by John Ringo
“The Pasteur method is the simplest production method in the world,” Dr. Svengar pointed out.
“Ah, and that is the second problem,” Jardin said. “We have tried infecting various organisms with the blood pathogen. The only organisms that will host it are higher order primates.”
“We had noted that as well…” Dobson said, grimacing.
“This is very bad,” Dr. Bao said, quietly. “That is… A great misfortune.”
“Potassium…!” Tim blurted.
“Excuse me?” Dr. Dobson said, looking at the younger man and hitting the button for priority.
“Potassium transfer!” Shull said, excitedly. “I… I didn’t have a lot of lab materials to work with and I was using a medium high in potassium at first. Even though I knew I was on the right track I couldn’t get a dual expression. I ran out of the high potassium medium and had to change to a…a cheaper one. That one I could get dual expression! I realized later that dual expression is inhibited by potassium! I never thought to mention it in… I think you can… We might be able to reduce the likelihood of dualistic expression… Maybe. I mean…”
“It’s something to try,” Dr. Dobson said, nodding. “Thank you, young man.”
“Anything,” Tim said, his face working. “I mean… This really… I’m sorry, Doctors, but I have to say it, this pisses me OFF. I feel like I’ve been raped. You know?”
“We’ll begin immediate experiments on potassium inhibition,” Dr. Svengar said. “As well as continuing work on vaccines. And, yes, to have your life’s great work used in this way… You have my sympathies, young man.”
“I think we all feel a bit raped by this,” Dr. Addis said.
* * *
“Progression of secondary expression is reduced by potassium,” Dr. Karza said, looking at the printout.
“So it helps?” Shull asked, looking at the paper over the doctor’s shoulder.
“Unfortunately, only in a test tube,” Karza said with a sigh. “The levels of potassium that stop expression in a human would be terminal. However, it slows expression at lower levels. That is useable.”
“This organism is much more complex than just a dual expressor,” Shull said, looking at the reports from groups studying the “zombie virus” all over the world. Different groups had taken different parts of the virus to study and the total take was being analyzed by CDC, Pasteur and a series of other teams in various countries. “It only has 30% rabies RNA in the secondary expressor virus. Has anyone looked at, well, other people who are sort of off the radar map working on this sort of stuff?”
“What do you mean?” Dr. Karza asked.
“Whoever did this stole my process,” Shull said, frowning. “Has anyone done any digging in the amateur field to see if any of this stuff is from their work?”
“You jumped out as a dual expressor pioneer,” Karza said, thoughtfully. “Do you have an example?”
“This,” Shull said, pulling out a report and pointing to a series of gene sequences. “This looks a lot like Jaime Fondor’s work. She’s working on plant resistance and works with clavaviridae. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her use similar sequences. It would help if I could shoot this over to her. She may know something useful.”
“How do you recognize it?”
For a change the FBI agent assigned had been just quietly staying out the way and not looming menacingly. Karza understood their passion for the case but their attitude really did not help the way that most bio geeks worked.
“I…” Shull said, looking up nervously.
“There are…signatures,” Karza said. “There are usually several ways to work out a genetic puzzle. In this case, I think what he’s saying is that this looks like this Miz Fondor’s signature.”
“Hey, hey, hey,” Tim said, holding up his hands. “She’s not a suspect! Jaime would never do something like this!”
“But you’re saying that is her signature?” the agent said.
“No,” Karza said. “Or most likely not. It’s similar. Someone has been looking not only as professional synbio but also closely studying amateur synbio.”
“And that’s important,” the agent said, frowning. “Here’s the thing. You guys get bio. I don’t. Or barely, which is why I’m in this lab. What we get is investigation. What you’re saying is that the unsub has been monitoring information in the amateur synbio stream. That means they’re probably members of synbio boards. You have those, right?”
“Yes,” Tim said nervously.
“And you’re saying that there are signatures to this thing,” the agent said, getting animated. “We love signatures. If we can get an algorithm for the overall virus, then we can build a database to compare posted genes or whatever and look for similar signatures… If somebody has ever posted on one of those boards, we’ll find them.”
“The point being that he’s copying other people’s methods and signatures,” Dr. Karza pointed out. “Which means you’re going to be terrifying a lot of innocent people. Innocent people who don’t work well terrified.”
“We’ll contact this Miz Fondor,” the agent said. “Bring her in as a material witness. Nicely, okay?”
“Can you control that?” Karza said.
“Just let us handle it. We can be polite. In the meantime, yes. Shull, you’re familiar with these people’s work. Keep looking for signatures. The more ‘suppliers’ we have the better we can build a profile. What boards the unsub frequents. Whose methods he’s been copying. It would be good if we could build an algorithm for that. Is there anything like that already?”
“So you want me to burn the only friends I have in the world?” Tim said angrily. “You’re all ready to go bust down Jaime’s door and you want me to do that to how many people?”
“I’ll send up that these people are probably innocent of any wrong doing,” the agent said. “But, Tim, keep in mind. While you’re worrying about hurting your friends’ feelings, the world is going to hell in a handbasket.”
“Point,” Dr. Karza said. “Tim, do you have any personal contact information for Jaime Fondor…?”
* * *
“Dr. Curry,” Bateman said, drily. “Thank you so much for joining us…”
The “meeting” was taking place by video conference. At least in Curry’s case. The boardroom the rest were meeting in was five floors up and a few suites over from Curry’s lab. But since he’d been given it he hadn’t left. And he didn’t intend to any time soon.
“As you might have heard on the news, the kid who figured out dual expression has been ‘cooperating’ with the CDC,” Curry said. “I’ll take an agnostic position on whether he has anything to do, directly, with the virus. He’s being helpful, he was just in a video conference with the WHO and others and not only pointed out some helpful stuff but a possible… Call it an ameliorative. Not a cure but something that might help. Again, might. Thing is he’s a little too pat or I’m a little too cynical. Doesn’t matter. The first news, well ahead of the news as it were, is potassium may inhibit the secondary neurological packet’s expression. Sort of. Bottomline is we all might want to start taking potassium supplements. Which people can OD on by the way. Too much potassium will kill you as dead as too much. But as long as the dosage isn’t too high, I’d recommend them.”
“That’s good news,” Bateman said, looking at Tom.
“I’ll get that promulgated through our medical personnel,” Tom said, composing a note on his iPhone.
“Then we get to vaccine,” Dr. Curry said. “Turns out this is one hell of a virus. I’m not going to totally bio geek out but not only does it express two viruses with one packet, it expresses two viruses so different they’re night and day. Just to give you the short version: Influenza is a DNA virus. It has a full DNA packet and is a fairly complicated virus. The neurological, blood-pathogen, packet is an RNA virus. RNA is, sort of, half of a DNA strand. And RNA viruses are so different from DNA viruses there are some pretty good theories that they come from two entire
ly different evolutionary processes. They might as well be alien lifeforms to each other. And, somehow, the mad bastard who created this thing got both to express from a single pathogen. Brilliant. And very problematic for the vaccine.
“The CDC, Hong Kong and Pasteur have all produced detailed directions for their experimental vaccines. You don’t want them yet. They are really experimental. Like ‘trial and error’ experimental. With lots of error. They’ve already mapped out a vaccine for the airborne packet. But producing influenza vaccine is…complicated. And it takes time. And I can’t do it in this lab even if we had the design. What I can do, if it works out, is the blood pathogen vaccine. Once they work out the bugs.”
“What are the differences?” Bateman asked. “And what are the risks?”
“Well the risks right now are high,” Curry said, chuckling. “They had some of their lab rats catch the bug. Which is the ‘error’ part. But they’ll work it out. Then the real problems come. However…I’m going to have to explain how this vaccine is going to be made, in general. Cause I’m going to need some more equipment.”
“Which is?” Bateman asked. “I thought you had everything you needed?”
“I have everything you’d have in a regular laboratory,” Curry said, nodding. “For its size, even a well equipped one. What I don’t have is what you’d use to produce a vaccine. For that I’m going to have to lecture. Ahem… Vaccination One-Oh-One:
“Various ways of innoculating people against smallpox date back to ancient China and India. But the way they did it was pretty damned dangerous and was just as likely to give you the disease. There’s lots of bits in the middle but Edward Jenner figured out a way to use cowpox to vaccinate and that was what really started modern vaccine methods.
“It was Louis Pasteur that figured out that there were ways to ‘weaken’ pathogens, what’s called ‘attenuation’ and then use those weakened pathogens as a vaccine. The first one was a mistake with chicken cholera but it lead to all his other successful vaccines. The way he did it, exactly, isn’t important because it’s been superseded by other methods. Modern vaccines are produced in a number of ways. Very few of them use attenuation any more. But it’s still the fastest way to make vaccine. And they’re pretty sure that this pathogen can be prevented with an attenuation vaccine.”
“Why did they stop using it?” Bateman asked.
“Problems,” Dr. Curry said, waggling his hand from side to side. “Issues. Lawsuits. Immunology One-Oh-One. Your immune system’s a lot more complex than it’s explained in high school but the basics work for this. Antibodies identify pathogens and bind to them. That signals other immunobodies to attack and destroy them. However, the antibodies are originally produced because immune cells have detected that there are pathogens in the body. So you’ve got to be infected, first. And if you’ve got a good immune system and all’s well, you shake it off after a bit. If you don’t have a good immune system or the pathogen’s really nasty, well, you die.
“So…an attenuated vaccine is damaged bits of a pathogen. Just enough to tell the body ‘hey, you’ve got an infection! And it looks like this!’ without actually infecting you. The…issues are two-fold. More. The first is that if the vaccine isn’t strong enough your body doesn’t get a good enough look at the pathogen and when you do get hit with it you’re not really prepared. And then you die. Or, the vaccine is too strong, has too much of the pathogen left, and you get the disease and you die. Or you’re allergic to the materials in vaccine and you die. Or get really sick. Or there’s a scare story on TV. Or people blame their child’s autism on vaccines. Or…whatever. And in all those cases lawyers get involved and there’s a big lawsuit…”
“Which of those do we have to worry about?” Bateman asked.
“I dunno,” Curry said, shrugging. “Is Dr. Depene getting the vaccine? There’s a guy with so many risk factors, medical and psychological, the answer is all of them.”
“Thanks so much,” Depene said.
“If the recipe is right and I’m making the vaccine… There’s still a small risk that someone may get the disease instead of be protected from it. Half a percent? And to do it I need a radiation generator. That’s the big difference between Pasteur vaccines and modern attenuated. You can be much more precise in your attenuation, not to mention take less time, with irradiation…”
“Well no wonder nobody trusts it!” Depene said. “You’re not going to inject radioactive vaccine in me!”
“As I said,” Dr. Curry said, shaking his head. “Psychological risk factor, which, in and of itself, can cause hypocondriatic reactions. The vaccine isn’t radioactive, you dope. You shoot it with radiation which goes right through. It kills the RNA of the virus. There’s no residual radiation. What I’ll be using, to give you an example, is a dentist’s X-ray machine. Ever had your teeth X-rayed? One of the newer cesium source models is more or less vital. Which you’d better get your hands on fast or they’ll be all snatched up by the time you go shopping.”
“And this will work as a vaccine?” Bateman asked.
“Against the neurological packet,” Curry said, nodding. “It should. The other problem is that it’s going to take nearly two weeks to be close to ‘sure.’ Not ‘this is EPA approved and has been through all testing.’ Sure as in ‘This probably won’t kill you and probably will stop the disease.’ That’s the real problem. To get either one distributed will require all sorts of approvals. And then there’s…other problems. But once it’s through the most basic checks, I’ll start producing. And I’ll be the first one to take it, for what that’s worth to Dr. Depene. Oh, and it’s going to take a primer shot and a booster and you won’t really be covered until you’ve had the booster. And you can’t have the booster until a week after you’ve had the primer. So… We’re fighting the clock, the spread of the disease and the development and production of the vaccine. It’s going to be close. For us. For the world? I don’t give us a shot in hell.”
“Is there anything else critical?” Bateman asked.
“Not that you can’t get on the TV,” Curry said. “But you need to get that X-ray machine. And it will require some installation. Radiation shielding among other things. But that’s details I can go over with Mr. Smith. Until the vaccine is somewhat cleared, we’re in a holding pattern.”
“Very well,” Bateman said, nodding. “Thank you, again, for your assistance in this, Dr. Curry.”
“Just make sure the check clears,” Curry said, chuckling.
“Break this down,” Bateman said.
CHAPTER 7
“The Center for Disease Control and the World Health Organization are assembling an unprecedented group of both professional and amateur synthetic biologists in a desperate search for a cure to the ongoing pandemic…”
“The FBI is searching for a white or Hispanic male in his early twenties believed to have last been seen in the Miami area in regards to the deliberate spread of the Pacific Flu Virus…”
“With the Pacific Flu wide-spread throughout the Pacific Rim, science reporter Timothy Karl has this report on Chinese authorities battle against this deadly disease…”
“Finally some good news as the World Health Organization last night reported a breakthrough in curing the Pacific Flu pandemic…”
“Any idea what he wants?” Bateman asked. All that he knew was that Curry had asked for a meeting. Given that the WHO had announced a “breakthrough” in vaccine yesterday, he’d been expecting the call earlier.
“No, sir,” Tom said. He’d called Curry last night as soon as he got the word. Curry had been tight-lipped and just asked for a meeting the following afternoon.
“Dr. Curry,” Bateman said into the screen. “Still holed up I see.”
“Yes, sir,” Curry said, licking his lips.
“We’re all agog on how you’re going to save us,” Bateman said. “I’d expected the call earlier.”
“Are we secure, Mr. Smith?” Curry said, temporizing.
“We are,”
Tom said, curiously. “It’s only the three of us.”
“I’ll have to trust that,” Curry said nervously. “When I covered all the stuff about attenuation in the previous meeting there was a reason: The WHO was kind of ahead of itself on announcing a vaccine.”
“So you can’t make a vaccine?” Bateman said, sitting back, his face hard. “That’s not good news.”
“Just…” Curry said. “Let me get there. There is a vaccine. It’s just a matter of a sort of big logistics issue. The primary vaccine method has been known the whole time. We can do a flu vaccine, given time, in our sleep. But the flu, itself, is besides the point at this point. We need a vaccine for the secondary expressor. We could build a protein sequence mimicking the binding sites for that. They’re working on it. And it will take another two months, minimum. Then there’s certifications.”
“Doctor, we don’t have two months,” Tom said. “I’m not sure we have two weeks at the rate this is spreading.”
“I’m getting there…” Curry said.
“I need an answer, Doctor,” Bateman said.
“You want me to take this slow,” Curry said. “The secondary expressor turns out to be a lot like rabies. It’s definitely based upon it. About thirty percent of the same RNA, similar protein coat… It infects nerve cells. Primarily central nervous system. The spinal cord and brain. That’s…where you find the…face it the zombie virus.”
“Understood,” Bateman said. “And the attenuation vaccine. I think you mentioned lab rats. We got you quite a few. I suppose we can find some of the virus…” he said, looking at Smith.
“I’m sure…” Tom started to say.
“I asked for them assuming that I could work with them,” Curry said, grimacing. “They’re…basically just eating up rat food. Although you should probably get some rabbits or monkeys to use as cover… The thing is… Pasteur and CDC have both confirmed that this pathogen only affects higher order primates. That’s the only source of the virus bodies to attenuate.”
