Effected Intent

by Alan Ross

  Chapter 21

  The Plan Emerges

  Steve was coming in earlier these days, enjoyed having some time to himself at the project site. His coworkers at Foundation gave him space but the others working on The Cause knew no such boundaries and he wasn’t sure how to get some space. A couple hours a day, usually around lunch, he would close the door to his office and put a ‘do not disturb’ sticky note on the door but that only worked half the time. Since Claire was on summer vacation she slept in most days so it was easier for Steve to come in around five thirty and then leave at a reasonable time. That didn’t mean he went home, he was spending a lot of time in parks and libraries, thinking about the way his world had gone tits up over the past few months.

  He hid out in his office during the early morning hours but didn’t go on the vet forums, instead spent time researching life in Africa and wondering if there was any way he could get Claire immunized and then somehow have her find him once he had vanished. Would she want anything to do with him? It was doubtful, who would want to live with someone responsible for the murdering millions of innocent people? His life was turning into three parts: home, chemist and philosopher. The philosopher in him was about to implode, unable to wrap his mind around what was going to happen in a matter of weeks. His library time was spent reading books on philosophy, everyone from Hegel to Nietzsche but he had never particularly resonated with this type of rationalization.

  He heard the bell, it was early for Jay or Rudy, who generally came in around eight thirty or nine. Robert and Mickey came up the stairs, a few boxes in hand. “Good news, the cause prevailed.”

  “Good to hear Robert, we’ve got all the equipment set up. Going to tell the story of your trip to Atlanta?”

  “After everyone gets in. If you see Rudy and Jay let them know we’re going to meet in the war room.”

  Steve’s heart was beating faster, could it really be true that there was a live batch of virulent smallpox in one of those boxes? Philosopher Steve was going to be in high gear, trying to wrap his mind around this. He needed to think about the plan to infect the government instead and determine the right time to spring this, maybe the others would go along with his plan.

  He got another cup of coffee and tried to settle his nerves, taking a trip through the lab and around the production facility, which was really coming together. He went to the bathroom and wasn’t surprised to find that his urine had gone from green to dark blue, some greenish hues still present but that was acceptable. The dye had worked well for him and the others who’d been in Ohio, hadn’t heard about the doctor, Robert and Mickey yet. The next injection would be the vaccine, which would be direct for them, no messing with spheres for that.

  The others weren’t in yet so Steve went through the inventory of supplies he needed to oversee the polymer synthesis and also made sure they had enough surfactant and saline solution. He had already checked everything yesterday but didn’t want to run into problems when he reviewed everything with the bird man later. The door chimed and Jay came into the lab, he was using the small desk as his office space and had the bench across from the desk, which he kept exceptionally clean. Rudy was more interested in working in the production area and was taking ownership of that domain, which suited everyone.

  “What’s happening? Are Robert and Mickey back?”

  “Yes, came back this morning, we’re going to meet in the war room as soon as Rudy arrives. I think it’s good news.”

  “Fuck yeah! That’s awesome news, can’t wait until we start putting everything together.”

  Steve didn’t comment back, thought about asking Jay how he felt about attacking the government directly but thought better of it. Robert would have a fit if he thought his authority was being undermined, best to bring it up to everyone at the same time. The doorbell chimed and Rudy came in. They met him in the atrium and all went upstairs for the big meeting. Robert and Mickey were already seated at the table, three mysterious aluminum containers on the table in front of them.

  “What you’re looking at is history in the making gentlemen. Mickey and I went to Washington and I pulled out the information I have on our CDC friend and we made some fine color copies of everything. You should have seen his face when I showed it all to him, he called me every name under the sun and was still resisting. Mickey mentioned that our next stop was to his home to see what his wife thought of this, followed by a trip to the Atlanta newspapers and television stations. He may have doubted my will but Mickey held firm and he relented.”

  “Kick ass Robert.” Rudy said. “Is this still all being done off the books or is there now an official ‘project’ in the CDC?”

  “Unclear at this point but potentially important. It would be a bit suspicious if there was a smallpox scare and we came in off the street saying we have a vaccine and a new delivery mechanism. I’m going to suggest to our contact that he follow up on some of the chatter we’ve created out of Asia and start a top secret project in response.”

  Rudy smiled, happy that Robert had taken his idea. Steve thought this might be helpful because once the government became aware of a project like this they would be clamoring for the vaccine at first notice of an outbreak anywhere in the world.

  “What about the delivery system? Will that be part of the documentation for the top secret CDC project?”

  “Another good point Steve, I’m not at full strength due to lack of sleep the past few days. I’ll call our CDC friend and have him initiate the project and include the new delivery mechanism due to the complexity of delivering the vaccine and the need for multiple boosters due to the strength of the new strain. We’re a go, the first thing I’m going to do is call the doc to give us all the vaccine, I’ve been assured by our friend at the CDC that it’s legit but we will have to do some testing with the vaccine before we expose ourselves to the smallpox. It might be just like him to trick us and then hope we vanish and erase all roads back to him.”

  “This will take some time, any thoughts how we can test the virus? We aren’t set up for a quarantine zone.” Steve asked.

  “We’ve got a friend in Chicagoland who has access to the facility we need and can safely evaluate this. As soon as Mickey and I have had a chance to rest and we’ve all been immunized by the doc we’ll head to Chicago to do the actual testing. There are two types of smallpox in these containers, one is a large sample and there are autoclaved syringes that have doses of the virus that can be given intravenously.”

  “How long does it take the vaccine to work?” Jay asked.

  “We need to get a series of injections, one every other day and a total of four injections. It’s long, complicates our plan and could make all of us sick for the next couple of weeks so hope you all don’t mind shedding a few pounds.”

  “Jay, Rudy and I will spend the time working on a small quarantine environment here at the facility so when we imbed the virus into the spheres we don’t end up spreading the virus. Don’t want to let Pandora out of her box too early. We’ll meet after this and get a list of equipment we need to you before the end of the day.”

  The meeting adjourned, Steve and Jay carefully transporting the live virus containers down to the lab and into a locked cabinet. “Looks like we’ve got a few days of sitting around, not much to do in the interim.”

  “I would like to learn about polymer synthesis, even though it won’t likely be applicable where we’re going. Maybe it would be smarter for us to start learning some African languages, if they’re at all similar. Not even sure where it is we’re going, might have to learn it when we get there.”

  “The polymer stuff isn’t a problem, I’ve got to run some test batches on the new equipment to make sure everything scales. We can repeat the dye test, it’s a pretty easy one.”

  “Freaks me out every time I piss, looks like the toilet cleaner my mom used to use.”

  Rudy came down to the lab and they sat down to talk about what was required to set up a safe environment for handling the
smallpox. From the information they had, it didn’t appear to be a major airborne infection agent unless a person was already infected. It was important that they isolate the raw material and do the sphere work in sealed containers which could then be run through the giant autoclave Steve had installed as part of the equipment setup. They needed to determine how to unseal the small work environment they were going to use to load the spheres. Rudy designed an attachment to the autoclave that could be used to unseal the glass box they were going to use. Steve was wondering how easy it was going to be to make spheres in one of those, especially since the gloves had to be non-permeable so were thick. They would have to practice making spheres using the gloves for the next few weeks and determine the best method.

  Over the next few days they made many batches of polymers and each worked at forming the spheres and insuring that the reagent was inside each little shell of the sphere. This was straightforward without the gloves, Rudy and Jay were as good as Steve before too long. They’d all received the first dose of the vaccine and were having side effects, mostly flu-like symptoms. The mood around the facility was starting to go down, nobody appreciating the delays. Mickey and Robert had made one trip to Chicago to provide the vaccine for the animal testing. They were becoming two peas in a pod, which was alright with Steve, kept the bird man from bothering him.

  After the second round of vaccine nobody was in any shape to be at work, all of them down with side effects for several days. Claire was worried about Robert but he said that something was going around the project site, nothing too serious, and he’d be better in a few days. His already skinny frame was now reduced to a weight he hadn’t seen since his POW days in Vietnam. Claire tried to feed him but he couldn’t keep anything down. The third and fourth rounds had less side effects but all of them had visibly suffered over the past week and a half.

  Robert and Mickey went to Chicago to do the animal testing and they used the glass enclosure, normally used for working with radioactive material, to open the containers to see which one had the syringes. They sealed the container and hoped for the best, couldn’t autoclave the container for risk of neutralizing the virus, even though the CDC’s analysis of the strain showed it was fairly robust in liquid form.

  The testing was going to take a few days and was going to be conducted on two chimps, since they had close DNA to ours. The immunized chimp had shown many of the same side effects that they had, now it was just a waiting game. Their sphere practice had worked well, the dye color changing in the beakers at the prescribed time without any variation. Steve was proud that his work was scaling so well and Jay and Rudy were up to speed on the process and following the recipe to make batches of polymer and create the spheres.

  “If this test works and the one chimp doesn’t get sick will you guys feel better?” Jay asked as they sat around the war room table eating lunch.

  “I’ll still be nervous but it will make be willing to try to work with the actual virus. We need to make some batches, there’s not enough there to make what we need for the attack.”

  “We’re too close to hit the wall now, we are going to do this and then vanish. It’s going to cause such a disruption to the world and the people will no longer accept the American government, especially when they believe the ones they put in office are responsible for the attack.” Rudy hadn’t spoken much about his feeling around The Cause but what was coming out of his mouth was caustic. “I wish I could be there to see this go down, I might just stick around to see what happens, try to blend in as the few in a thousand that won’t get infected.”

  “I’ve thought about that too.” Steve said. “If we can point this to the government and away from us then there’s no reason why we can’t live here. The country will be a shell and we’ll be able to set up any kind of life we desire.”

  Steve had thought about that and also the possibility of giving Claire the vaccine and then having them disappear, maybe to Canada or some remote part of the United States. He didn’t want to leave the country and didn’t trust Robert to get them all the way to a destination safely. There would be complete chaos in the world and a total lack of trust.

  Jay must have been thinking the same way, he got lost in his thoughts the same way Steve did. In the wake of the chaos there would be millions of square miles of the country being shared by just a percentage of those who are already here today. Most likely border security would crumble, meaning that people could migrate north or south at will. The next generation of the United States would be a further blending of Canadians, Mexicans and probably other Central and South American natives, migrating north to take advantage of all the abandoned real estate and stock of food and supplies.

  Robert and Mickey came back the next morning, shit scared look in their eyes and excitement in their voices. “It worked, the infected chimp died an incredibly ugly death and the vaccinated chimp is fine, though it misses its brother.”

  “It was a sight to behold, all I could picture is all of the assholes dying the same death. We have some pictures that show the symptoms and even a video of the chimp screaming before it died.”

  “No thanks” Jay said. “I don’t need to see that to believe it, the look in your eyes tells me all I need to know.”

  Robert laughed the most evil way Steve had ever heard, causing the hair on his entire body to stand on end. This was one sick individual and Steve was wondering how far he’d go to protect himself. It was time to think about escape plans.

  “We need to do our human testing, don’t want to have any more delays by waiting for vaccination of a test subject. One of us is going to have to do it.”

  “I’ll do it.” Rudy volunteered. “I’m probably the most expendable member of the team anyway. Better put me in a safe place in case I get the disease and make sure I have some morphine so I don’t feel much.”

  “Thanks for your sacrifice Rudy, we’re going to take you up on the offer. I’ll make sure doc provides the right drugs in case you get the disease but based on what we saw in Chicago I don’t think you will. I’ve got a house that the CIA used to use in the city, not the safest neighborhood but if something happens to you we’ll burn it down.”

  “Makes sense. Just make sure I don’t get murdered for being in the wrong neighborhood.”

  “We’ll keep a camera on you around the clock to see what’s happening. You’ll be able to see us and talk to us from there. Let me call the doc, do you want to get anything to make your stay better? Books, movies, music, anything like that?”

  “I’m bringing a piece, if I get infected I’ll take the morphine and shoot myself. Other than that I wouldn’t mind bringing a small TV and some movies, never been much of a reader. Maybe some nudie rags to look at and pass the time. And a radio, can listen to Indians games.”

  They all went to the house, Robert had been right, it was in a really bad neighborhood. Curtains went aside in the few inhabited houses, wondering what all the old white men were doing in their neighborhood. Looked like city workers to most of them, but it was strange that they were bringing stuff into the house. Maybe they were just helping some homeless person out, some new outreach program.

  Inside the house was pleasant enough, it was odd that it hadn’t been ransacked or looted. All of the windows had some serious bars on them and the doors had prison grade locks on them. Nobody was getting in the house easily. There were also some padlocks on the outside, which meant that once they left Rudy there he was only coming out if they wanted him to. The house was brick and wood but it looked like it would burn well enough to get rid of him if he died and nobody would probably pay much attention, the houses on either side were boarded up, probably also owned by the CIA.

  Rudy was calm throughout the entire process. They had carried the syringe in a special container, which Rudy opened in another room. “It’s not broken or leaking” he shouted from upstairs. Doc Ravich went up the stairs in a biohazard suit, his eyes showing his fear. He came back down several minutes later, contai
ner in hand.

  “I think we’re safe but you should autoclave this and then dispose of it.” He handed the container to Robert, who was wearing gloves and a respirator, all of them were. The doc had removed the biohazard suit but still had his respirator on. It was reminiscent of a fifties sci-fi movie, Steve thought. All were quiet on the drive back to the project site, where they turned on the web camera that was connected to the one in the safe house. Rudy was pacing back and forth very nervously and didn’t respond when they first tried to speak to him. They thought the audio was broken but the man was just lost in thought, responding after the fourth time they spoke to him.

  “Feel strange but it might be just nerves. You guys going to be watching me around the clock?”

  “We’ll keep an eye on you until this evening. If you show symptoms we’ll take shifts checking on you, otherwise Steve will check on you in the morning since he’s normally here a few hours before anyone else.”

  “Thanks for doing this Rudy, very gutsy.”

  “Thanks Mick, sometimes you gotta take one for the team.”

  There wasn’t much else to say after that other than to give Rudy encouraging words. He said he was going to watch some movies and maybe take a nap, the house was comfortable. Not much changed during that afternoon though it might be too soon to tell. Jay said he’d come by around nine to check on Rudy and Steve said he’d be in early but if they needed him they could call the cell and he’d come anytime.

  Steve was picking at his dinner and hadn’t said more than “hello” and “what’s for dinner?” since being home. Claire was losing sleep due to his mood and behavior and had to talk to him about it.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Ok.”

  “We’ve been together a long time and have been through a lot, especially in the early days. I knew that you were a distant, private person. But something’s happened since you started working on that project, especially since you came back from D.C. Can you please talk to me? You’re losing weight, aren’t sleeping and haven’t been talking to me at all. I’m scared Steve, please talk to me.”

  “I’m sorry that you’re scared Claire. The project has tight timelines and there are still some significant testing hurdles to overcome. It’s so much more important than my work at Foundation and I’m not used to that kind of pressure.”

  “Can you talk about it? You know that I’d never tell anyone.”

  “I can’t Claire, it’s something that can’t be disclosed to anyone outside the team.”

  “What happened in D.C. Steve?”

  Steve spent the next hour telling his story, crying at several points, especially the first time he saw the wall and touched the cold, black granite and felt the names carved into the wall. He was crying for what he was doing, not just what he’d seen in D.C. and it felt good to let it out. She held him and stroked his hair, glad that she’d finally pushed him on it. He was asleep before her that night, having fully unburdened. Claire lay next to him listening to the rhythm of his breathing and wondering if she should be paying more attention to the project he’s working on.