Gunwitch: Rebirth

by Niall Teasdale

  Mickey stopped her with a bark, lifting his head off his paws and staring at her.

  ‘You’re right. I should stop second-guessing myself and just damn well fix this.’

  Once again, Mickey settled his chin on his paws. Louise would fix it. If his mistress could not fix whatever was wrong with Sarah, there was no way any other human could.

  1/5/2117.

  The staff at the hospital were all looking the most tense that they had been since Sarah was brought in, and Sarah had noticed. It had taken her a day to find out what it was they thought she had. No one had wanted to tell her in case she panicked, and she had, but she had done it quietly and in the knowledge that Louise was working on something which would cure her. Louise had never once lied to Sarah, that she knew of. She had not told her the whole truth about everything, but she did not lie. If Louise thought she had a way of saving the day, then Sarah knew that her friend would move Heaven and Earth to do it.

  On the other hand, Louise looked less than happy when she entered the isolation room Sarah was housed in. At first, Sarah thought something might have gone wrong, but then she started recognising signs of tiredness. Louise was, mostly, tired and Sarah flashed her a smile.

  ‘How come you don’t have to wear one of those plastic suits when you visit?’ Sarah asked because it was not a question about how things were going.

  ‘Because no virus in its right mind would try to attack me,’ Louise replied, smiling back as she pulled up a chair and flopped into it. ‘I’m immune. I was before I implemented my new immune system, and the immunity carried over. My system learned how to block the plague virus from my body. I just wish it was easy to get what it learned out. It’s embedded in the nanomachines and they were never designed to read back their learned programming. Not every design flaw is weeded out during prototyping.’

  ‘Hopefully, this cure you’re making will not have design flaws.’ Sarah grinned to be sure Louise knew she was joking, but Louise seemed too tired to care that much.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll have a couple, but nothing that’s going to make any difference. I’m making progress. I just had to take a break before I fell over.’

  ‘If you’re too tired to think straight, you’ll make mistakes. You make sure you get your rest, young lady. And enough to eat.’

  ‘Yes, Mother. Mickey’s keeping me on the straight and narrow, don’t worry. They, uh, got their first patients with symptoms today.’

  Sarah grimaced. ‘Is that why everyone’s looking more worried?’

  ‘Probably. There were two in Queens this afternoon, but that was after they got three before breakfast in Sky City. The count is up to seventeen, and that includes three in Greenland and two in Hamptonville. The government has enforced an enclave-wide curfew. It’s really quiet out there, Sarah.’

  Sarah shook her head. She felt fine and was rather annoyed to be cooped up in the hospital room, but it sounded like being outside would not be much more fun. ‘How could this happen? There hasn’t been any sign of the Damnation Plague in years.’

  ‘No… No, I went over the records Doctor Mitre has. This area has had no cases since the establishment of the enclave. There have been a few outbreaks in some of the other enclaves, but not in over a decade. From what I’ve heard, the current theory is that someone illegal, probably from one of the wasteland gangs, brought it in, but I don’t think that makes sense given the pattern of victims that’s showing up now.’

  ‘So, what do you think?’

  ‘They’ve had basically no cases in Brooklyn and more in Sky City than in Queens. The cases in Greenland and Hamptonville can be explained by people going to Sky City for meetings. I think someone’s deliberately spreading it. They went for the school in Queens because it’s one of the few places you can guarantee a large crowd and extended exposure. They chose several sites in Sky City, because there are more places like that to work with. Government offices, commercial offices, theatres… I think this is a deliberate, biological attack.’

  ‘By who?’ Sarah’s eyes were wide, shocked.

  ‘If I had to guess… There’s only one group of people who could spread this disease without ending up as victims themselves. That I know of anyway. I think this has come from Utopia City.’

  ‘Probably best if you don’t mention that to too many people.’

  Louise nodded. ‘I’m not anxious to have it be public knowledge, but I’m going to tell someone. Maybe she can make something useful from it, because I can’t think of anything right now. Knowing how this started is never going to be as much use as knowing how to stop it.’

  2/5/2117.

  ‘We had the first two deaths today,’ Mitre said. He was watching Sarah through the observation window and Louise had just joined him. ‘They were both in Sky City, but one of the patients here won’t make it through the night.’ His voice sounded hollow. He sounded hollow, as though the loss of someone to the disease was a deep, personal wound the man found intolerable. The only way he could deal with it was to empty himself of emotion and push on.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Louise said, not knowing what else to say.

  ‘How’s your work coming along? Nothing we do does anything more than stave off the inevitable.’

  ‘It’s… coming. Another two days. Maybe three. That’ll be a couple of samples ready for human testing. You’ll need some subjects. I, um… Look, I’m trying everything I know to test this stuff. Modelling, tissue and blood tests, and more modelling.’

  ‘But when it comes to it, you won’t know whether it works, or even whether it’s safe, until it’s tried on a patient.’

  ‘That. Yeah. I’m rushing this a little. I read the data you got me and I knew we’d be seeing corpses soon and…’

  Mitre’s eyes stayed on Sarah. ‘And one of those corpses could be hers so you’re motivated. Tell me something. Do you have something we could use, right now, to cure her? To cure all of them?’

  ‘I have something which kills the virus. That was easy. Damn, it’s an organic structure and there are plenty of things which could destroy it, but pretty much all of them would kill the patient faster than the virus does. What I have now is probably safe, but–’

  ‘But you’re testing in as many ways as you can. I do not believe you are rushing, Miss Barrington. Many might take far greater risks. When I was your age, I… I believe I would have tried what I had and prayed.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t believe in the God you people seem to put so much faith in, Doctor. I have to believe in the science and the science says I should make a few more checks. Can I get blood samples from as many of the patients you have in as possible? I can run batches, check for adverse reactions.’

  ‘I’ll make arrangements,’ Mitre said and turned to leave.

  Louise made her way through the airlock into Sarah’s room. The blonde girl smiled; she was still showing no symptoms though, from all the information Louise had, her body would now be almost saturated in infected cells.

  ‘Hey,’ Sarah said. ‘You’re looking a little less washed out. Any news from outside? They really don’t tell me much.’

  Louise thought of the deaths, and the ones soon to come, and she fixed a smile on her face. ‘Nothing much. I’m still working on the cure. Should be ready to test on Wednesday. I think they’ll want to try it on some of the more seriously affected patients first, but… Well, we’re getting there.’

  Sarah’s smile looked just as forced now. ‘Wednesday? I might be one of the seriously affected patients by then.’

  ‘Nope,’ Louise replied. ‘I’m betting the stuff figures out how awesome you are and decides not to affect you at all.’

  ‘Oh yeah, sure. You’re just trying to make me feel better.’

  ‘Is it working?’

  Sarah held up her thumb and forefinger, measuring a centimetre or so between them. ‘Little bit,’ she said.

  5/5/2117.

  It was just after one in the morning when Louise burst through the doors of the medical
centre, Mickey right on her heels. Security guards started toward her, but they halted when they recognised her. It was the nurse on reception who let out a shriek when she saw the dog who was not going to be so easily pacified.

  ‘You cannot bring that animal in here! It’s unsanitary! It’s–’

  ‘You have a plague outside which only affects humans,’ Louise interrupted, ‘and you’re worried about a dog?’

  ‘Pets are not–’

  Louise yanked off her glasses. ‘He’s my seeing-eye dog. I’m clearly blind, right?’

  ‘You’re not fooling anyone with that one.’

  ‘Fine! Mickey, stay with the nurse.’ Louise turned, poking a finger into the nurse’s chest as the woman’s eyes widened. ‘He is a very good dog. Very obedient. He will be no trouble. If he is not here waiting for me when I come out, I will shoot you in the face. Please would you page Doctor Mitre and have him meet me in isolation. He’ll know what it’s about. It’s urgent.’

  Apparently, news of what ‘the woman with the weird eyes’ was doing with Mitre had spread further afield than Louise might have expected. The nurse’s expression shifted. Hope pushed surprise and anger out of the way. Maybe this nurse had someone she knew in the isolation ward. ‘I’ll let him know you’re on your way. A-and don’t worry about the dog. He’ll be safe with me.’

  ‘Mickey,’ Louise said. ‘His name’s Mickey.’

  ‘Right. Come on, Mickey. We’ll go call the doctor, shall we?’

  Mickey gave a short bark. Louise suspected he might have been saying, ‘Yes, let’s do that, stupid human woman who is not my glorious mistress,’ but maybe that was reading too much into a relatively short sound. Maybe.

  ~~~

  ‘I have two people I’d like to try it on,’ Mitre said as he rushed to put his biohazard suit on.

  ‘I’ve got three trial doses,’ Louise said, ‘so that’s good, but slow down with that suit before you rip something. I’d rather not have the senior epidemiologist in the isolation ward as a patient.’

  Mitre paused, took a breath, and did begin being more meticulous about his dressing. ‘You’re right. I cautioned you not to rush… However, one of the patients is in the final stages. We’ve already had to intubate. We’ll likely have seizures and probably death within eight hours.’

  Louise bit her lip and checked her notes. ‘That’s not patient one nine two seven D six, is it?’

  ‘I’d have to check. I don’t think so. Why?’

  ‘I found an adverse reaction in one of the samples you gave me. That patient number. The nanomachines I’ve made will attack some of their cells. It’s an unusual protein structure which is close to the one targeted in the plague virus. I don’t think it would kill them on its own, but it’ll cause damage and if someone with that tissue type is close to death anyway…’

  ‘The cure could kill them.’ Mitre nodded. ‘We’ll check. I don’t suppose you know how common that tissue variation is?’

  Louise shrugged. ‘You’ve given me fifty-nine samples and one of them was affected. But it’s not a big enough sample size to be sure of the overall population.’

  Mitre sighed, his helmet in his hands. ‘Frankly, these people are dead without your cure, no matter what odd side effects we may encounter. We go ahead and try it, and if it won’t offend you too much, I’m going to pray. If that patient you identified isn’t one of the ones I’ve preselected, we may use that third dose on them, depending upon their current state. If we know what to expect, we’ll be ready to help others who exhibit the same problem.’

  Louise flashed him a smile as he pulled his helmet on. ‘And that’s why I’m the engineer and you’re the doctor.’ Mitre just smiled back. ‘Oh, and if you want to pray, you go ahead,’ Louise added. ‘It can’t make things worse and maybe you’re right.’

  ~~~

  Louise started awake at the sound of Mitre’s office door closing. She had fallen asleep in his chair, leaning over his desk, which was not the best place to pass out, and she found herself having to wipe drool off her chin as she looked up, blinking, to see the doctor not paying attention to her. Considering the drool, she thought that was a good thing. Mitre looked tired, more or less exhausted actually, but there were other emotional traces vying to control his expression and Louise smiled at him.

  ‘It worked,’ she said.

  His head turned and he saw her white eyes looking up at him. ‘I was hoping I hadn’t woken you. Yes, it worked. The labs rushed the analysis, but they’re sure the virus is gone from the first patient to recover. The one we were more worried about took longer to respond. The lab hasn’t even started checking yet, but we’ve been able to take them off life support and the seizures we expected never came. I believe we can say that your cure works.’

  Louise’s eyes narrowed. ‘What about the third patient? The one I got the bad reaction with?’

  Mitre nodded and sighed. ‘Yes. The cure worked, but there were some complications. Reduction in white blood cell count, essentially. The cure is impairing their immune system. We’re attempting to regenerate it, but so far that is not working well.’

  Brow furrowed, Louise looked down at the table for several seconds. ‘The nanomachines were programmed to terminate when they could no longer find viral cells to eliminate. They degrade and get flushed from the body normally. But in that patient, they’re being fooled into thinking they still have work to do. They’ll keep killing cells so long as the body keeps producing them.’

  ‘Is there a way to stop them?’

  ‘Does the patient have any cybernetics? Particularly heart, lungs, vital stuff?’

  ‘No. I’ll double-check, but no.’

  ‘We hit them with an EMP. Fairly big one. The police should have something suitable. I have an EMP weapon, but I think we need something bigger. EMP will take out the nanomachines, then you just have to keep the patient alive while they recover normally. I’ll put a kill switch into the next generation so we don’t need to resort to police anti-robot weaponry.’

  Despite his weariness, Mitre smiled. ‘When can we expect the next generation?’

  ‘I’ll go back and make the adjustments now. I can have… a couple of hundred doses ready by tomorrow. If I can get the time to get my second fabricator finished, I can get almost five hundred a day out.’

  Mitre pursed his lips and then nodded. ‘You focus on your second machine. I’ll have medical delivery drivers come out to your workshop every… Let’s say every four hours from midday today. There are thousands of victims that we know about already, Miss Barrington. We need all the doses we can get.’

  6/5/2117.

  Louise had invested in certain security measures at her workshop. There were cameras, and the cameras were hooked up to a computer running some fairly basic AI software which Louise had cobbled together using the threat analysis system from her internal computer. Identified threats were categorised and forwarded to her, and then the camera view would appear for Louise to make her own assessment. She had much of the street outside covered from several angles and was fairly sure that nothing much could get near her building without her noticing.

  The threat which reared its head just after nine a.m., the morning after she had completed her second nanofabricator, was not exactly a threat, more of an annoyance. It did pose a threat to her work, however, and she started up the stairs to the ground floor as soon as she saw the two large black cars with their LIPD escort pulling up outside the building.

  There were men in suits waiting outside when she raised the metal shutter. No good ever came of men in suits. In particular, no good ever came of men in suits wearing a superior attitude. Louise frowned. ‘Can I help you, gentlemen?’ she asked.

  ‘Miss Louise Barrington,’ one of the men said, lifting his chin a little so that he could try to look down his nose at her. Louise was about to acknowledge her name when the man continued. ‘Under the strictures of the current emergency, the Long Island Enclave is confiscating your equipment to ensure–�
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  ‘You are not going to do any such thing,’ Louise interrupted.

  ‘I don’t believe you understand, Miss Barrington,’ the man said, smiling while various LIPD officers moved their hands to their weapons. ‘Under the strictures–’

  ‘Nuh-huh, no strictures. Here are the facts, Mister Government Official. The machines currently producing some four hundred and eighty doses per day of a vital nanodrug that is going to save the lives of your citizens are very delicate and fairly large. If you move them, they will have to be dismantled and reassembled at your chosen location. It took me almost a month to manufacture and construct the second one, and it will take a good two weeks to pull them apart and rebuild them. That’s fourteen days and the loss of six thousand seven hundred and twenty doses of the cure. You will have consigned almost seven thousand people to a horrible death. What was your name again? I want to be sure I get it right for the newspapers.’

  The official blanched, but what he said was, ‘I have my orders. Are you unwilling to comply with the enclave’s request, Miss Barrington?’

  ‘Given that the enclave is making a huge mistake on the assumption that they can take control of production of the drug… Yes, I’m refusing to comply.’ Louise was no longer really watching the man she was talking to; her threat assessment software was flagging the six cops as an immediate threat and, given the numbers, her system was busy loading lethal rounds into her pistols. ‘I suggest you confirm your orders with your superiors, given what I’ve just told you. Preferably before this situation gets any more tense.’

  The man was about to speak when his phone rang. He frowned and then tapped at the wireless unit in his ear. ‘Yes? Uh, but… No, I understand, but– Very well.’ He tapped the earbud again and his frown deepened as he looked back toward Louise. ‘It seems that my orders have changed. We will be placing a rotating LIPD security force outside your facility to ensure its safety.’ The cops, and Louise, relaxed.