The Patron Saint of Plagues

by Barth Anderson

  “Go.”

  It took almost thirty minutes, but, finally, the eagle-and-snake seal of Mexico appeared before Stark’s eyes and a deep, male voice spoke in his ear. “Inteligentsia Artificial del Ministerio de Salud Publica, para servirle.”

  Stark suddenly realized he would have to speak Spanish to pull this off. Interning in Oaxaca, Stark’s Spanish had been quite good, but it had rusted over the last decade. His ability to lie smoothly to bureaucrats, however, hadn’t. “Good evening, I’m Dr. Vincent Bergara with Viral Intercept International. I desire to speak at—pardon me—with Dr. Diego Alejandro of the—”

  “The Minister is unavailable,” said the buttery voice. “His office switchboard is completely occupied and he is currently attending a conference at Zapata Hospital.”

  Stark adjusted his goggles with curiosity. So Diego was personally handling this outbreak. Unusual. “What is the name of the conference he attends, please?”

  “The Holy Renaissance’s Emergency Conference on Dengue Outbreak, 2061.”

  Anticipating Stark’s need, Queen Mum showed him several press releases and a document of the conference’s agenda, along with a link to live multicoverage. Stark blinked at it.

  Immediately he was given a grainy, badly lit shot of Mexico’s Minister of Health. Silvering hair and sagging eyes, Diego hovered against Stark’s pinewood walls. “Diego, vato, you belong at a poker table, not a press conference.”

  Stark tried to understand how he was seeing what he was seeing. He’d heard of Mexico’s ojo reporters and their cybernetically implanted camera-eyes. But this looked like a run-of-the-mill netcast. Alejandro was standing in a hospital hallway fielding questions from two men before him, one with a microphone and one standing stiff, his blank, lidless eyes fixed on the Minister with catlike intensity. Shadows on the wall behind Diego suggested people crowding behind the camera, out of view “How we viewing this? Through someone’s eyes?”

  “No. We are viewing this through the DVB camera of Para Ustedes, La Baja’s Finest Net News, though ojos from other news media are present. Para Ustedes has been covering the outbreak in Zapata Hospital nonstop since 4:00 A.M., Ascensión time.” La Baja was Ascensión’s street level, and La Alta was the city balanced atop kilometer-high towers. Ascensión was so enormous it had become a schizophrenic city with two economies, two technologies, two distinct populations—a depressed, twentieth-century city below and a dynamic, wealthy, and futuristic marvel above.

  Stark watched as the reporter with the microphone asked his question. “What do you say about the theory that Big Bonebreaker is not dengue fever?”

  The stiff, round-eyed ojo glared at Diego throughout the other reporter’s question.

  “Not enough evidence to support that,” said a woman offscreen.

  The digital camera zoomed back and Stark recognized Dr. Elena Batista, a well-coiffed woman with an angry amount of mascara—Diego’s longtime attack dog. “After the field teams brief the Minister, we’ll understand the virus better,” Batista said, “but we’re certain that ‘Big Bonebreaker’ is a particularly deadly strain of dengue.”

  “Mum, reference. Big Bonebreaker?”

  “It’s a slang name for the disease coined by a dengue sufferer four hours ago. Wide usage across the entire Holy Renaissance is noted.”

  Of course Mexico would already have a nickname coined for this disease. Users on Mexico’s advanced pilone net could culturally digest and spread slang fast as thought, so, nationwide, fads could burn and peak, from Tijuana to Caracas, in days. Mexico’s pilone culture seemed like the bewitchments of a hellish machine to a backwoods American like Stark, but he’d witnessed Mexico make national changes in viral response in moments, too, changes that would have taken America months, even years. All thanks to the pilone net.

  The robotlike ojo reporter looked almost menacing alongside Diego Alejandro’s handsome, charming self. “Eight dead since this morning,” said the ojo. “This virulence is unusual for a dengue outbreak, no, Minister?”

  “Eight dead? Cristóbal told us three.” Stark pounded the arms of his rocker with both fists. “Mum, I need updates as they arrive!”

  “I’ve had no updates to give you, Doctor. All information on dengue has been classified by the Mexican Ministry of Health.”

  “They classified an outbreak?” Stark felt a growing heaviness in his chest. “The hell going on down there?”

  The ojo was asking, “Do you believe this virus has mutated beyond the reach of dengue’s traditional tetravalent vaccine, Dr. Batista?”

  “I see Dr. Muñoz has been preaching to the press. Again.” Batista stabbed someone with a glance offscreen. “This is dengue—not Ebola or Marburg or skid-37. The tetravalent vaccine has been our chief weapon against the virus for decades. There is no need for alarm.”

  The Para Ustedes reporter with the mic turned away from Batista. “Comment, Dr. Muñoz?”

  The frame of view edged to the right and revealed a tall, gangly man in need of a haircut standing behind the ojo. He looked like a kind fellow, with his long face and careful eyes. “Dr. Pedro Muñoz. The unique man witnessing reality,” said Stark.

  Without looking at Batista, Pedro Muñoz leaned toward the reporter with the microphone, and said, “Ask her about the chickens.”

  The reporter seemed surprised to have a question aimed at him. “Pardon me?”

  Muñoz was quite tall and hunched his shoulders when he spoke. “Ask her, ‘Have you looked at the chickens, and if so, how do you interpret them?’”

  The reporter looked back and forth between Muñoz and Batista—one smiling kindly at him, the other glaring with hot eyes. Finally, he pointed the mic at Batista. “Comment on the chickens, Doctor?”

  The reporter obviously didn’t know what the significance of the chickens was. But Stark did. As soon as Muñoz mentioned them, he ordered Mum to bring up Ascensión’s chicken report.

  In the previous century, epidemiologists would place chicken coops on the outskirts of cities to monitor the spread of viruses like St. Louis encephalitis or Asian flu that affected both chickens and humans. Modern, sophisticated Central Commands, like the CDC’s, WHO’s, and Mexico’s, collated data from millions of epidermal chips placed in the forearms of human volunteers throughout a given population. These chips, called “chickens,” ran identification and quantitative assays of specific antibodies present in a given individual’s blood. Because a body creates a specific T cell for each new virus it meets, an epidemic could be spotted before symptoms were ever exhibited, or before victims began to appear in hospitals. When they identified the popular presence of certain antibodies, these epidermal assays would alert the Central Command, and public health agents could identify the emerging disease from that information.

  Stark scanned Ascensión’s chicken report and saw that a vast but silent dengue epidemic was passing through town.

  Batista answered the question patiently, though her eyes seemed to be cooking inside her head. “Dr. Muñoz is referring to the fact that Ascensión’s line of sentinel volunteers, or ‘chickens,’ show a seroprevalence of 68 percent for IgG antidengue in the capital city.”

  To the reporter, Muñoz explained, “That means seven of ten people have already contracted Big Bonebreaker.”

  “Dr. Muñoz, please,” said Batista. “It means the population of Ascensión is already defeating the virus.”

  With a nod of encouragement, Muñoz said, “Now ask about the vaccination program. Ask why it hasn’t been mobilized as the staff epidemiologist recommended in his report.”

  “That very unofficial report,” said Batista to Muñoz, “was concocted by a quack doctor without hot labs, without septic suits.”

  Muñoz patted the reporter on the back. “I’m the quack. M-U-Ñ-O-Z.”

  Stark laughed. He liked this guy already.

  The stiff-backed ojo reporter took a step toward Batista, and said, “Couldn’t the CDC’s Central Command help with a vaccination program?”
r />   Pedro Muñoz’s eyes lifted with what looked like hope.

  “We’ve contacted the CDC as a matter of courtesy, of course,” Diego said. Then, to Stark’s amazement, the Minister stole a page from the Holy Renaissance’s propaganda to make his point. “But we Anahuacs can handle this outbreak just fine on our own, and vaccination will soon be under way,” he said, with a winning wink. “Now, let my assistants brief me before our field team arrives.” Alejandro led Batista and two other doctors into the conference room.

  Anahuacs. Diego used to laugh at people who bought that revisionist Mexican history from President for Life Emil Orbegón. “Diego deliberately deviating from the traditional outbreak script. He praying this normal dengue. Ain’t like him.”

  Sound from the camera went dead. The netcast shifted over to a medical analyst; but Stark, wanting to see who was on the field team when they arrived, elected to keep his point of view with the stationary camera at the hospital. Though there was no audio, that camera, still uplinked and showing a hallway of doctors and reporters, might show the field team when it arrived, and Stark wanted to see who was on it. Meanwhile, he opened Muñoz’s vita, and under the doctor’s name and address, an e-phone was listed. “Can you get a phone line, Mum?”

  “Quite easily done.”

  “Call the number listed here on Muñoz’s résumé.”

  Queen Mum pronounced, “With the Minister of Health holding a conference at Zapata Hospital, a call to the staff epidemiologist could be construed as a serious breach of the Mexican embargo.”

  “Probably. But Mexico gonna break that embargo and call me before the day’s over. Can’t wait for that. Dial.”

  Stark watched on the netcast window, as far away in Ascensión, Pedro Muñoz looked down at his breast pocket. He removed an e-phone and cleared his throat. “¿Bueno?” The audio on the netcast feed had been shut off. Stark heard Muñoz through the e-phone line, a richer, more realistic connection.

  “Buenas noches, Dr. Muñoz,” said Stark. “Esto es Dr. Henry David Stark de los Estados Unidos. This is quite a show you’re putting on for us.”

  Muñoz straightened as if a teacher were calling on him in class, then his eyes landed on the DVB camera. On-screen, it looked to Stark as if Muñoz had suddenly noticed him across a crowded room. For a moment, Muñoz looked like someone who’d had a heavy pack lifted from his back. But then he stiffened. “You shouldn’t have called me. I’m in enough trouble as it is.”

  Stark was aghast as the line went dead, and on-screen, Muñoz folded up his phone, putting it back in his pocket. “Mum, redial! Quick!”

  “Straightaway, Dr. Stark.”

  The phone rang. On-screen, Muñoz rolled his eyes and looked back at the camera. He shook his head.

  “Let it ring, Mum!”

  Muñoz looked about and finally pulled the phone out of his pocket again. “Dr. Stark, please, this conference is going to last all day and probably all night, and I—” He covered the phone with his other hand. On-screen, he looked like just another doctor in the crowded hallway. “This hospital is crawling with servicio sagrado. I can’t be caught talking to you.”

  The hiss of fear he heard in Muñoz’s voice snared Stark, stopped him. Mexico’s secret police. Americans had heard rumors about the jungle camps located in undisclosed regions of Mexico’s Honduras province, the terrifying spas where the “sick and abnormal” (dissidents) were “cured” (genetically reformed into model citizens) by the servicio sagrado. “I know it must be danger,” stammered Stark. “I mean, dangerous. But please tell me what you know about this virus.”

  An intense look tightened the skin on Muñoz’s face. He seemed to be reviewing his strategy for survival. “Can you get ahold of Ascensión’s chicken report?”

  “I have it right here,” said Stark, blinking up the document.

  “You do?” said Muñoz. He seemed surprised and tapped the zigzag brain surgery scar on his temple. “You aren’t connected to the pilone net, are you?”

  “No, it’s fiber optics,” muttered Stark, humiliated. “Cyber-goggles.”

  “Goggles. I see.” Muñoz smiled. He looked like a grown-up encouraging a kid with his first two-wheeler. “Take a look at the chickens from a week ago, Dr. Stark.”

  Stark blinked through the document, pulling up the antibody numbers from May 8. He scanned the columns of various seroprevalences: a mild flu strain, high macrophage counts for what was no doubt a tainted water supply in La Baja, but no dengue antibodies. He blinked up the report from six days ago, then five days ago. It was the same thing, no dengue. Stark muttered in English, “Damn odd. No dengue antibodies five days ago?” It took four days for a body to create its specific immune response to dengue. With a current seroprevalence of sixty-eight percent, Stark should have seen a steady climb in dengue antibodies starting with this report at the latest. He pulled up the report from four days ago, and here the chickens began detecting dengue. Three days ago, antibodies to dengue started spiking, and by Saturday night, citywide seroprevalence for dengue had skyrocketed. “Only yesterday?” Stark read. “Sixty-eight percent of the population has dengue as of yesterday?”

  Muñoz said, “And the Ministry of Health says mosquitoes did that.”

  Stark cleared his dry throat. “So four days ago—Wednesday—a virulent pathogen started spreading through the population of Ascensión. That’s what you think?”

  “I quarantined all of the dengue patients as soon as I got the fifth one at noon,” said Muñoz. “Minister Alejandro got wind of the quarantine and before anyone even consulted me, I was taken off the Outbreak Task Force. I went from being the resident dengue authority to renegade crackpot.”

  Questions began flocking in his mind, but Stark couldn’t take his eyes off the chicken report. “Dengue isn’t this communicable. Is that why you say the virus mutates?”

  Muñoz glanced at the doctors nearest him, presumably to see if anyone was eavesdropping. “My tests show a high mutation rate, yes.”

  Stark shook his head, though with these numbers, Muñoz had a legitimate theory. “It could be an emergent, too.”

  Muñoz made a scoffing noise at the back of his throat. “Emergent viruses emerge, Doctor. They don’t fly in through the doors and windows.”

  “But that’s what we could be seeing here. It’s not like you’re losing fifty people per day,” said Stark. “Emergents almost always register on the chickens without anyone beyond the medical community even knowing it.”

  “But with a 35 percent mutation rate?” said Muñoz.

  Muñoz had actually run tests while he hadn’t, so Stark demurred. “Do you think it’s a mutated form of dengue, or something else?”

  “It looks like dengue.”

  “Do you have any—what’s the word—facts? Truth? Proof. Do you have proof?”

  “Yes,” said Muñoz, “but the genome print of this virus is classified. I saw it. It’s lean. The virus’s shell looks like dengue-4, even under the DA scope, but its genome is half the length it should be.”

  “What? Classified,” said Stark, playing dumb. “What do you mean it’s classified? Who classified it?”

  “The Ministry of Health,” said Muñoz, risking a glance into the silent stationary camera through which Stark was watching him, and his voice was heavy with suppressed outrage. “The Ministry of Health.”

  “Diego did it?” Stark couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “No, someone else must have—”

  “Try to access my report. Try to access any record from this hospital from before noon today.”

  Stark gave Mum the order, but she hesitated. “We’re disguised as a commercial server, Dr. Stark. Holy Renaissance authorities will certainly wonder why we’re attempting to access a Mexican hospital’s records, especially if they happen to be classified.”

  Queen Mum was a powerful tool, but Stark wished he could get someone to write a Lying Protocol for her. “One moment please, Doctor,” said Stark. “Mum, contact Zapata Hospital and ask for
information on bio-haz waste removal for Sunday May 15.”

  A moment later, Queen Mum presented Stark with an image of a signed Ministry of Health Quarantine of Information document, transposed over his room’s ratty blue carpet. “‘Quarantine of Information,’” scoffed Stark. And there, on the bottom of the form, was Diego Alejandro’s florid signature. “Why quarantine records just hours into an outbreak? Any idea, Muñoz?”

  “I’m not dumb enough to speculate on a phone line with an American.” Muñoz showed the camera his back. His voice in the phone was urgent and demanding. “But what’s the worst-case scenario for a dengue outbreak?”

  Stark balked. He opened his mouth, then shut it, trying to follow Muñoz’s line of thought. Finally, he rested his chin in his hand, thinking. He presumed he understood Muñoz’s theory: One dengue serotype infects the body, and the immune system from then on recognizes that first dengue virus. But if one of the other three dengue serotypes infects the body, the immune system won’t effectively recognize the virus because it’s roughly 50 percent dissimilar from the first. Consequently, the second virus breeds unchecked. Victims suffer horribly: seizures, massive bleeding, then death.

  Stark said, “Dengue hemorrhagic fever.”

  The young doctor looked over his shoulder into the camera for a moment, then turned away again. “A second dengue serotype would wipe this city out in bloody fashion.”

  “I don’t understand. You think that’s why Diego quarantined—?”

  “The quarantine isn’t the biggest issue right now, Dr. Stark. Look at the chickens. We’re completely vulnerable to a widespread debilitating outbreak.”

  Professor Joaquin Delgado, Stark’s mentor, would have said that Muñoz “hears hoofbeats in Central Park and thinks there must be zebras in New York.” Without proof, his semilogical conclusions were absurd at best. “No wonder you were blackballed.”

  “I was blackballed because—”

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t even say why, sir. I shouldn’t say. The virus—our response is—” Muñoz fell silent. His back was still turned to the camera, and his narrow shoulders lowered. His head ducked almost out of view “That, too, is classified.”