Containment (22 page)

"
That can be good and bad," said someone thoughtfully.

Kraig knew why. If they didn
't know they were sick, they might not get so panicky. However, they might also decide to attempt to escape for the same reason—if they don't have the disease, or think they don't have the disease, then there's no moral compulsion to abide by the rules of the quarantine.

"
If we can isolate the cases," the woman was saying, "we can open the zone. And that is something I am sure we all want."

Nods all around.

That's what they were so afraid of, Kraig knew. A breakout—by people who may be carriers. They wanted to isolate the disease as soon as possible by corralling the infected patients. Plus if you pull down the fences everybody will be happy, except the people stuck in the hospital. To the rest of the world it would look like you've got the epidemic under control. No more riots, no more violence. Sweep all the dirt under the rug and forget about it; crisis solved, move on to the next problem.

Micro
's director got a pained look on his face. "I agree, opening the zone is what we're all striving for. But it remains to be seen whether we can pull it off in the next day or so, ma'am."

So, thought Kraig. Chet
's starting to grow a backbone. Or maybe it's because now even
he
realizes it's hopeless.

The woman
's lips compressed. Clearly she wasn't satisfied.

Kraig couldn
't hold it in any longer. "If you want to be adequately prepared," he said acidly, "order twenty thousand coffins."

Medburg, Pennsylvania / 6:30 p.m.

They all ate mechanically. Lift fork, shovel it in, chew. Repeat as necessary.

Loretta Winters had made lasagna, a family favorite. Yet it was a somber dinner and Loretta
's few attempts to inject some lively conversation died out like the chime of a softly rung bell.

Gary still felt a pinch in his lower back, as if that hazard-suited vampire had dug around in there and left something inside him. It burned.

He wasn't the only one to squirm through the procedure. The girl ahead of him had yelled. And Yvonne still hadn't stopped crying, despite her mother's persistent comforting—which had progressively turned into threats, then bribes, then finally evolved into little soothing noises, all of which had been totally ineffective.

Alicia had smiled during her test. The memory turned Gary
's stomach. That girl was just a fiend. What did Jimmy sometimes say? A "glutton for punishment."

The only sounds in the dining room were the clanks and scratches of utensils against ceramic plates, and the dull drone of WKH
's announcers in the background. People kept asking if the zone would be opened tomorrow if everything went well with the tests. But Gary had noticed that nobody was talking about the chances of that happening. Apparently, either nobody in the government really knew or, more likely, they just didn't want to say.

Despite the pain in his lower back and the uncertainty of the coming test result
—your final semester's report card, only a million times more important—Gary maintained a small harbor of hope. He nurtured it carefully, for it was all he had. If they did open the zone, then Jimmy and Abe were free to go. That is, if they didn't have the disease. Everyone was free to go, those who were healthy. The reason for the breakout attempt was gone—along with the reason that Gary had two automatic weapons stuffed under his mattress.

But what if they didn
't open the zone? Gary got a nagging feeling, a feeling he just couldn't shake, that this was exactly what was going to happen. Some crazy little voice inside his head kept repeating it over and over, like an earworm—a tune you can't get out of your mind.

Even if they didn
't open the zone, though, Gary thought that the testing was a good indication that the government hadn't forgotten them. They were working on the problem, and they were making some progress. Maybe a cure would follow shortly. Wasn't that enough?

Grimly he knew it wouldn
't be. Not for Jimmy and Abe. And maybe they were right to be skeptical. The government hadn't been completely honest so far, and probably weren't now. Maybe they just didn't care. Maybe they'd keep telling lies until everybody in the zone dropped dead. Then the problem would be solved.

"
I'm glad everyone saved room for dessert," said Loretta. She picked up her plate—half-full of uneaten food, similar to the rest of the plates—and rose out of her chair. "Fudge sundaes...yum!"

The smile on his mother
's lips failed to take hold. In a funereal procession the children followed her into the kitchen. All that's missing, thought Gary, is the hearse and placards.

While they were each getting a plate of rich creamy chocolate, Gary was shocked when his sister Alicia gave him a sly wink.

Bethesda, Maryland
/ 9:15 p.m.

Disaster.

That was the only word Roderick could think of. For once, his expansive vocabulary failed him. He stared at his computer monitor, unable to speak, his accustomed tautness and aloof intellect vanquished.

It was even worse than he expected, worse than anyone expected. Out of all the diagnostic tests conducted so, only six were negatives. Even that lone bright spot was barren of any good news; the serial numbers of the six negative cases matched the fakes that Roderick had slipped in, to ensure quality control.

Everyone. If the pattern held,
everyone
who had spent more than half a day inside that zone since the start of the epidemic without a hazard suit was infected. The enormity struck Roderick violently and he actually swung his head back, as if slapped in the face.

The whole Micro team had initially visited the area with only gloves and finely filtered masks. Which hadn
't been enough.

Dimly Roderick became aware that the room
's speakers were pumping out Barber's Adagio for Strings. He tried to give the command to kill the music but could not seem to find his voice. His strength deserted him.

A few moments later he was standing outside the entrance of the Micro laboratory building, with no recollection of how or why he
'd made the trip from his second-floor office.

The night air was cool and crisp. Partially revived, Roderick realized he hadn
't been outside in two days. He strolled down the sidewalk, leaving the building and parking lot behind.

Ten minutes later he encountered a tiny park, dark except for a solitary sodium vapor lamp spreading a circle of yellowish light. In the middle of the circle was a bench. Roderick sat down, closed his eyes, let his mind and his thoughts become still.

He might have slept. A while later he opened his eyes. An ambulance had just zoomed down the avenue, lights flashing and siren wailing.

Roderick blinked. Slowly cognition returned. He breathed deeply three times in succession, then put his fingertips together and closed his eyes again.

This time he didn't let his thoughts wander. Instead he directed them toward the problem at hand—which had suddenly become the most important problem he had ever tackled.

The pathogen, the complicated molecule that was wreaking so much havoc; Roderick had already thought of a name for it: protobiont. Not just a catchy name; it was descriptive, for chemists and biologists used the term frequently to refer to the organic molecules on ancient Earth that billions of years ago had served as precursors for living organisms. They had not been alive, yet had been capable of rudimentary biological processes. Exactly like the pathogen responsible for the Medburg Respiratory Disease.

21 April, Wednesday

Montgomery County, Pennsylvania / 1:10 a.m.

Two hours on, two hours off, for twelve hours.

Encased in a
hazard suit and bearing an M4 carbine, Redford "Reddy" Zunan, Private First Class, stood on the platform and watched the tedious minutes slowly tick by. The "platform" was not much more than a pole, slightly more than 12 feet high—just clearing the barbed wire of the fence—and ten square feet in area. A chest-high piece of camouflaged material—carbide fibers in a metallic matrix, which the National Guard troops humorously called armored plastic—was mounted on front of the box. It provided shielding and would have inconspicuously blended into the background, had the background been a tropical jungle instead of a mowed field dotted with eastern hemlock trees. The field bordered the interstate highway, the traffic of which would have provided a steady roar had there been the normal flow of vehicles. But few cars passed even during the day, and at night it was eerily quiet, with only the occasional truck to break the silence. The majority of motorists had no desire to drive along the edge of the containment zone.

Reddy
's station was in one of the nicest sections—the only nice section, he'd heard. Behind him sprawled Montgomery County. In front of him was a 12-foot-high chain link fence, reinforced with titanium plating and anchored by concrete blocks placed at periodic intervals. The fence and the surrounding denuded area on the quarantine side of the zone were well lit by floodlights. Searchlights stabbed further into the darkness, sweeping out giant arcs in the shadows beyond the fence.

At two o
'clock, Reddy would be relieved for a two-hour rest. He would take a five-minute walk to the bivouac, step inside the trailer, get some air—the suit was hot and uncomfortable—talk to his buddies, and sip some coffee.

He glanced to his left. About 100 feet away stood one of his best friends at the next platform. Both he and Reddy had been surprised to be called up on such short notice; usually you got some inkling, some advanced warning that you would have to pull some extra duty beyond the usual one weekend a month and two weeks a year. This time it was a phone call late one evening
—get into uniform and report for duty at once. And they began work at once; they'd gotten the fence up in a few hours once the trucks hauled it in from the supply warehouse in central Pennsylvania.

Reddy glanced to his right, at the other platform, saw everything was okay.

Then he thought he heard a noise so he looked behind him. He saw the trunk of a tree looming overhead, its branches full of needles; beyond the tree was the interstate, and beyond that, in the distance, some scattered homes and businesses illuminated by street lights. The residents, he'd been told, had vacated their homes willingly. He believed it. Nothing would be there.

Facing the fence again, Reddy
's gaze ran along the chain links and the street that ran perpendicular to the fence, which rudely cut across it. It was a narrow two-lane road, and it intersected another street that ran roughly parallel to the fence; the intersection was the distance of a football field inside the zone. No traffic lights, just a stop sign—all that was required for a sleepy little residential area. Dark houses lined both streets all the way up to the intersection, but nothing beyond, nothing closer to the fence. The street that ran perpendicular to the barrier was a frontage road, serving the interstate; beyond the fence, the frontage road sloped gently downward, where it split into an on-ramp for the interstate and another branch that paralleled the highway. Weedy fields and bushes had covered the hill until county workers buzz-cut the inside perimeter of the containment zone while soldiers erected the fence.

Everything was quiet, as usual. Up until a day or so ago there were usually some cats and dogs that strayed close to the fence; Reddy could often see the cats
' eyes glow in the floodlights and searchlights. But last night and so far again tonight there was nothing. The zone was dead.

It could be a lot worse, he thought. Things were generally dull where he was but in the south he
'd heard some of the guys say that people threw rocks and bottles at you. Not that they could hurt you—they just bounced off the shield. But it was the principle of it. Rock and bottle tossing was not an actionable offense, so you had to just stand there and take it. And the names. Yes, that would be the worst thing of all. Killers, they were shouting. Nazis. You're murdering us, you filthy bastards. Homicide, genocide, all of those words.

We
're only obeying orders, thought Reddy. You don't like it, go out and vote in the next election instead of blowing it off.

A light turned on in a house in the containment zone. A curtain in the window briefly drew back and what might have been a face appeared to stare out for a moment or two. Reddy, tensing, watched it.

They would try something soon, the sergeant had said before the shift began. You just wait, they'll try to bust out of there before long.

The face in the window disappeared. The light stayed on, filtered by the curtain. Can
't sleep, figured Reddy. He didn't blame whoever it was. He wouldn't have been able to sleep either, caught in a containment zone. Poor, luckless people, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Reddy was from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He imagined how he would feel if the government ringed off his neighborhood, maybe even the whole town. His wife and six-month-old baby.... Damn, man, there
's no justice in this world! Why did they have to pen these people up like animals in a zoo?

Plop!

Reddy whirled around. A limb of the tree behind him was swinging. Did somebody throw something at him?

Then he saw the movement. Something had fallen out of the tree. At first he thought it was a squirrel, but squirrels aren
't active at night. A possum?

Whatever it was got up off the ground. It had landed all the way on the other side of the fence, inside the zone. And it was big.

A person. A person! Reddy assumed it was a man but couldn't tell for sure. The man got to his feet, awkwardly, dazedly.

Reddy placed the barrel of his gun on the shield. He nestled the stock against his flexible face protector and took aim.
"Halt! Stop or I'll shoot!"

The target moved with surprising speed and agility considering its bulk. The body and head were huge but the legs and arms were skinny.

"Halt!" cried Reddy. His finger tickled the trigger of his gun. "This is your last warning!"

Reddy kept his gaze glued onto the target, but his finger eased off the trigger. The target ran along the road away from the fence, further into the zone and into the darkness.

The target was retreating. Reddy's orders were explicit:
Do NOT shoot at retreating civilians.

The target kept moving i
nto the zone. He had busted
into
the zone.

"
Reddy, Reddy!" shouted his buddy. "Don't shoot!"

Reddy had already lowered his rifle. Emman, his
buddy, came running up. "Jesus Christ," said Emman, out of breath—his suit speaker made wheezing sounds. "That guy flew out of a tree!"

Bethesda, Maryland / 6:00 a.m.

All the test results were positive. Kraig Drennan stared at the screen. He wanted to scream but he didn't have the energy.

An image of Roderick Halkin appeared on an inset. Kraig and Roderick exchanged looks via the remote cameras.

"I see you have assimilated the test results," said Roderick. His face was pale but composed.

"
Everybody," said Kraig weakly. "Even our own team. We just...everybody."

"
I don't suppose you'll accept congratulations on your quick actions regarding the quarantine. Had it not been for the barrier, we'd be facing a much more horrible disaster. I've tested a small sample of National Guard troops that have been stationed around the perimeter, along with a few civilians near but not inside the zone. All results are negative. I believe that, at least for the moment, the disease has been successfully contained."

Kraig closed his eyes; his head bowed.
"I sent them out. The team. I sent them in there...."

"
So you did. And now we must work diligently in order to find the solution to the current problem. Namely, how to destroy protobiont."

Kraig looked up sharply.
"Destroy what?"

"
The pathogen."

Leaning back in his chair, Kraig stared at Roderick
's tired but dignified expression. "Talk to me."

"
The key is evolution."

"
Protobiont," said Kraig, pronouncing every syllable carefully. "Pre-life."

Roderick smiled.
"Exactly."

"
Biogenesis all over again, just like several billion years ago. The problem is, it can't happen, Rod."

"
On the contrary. It
did
happen. The only mystery is how, and I have a theory."

"
It couldn't have happened. Not a chance. Conditions are a lot different today than billions of years ago."

"
Of course the conditions are different. I'm not suggesting that our protobiont evolved in the same way as the first ones did—the ones that gave rise to all the life forms existing today. Nor am I suggesting that it is similar to today's life forms, chemically or physiologically. In fact we already know that it isn't."

Kraig shook his head.
"It's not even conceivable. There was no oxygen around billions of years ago, but there's plenty of it today. Oxygen is a very reactive element, it'll oxidize almost anything."

"
Yet organisms and organic molecules can exist in oxygen today. I don't see a problem."

"
But the origin of life on Earth took millions of years—and there were no competing systems around. It just doesn't make any sense. Life can't arise again, it's got too much competition. Anything new that comes along will get eaten before it can get started."

"
Quite true, normally. But there are special circumstances here."

Kraig thought for a moment.
"The creek. You're talking about the creek?"

"
Not exactly. I'm talking about Vision Cell Bioceuticals."

"
They cooked up a new bug?"

"
No, or at least not intentionally. And it's not, precisely speaking, a life form, although it does replicate. It's like a virus in that it has no metabolism and must rely on pirating the machinery of a living cell in order to duplicate itself."

"
But they claimed to autoclave and chlorinate their—" Kraig frowned.

"
Yes," said Roderick, "but that doesn't matter here, does it? All of the ways of killing organisms that laboratories employ are based on known life forms. Life as we know it consists of cells housing genetic material, or viruses—if you want to call them living—with genetic material housed in a coat of protein. In either case, we always assume that there must be nucleic acids: DNA or, in the case of some viruses, RNA, protected by some sort of membrane or protein coat."

"
So what you're saying is this little protobiont doesn't have either one. It doesn't have any of the conventional mechanisms and requirements of life. And so it escaped."

"
Even more than that, Kraig. It was given excellent conditions to evolve, and it did so, right under the very noses of the scientists. The combinatorial organic chemist, a Dr. Pradeep Rumanshan, concocted batches of chemicals related to those used by neurons and other brain cells, for purposes of finding molecules with significant biological activity. They were tested in cultured brain cells and kept under controlled conditions, which means of course that predators like bacteria were kept to a minimum."

"
And they found a winner. A real winner."

"
One evolved, at any rate. But evolution must have played a factor."

Kraig
's brow furrowed? "How?"

"
Consider the chances of something like this happening. It must be millions, billions to one. It would be like mixing together some proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids and having something as complex as a bacterium crawl out. It's phenomenally unlikely. Unless—"

"
Unless it had some help." Kraig began to understand. "Unless there was some selection pressure. Darwinian evolution."

"
Which was unwittingly applied by the scientists at Vision Cell Bioceuticals. They were merely doing their job, finding and selecting the chemicals that showed biological activity in brain cells."

"
So the scientists at Vision Cell accidentally set up a perfect Darwinian environment for something like protobiont. And they dutifully destroyed all material that didn't suit their purpose and discarded it, thinking they had killed anything that may be dangerous...."