Their story had been pretty much the same the last few days. Every morning, they targeted a city that was still uninfected and allowed newcomers, most recently Minneapolis. Every day thousands of other runners had the same idea, and once they reached the city it had either blocked entrance or its people were fleeing in panic, fearing the presence of the infection, sometimes based on nothing but a rumor.
This morning they changed tactics. They were headed northwest, to an area about which there was very little information. They were hoping to pick up some local radio broadcast with status reports and, if they were lucky, find a place to settle down.
Mike turned sharply and spotted a van parked on the side of the road about hundred yards ahead. He initiated the procedure that had become standard for contact between runners.
He stopped the car and honked his horn three times. The blare of the van’s horn also sounded three times. A man exited the other vehicle, advanced to the midpoint between their cars and placed a cushion test on the ground. After the man had returned to his van, Mike walked up to the rapid test, inserted the swab in his nose, took it out and waited for the indicator to turn green, evidence that a sufficient sample had been collected.
He put down the test and also one of his own, marking it with a purple magic marker.
After Mike had gone back his SUV, the other man walked up to the midpoint, inspected Mike’s test and yelled back to his family, “He’s clean.”
Mike then performed the same ritual, and once he had established that the person on the other side was clean, they met at the midpoint between their cars.
“I’m Alistair,” said the man.
“I’m Mike.”
“What do you have?”
“We have gasoline.”
“Great, we could really use that.”
“What do you have?”
“No physical items, but something else you might be interested in.”
“What?”
“We picked up a shortwave radio transmission giving the location of a survivalist camp in Montana which is taking all comers. Since it was on shortwave, we think there is a good chance that not many people know about it yet. If you provide us with gas, and we lead the way, maybe we can finally find a way out of this mess together.”
Mike thought for a minute before answering, “Done. Come over with your car and we’ll fill you up.”
AUGUST 27TH, DINNERTIME, KENSINGTON SQUARE, LONDON
The streets were completely deserted. Aeolus had only seen a handful of people on the way in from the airport.
“Leonard,” said Aeolus, leaning toward his chauffeur. “I’m surprised you haven’t left the city like everyone else.”
“Sir, I am old. This is my home. Where would I go? Also, I’ve not fallen ill. I must be one of the people who don’t get affected.”
“I’m glad you’re here. As you know, I’m not a particularly good driver. I’ll just pop in to fetch some things. Then we’re off to the Reform Club.”
“As you wish, sir.”
Back in the car, Aeolus called Jitsuko.
“Yes, Mr. Hughes, what can I do for you today?”
“Jitsuko, have you left San Francisco yet?”
“No, Mr. Hughes, I have a job to do, and I’m not planning on retiring anytime soon.”
“In fact, Jitsuko, you are. I’m relieving you. I’m relieving all three of you.”
“I’ve arranged pensions for all of you. They’re in the form of gold held at HSBC in Singapore at the Raffle’s Place branch. Furthermore, I have arranged with Dr. Chen-Ung Loo to let you land in Singapore. You’ll have to be processed and if you’re clean, they’ll let you in. If not, you’ll be given the best medical care possible. It’s probably the safest place on Earth right now. You’re to leave straight away.”
“Why, Mr. Hughes?”
“Jitsuko, I have resigned from the WHO, and I don’t require your services anymore.”
“Mr. Hughes, you know we can’t leave you. You wouldn’t survive a day.”
“I’m not planning on surviving.”
“I am sorry, Mr. Hughes, but I’m going to stay at my post.”
“Don’t argue! You’re going. End of discussion.” Aeolus had never raised his voice at any of his secretaries before. It had its intended effect.
“Ryokai!” she said and hung up.
Five minutes later, he arrived at the club. The club was still open and Angie, the maître d’, met him with a gentle bow and her usual smile.
“Dr. Hughes, glad to see you again.”
“I’m surprised you’re still open, Angie.”
“We didn’t close during the war. In fact, we have never closed. We are not going to let a simple flu stop us. We are a home away from home. And homes don’t close.”
Aeolus bestowed a smile of gratitude on her. “Well, I’m glad to hear that. Anyone around?”
“Relatively empty, sir. We have only a reciprocal member here tonight. It is…”
“Aeolus! Finally some company!”
The voice was that of Jean-Pierre. Aeolus couldn’t believe it. Out of all the people and all the gin joints in the world, here he was, the last person on earth Aeolus wanted to see.
“Are you joining me for dinner?” asked Jean-Pierre.
“I might, but first I’m going to the library.”
In spite of Jean-Pierre’s lack of tact and manners, even he respected the rule that the library was a place of complete silence.
“I see, Aeolus, I hope I will see you at the bar later.”
“Yes, my dear Jean-Pierre, I will make sure of it. Nothing but sudden death would keep me from it.”
On his way to the library, Aeolus passed the old clock. It struck eight with deep reverberating chimes. He cast a glance at his Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar to check the date. His mouth curved in a brief smile. Eighty days. What irony.
As he sunk into one of the library’s well-worn green leather armchairs, he removed a black leather pouch from his inner pocket. He took out the syringe – not a modern plastic one, but a vintage model made of glass and metal. He held it with the needle up and tapped it to make the air bubbles flow to the top. The syringe was filled with twice the lethal dose of fentanyl, or China White as it was sometimes referred to among street dealers.
It was broadly agreed in the medical community that an overdose of opiates was the most pleasurable way to die. Of course, no one really knew. Obviously, there was no one who had died from it who had returned to tell their story.
He had dedicated his entire life to preparing for a global pandemic. That had been his entire purpose of being. He had failed. Now there was nothing left for him. The world would rise again, but it wouldn’t be his world.
He took out his phone and put the ear-buds in his ears. He surprised himself by choosing Mozart’s Requiem. As the first tones of the Introitus came on, he realized that it was not as awful as he’d previously judged it to be. It was beautiful. Incredibly so. It just needed the right moment, and this was that moment.
As the drug traveled through his blood to his brain, a pleasurable warmth spread throughout his body. He was completely relaxed. He felt his breath slowing and his mind drifting. Had there been other members in the library, they would have been surprised to hear Aeolus break a club rule as he, as his last conscious act, mumbled quietly in Swedish: “Mother, I’m coming home.”
PHOENIX
ORTUS
(Phoenix rising)
EPILOGUE
It got worse before it got better. A lot worse. Still, it never became quite as bad as Aeolus had predicted.
Three weeks after Aeolus’s death, the rapid test was perfected in Jakarta.
Under Hank’s leadership, a globally coordinated production effort on a magnitude never before seen was launched.
As time passed, more and more people came out on the other side of the infection. They were now immune to its effects. These people were identified, catalogued and put to work. They were the ones
who could traverse both worlds. They brought supplies to the quarantined zones, and they provided relief to the infected.
Four months later, the Dutch doctor Jan Lukschandl restored his tarnished reputation by being the first to synthesize an inactivated vaccine. Shortly thereafter, a small Russian team completed an attenuated variant as a complement. One after the other, the uninfected cities were immunized and the quarantines lifted.
The infection never reached Japan, Singapore, New Zealand, Cuba, or the North Eastern Seaboard of the United States. Fifteen cities in Europe and Russia were also saved.
Still the death toll was unprecedented. Eight hundred million people lost their lives. No event throughout the history of man had caused as many casualties.
Worse, an estimated 500 million children were now without parents.
Naturally, the hardest hit were the countries in the developing world. They were the last to receive the quick-test. They were the last to be given the vaccines. And theirs was the societal infrastructure least able to cope with the situation. Apart from some remote areas in sub-Saharan Africa and the mountain regions of Chile, no place was spared.
Hank continued on as the Director-General of the WHO for two years. During that period, the system of global response to infections was completely overhauled. All national disease control authorities were put under the WHO’s command. They were funded by the UN budget and not by the nations in which they were located. A rapid reaction force of thirty thousand troops, specially trained in enforcing quarantines through non-lethal means, was established. It could be called into service with forty-eight hours’ notice, and would, in such a case, be put under the direct command of the WHO.
When Hank retired, a man completely unknown to the medical community took over Hank’s role as the global czar for disease control. His name was Boris Yevchenko.
Hank’s last act as WHO head was to raise a six-foot tall, polished black granite monolith outside the head office in Geneva.
It had the profiles of three faces carved into it and the dedication read:
“To those who led us in our greatest battle; who shouldered the onerous responsibility of protecting humanity against nature’s wrath; who paid the ultimate price in the service of mankind, and taught us all, that, when faced with a dire threat, it is indeed better to be safe than sorry.”
The profiles carved in the stone were those of Dr. Yelena Petrova, Dr. Rebecca Summers and Dr. Aeolus Pentecost Hughes.
And I declared that the dead,
who had already died,
are happier than the living,
who are still alive.
But better than both
is the one who has never been born,
who has not seen the evil
that is done under the sun
/Ecclesiastes 4:2--3
THREE YEARS LATER, MIDDAY, PAPUA PROVINCE, EASTERN INDONESIA
There were three kids left in the line. It wasn’t exactly the optimum conditions for giving vaccine injections. And yet here she was, sitting on her backpack on the floor of the only concrete building in the village, built in the center by some NGO many years ago. Maintaining sterility took quite a bit of effort.
The first kid came forward holding out his right arm, struggling to keep it steady, obviously frightened. His mother spoke what sounded like reassuring words, while tightly gripping his left hand in hers.
Rebecca wiped his arm with alcohol before administrating the intramuscular dose of ViCPS thyroid vaccine. The boy’s face scrunched up in pain but shone as soon as Rebecca rewarded him with a Snickers bar.
It had taken a long while to establish the trust of the people in the villages she visited. It had taken even longer to alleviate their fear of her medical tools. She discovered that she could usually judge temperature by hand and didn’t need a thermometer. And as for her stethoscope, she only really needed it for heart conditions, the lung inspections she could now do relying on nothing but her ears.
For some of the vaccines, though, there was simply no alternative to the needle, and she’d been forced to stand firm. Most villagers now accepted that.
When the last kid was done, she patted him gently on the back and left for her bike. The children followed her in a trail, waiting for one of her surprises. As always, she had one. She pulled out a whistle from her pocket and blew into it. As the shrill sound rose through the jungle, the kids went wild. She threw the whistle toward them and as it hit the ground they all jumped for it, fighting over who would get the prize.
She hit the throttle hard and sped off, dirt spraying over the scrabbling kids behind her, driving their exhilaration further into a complete frenzy.
When she arrived at the abbey, she was soaked. Both her jeans and her T-shirt had large sweat stains. She slowed down and gently stopped her bike. The abbess didn’t appreciate noisy arrivals disturbing the peace.
Sister Maria, who came skipping out from the abbey holding her skirt with her left hand and a manila folder in her right, greeted her.
“Sister Cordelia! Sister Cordelia!” she shouted, “There has been a delivery for you. It’s from the World Health Organization!”
On an ordinary day very little happened in the convent and their lives followed a strict routine. Rebecca never ceased to be amazed by what trivial events would create excitement among her fellow sisters.
“Sister Cordelia. I sneaked a peek myself. I hope you don’t mind. It is instructions on what if you see certain symptoms among your patients, you know?”
Rebecca scoffed, and then gently put her hand on Sister Maria’s shoulder.
“Sister, you can keep the file. I can assure you I know what to look for. And if something like the Black Flu were to come again, I know what to do. Because this time, if it comes to me, I will stop it at the source.”
Leaving Sister Maria behind and walking toward the building that was now her home, she couldn’t help thinking that if she’d been here, in this place, three years ago, none of it – the Black Flu, the Big Collapse – none of it would ever have happened.
NOTA
AUCTORIS
(Author’s note)
The purpose of writing this book has been to describe a possible future scenario with a certain degree of realism. Because of this, considerable effort has gone in to making the facts, both medical and trivia, as accurate as possible. Charvet really has 200 shades of white cloth; Pablo Neruda really had a bespoke green ink; etc. The descriptions of peoples’ and societies’ reactions to the infection are based on actual eyewitness accounts from various historical epidemics.
As for the medical realities most of the statements are either factual (e.g., bats carrying influenza), probable (e.g., encephalitis lethargica as a consequence of a resurgent Spanish Flu) or at the very least possible (e.g., increased virulence from higher density of arginine in the receptor bindings)
At some places in the book, though, veracity has been sacrificed for dramatic effect.
The following claims, and the implications that follow from them, are not true:
In the real world, Carlo Urbani’s eulogy, printed in the New England Journal of Medicine, was written by: Brigg Reilley, Michael Van Herp, Dan Sermand and Nicoletta Dentico.
There is no evidence of NATO personnel staffed on the Swedish NDRE flights over the Baltic Sea, although allegations have been made by journalists, supported by the extra parachute present in the DC-3 that crashed in 1951.
‘Cooking up’ an immunofluorescence test based on a multitude of historical reagents is definitely conceivable, but by no means standard practice. In most cases you either have it, or you don’t, in which case developing the test from scratch takes at least a month.
As any soldier will testify to, cars don’t explode from being hit by a bullet, even if it hits the tank – yet this must be the archetypical example of poetic license if there ever was one.
The only place where Chlorazine has the properties required to keep Singapore safe from bats is in Michael Cricht
on’s The Andromeda Strain. There are however others substances that could be used to the same effect.
The author is not privy to the contact protocols of the DIA, although it is a fact that callbacks and IPS phones are used by other intelligence agencies.
There are no facts, although there has been ample speculation on the topic, to support the idea that the Soviet government managed to retrieve a living sample of the 1918 influenza.
US researchers did replicate and grow the 1918 influenza from the completed gene sequence for research in 2008. In that sense the western world now also ‘has it’. To date, however, there have been no results from this research that would alter the course of events described in this book.
There is no reason to believe that there is a North Korean bio-weapons lab in Chouch’on village.
Research into rapid cushion tests has to a large extent been performed in corporate labs. Not all these findings are public domain. Yelena’s effort to develop the test reflects available public knowledge, but not necessarily all that is currently known to man.
The quote from Ferdinand Foch, although often stated this way, is inaccurately translated and exaggerated. The actual quote is: “Ma droite est enfoncée, ma gauche cède-tout va bien - j’attaque!” which in a literal translation would read: “My right gives way, my left yields, everything’s fine-I shall attack!”
Although the SHOC exists, the WHO does not currently, in any way, operate as described in this text. A central premise of the story is the changes that Aeolus Pentecost Hughes has made to the organization.
Aeolus statements about Ebola predate the 2014 outbreak. Although, it might seem otherwise from the reporting in the press, this event actually proves his predictions about the diseases devastating local consequences in Africa, the low risk for an epidemic in the Western world, as well as the utter unpreparedness of the international community to deal with a serious epidemic.
The Nightmare Scenario Page 34
