From bed to lab, Elias made it there within half an hour.
There were numerous people there, a lot of them in Hazmat suits and even a General to present the paperwork to him. They were there to oversee the destruction of X and to secure all data, research and genome sequences.
The bulk of his work … would be gone.
“Since when does a general get involved in matters like these?” Elias asked.
“Since this is a matter of national security.”
Elias peered up to the taller general. For a second, just a split second, he thought maybe they knew he had sent samples to France with Frederic.
Normally this would not have been a problem. Had Elias finished X before the hearings, he could have shipped the sample there without question. But with the Senate Committee hearings to bring back the ban, it was like racking up debt just before a bankruptcy hearing.
“We are part of the government here,” Elias said.
“Yes,” the general agreed. “However, your work here, one aspect at least, is being viewed as a potential weapon of mass destruction.”
Elias chuckled that off as ridiculous.
“Tell me, Doctor, if you weren’t the one to create this, would you trust such a thing in someone else’s hands?”
Without missing a beat, no hesitation and with confidence, Elias answered, “Yes. Yes, I would. Anyone working with it would do everything in their power to keep it from getting out.” More than anything, Elias was sure of the words he spoke.
11 – ONSET
Paris, France
“I’ll work until I can’t,” Frederic told Ana as he sat in an isolation room speaking to her through a window intercom system. “Right now, everything I am feeling is manageable.”
“What are you feeling, Frederic?” she asked.
“Shaky, like I’m cold, I have the shivers, but … no fever. A slight headache”
Ana nodded and wrote down. “Fred, could you be feeling psychosomatic symptoms? A virus will cause a rise in temperature. First round of blood work has come back and it doesn't show you've been exposed.”
Frederic smiled. “You need to check again. It’s there. I know it is. I saw it. Those unfamiliar with it need to learn what it looks like.”
“Sad to say, right now, everything we need to know about this virus we’re learning from you.”
“I’m combing through all the data,” Frederic stated. “Unfortunately, live testing was limited. He used it on lab rats.”
“Exposure to symptoms?”
“Infection then symptoms in nine minutes, death within forty minutes.”
“Well, it’s safe to say rats will be extinct if this gets out.”
“If it gets out? Oh, it’s out,” Frederic said and sighed out. “Ana, it is a cluster fuck of when that could have taken place. Was exposure at the airport when I had to boot up or during the near plane crash?”
“We believe we have a good idea when it happened. We checked the case. It wasn’t on the exterior. This means the case acted as a containment. So a breach had to have happened before the laptop was placed in the case.”
“Or after,” said Frederic. “I had to take it out at TSA, boot it up and have it checked. Those stickers on the battery were placed after Elias double checked there was no leak. He warned that if the laptop was booted up too long it could compromise the seals. I thought I was within the safety time frame.”
“Okay …” Ana spoke with confidence. “What does live testing say about when communicability sets in? I know he did R Naught research.”
“Here, take a look.”
Ana looked down at the computer as he shared information. “Aright, so it looks as if the rats exposed to the virus became symptomatic in sixteen minutes. Using basic math, with nine minutes to show symptoms, they were infected after the seven minute mark. Which means, it took seven minutes for Rat A to be contagious. If you were exposed at TSA, that would fall in line with ten times longer with humans. Nine minutes for the rat … nine hours for you.”
“So I was therefore contagious two hours before showing symptoms. They began before I got here.”
“That would put you on the plane,” Ana said. “This is good. You were in first class. No one was in the seat next to you. You would have to of been in close proximity to someone that early to pass it on.”
Frederic lowered his head.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I helped with the injured. I was hands on with a lot of people on the plane. While I sat there worrying the virus seeped out somehow during all that ruckus, now I find out I was right. But it wasn’t from the laptop, it was from me. Let’s face it, a TSA worker in a busy airport couldn’t have done any worse. I touched at least ten people on that plane … this is a nightmare.”
“We don’t know for sure”
Ana turned when the door to her room opened. “Yes?”
A gentleman stood there. “Ministry of health is on the phone. They said they received word we were on lock down because of a breach. They want to know the situation.”
Ana looked at Frederic, then to the worker. “Tell them all is good. Just a precaution we’ll lift shortly. I’ll send them our report.”
The man nodded and walked out.
“You’re not telling them?” Frederic asked.
“No.”
“It’s irresponsible to keep this a secret.”
“I’m not keeping it a secret, I’m just waiting. There’s nothing we can do until we know for a fact someone else is infected …”
“Like the TSA supervisor?”
“We’re already finding out about him. Other than that, again, nothing we can do until another shows up sick, then we can confirm this thing is spreading. Then we have information to go on. Until then,” she said. “We wait.”
Wait? For every moment they waited, for every hour they hesitated to find those people on that flight, the odds increased they would lose control. Then again, Frederic had to wonder, with the X virus was there truly any way to control it?
12 – PILE ON
Franklin, PA
When Matt pulled into the driveway his car clunked, he watched the temperature gauge rise again.
“Swell,” he shook his head. “Something else.” So focused on looking for steam or smoke coming from the hood, he failed to see the person on his porch. A woman. He tried to determine who she was just standing there, looking around.
She was dressed in business casual, carried a briefcase and some sort of folder nestled in the fold of her arm by her chest.
Maybe she was from the water or gas company? He for sure knew it wasn’t the electric company, he had called before he took everyone to the airport and made a payment.
The trip to the Pittsburgh airport was long, ninety minutes each way. They could have taken one of those small, twin engine commercial flights from Franklin airport, but there was something scary about putting his children on a small plane like that, so Matt offered to drive.
The day was a bust though. They left at seven in the morning for a ten-thirty flight and while Matt was arriving back home before noon, it was far too hot already to do any outdoor work. Plus, now he had to deal with the woman inspecting his porch and taking notes.
He got out of the car, took a few steps up his walk and called out, “Hello, can I help you?”
She turned around and walked toward Matt. “Mr. Hader?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, I’m Sheila Combs from Children, Youth and Family.”
“Oh, does this have something to do about my wife?” Matt asked. “She worked as a Solicitor there.”
“Yes, I know and …” She briefly closed her eyes with a long blink. “I am very sorry about her passing. I knew her. No, this … Mr. Hader are the children here?”
“No. I just got back from taking them to the airport. They are on vacation with my parents.”
“Can you verify that?”
Matt chuckled nervously. “I guess so … I can prob
ably call my parents and have them talk to you or get the info and show you the tickets online, what ... what is this about?”
“How long will they be gone?”
“Just four nights, they’ll be home Saturday morning.”
“Okay …” she handed him a card. “If you can give me a call when you have the travel information that would be great, and we can set up an appointment for when they are home.”
“I would really like to know what’s going on.”
“We received a call concerning your daughter, Hannah. She has now missed three scheduled appointments with her doctor. They have reached out, you schedule and you don’t show.”
“Forgive me, my wife just died and I’m trying to get things in order.”
“Your daughter’s health—”
“Is being taken care of,” Matt said. “She never misses an insulin shot and I pick up her prescriptions. I just haven’t been to the doctors. I didn’t realize that was an issue, I’ll get her there.”
“I understand and the agency can you help you. If you have to work or need transportation to get them there, we want to help.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.” Matt lifted her card and reached for his door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
“Certainly. Just remember to call. We do need to do an inspection. I’m sure you’re aware of the way the law works. Even if the complaint seems unfounded, we need to check it out.”
“I understand.” Matt walked into his house without any further goodbyes. He wasn’t mad at the woman. It wasn’t her fault. She was doing her job. He wished he could just get a break. The way things kept hitting him, he was afraid to see what would come next.
◆◆◆
Boston, MA
Elias had no one. No family, no true friends, no ex-wife to complain about. Nothing. His entire existence was fueled by his work.
He hit a certain stage of depression when the ban was reinstated and on top of that, they came into his lab and took his research.
Not all.
Elias was smarter than that, perhaps considered even genius. He sat at an outdoor table in the cafeteria, an unfinished grilled chicken salad before him as he fiddled with a memory card. He rolled it between his fingers, as if studying it.
It was something they didn’t get.
Thankfully.
He looked at the card, his mind swirling with thoughts of how to some he was probably a mad scientist. It contained a decade of research on various viruses, known and unknown, and the ones he created. Testing and so forth, all of it was on that disk.
And more information about X, stuff he didn’t even give to Frederic.
Elias knew it was unethical and illegal that he gave X to Frederic. That didn’t bother him as much. In the name of science one had to take risks. What bothered him was he hadn’t heard from Frederic at all. Not even a confirmation that he landed. A part of Elias feared that Frederic and his team would somehow take credit for the virus. After all, Elias could no longer claim it. Not after the ban.
Something was up with Frederic, of that, Elias was certain. What it was he didn’t know. What he did know was it couldn’t be anything bad, surely if it was, he would have heard about it.
◆◆◆
Massachusetts General Hospital - Boston, MA
“So, what brings you in today, Mr. …” Aurora Benson, a female emergency room doctor, barely old enough to of be out of school looked down to the chart as she walked into the room. She went from the chart to standing by the computer table. “… Conway” She read the screen.
At that moment Chip Conway was a number at the Boston Hospital, not even warranting a glance.
“I started not feeling well when I left my shift. Shaking like I had a fever, like I was cold, I couldn’t stop shaking.”
“But he wasn’t fevered at all,” Chip’s wife, Barb added. “I checked his temperature when he got home because he couldn’t get warm. It lasted for about an hour after he got home.”
“Ah huh.”
“Now I’m sick, I’m really, really sick,” Chip said. “My body hurts, like every muscle in my body, every bone hurts with every movement.”
“Any headaches or nauseous?” Dr. Benson asked.
“Yes. Both.”
“Any trouble breathing?”
“Not really. I have this tickle in my throat. Once and awhile I’ll cough, but it's really painful. My throat feels like it’s on fire.”
“I see. You said after your shift. When did that end, Mr. Conway?”
“I left work at two am,” he replied. “I tried to sleep, but I … honestly, I have never been so sick.”
“He never complains,” his wife said.
Dr. Benson looked at his information on the screen. A thirty-nine year old man, slightly, but not much, overweight. “Well, let’s …” she made a final notation on the computer. “... Take a look at you. What do you do?” Finally she turned around and saw him on the ER bed. His wife sat next to him holding his hand. The appearance of the man took her back, he was very pale. Probably more pale than she had ever seen in a patient. She stammered her words some as she reached for her stethoscope. “What do you do for a living, Mr. Conway?”
“I’m a supervisor for TSA at the airport," he replied.
“Any history of high blood pressure? Diabetes?”
“No.” he shook his head. “And this rash, I just noticed it, hurts like hell.”
“I hadn’t seen it earlier, not until we got here,” Barb said.
“I felt something and then I looked.”
Dr. Benson reached for gloves and placed them on as Chip raised his arm.
Starting at the base of the armpit hair line, down a few inches, was a rash consisting of red bumps, resembling acne on a teenager. Larger in nature, coming to a point like a mountain, the beginning of a pus-filled head making its appearance.
Between the red bumps, the skin had a purplish tone.
“Lean forward,” Dr. Benson requested, helping Chip to sit up.
The rash spread to his back.
Upon further quick examination she noticed what looked like an early stage of the rash starting under his neck on the same side of his body.
She moved to the other side and looked for signs of a rash.
There were none.
“Not sure," she said. “But looks to me like you have yourself a severe case of the shingles.”
“Shingles?” Chip asked shocked. “Aren’t I too young for shingles?”
“You’re a little young, but it isn’t unheard of,” she replied. “Shingles are very painful, and in some cases can make you very sick … like now. No worries, Mr. Conway, I’ll finish examining you and run some tests, but I’m ninety percent certain you have shingles.”
“Shingles. So, it’s not some contagious virus?”
She smiled. “Shingles is a virus. Fortunately, it’s only contagious for chicken pox if you touch the blisters. So you’re fine. “
Chip exhaled. “Okay, well, as much as I hate the sound of it, I’m glad that’s all it is. Considering where I work, it could be a nightmare if it was something else.”
Dr. Benson laughed. “Like what?”
“Don’t mind him,” Barb said. “He always worries about catching something at the airport.”
“Well, he probably did catch it at the airport,” Dr. Benson said. “But more than likely, it’s shingles. Nothing deadly today.” She patted his leg and began the examination.
◆◆◆
Paris, France
Twenty-four hours earlier, Frederic arrived at Boston Airport and went through a rather quick line at TSA. It was twenty-four hours later and the first time since being on the plane he had been able to sleep, it wasn’t by choice.
He couldn’t go on, despite how hard he tried.
After the first hour or so of shivering out of control, his body shaking so badly he swore he had neurological damage, after all that, Frederic felt fine. Even the ibuprofen had taken away his
headache. Frederic attributed it all to stress.
He and Ana both started dismissing X, perhaps the shaking was his body’s way of ridding the virus. He did start to sweat for a short period of time after the shaking ceased.
Then after an hour the headache began again, only this time he felt as if his skull were going to rip apart. The pain shot to his eyes and it began a downward journey across his body. His throat was next. It felt swollen and on fire, before long every joint and muscle in his body hurt.
Two hours later, the rash began. It was painful and hurt to the touch, so much so he hated putting his arms next to his body.
The rash spread across one side of his body.
But Frederic still worked, he worked until he started coughing. It was as if his body were trying to rid something from his lungs, something that wasn’t supposed to be there. He coughed so badly, it caused him to vomit.
Then his body went weak, the fever finally arrived and Frederic felt, for lack of a better word … sick.
Too sick to move, to sleep, to do anything but suffer.
He hit that point at approximately twenty-four hours after exposure.
“If I were your physician,” Ana told him through a suit as she checked on his vitals. “I would be telling you that you have a horrendous case of the flu. A severe case rather. I would put you on an IV and antiviral, keep you hospitalized and hope for the best.”
“No hoping here, is there?” Frederic asked.
“Frederic, the lab rats died very quickly. You are still alive. This tells me something. Your internal organs are not shutting down and that is a good sign. I feared X would kill you immediately, that it would swarm the body and ravage it until death.”
“I feel like it.”
“Yes, you might be feeling worse, but your heart is still strong and lungs are clear.” She shook her head. “Normally I would fear the symptoms more than the virus itself at this point.”
“But … I know there’s a but in there.”
Ana nodded. “But we don’t know this bug, other than the lab rat testing which showed a much faster virus. There is good news.”
Plague Book: One Final Gasp Page 5
