The Calm Before The Swarm
Page 3
Their antennae were dramatically different as well. Instead of having a long distal portion called a flagellum, which was ordinarily composed of eight discrete sections that helped the wasp recognize different sounds, there was only a small nub, which, they could only assume, was able to identify a single tone.
They were dealing with a wasp that looked like a hybridization of a paper wasp and a digger wasp, had the ovipositor of a honey bee connected to the parthenogenic reproductive system of a parasitic wasp, with oddly short antennae attuned to a particular resonance of sound, the mandibles of a termite, and weaker venom than any single one of its constituent components. A finely-tuned machine capable of infesting a host without immediate detriment...and of killing an entire crowd of spectators in a matter of seconds.
This species wasn't the result of random mutation or selective breeding. This was something that could only have been engineered in a lab.
But how had it gone from that lab into the belly of a circus elephant? And how long had they been growing in its digestive tract?
The elephant hadn't been attacked by a swarm. It would have been killed like everything else under the big top. It had to have been stung repeatedly under controlled conditions for so many eggs to have hatched inside of it. The elephant's sickly affect prior to its death had to have been caused by the mature insects that surely must have been crammed shoulder-to-shoulder in its bowels. It wouldn't have been able to eat or defecate. The wasps had been causing it to slowly starve to death while they waited for the stimulus that triggered them to chew their way out of its gut.
Everyone at the fairgrounds last night had been killed by someone who had invested a tremendous amount of time and resources into the creation and release of the wasps. Not just killed, but murdered in a cold, calculating manner that had taken countless years of hard work in a laboratory far more advanced than even Lauren's to plan and implement.
That was why they all now worked as fast and as diligently as they could.
They needed to figure out the motive behind using the wasps to murder hundreds of people at a circus in a town that barely warranted inclusion on the map.
Everything hinged upon it.
They needed to know why.
II
Lauren checked in with Special Agent Cranston just before noon and relayed her findings. He sounded less surprised than she had expected. His team had already identified the majority of the faceless decedents based primarily on the driver's licenses they found in the purses and wallets either on or near the remains. They were in the process of crosschecking the names against employment records in hopes of stumbling upon a motive while simultaneously bagging and tagging the corpses. CDC transport vehicles were running back and forth, hauling the bodies by the truckload to their quarantine station downstairs near the construction zone. Lauren imagined them stacked like corded wood against the rear wall in the warehouse-size chamber, in the space they had cleared by moving all of the stretchers out of the curtained partitions. Cranston had promised to sic his best dogs on the genetically engineered angle to determine which facilities were capable of pulling off something this ambitious.
In the meantime, she needed to scrutinize the samples. If the wasps had developed inside of the elephant, then it was definitely possible that they were growing inside of the hundreds of corpses they were unloading at this very moment. The last thing they wanted was their entire quarantine room swarming with wasps. And yet, at the same time, they did need to focus on the lifecycle of the insects, which undoubtedly meant they needed an experimental cross-section to hatch.
She shuddered at the thought of willingly allowing one of the corpses to become infested and torn apart on her table while she leaned over it in a beekeeper's suit.
Right now, a team of medical examiners was autopsying every tenth body. Thus far, the results were all the same. Their deaths were the result of the sheer amount of venom that hit the victims' bloodstreams at once, leading to anaphylactic shock. Their windpipes had closed due to the natural histamine reactions of their immune systems. In essence, they had all asphyxiated as one.
Blood was the key. It pumped through a complex highway of vessels that connected the heart to every organ, from arteries to arterioles and finally into the tiny capillaries that ran just beneath the surface of the skin and back again through venules and veins. This was the route that nearly every pathogenic microbe used to reach its ultimate destination inside the body. Airborne viruses accessed it through the mucus membranes in the respiratory tract and directly through the lungs. For other diseases, all it took was a simple transfer of fluids, or, in some cases, just the slightest physical contact or a passing of germs via a fomite like a doorknob. In this case, she suspected the wasps laid their eggs subcutaneously, and upon hatching, the larvae traveled through the blood into the digestive system where there was room to grow in the nutrient-rich maze of hollow tubes, in much the same fashion as tapeworms.
She studied the blood samples through an electron microscope on slides her lab assistants had prepared. Whole blood had been treated with heparin to prevent coagulation, while other samples had been centrifuged, which broke them down into their individual components. The skin and superficial samples of the human remains had all reflected what one would expect from a wasp sting. Nothing more, nothing less. The elephant's bowels had also been relatively normal, minus the sections where the ovipositors had become impaled in the lining. The mucosa had been dramatically inflamed in the immediate vicinity of the stingers, but there was no sign of infection or other physiological reaction, which suggested that the wasps had merely been content to develop inside of the animal until the external stimulus triggered the instinct that caused them to chew their way out. Eventually, the elephant would have starved to death, had it not been gutted from within first.
The sample of blood she now studied under 1000x magnification was from the man she had encountered on the lawn outside the fairgrounds, the bald man who'd been designated Number One by the pink flag near his head. He had presumably been nearest the exit flaps of the big top when everything had started to happen and made a break for it. He hadn't even made it a hundred yards. His blood was fairly common, which made him a good test subject. O positive. Clear toxicology screen, minus the preponderance of melittin. Standard increase in white blood cells to combat the sudden onslaught. Normal red blood cell and platelet counts. The only thing they found that shouldn't have been there were the small white ovals that vaguely resembled the platelets, only they were about a hundred times larger and less prevalent by a factor of ten thousand. Extrapolating the sample size to that of the entire bloodstream still intimated that there were hundreds of thousands of what she assumed to be egg sacs floating through the host.
Further magnification of the white ovals confirmed they had no method of locomotion. No flagella or cilia. They were at the mercy of the current. They appeared to be encapsulated in some sort of gelatinous protein coating with a mucus-like consistency that prevented it from sticking to any of the blood cells, the vessel lumen, or the other egg sacs. If that was indeed what they were. At this point, she could only speculate.
Lauren replaced the whole blood slide with one featuring the white dots exclusively. They'd been centrifuged to isolate them and placed in a saline solution. She wanted to test an idea that had been percolating in her head. The pH of blood was slightly basic---roughly 7.4---in comparison to that of the digestive tract. The small bowel maintained a slightly more acidic pH level of approximately 6.6, but that was nothing compared to the stomach, which pumped out gastric acid with a pH of under 2. Enteric drugs like acetaminophen and ibuprofen were coated with gelatin to ensure that the active ingredients wouldn't be released until they hit the stomach, where they would be absorbed as they progressed through the small bowel.
"Prepare a point five percent solution of hydrochloric acid," she said. "That should approximate the acidity of the stomach. And set up another slide with several of the egg sacs."
One of her assistants passed her a slide with an indentation the size of a thumbprint in the center. The sample was nearly invisible until she locked it into place under the lens. She focused on what looked like a cluster of white grapes, then increased the magnification until they filled the screen.
She leaned back from the monitor and felt the others crowd around her. All sounds of activity died. The resultant silence was marred only by the sounds of excited breathing and the hum of machinery.
Another assistant appeared at her side, holding the dilution she had requested.
Lauren gave him approval to proceed with a nod, and focused on the image on the screen.
The lens drew out of focus as the tip of a glass pipette appeared. A globule of fluid shivered and fell away. Then another. The cluster of eggs floated apart, then began to effervesce. The outer coating disintegrated into a fine white particulate mist. In the center of each, a dark shape drew contrast. It looked like a ring at first, before slowly opening into a C-shape. The remainder of the egg sac dissolved, leaving only a pale halo in the fluid around the larvae, like the whites of broken eggs around the yolks.
The larvae all started to wriggle at once, worming back and forth through the acidic solution.
"My God," Lauren whispered.
Blood flowed through the human body at a rate of anywhere between one-tenth of a centimeter per second in the peripheral vessels to forty centimeters per second near the trunk.
Conservative estimates suggested it had taken less than two minutes for the venom to trigger the fatal reaction that had caused all of the people in the tent to asphyxiate.
That was more than enough time for the eggs to pass through the bloodstream and enter the gastrointestinal tract, where they had been sitting in a puddle of stomach acid for more than sixteen hours now.
She imagined the massive quarantine room. It was negatively pressurized to prevent the air inside the chamber from contaminating the outside air. Was it sealed tightly enough that nothing could crawl out through the ducts?
She pictured the rows of body bags and the remains inside of them, their bowels expanding with the gasses of decomposition and teeming with wasp larvae.
She envisioned the corpses still lying in the field, out in the open, and the group of agents working the scene around them. The bowels churning even beneath the graying flesh.
And worst of all, she imagined a swarm of wasps hundreds of times the size of the one that had eaten through the elephant and killed every patron in the stands in a matter of seconds rolling over the suburbs of Atlanta like a storm cloud.
III
"The last of the remains just arrived," Lauren said. "If nothing else, at least we can be certain that the threat is contained."
"We've had crop dusters buzzing overhead all day, dropping insecticides over the entire area, as you requested," Cranston said. His face filled the laptop monitor. Behind him, she could just see the pinnacle of the big top. "You're certain we have this under control now?"
"Not in the slightest."
"Very reassuring."
"It's a reasonable assertion that all of the wasps would have been drawn to the amplifiers and drowned in the lake, but we simply can't take that chance. Some could have flown off into the woods; hence, the insecticides. Or they could have stung a possum or a dog or livestock in one of the nearby fields---"
"I get the picture."
"What about the sound frequency?"
"We have a team of experts analyzing it as we speak. The problem is that so far they've been able to isolate nearly a dozen different frequencies from the digital recording, ranging from sub- to supersonic, all of them overlaid on separate tracks." He turned and nodded to someone off-screen. "You know there's only one way to determine which frequency's our trigger."
"Yeah." Lauren shuddered at the prospect. "Have your men send me the samples when they're ready."
"Careful what you wish for." Cranston again turned to the side and whispered to someone out of sight. His eyes were alight when he looked back into the camera. "We think we might have found something. You know better than I do what we should be looking for. I want you to walk through it with me. Okay, doc?"
Before she could reply, Cranston grabbed the video camera with a rustling sound. She saw his palm, and then what might have been his ear. When the image settled, she was staring at a handful of agents in FBI windbreakers. They were unloading bulletproof vests and assault rifles from the back of an unmarked van. When they closed the doors, she saw the sign for the camel rides and the dirt pen. A blue vest blocked her view for a split-second. Cranston must have attached the camera to some sort of mount on his hat or on a headset.
"Still with me, doc?"
His voice was louder and distorted, his breathing harsh. A microphone in front of his mouth, she assumed.
"What's going on?"
"We've been doing a systematic physical search of the premises. Remember that trailer we saw the guy with the hat go into? The one by the elephants? One of my agents found a set of keys sitting on the counter that didn't fit any of the trailer's locks." He started to run while he was talking. The image on the screen bounced with his exertions. His heavy exhalations echoed all around her small office. She recognized the path leading up through the sycamores toward the dirt parking lot, then the rows of cars that would eventually have to be towed. "The keys weren't high on our priority list, at least not at first. But considering how that guy was acting and the fact that the trailer appeared to be his base of operations, we had to follow up on them. We eventually found that one of the keys unlocked a pickup truck in the parking lot. The door of the camper trailer hitched to it was wired with explosives."
"Explosives?"
"C4. We're obviously not dealing with a low-rent operation here."
"Why would...?" Lauren's voice trailed off as the image focused on a black Ford F-150 and the Wildwood trailer hooked to its fender. It was parked it the middle of the lot as though in an effort to be invisible. And yet the keys had been left out on the counter and the trailer door rigged with explosives. It didn't make sense, though. If it wasn't meant to be found, why leave the keys behind and go to the effort of setting up the booby trap?
Something else bothered her about the situation, something she couldn't quite pin down.
On the screen, two men wearing full bomb squad gear stepped away from the trailer door. Cranston paused only long enough to look at another agent and give a sharp nod. The agent pulled the door open and Cranston climbed up into the darkness, leading with his pistol. She heard shouts from the other agents, identifying themselves, warning anyone inside.
A burst of light that the aperture struggled to rationalize.
She saw a countertop. A rusted sink. Cupboards. An unmade bed. A dirty tabletop. The mirror on the closed bathroom door. The patterned linoleum floor. The view shifted quickly in time with Cranston's stare as he tried to capture every detail at once. The trailer rocked as more men climbed inside.
"Open that door!" Cranston shouted.
He stepped back and Lauren stared down the length of his arms and the sightline of his pistol at his reflection on the bathroom door.
Whoever was responsible had created the perfect untraceable killing machines in the wasps. A bomb was beneath the skills of someone who could play God with the genes of half a dozen species.
"This isn't right," Lauren whispered.
The trailer was meant to be found, and there was only one reason she could think of as to why.
"Don't open the door!" she screamed.
An agent drew the bathroom door open with a squeal. She watched, helpless, as Cranston stepped forward into the small room. There was a loud shriek of feedback from an alarm on the door. Everything was yellow plastic. The walls, the sink, the showerhead, the toilet. Ev
erything except for the listless cocker spaniel sprawled on the floor in a crusted puddle of urine. Flies swirled around it, crawled on its eyes. Its fur was matted and clumped, its abdomen distended, its rectum prolapsed. It tried to raise its head, but dropped it heavily back to the ground.
"Oh, Christ," Cranston said.
The dog whimpered and the fur on its flank ruffled as though blown by a sudden gust of wind.
"Out!" Cranston shouted. "Everyone out! Goddamn it! Everybody---!"
A feverish buzzing sound erupted with the cloud of wasps that boiled out of the dog's side. The tatters of skin flapped back like a baked potato. She saw the insects shooting straight toward the camera and then Cranston was in motion. An agent's face, eyes wide with terror. A collision. Tumbling to the floor. Panicked cries. The incessant buzzing. The whine of feedback. Cranston crawling over another man's body. He fell through the doorway and collapsed onto the ground. Shadows darted in and out of view, so close to the lens that it couldn't clearly capture them. Legs running away from her.
A lone insect landed on the dirt in front of the lens. Its blurry shape was nearly a foot wide on her laptop screen. Its wings vibrated and its body twitched. And then it was gone, leaving only the droning buzz in its wake.
Bodies scattered across the parking lot.
Silence crackled from her speakers.
Lauren started to cry.
IV
Lauren entered the quarantine room wearing a full beekeeper's suit. The white cotton and polyester blend fabric hung loosely from her body, while the leather boots and gloves were snug all the way up to her knees and biceps. She wore a helmet under a hooded veil, which hung over her face to the middle of her chest. Beneath the mesh was a biohazard mask with a Plexiglas face shield and a mouthpiece attached to the portable oxygen tank strapped to her back. All of the ventilation ducts had been plugged with a two-foot layer of steel wool that would allow an insecticidal mist to be forced into the room, but wouldn't permit any of the wasps to pass through in the opposite direction. With the impeded circulation, the air was stifling and oppressive, despite the cooling units set up throughout the room to slow the rate of decomposition. The smell was like nothing she had ever experienced before. The body bags were stacked five-high against the side walls in some places, and ran the length of the room. They weren't going to be able to release the remains to the next of kin until they were embalmed, the larvae flushed from their systems, their blood replaced with formaldehyde.