Sector C (30 page)

“You are the vet, are you not?” Dr. Volkov asked. Donna nodded. “It means so far the new protein has incited the VTSE variant to refold into what we presume is a benign form. Symptoms have halted and the animals appear normal.”

“So far?”
Mike asked.

“We have not conducted any long-term studies. We all remember the regrettable incident with thalidomide in the 1960s. Not only would we like to know what effect the new protein will have on subsequent generations, prion diseases are notoriously long-lived. Unfortunately, as Mr. Thurman continues to point out, we do not have the luxury of extended trials. We must judge the efficacy of this protein on a limited pool and for a limited time.

“As you may have guessed, Mr. Thurman has volunteered you to be a part of our study. Assuming an option, Dr. —?” he raised an eyebrow toward Donna.

 “Bailey.”

“— Dr. Bailey likely has a month, perhaps two at the outside, to live, without my interference.”

“And with it?”

Dr. Volkov shrugged. “That is what we must find out. Will the introduction of the new variant be immediately rejected and produce no results whatsoever? Will it mutate not just the disease-causing prions but also more necessary proteins into something else?
Because even if that something else is not a direct cause of disease, taking away a specific protein from the delicate balance in our bodies may well lead to a separate debilitating condition.
Or will the new protein replicate so rapidly that it strangles out all of the good prions and death will occur not in a month or two but in a matter of days?”

“So it’s a crap shoot?” Mike jumped to his feet and the security detail shifted into full alert.

Dr. Volkov spread his hands. “It is a necessary gamble. Someone has to be the first. Consider the first person to be injected with penicillin.”

“Didn’t he die?” Donna said.

Dr. Volkov’s expression softened. “We all die. In the end, all test subjects die. That is the nature of living.” He reached into his pocket and brought out a handful of test tubes and needles. “First, I need a benchmark, so I’m going to draw a little blood from each of you before I inject the test protein. If you’ll permit me …”

The security guards stepped forward with Dr. Volkov as he reached for Donna’s arm. When he touched her, Mike’s blood pressure shot up. He willed himself calm. Now wasn’t the time to do anything foolish. Drawing blood out wasn’t going to hurt anyone.

When Dr. Volkov next put the rubber tie around his upper arm, Mike stared pure hate the geneticist’s way. The doctor avoided looking directly at him, concentrating instead on sliding in the needle and filling his tubes. Watching him, watching the way he moved, Mike began to realize that this Volkov might be nothing more than a mere instrument. Part of Thurman’s power play.
That the good doctor’s rhetoric was as much about validating his actions to himself.
The man went competently about his work, but there was a slump to his shoulders and a defeated look in his eyes. Mike didn’t hate him any less, but he did see a chink.
An opportunity.
They needed an ally with the necessary access and this Dr. Volkov could be just the ticket.

“You don’t really want to do this, do you?” Mike asked.

Dr. Volkov released the rubber tie and looked squarely into Mike’s eyes. “No, I don’t. Make no mistake, though, that I will. Would you rather it
be
a small baby or a young mother? Or perhaps a jail full of convicts would suit your moral standards better? You choose. If not you, who? Hundreds are dying today. Tomorrow it will be thousands. I can do nothing to save them. I might not be able to save your vet. I might yet kill all of you, but you will be only three weighed against the thousands, the millions that your response could potentially save. I am truly sorry.”

From his other pocket, Dr. Volkov pulled out three syringes. “Please let me have your other arm.” The two security guards crowded a step closer.

Mike fought the urge to fight or flee. Neither would do him any good in the face of brute force, tasers and the .38’s strapped to the guards’ hips. He placated himself by telling himself in its way he was helping humanity.
That someone somewhere might profit from all this.
Even if he wound up dead.
Gritting his teeth, he held out his arm.

Dr. Volkov acknowledged Mike’s sacrifice with respect and competence. He worked smoothly, finding and stabilizing a vein, then sliding the needle in with a minimum of fuss and depressing the plunger.

The fluid in the syringe was rather innocuous-looking to Mike’s eyes. Clear and pale yellow, though the color could have been due to the halogen lights overhead. He watched the barrel of the syringe empty of fluid, feeling the slightest sting where the serum entered his vein. Muscles tense, he waited for a reaction — any reaction — but aside from the sting he felt nothing except the geneticist’s critical eye on him.

After a few moments when it was clear Mike wasn’t going to go into anaphylactic shock or start seizuring, Dr. Volkov gave a small nod and moved to Donna.

The vet eyed the syringe with apprehension. Mike wasn’t infected that she knew of; would it be different for her? The logical part of her brain knew it was unlikely there would be an immediate reaction unless her body was allergic to the protein being used. It certainly wouldn’t be human protein; more likely something refined from one of the animals in the compound. Maybe even something from one of the megabeasts. An Ice Age cure for an Ice Age disease seemed most appropriate, though it could as easily be refined prion bits from a wolf or grizzly.

She inhaled deeply as Dr. Volkov injected her. After a few moments when nothing happened, she breathed out again. Just as it took any vaccine time to confer immunity by tickling the proper receptors in antibodies, it looked like it would take time for these PrPVf prions to tickle the VTSE-causing prions in her body and pressure them into refolding into a — hopefully — more benign pattern.

Of course, that was the unknown: how her body would react when they began refolding themselves. If adversely, she could know in as little as a day or not know for years. The uncertainty clawed her brain like a cornered animal. She couldn’t decide if it was fear or anger she felt most.

No, watching Dr. Volkov approach Sylvia, Donna realized it was anger that had the upper hand — at least in the near term. Later, the fear would kick in, hard and strong. She let the anger gather for now, praying for an opportunity to unleash it.

For Sylvia, though, it was all fear. She didn’t understand what was causing the disease, what she was being injected with or what was going to happen inside her once the serum entered her bloodstream. That Mike and Donna, who apparently understood these things much better than her, were afraid and unwilling to get the injection only validated her fear. She trembled as Dr. Volkov held off her vein, regretting ever responding to the invitation to the megahunt so clearly meant for her husband.

If anyone should be here, it should be Charles, she thought. It was Charles who deserved to have all this happening to him, not her. She was here out of a humanitarian calling, out of a desire to stop these canned hunts and preserve rare and endangered animals. How could such a noble desire go so terribly wrong? Where was the justice in that? In a fair and just world, it would be Charles sitting in this chair wondering if he were going to be alive tomorrow.

Okay, maybe she had been trying to screw Charles over just a little by coming here, but he deserved that as well. There should be consequences for every action, but how fair was it he was being rewarded for running off with his little tart while she was the one paying for his vanity and indiscretions?

She tried to stay quiet as the serum flowed into her vein, but a small whimper betrayed her fear. She looked into Dr. Volkov’s eyes and found kindness and compassion in them.
And something else — an inevitability that chilled her to her core.
She could imagine such eyes when a doctor told a patient they were terminal, that there was nothing else that could be done for them medically and to simply go live out the rest of their days as best they could.

She pushed her chair back, breaking eye contact. “Get out of here.” She didn’t shout the order or whisper it. It was a simple dismissal — of him, of her life, of a world that let such things happen to good people.

Dr. Volkov bowed his head. “I’ll want blood samples every four hours, at least in the beginning. And vitals once you’ve had a chance to adjust to your accommodations. Whatever is going to happen will happen now. It can’t be reversed. Your cooperation in this research is vital. Does it really matter who it helps so long as it helps someone?”

Who it helps?
Mike went cold. “You heard us talking.”

“You must assume nothing is private in here.” Dr. Volkov motioned for the guards and opened the door. “You are being watched as well,” he cautioned before disappearing out the door.

Mike and Donna exchanged long, slow looks. Despite Walt Thurman’s promise, it didn’t look like this was going to blow over in a couple of days. They were lab specimens now.
Research subjects.
And this experiment wasn’t going to end until one or more of them
was
dead.

THE SYNDICATED NEWSRADIO SHOW Jim Thompson was listening to on the way to Triple E generally had correspondents reporting out of large foreign cities or from third-world countries he’d be hard-pressed to locate on a map. It didn’t feel right that the anchorman in New York this morning was throwing to a correspondent in Bismarck who threw to a reporter in Williston, less than 30 miles away. Global news didn’t happen here in McKenzie County, and knowing the world’s eyes were on events right here meant he and the other ranchers were under pressure to make sure they didn’t screw things up with Triple E. Not that a successful arson attempt would be more than a small blip in the news compared to the numbers of people contracting VTSE and dying from it, but even passing worldwide attention for a failed attempt would be humiliating.

…
more
than a thousand confirmed cases of the disease,
the local reporter was repeating for the third time since Jim had tuned in,
with another two-to-three thousand suspected in this tri-state area. And we have confirmation from the National Guard that upwards of four million animals have already been slaughtered and buried, with the Guard estimating there are another six to seven million still to go. Tourists and business people are all waiting anxiously to see when travel and shipping restrictions will be lifted.

For now, most residents are retreating to their homes, duct-taping their windows and doors, and throwing out literally tons of food that may or may not be contaminated. With city services practically at a stand-still, one thing is fairly certain: what’s collecting along the streets will soon begin attracting mice, cats and stray dogs into the towns. The smell here is already quite unpleasant and will only get worse in the summer heat. More and more people are covering their faces with surgical masks and scarves, and some are even donning gas masks in an effort to keep out not only the offending prions but the building smell of rot and decay as well. There is one smell, though, that masks will not be able to block — and that is the smell of fear. Reporting from Williston, North Dakota, this is Jill Elston.

Jim flipped the radio off, opting for silence during the last ten minutes of his ride. Outside the truck windows, the sun sat just below the horizon, a pool of orange gathering above it and
purpling
the clouds where the sky kissed the earth. A sunrise no different from any other day in the last few million years, he thought.
Perspective.
That’s what it gave him.
And confidence, in its way.
There was a higher order to all of this.
An order that didn’t care about the petty actions of a handful of men.
An order that wouldn’t care if the whole human race was wiped as clean off the face of the earth as the dinosaurs had been. Whether he succeeded or failed or didn’t even try, the cosmos wasn’t about to blink. Not for another couple of billion years anyway.

He eased his truck to a stop behind a tree line a half mile from the fence he’d soaked in a mixture of gasoline and diesel yesterday. The eerie trumpet of a distant elephant broke the stillness as Jim scrambled through the dry, waving prairie grass. He paused a moment to listen, and an answering trumpet, closer yet, quivered through the air. Once at the fence line, it took only a few moments to find the first of six rocket engine igniters he’d rigged the day before. As he unrolled the wire backing him to what he hoped would be a safe distance away, a muffled
pop
sounded to his right and a spit of dark smoke boiled lazily into the sky.