The Patron Saint of Plagues

by Barth Anderson

  He took the paper. “It says I have dengue-5.”

  “Don’t worry. You just have the antibodies for dengue,” she said. “Everybody in Mexico has those right now, but your count is unusually low. Your guardian angels are taking care of you.”

  Looking at the notarized paper, his ticket, the man grew giddy with astonishment.

  He was about to raise his hand, wave good-bye, then realized he had slipped the syringe back in the case—which was still in his hand. As his eyes flicked up from the case, he saw hers look down at it, frowning. “Spectacles,” he said.

  She batted her eyes at him. “I’m sure they make you look very distinguished. Vaya con dios, papi.”

  The man slipped the case into his breast pocket and left the hot lab, the virus filter seeming to suck at him as he passed through its archway.

  He was about to fold up his clean bill of health when a man in the waiting room wearing a pressure mask and back-tank stepped up to him and plucked the paper out of his hand. “You’re clean, I hear. An orderly?”

  “No, señor, a volunteer.”

  “I’m Dr. Reynaldo Cruz. I need help,” he said, handing the paper back. Inside the helmet, Dr. Cruz looked harried but excited. “I need to set up another quarantine area, one that can house patients with impaired immune systems. Care to help me?”

  Cruz strode purposefully to a back stairwell. The man followed as if drawn by invisible ropes, unable to make sense of what was supposed to happen now. According to his version of the outbreak script, written weeks ago, he wasn’t supposed to have slipped past the blood draw.

  “If you’re clean, you’re practically on staff now. Me? I needed eight years of medical school.” Cruz’s voice echoed in the stairwell. They descended to a landing outside the fifth floor, the entrance marked by a badge scanner.

  The man stopped on the stairs and stared at the scan module, its laser eye gleaming like a viper’s.

  Cruz pulled out his badge and waved it before the eye. The door didn’t open.

  “It senses two of us.” Head bowed, Cruz took a step back to give the man access.

  But he didn’t have a badge, and no lies came to him.

  “It wants your badge, friend,” Dr. Cruz said, swinging his arm casually, pointing at the scanner.

  The man’s eyes darted between Cruz’s hand and the scanner’s red laser. He imagined he saw electricity flicking between the scanning module and the hand, tasting Cruz’s fingers like a tongue.

  Dr. Cruz said something to the man, asked him why he wouldn’t have a badge. Why wouldn’t an orderly have a badge? Shouldn’t he? Even as a volunteer, shouldn’t he? What was the right answer?

  Flick, flick, went the tongue of electricity. He couldn’t answer. The red laser seemed to turn from Dr. Cruz and flick at the man with knowing distaste.

  During those long months in his hot lab, when doubt, guilt, and shame wracked him with migraines, he had sent himself away to a place where the thought of suicide was like morphine to him. His mind would release himself to a clean room with long white draperies undulating in a breeze. There was no piercing self-hatred, no cruel morals in that beautiful room. Just death. And relief.

  He took a deep breath, relishing that peaceful place, then realized that something had changed. The laser’s red tongue was still flicking, but Dr. Reynaldo Cruz was not standing next to him anymore. Somehow, he was lying at the bottom of the stairs, at the next landing. The harness holding his tanks was twisted around his torso, and his neck and head lay at bad angles to his body.

  Who put you down there, Dr. Cruz? The man floated over the steps, down to the crumpled body. A ringing sound was in his ears, like a fading, sustained note. High D major, to be correct, he thought. He remembered now that the clang of the tanks striking the cement stairs had rung that stunning note.

  He crouched and carefully removed Dr. Cruz’s helmet, pressing his fingers into the tender skin over the man’s carotid. The neck might have been broken, he thought, and the fluttery pulse, the clammy, white face, the trickle of blood from the ears spoke of extreme shock.

  “How brittle,” the man whispered, moved. “How brief.”

  Doors were opening in the stairwell below. Sirens and screaming filtered up the stairs. A mass of people was tromping up the steps.

  He stood. As if in a dream, his eyes drifted to the ID badge clipped to the doctor’s belt.

  He rubbed his forehead hard and pressed his fingers into a spot just above the bridge of his nose. He was being tested. How far would he go?

  He wasn’t supposed to have slipped past the blood assay. He hadn’t anticipated facing the question of how to escape the hospital once he infected it. He was supposed to have been checkmated already by doctors using rapid pilone communication. Why are they still using ELISA to identify this virus? Why didn’t Miguel identify me before he died?

  The crowd ascended the staircase toward him.

  The man bent down and read the badge. DR. REYNALDO CRUZ, EPIDEMIOLOGY, ZAPATA HOSPITAL, ASCENSIÓN DF. Reynaldo’s DNA chip gleamed silver at the center of the eagle-and-snake seal of Mexico. He flipped the badge over to see the picture. Dr. Cruz looked serious and pensive. But Cruz was taller and darker than he, and looked younger in the photograph. It wasn’t a very good match.

  He placed a hand against his chest, pressing it flat against the crucifix where it hung beneath hospital scrubs, and shut his eyes. Why haven’t You stopped me? It was all he could think to pray. Then he unfastened the badge and clipped it to his own belt. The voices and footsteps were just below him now on the next lower landing. He turned and ran back up to the seventh floor, where there was no scanning module. As he opened the door, he could hear someone below shout, “I bet he fell! He’s not breathing!”

  The man shut the door behind him and tried to control his panting. He crossed through the surgical unit, walking fast, and reached the elevators without anyone stopping him.

  When he reached the main floor, the man readjusted the filter over his mouth and walked briskly through the lobby, staring through the glass at three fat army trucks descending into the hospital’s courtyard on turbulent air cushions. Angry gawkers standing across the street in the Square of Saint John were pushed back even farther by a line of police wearing gensafe gloves and old-fashioned biowarfare masks. It was building into something nasty, the man could tell. He wouldn’t get out that way.

  To his right, a woman in scrubs and clamp mask shoved open a swinging door and shouted from what must have been the emergency room beyond, herding patients through the open air lock into the lobby. The patients wore surgical scrubs and Zapata ID badges—medicos all. His viruses were feeding on hospital staff now. The woman shouted back into the emergency room, “No, we’re done, ’Nardo. The American-British Clinic is taking our incoming! Everyone up to seven!”

  The ABC? he thought with contempt. They can’t be serious. Someone was coordinating from afar. A Mexican outbreak coordinator wouldn’t make the ABC a fallback clinic, antiquated as it was. He guessed that WHO and the CDC were involved now, which meant Mexico’s public-health system was helpless. Ascensión was about to teeter and fall.

  Three officers in full antiviral uniform passed through the corridor of particle-arresting air locks and entered the hospital. Through the plate-glass window, the man could see soldiers outside setting up a riot line.

  An officer with captain’s bars on his septic uniform turned suddenly and caught the man staring at him. He strode forward, not letting him look away. “Doctor, may I see your ID badge please?”

  The man unclipped it from his lab coat and handed it to the captain. “I’m Dr. Reynaldo Cruz, Epidemiology.”

  “No moon suit, Doctor?”

  “I’d love one. I just came down from the lab on seven,” he said, trying hard to believe what he was saying. “I’m clean.”

  The captain ran the badge under his memboard. After a moment, he said, “Reynaldo Cruz? Yes, I see you’re clean, but I have you listed as a recent ca
sualty.”

  “That is—well—I don’t know what to say. I’m not dead, as you can see.”

  After scanning the memboard’s screen, the captain’s eyes fixed on his. “I have it that you were to attend the Dengue Task Force’s conference. Did you?”

  “I did. At first. Then I left. I mean, I was called away. Patients. One patient, a woman. She—”

  “So you were in the room? You were with them before they all died?”

  The man wished he could stop stammering. “Yes. Yes, I was. One minute we were all arguing about Dr. Cristóbal’s findings. I was called away to consult—on the dengue patients we received this afternoon. When I returned, I—they were—they were dead. All dead. Some orderlies were putting up an ALHEPA lock.”

  “They air-locked the room?” The captain nodded and straightened. “Good. That’s what I wanted to know.”

  The man’s shoulders lowered in relief. He looked at the lobby’s front door. Soldiers were guarding it. There had to be another way out. The emergency room perhaps. He took a step toward its swinging doors, but the captain pressed his hand against the man’s chest.

  “Another moment, please. If you were invited to the Minister’s conference,” the captain said, “then you’re an expert, and I feared we just lost the best of our best.” His efficient tone was gone, and his voice ached with appeal. “Please give me your assessment of the new outbreak, Doctor.”

  “It’s a virulent airborne hemorrhagic fever,” he replied, stunned at himself for saying it out loud.

  “That’s what Central Command reported before it went down. What makes you think hemorrhagic fever?”

  His blood raced. It was as if some lunatic part of him itched to spill all his secrets. He found himself ready to tell the captain how he had bought the dengue cells from the Virological Institute in Jakarta, how he cloned them, designing the second, airborne virus, DEN-6, to finish off all the people who had been infected by and survived DEN-5. Instead, he said, “I could tell from the dead bodies, how they died, that this was some kind of hemorrhagic fever—the massive bleeding from every orifice. It’s a rapid killer. Must be a megavirus, breeding at a couple octillian per day.” That was a little too close to the truth—he wished he could suck the words back into his mouth. “It attacks much faster than—than any hemorrhagic fever I’ve seen before. If I were you, I’d get all my troops into the same gear that you have on.”

  The captain seemed impressed, but cautious. His eyes dropped down to the memboard for a moment, then he looked back at the man with suspicion. “You were a colleague of Pedro Muñoz. You signed the petition against Minister Alejandro’s handling of the dengue outbreak.”

  “That’s right. I signed that petition.” The man perspired and stammered so badly he felt certain the captain would arrest him. He could feel a betrayal of blood surging into his cheeks, so furious that his ears felt hot. “But what does that matter when people are dying like—?”

  The captain raised his hand. The elevator doors had opened and a doctor in a biohazard suit emerged. This man’s suit made the captain’s look like a small-town Mardi Gras costume. The doctor’s cuff and collar locks were thick white manacles and the dense plastic fabric creaked like leather as he moved. Pressure made the suit’s upper body puffy. Encased in a plastic hood and face mask, the doctor’s voice sounded as if it were coming from behind a pillow. “Captain Berenguer?”

  “Dr. Simon? Why are you here? Why aren’t you coordinating the hot lab?”

  “I had to talk to you in person,” said Dr. Simon. “The pilone wetware is crashing in infected patients as soon as they try to access the net for last rites. People are dying by the score up there.” He nodded by way of acknowledging the man and sighed heavily, his breath rushing as if through a long tube. “It’s airborne, Captain. We can’t contain it within Zapata. There’s no way. A flood of DHF victims is about to hit this city.”

  The captain kept an eye on the man as he said, “What’s DHF?”

  “Dengue hemorrhagic fever,” said the man and Dr. Simon together.

  “Dengue isn’t an airborne virus,” said Simon, “not naturally.”

  “Virulence?” the man asked, feeling absurd playing the role of consulting epidemiologist on an outbreak he instigated.

  “It’s the worst I’ve ever seen. Worse than anything I’ve ever heard of,” answered Simon. “It’s breeding and spreading so fast that it’s killing patients while we examine them. This site is a complete disaster.”

  “I’ll send my lieutenants and the hospital administration up for a consultation on how to proceed. My orders are to secure this site, so I want a plan of immediate action. We have two hours before new pathology teams arrive from Oaxaca and Monterrey. It may be a day or two before anyone from WHO can get here. You,” the captain said to the man. He jerked a thumb at his own chest. “Ven, Doctor.”

  Berenguer turned and walked outside.

  Outside. He just walked out of a quarantined building. The man helplessly followed the captain through the hallway of particle arresters leading out of the hospital’s lobby, feeling as though he were walking on the bottom of the ocean. He had coordinated outbreaks in regions of the globe where cultural traditions required survivors to kiss the body of a loved one, even if that person had died of skid-37. But this was first world. The captain’s behavior seemed willfully ignorant. Does Berenguer think these ALHEPA filters are arresting the virus? This is madness! Why doesn’t he have doctors and soldiers guarding this door?

  Captain Berenguer walked to a truck and stood against its fender. He barked orders at his lieutenants as they strode into the hospital with the newly suited hospital administration. Berenguer waited until the group had entered the hospital, then said, “Esto hospital esta chingado. Securing this site is the wrong strategy, isn’t it, Dr. Cruz?”

  “Yes, it is.” If he really were the epidemiologist working this outbreak, he knew what his own advice would be. He decided to give it rather than risk the captain suspecting that he was a moron, or worse, that he was withholding something. “That little biolab on seven won’t do any good now. If the virus killed that many people that fast, anyone who isn’t naturally immune is as good as dead. That whole hospital is a morgue.”

  Berenguer seemed to shrug off a nagging fear, then said, “My orders are to save doctors who might be able to help us.” He looked at the man with deference, humility. “Your blood was clean?”

  Dios mio. Those are his orders? This isn’t WHO or CDC in charge. Something evil is working this outbreak. His heart beat so hard he felt it might punch through his chest. “Yes, sir. I have a paper. I’m certified.”

  “Then I’m taking you to the perimeter clinic where you can do the Holy Renaissance some good.” He stared at the man’s badge and then said, “What’s your node? So I can contact you when the net is up again.”

  “I am not Connected, Captain.”

  For the first time, Berenguer looked at him with open distrust. It obviously didn’t make sense to the captain that a doctor wouldn’t also be Connected. “You disagree with President Orbegón politically, señor.”

  “Captain, I am a doctor—”

  “I just want to know exactly what I’m bringing into the Holy Renaissance’s inner sanctum,” said Berenguer with a wry smile, crossing his arms over his massive chest.

  Unbelievable. Now he’s concerned about me. “Captain, we have more important matters to—”

  “Just answer me. Why did you sign Muñoz’s letter? Why aren’t you Connected?” said Berenguer as though reasoning with a hysterical person. “Simple questions, aren’t they?”

  The human rights groups that the man belonged to as a young man when Mexico City was still called Mexico City had cataloged instances of torture and abuse on the part of the Holy Renaissance. Not everyone had to have the Connection; the Renaissance didn’t care about ranchers or shopkeepers or street musicians. But prominent officials who refused to undergo the wetware therapy told of the fear tactics, the al
l-night interrogations into religious affiliation, evenings of beatings and “simple questions” to root out leftists, academics, and even “confused Catholics” who still remained loyal to the Vatican’s pope. That was over twenty years ago. But the desire to probe and break obviously still lingered in career officers like Berenguer. He was everything the man hated about the Holy Renaissance, from its sanctimonious top down to its rotten bottom of thuggery. He wanted to rip off this bastard’s helmet and kiss him on the mouth.

  Instead, he met the captain’s eyes and lied as smoothly as he could. “I’m not Connected because I’m a Jew.”

  Berenguer’s face lit up and he let out a loud laugh. “Well, that’s a relief. I thought you were going to tell me you were an atheist!” His eyes darkened back into their fierce military scowl. “¡Mira! ¡Hidalgo!” The captain shouted to a jeep driver who had just lowered his craft next to Berenguer’s truck, emptying a trio of suited Holy Renaissance officials in their crisp black-and-red uniforms. “Take Dr. Cruz here to Clinica Primera. Tell Dr. Menendez I have cleared him and vouch for him personally.”

  “Yes, sir!” shouted Hidalgo over the scream of his engines. “Hop in, Doctor!”

  Priests, the man figured as he passed the officials circling around to the other side of the jeep. He resisted the urge to follow and touch them.

  He was reminded of what these men and men like them had done to Mexico, to the Church, to the miracle of the pilone, and he was glad that he hadn’t played his endgame with the syringe. There was so much more to do—and Lieutenant Hidalgo would escort him straight into the Holy Renaissance’s quarantine system, behind their line of pawns.

  He climbed into the back, and as the jeep lifted and pivoted toward the nearest La Alta tower, a mad little tickle scurried in his throat. He began to laugh. Hidalgo turned around and looked at him. “Are you all right, Doctor?”

  He had tears in his eyes he was laughing so hard. “I’m losing it a little, that’s all.” He caught his breath and sighed. “Boy, am I losing it.”

  MONDAY, MAY 16. 6:30 A.M.