by JC Ryan
Rebecca’s leap of logic that theorized the virus had gone airborne was confirmed by researchers in the Middle East, who, whether they had political opinions or not, were at least still willing to communicate with the expedition. They had worked out an incubation period of seven days while the patient was symptom-free, followed by seven days of mild illness and then an average of seven days of excruciating deterioration before death. Some delay could be accomplished by keeping the patients in an ice bath with IV fluids being administered, but since this was almost as painful as the symptoms leading to death, the patients were always given the choice. Few could endure it. No one had yet determined whether the virus would run its course eventually if the fever and consequent organ failure could be alleviated, since no medication at their disposal achieved that.
Ben chafed at the relatively primitive lab setup that he had. Convinced that there was a genetic key to the puzzle, he desperately wanted a gene sequencer. And a Middle Eastern victim to examine the difference between his genome and that of, say JR’s, or Robert’s. He had to settle for the DNA sequence from one of the recently dead victims being emailed to him, along with images from an electron microscope, since the researcher who was cooperating with him didn’t have a 10th Cycle device. On a morning late in the eighth week, Rebecca appeared in the biology lab.
“Ben, I’ve been reading about these retroviruses, or parts of retroviruses, that make up so much of the human genome. I ran across an old Wall Street Journal article that talked about remnants of some really old viruses being activated under some circumstances and causing some bad stuff to happen, like cancer growth. I followed up with queries of some later work and found that there’s been some progress in that theory. Is there any chance that what we’re seeing is a gene, or an expression of a gene, being activated in Middle Eastern people somehow that makes them vulnerable to this virus that would otherwise be harmless?”
Ben sat back on his stool. “You could have something there. To test that theory, we’re going to need a number of samples from infected but still healthy people to compare to a random sample of the victims, to see what may be active in the latters’ DNA that isn’t in the formers’. The greatest concentration of infected but still healthy people that I know of is right here in this camp. Do you think the others will cooperate by giving samples? We’ll have to figure out how to get them out to the US for gene sequencing.”
“I have no doubt that they’ll cooperate. Whether anywhere in the world will be prepared to accept them is another question.”
“Is there any chance your Foundation would send us a DNA sequencing machine?” Epstein asked, with little hope of a positive answer.
“Only one way to find out. Let’s ask them. But it will take a minimum of two days to get it here, and we’ll have to figure out a delivery method. I’m assuming it shouldn’t be dropped from a helicopter.”
“Probably not,” was Ben’s dry response.
The next conference call with Boulder brought good news and the opportunity to propose that a DNA sequencer be sent to Antarctica. Rebecca explained why they needed it and emphasized that it probably wasn’t a prudent idea to send samples of DNA that might also contain virus cells back to the USA for sequencing. Sarah said that if they could secure one quickly enough, the new virologist could bring it. That would solve the delivery problem. The helicopter would set down far enough from camp to offload both the sequencing machine and the scientist, and Epstein, as the only virus-free individual in the camp, would pick them up in a Sno-Cat.
As relieved as Rebecca was at the news that they had a volunteer, she cautioned that he must be prepared to maintain absolute sterility measures to avoid contracting the virus. “He’s not Middle Eastern, is he?” she asked.
“She is not. We made sure of that. She can be ready to leave as early as tomorrow.”
“We need that sequencer almost as badly as we need her. I’d rather she waited for it.”
“We’ll get both of them there as quickly as possible.”
“What’s the sit-rep there?” Daniel asked.
“Not good. We’ve got the Eastern bloc nations demanding to see our National Laboratories to be sure we aren’t making bio-weapons, and the military resisting because we probably are. The Middle East is ready to explode, and your Dr. Epstein is at the center of one controversy. We could see open warfare soon, Daniel.”
“What does Epstein have to do with it?”
Rebecca and the others listened in growing astonishment as Sarah described the theory put forth by the Ayatollah Kazemi of Iran. “Ben is Jewish and a virologist, therefore he synthesized this virus in order to wipe out all Muslims.”
“What? That’s ridiculous! In the first place, he didn’t even get here until the first fifteen were dead. Besides, if he contracted it, it would kill him, too,” said Rebecca.
“You know that, and I know that. But the radical elements in the Middle East don’t care anything about the truth. All they care about is that they have a plausible reason to call for jihad. Ask Daniel. Ask JR. They called it in the first place, and now it’s happening.”
“She’s right,” said JR. “We knew it, as soon as we realized it only made them sick, not us.” He felt a prickling between his shoulder blades, the sensation of a gun, or rather a nuclear warhead, pointed directly at his back.
Chapter 21 - I’m here to kill it
Within days of the announcement Harper made to the UN, most developed countries had instructed their scientists to put aside political differences and work toward a cohesive response to the threat of disease. While it was true that the bulk of the cases were still confined to Middle Eastern countries, dozens of other countries were seeing small outbreaks here or there, the size dependent on the number of Middle Easterners represented in their respective populations. The ninety-one cases in the US by week eight was the largest group outside the Middle East. In every country, though, the death toll was still 100% of the Middle Easterners who contracted it, irrespective of where they were receiving treatment. Even though the US, for example, had much better medical facilities, the outcomes were no better than in the poorest village in Yemen.
With unprecedented cooperation among agencies responsible for disease control in all of the countries that wished to be involved, the American Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, was allowed to assume leadership. It was quickly decided that dividing the research among countries, with several working on one of four goals, would be the most efficient way to address the growing peril.
The US, Great Britain and Australia would bring all their resources to bear on learning everything possible about the structure of the virus. Following a tip from Rebecca Mendenhall in the ill-fated Antarctica camp, they would also look at how the virus might be acting within cells, after attaching and before making the victim ill. That is, what was going on during the incubation period?
France, Germany and Italy would be working on creating a vaccination. Until a victim survived long enough to develop antibodies, though, this effort was for the future, assuming there was a future. At the current rate of spread, virtually every person of Middle Eastern descent would be wiped out in a matter of weeks.
Russia, China and Japan would put aside their differences and work on understanding why existing antiviral medications failed to halt or even slow down the course of the disease. Rebecca had used both amantadine and rimantadine against it, which should have prevented the virus from entering new cells once administered. This effort would require close cooperation with the countries studying the structure of the virus, since that would have a bearing on what changes to make to the medications to increase their effectiveness.
All Middle Eastern countries were busy treating the patients, but doctors were requested to report to the CDC, as the central clearinghouse, any treatment that delayed the worst of the effects. That knowledge would then be disseminated in an attempt to keep the living victims alive until the other efforts bore fruit.
As week eight drew
to a close, the political climate world-wide was less cooperative by far. Not content with his first speech proclaiming a ‘genetic bullet’ aimed at the heart of Islam, the Iranian Ayatollah made daily announcements concerning the signs pointing to the return of the Twelfth Imam, a figure that many Muslims believed was to return toward the end of the world. Like the second coming of Jesus that Christians looked forward to with a mixture of dread and rapture, the return of the Twelfth Imam was to be ushered in with various signs and portents of violent and dreadful nature. Radical elements who followed the Ayatollah with slavish devotion were all too happy to assist in creating the chaos described.
The coming of the Twelfth Imam, also known as the Mahdi, was prophesied to occur after a period of great turmoil and suffering upon the earth. No one now living in a Middle Eastern country could doubt that this period had arrived. Before too many days had passed, most devout Muslims were actively praying for the relief to be granted when the Mahdi reappeared; that is, the final defeat of Judaism in particular, the establishment of a new world order wherein Islam was to be the only religion practiced, the rediscovery of the Ark of the Covenant which will in turn prove that Islam had been the correct religion all along, and the distribution of enormous amounts of wealth to all Muslims, among other desirable outcomes.
In Iran, the Ayatollah was preparing to reveal himself as the Twelfth Imam as soon as conditions were right. He had even secured a white horse, which was being secretly nurtured and groomed for the greatest beauty imaginable, upon which the Ayatollah would ride to the location of his revelation. Unbeknownst to him, several other imams in various Middle Eastern countries were devoutly considering whether they were in fact the Twelfth Imam. One or two, fancying themselves to have supernatural power by virtue of their stature, visited the sick and dying, to effect a cure, only to succumb to the disease.
In the West, responsible media was urging calm cooperation with medical edicts, while the rabble-rousers were having a field day quoting the inflammatory speeches coming out of Iran and to a lesser extent out of other Middle-Eastern countries. Talk show hosts who had been predicting jihad for years now shouted ‘I told you so’ from their bully pulpits. Some advocated the same thing that had so disgusted the President when issued from the mouth of his Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; why not just let the virus run its course and get rid of the problem once and for all. Secure in their hubris that nothing could touch them in their privileged Western life, they spewed hatred until the most vocal of them was found beheaded in his own home, after which most toned down their rhetoric.
The UN Security Council argued daily about what response to make to these provocations, with some members advocating arrest or assassination if necessary of the Ayatollah and others opining that the US journalist who had lost his head received exactly what was coming to him. Still others, who prevailed, urged patience as the medical world was focused on one thing and one thing only: stopping the pandemic.
~~~
On Monday, the middle of the ninth week as Rebecca was tracking it, Ben Epstein suited up and drove the Sno-Cat to the mouth of the canyon, where one of the McMurdo helicopters set down to deliver one Hannah Price, CDC virologist, and her equipment; another 10th Cycle microscope and two gene-sequencing devices. To Ben’s utter shock, Hannah turned out to be a small woman in her seventies.
“Hi, Ms. Price, I’m Ben,” he said, reaching awkwardly in his cold-weather gloves to shake her hand, also gloved.
“Call me Hannah, young man. Let’s get on with it. You can fill me in on the way.” With that abrupt statement, Hannah climbed with agility that belied her age into the Sno-Cat.
Ben was consumed with curiosity about his new partner while he drove back, explaining what he, Nyree and Rebecca had done so far, what they were thinking, and what remained to be done. As he explained Rebecca’s theory that there was something active or inactive in the Middle Eastern victims’ genetic makeup, their genome, that was the opposite in the non-Middle Easterners, Hannah nodded continuously.
“You’re thinking that this virus turns on a gene or an allele that makes them particularly vulnerable to the replication of the virus. Or turns it off, with the same effect.”
“Precisely.” Ben wanted to remark on the woman’s age and the likelihood that she would be up to speed on such cutting edge work. However, it would have been very rude, and he was not a rude man. He would simply have to observe and determine in that way whether Hannah would be useful or not. Why a woman of her age would volunteer for such a mission was another question that he couldn’t ask directly.
“Have you determined where in the gene sequence this mutation would be?” Hannah asked.
“No, because we haven’t had the equipment to do so. Thank you for bringing it with you.”
“It was sent without my involvement, it just came at the same time.”
Hannah’s abrupt manner was surprising, but Ben needed the help so badly that he determined to just live with it and adapt. But he couldn’t help being more and more curious about her.
“Tell me how you propose to proceed,” she demanded.
Ben explained that they had three sets of blood samples on hand. The first were samples preserved from the dead Middle Eastern patients and those of the sick ones that would permit it before they were sent home. The second were samples from the rest of the people in camp, who had been exposed to the virus and now carried it but had not become ill. The third was his blood, the only non-infected sample in camp. He proposed to sequence each sample and then run a comparison to determine differences. After that, they would examine the differences to see if they could spot the trouble. Without the equipment Hannah had brought with her, it would have been next to impossible, and with it was still a monumental task.
“I’ll contribute as well,” she said. “But, given that the worst expression of the disease occurs in Semitic people, I propose that we also look at the differences between yours and mine first, and focus on those differences as we examine the others.”
Ben was thunderstruck. Not only was it a brilliant suggestion, but it showed that Hannah had done her homework well. Having been isolated in Antarctica while work continued on the outside, he felt as if he were far behind current events. He hadn’t realized that it was common knowledge that the disease only sickened those of Middle Eastern descent, though he should have known if he’d thought about it.
“Good idea,” he returned, revealing nothing of his thoughts. “In fact, what do you say to the idea of taking blood samples from you daily? It could reveal how long it takes for a person not of Middle Eastern origin to contract the virus.
“Of course! That’s a brilliant idea.”
Ben was more surprised than ever. His suggestion that she would contract it despite taking precautions hadn’t even fazed her.
“One of the things we’ve wondered is whether people of mixed ethnic origins are vulnerable, and if so whether to the same or a lesser extent.”
“I suspect that those who have the genetic mutation we’re looking for would be, and those who escaped it would not,” Hannah answered.
“Wait, this is only a theory,” Ben started to protest.
“It’s a very good one, and it’s our task to prove it,” Hannah said, her pronouncement firm and final.
“Yes, ma’am,” was Ben’s only choice of answer. Besides, they had arrived at the airlock, and it was time to show Hannah how to get in. Hannah would don antimicrobial face masks and gowns, gloves and shoe covers to avoid exposure to the virus. Strict protocols had been put in place to protect Ben, who had allowed them to slip as the weeks went by, since they were quite inconvenient. They would now be followed by Hannah as well, as much for the opportunity to observe a non-infected non-Semitic subject as for her health.
As soon as they had taken these precautions, Ben ushered Hannah through the other side of the airlock, where Rebecca awaited them.
“Welcome, Dr. Price. We’re so glad you volunteered to come.” If Rebec
ca had any curiosity about the older woman, she didn’t reveal it. But once again, Hannah surprised Ben.
“I suppose you’re wondering why an older woman like myself was willing to come here,” she said. “I have no family, and have lived a long and productive life. When they said it might be a one-way journey, I knew it was my duty. Rest assured, I’m qualified. Since I had no one to spend my retirement years with, I’ve continued to work.”
In just a few sentences, Hannah had answered all of Ben’s unspoken questions, explained her abrupt manner and triggered his compassion. If at all possible, when this was all over, he would take the place of her missing family and friends. Maybe as they worked, she would say more about how she’d come to this state of affairs. Trailing behind the two women, Ben couldn’t help but compare Rebecca’s youthful step with Hannah’s, and was gratified to see that Hannah was sprightly and sure. His misgivings about her age began to melt away with the observation.
Work on the project began immediately, with Ben drawing Hannah’s blood sample and the two of them preparing each other’s samples for sequencing. Within a few hours at most, they would have a start on proving Rebecca’s theory, that there was indeed a genetic component that explained the virus’ behavior. Meanwhile, it was time for Hannah to meet the other remaining members of the expedition. She wanted to interview them herself to see if she could spot anything they had been too close to the matter to see.
~~~
