Effected Intent, page 22
“Tell me about your day mister jumps his wife when she walks in the door.”
“It was ok, things are too slow. George and I took a long lunch to Falls Church and then spent about an hour at the guitar shop. He bought another one, I think Beth is going to blow a gasket. The team that’s in Bolivia cracked a coup against the American embassy there so the mood was good around the office. Cory hasn’t been around, something about budget meetings. I’ll never figure out why it takes six months to set a budget, seems like something that should be straightforward to me.”
“You’ve heard me talk about working with the government enough to know that’s not the case. Everyone pads all their items and then fights tooth and nail for any judgment against their budget, knowing that during the review cycle everything will get cut again. It takes several iterations but I agree with you, would be a lot easier if they set the final target up front and only went through the process once.”
“Common sense cannot prevail in the labyrinth that is the United States government, I’m thankful to be a low level employee who doesn’t have to deal with such things.”
“Yeah but you’re a great leader and that means you’ll likely end up running teams or a division in the future. Everyone there, regardless of age, looks up to you and appreciates the way you work and your results. That’s how most good leaders come up, not because they’re looking for it, they can do it better than anyone else.”
“Thanks Moni.” He kissed her. “Something else interesting happened this afternoon. When we got back from lunch there was an email from someone calling himself Jack, saying that he was going to make me aware of a terrorist plot. A while later a second message came through that indicated it was a bioterrorism threat against the United States, some kind of smallpox attack. At first I was going to ignore it or dump it in the trash but I decided to do a little follow up work and there has been some chatter originating out of Asia talking about a new strain of smallpox that is much more virulent than anything we’ve ever seen in the wild.”
“That’s scary, were you able to track down who this Jack was?”
“No, he was pretty smart about it, not sure why he wants to remain anonymous but people have their reasons. The worst part is that I can’t answer his mail, there’s no way to know where it came from. I had hoped he might end up using some of our covert networks around the world but no such luck. Hopefully he’ll keep sending me information and at some point I’ll be able to track him down.”
“Is there a vaccine for this new strain of smallpox? Can we get immunized against it?”
“There’s nothing official anywhere on the subject. I’m going to call on some friends at the CDC to see what they know tomorrow but want to see if this Jack is a crackpot or if there’s something to it before I start raising red flags around the government.”
“Probably a good idea, the last thing this country needs is something as serious as this. I remember seeing photographs in high school biology of smallpox victims, it was not pretty and the mortality rate was pretty high.”
“Yeah, smallpox killed more people in the last couple hundred years than all other diseases, even though there hasn’t been a confirmed case in a very long time. Not sure that they’re even giving smallpox immunizations to children anymore, which makes this threat scarier. Can you imagine if only the children were dying?”
Monica shuddered and sat closer to Darren, thinking about the horror of that scenario and thankful that they hadn’t started a family yet. She was glad that he talked to her about work but this was the stuff nightmares were made of.
Chapter 21
The Plan Emerges
Steve was coming in earlier these days, enjoyed having some time to himself at the project site. His coworkers at Foundation gave him space but the others working on The Cause knew no such boundaries and he wasn’t sure how to get some space. A couple hours a day, usually around lunch, he would close the door to his office and put a ‘do not disturb’ sticky note on the door but that only worked half the time. Since Claire was on summer vacation she slept in most days so it was easier for Steve to come in around five thirty and then leave at a reasonable time. That didn’t mean he went home, he was spending a lot of time in parks and libraries, thinking about the way his world had gone tits up over the past few months.
He hid out in his office during the early morning hours but didn’t go on the vet forums, instead spent time researching life in Africa and wondering if there was any way he could get Claire immunized and then somehow have her find him once he had vanished. Would she want anything to do with him? It was doubtful, who would want to live with someone responsible for the murdering millions of innocent people? His life was turning into three parts: home, chemist and philosopher. The philosopher in him was about to implode, unable to wrap his mind around what was going to happen in a matter of weeks. His library time was spent reading books on philosophy, everyone from Hegel to Nietzsche but he had never particularly resonated with this type of rationalization.
He heard the bell, it was early for Jay or Rudy, who generally came in around eight thirty or nine. Robert and Mickey came up the stairs, a few boxes in hand. “Good news, the cause prevailed.”
“Good to hear Robert, we’ve got all the equipment set up. Going to tell the story of your trip to Atlanta?”
“After everyone gets in. If you see Rudy and Jay let them know we’re going to meet in the war room.”
Steve’s heart was beating faster, could it really be true that there was a live batch of virulent smallpox in one of those boxes? Philosopher Steve was going to be in high gear, trying to wrap his mind around this. He needed to think about the plan to infect the government instead and determine the right time to spring this, maybe the others would go along with his plan.
He got another cup of coffee and tried to settle his nerves, taking a trip through the lab and around the production facility, which was really coming together. He went to the bathroom and wasn’t surprised to find that his urine had gone from green to dark blue, some greenish hues still present but that was acceptable. The dye had worked well for him and the others who’d been in Ohio, hadn’t heard about the doctor, Robert and Mickey yet. The next injection would be the vaccine, which would be direct for them, no messing with spheres for that.
The others weren’t in yet so Steve went through the inventory of supplies he needed to oversee the polymer synthesis and also made sure they had enough surfactant and saline solution. He had already checked everything yesterday but didn’t want to run into problems when he reviewed everything with the bird man later. The door chimed and Jay came into the lab, he was using the small desk as his office space and had the bench across from the desk, which he kept exceptionally clean. Rudy was more interested in working in the production area and was taking ownership of that domain, which suited everyone.
“What’s happening? Are Robert and Mickey back?”
“Yes, came back this morning, we’re going to meet in the war room as soon as Rudy arrives. I think it’s good news.”
“Fuck yeah! That’s awesome news, can’t wait until we start putting everything together.”
Steve didn’t comment back, thought about asking Jay how he felt about attacking the government directly but thought better of it. Robert would have a fit if he thought his authority was being undermined, best to bring it up to everyone at the same time. The doorbell chimed and Rudy came in. They met him in the atrium and all went upstairs for the big meeting. Robert and Mickey were already seated at the table, three mysterious aluminum containers on the table in front of them.
“What you’re looking at is history in the making gentlemen. Mickey and I went to Washington and I pulled out the information I have on our CDC friend and we made some fine color copies of everything. You should have seen his face when I showed it all to him, he called me every name under the sun and was still resisting. Mickey mentioned that our next stop was to his home to see what his wife thought of this, followed by a trip to the Atlanta newspapers and television stations. He may have doubted my will but Mickey held firm and he relented.”
“Kick ass Robert.” Rudy said. “Is this still all being done off the books or is there now an official ‘project’ in the CDC?”
“Unclear at this point but potentially important. It would be a bit suspicious if there was a smallpox scare and we came in off the street saying we have a vaccine and a new delivery mechanism. I’m going to suggest to our contact that he follow up on some of the chatter we’ve created out of Asia and start a top secret project in response.”
Rudy smiled, happy that Robert had taken his idea. Steve thought this might be helpful because once the government became aware of a project like this they would be clamoring for the vaccine at first notice of an outbreak anywhere in the world.
“What about the delivery system? Will that be part of the documentation for the top secret CDC project?”
“Another good point Steve, I’m not at full strength due to lack of sleep the past few days. I’ll call our CDC friend and have him initiate the project and include the new delivery mechanism due to the complexity of delivering the vaccine and the need for multiple boosters due to the strength of the new strain. We’re a go, the first thing I’m going to do is call the doc to give us all the vaccine, I’ve been assured by our friend at the CDC that it’s legit but we will have to do some testing with the vaccine before we expose ourselves to the smallpox. It might be just like him to trick us and then hope we vanish and erase all roads back to him.”
“This will take some time, any thoughts how we can test the virus? We aren’t set up for a quarantine zone.” Steve asked.
“We’ve got a friend in Chicagoland who has access to the facility we need and can safely evaluate this. As soon as Mickey and I have had a chance to rest and we’ve all been immunized by the doc we’ll head to Chicago to do the actual testing. There are two types of smallpox in these containers, one is a large sample and there are autoclaved syringes that have doses of the virus that can be given intravenously.”
“How long does it take the vaccine to work?” Jay asked.
“We need to get a series of injections, one every other day and a total of four injections. It’s long, complicates our plan and could make all of us sick for the next couple of weeks so hope you all don’t mind shedding a few pounds.”
“Jay, Rudy and I will spend the time working on a small quarantine environment here at the facility so when we imbed the virus into the spheres we don’t end up spreading the virus. Don’t want to let Pandora out of her box too early. We’ll meet after this and get a list of equipment we need to you before the end of the day.”
The meeting adjourned, Steve and Jay carefully transporting the live virus containers down to the lab and into a locked cabinet. “Looks like we’ve got a few days of sitting around, not much to do in the interim.”
“I would like to learn about polymer synthesis, even though it won’t likely be applicable where we’re going. Maybe it would be smarter for us to start learning some African languages, if they’re at all similar. Not even sure where it is we’re going, might have to learn it when we get there.”
“The polymer stuff isn’t a problem, I’ve got to run some test batches on the new equipment to make sure everything scales. We can repeat the dye test, it’s a pretty easy one.”
“Freaks me out every time I piss, looks like the toilet cleaner my mom used to use.”
Rudy came down to the lab and they sat down to talk about what was required to set up a safe environment for handling the smallpox. From the information they had, it didn’t appear to be a major airborne infection agent unless a person was already infected. It was important that they isolate the raw material and do the sphere work in sealed containers which could then be run through the giant autoclave Steve had installed as part of the equipment setup. They needed to determine how to unseal the small work environment they were going to use to load the spheres. Rudy designed an attachment to the autoclave that could be used to unseal the glass box they were going to use. Steve was wondering how easy it was going to be to make spheres in one of those, especially since the gloves had to be non-permeable so were thick. They would have to practice making spheres using the gloves for the next few weeks and determine the best method.
Over the next few days they made many batches of polymers and each worked at forming the spheres and insuring that the reagent was inside each little shell of the sphere. This was straightforward without the gloves, Rudy and Jay were as good as Steve before too long. They’d all received the first dose of the vaccine and were having side effects, mostly flu-like symptoms. The mood around the facility was starting to go down, nobody appreciating the delays. Mickey and Robert had made one trip to Chicago to provide the vaccine for the animal testing. They were becoming two peas in a pod, which was alright with Steve, kept the bird man from bothering him.
After the second round of vaccine nobody was in any shape to be at work, all of them down with side effects for several days. Claire was worried about Robert but he said that something was going around the project site, nothing too serious, and he’d be better in a few days. His already skinny frame was now reduced to a weight he hadn’t seen since his POW days in Vietnam. Claire tried to feed him but he couldn’t keep anything down. The third and fourth rounds had less side effects but all of them had visibly suffered over the past week and a half.
Robert and Mickey went to Chicago to do the animal testing and they used the glass enclosure, normally used for working with radioactive material, to open the containers to see which one had the syringes. They sealed the container and hoped for the best, couldn’t autoclave the container for risk of neutralizing the virus, even though the CDC’s analysis of the strain showed it was fairly robust in liquid form.
The testing was going to take a few days and was going to be conducted on two chimps, since they had close DNA to ours. The immunized chimp had shown many of the same side effects that they had, now it was just a waiting game. Their sphere practice had worked well, the dye color changing in the beakers at the prescribed time without any variation. Steve was proud that his work was scaling so well and Jay and Rudy were up to speed on the process and following the recipe to make batches of polymer and create the spheres.
“If this test works and the one chimp doesn’t get sick will you guys feel better?” Jay asked as they sat around the war room table eating lunch.
“I’ll still be nervous but it will make be willing to try to work with the actual virus. We need to make some batches, there’s not enough there to make what we need for the attack.”
“We’re too close to hit the wall now, we are going to do this and then vanish. It’s going to cause such a disruption to the world and the people will no longer accept the American government, especially when they believe the ones they put in office are responsible for the attack.” Rudy hadn’t spoken much about his feeling around The Cause but what was coming out of his mouth was caustic. “I wish I could be there to see this go down, I might just stick around to see what happens, try to blend in as the few in a thousand that won’t get infected.”
“I’ve thought about that too.” Steve said. “If we can point this to the government and away from us then there’s no reason why we can’t live here. The country will be a shell and we’ll be able to set up any kind of life we desire.”
Steve had thought about that and also the possibility of giving Claire the vaccine and then having them disappear, maybe to Canada or some remote part of the United States. He didn’t want to leave the country and didn’t trust Robert to get them all the way to a destination safely. There would be complete chaos in the world and a total lack of trust.
Jay must have been thinking the same way, he got lost in his thoughts the same way Steve did. In the wake of the chaos there would be millions of square miles of the country being shared by just a percentage of those who are already here today. Most likely border security would crumble, meaning that people could migrate north or south at will. The next generation of the United States would be a further blending of Canadians, Mexicans and probably other Central and South American natives, migrating north to take advantage of all the abandoned real estate and stock of food and supplies.
Robert and Mickey came back the next morning, shit scared look in their eyes and excitement in their voices. “It worked, the infected chimp died an incredibly ugly death and the vaccinated chimp is fine, though it misses its brother.”
“It was a sight to behold, all I could picture is all of the assholes dying the same death. We have some pictures that show the symptoms and even a video of the chimp screaming before it died.”
“No thanks” Jay said. “I don’t need to see that to believe it, the look in your eyes tells me all I need to know.”
Robert laughed the most evil way Steve had ever heard, causing the hair on his entire body to stand on end. This was one sick individual and Steve was wondering how far he’d go to protect himself. It was time to think about escape plans.
“We need to do our human testing, don’t want to have any more delays by waiting for vaccination of a test subject. One of us is going to have to do it.”
“I’ll do it.” Rudy volunteered. “I’m probably the most expendable member of the team anyway. Better put me in a safe place in case I get the disease and make sure I have some morphine so I don’t feel much.”
“Thanks for your sacrifice Rudy, we’re going to take you up on the offer. I’ll make sure doc provides the right drugs in case you get the disease but based on what we saw in Chicago I don’t think you will. I’ve got a house that the CIA used to use in the city, not the safest neighborhood but if something happens to you we’ll burn it down.”
“Makes sense. Just make sure I don’t get murdered for being in the wrong neighborhood.”
“We’ll keep a camera on you around the clock to see what’s happening. You’ll be able to see us and talk to us from there. Let me call the doc, do you want to get anything to make your stay better? Books, movies, music, anything like that?”
