Rachel was nowhere to be seen. Though she and I never really spoke, I felt a weird kind of closeness to her. She was the only person I recognized from pre-Awakening days. Granted, I only saw her at local bars and clubs. Rachel was far too pretty for a guy like me to approach, and she always had her own clique of friends around her. But still, there was a one sided bond I’m sure that she never knew was there.
We continued marching to the main hall, both of us ignoring the stares that were directed at Fish.
We were early, and were able to get our dinner before the rest of the people showed up. It was soup, as usual. The brighter minds at Camp Holly thought soup was the best thing for everyone. Soup and bread, that is. I didn’t agree. I would have loved a good steak or pork chop.
The few vegetables we had from our garden mixed with the various meats we would get from hunts were dumped into pots of water with various spices. Evidently, you lost hardly any nutrients when everything was cooked in water, because it was contained within the soup.
There were still quite a few large bags of flour for bread in our stores as well. We were to the point where over half of our food was produced by us. The goal was to be one hundred percent self-sufficient.
Fish and I were halfway done with our dinner when the leaders of Camp Holly, along with three of the people we rescued, entered the room.
Everyone had a portion of food with them as they sat down. Two tables were pushed together to make a large square.
Fish and I sat next to each other. On my right was DJ. Across from us sat Major Dobson, the woman and the man with glasses. The three had cleaned up well. The Major had a handsome face now that it was shaven. The man with glasses shaved his face as well and had groomed his hair. I took him for the quirky type. He reminded me of Ned Flanders.
The woman’s hair was still an unkempt mess, with tangled brown and grey curls hanging far past her shoulders. Her face was pretty, but aged. I guessed her to be in her late forties or early fifties.
On the left side of the table sat Captain Campbell, Specialist Gardner and Barry, our local City Councilmen. On the right side of the table sat Kat who was in charge of all things logistic, and Preacher, our denizen engineer and the brains behind our energy generation.
The only one missing from the meeting was Rich Marino, our resident medical professional. Rich had over thirty years’ experience in multiple fields. We were very happy with his medical expertise. I had a feeling he was still working on Pitman, which would account for his absence.
With the exception of Campbell and Barry exchanging whispers, everyone else ate silently for quite some time. I could tell people wanted to ask questions, but since Campbell hadn’t ‘opened the floor’, per se, no one spoke up.
“Captain,” Dobson said, breaking the silence, “I’d like to see Sergeant Pitman as soon as possible.”
Campbell looked up at Dobson thoughtfully. “Rich should be here soon with his diagnosis. Until then, Sergeant Pitman is quarantined. I can’t have whatever he has going around the camp.”
Dobson appeared as if he was about to argue with Campbell, but DJ beat him to it.
“I’d like to know why we lost one of our best men to save your asses, Major,” the big man growled.
“XO…” Campbell said, raising a hand.
“Don’t XO me, sir. I think we’re all entitled to some answers,” DJ snapped, then softened his face. “Sorry sir, but I’ve been stewing for an hour now, waiting to hear what’s so damn important about these yahoos.”
“XO—” Campbell began again, but Fish cut him off.
“He’s right sir. The Major needs to speak up.” Fish’s face was ice cold.
“Your people need to learn some respect, Captain,” Major Dobson said, anger creeping up in his throat. “I understand DJ is a civilian, but you,” he said, pointing a finger at Fish, “are a Master Sergeant. You should know better.”
“First, Major,” Fish mocked, “DJ is a Marine. Second, there ain’t enough distance between us for you to stop me from shoving that finger up your ass.”
“Enough!” Campbell shouted, mainly looking at Dobson. I was impressed to hear that coming from him. He was usually soft spoken.
“Excuse me?” Dobson asked Campbell.
“Sir,” the Captain said, ignoring the glare Dobson was giving him, “they have a point. Tell them what you told me. What mission you were on, where you came from, and why you’re here.”
Dobson hesitated, though I’m not sure if it was because he didn’t want to tell his tale, or because the Captain just gave him an order.
“Major, it’s not like security clearances really matter anymore. These people did save us,” the man in glasses said. He turned to face everyone surrounding the table. “My name is Tom Ferguson. This is Doctor Julia Tripp,” he said, motioning to the woman sitting between him and the Major.
“Wait, I thought you were the Doctor,” Fish said.
“Umm, no. I’m just a civilian contractor. I was on the USS Porter, a Naval Destroyer, when the world went crazy.”
Fish rolled his eyes. He and Doctor Tripp didn’t exactly get off to a good start.
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, Sergeant,” Doctor Tripp said snidely.
“Heh,” Fish grunted, “not disappointed, Doc, you just didn’t seem the doctor type.”
“Doctor Tripp is the leading expert for this virus, Master Sergeant,” Major Dobson said coldly, “you would do well to show her the proper respect.”
Fish scowled. “Well, excuse me Major Dumbass if I don’t stand and bow—”
Dobson seemed about to get up, but Campbell surprised everyone again.
“Major! Fish! Everyone!” Captain Campbell roared as he stood. The room went silent.
Dobson settled his tall frame back into his chair, though his glare never left Fish. The old sniper didn’t waver either, revealing a tiny smirk that said ‘bring it on’ to the Major.
Campbell eyed everyone in the circle, and then settled on Doctor Tripp.
“Doctor, if you would please tell your story. I for one would like to hear your version.” Campbell slowly lowered himself back into his chair.
Just then, Rich walked into the room.
“Don’t mind me,” he said.
“Pitman?” Dobson asked.
“He’s stable. Please, go on with the meeting.” Rich said evenly. Rich was the calm and collective sort. His eyes were always watching everything and everyone, evaluating. He was the type of guy that liked to suck everything in and come up with a diagnosis.
“Doctor, please?” Campbell pressed the scientist.
Doctor Tripp nodded and suddenly appeared nervous. I had a feeling she wasn’t use to being the center of attention. It wasn’t exactly intimidation, as much as being put on the spot.
She cleared her throat and began. “Like Tom said, my name is Doctor Julia Tripp. I’m a Virologist with the Center for Disease Control or, CDC, as I’m sure you have heard it called.”
“You mind not talking to us like we’re idiots?” Fish grumbled.
“Fish…” Campbell cautioned.
Fish rolled his eyes, but stayed silent.
Doctor Tripp seemed to wait impatiently, and continued as soon as she felt she had everyone’s attention again.
“I first noticed the virus back in February. I was surprised when it came across my desk. You see, my specialty is rare and extinct viruses. Sometimes, in order to understand the present state of a pathogen, you have to know its past. And that was the surprising thing about this particular variant when compared to its predecessor.”
“I don’t mean to interrupt, Doctor, but you said February?” Barry asked. “I thought people didn’t start getting sick until March.”
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 b
ody. 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 Feder
ation. 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.
The Hunt Chronicles (Book 2): Revelation Page 21
