Countdown: A Newsflesh Novella Read online

  The initial stages of the Alpha-RC007 infection followed the now-familiar pattern, invading the body’s cells like a common virus, only to slip quietly out again, leaving copies of itself behind. The only cells to be actually destroyed in the process were the other infections Alpha-RC007 encountered in the host body. These were turned into tiny virus factories, farming on a microscopic scale. Several minor ailments Lauren was not even aware of were found brewing in her body, and summarily destroyed in Alpha-RC007’s quest for sole dominion.

  Then, deep in the tissue of Lauren’s lungs, Alpha-RC007 encountered something new, something that was confusing to the virus, in as much as anything can ever confuse a virus. This strange new thing had a structure as alien to the world as Alpha-RC007’s own: half natural, half reconfigured and transformed to suit a new purpose.

  Behaving according to the protocols that were the whole of its existence, Alpha-RC007 approached the stranger, using its delicate protein hooks to attempt infiltration. The stranger responded in kind, their protein hooks tangling together until they were like so much viral thread, too intertwined to tell where one ended and the next began. This happened a thousand times in the body of Lauren Morris. Many of those joinings ended with the destruction of one or both viral bodies, their structures unable to correctly lock together.

  The rest found an unexpected kinship in the locks and controls their human creators had installed, and began, without releasing each other, to exchange genetic material in a beautiful dance that had begun when life on this world was born, and would last until that life was completely gone. Oblivious to the second miracle of science that was now happening inside her, Lauren Morris went about her day. She had never been a mother before. Before the sun went down, she would be one of the many mothers to give birth to Kellis-Amberlee.

  * * *

  It’s a beautiful summer here in Ohio, and we have a great many events planned for these sweet summer nights. Visit the downtown Columbus Farmer’s Market, where you can sample new delights from our local farms. Who knows what you might discover? Meanwhile, the summer concert series kicks off…

  July 8, 2014: Atlanta, Georgia

  Chris Sinclair’s time at the CDC had been characterized by an almost pathological degree of calm. He remained completely relaxed even during outbreaks of unknown origin, calling on his EIS training and his natural tendency to “not sweat the small stuff” in order to keep his head while everyone around him was losing theirs. When asked, he attributed his attitude to growing up in Santa Cruz, California, where the local surf culture taught everyone to chill out already.

  Chris Sinclair wasn’t chilling out anymore. Chris Sinclair was terrified.

  They still had no reliable test for the Kellis cure. Instead of charting the path of the infection, they were falling back on an old EIS trick and charting the absence of infection. Any place where the normal chain of summer colds and flu had been broken, they marked on the maps as a possible outbreak of the Kellis cure. It wasn’t a surefire method of detection—sometimes people were just healthy, without any genetically engineered virus to explain the reasons why. Still. If only half the people showing up as potential Kellis cure infections were sick…

  If only half the people showing up as potential Kellis cure infections were sick with this sickness that wasn’t a sickness at all, then that meant that this stuff was spreading like wildfire and there was no way they could stop it. If they put out a health advisory recommending people avoid close contact with anyone who looked excessively healthy, they’d have “cure parties” springing up nationwide. It was the only possible result. Before the chicken pox vaccine was commonly available, parents used to have chicken pox parties, choosing sickness now to guarantee health later. They’d do it again. And then, if the Kellis cure had a second stage—something that would have shown up in the human trials Alexander Kellis never had the opportunity to conduct—they would be in for a world of trouble.

  Assuming, of course, that they weren’t already.

  “Still think we shouldn’t be too worried about a pandemic that just makes everybody well?”

  “William.” Chris raised his head, giving a half-ashamed shrug as he said, “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “You were pretty engrossed in those papers. Are those the updated maps of the projected spread?”

  “They are.” Chris chuckled mirthlessly. “You’ll be happy to know that our last North American holdouts have succumbed to the mysterious good health that’s been going around. We have infection patterns in Newfoundland and Alaska. In both cases, I was able to find records showing that the pattern manifested shortly after someone from another of the suspected infection zones came to town. It’s spreading. If it’s not already everywhere in the world, it will be soon.”

  “Have there been any reported symptoms? Anything that might point to a mutation?” William Matras filled his mug from the half-full coffeepot sitting on the department hot plate, grimacing at the taste even as he kept on drinking. It was bitter but strong. That was what he needed to get through this catastrophe.

  “I was wondering when you’d get to asking about the bad part.”

  “There was a good part?”

  Chris ignored him, shuffling through the papers on his desk until he found a red folder. Flipping it open, he read, “Sudden increased salivation in the trial subjects for the McKenzie-Beatts TB treatment. That was the one using genetically modified yellow fever? Three deaths in a modified malaria test group. We’re still waiting for the last body to arrive, but in the two we have, it looks like their man-made malaria suddenly started attacking their red blood cells. Wiped them out faster than their bone marrow could rebuild them.”

  “The Kellis cure doesn’t play nicely with the other children,” observed William.

  “No, it doesn’t.” Chris looked up, expression grim. “The rest of these are dealing with subjects from the Colorado cancer trials. The ones that used the live version of the modified Marburg virus. They’re expressing the same symptoms as everyone else…but their families are starting to show signs of the Marburg variant. Somehow, interaction with the Kellis cure is teaching it how to spread. That, or it was already spreading on a subclinical level, and now the Kellis cure is waking it up.”

  William stared at him, coffee forgotten. “Oh, Jesus.”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s not listening, but you can call him if it makes you feel better,” said Chris. He handed his colleague the folder and the two of them turned back to their work. They were trying to prevent the inevitable. They both knew that. But that didn’t mean they didn’t have to try.

  * * *

  Effective immediately, all human clinical trials utilizing live strains of any genetically modified virus have been suspended. All records and patient lists for these trials must be submitted to the CDC office in Atlanta, Georgia, by noon EST on July 10th. Failure to comply may result in federal charges…

  July 10, 2014: Reston, Virginia

  The sound of the front door slamming brought Alexander Kellis out of his light doze. He’d managed to drift off on the couch while he was waiting for John to come home with dinner—the first time he’d slept in days. His first feeling, once the disorientation passed, was irritation. Couldn’t John be a little more careful? Didn’t he know how exhausted he was?

  Then he realized that he wasn’t hearing any footsteps. Annoyance faded into concern. “John?” Alex stood, nudging his glasses back into place as he started, warily, toward the foyer.

  Jonathan and Alexander Kellis lived in a sprawling house that was really too big for just the two of them, something they’d been intending to fix once Alex’s research paid off and early retirement became a viable option. Neither of them really wanted to have children without knowing that one parent, at the very least, would be able to be home for the first few years—and whether they adopted or found a surrogate, they’d always known that one day, they’d fill that empty house with children.

  At the moment, however, al
l that filled the house was silence. And the silence was somehow terrifying. “John?” he repeated, and stepped into the darkened foyer, fumbling for the light switch with one hand. He found it and clicked it on, illuminating the room…and then he froze, eyes going wide, mouth going dry as he tried to process what he was seeing.

  How John had managed to make it into the house under his own power was a mystery that might never be solved. Into the house, and no farther. He was collapsed across the hardwood floor, limp and boneless. A smear of blood on the wall showed where he had tried to grab hold as he was falling.

  “John!” Alex broke out of his fugue, closing the distance between them in three long steps. He barely even felt the pain when his knees slammed into the ground. Fumbling for a pulse with one hand, he said, “John? Sweetheart? Can you hear me?”

  John moaned. It was a soft, hollow sound, like the kind made by ghosts in bad horror movies, and it made Alex’s blood run cold. “Alex?”

  “I’m here, honey. Be still. I’m going to call 911. You just…you just keep still.”

  “They beat me, Alex.” John Kellis managed, somehow, to roll over enough to look up at the man he’d loved since college, when they were both so damn young, and so wonderfully full of optimistic fantasies. “Line at the Chinese place was too long. I went for Indian. Drove past the lab…lights were on. I thought you’d gone out again. I thought you were choosing those damn monkeys over me.” The venom in his voice made Alex jump. Oblivious, John continued. “Stopped the car. Went in to get you…found them. They let them out, Alex. They let them all out.” John closed his eyes. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t stop them.”

  “Stop who?” asked Alex, frozen.

  “Said you were…experimenting on animals. Said it was unethical. They said…we deserved what we got.” John sighed. “They said we deserved…everything we got.”

  “Stay with me, sweetheart. Stay awake. Stay with me.” Alex fumbled his cell phone out of his pocket, dialing as he raised it to his ear. “Hello, 911? This is Alexander Kellis. My husband has been badly beaten. We’re located at…” He took John’s hand in his as he gave the address, and held it until the ambulance arrived, waiting for John to say something—anything—to let him know that it would be all right. To let him know that this wasn’t how it ended.

  John didn’t say a word. The ambulance arrived, and the EMTs loaded John into the back, leaving Alex to follow in his car. If John woke up on the way to the hospital, no one noticed; no one heard whatever he might have said. Jonathan Kellis was pronounced dead on arrival at 9:53 PM on July 10, 2014. If there was any mercy in this—and there was no mercy to be seen, not then—it was that he died early enough to stay that way.

  * * *

  Jonathan Kellis, husband of infamous genetic engineer Dr. Alexander Kellis, died last night following a beating at the hands of unidentified assailants. Mr. Kellis had apparently surprised them in the act of vandalizing Dr. Kellis’s lab. No suspects have been identified at this time…

  July 13, 2014: Allentown, Pennsylvania

  After six days of snooping, bribery, and the occasional outright lie, Robert Stalnaker had finally achieved his goal: a meeting with the college student who had blown the whistle on the leaders of the Mayday Army. It had been more difficult than he’d expected. Since the death of Dr. Kellis’s husband—something that was not his fault; not only did his article not say “break into the lab and free the experimental virus,” it certainly never said “beat the man’s lover to a bloody pulp if you get the chance”—the security had closed in tighter around the man who was regarded as the state’s star, and really only, witness to the actions of the Mayday Army. Robert carefully got out his pocket recorder, checking to be sure the memory buffer was clear. He was only going to get one shot at this.

  The door opened, and a skinny, anxious-looking college boy stepped into the room, followed by a pair of visibly armed police officers. Stalnaker would have attempted to convince them to leave, but frankly, after what had happened to John Kellis…these were unsettled times. Having a few authority figures present might be good for everyone involved. Especially since they were authority figures with guns.

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Matthew,” he said, standing and extending his hand to be shaken. The college boy had a light grip, like he was afraid of breaking something. Stalnaker made a note of that, even as he kept on smiling. “I’m Robert Stalnaker, with the Clarion News in New York. I really do appreciate it.”

  “You’re the one who wrote that article,” said Matt, pulling his hand away and sitting down on the other side of the table. His eyes darted from side to side like a cornered dog’s, assessing the exit routes. “They would never have done it if you hadn’t done that first.”

  “Done what, exactly?” Stalnaker produced a notepad and pencil from his pocket, making sure Matt saw him getting ready to take notes. The recorder was already running, but somehow, it never caused the Pavlovian need to speak that he could trigger with a carefully poised pencil. “I just want to know your side of the story, son.”

  Matt took a shaky breath. “Look. I didn’t—nobody told me this was going to be a whole thing, you know? This girl I know just told me that Brandon and Hazel could hook me up with some good weed. I was coming off finals, I was tense, I needed to relax a little. That was all.”

  “I understand,” said Stalnaker encouragingly. “When I was in college, I heard the siren song of good weed more than a few times. Was the weed good?”

  “Aw, man, it was awesome.” Matt’s eyes lit up. Only for a moment; the light quickly dimmed, and he continued more cautiously. “Anyway, everybody started talking about revolution and sticking it to The Man and how this dude Kellis was going to screw us all by only giving his cold cure to the people who could afford it. I should have done the research, you know? I should have looked it up. It’s contagious, see? Even if we’d left it alone, let Dr. Kellis finish his testing, we would have all been able to get it in the end. If it worked.”

  Something about the haunted tone in Matt’s voice made Stalnaker sit up a little bit straighter. “Do you think it doesn’t work? Can you support that?”

  “Oh, it works. Nobody’s had a cold in weeks. We’re the killers of the common cold. Heigh-ho, give somebody a medal.” Matt shook his head, glancing around for exits one more time. “But he didn’t finish testing it. Man, we created an invasive species that can live inside our bodies. Remember when all those pythons got into the Everglades? Remember how it fucked up the alligators? This time we’re the alligators, and we’ve got somebody’s pet store python slithering around inside us. And we don’t know what it eats, and we don’t know how big it’s going to get.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Matt looked at Robert Stalnaker and smiled a bitter death’s-head grin as he said, “I’m saying that we’re screwed, Mr. Stalnaker, and I’m saying that it’s all your fucking fault.”

  * * *

  The trial of Brandon Majors and Hazel Allen, the ringleaders of the so-called Mayday Army, has been delayed indefinitely while the precise extent of their crimes is determined. Breaking and entering and willful destruction of property are easy; the sudden demand by the World Health Organization that they also be charged with biological terrorism and global pollution is somewhat more complex…

  July 17, 2014: Atlanta, Georgia

  “We have a problem.”

  William Matras looked up from his computer screen and blanched, barely recognizing his colleague. Chris looked like he’d lost fifteen pounds in five days. His complexion was waxen, and the circles under his eyes were almost dark enough to make it seem like he’d been punched. “Christ, Chris, what the hell happened to you?”

  “The Kellis cure.” Chris Sinclair shook his head, rubbing one stubbly cheek as he said, “I don’t have it. I mean, I don’t think. We still can’t test for it, and we can’t afford to have me get sick right now just to find out. But the Kellis cure is what happened. It’s what’s happening right now.
”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “There’s been a development in one of the research studies we’ve been monitoring.”

  “The McKenzie-Beatts TB treatment.” It wasn’t a question, because it didn’t need to be. William was abruptly glad that he hadn’t bothered to stand. He would have just fallen back into his chair.

  “Got it in one.” Chris nodded, expression grim. “The patients involved in the trial died, William. Every one of them.”

  “When?”

  “About an hour and a half ago. Dr. Li was on-site to monitor their symptoms. The first to start seizing was a twenty-seven-year-old male. He began bleeding from the mouth, eyes, nose, and rectum; when they performed the autopsy, they found that he was also bleeding internally, most heavily into his intestines and lungs. It’s a coin toss whether he suffocated or bled out.” Chris looked away, toward the blank white wall. He’d never wanted to see the ocean so badly in his life. “The rest started seizing within fifteen minutes. An eleven-year-old girl who’d been accepted into the trials a week before the Kellis cure was released was the last to die. Dr. Li says she was asking for her parents right up until she stopped breathing.”

  “Oh my God…” whispered William.

  “I’m telling you, man, I don’t think he’s here.” Chris rubbed his cheek again, hard. “You ready for the bad part?”

  Numbly, William asked, “You mean that wasn’t the bad part?”

  “Not by a long shot.” Chris laughed darkly. “Everyone who had direct contact with the patients—the medical staff, their families, hell, our medical staff—has started to experience increased salivation, even though the trial virus was certified as noncontagious. Whatever this stuff is turning into, it’s catching. They’re sealing the building. Dr. Li’s called for an L-4 quarantine. If they don’t figure out what’s going on, they’re going to die in there.”