRiderZAAN: XOXO

  EddytheWebMan: u2

  There’s something wrong with your life when the night manager of a hotel knows your name before you register. I certainly wasn’t famous, and I didn’t frequent the place because I was local and sly. Unfortunately, I traveled to this man’s city and stayed in his hotel way too many times.

  “Welcome back, Mrs. Rider.”

  “Hey, Tony.”

  We mechanically went through the steps of checking in while we small-talked.

  It was always the same conversation. I was from Colorado; he loved to ski. It didn’t matter that the season wouldn’t start for almost two months.

  Once in my room, I kicked off my shoes, ordered a Caesar salad and tortilla soup from room service, and then dialed home.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey. It’s me.”

  “I’ll call you right back.” Eddy distrusted any cell phone conversation. “What’s your room number?”

  Another sign of the times: Eddy had my Sheraton number on speed dial.

  A minute later, my hotel phone rang.

  “So what’s the gossip?”

  “Cindy said they locked down the whole town during the quarantine. They had government agents going door-to-door with flyers about symptoms and what to do if you thought you’d come into contact with someone exposed to the virus. They also had pictures of the guys even though everyone knew them already. Cindy said they were just a couple of town drunks who closed down the bars every night.”

  “So did she have a clue about how they’d gotten exposed?”

  “That’s the interesting tidbit. She said the government guys poked around about whether you knew what their activities had been or who they’d been with, whether you’d noticed anyone around town who looked like they were from the Middle East.”

  “In Salida? What?” I laughed out loud at the thought.

  “No kidding. The questions made you think the government thought they were part of some terrorist cell.”

  “Right. The town drunks.”

  “That’s exactly what Cindy said. Give either one of these guys a couple of beers and they’d tell you anything you wanted to know, but mostly stuff you couldn’t care less about. Big talkers. Big bullshitters. But terrorists? She said it was the town joke.”

  “I never did hear. Did they survive?”

  “Apparently not. So…” he paused.

  I finished his sentence. “They can’t defend themselves.”

  “Nope.”

  “Did anyone else end up with smallpox in town?”

  “That’s the good part. From what I remember from the CDC site—and Cindy confirmed this—you’re only contagious in the few days before the pustules start showing and then while you have the pustules. These guys went bow hunting for a week. I guess while they were out, they both began to get really sick. Couldn’t even get back to town. One of them used his cell phone to call some drinking buddy to come get them. The guy he called happened to be an EMT and knew something was way off-kilter by what these two guys were describing. He alerted the CDC of all things, and they came in and took care of it.”

  “Pretty smart for a small town EMT.”

  “If he was well trained, he should have been able to spot what was out of the ordinary. I think they’re schooled pretty well in what to do if they bump up against something like this. Plus, keep in mind that with those two guys up the road in the federal pen, he probably had a heightened awareness.”

  “But he didn’t get smallpox himself?”

  “Nope. And nobody else did, either. Cindy said they came in and vaccinated the whole town just in case. They were told that if you get vaccinated within four days of exposure, the vaccine usually works. Once people got vaccinated, they weren’t quarantined any more.”

  “Well there’s some incentive for you.”

  “Git along, little doggies.”

  I laughed. “I think sheep is the better metaphor.”

  “Either way. No resistance.”

  “Well, it’s not like I would have resisted either. How long could I be quarantined and keep my job?”

  “True.
You and a couple hundred million more people. Life would stop. Commerce would stop.”

  “Except for you Internet geeks.”

  “Gotta love the Internet.”

  “Mostly I just love one of the geeks.”

  CHAPTER

  05

  OVER THE NEXT WEEK, EDDY KEPT SENDING ME LINKS to articles about the Salida smallpox scare. Here was the funny thing: the same reporter could have written them all— the facts were that consistent. The reporter, however, definitely wasn’t Cindy Marshall. Her story had a totally different ending, as well as ample discrepancies along the way. But whom do you believe? The New York Times and Washington Post, or Cindy Marshall, the old friend you run into at Costco?

  The Times' version said nothing about the bow hunting, lots about the door-to-door canvassing by the CDC and FBI, and only sketchy details about another dozen who’d been infected and were now being treated in isolation at some undisclosed location. Cindy and The Times at least agreed that everyone in town had been vaccinated, which was why the quarantine had been lifted so quickly.

  National smallpox anxiety ballooned again. It even began to consume the Baja Breeze crowd, although they were fifteen hundred miles away from the outbreak. Signs went up on doorways, bathroom stalls, and in the cafeteria. Whoever designed the signs used an exclamation mark machine gun and revealed a love for shouting with capital letters. I come from the less-is-more school of writing, so I had a hard time not rolling my eyes:

  SMALLPOX SYMPTOMS!!!!!

  Smallpox is an AIRBORNE VIRUS!!

  Be ALERT to anyone COUGHING or SNEEZING!!

  If you begin to run a FEVER,

  IMMEDIATELY contact the BAJA BREEZE

  Company Health Care Workers!!

  DO NOT TOUCH anyone or anything!!!

  As VACCINATION information becomes available, we will ALERT you as to WHEN, WHERE, and HOW to get your VACCINATION!!