The Gemini Virus

by Mara, Wil

  Sheila Abbott was in the hot seat. She was being assaulted by reporters day and night, and everyone from the president to countless spotlight-starved senators and congressmen were publicly demanding answers. She still managed to call both Beck and Gillette for updates every few hours, and she sounded reasonably sane on the surface. But Beck had known her too long, knew the strain was getting to her. He didn’t talk about the media aspect of it, focused only on the matter at hand. Once, while discussing the frustratingly slow progress of the vaccine development, Abbott snapped and called Cara Porter, “that worthless assistant of yours.” Beck, sitting stunned in his hotel room, offered no response, and the silence on the phone seemed to stretch on forever. Then Abbott apologized profusely.

  Thinking of Porter at that moment, he put in his earpiece and gave her a call.

  “What do you want?”

  “Just to bother you,” Beck said with a grin.

  “Naturally. How are things going out there?”

  “Well, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so tired in my life. I’ve now conducted over a hundred and twenty interviews, resulting in more data than I think I’ve ever collected. Even with the other people in the field that Sheila hired to help collect samples and information for me, I’m still overwhelmed. Yet I don’t feel any closer to finding answers.”

  “The frustration’s running fairly high here at the lab, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re trying different things, but we’re not getting anywhere. The virus’s resistance to the antivirals we’ve fired at it so far is discouraging.”

  “Did you hear the name?”

  “Name?”

  “The name the press came up with?”

  “No.”

  “They’re calling it the ‘Gemini virus.’”

  “That sounds appropriately dramatic.”

  “Yeah, and it’s starting to pick up steam, too.”

  “What’s the rationale behind it?”

  Beck laughed. “Some of it actually makes sense. First, it’s because the virus is so good at cloning—in other words, twinning—itself. Then there’s those two lines it has on the head. In astrology, the mark of Gemini is essentially a Roman numeral two with its horizontal lines curved outward into half circles. But really, any two lines can represent the same basic symbol.”

  “I guess.”

  “The third reason—I know you’ll like this—is because the outbreak began at the end of May, which is the start of the Gemini period on the calendar. May twenty-first to June twentieth to be exact, at least in tropical and Western astrology. The doomsayers are really having a field day about that part of it, saying all signs point to this being the end of the world and so on.”

  “Well, if we don’t find a way to combat this thing, they might be right.”

  “Is it exhibiting genetic drift?” This was the process by which select bases in a virus’s nucleic acid mutate to other bases, thereby restructuring itself in a defensive maneuver.

  Porter said, “We don’t have solid evidence of that yet, but it’s certainly a possibility. Wouldn’t that just be terrific, if it was capable of point mutations?”

  “Or, even better, antigenic shift.” Similar, it was a fundamental alteration in a virus’s genome, essentially giving it an entirely new character.

  “That’s our worst nightmare—recombination or reassortment.”

  “A chameleon virus.”

  “Right. At this point, though, we’re not seeing evidence of that, either. It’s just one strain so far, thank goodness.”

  “That’s something, I guess. So, no chance of viral sex, then?”

  Porter laughed. “No, not yet. But we’ve all got our fingers crossed. We’re a bunch of lonely, nerdy scientists, after all.”

  Separate strains of a viral species that possess a segmented genome had the ability to couple and produce offspring with unique traits. Due to the process’s similarity to animal reproduction, it was referred to colloquially as viral sex.

  “Microscopic porn,” Porter went on. “Not much in the way of theatrics, but better than nothing.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She sighed. “Anyway, we’ll keep at it.”

  “I feel your pain, believe me.”

  “What about Ben? Anything?”

  “He’s just about finished mapping the virus’s genome, after which he’ll post the DNA sequences on the GenBank site to share with the virological community.” GenBank was a massive online data repository for billions of genomic sequences, including more viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens. “Once that’s done, there’ll be a hundred professionals around the world working on the sequence, trying to find some common ancestry with another virus in GenBank’s vast geography.”

  “It’ll be scary if they can’t.”

  “Yeah. The strain of H1N1 swine flu that zoomed through North America in 2009 was mapped out, and the age and lineage determined, within a matter of days. That one was believed to be a hybrid of five separate viral elements from three different organisms—birds, pigs, and humans—and was so contagious because all five segments were types of influenza.”

  “And flu viruses, the little bastards, have the ability to adopt, adapt, and improve themselves each year, avoiding whatever treatments have been designed to combat them.”

  “Exactly. If that’s the case here, this thing is going to be nearly unstoppable.” The Black Plague of the twenty-first century, Beck thought. Someone had also used that phrase on television recently, on Fox News.

  “Terrifying.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Is the mapping of a viral genome quicker than that of a mammal because of its size?”

  “That’s probably the biggest factor, yes. A viral genome has only a few thousand bases, whereas those of a full species will number in the billions. Even with the aid of computers, it’s a considerable difference. Then there’s the genomic diversity, which among viruses is enormous. A virus’s nucleic acids can be DNA, RNA, or both. And viral size and shape variation is staggering. The shape can be circular, segmented, whatever. Single strands, double strands … positive sense, negative…”

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  “It really is. Within the relatively small size of their group, they have more structural diversity than almost anything else on Earth. We’ve cataloged around six thousand different viruses, but a lot of people don’t realize there are millions more. That there is what’s truly amazing—how much we don’t know. What we’ve got on our hands here is just one more little creature we haven’t met yet. And the most frightening part is that there are, undoubtedly, more out there like this one.” He paused a moment, then said, “Sometimes I think there’s a virus sitting out there somewhere, maybe in some rare plant deep in the Amazon or waiting to mutate in some cow that’s headed for the dinner table, that we won’t be able to stop. A pathogen that’ll make this new one look like the common cold. And once it gets rolling, it’ll sweep us off this planet like chess pieces.”

  “Now you’re starting to sound like … well, me.”

  “Oh man, that’s not good.”

  “No.”

  “Anyway, let me go. I just turned down the street where I’m supposed to be.”

  “Okay. Have a lucky day.”

  “You, too, kiddo.”

  * * *

  He pulled up to the house where he was expected—421 Cypress Road. A modest ranch in pale yellow with white shutters. There was a small flower bed beneath the bay window, showing early signs of weed invasion since no one was coming to tend it anymore. A maroon Chrysler sedan sat in the driveway. It looked to be from the early or mid ’90s. The car of an elderly woman on a fixed income.

  Beck put on his surgical mask and gloves and got out. The silence was eerie in contrast to the bright and sunny afternoon. Birds chirped and cicadas trilled, but there was no sign of human life. He looked up and down the street at the other homes, the phone poles and fire hydrants, and the yellow
intersection light flashing in the distance. It was the very model of contemporaneous suburban America, yet he was alone.

  With notebook in hand, he went to the front door and rang the bell. No one answered. He stepped back to check the small black numbers on the side—4-2-1. That was correct. Fear stirred inside him. Is this woman also dead? Would he have to call the authorities and have them break in, only to find her hideous, blackened body lying—

  The inside door finally opened a few inches; the vacuum effect sucked in the outer door as well. He could see an eye peering suspiciously through the dark. The woman looked him up and down, then said, “What do you want?”

  “I’m Michael Beck, Mrs. Dylan. I talked to you on the phone this morning.”

  “Beck?” She didn’t speak the name so much as she spat it—Bechhh.

  “Yes, ma’am. I found your contact information in Katie Milligan’s apartment. Remember?” Specifically, it appeared in the recently dialed calls memory of her cordless phone. “I’m from the CDC.” He took his ID badge from his pocket and held it up. She studied it carefully, as if the area were swarming with people pretending to be epidemiologists.

  “Okay,” she said. When the door opened, Beck could see that she, too, was wearing a surgical mask and gloves. They looked ridiculous in contrast to the long housecoat—pink with embroidered flowers—and soft slippers.

  She ushered him into the kitchen without greeting or ceremony, and with no reaction to the fact he was the same man who had been interviewed repeatedly on every major news channel over the last two weeks. Instead, she busied herself with something at the counter.

  A quick survey of the home told Beck that his host had taken the time to read the circular on preventive measures that the Centers issued on Monday: two pages of instructions he had originally typed up in his hotel room and that had since been downloaded by more than a million people. Every window appeared to be shut and locked, every item in the house scrubbed to a sparkle, the trash cans kept outside.…

  “I see you’ve taken the preventive steps the CDC outlined,” Beck said in an attempt to be friendly. The air reeked of Vicks VapoRub and green tea.

  “What was that?” Her voice was harsh and raspy, as if she’d spent a lifetime smoking unfiltered cigarettes. But Beck didn’t think so—she looked too fit and alert for that. He pegged her for mid-eighties at the youngest, yet she appeared to be fairly spry. Her skin was clear, her posture good. This one’s a survivor, he decided with a certain admiration.

  “I said you’ve taken the precautionary measures around the house that the CDC recommended.”

  She walked behind him and pulled out one of the chairs at the oval kitchen table, holding her hand above it as if to say, Here, sit. Then she took one on the other side, dropping into it somewhat abruptly.

  “Yes, I did everything the CDC told me to do. Took me all of last night and most of this morning. I don’t get around like I used to.”

  “Were the directions clear? Could you understand everything okay?”

  “Why, did you write them?”

  “Actually, yes.”

  “They were fine.” She had her gloved hands clasped together and was looking around at everything but him.

  “Well … okay, good,” he said.

  “And I’m staying inside as much as possible.”

  “That’s a very good idea right n—”

  “Yesterday we had an incident in the street.” She motioned briefly in that direction. “Someone died out there.”

  “Out in the street?”

  “Yes. Kenneth Hillman.” She said the name as if Beck already knew him. Then, as if realizing this, she continued with, “He was the nineteen-year-old who lived in the house on the other side.”

  “And he died in the street?”

  Dylan nodded. “The house was burning, and someone called the fire department. I was watching out the window when the trucks came. They started putting it out—you know, with those big hoses.”

  “Sure.”

  “And Kenneth came running out the front door. I saw the whole thing. He was—” She looked away and cleared her throat. Beck got the distinct impression—and was mildly surprised by it—that she was trying to squelch any reaction she might be having to the retelling of Hillman’s death.

  “He was on fire, too,” she said, looking at Beck directly.

  “Oh no.”

  “He was all in flames and screaming. I could hear him through the glass.”

  “And he died right there?”

  “No. He was running toward the firemen, and at first they didn’t seem to know what to do. Then one of them aimed the hose at him because Kenneth was going to run into him.”

  “My God.”

  “He moved around a little bit after that, lying on the ground, then went still. They found out later that he had the infection. He got it somehow.”

  This bit of information sent shock waves through Michael Beck. “Don’t tell me he was—”

  “He set himself on fire. Trying to get rid of it, I assume. And that caused the house to catch on fire, too.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “He must have been out of his head.”

  “Extreme confusion and hysteria are among the symptoms.”

  “Yeah…”

  She went glassy eyed at that point, staring into empty space. “He had been messed up with drugs, too,” she said finally. “Had a lot of problems.”

  This, Beck realized, was her way of dealing with the incomprehensible horror of it—find a way to make the loss seem minimal, almost trivial. He had witnessed it many times. Again he thought, This tough old broad’s a survivor, all right.

  “So what did you want to ask me about?” she asked.

  He opened his notebook and found a clean page. “If you don’t mind my asking, how did you know Katie Milligan?”

  “She was a student of mine.”

  “Oh? I didn’t realize you were a teacher.”

  “Thirty-two years at Ramsey Middle School.”

  “Retired now?” He was going to add, I assume? but caught himself.

  “Yep. Since 1997.”

  “And you and Ms. Milligan…” He wasn’t sure how to word this. “You became friends after she was your student?”

  “Yes. She was one of the best I ever had. Always behaved herself, never missed an assignment, never talked out of turn. I’ve stayed close with all the good ones.” She still hadn’t made eye contact, giving Beck the feeling he would’ve had little chance of being on her Good Ones list.

  “That’s nice,” he said. “And when was the last time you spoke with her?”

  “Two days before she died. Or, before they found her body, anyway.”

  Her eyes were fixed on the TV set in the living room now, which adjoined the kitchen without a dividing wall.

  “I have no idea when she actually died,” Dylan added.

  “And did she mention anything about her illness? Anything about, you know, feeling run down, or a rash, or—?”

  “She said her sinuses were starting to bother her, and I could hear it, too. She was sneezing, blowing her nose.” She turned to Beck and said, “She was supposed to come here the day after we talked, to help me do some gardening.”

  “Really?”

  “That’s right.”

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re a very lucky woman, Mrs. Dylan. Had that happened, I doubt very much you’d still be here.”

  “No, probably not.” She seemed nervous now, as if the thought of coming so close to death unsettled her. Beck had to admit he was impressed by this trait as well. The great majority of elderly people he had known possessed little or no fear of death. An elderly man he met during his final year of postgraduate school, who had pancreatic cancer and no more than three months left on the clock, had even said, “I consider death a friend. It doesn’t scare me at all.” Beck still hadn’t reached the age where he began to feel that way. The thought of dying still filled him with dread and d
epression. He loved life and the manifold joys that could be found if one took the time to look for them. He wanted to be alive, absorbing and enjoying and experiencing as much as possible. And this woman seemed to be of similar mind.

  “As I said on the phone, I’m trying to get a sense of where this outbreak started. And to do that, I have to do a lot of backtracking. So here’s the million-dollar question: Did Katie say anything about where or how she got sick in the first place? Any sense of—?”

  “I know exactly where she got it,” Dylan said, and now there was anger in her voice.

  “You do?”

  “At the supermarket in Ramsey, standing in the checkout line.”

  Beck wrote this down. “Do you remember anything else she—?”

  “She said he was sneezing and coughing like crazy.”

  “He? Who?”

  “Right there in front of everybody.”

  “Who was it?”

  She was shaking her head now. “Gotta lotta goddamn nerve, going out in public sick like that.”

  “Mrs. Dylan—”

  “The most inconsiderate man in this godforsaken tow—”

  “Mrs. Dylan.”

  She snapped out of her ramble and looked over at him. “What?”