by JC Ryan
With Summers still grumbling, the party broke up, most to go to their labs to attempt to make use of the time. Daniel and JR went to JR’s office.
“JR, I want to let you know I’m proud of the way you’ve held it together here,” Daniel said.
“Wish I hadn’t had to send for my big bro to rescue me,” JR said. Daniel could tell there was more truth to the statement than JR’s light tone meant to convey.
“Hey, that’s what big brothers are for. Seriously, JR, you guys weren’t equipped to handle any of this. You wouldn’t believe how fast things are going downhill outside. Quarantines are in effect in half a dozen Middle Eastern countries, and this thing is spreading like wildfire in spite of it. I guess it’s very contagious. It’s funny—I’ve relied on Raj for data for years, and for the first time ever, I hope he’s wrong. I don’t want to think about even 5% of that happening, much less half of it.”
“I know, dude. Rebecca has a theory about that. If she’s right, it’s lucky for us, unless the damn thing mutates. But it could get dicey out there.”
“What do you mean?” Daniel asked.
“All the cases that broke out here were Middle Eastern. And none of the non-Middle Eastern people have been sick. It’s too early to say for sure yet, but it looks like this thing’s targeting by ethnic group.”
“Oh, shit,” said Daniel.
“Yep. It’s about to hit the fan,” JR returned. But, even he didn’t realize how quickly his prophetic statement would prove true.
Chapter 16 – “What’s coming is bad”
As soon as Sarah had spoken to Rebecca, she took action to stay on top of media reporting about the epidemic. The Rossler Foundation had a PR firm on retainer for those times when a particularly interesting discovery in the 10th Cycle library required media coverage. What she wanted now was daily reports on the news stories, particularly from the Middle East, and an appropriate response for when someone put it together with the Rossler Foundation expedition. She was savvy enough to realize that Daniel wasn’t the only competent journalist in the world. It was when, not if. There were likely to be unpleasant repercussions, and a proactive approach would be best.
By the next day, she had dozens of electronic news clippings in her email, and it was clear that a few sources had begun to realize the scattered cases in different countries were related. Once they tracked down how they were related, it would be too late for the Foundation to be proactive; they’d be in full defensive mode. She wanted Daniel’s agreement, though, before she made the announcement that the first cases had come from their expedition. To her, it seemed best to accept accountability, but it wasn’t her decision alone. However, because the expedition was on McMurdo Station time for convenience, and McMurdo was on New Zealand Standard Time, it was currently four a.m. on Wednesday morning for Daniel, eighteen hours ahead of Sarah’s time zone. She would let him sleep a while longer.
In anticipation of his agreement, she called the Foundation’s agent at the PR firm instead.
“Mary, thanks for getting that info to me so quickly. I may need you to update it more often within a few days. But, what I’m calling about is something else. Do I have your word that what I’m about to tell you is strictly confidential?”
“Of course, Sarah. Haven’t we worked together long enough for you to trust us?”
“Yes, Mary, I do. However, this is explosive, and it’s going to take all your skill and that of your firm to keep us on the positive side of the news.”
“Are you kidding? Everyone loves the Rossler Foundation. I love the Rossler Foundation. You guys helped cut my electric bill by ninety percent.”
“Thanks, Mary. Maybe that’s an approach to take. Weigh the good against the bad. But what’s coming is bad.”
“You’re scaring me. Has there been a leak? Terrorists have something dangerous?”
“No, Mary. It’s that disease. I’m pretty sure the first cases were diggers from our expedition. We’ve unleashed a disease on the world somehow, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to stop it. I’ve run the numbers. Within the next few weeks, unless we find the answers, we’re going to have a pandemic that rivals the Spanish flu back in the nineteen hundreds.”
“Holy shit, that’s why you wanted those stories?”
“Yes. I need you and your firm to start working on how we tell the truth and give the facts without getting our building burned down. And Mary, not a word to anyone that might leak it to the press. It’s vital we keep it contained, at least until we have a response.”
“I understand. I think I’ll start updating that feed every twelve hours, just for my own information. I’ll send it along to you, too.”
“Thanks, Mary.”
“Sarah, wait! Is there any danger here? All those stories seem to have come out of the Middle East.”
“That’s because the diggers were Middle Eastern, I think. I don’t know, but it’s conceivable they exposed everyone on their flights. Why they didn’t all get sick when our employees’ families did is one of the mysteries. With global air travel, I don’t know that you can contain something this contagious, though.”
“Thanks for reassuring me,” Mary said, the dry delivery coming across even on the phone.
“Sorry, Mary. I’m trying to think several weeks ahead. It isn’t helping me that Daniel’s down there, he and his brother and some very good friends of ours, and that’s ground zero. I’m going out of my mind with worry.”
“Oh, Sarah, I’m so sorry! Well, count on us to do everything we can on our end. Keep me posted on Daniel, will you?”
“Sure.”
Sarah’s next call was to Nicholas. After a restless night, she had woken up in the morning with the idea that the answer might lie in the 10th Cycle Library, in the medical sections. She wanted him to put all possible resources on it, including having Raj do an electronic search for any and all references to respiratory illnesses. She found that he was ahead of her, having done that as soon as he left her office the previous day.
“Grandpa, what would we do without you?” she asked, pleased that the old man’s brain was as sharp as ever.
“You’d figure it out…eventually,” he said. She could visualize the mischievous twinkle in his eyes, and felt a rush of love for Daniel’s grandfather, her favorite in the family after Daniel, though she would never admit that to the others.
“You’ll let me know if you find anything?”
“Of course.”
“Thanks, Grandpa. You’re the best.”
Sarah thought she heard something like, ‘and don’t you forget it’ as she returned the receiver to its cradle. Next, she called Sinclair, just back from his two-week Hawaiian honeymoon with Martha.
“Good morning, Sinclair! Welcome back,” she said.
“Good to be back, though that’s the most fun I’ve had in years,” he answered.
“Do you mean the honeymoon part or the Antarctica part?” Sarah teased.
“Ha, you won’t catch me! It was all honeymoon,” he said.
“I’m so happy for you and Martha,” Sarah said. Then, because she knew of no way to ease into it, she asked if they were both feeling well.
“Never better. Why do you ask?”
“Have you seen the news yet, about that flu that’s sweeping the Middle East?”
“Caught something about it on TV last night. Why?” he asked again.
“I don’t know how to tell you this, but we think it came out of that valley.”
“What!? How so?”
“I don’t know if anyone is sure of how yet, but the first five cases that we know of were diggers from our expedition. The next few were their families, but now it’s breaking out in earnest, and it’s bad, Sinclair.”
“Bad, in what way?” he said.
“Every way. The latter stages are very painful, and so far there’s a one-hundred percent death rate. No treatment anyone has tried has been successful. And, it’s very contagious. I’ll send you Raj’s spreadsheet
and you can see for yourself. This is going to be a disaster of epic proportions if we can’t help find a cure.”
Sinclair’s heart constricted as he thought of his Martha afflicted with such an illness. In typical human fashion, he didn’t expect to be a victim himself, but the thought of his loved one vulnerable sent him into frantic worry. “I’d better check on Martha,” he said.
“Do that, but first, let me tell you the other reason for my call. I need you to divert translators from their current assignments when Raj locates medical references to the symptoms. Maybe the 10th Cyclers knew of this, and maybe they had a cure. It’s worth looking, but we need to find it fast.”
“What are the symptoms?”
“Similar to flu. A sore throat, cough, followed by respiratory distress, high fever and death.”
“Good Lord! How will anyone know it’s this and not just seasonal flu?”
“That’s the other reason we need to hurry. It’s flu season. If people think they’re just sick with ordinary seasonal flu, they might not get treatment in time—if that’s even possible.”
“Right. I’ll get on it, right after I call Martha.”
“Thanks, Sinclair. Let me know of any progress you make.”
“Wait, Sarah, I may know something, though I’m not sure it’s of use. While I was down there, I translated a poem that seemed to refer to an epidemic, and we later found a tablet that referred to a terrible illness that killed many.”
“Did it talk of a cure?”
“Not that I recall. But, I’ll see if I can put my hands on the records again and make sure we get everything we need from it. If nothing else, maybe we can sync it with the 10th Cycle records and find something.”
“Good idea, Sinclair, and thanks.”
Sarah decided to have an early lunch and then it would be a reasonable time to call Daniel. She had done everything she could think of to help from this end, but she suspected that unless the 10th Cyclers had an answer, it would be up to Rebecca and the virologist Daniel had taken with him to literally save the world. One last glance at the open spreadsheet on her monitor, looking ahead a few weeks, made her shiver. In 1918, fifty million people worldwide had died of what the history books called the Spanish flu in a single year, more than the Black Plague had killed in Europe in the four years from 1347 to 1351. If Raj’s projections were correct and everything remained the same, this disease would kill over seventy million in the next three months. It was enough to ruin her appetite, but she went to eat anyway, knowing that starving herself was not the way to save those people.
An hour later, with a cup of coffee at hand, Sarah reached Daniel. The sight of his face, even with less than perfect video quality, reassured her like nothing else could have. He looked good, if a little tired.
“Hi, Sarah, my love. I’m glad you called. Of course, if you hadn’t, I’d have called you.”
“I couldn’t wait, honey. I almost called you at four a.m. your time.”
“You probably would have found me awake. I didn’t sleep well, worrying about this thing.”
“Same here. Any news yet on what it is? How’s Dr. Epstein working out?”
“He’s made some strides. Listen, Sarah, I have some potential bad news.”
“Potential?” Sarah was bewildered. It was all bad news, wasn’t it?
“Yeah. I mean, I know this illness is bad, but JR told me something yesterday that could mean real trouble on the political front.”
“I’ve already got our PR department working on it. Daniel, I think we get the facts out before someone works it out and we have to go into defensive mode.”
“No, love, you don’t understand. It’s something else. Ben hasn’t confirmed it yet, but we’re all supposed to have blood tests today, and then we’ll know for sure.”
“Daniel, are you saying you may all have it?”
“No, love, stop reacting for a second and hear me out. So far, the only people we know of who have become ill are Middle Eastern.”
“Okay.”
“It looks like this thing might target just one ethnic group. I think it would be a very bad idea for the Rossler Foundation to accept accountability for something that looks like genetic warfare.”
Sarah literally felt the blood drain from her face. “Daniel, what have we done?”
“Whatever it is, it’s something we couldn’t have anticipated. Ben thinks the reason it’s so lethal is that no one has immunities to it. I’m going to let Rebecca explain that to you. But the real mystery is how a virus could have survived in that valley for so long with no host; long enough to make anyone ill, no matter who it was. A virus usually requires a host, and there’s nothing here that could do it that we know of.”
“I’ve set everyone looking for anything in the library that can help,” Sarah said.
“Good, that’s what I was going to have you do. Tell Mary to craft a response, but don’t go forward with an announcement that it’s our fault. You know what that could mean if extremists take it literally.”
“Yes. It’s why I wanted to talk to you before I gave the go-ahead. But, Daniel, how are you going to determine if what you say is true? About it only targeting Middle Eastern people?”
“We’ll know more after the blood tests, love. Try to be patient. You might want to talk to Luke about security.”
“Already done.”
“See? That’s why we’re so good together. We’ve got the same brain.”
“Just the one between us?” Sarah said, trying for a lighter tone.
“Oh, I think we deserve more credit than that. Listen, Sarah, Ben’s calling me for my blood test, and you know how much I like needles. I’ll talk to you later today.”
“You stay well, Daniel Rossler.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter 17 - We all have it
Daniel held his arm out to Ben, who pushed it down on the table next to Daniel’s chair. “This will sting a little.”
“Do I get a lollipop afterwards?” Daniel quipped. In truth, he hated needles. They always said ‘sting’, but it hurt like a hot poker branding his skin, and the sight of the vial filling up with his blood made him queasy. It was funny, he never worried about a bruise or even a cut. Blood on his head from cutting it open while wrestling with his brothers as a kid, no big deal. Even the blood from his Marine buddy’s nearly-severed leg hadn’t fazed him. No, it was something about the vial. That blood was always darker, too, like something was wrong with it. He turned his head away as Epstein expertly wrapped a rubber tourniquet around his arm and slipped the needle in.
“Done,” said Epstein.
Hmm, Daniel had barely felt that. He kept his eyes averted from the vial, though. JR was in the doorway a jibe on his lips if Daniel said anything wimpy, or horrifyingly, fainted. Then it was JR’s turn for the needle, and Daniel prepared to send him up for any display of weakness. It was one thing to dread or fear something, and quite another to actually show it. Try as he might, he couldn’t help but think a bit less of Summers for his paralysis with claustrophobia, for example. There was no way in hell that he himself would show anyone that he disliked needles.
Finished with JR, Epstein said that he should have results for everyone by late in the afternoon, and the brothers left on errands of their own.
Epstein prepared the samples, which he’d drawn from everyone who’d been into the valley. If these results were inconclusive, he’d also have to sample the support staff, but logic suggested that it was something inside the valley. How that could be so, when everyone claimed there were no animals, birds, reptiles or even insects, was a mystery that he’d have to tackle if he could confirm that it was inside the valley. He didn’t want to go in there himself.
It hadn’t escaped his notice that all the previous victims were Middle Eastern, and though he was third-generation American, his grandparents had left Israel for America shortly after arriving in Israel in the first place. It was a far cry from their native Germany, a dream of all o
bservant Jews. “Next year, in Jerusalem” the prayer at the end of the Passover Seder had come true for them. They had loved the concept of Israel, but not the reality, nor the prospect of endless warfare.
It was true that the Middle Easterners who’d become ill were Saudi, or Turk, or Jordanian; in other words, all Arabs. But, in truth, though Arabs and Jews had a history of bitter enmity, they also shared a genetic heritage that made them all cousins, if not brothers. If he had to go into the valley, he would do so in a biohazard suit, to protect himself from exposure to whatever was killing his cousins in the Middle East. He had taken to heart the suggestion of the good doctor, Rebecca Mendenhall, that all newcomers wear face masks infused with germicide at all times. It was an inconvenience, but getting this dreadful flu would have been much more inconvenient, to make a laughable comparison. Now that the sick had all been gone for a few days, he’d stopped wearing the face mask except in the lab. He was more careful in his makeshift lab. In addition to the microfiber face mask, he also wore a plastic shield that covered him from forehead to below his chin.
Once the samples were prepared, it was a matter of placing them into the device that he still called a microscope for the sake of convenience. “10th Cycle Refractory Visualization Device” was much more unwieldy. Ben Epstein held his breath unconsciously as he put his eyes to the lenses that would deliver a highly magnified and probably brilliantly colored image of the blood sample, complete with any viruses that might swim there.
There it was: definitely a coronavirus. Almost beautiful in its intricacy, and matching exactly the images from a similar exercise performed on the blood of the random sample of patients before they left. There was no question that this subject had the virus. Who was it? Summers. And yet, Summers had been here from the beginning, and wasn’t sick. What was the difference? Or was it just that the illness had a longer incubation period than they’d thought?
