In the Deadlands (23 page)

MAY 27, 2033

FILE: 639 RADZ

SUBMTTED BY: RESIDENT PHYSICIAN JAMES-TAYLOR RUGG

Mr. and Mrs. Robert D____ came into my office on May 6 of this year. They have been trying for six months to start a baby and have had no success. I initiated the Groperson tests as well as a routine physical examination of each.

Mrs. D____ is in excellent physical condition and well suited for child bearing. Mr. D____ tests out with a normal sperm count and is in no need of semination cloning. I'm sure that the rest of the tests will also turn out negative. I admit it, I'm stumped, and I pass this case on to the board with all the rest.

WRITTEN IN INK ACROSS THE BOTTOM:
Dammit! This is the twenty-third one of these I've seen in the past two months. What the hell is going on?

(signed
) B.V.

2033.05.21/TIMEFAX

...SURPRISINGLY, THE ONLY PLACE WHERE THE POPULATION GROWTH HAS KEPT WITHIN ITS PROJECTED LIMITS HAS BEEN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, THE DENSEST URBAN COMPLEX IN THE COUNTRY. THE STATE SURGEON GENERAL OFFERED NO EXPLANATION FOR IT, BUT USED THE OCCASION TO CONDEMN ARTIFICIAL ADDITIVES IN THE YEAST CULTURES. HE NOTED AN INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF MARRIED COUPLES CONSULTING DOCTORS ABOUT THEIR INABILITY TO CONCEIVE AND HINTED THAT THERE MIGHT BE A CONNECTION.

IN CLEVELAND, DR. JOYCE FREMM DISCOUNTED THIS, SUGGESTED INSTEAD THAT THE CALIFORNIA SLOWDOWN WAS A RESULT OF ITS BECOMING “ONE GIANT BEHAVIORAL STINK.” WHEN ASKED IF SHE DIDN'T MEAN “BEHAVIORAL SINK,” DR. FREMM REPLIED, “I KNOW WHAT I SAID.”

2034.05.03/TIMEFAX

CONCERN OVER THE SO-CALLED “INFERTILITY PLAGUE” HAS SPREAD EVEN TO THE EASTERN BLOC NATIONS. THE LATEST CITIES TO REPORT DECLINING BIRTH RATES INCLUDE MOSCOW, PEKING, HONG KONG, TOKYO, OSAKA, HANOI, NEW DELHI, AND MELBOURNE. EARLIER IN THE WEEK, THE PARIS COUNCIL MET AGAIN TO REPORT STILL NO SUCCESS IN FINDING THE CAUSE OF THE DECLINE.

DR. JOYCE FREMM, WORKING OUT OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA COMPLEX, UNIT HOSPITAL 43, ADMITTED THAT HER TEAM WAS NO CLOSER TO THE CAUSE THAN THEY HAD BEEN A YEAR AGO. “ALL WE KNOW ABOUT IT, WHATEVER IT IS,” SHE SAID, “IS THAT IT KEEPS PEOPLE FROM STARTING BABIES.”

SHE GAVE NO INDICATION WHEN A SOLUTION MIGHT BE FOUND. WHILE SHE WAS SPEAKING, THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION RELEASED A LIST OF AN ADDITIONAL FOURTEEN NATIONS WHOSE BIRTH RATES HAVE BEGUN TO SHOW THE INITIAL SLOWING THAT INDICATES THE PRESENCE OF THE SYNDROME.

MAY 9, 2034

MEMO TO: DR. JOYCE FREMM FROM: DR. VICTORWEBB KING

Joyce,

I don't know how important this is, but it wouldn't hurt to track it down. Out of the last three hundred couples I've interviewed, nearly sixty per cent of the men have met their wives and been married only in the past eighteen months. Out of this group, nearly half report occasional premarital visits to a joy house, and nearly a third of all the men we interviewed have had some kind of professional contact.

More important however, is that
at least one partner in every couple has had at least one pre or extramarital contact with a partner other than wife or husband.

The former fact is way out of line with the statistical average; the latter implies a definite connection. Could the Xanadu Pleasure Corp be an active vector of the disease?

MAY 11, 2034

MEMO TO: DR. VICTOR-WEBB KING

FROM: DR. JOYCE FREMM

(1) We don't know yet that it's a disease.

(2) Make no public announcement of this—especially do not suggest that Xanadu or any other company may be connected with it.

(3) Check it out immediately.

MAY 11, 2034

MEMO TO: DR. JOYCE FREMM

FROM: DR. CARLOS WAN-LEE

Dr. Fremm,

I believe my section has come up with a clue as to the nature of the syndrome. Sperm from one hundred affected men has been compared with the sperm of one hundred
unaffected
men; i.e. men whose wives have been impregnated within the past two months.

There is a minor but definite difference in the enzyme output of the affected sperm cells. All of the affected men (excepting three with very low sperm counts) had this qualitative difference in their enzyme production. Ninety-three of the unaffected men had normal enzyme production.

We're exploring this further and we'll have a more detailed report at the end of the week.

MAY 30, 2034

REPORT TO THE WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

BY DR. JOYCE FREMM

TRANSCRIPTION OF REMARKS—MOST CONFIDENTIAL

Gentlemen,

We have discovered the cause of the infertility plague, and we believe that it is only a matter of time until we discover the cure.

The cause of the plague is simple: We have been hit by a new kind of venereal disease, a benevolent tyrant, so to speak. It has an incubation period of less than twenty-four hours, and its immediate effects are so mild as to be negligible; perhaps a headache or a mild sense of nausea, that's all; but after that, the victim will pass the infection on to everyone he or she has intimate contact with.

Both males and females are carriers of the disease, creating an ever-increasing reservoir of active infection, with promiscuity its vector.

The disease has no effect on females of the species. To them, it is a benevolent parasite. It lives in the female reproductive tract and minds its own business. Unfortunately, its business is to infect that woman's every male contact.

And each time it does that, it effectively castrates the man. Viability of the sperm cells is reduced to 7% of what is considered normal.

The causative agent is a virus. It is a new strain and related to nothing we have seen before. Were it not for the fact that artificial virus tailoring is still such an infant science, I would suspect a vast campaign of virological warfare is being waged
against
the human race.

The viral bodies live and breed in the cells lining the vaginal wall. During intercourse, the release of certain hormones cause them to become active, and the viral bodies migrate into the male organ—usually through the urethra, but occasionally through a mild, almost unnoticeable rash.

The virus then migrates to the testes, specifically to the sperm-forming cells. The viral DNA chains attack these cells, burrowing into the cell walls, throwing off their protein sheaths and becoming just another hunk of DNA within the cell. Impossible to discover.

The result is small, very small—but very noticeable. The sperm cell no longer
“cares.”

The average human male ejaculation contains three hundred
million
sperm cells. Ideally, each of these cells has the capability of being
the
cell to fertilize the waiting egg; but after being infected by the virus, the quality of the whole ejaculation is changed. The sperm cells still race madly up the fallopian tubes to meet the ovum—but when they get there, they can't fertilize.

You see, each sperm cell carries a tiny amount of an enzyme called hyaluronidase. Hyaluronidase sub-one, that is. No matter what the enzyme is called, though—what does matter is that the virus changes the male so that he no longer produces that enzyme. Instead, he
produces something else, some other enzyme. The virus adds a few little acids of its own to the amino chain of the enzyme, and instead of hyaluronidase
₁
we get hyaluronidase
₂
—a very different creature altogether.

Hyaluronidase
₂
is not as active as hyaluronidase
₁
. It takes longer to do its work. Much longer.

Although only one sperm cell is needed for fertilization to occur, three hundred million are provided in order that one will succeed. But because only one is needed, the other two million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine sperm cells must be resisted. For that reason, the cell wall of the human ovum is too strong for any individual sperm cell to break down. Hyaluronidase is the enzyme that breaks down or softens the cell wall, and it takes the combined effort of all the sperm cells to provide enough of the enzyme to soften the wall enough for just one sperm cell to break through. Immediately upon fertilization, a change takes place in the cell wall to prevent other sperm cells from breaking in, a calculated resistance to their pressure,

But, if all those sperm cells are producing hyaluronidase
₂
instead of hyaluronidase
₁
, fertilization will never take place at all. (Except in very rare cases—statistically insignificant.) The changed enzyme is still an enzyme, and it still works to soften the cell wall of the human egg—but it takes at least ten times longer to do it. And by that time, most of the sperm cells are already dead, dying, or too weak to complete the task of fertilization.

In addition, the ejaculation will also have introduced enough viral bodies into the woman so that if she weren't already, now she too will be infected and will pass the disease on to every subsequent male contact.

Insidious, isn't it?

Other than that, the virus has no effect at all on living human beings—only on the unborn. They stay that way. Unborn.

MAY 47, 2034

SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT, VIRT 897

W.H.O. FILE BVC 675

SUMMARY: The virus, designated VIRT 897, seems to have made its initial appearance on the western coast of the American continent in June or July of 2032, specifically in the area of the Southern California Urban Complex known as Angeles. (colloq. L.A. or “Ellay.”) From there it migrated along the heaviest tourist routes, traveling eastward to Denver, St. Louis, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, and scattered parts of the eastern seaboard Urban Complex.

Within six months, it had also appeared and made its effects known in Seattle, Portland, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and scattered areas surrounding. It extended the complete length of the western coast, being specifically virulent in Frisco and Diego counties, as well as in the areas already noted. It spread to Tijuana, Mexico City, and Acapulco. The same trend occurred simultaneously on the eastern coast, with scattered pockets of sterility spreading out from the Boston, York, Jersey, Philadelphia, and D.C. areas of the Urban Complex. Also affected were Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec, as well as scattered areas surrounding.

At about the same time, it leapt both oceans simultaneously. Tracing the path of the falling birth rate, the disease showed up in London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Warsaw, Munich, Belgrade, Dublin, Saigon, Seoul, Hanoi, Tokyo, Okama, Osaka, Beijing, Honolulu, Hong Kong,
Melbourne, Sidney, Buenos Aires, Caracas, Panama City, Havana, and scattered points on the east African Coast as well as in the Mediterranean and Mid-East areas.

It is obvious that there are too many active vectors by this time, making it increasingly difficult to trace the spreading waves of infection. Not only does the disease move too rapidly, but once the waves of infection overlap, their directions blur.

There is no way to tell at this time whether the origin of the disease was deliberate or accidental or a combination of both.

Detailed analysis charts are enclosed.

MAY 50, 2034

INTERBEM CHEMICAL RESEARCH

MEMO TO: DR. LEON K. HARGER

FROM: SECTION SUPERVISOR VANCE

Dr. Harger,

I've just finished reading the WHO report on the sterility plague and a rather curious anomaly has caught my eye. I'm forwarding it to you to see if you catch it too. If you do, give me a buzz. If not, then forget I said anything.

MAY 50, 2034

INTERBEM CHEMICAL RESEARCH

MEMO TO: ALL DEPARTMENTS

FROM: DR. LEON K. HARGER

Urgent!
I need all data pertaining to Dr. Dana Ledgerton DL 551-69-5688 and any and all research that he might have been involved in while he was employed here. Also, anyone knowing his whereabouts or the itinerary of his sabbatical trip, please contact me immediately. I cannot understate the importance of this information!

MAY 1, 2035

TO: SUPREME COURT JUSTICE DOUGLAS JOSEPH WARREN

FROM: UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL ALFRED G. WYLER

Dear Doug,

This is strictly
off
the record, and you might want to burn this note after reading it.

I've been talking to the President, and he and I concur that it would be extremely unwise to allow the InterBem Company to be sued merely because Ledgerton was an employee of theirs at the time he constructed the Ledgerton Virus.

Yes, I've studied the briefs in the case. I know that the appealing lawyers make a good case for the company's negligence in not keeping tighter reins on their employees' after-hours research. They also make a good case that Ledgerton would have been unable to construct his artificial venereal disease without the company's research facilities.

However, no matter how good their case is, both the President and I agree that at this time it would be best for all parties if the appeal were turned down. The InterBem Company has been most cooperative with us in
every
area of our investigation, especially in our efforts to develop the artificial enzymes. To allow them to be sued now might destroy them as a viable corporation and would cost us a valuable ally in our fight against this thing.

I don't know if you're familiar with the fact, but my office has registered more than five hundred thousand separate actions against InterBem. That corporation can't afford to be embroiled in this kind of legal feeding frenzy. If you allow this first appeal to be granted, you will be setting a dangerous precedent that might cost the United States a valuable natural resource—i.e., a commercially healthy corporation.

Yes, I know this smacks of pressuring, but this case is too important to allow you to make a decision without knowing the administration's views on it. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to call me.

(signed) Alfred

MAY 7, 2035

FROM:
   
FIELD OPERATIVE JASON PETER GRIGG

TO:
        
F.B.I. DIRECTOR WARREN J. HINDLER,

HOOVER CENTER,

WASHINGTON D.C.

FILE: LEDGERTON, DL 551-69-5688