Containment

by Kirkland, Kyle

  His first thought was to see his son, his family. He noticed that the route he was taking would lead him not to his condominium but to his house. His ex's house, that is.

  Gordon continued, as if he were driving home from a hard day's work at the lab, except it was still day instead of night. When he reached the house he slowed but did not stop.

  He couldn't face anybody right now. Not after what had happened, not after he had single-handedly ruined the company. He glanced at the house as it receded in the rear view mirror.

  And he wondered if he was infected. The feds obviously didn't think so or they would have quarantined him. They apparently didn't even think the company was responsible for the epidemic, or if they did, they didn't seem to care very much. Their biggest concern was gathering information, and punishing people who didn't supply it. An obsession for compliance, with little regard for anything else.

  Gordon drove on to his empty condo. He tried to clear his mind, tried not think about anything, because at the present time any and all thoughts hurt. But nestled somewhere in his dark and brooding mind was a kernel of an idea.

  The idea swam against the tide of despair and finally struck him full force. It was a good idea, he felt; it should have occurred to him earlier, and would have, he was certain, if he had been concentrating properly.

  Brain cells. That's what Vision Cell Bioceuticals worked with. Eye and visual system—both were made of brain cells of all types and descriptions.

  Medburg, Pennsylvania / 12:15 p.m.

  Gary, Alicia, and their younger brother and sister sat in their living room, gathered around the television set and waiting for their mother to get ready for the trip to the grocery store. On the television was the news—all about the zone, the disease, what little they knew about it—the scientists, the soldiers, the police, the people inside the zone, and the people outside the zone who were making the decisions. Local stations ran the news 24/7.

  "I think it's a toothbrush," said Yvonne.

  "It reminds me of a horse," said the scamp, the younger son.

  "Which end?" asked Gary.

  "Both ends," said the scamp.

  They all laughed.

  "It's true," said Alicia. "The tail and the mane."

  "I think it looks like Dad's shaving brush," said Gary. "You remember, Leesh? When Dad used to take us camping in the Poconos, and he would shave with a razor and a bowl of water?"

  Alicia smiled and nodded. "Yeah, and he used white shaving cream and dabbed it on with this awful brush with thick bristles. It was like some kind of crazy caterpillar."

  Yvonne and the scamp thought this was hilarious.

  All of them continued to look at the image of Chet Vernolt, director of the Micro-Investigation Unit, and marveled at the prominent white mustache. Alicia speculated that it was fake, but Gary hypothesized that it was too heavy to tape or glue on, so it must be fixed by something permanent. Like hair roots.

  Loretta came into the living room and asked if everyone was ready.

  "...the epidemic is running its course..." Chet was saying.

  "Any new developments?" asked Loretta.

  Gary answered: "They're saying it could be over by early next week."

  "Great," said Loretta. "See? I told you not to worry."

  The television was turned off and they went outside and piled into the Chevrolet wagon.

  Gary sensed his mother's nervousness. He started to ask about it, but then decided not to. Not in front of the young ones. Besides, he suspected the cause of it: despite assurances to the contrary, his mother seemed to fear that they would arrive at the grocery store only to find nearly empty shelves and extortionate prices they couldn't afford to pay.

  * * *

  The grocery store was only a mile from their house. Loretta drove slowly and carefully, as she always did when the car was full.

  Not many people were on the road. After a few minutes they reached the grocery store they usually patronized. Loretta almost always went shopping on Saturday afternoon—a habit dating way back to when she and Cayles had first been married, some 18 years ago, and the habit hadn't been broken even though the marriage had. But only rarely in the last few years did Gary and Alicia come along.

  The parking lot held noticeably fewer cars than normal for a Saturday afternoon. Usually the lot was almost half full, but today it was about a third.

  Loretta felt the now familiar tension in her midsection. She pulled into an empty space and switched off the ignition. "Okay, gang," she said, with a coolness she did not feel, "let's have the list."

  The grocery list was ceremoniously handed from Yvonne, who had done the honors of preserving its contents, to the scamp, and from there to Loretta.

  With a racing pulse Loretta led the troops to the stall holding the shopping carts. Inserting a coin in the slot she retrieved one of the buggies; it rolled awkwardly on wheels that were wobbly and out of alignment from long use.

  Steeling herself for the interior of the store—she envisioned a mad scramble full of panic-stricken consumers fighting for the lone remaining egg carton—Loretta, the buggy, and her four children strolled past well stocked shelves.

  She pretended that this was exactly what she had expected. "Gary," she said, her eye scanning the list, "if you'll get the milk and other dairy products, and Alicia, the seasoning, we'll get out of here quicker."

  Loretta proceeded with her normal route through the store whose geography she knew as well as her house. She smiled as she realized that other people, even more worried than she, must have done their shopping earlier than usual—that was why there were fewer people in the store at the moment. Loretta tsked. Foolish worriers. It'll give them an ulcer if they're not careful.

  * * *

  Cecily Sunday, in a fresh Tyvek/PVC laminated suit, stood with Lisa Murdoch along Glaser Avenue in the zone. They'd set up a temporary booth where samples could be drawn from volunteers. It was a random selection process; anybody who happened to walk or ride past was asked to contribute a sample, but no one was pressured. Cecily and Lisa would take whatever they could get: skin, saliva, blood. About half the people agreed, most going all the way, including getting poked by a sterilized needle.

  Cecily hated not being able to tell the people all the news. Chet had ordered silence, and Cecily knew that if she disobeyed, no matter how good her intentions were, she would only succeed in starting rumors. Rumors the zone could do without.

  Already whisperings floated around the zone, impossible to connect with any source but there to be believed or disbelieved.

  All in all, the zone managed to hold itself together, so far. Some masks and gloves and a few signs of panic appeared, and Cecily had noted there was more cases of diarrhea in the zone than a cholera outbreak—evidently a lot of people believed that antibiotics would protect them. The antibiotics worked, but not in the way that people who consumed them had hoped; the drugs killed microorganisms like gut symbionts, the demise of which led to gastrointestinal disorders and diarrhea. The Micro-Investigation lab had already determined antibiotics did no good against the disease.

  Scratch the surface of the zone and you'll find panic, Cecily thought. But many of the people continued to cooperate.

  "Will it help you out?" was the common response when Cecily or Lisa asked for a sample. After an emphatic "yes," arms were bared and mouths opened wide.

  Cecily and Lisa admitted that the pathogen had not been identified—that much news was allowed to filter through—and so they couldn't tell who among the sample providers, if any, had the disease. Perhaps that may have encouraged even more people to donate samples, since they would not immediately have to face unpleasant news.

  A "zone" bus—operated by people who lived in the zone and therefore weren't wearing hazard suits—squealed to a halt near the booth. Six people got off. Four of them volunteered and Lisa and Cecily had a queue to work on. As they gathered the samples, Cecily's suit comm buzzed.

  "Figures," she muttered. "J
ust when you get busy...."

  A voice rang out in her suit. "What's that? What'd you say?"

  Cecily lowered the volume of the suit's internal speaker, then expertly jabbed an African-American's arm and extracted a blood sample.

  "Nothing," she said. "Who are you and what do you want? I've got plenty of customers here."

  "This is Gordon Norschalk. You're Cecily Sunday?"

  "Oh, hi Gordon. I didn't recognize you, this suit's speaker isn't all that great."

  "I got hold of you through Micro. I'll make it short. I've been doing some thinking about the pathogen. Has it been found yet?"

  "Nary a sign." Cecily nodded her thanks to the person who'd provided the sample and waved to the next in line.

  "I suggest you look for the pathogen in brain tissues," said Gordon. "Specifically, cells in the brainstem."

  "As a neuroscientist, I suppose that's something you'd think of." Cecily dabbed an arm with alcohol and prepared another needle.

  "Yeah, but it's more than that. Listen, my company...." Gordon paused.

  "Your company," prompted Cecily. "Did you get into any trouble with the heavies?"

  "The what? Oh. I did. They shuttered us. Said it was temporary, but...."

  "Sorry about that, but I warned you." Cecily drew back the plunger and bright red blood flowed into the tube. The donor, a young Hispanic woman, winced.

  "That's not why I called," said Gordon, recovering quickly. "Getting back to my suggestion. If you and I are right, then it's the creek. And therefore something from my company."

  "There's no proof we're right," said Cecily. "But I did talk to someone smarter than I am, bounced the idea off him and listened to what he had to say. He seems interested, though not in the way I would have thought." Cecily finished with the Hispanic woman and turned to the last donor in line, an elderly Caucasian woman.

  "What did he say?"

  As Cecily prepared the needle, she said, "He doesn't say a lot, he's the type who's more into asking questions than saying what's really on his mind. His name is Roderick Halkin. I call him 'Sherlock' because he doesn't like it. He seems more curious about the combinatorial organic chemistry going on in your labs."

  "Pradeep's work?" Gordon paused. "I know I suspected Pradeep's technicians for a while, but the work itself—Pradeep's research—is pretty innocent. It's hard to believe it had anything to do with a disease. Just simple organic chemicals."

  "Sherlock kept asking about what sort of chemicals were being made and where they were kept."

  "Being organics, they have to be protected from bacterial contamination. But I'm not sure about the details. Why does it matter?"

  "Sherlock never divulges his speculative side, at least not to me." The tube gorged itself with blood from its willing victim. Cecily withdrew the needle, wiped the wound, and sent off the woman with a smile and a wave. She looked around; the queue had emptied and Lisa was giving her a look through her suit's face shield that clearly asked, Can I take a break? Cecily nodded.

  "I'll show you mine," said Gordon. "My speculative side, I mean."

  Cecily laughed. "Okay, sport. Go ahead, I can take it."

  "I'll tell you why I suggest looking at the brainstem, and it's a simple reason. That's what we've got at Vision Cell: brain cells, and plenty of them. If you assume for the moment that we're right and this bug grew somehow at Vision Cell Bioceuticals, then it would have needed some kind of host and that host would have been a brain cell. There were plenty of human brain cells being cultured at our labs."

  "Was Jennifer working with human brain cells?"

  "That's what Jennifer did, for the most part. She had the biggest collection in the whole company."

  "Uh huh."

  There was a short silence. Then Gordon spoke. "What? What did you mean, 'uh huh'? That sounded ominous."

  "Sorry, I didn't mean it that way. I was just thinking. So why are you suggesting brainstem cells in particular? I would have thought that since you guys worked on vision then you would have used retinal cells, maybe cortical cells."

  "We do. But brain cells have certain features in common, and I suggest looking at brainstem cells because of the nature of the disease."

  Something clicked in Cecily's mind. "The respiratory center," she said.

  "You got it," said Gordon. "The breathing rhythm is governed by a collection of cells in the brainstem. Those cells die or stop working, you've got big problems."

  "Problems called asphyxiation and death," agreed Cecily. "I'll tell the lab techs at Micro to check on it. If those cells are being affected then we should be able to see it. It'll take a while to prepare the tissue slides but it's worth a shot. Thanks, Gordon."

  "It's worth a shot, all right, but there are questions I can't answer. How would this bug get into the brain? It's not like there's an easy route. Not much can get past the blood-brain barrier. So if gets into the brain, how did it manage to get there? And not activate the immune system in the process?"

  "More questions for Sherlock to mull over. In the meantime we'll search the brainstems of the victims."

  "Good. So you'll let me know if there's anything else I can do...." Gordon's voice trailed off.

  "We'll find it," said Cecily confidently. "Whether it jumped from your labs into the creek or it came from outer space, we'll find it soon. Then things'll start looking up."

  * * *

  Forty minutes after arriving at the supermarket in a state of nervous anticipation, Loretta calmly herded the children toward the wagon and stuffed eleven bags of groceries into the back.

  "There," she said, slamming the gate shut. "All done for a week."

  She climbed into the driver's seat. Her panic was buried so deep now that she could scarcely detect it. Maybe, she thought, it had gone for good. She waited for Gary to finish pushing the cart back into the stall, then she started the engine.

  While she was driving down Glaser Avenue, getting close to home and feeling calm and relieved, the panic resurfaced in a hurry.

  The car ahead of her stopped suddenly, its tail end rising. Loretta stopped the station wagon in time, then tried to peer around the car ahead of her to see why the driver had braked so suddenly.

  Then she saw the couple: a bearded middle-aged man with stringy gray hair, and a dark-haired woman about the same age, waving their arms madly. Loretta wondered if they needed help.

  The man stood in the middle of the street, bellowing over a makeshift bullhorn.

  "Your government betrayed you!" he cried. "People are dying and they're doing nothing to stop it!"

  The woman, Loretta noticed, had been screaming at the driver of the other car. Now she turned her attention to Loretta and to the pedestrians who had gathered on the sidewalk. The woman jumped into the middle of the other lane and shouted, "We're all going to die here! We're all going to die here!"

  A pickup truck came from the other direction, traveling at least 30 miles an hour, racing straight for the woman. Loretta gasped. She yelled, "Look out!"

  The dark-haired woman turned. The pickup kept barreling down the road. My God, thought Loretta, he's not even slowing down!

  At the last moment the truck swerved and the woman managed to avoid getting run over by inches. Loretta felt herself let out a deep breath.

  The woman screamed obscenities as the truck roared away. Loretta watched it go in her rear view mirror, thinking maybe she would get the license number. But then she forgot about it—out of the corner of her eye she saw two young men approach the woman in the road. Loretta turned just in time to see one of the men punch the woman in the face.

  "Kids, stay put!" yelled Loretta. Instantly she made sure all the doors of the station wagon were locked.

  Then she heard one of the doors opening. She glanced around and saw that Gary had manually overridden the lock. He jumped out of the car.

  "No!" screamed Loretta.

  Gary ran up to one of the young men. Alicia jumped out and followed him.

  Having no choic
e, Loretta swung open the door and got out too.

  "What are you doing?" Gary was yelling to the man, who stood over the dark-haired woman and looked like he wanted to kick her.

  "Getting rid of this trash," he replied.

  Gary said something else, something low but menacing—Loretta didn't catch it but the man he was talking to had gotten the point. Loretta watched in horror as the man took a swing at her son.

  Alicia started shouting and Loretta joined her, not knowing what she was saying but adding her voice to the ruckus. Gary and the man were wrestling, and the man—bigger, stronger—drove Gary slowly backwards. The other young man and the bearded protester were fighting a short distance away.

  Alicia was pulling on the hair of Gary's opponent and Loretta was just about to step into the fray when she was roughly pushed back.

  Four people wearing the hazard suits had arrived. One shoved people away from the grappling men and another leaned over and sprayed something at them.

  "Not my son!" yelled Loretta. "He didn't do anything!"

  The man who had thrown the punch and had wrestled with Gary writhed on the pavement. Gary rose to his feet, hand up to his eye. Loretta was by his side in a moment. "Here, let me see," she said, nudging his hand away.

  The hazard-suited person got between Loretta and her son before she could look at the wound. Loretta started to say something, but then just stared—the person in the hazard suit was a woman. Loretta could see her face and hair through the transparent material of the head and face shield. A pale woman with auburn hair.

  "You're okay," said the woman, using the suit's external speaker. "I just nicked you a bit with some spray. That spot will turn red and itch like the devil for a while, but it'll go away. Resist the urge to scratch because that'll make it worse."

  Gary nodded.

  The other people in hazard suits had subdued both young men. The protesting couple had also been collected. A police vehicle arrived and two officers got out. They were not from the neighborhood—they were also wearing hazard suits, though their suits were clearly marked with blue and white that identified them as cops.