The Rise of Walsanto (Genetic Apocalypse Book 3)

by Boyd Craven Jr

  “We’re more sure of the front end, than the back end, but even if we’re wrong by a whole year, what’s it matter? Rusty, I’m going to email you this as soon as we’re done talking. You have to convince President James what the consequences of doing nothing are.”

  “I’ll get it to him first thing in the morning, I promise. I already have a meeting on the books. Don’t hold your breath though. He’s been sounding more and more like the ‘third way’ to me lately. You guys keep working on the reversal. I’ll see what our options are.”

  Tears ran down both of Hanna’s cheeks after hearing that said. She sat down hard wondering, ‘How can that bastard President James even consider such a thing?’

  42

  Grand Blanc, MI

  Tues, June 15, 2021

  Genesys Regional Medical Center

  “Terry,” screamed Cathy from the bathroom with panic in her voice. “Something’s wrong, I need you. My water just broke and made a mess of me.”

  “It broke already? That’s not normal is it?” he asked as he ran to the bathroom. “We’d better get you to the hospital.”

  Terry helped Cathy to the car and raced to the hospital ten minutes away. He took her to the maternity entrance and left the car keys with the valet parking person. At first glance, the personnel had Cathy in a wheelchair and headed her into a birthing room, while Terry followed a couple of steps behind. Almost immediately he was told to have a seat while they assessed Cathy’s condition.

  “She’s going to need to have an emergency cesarean Mr. Edan,” the nurse whispered to Terry after just a few moments. “You need to go out to the first waiting room and wait, while we get a few things taken care of for her.”

  “But she’s not due until August 1,” Terry told the nurse.

  “I don’t know about that Mr. Edan. All I can tell you is that she is going to have a baby here in just a few minutes,” she said with a smile intended to be reassuring.

  Terry sat down feeling very confused. A long hour later, a doctor that Terry had never seen before motioned for him to follow him to one of the little conference rooms for privacy.

  “Is Cathy alright?” Terry blurted out before the door was even closed.

  “Yes, yes, she’ll be fine. I’m Doctor Cho. We didn’t have time to wait for Cathy’s regular doctor today. That baby decided that it was time to join the rest of the world! Physically, everything went just as expected with the C-section. Mrs. Edan is quite upset with a skin condition that the child has, and that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, before you go in to see her...”

  “Our child is GREEN, Terry,” Cathy practically shouted as he entered the room, making him wince a little at the shrillness of her voice. Obviously Cathy was upset. Terry was trying his best to stay calm for her sake. Doctor Cho had said to treat her with kid gloves. This whole thing seemed like a bad dream. Seeing the child had just about sent her over the edge. Terry understood. Cathy was right. The child was sort of a gray/green color. Like those chickens on TV. His skin was beautifully smooth. Even so, the smoothness of it seemed unnatural.

  “Cathy, the doctors are looking into it. They said that he is healthy and that’s the main thing. Let’s just concentrate on that right now.”

  The days that followed included parades of specialists of every sort. Dermatologists and special pediatricians and doctors whose titles Terry and Cathy couldn't pronounce, all looking at their baby.

  Dr. Cho came to talk to Terry and Cathy after several different doctors had examined the child.

  "Your baby was born at 30 weeks gestation and should have needed a lot of extra care as that premature of a baby, but he weighed eight and a half pounds and had none of the issues we might have expected. He was essentially a full term baby. I even reviewed your obstetrics records and ultrasounds during your pregnancy to make sure you had your due date figured correctly.

  Mr. and Mrs. Edan, that is not the most unusual thing, though. Most babies lose a few ounces while they are in the hospital, going home at less than their birth weight. This is very normal. It is rare to see anything else. Of the very small percentages that don’t lose weight, they either hold steady or gain an ounce at the very most. That is very, very rare. Your son has gained weight steadily since his birth. I personally have never seen a newborn grow as fast as Scott is.

  We have tested him for everything we can think of and we are waiting for some further test results to come back. We can find nothing wrong with him at this point, only his unusual weight gain and his dermatological condition. He appears to be very, very healthy. I was just observing him in the nursery and he has already begun holding his head up and trying to roll over. That is extremely rare for a newborn as well. He seems very strong. We are going to move him in here with you in a few minutes.”

  I have a forensic geneticist flying in tomorrow from Clemson University in South Carolina to take a look at him, but from all we have been able to determine; your son is quite healthy. I want you to know that we’re doing everything we can to figure out his skin condition. At first we thought that the smoothness of the skin was from a condition called alopecia areata. That is where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks its hair follicles, treating them as foreign, damaging and degrading them, but not permanently destroying them. Upon further observation however, we have discovered that Scott has a total absence of hair follicles over 100% of his body. We don’t know if that is a permanent condition, or a temporary one. The other thing is; he has no friction ridges on the skin of his hands or feet, more commonly known as finger-prints. The woman coming tomorrow should be able to tell us more about this, we hope.”

  A few moments after Dr. Cho left, a nurse wheeled little Scott into the room. Another brought in a bunch of supplies. The first nurse put Scott in Cathy's arms. The baby cooed happily.

  "He may be green Terry, but he's the most beautiful baby I've ever seen."

  Terry needed a break. As he was leaving the room for a moment, he overheard two nurses talking quietly at the nurse’s station across the hall, “Everyone is thinking it, but I’m not afraid to say it. That baby looks just like those dead terrorists that were on TV a couple of years ago. Whatever was wrong with them must be what’s wrong with him. I wish they’d hurry up and get him out of here, in case it’s contagious or something.”

  “It’s not contagious,” Terry said, as he walked past them. The second nurse gave a nasty look to the one who had been talking; probably worried that she’d gotten them both into trouble. “This is just the beginning of that crap,” he said, absently to himself as he walked down the corridor. On the one hand, he was a proud father, on the other hand, he felt kicked in the gut.

  ~

  President James, at the White House and Rusty Whitman, in his home office both saw reports of this birth from the hospital to the CDC. Both of them had their own private, ‘Oh shit’ moments. Both had the same mental image of old Harvey Winters holding those two damned gray/green chickens under his arms in Saluda County, SC on TV not so long ago.

  A note from Boyd:

  Please consider writing a review at Amazon. Thoughtful, honest critiques and hopefully positive reviews really help us grow as Indi-authors, and highlight all of our hard work. And hey, they help us sell books too!

  I have a Facebook author page, if you’d like to contact me for any reason, or just talk about this Genetic Apocalypse “world” and where it’s headed, at Author Boyd Craven Jr

  If you’d like to get email notices when new releases become available (I promise not to spam you)

  click here.

 

 

 
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