Authors: Kyle Kirkland
Damn that cranky old bitch!
She wrestled her cell phone out of her purse and punched Kraig Drennan's number at Bethesda.
"
Dr. Kraig Drennan is presently occupied," intoned the synthesized voice of the multi-million dollar communication system. "You have been placed on the waiting list. Priority callers may enter the access code—"
Lisa tuned the rest of it out. She clipped the phone and sat back, trying to relax into the soft, comfortable seat. Got to hand it to Chet, she thought; as a director he might be dead wood, but at least he didn
't skimp on expense accounts. Good cars, fine hotels, and the best restaurants, courtesy of a government credit card. He knew how to take care of his people. She doubted Kraig Drennan would be that generous.
But she didn
't enjoy it as much as she would have thought. Maybe it was because of Cecily. Lisa palpated the sore wrist with the fingers of her other hand.
"
I've got to give you credit," she muttered, picturing in her mind's eye the auburn-haired fiend—dressed in black, as usual. "Those bony fingers of yours have a fierce grip." Strong fingers and sharp fingernails. A claw. No, Lisa thought, giggling. Talon.
Lisa recalled what the bird of prey had squawked at her.
"You're too young for a coffin, don't you think?" And then she'd grabbed Lisa's wrist with that talon of hers. Lisa's face grew red just thinking about it. Then she'd had to listen to her harangue, five long minutes of it. All because Lisa had the temerity to touch up her lipstick. And, God forbid, she had absently stretched a finger toward her lips! Not that she would have touched them. Besides, she'd been wearing nitriles the whole time they'd taken those samples.
How many people were walking around this area
doing the same thing? You didn't see
them
falling over dead. People were everywhere, all over the streets, and none of them cared in the slightest about those bodies. They were eating, drinking, smoking, licking their fingers, picking their noses. Christ, that old bird had just wanted to get to her, just wanted to mess with her head. Lisa knew the type. They hated newly minted Ph.D.'s. They didn't have the terminal degree on their résumé and so they resented those who did. It was all political, it was envy and spite.
Sighing, Lisa shifted the papers to her lap. Probably all of this data was worthless too.
"Lisa?" Kraig's voice came over the cell.
"
Here."
"
What've you got?"
"
I've visited several clinics and the hospital." Lisa recited the list, ending with the hospital on Brixton. "I talked with health-care providers and statisticians about unusual cases."
"
Don't tell me, I already know. There are plenty of them."
Lisa let out a big sigh.
"I've got more than four dozen."
"
Naturally. Don't let it get you down, it's par for the course. You go into a hospital and start asking about anything out of the ordinary and suddenly physicians, especially the young ones, start bringing you stacks and stacks of cases. Medicine has never been an exact science and doctors see patients all the time who don't present textbook symptoms. So there's going to be a lot of data, and many false alarms. It means a lot of work but we'll just have to plow through it."
Unusual cases, thought
Lisa. And misdiagnoses. Hypochondria. She leafed through the papers.
"
The present circumstances have made our situation a lot worse," added Kraig, "because we have no idea what sort of symptoms we're looking for. So they gave you everything."
Lisa frowned.
"Want symptoms? There's a ton of symptoms here. I bet there isn't a symptom in Merck's that's not buried in this data somewhere. Scratchy throats, upset stomachs, runny noses, prickly rashes...."
"
I expect a copy of that data to be transmitted here pronto. All of it."
"
Be my guest."
"
Lisa." Kraig's voice took on a dangerous tone. "If you don't have any enthusiasm for the job then I'll find someone who does."
She paused. This was her first big break. And already the boss was giving her a hard time.
"It'd be better," she complained, "if you'd replace Cecily Sunday."
"
There's one problem with that. She knows what she's doing and you don't, at least not yet. You got that?"
Through clenched teeth Lisa said,
"Yes,
sir
."
* * *
Cecily pulled onto Glaser Avenue, one of the main streets that ran through the city. Rush hour traffic had built up in the last thirty minutes so she pulled into an empty parking spot along the street. She inserted the Micro-Investigation Unit's card into the parking meter but the expiration flag remained lit. She had to reinsert the card several times before the meter turned green. The city probably hadn't worked out the kinks; the meters appeared to be newly installed, possibly on a grant from the state or some federal agency and trumpeted by the district's representatives, who were anxious to show voters that they were looking after the folks, getting those fancy parking meters—see how much progress we're making? Or maybe the meters weren't new, perhaps they were just like almost everything else in Medburg—too tired and depressed to care much about anything.
The sidewalks on both side of the street were busy. Teenagers: swaggering walks and expressive clothes, glittering, raunchy, loud. Clerks wearing hunted looks. The elderly, hobbling along on canes, one even riding a motorized cart. Just the one; Cecily hadn
't seen any other carts. Not enough well-to-do elderly around here. Probably for the best, she thought, glancing at the cracked and aging pavement—quite an obstacle course.
Out of the corner of her eye Cecily saw two men giving her a long look. Calmly she glanced their way. They were standing on the street corner.
Dealers. There were some at every intersection. And when night falls they'd be joined, Cecily knew, by other people, with other kinds of products and services to sell.
Decaying neighborhood. No; it was past decaying, it
'd been sliding for a generation or two. Once, long ago, it'd been vibrant and optimistic, but not now. It was already decayed, it was well into its postmortem stage. A poverty-stricken, drug-infested, rodent haven; a violent, dreary, hell hole. A paradise for addicts, felons on the run, weapon merchants, four-legged mammals, and fecal bacteria.
It
's my kind of neighborhood, thought Cecily. She closed her eyes and soaked up the misery, despair, neglect, frustration, and all those ruined dreams.
15 April, Thursday
Bethesda, Maryland
/ 9:10 a.m.
A tall, thin man barged into Kraig Drennan's office.
Kraig looked up, annoyed.
"About time," he said.
Roderick Halkin sat down on one of the Spartan chairs. His dark hair was short and combed neatly, his s
uit was composed of a stretchable fabric that stretched or shrank rapidly, matching itself to body contours whether the wearer was sitting or standing. No wrinkles.
"
I asked for a lead time of 48 hours," said Roderick. "It's not unreasonable."
"
Nice duds," said the assistant director. Kraig's open-necked shirt looked like he'd slept in it—which he had. And the sleeves were rolled up. "Looks like the change went smoothly."
Kraig didn
't know much about Roderick Halkin's personal life and didn't care to dig too deeply. Halkin enjoyed a certain flexibility, in terms of both his job and his lifestyle. At one time he'd been a part-time worker though Kraig had strongly encouraged him to become a full-time employee, and offered a flexible schedule as an incentive. Kraig had taken advantage of one of the several influenza emergencies to hire him full-time—it was best to make controversial moves when something important was occupying the bureaucrats' attention.
One of Halkin
's peculiarities centered on an unshakeable conviction in the lateralization of brain function. The right and left hemispheres of the brain performed vastly different functions, so claimed Halkin, whose ideas were supported by a small amount of neuroscience research that Halkin fully accepted. To explain the contrary data—tests that showed functions such as logic and creativity belonged to both hemispheres—Halkin asserted that such ambivalence resulted from a lack of neural efficiency. Hemispheric specialization, Halkin believed, was the pinnacle of evolution, and the most efficient possible use of brain capacity.
Kraig remembered visiting Halkin and his significant other a few times at their Virginia home. Once Kraig and his girlfriend ate dinner there; this was back when he had a girl friend, back when he had time for such luxuries. Roderick
's significant other—Kraig didn't know if they were legally married and never asked—was an intelligent looking woman with incredibly piercing blue eyes. She spoke of meditation and biofeedback, and the ways in which people can control their brain waves, changing from one hemisphere to another as desired, swinging back and forth between cold, analytical logic and out-of-the-box creativity. With animated gestures and abundant enthusiasm she talked about brain waves and how to generate them, how to control them and shift them from one hemisphere to the other. Anyone could do this, she claimed, provided they could get feedback on how they were doing. Kraig had listened quietly as she described various neurofeedback monitors and recording devices.
But she and Roderick believed
in what they were doing, and perhaps that was all that mattered. Kraig didn't concern himself with Roderick's personal life; new age or not, Roderick Halkin excelled in the laboratory. And that, to Kraig, was all that mattered.
"
The transition went tolerably well," said Roderick. "Now this case you've given me. It has its interests."
"
You read the latest report?"
"
Of course." Roderick glanced at his wristwatch. "As of 7 o'clock this morning."
"
We're not making much headway," admitted Kraig. He gave Roderick a sharp look. "Cecily is worried."
"
So are you, it seems."
Kraig was aware of being closely scrutinized, though Roderick appeared to be staring disinterestedly at the top of the desk. Kraig frowned.
"Yeah, but I'm always worried. That's my job."
Roderick leaned forward.
"How did you manage to convince the director to assign Cecily to the case?"
"
He doesn't know her. That's how I convinced him."
"
Of course. Perhaps it also had something to do with the director's perception of the relative importance of this case. That is to say, its relative unimportance."
"
You know where Chet is now?" Kraig grinned. It was a grin of malice, not of mirth. "He's at his usual morning golf game. Hasn't got a care in the world. At least he doesn't look like he does. He goes around in this smiling daze all the time. You look at him and you think he's the sort of kindly gentleman you hand your tickets to at an amusement park."
A raspy chuckle came from deep in Roderick
's throat.
"
Cecily says the rodents are dying," said Kraig. "And I believe her."
Roderick nodded once.
"Cecily Sunday is a person who makes few mistakes."
"
But there's nothing showing up at the hospitals." Kraig waved a hand. "Oh, sure, there are the usual unexplained cases. But nothing consistent. No trends."
Frustration had crept into Kraig
's voice. He started to say something else, then shook his head and fell silent.
"
Did you expect anything?" asked Roderick.
"
People don't just drop dead, Rod. They die of something."
"
True. But the immune system was quiescent in the victims. A considerable number of the symptoms for many infections are caused by the body fighting the invaders."
"
God," said Kraig, tiredly. "That's all we need. People just slipping away." Something caught in his throat. He looked up, saw Roderick staring at him. Staring at him with that indecipherable expression.
"
It's been almost two days," said Roderick, "and there have been no further victims." He paused. "Don't assume the worst just yet. This may all blow over without any more trouble whatsoever."
"
Rod, what if this is something that we...we can't deal with?"
"
We have to be prepared to deal with anything. If there does prove to be an agent, and if it's contagious, we must stop the source. Assume, for the moment, that mice, or some parasitic organism of mice, are a source of the infection. With this knowledge we are well armed, because the contagion becomes controllable. All contagions are controllable once you know the route of transmission."
"
All previous contagions," said Kraig.
"
And there's no reason to suspect otherwise here."
"
If it's such a silent killer...." Kraig didn't finish his sentence. "You know what really worries me, keeps me up at night? There are so many laboratories all over the world, in universities and research organizations and high-tech companies—all of them fiddling with microbes or chemicals or nanothis and nanothat. Who knows what these things could do? And none of these people talk to us."
"
Even so, it's remarkable that there have been so few incidents. You mentioned nanotechnology, and naturally there were fears for so many years of some sort of 'gray goo' taking over the world as little machines replicate out of control and cover everything, consuming all resources like a kind of global cancer. Quite fanciful, that. Well, I don't buy it for a moment. Surely such machines will be as sensitive to the environment as other machines as well as life itself, and therefore they will be subject to the same constraints as everything else."
Kraig shook his head.
"I don't share your optimism. And just because we haven't had a nanotechnology disaster before doesn't mean there won't be a first time. There's always a first time. That's all the world needs, little nanothings replicating out of control."
"
Indeed. But you must admit it's unlikely. And they fail to mutate."
"
Who says they don't mutate? If they can replicate, why can't they mutate? Scientists are cooking up little nanomachines these days using proteins as a starting point. You've got proteins that transport particles, open channels, form structures, do all kinds of things in the body. Maybe you can design other kinds of molecules to do those things, and other jobs too. And maybe they'll mutate out of control."
"
Hardly likely, Kraig. Everything obeys laws, including a replicating nanomachine, if such things really exist at the moment. With no genetic material, there is nothing on which natural selection can act. If the nanomachine doesn't carry out its replication instructions correctly, it is broken and no longer reproduces. It doesn't turn into something else. This works at all levels and all scales of design, small and large. When your vacuum cleaner breaks it simply stops working, it doesn't turn into a dishwasher."
"
Okay, forget about nanotech for the moment. What about prions? Those malformed proteins can somehow induce properly functioning proteins to fail. If an important protein goes rogue and can turn others of its kind into zombies, we've got a huge problem."
"
But prions are exceptionally rare. Proteins are stable molecules, particularly ones that perform important functions in the body—evolution preserved most of them across millions of years of time and in plenty of different species. I doubt very much that we're dealing with a new prion here."
"
Say it's a virus, then. A sneaky one. And a new one, because its diagnostic antibody isn't in the CDC data banks."
"
Then we contain it, as we've done for all other viral infections in the past 50 years in this country. Likewise for bacteria, protozoa, and fungi. Whatever the agent, it can be contained. The spread of infectious agents obeys the laws of science just as much as anything else. There's no magic involved."
"
Containment." Kraig stared at Rod. "Do you know how many people are in Medburg?"
"
No, but however many there are, we'll do what we have to do. Let's not worry about things that might never happen when we have so many other and more useful things with which to occupy our minds."
The speaker phone beeped, startling Kraig. The voice that followed was Cecily
's. "Hey, Kraig. You there, sweetie?"
A touch of red came to the assistant director
's cheeks. "What?"
"
We got problems."
Kraig sat up.
"I don't want to hear about problems. I only want solutions."
"
Then pry Sherlock away from his violin and get him to work."
"
I am thusly situated at the moment," said Roderick. "Uncomfortably, I might add."
"
Sherlock?" The speaker made a muffled noise—Cecily's laughter. "I'm glad to hear you."
"
The problem," prompted Kraig.
"
It's a big confirm on the mice," said Cecily. "We've been digging and we've got the bodies to prove it now."
"
They're on their way to the lab, I trust," said Roderick.
"
By the bagful."
"
Get away from there, Cecily."
Kraig
's worried voice was followed by a few seconds of silence. "Grab Lisa and the rest of the team and get out of there now," he added.
"
Already done, boss. Anyone who handled the bodies was wearing a moon suit. And was sprayed afterward."
Kraig looked at Roderick.
"Tell me it's just the mice, Rod." His voice sounded challenging, but tinged with hope.
Roderick shrugged.
"How's that?" said Cecily. "I didn't catch Sherlock's answer."
"
I didn't give one. It may well be an agent that is deadly to mice but only harmful to humans in large quantities, or perhaps only to people with a certain genetic characteristic. Or, alternatively, it might be deadly to many, or even most mammalian species, but acts quicker in mice. All we can do is analyze the samples you've provided. As of yet we don't have any answers."
"
Wait, I know," said Cecily. "You can't theorize without data. Right?"
"
Correct," said Roderick, smiling. "But at any rate, there may be a silver lining in this new development."
"
We could sure use one right about now," said Cecily.
"
If the mice are dying quickly, then the agent—if it happens to replicate—may die with the mice. A parasite that kills its host must replicate and spread quickly or it dies too."
"
That's not such a silver lining," said Kraig. "Replicating and spreading quickly."
"
That's pure speculation. It could be anything. For all we know at the present juncture the mice deaths may have been caused by an inert chemical. Cecily, will you be staying near the city?"
"
I'm on my way to Montgomery County, after I go through decontamination again."
"
Vision Cell Bioceuticals gave the government a call this morning," said Kraig, looking at Roderick. "They invited us to visit them. Cecily's going."
"
You see?" said Roderick. "Cooperation."