Resurrection

by Mark Kelly

  “How do you stand it?”

  He opened his eyes at the sound of Mei’s voice and sat up. As he leaned forward and stood, the chair’s springs gave off one last soul-destroying squeak.

  “Stand what, the chair?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “No, the smell. Emma said it stinks of men’s cologne and farts. She said I might die if I came in here.”

  He grunted with annoyance. “How would she know? She only shows up when something important is going on. She hasn’t been in the lab for weeks. Thank God.”

  “I’ll just stay here if you don’t mind,” Mei said, leaning up against the doorframe.

  Simmons frowned back at her. “What is it with you guys? It’s not that bad.”

  “Tony, are you kidding? It’s awful…really awful. Honestly, I don’t know how you stand it.”

  He shrugged and took a step towards her. “I guess I’m used to it by now. What can I do for you?”

  Mei’s face turned serious. “I need more material, a lot more. When do you think we’ll be ready for a trial?”

  “Why, is Saanvi causing problems again?”

  It had been nearly two weeks since Saanvi’s outburst and she still wouldn’t talk to him. He took another step closer and studied Mei.

  “No, It’s not that. Saanvi’s been a lot better since Sarah took over.”

  “Who is Sarah?”

  “Her new chaperone. She moved into the house last week. Did you ever meet the old one?”

  The look on his face must have told Mei what he thought about the unpleasant woman who seemed more interested in eating than anything else.

  Mei nodded in agreement. “Yeah, she wasn’t very nice. Sarah is closer to Saanvi’s age and instead of treating her like a burden, has got Saanvi involved in different activities around the base.”

  “What kind of activities?”

  “They’re putting together and distributing care packages to the people who hang around the fence.”

  “And General Leduc is okay with this?” Simmons asked, surprised.

  “More than okay, it was his idea. There’s nothing to be worried about, Tony. They stay inside the fence and there are always soldiers nearby.”

  Remembering his encounter with the nutcase cult-leader at the gate, Simmons couldn’t help but feel uneasy about it. “As long as they keep her on the base, I guess it’s better than having her moping around the house. But if everything is okay with Saanvi, what’s the problem?”

  Mei’s shoulders sagged. She looked like she wanted to lie down and sleep. “It’s just not enough,” she said with a sigh.” Even when you get the bioreactor fully functional, it won’t be enough. It’ll never be enough. The number of people needing help at the clinics is getting larger and larger. We’ve had to start triaging patients.”

  He reached for her hands and took them in his and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “I understand, but you knew when we started this would happen. Besides, didn’t you triage at Bellevue?”

  “Of course, all the time, but this is different.”

  “Why?”

  “Because at Bellevue, I knew the patients would be treated at some point. Now, I have to turn people away I know with absolute certainty I could cure if we had more material. I’m going to be God making decisions about who gets to live and who gets to die. I don’t know if I can do that.”

  “What about reducing the amount you give each patient? Making what you have, stretch out longer.”

  “I’ve already done that, but if I keep decreasing the amount, I’ll go past the lower limit for efficacy. People will die and I’ll end up wasting what little material I have. You need to do something.”

  “Like what?”

  She pulled her hands free from his and stared at him. “I don’t know. You figure it out. You’re the expert.”

  He walked back to his chair and plopped into it. She wasn’t being fair, but he understood why. She was on the front-lines every day dealing with the sick and dying. He needed to find a way to quickly scale up the bioreactor or increase the concentration of its output.

  But how?

  He glanced at her, and she stared back at him.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, just thinking. I’ve got a couple of ideas.” He didn’t really, but he didn’t want to tell her that. He pushed himself up from his chair and walked back to where she stood. “Trust me, I’ll figure something out, but first we need to produce enough material for a human trial.”

  “When do you think that will be?”

  “A few days, three or four at the most, assuming we don’t run in to any problems.”

  Mei folded her arms across her chest, the worried expression back on her face. “What kind of problems?”

  “Just normal lab issues—nothing you need to worry about. While we’re preparing for the trial, I’ll get Beth and Bennett to help me brainstorm on ways to scale up production.”

  “Who is Bennett?”

  “The private I borrowed from Leduc. Don’t you remember me telling you about him? He’s the one from the roadblock. He and Dines met you and I at the boat dock a few weeks ago. He’s helping Beth and I in the lab now.”

  Mei frowned. “Doesn’t Robert Langdon have someone who can help you, someone more qualified than a couple of kids?”

  It was Simmons’s turn to sigh. “No, I wish. All of Robert’s people are busy preparing the facility for winter. Beth and Bennett do their best and they’re better than nothing.”

  “If you say so,” Mei replied skeptically. She slowly ran her eyes over the equipment in the lab. “I guess I should let you get back to work.”

  She sounded like she didn’t want to leave, and he didn’t want her to either. “Any word from Lucia and Baker?” he asked, hoping she would stay a little longer.

  Her eyes lit up. “Yes, finally, thank God. They called on the satellite phone yesterday. They’re just north of Cincinnati. Baker thinks it’ll be another few weeks before they reach Raine’s location—probably sometime around Christmas.”

  Simmons seethed at the mention of Raine’s name. He knew Mei didn’t approve of what Lucia and Baker were doing, but he did. For he and Lucia, it was personal. He had lost his reputation, and she had lost her children.

  “I can’t wait to hear that son-of-a-bitch is dead,” he said, his voice burning with anger. “And I hope it’s slow and painful.”

  Mei’s eyes widened as he spoke. Even he was shocked at the anger he felt.

  “What about Kateri and Michael Otetiani?” he asked, changing the subject to something more pleasant. “Did Lucia and Baker see them? Are they okay?”

  Mei nodded. “Lucia said they’re both fine, but she wouldn’t get into any details.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. When I asked, she changed the subject. You know how she gets when she doesn’t want to talk about something.”

  All too well, Simmons thought. Lucia was even more pig-headed than Mei. “Do you think something happened?”

  Mei shrugged. “I haven’t got a clue, but knowing Lucia it’s entirely possible. When they get back, I’ll ask her and if she won’t tell me, maybe Baker will.”

  They both turned at the sound of voices coming from the stairwell. The door opened and Beth and Bennett appeared. Simmons waved hello. “There’s my help, and it looks like they brought lunch.”

  Mei’s eye’s widened. “You eat in the lab?”

  Simmons couldn’t help himself. He grinned and said, “Sure, all the time, but you’ll be happy to know we do wash our hands first.”

  “Are you serious?”

  The look of disgust on her face was priceless. He laughed. “No, we eat in the boardroom. Want to join us?”

  She tried not to smile. “Don’t think I could take the smell, but thanks for the offer. Besides, there’s a clinic tomorrow I’ve got to prepare for. Will I see you later?”

  “How about dinner?” he asked, hoping the answer was yes.

  “It’s a date.” She le
aned forward and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. “See you then. Don’t be late, okay?”

  Speechless, he watched her walk down the hallway. When she disappeared through the stairwell door, he turned back to his helpers. “Come on, you two, We’ve got a lot to get done, but let’s feed those brilliant minds of yours first.”

  “Do either of you want my lunch?” Beth asked, five minutes later.

  “Not me,” Simmons replied, shaking his head. The food was so bad, he wasn’t even certain he could finish his own. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to eat the horribly sour wild apple the cooks had put in his lunch bag. He placed the apple on the table and gave it a spin.

  She turned to Bennett. “How about you?”

  Bennett’s eyes darted between her and the sandwich. “Are you sure?”

  When she nodded, he sheepishly took it. Simmons watched in amazement as the young soldier devoured it.

  “Doesn’t Leduc feed you guys?”

  “Yes, sir. We used to have chow three times a day.”

  “Used to?”

  Bennett nodded. “The general ordered the mess-hall to cut back on rations. Warrant Officer Abrams told us the general wants to make sure there’s food to feed the people in the camps during the winter.”

  The camps Bennett was referring to were the same ones causing Mei grief. They had started to spring up around the clinics as word of a cure spread. The largest one was in Douglas where the first clinic had been held a month earlier. That camp, a collection of tents in a field outside the town, now housed a population approaching two hundred. As people were cured, Thomas McNee, the town’s mayor, tried to get them to leave, but it was almost impossible; the camps and the cure offered hope, something in short supply since the pandemic had started.

  “Here, take mine too,” Simmons said, pushing his lunch across the table to Bennett.

  As Bennett stuffed the food into his mouth, Simmons wondered if Mei was right. Maybe, it was too much to expect. How in the world were a third-year computer science student and a high-school educated private going to help him with such a critical task?

  “Any ideas on how to increase the concentration?” he asked half-heartedly after they had finished eating.

  Beth shook her head.

  Bennett hesitated, then looked down at the table, mumbling as he spoke. “My grandmother used to simmer tomato sauce to thicken it and make it more concentrated, but I guess we can’t do something like that.”

  Thicken her tomato sauce—are you kidding me? Simmons couldn’t believe his ears. He would have laughed out loud if the kid wasn’t half-way serious.

  “Right, that’s…uh…not going to work,” he said diplomatically. “Even low heat would kill most of the active bacteria. It would also denature any useful proteins in the bioreactor’s output.”

  Bennett looked up from the table and asked, “What’s denature?”

  “It means change the structure or properties.”

  “Change how?”

  “In different ways.”

  “What kind of ways?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Simmons said, losing patience. “Look, if you’re still interested, I’ll explain later, but for now, let’s focus on the task at hand, shall we?”

  “I wish we could make a pill,” Beth said, sniffing at the air. She gave Bennett a friendly elbow. “At least pills don’t smell, right?”

  Bennett wrinkled his nose. “It’s still disgusting. Who’d want to swallow a pill full of poop?”

  “It’s not real poop.”

  “I know, but it smells like poop. Besides, wouldn’t the acid in your stomach kill all the bacteria, sir?”

  Simmons sighed. They were hopeless. The whole damn conversation was hopeless.

  “Yes, the acid in your stomach would kill all the bacteria,” he replied. “Most of it anyway. There are a handful of strains with high tolerance to acidic conditions, and there are bacteria that produce endospores which are almost entirely resistant to stomach acid.”

  Bennett leaned forward and stared earnestly at him. “Like the one that caused the pandemic? It’s a Firmicute, right?”

  Pleased, and more than a little surprised that Bennett had remembered such a minute detail from one of their earlier conversations, Simmons felt a pang of guilt for snapping at the kid. “That’s correct, the pathogenic C. diff is a member of the endospore-producing Firmicute phylum.”

  “It would be nice if we could cure everyone the same way,” Bennet said offhandedly.

  “What do you mean?” Simmons asked, puzzled.

  Bennett shrugged. “I don’t know…I was just thinking if you can get the disease from the air, it’s too bad you can’t be cured the same way.”

  Simmons paused. It was an interesting idea. Not really any different from the concept of an inhaler used to treat asthma, but then again the pandemic infections were intestinal not respiratory. He was about to explain the difference to Bennett when he had a thought. He jumped to his feet and ran to the whiteboard where he grabbed a marker and wrote the word Firmicute in large black letters.

  “I still don’t know exactly what the immunity mechanism is,” he said, addressing Bennet and Beth, “but my best guess is it’s another strain of bacteria in Saanvi that’s forcing the pathogenic C. diff to commit suicide. What I just realized is it might also be a member of the Firmicute phylum.”

  “I don’t understand,” Beth said, glancing at Bennett. “Do you?”

  He shook his head.

  Simmons explained. “Don’t you see? If there is such a thing as the immunity bacteria and if by chance it is a Firmicute, then it will produce endospores. Which means that it might be possible to isolate those spores and place them in a pill.”

  Beth’s eyes brightened. “So, Mei would give her patients a pill full of spores from the immunity bacteria instead of an FMT?”

  “Exactly. The path into the patient’s body would be different, but the result would be the same.”

  “That’s interesting, but how does it help us increase the bioreactor’s production?”

  “It doesn’t,” Simmons admitted.

  “Too bad we can’t clone Saanvi,” Bennett said. “Then we wouldn’t have to worry about the bioreactor.”

  Beth nodded. “That’s something I’ve thought about as well.”

  Bennett raised an eyebrow. “Cloning Saanvi?”

  “No, I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen,” she said with a smile. She turned to Simmons. “But I don’t understand why we can’t use material from other people who have been immunized or cured. If the immunity bacteria you’re talking about is transferred from Saanvi to a sick person and the sick person becomes healthy and stays healthy, shouldn’t they have the immunity bacteria in them after they’ve been treated?”

  “Yes, they should,” Simmons replied, “but unfortunately, it doesn’t work. Mei has tried treating infected patients with material from individuals who’ve been cured or immunized. In every single case, the patient’s condition improved for a few days, but they still died.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t concentrated enough, like my grandmother’s tomato sauce.”

  Simmons glared at Bennett. “Would you stop with your ridiculous talk about tomato sauce.”

  Bennett looked down and mumbled, “Sorry, sir. It was just an idea. Lots of things, like orange juice and stuff like that, are made from concentrate.”

  Simmons was about to tell him that it was completely different—but was it? Highly concentrated doses of drugs were frequently used by doctors to knock down well-established infections. They even had a term for it—loading dose. Perhaps Saanvi simply had a higher level of the immunity bacteria in her body compared to someone who had been cured or immunized. That might explain why the treatment only worked using material from her. His mind raced as he considered the possibilities. If he could extract and concentrate immunity bacteria spores from any person who had been immunized, it would mean an exponential increase in the number of patients who could
be treated.

  But how?

  He stood by the whiteboard and thought about it while he watched Bennett spin the wild apple on the table.

  Bingo.

  Simmons smiled and placed the marker on the whiteboard’s tray. He walked towards the door, stopping long enough to pat the young soldier on his back.

  “I knew you’d be useful.”

  Bennett looked up. He smiled weakly. “Thanks…I think.”

  “I’m going to the toilet,” Simmons said. “I have an idea. You two might as well quit for the day. I won’t need your help with what I have to do.”

  Beth’s eyes widened. She grinned and raised her hand to her mouth, half-covering the smile on her face.”

  Simmons blushed. “I mean I won’t need your help with what I have to do afterwards.”

  “Thanks for the clarification,” Beth said, still smiling.

  Bennett grinned. “You had me worried too, sir. I like working here, but there are limits to what I’m willing to do and that would have crossed one of them.”

  Beth choked back a giggle. In a matter of seconds, she and Bennett were laughing so hard tears formed in the corners of their eyes.

  Imbeciles…it wasn’t that funny.

  Simmons could still hear them laughing as he walked down the hallway to the toilet.

  22

  I See Them

  “Damn it to hell.”

  Alone in the lab with no one to hear him, Simmons let loose with a couple more choice swear words then tossed the ruined glass slide into the garbage can and started again. It had been years since he prepped a specimen for Phase Contrast Microscopy and he’d lost his touch. This is why God invented lab assistants and post-docs, he thought to himself as he reached for a fresh slide.

  He mixed a miniscule dab of his stool sample in diluted saline solution, then using an eyedropper, deposited a small amount of the liquid onto the slide’s glass surface and blotted it. After the liquid dried, he used the flame from a barbecue starter to bind the specimen to the slide; a necessary step that would prevent the nearly invisible microbes and spores from drifting in and out of focus while he viewed them.