Under a Graveyard Sky btr-1

by John Ringo

  “Great way to make friends there…”

  * * *

  “Shull isn’t your culprit,” Dr. Dobson said, wearily.

  “We’re still trying to determine his part in this,” the FBI deputy director for terrorism replied.

  “His part was to create one of the necessary technological conditions,” Dobson said, as patiently as he could. “That’s it. He made a breakthrough. The same thing could be said for dozens of professional researchers. You might as well indict Alfred Nobel for every IED in Iraq. And I’d really prefer you didn’t lock them all up. We need them. As we need Shull. He’s the expert on dual expression. Nobody had even looked at it before he did. So, sure, keep him in custody but if you don’t put him on a plane to Atlanta by the end of the day I’ll let you explain it to the news media and the President. And I want my people talking to him within the hour. He didn’t make the virus but he understands it in a way we don’t…”

  * * *

  “The Department of Education has mandated a total shutdown of all public and private schools starting Monday…”

  “Schools out for summer…” Dr. Curry crooned, looking at the latest spread graphs. Only Sunday and they’d gone from dots on the West Coast to spreading red in every reporting zone across the globe. And the “Save the Planet” deodorizers had been found in dozens of public locations stretching up and down the eastern and western seaboards. Somebody had been a busy little beaver. “Schools out for ever…”

  * * *

  “Okay, first of all…” Dr. Karza said, shaking his head at the scene in the interrogation room. “Get him out of the cuffs.”

  “Doctor…”

  “Just get him out of the cuffs you dick-brained myrmidon!” Karza snarled. “He’s not going to be able to think if he thinks he’s on his way to Gitmo and WE NEED HIS BRAIN!”

  He waited until the agent had released Shull and left.

  “Idiots,” Karza said, shaking his head again. “I mean, not actual idiots. They’re smart. They just aren’t bio smart. And that scares them. And I didn’t literally mean we need your brain, just in case you were wondering…”

  “I didn’t make the virus,” Tim said, rubbing his wrists. “Please, I really didn’t! I’m worried about catching it!”

  “I know,” Karza said, nodding. “My lab processed the hell out of yours. There were zero pathogens in your lab and I’m pretty sure from the looks you hardly ever went out. And eventually they’ll figure the same thing out.”

  “I really don’t,” Tim said, hunching up. “Not since I left school.”

  “Sorry about the master’s thing,” Karza said, shrugging. “I know Dr. Wirta. He’s a dick and not nearly as important as he thinks he is in the field. I’m Dr. Azim Karza from the CDC, by the way. And while I’ll admit you have more problems than I do, try being the lead investigator on a bio terror attack while being Islamic, born in Iran and with a name like Azim Karza.”

  “I can imagine,” Tim said, chuckling and sniffling at the same time.

  “Your mom is fine, sort of,” Karza said. “She’s been released and she’s gotten you a lawyer. Who for all sorts of Patriot Act reasons isn’t going to be able to help you any time soon. On the other hand, CDC is on your side. We get how the DOJ reacts in these sorts of things. They think about the perp walk and calming the public because just because you have the culprit the plague is going to stop all by itself! We react differently. Which is why I’m here. We’re going to be moving you to Atlanta pretty soon. Not the Pen, to CDC. FBI and DoJ are still going to be going apeshit and asking all sorts of questions you can’t answer. That’s because they don’t know which questions to ask.

  “We know you don’t know how to make a vaccine or a ‘cure’ as the FBI keeps insisting. They’ve been watching too many movies. ‘What’s the cure?’ They don’t like ‘There isn’t one, even theoretically.’ But what we need is your knowledge of dual expression. So what we’d like you to do is go with the flow for the time being. You’re under arrest but as of this point you’re also one of our research associates. Until DOJ can get over ‘he had to have made the virus’ they’ll probably insist on treating you like a criminal. Let them. Cooperate with them. Be polite. Keep your head down. If we, that meaning the CDC, can possibly get one of our people along the whole time we will. And he or she will be there to both pick your brain and keep the Fibbies from getting berserk. Let your lawyer work on getting you out and work with us on finding a vaccine. Deal? At the very least it’s going to make their argument that you must have done it because you can a little weaker. The term is ‘cooperation.’ Goes loads with judges.”

  “Absolutely,” Tim said, nodding vigorously. “I mean, a chance to work with the CDC on this is like a dream come true. I really really want to help!”

  “Good,” Karza said. “Good. Now: how in the hell did you get a DNA virus to express an RNA virus? That right there was effing brilliant…”

  * * *

  “These are all the points to two hours ago where the canisters have been reported,” the agent said, pointing to a dot-filled map. “The red dots are where they are presently and have been verified by removal teams or local police. The yellow dots are reports from owners or managers where they were reported to have been seen and removed prior to determining the spread method.”

  “That’s…” the President said, looking at the map. “There’s a line…”

  “The unsub appears to have worked down the West Coast to Los Angeles,” the Attorney General said, working from notes. “Then Interstate Ten to its joining with I-20. From there the unsub continued to I-95. Indications are that the unsub then went north through the Washington, New York, Boston corridor, then down again into Florida. The indications are that it was one unsub or unsub team. If there were more they would have been expected to spread out. This is definitely a single movement. Because the pathogen was initially…” he consulted his notes for a moment. “Because it was asymptomatic at first, there was no indications for some time this was a bioweapons attack. Current estimates are that the unsub could have completed most of this spread within the period prior to the neurological symptoms outbreak.”

  “Any idea who he or she or they are?” the President asked.

  “We have a number of working suspects, Mr. President…”

  “So do we,” the Director of National Intelligence said. “Al Qaeda being at the top of the list…”

  “That’s an absolutely unfounded attack, Director,” the Secretary of State said.

  “Oh? Really? Shall I count the ways…?”

  * * *

  “Welcome to the Centers for Disease Control, Mr. Shull,” Dr. Dobson said.

  Shull started to hold out his hand, then pulled it back.

  “Nothing against you,” Dr. Dobson said, hastily.

  “No, sir, Doctor,” Shull said, just as quickly. “I…I guess I’m having a bad protocol day.”

  “We’re having a more or less ongoing teleconference this way,” Dobson said, gesturing for the former master’s candidate to precede him. “I’d like to say… Not sure where to start. First of all, your dualistic expression is an amazing breakthrough, especially with limited resources…”

  “My dad had a lot of insurance,” Tim said, shrugging uncomfortably. “After… Stanford I just sort of… I guess I got obsessed. And I was right. You can get a dualistic expression!” He paused as he remembered what his breakthrough had been used for. “Is this how Oppenheimer felt after Hiroshima?”

  “Probably,” Dr. Dobson said, nodding sympathetically. “Through here…”

  * * *

  “Mr. Shull has yet to be fully exonerated by the DOJ,” Dr. Dobson said. “But the CDC is satisfied that while he may have discovered a method of dualistic expression that he did not develop the H7D3 virus. He is, however, the only one that knows anything about dualistic expression. Dr. Addis?”

  “Pasteur…”

  “Mr. Shull, from what we have gleaned from your videos the express
ion is two fully separate viruses. To be clear, the secondary virus is also able to replicate?”

  “Yes, D… Doctor…” Tim said nervously. “It of course depends on what you want to replicate as the secondary expression. But a secondary expression can be a replicable organism. My initial experiments were with a nonreplicating secondary expression but… Yes, Doctor.”

  “Pass…”

  “Hong Kong…”

  “Mr. Shull, as with these others I’d like to add my congratulations on your breakthrough,” Dr. Bao said. “However it has been used. The question is whether in your opinion a vaccine against the secondary expression alone would work?”

  “I believe so, Doctor,” Tim said, his brow furrowing in thought. “There is no reason that it should not. I…I was following the progress of the information about the pathogen before the dualism was identified. And I’d like to congratulate you, as well, Doctor. I read the draft paper before… Before… Very brilliant. Just really… Uh… The thing is that even before that I was…wonder… More like worrying that it was a dualistic pathogen. The…change in effect was what I would have expected to see with a dualistic pathogen. And…and…the period of fever after the primary pathogen has effectively run its course… That’s signs of a dualistic. And the secondary pathogen has to then spread in the…the host… So a vaccine targeted against the secondary expression… Yes, yes, it should work…”

  “We’ve already started experiments with the Pasteur method here at CDC,” Dr. Dobson said. “The problem is the question of if it’s affecting the primary pathogen.”

  “…Standard influenza vaccine would not affect the blood pathogen…”

  “…a secondary will not affect the primary…”

  “Doctors,” Dr. Addis cut in. “Stockholm…”

  “The primary threat is the secondary expression,” Dr. Svengar pointed out. “The influenza is a bad influenza, yes. At least at the level of swine flu. But it is not an apocalypse. The blood pathogen package should be the primary target especially given the fact that at least twenty five percent of all infections are blood pathogen related.”

  “CDC…”

  “Concur with Dr. Svengar,” Dobson said. “If the neurological secondary packet can be stopped, even after airborne infection, we only really need a viable neuro vaccine and efforts to produce such should concentrate there.”

  “Pasteur…”

  “While we appreciate the use of our namesake’s name in this vaccine development,” Dr. Phillipe Jardin said drily, “there is one problem remaining. Several, in fact. Spread on this is…enormous. At least the airborne packet. It is all over the world at this point and well established. We have produced a vaccine using the namesake method and have vaccinated specimens. And they do have antibody response against the secondary packet. However, we have also determined that it requires a dual stage injection, primer and booster.”

  “Confirm,” Dr. Dobson said. “We’re that far as well. A single strong injection caused several specimens to develop the neurological condition almost immediately.”

  “As did ours,” Jardin said, nodding.

  “Here as well,” Hong Kong confirmed.

  “Which means that we now have to wait,” Phillipe said. “While the infection spreads and the blood pathogen overtakes airborne as the most common method of transfer. Until the specimens cook, we really don’t know if the vaccine will work at all. And even assuming it’s of use, vaccines take time to produce.”

  “The Pasteur method is the simplest production method in the world,” Dr. Svengar pointed out.

  “Ah, and that is the second problem,” Jardin said. “We have tried infecting various organisms with the blood pathogen. The only organisms that will host it are higher order primates.”

  “We had noted that as well…” Dobson said, grimacing.

  “This is very bad,” Dr. Bao said, quietly. “That is… A great misfortune.”

  “Potassium…!” Tim blurted.

  “Excuse me?” Dr. Dobson said, looking at the younger man and hitting the button for priority.

  “Potassium transfer!” Shull said, excitedly. “I… I didn’t have a lot of lab materials to work with and I was using a medium high in potassium at first. Even though I knew I was on the right track I couldn’t get a dual expression. I ran out of the high potassium medium and had to change to a…a cheaper one. That one I could get dual expression! I realized later that dual expression is inhibited by potassium! I never thought to mention it in… I think you can… We might be able to reduce the likelihood of dualistic expression… Maybe. I mean…”

  “It’s something to try,” Dr. Dobson said, nodding. “Thank you, young man.”

  “Anything,” Tim said, his face working. “I mean… This really… I’m sorry, Doctors, but I have to say it, this pisses me OFF. I feel like I’ve been raped. You know?”

  “We’ll begin immediate experiments on potassium inhibition,” Dr. Svengar said. “As well as continuing work on vaccines. And, yes, to have your life’s great work used in this way… You have my sympathies, young man.”

  “I think we all feel a bit raped by this,” Dr. Addis said.

  * * *

  “Progression of secondary expression is reduced by potassium,” Dr. Karza said, looking at the printout.

  “So it helps?” Shull asked, looking at the paper over the doctor’s shoulder.

  “Unfortunately, only in a test tube,” Karza said with a sigh. “The levels of potassium that stop expression in a human would be terminal. However, it slows expression at lower levels. That is useable.”

  “This organism is much more complex than just a dual expressor,” Shull said, looking at the reports from groups studying the “zombie virus” all over the world. Different groups had taken different parts of the virus to study and the total take was being analyzed by CDC, Pasteur and a series of other teams in various countries. “It only has 30 % rabies RNA in the secondary expressor virus. Has anyone looked at, well, other people who are sort of off the radar map working on this sort of stuff?”

  “What do you mean?” Dr. Karza asked.

  “Whoever did this stole my process,” Shull said, frowning. “Has anyone done any digging in the amateur field to see if any of this stuff is from their work?”

  “You jumped out as a dual expressor pioneer,” Karza said, thoughtfully. “Do you have an example?”

  “This,” Shull said, pulling out a report and pointing to a series of gene sequences. “This looks a lot like Jaime Fondor’s work. She’s working on plant resistance and works with clavaviridae. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her use similar sequences. It would help if I could shoot this over to her. She may know something useful.”

  “How do you recognize it?”

  For a change the FBI agent assigned had been just quietly staying out the way and not looming menacingly. Karza understood their passion for the case but their attitude really did not help the way that most bio geeks worked.

  “I…” Shull said, looking up nervously.

  “There are…signatures,” Karza said. “There are usually several ways to work out a genetic puzzle. In this case, I think what he’s saying is that this looks like this Miz Fondor’s signature.”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Tim said, holding up his hands. “She’s not a suspect! Jaime would never do something like this!”

  “But you’re saying that is her signature?” the agent said.

  “No,” Karza said. “Or most likely not. It’s similar. Someone has been looking not only as professional synbio but also closely studying amateur synbio.”

  “And that’s important,” the agent said, frowning. “Here’s the thing. You guys get bio. I don’t. Or barely, which is why I’m in this lab. What we get is investigation. What you’re saying is that the unsub has been monitoring information in the amateur synbio stream. That means they’re probably members of synbio boards. You have those, right?”

  “Yes,” Tim said nervously.

  “And you’
re saying that there are signatures to this thing,” the agent said, getting animated. “We love signatures. If we can get an algorithm for the overall virus, then we can build a database to compare posted genes or whatever and look for similar signatures… If somebody has ever posted on one of those boards, we’ll find them.”

  “The point being that he’s copying other people’s methods and signatures,” Dr. Karza pointed out. “Which means you’re going to be terrifying a lot of innocent people. Innocent people who don’t work well terrified.”

  “We’ll contact this Miz Fondor,” the agent said. “Bring her in as a material witness. Nicely, okay?”

  “Can you control that?” Karza said.

  “Just let us handle it. We can be polite. In the meantime, yes. Shull, you’re familiar with these people’s work. Keep looking for signatures. The more ‘suppliers’ we have the better we can build a profile. What boards the unsub frequents. Whose methods he’s been copying. It would be good if we could build an algorithm for that. Is there anything like that already?”

  “So you want me to burn the only friends I have in the world?” Tim said angrily. “You’re all ready to go bust down Jaime’s door and you want me to do that to how many people?”

  “I’ll send up that these people are probably innocent of any wrong doing,” the agent said. “But, Tim, keep in mind. While you’re worrying about hurting your friends’ feelings, the world is going to hell in a handbasket.”

  “Point,” Dr. Karza said. “Tim, do you have any personal contact information for Jaime Fondor…?”

  * * *

  “Dr. Curry,” Bateman said, drily. “Thank you so much for joining us…”

  The “meeting” was taking place by video conference. At least in Curry’s case. The boardroom the rest were meeting in was five floors up and a few suites over from Curry’s lab. But since he’d been given it he hadn’t left. And he didn’t intend to any time soon.