“Now, past experience has taught us that a need might arise for you to speak to someone as well, for your own health, you understand. To this end, we have secured a person in the Pentagon for you to vid chat with if you would like. This individual is trained and licensed to help you, and also has the required security clearance to hear whatever you might say.” The general paused and looked her in the eyes solemnly. “Remember, heal thyself and all that. We need you in proper working order, same as everyone else.”
Kate nodded again. It was a very wise decision to secure someone for her, especially in such an isolated environment. His comment about ‘past experience’ really had her wondering though, and she made a mental note to check her files and see if there was any info on past therapists.
The general stepped from around his desk and smacked his flat stomach twice. His eyes even seemed to start to twinkle a little. “Well, I’m famished, what say we go and get some grub?” This was obviously a man who spent a great deal of time thinking about food, even though he was very physically fit, especially for a man that was probably approaching 70 years old.
“Oh, that would be great. I need to get some things from my room. I’ll meet you there?” All Kate wanted to do was change her shoes. The ones she was wearing were kind of fancy, job interview style shoes and they were killing her feet. Plus, the hard soles clacked when she walked down the halls and, while no one had said anything, it was obvious that they were an oddity around here.
“I like the sound of that, but don’t expect me to wait on you to eat. I am much too hungry to wait. It’s sushi night!” The general raised his eyebrows and patted his stomach once more, as they both headed into the hallway.
Kate immediately noticed the purple line dimly come on along the lower side of the wall again. She tried not to use it as she found her way back to her bedroom and changed shoes. She was very much looking forward to eating dinner with what seemed like an odd arrangement of individuals. For some reason, she was surprised that the general would be so excited about sushi. Pork chops maybe, but sushi? Thinking back on the conversation, she was reminded never to judge a book by its cover.
+++
After a quick stop by her room, Kate made it to the cafeteria. Dozens of people were seated and eating. After an awkward glance around the room, she noticed Laurel waving her hand and headed that way.
Within minutes Laurel had introduced her to the others at the small round table. Several of them were in the same virology lab as her new friend, but many were in mechanical with Jeep. Everyone was very friendly, and the conversation quickly turned back to the issue of climate change.
“The glaciers can’t completely melt, that just won’t happen.” said the man who had introduced himself simply as James. He was tall and lanky, with a level of grime under his fingernails that didn’t look like it would wash off very easily.
“Anything can happen, man, we are fully in uncharted territory. Look at a dozen prediction models and you will see thirteen totally different outcomes. It’s wild.” Jeep said in his slow, deep voice.
A man named Marcus, sitting next to Kate, spoke up next, “Look, the American and Canadian farmers are loving it. Growing seasons have expanded, they’re putting out more and more food every year. The Deep South is stuck in a drought, but many others are coming through this well. There is no stopping this train; we just need to roll along with it.” Kate smiled at his analogy. She immediately liked Marcus, he seemed very laid back. It helped that he was also one of the most attractive men she had ever seen in real life. She wasn’t really in the market for a relationship, but the impressive stature, relaxed attitude and warm feelings coming off the man had her reconsidering.
“You’re always trying to find the silver lining, aren’t you?” asked Laurel.
Marcus laughed a little. It was a slow, throaty chuckle that actually made his ears twitch slightly every time he laughed. “If you don’t, you’re gonna lose your mind…ain’t that right Ms. Headshrinker?”
Kate wasn’t quite ready to be pulled into the conversation; she had not been able to keep up with the rapidly changing arguments involving climate change that were all over the news for the past few years. She was also embarrassed about some of the thoughts she had been having about Marcus the moment he began talking to her. “Well, staying positive is key, as long as it’s not just a mask for some deep seated depression.”
The table burst out into laughter and Kate felt bad, she hadn’t meant to make a joke at the man’s expense. As she was getting ready to apologize, a very small screen imbedded in the table began flashing food options in front of her.
Laurel leaned over to her and said “These are the options for today. We usually have around a dozen choices and one special item, today it’s sushi. The computer can also make anything if you have a serious craving, but people rarely go off menu. No real reason to, really. Also, you can always cook for yourself if you enjoy doing that. Jeep does it all the time.”
“Hey, it’s not my fault that computer thing doesn’t know how to fry okra. Sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands. I mean, it can’t taste it, so how does it know when it’s perfect?” Then he shoved a large fork that he’d stabbed into several chunks of okra into his mouth and chewed contently. It was apparent that everyone at the table had heard Jeep’s thoughts on food cooked by computers as they all chose to ignore him.
Kate clicked on the button for fish tacos and felt her stomach rumble at the thought of them. She was hopeful they were good, and looking around the table it seemed that everyone’s food looked pretty tasty. Suddenly, a small note blinked up on the screen that her food would be ready in several minutes and she would be notified.
“Do I get a number or something?” Kate looked around the screen a little more to see if she could discern something to identify her meal.
“Ha! Nope.” said Jeep. Then he lowered his tone and looked around nervously while waving his fork full of okra in the air. “The computer is always watching you. She knows who you are and what you ordered. No reason for a number.” He said ominously.
“Oh let the lady eat, man,” said Marcus. “Listen Kate, it just streamlines things. Yes, the computer is watching you, but so are we. What’s the big deal? Everyone is watching everyone, the difference is the computer is actually cooking your food while we’re just sitting here bullshitting.”
Kate chuckled at the point. She had never been one to be worried about computers taking over the world. She had seen all the old 2D movies about man and machine fighting and robots becoming sentient. It didn’t frighten her.
Suddenly, the screen brightened again and informed Kate that her food was ready. “So, does it come up through the table or something?” she said while peering at the center of the tabletop, expecting it to open.
Everyone snickered and Kate’s face reddened. Marcus said, “Nah, we’re not that advanced yet.” He pointed across the room where she saw a large slot in wall. “You actually have to walk over there to the pickup area. Your food will be waiting for you and piping hot!”
As she rose to cross the room, she realized just how hungry she was. Maybe it was just all the smells of delicious food in the cafeteria, but she had really worked up an appetite.
Before long she was enjoying some of the best fish tacos she had ever eaten. They even had slightly puffy shells and just the right amount of crunch. It was amazing. For a first day at a new job, she was putting this one in the ‘good’ column.
6
The general paced in his office, waiting for the video screen to become active. He had a meeting with the Joint Chiefs, and he was not looking forward to it. They never had good news to tell him and, stationed in the middle of nowhere, he could rarely do anything that would impact the situation.
At times like this he always wanted to get back in the fray, where he could make a difference. He had simply grown too old, and since he refused to retire, they stuffed him into the seed vault. He enjoyed being in Montana g
reatly, but he still wished he could help with the situation more.
The vid screen slowly lit up and the general clicked his heels together and puffed out his chest. The image of several men around a large table suddenly loomed before him.
“General Bahn, good to see you again.” said one of the men at the table. “We don’t have much for you today, but we do have some bad news.” The general maintained his rigid stance, even though his heart was sinking. “We may be on the cusp of a pandemic breaking out, but we still have too many unknowns in the situation to say for sure.”
“Of course, sir. However I can be of assistance.”
“Well, our files show that one of your virology teams there at the vault is working on a virus that is starting to get a much stronger foothold all over the world. It’s still very early, but we want to stay on top of anything that might come down.”
The general was thrilled that his team might be able to help the situation in any way. “In these times we need to control any variable that we may be able to. I fully understand sir. I will have my people work on this double time.”
“No reason to push too hard General, just keep them focused. Their research is now a top priority. I’m sending over a file to you that has the latest information. Besides the obvious avenues of research, we want them to focus on the location of origin.” The man paused and looked around the table to a series of slow nods. “General, we fear this may be a biological attack gone awry. It’s popping up all over the world, but the transmission patterns don’t line up. It’s showing up mostly in rural areas in the north, very remote spots, and then moving out from there. If someone has, or had, this agent and can manipulate it, we need to know. Get us a location.”
“I will do just that, sir.” The general’s chest was puffed up slightly more than normal as he was excited about this new assignment.
“Also, Bahn, we’re sending you some fresh samples, taken from all over the world. They should get there by helicopter tomorrow. It’s all in the file.”
The general looked down at his personal screen and saw the icon for the newly received file in the upper corner. “I have the file now sir, and will look it over immediately.”
“Sounds good. Also Bahn, I see you got your new base therapist on site.” The general nodded in agreement. “Hey, try not to let this one eat all the urinal cakes. It’s a matter of national security and our budget shows those things cost us 96,000 dollars apiece!” Had several of the stoic men not chuckled, the general would not have realized that this was a joke at his expense.
The general did not find it amusing, but was able to muster an awkward smile and laugh. The meeting was over and the screen went dark yet again. The joke at the expense of his staff had taken a little shine off of the general’s mood, but he still had important work to do.
He pulled up the file on the vid screen. He wasn’t exactly aware of which teams were working on which tasks, but was surprised to find the slightly hyper and mousy woman, Laurel, to be the lead on this virus. She was easy to work with at least, even though she was slightly hyper most of the time. He would need to keep in close contact with this research in order to promptly report back to the Joint Chiefs about any new developments.
“Computer, please alert Laurel that I need to see her immediately. Tell her to drop all tasks and head straight here.”
+++
Laurel had been looking over the new file the general gave her, and it simply didn’t make sense. This wasn’t the way a virus acted. It’s almost like someone was releasing it all over the northern hemisphere, but only in rural areas. That’s not the way the terrorist groups worked. Also, she had spent enough time looking at the virus that she was nearly certain it wasn’t man-made. It had none of the telltale signs of a weaponized virus, plus it wasn’t nearly damaging enough for anyone to waste their time on.
Laurel had received the new samples that morning, and as she examined them more she found very slight variations in the DNA virus. It did seem to be adapting, and the distance between the samples had an effect because the adaptations were slightly different. No, none of this added up to a biological weapon. No one could predict how a virus would mutate, so it’s not like a terrorist group would release this planning on it becoming more severe. That answered one of the questions that the general needed an answer to. The other one would be much trickier.
It was always odd when people who don’t study viruses want to know where it came from. In some instances, like Ebola outbreaks, you can trace it to an individual village. Ebola was a virus that quickly burned itself out. It was too good at what it did and would kill off a village before it had time to spread, making it relatively easy to track. This thing was a different story entirely. It may have been bouncing around the world for the past year, making it impossible to find the origin.
As far as she could tell, the virus began replicating inside the host DNA and after the period of rampant replication, it went dormant. While dormant, it was still altering small groups of DNA slowly, but it seemed to mostly affect the noncoding DNA that makes up 98% of the human genome. The press had been calling this group ‘junk DNA’ for decades, even though that was a severe misnomer. The noncoding DNA still served an important purpose, such as the regulation of protein coding sequences within our bodies.
What Laurel had been focusing on was the long term effect of this virus, but she had come to a dead end. Instead, she was now trying to formulate a test that could discover who might be carrying it once it went dormant. All the samples brought to her so far had been in the active replication phase. If she could get some samples from someone who had been carrying this virus for six months to a year, she may be able to learn much more.
7
Kate was sitting in her office, flipping through one of her new books. In her first survival course, they had given her several different books listing all means of survival techniques. Her favorites were the U.S. Army FM 21-76 manual and the British SAS Survival guide. Both were full of amazing tricks and tips, although much of it still seemed well beyond her. She was fairly certain she couldn’t crush a chipmunk with a rock, burn the hair off, and then eat it whole. Her nose wrinkled up at even the thought of it. No, she figured she couldn’t chew and swallow little rodent bones.
In her first month at the vault, she had settled in nicely. It had taken a few sessions, but she was fairly certain she had the trust of most of the staff. In all, 45 individuals were stationed here; the vast majority of them were researchers and staff. She had been surprised to discover that most were amazingly well adjusted.
Her sessions had shown that around half were on anti-anxiety meds, which was the average for most of the country anyway. Much research had shown the interconnectedness of life in this digital age had seriously ramped up stress levels on everyone. Even in this remote outpost, the effects were stark. Still, with the advanced medication, everyone appeared to have things well under control.
She had not been surprised to discover several sanctioned relationships and only a handful of illicit affairs. Again, it was all par for the course with a group of people like this. Even Marcus, one of the only black people on site and the only known homosexual, was perfectly at ease. She was beginning to wonder if the previous therapist had simply grown bored with the group. She knew she would not get any research papers out of this crowd unless somebody decided to have a psychotic break or develop some sort of crushing compulsion.
Instead, she had decided to write up all the things that she thought the vault had been doing very well to maintain such a high level of mental health. Obviously, the tranquil setting helped. She noticed that many never bothered to go outside very much, and had quickly discovered this was the more anxiety riddled bunch. They weren’t very comfortable in wide open spaces and likely never would be. Others spent as much time relaxing outside as possible. Sometimes they would read a book, but some just went outside for a nap in a hammock tied to one of the trees by the river.
It was this laid ba
ck atmosphere of not forcing individuals to have outside time or limiting others’ ability to go outside that she saw as one of the driving forces for the positive mental state of the staff. At their core, most people hated to be forced to do anything, even if it was something that they normally enjoyed. She loved reading, but if she was forced to do it every day at the same time it could easily become tedious. The mind enjoys structure, but it also enjoys spontaneity and excitement.
As per her normal policy, if she was alone in her office the door was always wide open and inviting to any who might need help or simply want to chat. Not necessarily for any official reason, she just wanted to always be friendly and inviting.
As Jeep came through the door with his standard slow gait, Kate never even heard him. He let out a slight cough and her head shot up, startled to have a visitor.
“Hello Jeep, how are you doing today,” Kate asked, trying to regain her calm and let it flow into her voice. It was a trick that they all learned, exude calm with your voice and posture first, and the patient will be at ease. These same tricks always bled over into personal conversations; it simply couldn’t be helped, like putting on your seatbelt when you’re only backing up your car two feet.
“Oh, just fine. I was walking by, figured I would see what was going on in here.” Jeep had yet to make eye contact with her, which was normal for him. He would usually look all around her office and fidget with things, generally refusing to sit down. It was obvious he was not very comfortable with the idea of therapy.
“Would you like to close the door?” Kate assumed he had something he wanted to talk about.
“Nothing like that Doc, I’m really just socializing.” he said while looking through the books on her shelves. “You know, most of us just read electronic books. Why did you lug all these way up here?”
Finding Their Path (Down The Path Book 3) Page 4
