Doctor Tripp seemed a little annoyed at yet another interruption, but answered Barry’s question.
“Yes, that is true. The virus, which I identified as a variation of an extinct virus called Monostrovis Virus, seemed to have little to no effect on the human body. It was sent to the CDC from a doctor in Tucson, Arizona. During an evaluation of a routine CBC, he noticed a significant increase in the number of neutrophils in the results. He requested a culture of the patient’s blood, and that was when they found an unidentifiable virus. This unknown contagion was behaving rather peculiarly, infecting eukaryotic cells in the same manner as a lysogenic bacteriophage would—” Dr. Tripp stop short as she became aware of the quizzical looks on the faces of her audience.
“Sorry,” she said, rather unconvincingly, “I’ll try to translate that into plain English. A bacteriophage, or phage for short, infects bacteria for the purpose of reproduction. There are two ways for a virus to replicate once it has infected a host. One is to make multiple copies of itself, then burst open, releasing a swarm of newly cloned viruses. The other way, called lysogenic, is to allow the bacteria containing the phage to replicate so that each daughter cell has a copy of the virus inside it, like a Trojan Horse. Then, when conditions are right, the virus starts to replicate in each bacteria, the bacteria erupt, and the result is an epidemic.” she paused for effect and continued. “But these viruses were infecting eukaryotic cells, not prokaryotes, for their lysogenic reproduction, which is rare for a modern virus…” she trailed off, lost in thought.
“Didn’t that send up a red flag?” DJ asked while many of us were still trying to wrap our heads around what she was saying.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “At any given moment, the human body harbors several different types of viruses, some more virulent than others. In fact, some have even incorporated themselves into our very DNA and become essential to our evolution. So when the relatively unknown strain was found, it was immediately sent to the CDC for identification. There it was determined to be harmless and so it was shipped to the basement.”
“I’m guessing that was where your lair was,” Fish stated.
She gave him a crooked grin, “You could say that. Extinct viruses are not exactly at the top of the list for CDC funding, especially when they are deemed to be harmless.”
“Okay, so an extinct virus shows up, looks harmless, and then what?” Campbell asked, wanting to move the conversation along.
“I was intrigued when it first hit my desk. After all, finding an extinct virus that isn’t extinct anymore is thrilling for someone in my profession. I pushed my other work aside and started to investigate it. I soon found that it was in more than just some patients in Tucson. It started popping up all over the country, and in every sample we looked at.” Doctor Tripp leaned back in her chair and let out a breath.
“My investigation soon took a wild turn. I began to notice some strange alleles, or DNA markers, in the PCR’s we were running. These were not naturally occurring genes. It became evident that the Monostrovis Virus had been genetically altered.” She stayed back in her chair, as if she knew the questions were going to start flying at her, and she was right.
“You mean
we
created this thing?” Barry asked.
“Of course we did!” DJ groaned. “Damn scientists and government messing around with sh—”
“The answer is yes and no,” Doctor Tripp interrupted.
“Care to elaborate, Doc?” Fish asked.
“The Monostrovis Virus has some unique traits.” she said. “Most viruses destroy cells as they reproduce. The M Virus, as we began to call it, did not do that. Besides being docile, it simply reproduces itself, leaving the host cell intact.”
“Over a century ago,” she continued, “some scientists believe a mutated form of the virus wiped out a small village in England, but other than that hypothesis, we have no reliable record of it causing harm to mammals, generally speaking. Another distinctive quality about this virus is its resiliency and astonishing capacity to adapt to its environment. It seems to have the ability to camouflage itself so that leukocytes…I mean white blood cells ignore its presence. We’ve even seen evidence that this pathogen uses white blood cells to reproduce, literally turning its natural predator into a nursery. The virus has always been a part of Mother Nature but it’s clear now that this strain has been re-engineered by man.”
“There’s no simple about it,” I said, not realizing that I had said it aloud.
“The kid’s right,” Fish said. “The question is, what were you dumb fucks trying to make? A weapon? Some new bioweapon to kill soldiers on the ground? Or maybe some sort of super soldier? Well, you created them alright.”
“
You
, is relative,” she said disdainfully. “If you mean scientists in general, yes, they were trying to make something new. But believe me, it wasn’t some military project. At least, I don’t think it started out that way. Nor do I think the end result was for those purposes. But
we
,” she said sarcastically, “didn’t develop it.
We
, being the CDC or US Government.”
“Okay, if not you, than who?” Preacher asked. I wonder if Preacher had thought, up to this point, the whole apocalypse was God’s will. I mean, the retired engineer turned man of the cloth was very devout to his faith, but had never come out to say this was the work of the Devil or God or anything like that.
“A French Doctor by the name of Pierre Francois,” Doctor Tripp stated.
“Okay, so are we trying to find this doctor? I mean, he has to have some idea on how to stop this, right?” Preacher continued to press Tripp.
“We would, if Francois were still alive,” she said gravely. “During my research, I found out that Pierre Francois uncovered a sample of the M virus in 1982. For years, he worked on it under the French Government. His goal was to make the harmless M virus a booster for white blood cells.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it harmless, Doc. Even you said it wiped out a village in England,” Fish reminded her.
“I said that was a hypothesis,” she corrected him. “Purely speculative without any hard evidence.”
“Yeah, remember Fish, scientists need to be punched in the face with proof before they believe anything,” grunted DJ.
Doctor Tripp sighed. “Look, it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is Francois lost his funding. He was sure he was on the verge of something big. He took his work to the Soviet Union in 1989. This is where things get hazy. There isn’t a whole lot of data, but we do know that when the Soviet Union collapsed, Doctor Francois was in Georgia.”
“I thought you said he went to Russia,” Gardner said.
“The country Georgia, not the state,” she informed him. “The Giorgi Eliava Institute in Tbilisi to be exact. It was the Soviet Union’s version of the CDC. Unfortunately, there is little information past that point. Doctor Francois disappeared during Georgia’s civil war, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. By the summer of 1991, the Institute was all but shut down. In 1997, it reopened, but Doctor Francois was believed to be dead.”
Campbell eyed the doctor. “So you think the virus came from there? And what did he do to it to make the dead walk and the living into predatory Neanderthals?”
Doctor Tripp grimaced. “Well, when the first cases of people getting sick came in early March, colleagues of mine in France identified the cause. The M virus was mutating. They had already identified it in the local population months before we did. But like us, they discarded it as a harmless virus. I shared my research with them and they gave me more information on Doctor Francois.”
She leaned forward and clasped her hands on the table. “Doctor Francois did not die in 1991. He died in 2009. His family was alerted to this by the Russian Government. They told me Doctor Francois was living under a different name. France had issued an international warrant for his arrest in 1989 for stealing research and selling it to the Soviet Union. Fearing prosecution after the fall of the Iron Curtain, he changed his name.”
“Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. We’re guessing that when they came across the Giorgi Eliava Institute, they stole a bunch of research. The French believe that Doctor Francois went back to Russia with his research. His reported death was in Koltsovo, Novosibirsk Oblast, which is in the Russian Federation. It is also the location of Russia’s State Research Center for Virology and Biotechnology. Russia refers to it as the Vector Institute.”
“Thanks for the history lesson, Doc. Now, you want to dumb it down for us grunts and get to the point?” Fish snorted.
“I thought you didn’t want me to talk to you like you were a bunch of idiots?” Doctor Tripp said, playing off of Fish’s earlier remark.
“Doctor, please?” Campbell pushed.
“Okay,” Doctor Tripp nodded. “Well, there was an accident at the Vector Institute last year. Russia stayed pretty hush-hush about it, but we think there was some sort of explosion or fire. The World Health Organization attempted to investigate, to ensure there were no deadly viruses that were released, but Russia declined and assured them that everything was secure. We think either they were lying or were unaware that the new M virus escaped. Since it appeared harmless, even to us at first, they probably thought nothing of it.”
“And look where we are now, with the human race on the verge of extinction! With all of our knowledge and skills and technology, we still didn’t see this coming,” she shook her head slowly. Then she continued. “So people started to get sick, then they started dying. It was like Ebola all over again. But whereas we were able to contain Ebola relatively quickly, this new pathogen reached worldwide exposure before anyone knew how deadly it had become. When conventional methods proved completely ineffective against this incredibly virulent strain, we quickly realized if we were going to develop a vaccine for this plague, we needed to find the original version of the virus or, at the very least, Doctor Francois’s research notes. Since going to Russia was clearly not an option, the CDC sent me and…” she paused for a moment and then continued sadly, “me and a medical investigation team to the Giorgi Institute in Georgia. Our hopes were to find some record of Francois’s work.”
Her tone had changed. Since the medical investigators were not among the people we rescued, I guessed they had been lost during her trip. And from the sound of her voice, she had been close with them. I could see her eyes turning glassy, but she composed herself and continued.
“We were in Tbilisi, Georgia, when the
Ur
occurred,” she said softly.
“I’m sorry,
Ur
?” Campbell asked.
“It’s what the Israelis called the day the dead started to walk,” Dobson told him. “It means ‘to arouse’ or ‘awaken’.”
“The Awakening,” I murmured.
“Yeah,” Dobson approved, “our people took to the name, too. It helps with the timeline. There’s pre and post Awakening.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?” Campbell asked Doctor Tripp, bringing the topic back on course.
“Again, yes and no. We found copies of his research notes, but few details on how he created the virus.”
“So, what is the virus?” DJ asked impatiently.
“With technology jumping ahead so fast, Doctor Francois was able to start splicing the virus, effectively altering its DNA,” she said. “He was attempting to create a super virus. Not a deadly kind, but one that would enhance our immune systems, even to the point of creating the capability to regenerate. He mapped the virus with the human genome, which is probably why it seems to only be affecting humans. Through forced mutations, later versions were able to not only boost regeneration of the nervous system and muscle tissue, but were actually repairing damage in brain cells. The M virus was to become a smart virus, effectively creating a second immune system.”
Fish crossed his arms. “Sounds good, except, let me guess, Doctor Frankenstein didn’t realize this M virus would continue to repair the human body after it died?” he asked sarcastically.
Doctor Tripp nodded. “In effect, yes.”
“See Doc, we’re not that stupid after all,” Fish grunted.
She smirked, “We’re not sure if he realized this early on, or later, but he did see issues. The virus didn’t help the immune system, but took it over. Mutated versions would invade lymphatic glands and produce an entirely new type of cell. These supercells are like tiny biological robots.”
“So you’re saying we all have these biological robots inside of us?” DJ asked.
“No,” Doctor Tripp sighed. She would have probably been more comfortable writing a paper on the subject than responding to the constant interruptions and questions.
Everyone looked confused, and I admit, I was one of them.
Doctor Tripp went on to explain. “Transforming the DNA of a virus is not easy, nor is it an exact science. Doctor Francois intended for it to be passive until needed, and then return to its docile state. But it didn’t happen that way. Although the virus started out started out as intended, strengthening the human immune system when required, it was clear nobody realized how quickly it could adapt and evolve. The viral DNA mutated swiftly from its initial role as passive involvement, activated only by specific stimulus, to pre-emptive strike mode, causing severe alterations in the body, seemingly in an attempt to prepare for any possible future assault. It accomplished this in two ways. The first was by commandeering the lymphatic glands when certain enzymes were released into the vascular system. Those enzymes happen to be the same ones that are released upon death.”