by JC Ryan
Ben took it on himself to introduce Hannah to the rest, who each welcomed her. Some, like Summers, were too distracted with their experiments and documentation, to be especially warm. Others, like Daniel, though busy, had naturally welcoming personalities and were therefore more demonstrative in their welcome, pumping her hand and smiling. Hannah greeted everyone with the same abrupt reserve, but seemed to Ben to be pleased that she was appreciated.
He had saved Nyree for last, because he wanted Hannah to have more time to understand the work he and Nyree had been doing with the samples of algae from the fumarole at the hospital. He hoped that they were on the verge of a breakthrough in determining where this thing had come from, and wanted Hannah’s opinion.
Ben didn’t know what Nyree’s stake in the matter was, other than the chance to get out of this camp and home eventually. Nevertheless, he appreciated that she was working tirelessly to culture numerous samples of the bloom, in the hope that they would be able to spot a microbe in it that looked promising. The lack of any other vector they could imagine in the valley made this their best bet for finding where the virus originated. That the first five to become ill had been assigned to the excavation there at the hospital where the fumarole with its algae was found made it even more promising.
After the introductions, Nyree explained her methodology and the next steps she would take, both refreshing Ben’s understanding and bringing Hannah up to speed. Nodding, Hannah indicated her approval.
“Have you been able to see anything yet?”
“Not yet, but it’s early. I hope to have large enough colonies of whatever the algae harbors to analyze the individual cells by tomorrow.”
“Excellent. Please inform me when you do. I’d like to see it for myself.”
Nyree turned to Ben with raised eyebrows. At his nod, she answered, “Of course.”
By now it was time for the mid-day meal and everyone gathered in the mess hall for it. Rebecca, as usual, announced the latest numbers she’d received from Sarah. Over 32,000 new cases had been reported to the CDC, with a total of almost 50,000 either sick or deceased. The speed of the increase was staggering, even though Rebecca had a predictive spreadsheet that had forewarned her. That it was very accurate said two things; one, that they had estimated correctly that each new case would be responsible for an average of three more, and that at least that number wasn’t accelerating. Raj’s spreadsheet was easy to modify if a sudden surge indicated an unfavorable mutation, but so far it was proving remarkably stable. However, that was cold comfort when the next week’s projection indicated over 140,000 dead or dying, 98,000 of them new cases. Under any other circumstances, it wouldn’t have been suitable mealtime conversation.
Since they hadn’t seen anyone but themselves for two months, Hannah’s arrival constituted a reason to celebrate despite the grim reason for it. The cook had baked a cake with a welcome message on it, and to Hannah’s intense discomfort, everyone expected her to make a speech before she cut it, though she wouldn’t be able to enjoy it, or the rest of the meal, until she was ensconced in a makeshift positive-pressure environment to avoid breathing the contaminated air.
“What should I say?” she said in a whisper to Rebecca.
“Why not talk about your credentials and why you volunteered to come,” Rebecca answered sotto voce.
Encouraged, Hannah began.
“Thank you for the opportunity to tell my story,” she said. “I was born in 1945, to parents who remembered the terrible toll of the Spanish flu as well as the more recent tragedy of the Holocaust. They raised me to believe I could make a difference, no matter what my chosen course in life might be. In those days, it wasn’t a foregone conclusion that a bright young woman might choose career over a family. In fact, it was rather rare. But, the stories my father told about his older brothers dying of the flu and his parents’ grief because they were left behind made me want to do something about illness.
“By the time I was twelve, great strides in discovering the causes of several viral diseases were being made. When I started college in 1960, the virus that causes hepatitis B had not yet been discovered. And I had determined that, rather than becoming a doctor treating diseases, I wanted to eradicate their causes, before they made people sick. I obtained my PhD in virology in 1968, when it was still very much a new field of study.
“You may ask, why, almost fifty years later, I’m still doing this. The answer is simple. Like most women of my generation, I married and expected to have a family. My husband, however, was involved in an automobile accident in 1982 that changed our lives. He was so severely injured that he required three units of blood, which we later understood was infected with HIV. In those days, we didn’t have much to fight AIDS with, nor much understanding of all the ways it could and couldn’t be transmitted.
“As a virologist, I knew enough to protect myself, and because we had no children I was able to nurse my husband through his illness and death. Suffice it to say, I hate all viruses and especially retroviruses. My parents were gone by that time and I had no siblings, my husband had been an only child as well and his parents were also gone. There was nothing left for me but to spend the rest of my life understanding viruses, their origins, their actions within cells, how to kill them or at least prevent them from replicating.
“That’s why I’m here. This virus is another hateful thing, something determined to erase an entire ethnic group from the face of the earth, just as HIV seemed determined, before we understood it, to attack homosexuals and that vermin Hitler to attack Jews. I’m here to kill it.”
Her last, simple statement sent a thrill of hope through Rebecca. This valiant woman, with twice the experience of Ben, Nyree and Rebecca put together, was their last resource, but what a magnificent resource she was! A fighter, with reason to hate every aspect of the virus they were up against. Standing, Rebecca led the others in applause that brought the cook and his assistant out to see what the ruckus was.
When the noise died down, Hannah continued in her normal manner. “That’s it, then, let’s get to work.” She, Nyree, Ben and Rebecca were the first to get up and leave for the labs, where they hoped to see the gene sequences from the first two samples completed.
The rest of the scientific group stayed behind.
“What do you think of her?” Daniel asked the group at large.
“Feisty lady,” Cyndi said. Being somewhat feisty herself, this amounted to high praise. Angela nodded her agreement.
“Think they can pull it off?” Robert asked.
“If they can’t it won’t be for lack of effort,” Daniel replied, with JR nodding his own agreement. “We’ve got a top-notch microbiologist, two highly qualified virologists, and Rebecca, who just happens to be brilliant. They have to pull it off. There’s no other choice.”
It wasn’t necessary for anyone to recapitulate what they knew was happening in the outside world; the numbers spoke for themselves. Having been there, Daniel and JR knew all too well what the scene must be like in the relatively primitive medical facilities of much of the Middle East. They didn’t need to see the pictures to understand that the hospitals would be overwhelmed, the resources for taking care of the dead unable to cope with the sheer volume of corpses. They didn’t need to be told to know that by now, there would be rioting in the streets as hospitals locked their doors and turned away new patients, as the word went out for families to care for their sick at home, and deal with their remains themselves.
It was true that the same conditions wouldn’t apply in the West, at least not yet. Fewer numbers and better coordination meant that hospitals would be able to handle the influx of patients, as long as the virus didn’t mutate. In that case, even the West would descend into chaos.
Chapter 22 - Heterozygous and Homozygous
In the science building, Nyree excused herself to examine her cultures while the other three went into the infirmary to check on the sequencing progress. It was progressing, but not yet finished. Hannah took the opportunity to
question Rebecca about her theory.
“Where did you learn about virus fragments in our DNA?” she asked.
Rebecca responded with a bit of embarrassment. “In an old article in the New York Times, actually,” she responded. “I was searching the internet for anything that could be relevant while Ben was studying the cultures and determining who had the virus in their bloodstream. I came across this article that said scientists were speculating that fragments of ancient viruses might be responsible for cancer and some other illnesses when they got activated somehow.”
“But, you don’t think this virus was present in your index cases, became activated somehow and then spread from there?” Hannah asked.
“Well, I haven’t thought about it like that,” Rebecca admitted. “That would solve our problem of what the vector is. We haven’t been able to determine that, with the idea that the virus was present in the valley.”
“Is there anything in the valley that’s unusual enough to make you think it might have activated a genetic virus?”
“Well, let’s see. There’s a light source in the valley that no one has been able to understand or locate. Our botanist, who died of the virus, said something as he was dying that made me think he had a theory, but Nyree was working with him on it and she doesn’t know. Otherwise, nothing.”
“Hmm. Doesn’t sound like something that could cause this. We’ll look into it, of course, if Nyree’s cultures don’t yield an answer. Nothing else, you say?”
“Not that I can think of. Ben?”
Ben shook his head. “I haven’t been inside the valley, so I wouldn’t know. Hannah, what makes you think an unusual light source couldn’t cause it?”
“It wouldn’t explain the contagion to people who have never been exposed to the light source,” she answered. “I won’t rule it out if we can’t make headway with the studies you’ve already undertaken.”
“Am I correct in believing more work has been done since that Times article?” Rebecca asked.
“Oh, yes, absolutely. I’ve been involved in some of the studies myself. Very astute of you to pick it up, Rebecca. It’s one thing that could account for the fact that only one ethnic group is affected. Ben, what’s your particular expertise in the field?”
“Identification of the strains and prediction of the effect of mutations on human populations. Also vaccine development,” he answered. He didn’t need to explain to Hannah, as he had to Rebecca earlier, that virtually all strains of seasonal respiratory viruses were transferred from birds to humans, from whence they mutated wildly, presenting new challenges each year as they migrated around the world.
Ben’s expertise was to analyze the H and N strains that were cropping up in each season’s virus and determine who might be vulnerable based on the history of which strains had been encountered year after year. Once a vaccine had been formulated for the new strain, target populations were warned so that they could take preventive action.
“Excellent. I’ve done work in vaccine development, but more recently I’ve been working on gene replacement to attack ancient virus fragments that are present within the patient’s DNA. As Rebecca has so aptly discovered, we now know that these fragments can act very much like a stick in the spokes of a bicycle wheel. Activate one, and it creates a cascading effect on hormones that are responsible for immune response along with other biochemical reactions.
“We’re fairly certain that viruses cause the conditions under which several different cancers thrive, and we know that certain genetic expressions can code for susceptibility to the herpes viruses. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to learn that there was either a nearly-universal genetic sequence that, depending on its activation, makes an individual susceptible to this virus, or an ancient viral fragment present in Middle Eastern peoples that was somehow activated in your valley. Determining which and what to do about it will be our focus.”
Just like that, Hannah assumed leadership of the investigation, with Ben’s willing cooperation. If Rebecca’s theory was correct, they’d recruited exactly the right virologist, and he would follow her lead. His discovery of the new hemagglutinin was sufficient contribution to assure him his place in history if they could stop this thing. If not, it wouldn’t much matter.
While they waited for the gene sequencers to finish with the first two samples, Ben also showed Hannah a number of slides in the 10th Cycle microscope, to familiarize her with the structure of the H10N7 virus as it looked when viewed with that equipment. Hannah had seen the virus under an electron microscope, but the resolution and color differentiation of these slides made her exclaim with pleasure that it was almost like having a 3-D model of the virus. She spent some time turning the images from side to side, flipping them from front to back and up to down, memorizing the face of her new enemy.
In some ways, it was beautiful, looking like a close-up of some globe-forming flower that boasted many colors in each petal. In other ways, it was chilling, foreign, like nothing she had seen before. Where had this thing come from? What caused it to attack Middle Easterners only, even as it infected everyone who came into contact with it? What would kill it, or at least halt its ability to kill? All the questions must be answered, and not necessarily in that order. Hannah would be content to find an effective gene therapy or even a vaccine, and let others answer the other questions.
~~~
Now that Hannah had raised the question, Rebecca couldn’t get it out of her mind that the strange light could have something to do with either activation of the virus or some other aspect of the disease that had caused it to attack the Middle Easterners. With el-Amin gone and Nyree consumed with culturing the algae and any microbes to be found within it, she went to Robert with her questions.
“Robert, did Hazar or Nyree ever confide their findings to you with regard to the light in the valley?”
“No, they brought me a few specimens to see if they would fluoresce and cause the light, but none did. Why?”
“Just a theory I’m working on. Do you have any thoughts about what could be causing it?”
“Not really. Is it important?”
“It could be.” Rebecca took time to carefully explain the background to Hannah’s question. “If we could determine the source of the light, we might be able to determine whether it had anything to do with activating the virus or not. Or at least eliminate it.”
“If it will help, I’ll do some investigation. Is Nyree busy?”
“She’s culturing that algae you took from the fumarole, but it’s like watching grass grow. She could probably stand to have something else to do for a few hours. What did you have in mind?”
“Well, it isn’t safe to climb with just one. I was thinking I’d belay her while she climbs up to investigate the higher reaches of the canyon walls, if she’s willing.”
“Why don’t we ask her?”
The two walked through the halls to Nyree’s lab, finding her napping on a cot. She woke as the door opened, though, and told them they weren’t disturbing her. Nyree’s work had revealed something in the algae, but it wasn’t the coronavirus that caused the illness they were studying. On closer examination, it appeared to be a form of adenovirus. Since it seemed to bear no resemblance to the target microbe, Ben continued his work without considering Nyree’s virus to be important. The vector for the N10H7 virus remained unknown, and Hannah wasn’t informed of Nyree’s discovery.
When Robert suggested his plan, she eagerly agreed, with the stipulation that someone had to check her cultures every hour or so to see what else, if anything, was growing. Rebecca promised to send Ben to do it, and Nyree went to her room to get her cold-weather gear for the trek to the cave opening.
“We’d better clear this with JR and Charles,” Rebecca said, belatedly wondering if they were overstepping their bounds by planning to enter the valley without authorization. While Ben went to his own room, Rebecca sought out JR, who was with Daniel and Summers in Summers’ office.
“Hey, guys,” she
said, entering the office, “how’s it going?”
“About the same,” answered Daniel, whose eyes were glued to a computer monitor that had several open windows tiled for simultaneous viewing. One showed a ticker-tape style stream of information from world markets. While the stock exchanges in the US had been closed since the declaration of emergency, some countries had declined to follow suit, with the result that global markets were down as much as eighty percent. Another window was open to CNN, which was broadcasting from the floor of the UN General Assembly, muted with subtitles rolling across the screen. From a quick glance, it appeared that if the volume had been on, nothing but shouting would be distinguishable. Several others were open to live streaming media sources, from Reuters to AP to the most critical, National Iranian Radio and Television, NIRT.
Leaving Daniel to his monitoring of world status, Rebecca gestured to JR and Summers and took them aside. “Robert and Nyree need to go into the valley,” she said.
“I thought…” JR started.
“Hannah has brought up an interesting question, and the only way to answer it is to settle the light source dilemma once and for all,” Rebecca continued, throwing JR a look of apology for interrupting him. “She thinks it’s possible something in the light source activated the virus, which might already have been in the Middle Easterners’ genetic code. If that’s the case, it’s why the virus only attacks them, and it lets us off the hook, since it’s already inside them. Mind you, Hannah doesn’t think it’s a strong possibility, but while we’re waiting for everything else, I thought I’d ask Robert if he had any ideas. He wants to take Nyree in and have her climb to heights she and el-Amin didn’t get to before, while he belays her.”
JR was inclined to grant Rebecca’s request, but before he did, it wouldn’t hurt to check with Summers to make sure the man’s feathers didn’t get ruffled. He looked enquiringly at Summers. A mutinous expression was on the face of the archaeologist, but he was clearly considering his answer. JR and Rebecca didn’t have long to wait for it.
