Blockbuster

by Lisa von Biela

  “Well, even knowing what you do know about the potential danger, can’t Horton Drugs make some sort of announcement that would help convince the medical profession to recommend quarantine?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Even if we could convince the public health powers-that-be that quarantine was appropriate, Phil will never agree to it. Properly done, quarantine would stop the spread of GIS and eradicate it from the population. That would kill off the flow of profits from Spectrocillin. And any such announcement would raise questions about the origin of the GIS pathogen—something Phil doesn’t want exposed, for obvious reasons.”

  “Do you—does he—realize what position he’s putting Horton in if this does go south? It would bring the company down. The civil suits would bleed it dry…and there might well also be criminal charges brought. And even if it doesn’t mutate, I still think Horton would likely face legal consequences for designing GIS in the first place—I can see why he wouldn’t want that to get out.” His mouth went dry at the possibilities, and the thought of Sylvia being implicated along with Horton.

  She held her hands out as if to push his words away. “Look, I only saw something that made me want to do further investigation. It is far from certain that there is any danger at all. You’re running off into the worst-case scenario already.”

  “That’s what any good lawyer should do—especially given the magnitude of the risk this could represent on so many levels. Sylvia, I can already see the scenario playing out.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “And I don’t want you involved in it. Please. Promise me if you do find it’s likely to mutate, you’ll get the hell out of Horton Drugs and not actively promote a cover-up. You just can’t participate in anything like that, not if people could die and if Horton knows it and still won’t do what’s necessary to prevent it.”

  Sylvia lowered her head and rubbed at her temples as she took in his advice. “I wish I’d never agreed to help design the damned thing. I just got caught up in trying to save the company, and thinking I could do it without any serious risk. Really. We were careful in the genes we selected for combination, and if it doesn’t mutate, it’s all good.” She sounded on the verge of tears.

  Todd felt terrible for her, but he had to make one more point clear while they were having a productive conversation instead of an argument. “Well, even if it doesn’t mutate…think about how the story would sound if it ever came out. Horton created a pathogen so it could create and sell the cure. Even if no one died, that isn’t the height of ethical behavior. I can’t imagine that would not entail consequences on its own merits.”

  Sylvia’s face flushed red as she tried to defend herself. “We’re nearly certain Denali already did it—and with a far more dangerous pathogen.”

  He held up a hand. “I know. All the kids are doing it, so that makes it right. Horton is still making people sick so it can sell its product.”

  She sat up on the edge of her deck chair and shook an angry finger in his face. “Welcome to the real world. Don’t you realize the companies that make the anti-cholesterol meds own the big fast-food companies—under shell names, of course? And don’t you think they have a hand in the ingredients to make sure cholesterol is a big enough problem to make a market for their drug? You might as well indict the whole industry, Todd.”

  “All right, all right. Let’s not argue about that aspect now. But seriously, if this has the potential to turn dangerous, you cannot be part of the cover-up. Do you understand?”

  She slumped back down and sighed. Then she spoke in a quiet voice. “Yes. I do. I promise. If I confirm we have a problem, and Horton won’t take meaningful protective steps, I’ll resign.”

  Todd reached over and took her in his arms. “That’s it. If you do that, you’d have a decent defense and I could find a colleague to protect you from the legal shitstorm that would surely hit.” He kissed her cheek. “I love you and I just want to protect you. I don’t want to see you take the fall for Horton’s desperate acts.”

  CHAPTER 37

  “Oh God, no.” Sylvia glanced again at the Pathosym display. She prayed she had read it wrong.

  But she hadn’t.

  Jerry was at the other end of the lab, emptying the autoclave of a batch of freshly sterilized petri dishes. “What’s the matter?”

  “Finally, we have a material change in a colony, a descendant of the mating pair that we’ve exposed to Spectrocillin.” She felt sick to her stomach as she turned to face him. “Jerry, it’s become resistant.”

  He paled, then rushed over and sat beside her at the Pathosym. “What’s its disease profile?”

  “I haven’t run that yet. I just found the resistant colony. I’ll set up the test right now.”

  Jerry spoke softly, almost to himself. “It may be resistant, but if it still only causes a mild illness, it won’t be the end of the world.”

  “Let’s hope. It worries me that this colony descended from the organisms that exhibited the mating behavior.” As she spoke, she transferred a sample of the mutant bacteria to a fresh petri dish. “Of course, that is the line of organisms we suspected would be most likely to mutate, so I suppose that’s to be expected.”

  Jerry’s forehead crinkled as he considered her comment. “I’m still not certain that any mutation we get in the lab would realistically represent what would happen in the field. There are just so many more variables outside the lab that we can’t predict or mirror.” He watched her place the sample in the Pathosym slot and start the analysis. “Best we can do, though.”

  “I know. I can’t get that out of my head, either. I’m at a loss for what else we could do to emulate field conditions any better than we have, though.” She drummed her fingers on the desktop as she stared at the empty display.

  Jerry gently rested his gloved hand on hers. “The Pathosym is fast, but staring at it like that won’t make it any faster.”

  “Yeah, I suppose not.” Not sure how to read Jerry’s touch, she placed both her hands in her lap as they waited for the analysis to complete.

  They sat together in tense silence as the Pathosym did its work. Neither moved, and despite Jerry’s remark, neither of them could help but stare at the Pathosym’s display while they waited. Sylvia couldn’t have focused on anything else anyway.

  After about twenty minutes that seemed like as many hours, the Pathosym signaled with a soft chime that the analysis was complete and ready for review. Sylvia noticed a slight tremble in her hand as she touched the icon to request the results.

  Jerry let out a breath. “Here we go.”

  The display filled with a list of parameters describing the mutation’s anticipated disease profile. Sylvia took a deep breath and, despite having been so anxious to see the results, now had to force herself to look. She’d dreaded this day ever since she witnessed the mating behavior, and her recent discussion with Todd had only given her more reason to fear what she might be about to learn.

  Jerry clapped his hands to his hazmat-suited head. “I don’t know how it could possibly be worse.”

  Sylvia felt weak and hollow when she finished reading the analysis. Jerry was right. The mutant version was capable of spreading at least as—and possibly more—readily than their original GIS pathogen. It would cause a disease that would make MRSA-II look mild. It, too, would attack and eat flesh—but far faster. Worse, because of its gastric component, it would attack the digestive tract from the inside at the same time as it ate flesh from the outside. And it would do it all so quickly that even the most effective drug would have an extremely brief window in which to be administered.

  This new pathogen would be vicious. And unforgiving. And it was resistant to Spectrocillin.

  A thought occurred to her. A thought so sinister and foreign that at first she tried to brush it aside. “This is going to sound insane, but I’m going to say it anyway. I think it did it on purpose.”

  “What?”

  She turned to Jerry. “Remember when this all started, what I saw? Tho
se two that joined together. They approached each other. I remember thinking at the time that the behavior seemed almost…sentient. They very deliberately approached each other, then joined. That enabled them to redistribute the genes in a different way—a way that allowed them to mutate and become resistant to the drug. And they merged the most dangerous features of their genetic ancestors: the easy spread and gastric effects on the one hand, and the MRSA-type effects on the other.”

  “No, it can’t be. Bacteria aren’t sentient. This is just genetics and mutation coming together in a bad way. That’s all.”

  “Jerry, you did not see what I saw. It wasn’t random.”

  He waved a hand at her. “I can’t accept that. I can accept that we have a major problem on our hands here.”

  “I know what I saw.”

  Jerry looked as shaken as if he’d just witnessed a fatal accident. As well he has, she thought. He finally found his voice. “We have to talk to Phil. Now.”

  CHAPTER 38

  “What is it you want to talk about?” Phil stared at Sylvia and Jerry. They both looked like hell—pale, haggard, and agitated. This couldn’t be good. He shifted in his chair as he waited for one of them to speak.

  Jerry looked at Sylvia. “You saw it first. Go ahead.”

  Sylvia squared her shoulders, took a deep breath, and explained their findings and what the Pathosym had reported. “We wanted to let you know immediately, given the obvious implications.”

  His throat constricted as he turned to Jerry. “You’re of the same opinion, I take it?”

  “Yes. She was the first to spot it, but we both reviewed the Pathosym analysis. It’s solid. The worst possible combination of features.”

  Phil leaned back in his chair and rubbed his jaw as he searched for any possible defects in their analysis. “So this was the strain that descended from the pair you saw that merged, then split again, right?”

  “Yes.” Sylvia’s lips formed a straight, tight line.

  “Well, you know, I don’t want to downplay your hard work, but don’t you think this is the least likely scenario to be concerned about? I mean, that pairing was such an odd thing to happen in the first place, it may have been induced by something specific to the lab environment.” He leaned forward to make his point. “You know how hard it is to fully emulate field conditions. So it’s highly likely that would never occur outside the lab. The base GIS strain is behaving just fine, no mutation, no resistance to the drug, right?”

  Sylvia sat rigid in her chair. “I’ve—we’ve—thought about that as well, and you may be right, but given the Pathosym results, I don’t think we dare take the chance. If something like this did develop in the field, it would explode into an epidemic faster than anything we’ve ever seen before, with a disease that will eat flesh and digestive tracts so aggressively that even if we had a drug to combat it, it likely couldn’t even be administered in time. How can you take a chance on that?”

  Phil stood in an attempt to show his authority and take control of the situation. “You both know as well as I do what the stakes are here. You cannot guarantee this would happen in the field. I can guarantee that if we did anything proactive about this, it would involve admitting that we designed a pathogen, and you can be sure Horton Drugs would be destroyed. In no uncertain terms, and in a short amount of time.” He walked over to his window and turned his back to them. “I can’t allow that. Horton is just getting back on its feet. I can’t blow that over a scenario that is merely possible.”

  Jerry jumped up and nearly knocked over his chair. “Phil, you’re not hearing us. If this thing hits, it’ll be like nothing anyone’s ever seen before. I don’t even want to estimate the death toll.”

  Phil turned to face them again. “Test it against Denali’s Lucracillin. Mutation or not, this organism descended partly from MRSA-II. If that works, then we have a different situation entirely.”

  Jerry sat back down and ran his hand through his hair. “That’s a good idea. I was so upset with the Pathosym analysis, I didn’t think of that. We can do that right away.”

  “I have something to say first.” Sylvia stared straight ahead and gripped her chair’s arms so tightly her knuckles whitened.

  “No, not now.” Jerry grabbed her upper arm and she shook him off.

  “No, now. If you don’t believe me, fine. But I’m not keeping this to myself any longer.” She glared at Jerry, then turned to Phil. “I have a theory based on what I saw. I’m the only one who saw it, and Jerry is having trouble believing what I have to say about it.”

  Phil scowled as he took in the strange vibe between Jerry and Sylvia. He’d never seen her like this. “What is it?”

  “It’s about the source of the strain that mutated into the one we’re reporting on today. It is my opinion, based on what I personally observed, that the originating pair displayed intentional behavior when they joined together, then later split. It was a deliberate—and I think sentient—act.” She sat back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest.

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” Phil fought off an urge to roll his eyes. Had this come from anyone other than Sylvia, he would have laughed outright.

  “I saw it myself. Neither of you did. I believe it was deliberate, and it was done to shift the genetic composition to a more mutagenic form. This enabled the organism to later become resistant to Spectrocillin and to merge the most dangerous features of its predecessors together into the deadliest bacteria ever.”

  “You’re convinced of this.”

  “I am.”

  “Well, even if you were right—and I must say I’m surprised to hear something like this from you—what difference does it make? It happened in the lab, where maybe there was some condition that triggered it that would not occur out in the field. Test for sensitivity to Lucracillin and we go from there. I’m not destroying Horton Drugs over speculation.” He shook his head. “Sentient bacteria. Let me know what Lucracillin does to it. And Sylvia, maybe you need some rest.”

  Sylvia set her jaw and shot him an angry glare before storming from the room. Jerry shrugged his shoulders and left without another word.

  Phil dropped into his chair and laid his head on his desk. The sentient bacteria theory was clearly the product of an overworked mind, but what if they were right about its ability to mutate and the nature of the mutation they could expect in the field?

  He didn’t want to even try to picture a world with a pathogen like that on the loose.

  CHAPTER 39

  Hoping for the best but expecting the worst, Jerry sat in what had become his regular spot beside Sylvia in front of the Pathosym. He watched as she raised her hand to the control panel, then put it back in her lap without tapping any of the icons.

  “I’m afraid to look.”

  “So am I, but we have to know if the strain is sensitive to Denali’s drug.” He sighed. “Or not.”

  “I know.”

  Before Sylvia could protest, he reached over and tapped the control panel to request the answer from the Pathosym. “Sorry. I just have to get this over with.”

  Sylvia gasped when the results displayed.

  Jerry thought he’d braced himself for the worst, but he still felt like an unseen hand had just delivered a vicious blow to his gut when he saw the report. “Oh, God. Instead of killing it, the Lucracillin stimulates its growth. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Sylvia turned to him, her eyes wide and all color drained from her face. “You know what this means, don’t you? It designed itself to create the maximum possible damage.”

  “I don’t believe it’s done any of this intentionally, but if that were possible, it couldn’t have done it any better.” Jerry tore his gaze away from the Pathosym as the greater implications of the test results struck him. “This strain would produce symptoms to mimic MRSA-II—only worse—and so doctors would almost certainly prescribe Lucracillin to combat it, at least initially.”

  She slapped the counter. “Yeah, and t
hat’s just what it wants. It would trick them into giving it exactly what it needs to strengthen and multiply like mad. And spread like nothing we’ve ever seen.”

  Jerry didn’t accept her irrational attribution of sentience to the damned thing, but the end result was the same, whether by design or by chance. The mutant strain was perfectly set up to create a public health disaster of epic proportion.

  “We’ve got to figure out a way to head this thing off.”

  “Without a drug that’s effective against it, I can’t think of anything we can do other than order quarantine for victims of the version we—I—put out there.” She stared into her lap. “But we’ve already been down that road with Phil.”

  “Maybe he’ll be more open to it now that we know Lucracillin’s effect. Or not. Beyond the fallout for Horton Drugs, a call for quarantine might cause a widespread panic throughout the nation and beyond.” He thought for a moment. “You know, quarantining GIS victims wouldn’t be enough anyway. What if someone comes down with this version in the field, not the original GIS? It would be diagnosed as MRSA-II or close enough, and the obvious choice would be to administer Lucracillin. And the thing would be off to the races.”

  “My God, you’re right. What are we going to do?”

  “We’d damned well better find what it is sensitive to and develop a drug. And faster than we’ve ever done it before.”

  Sylvia’s head sagged. “I don’t think it’s possible.”

  He grabbed her shoulder and shook it. “It had better be possible. And we’d better do it. We’ll run that Pathosym day and night until we do.”

  CHAPTER 40