The Leaves in Winter (53 page)

“Yeah,” remarked Alexander. “Post Collapse. It’s all about positioning now.”

“Damn right,” asserted Pamela. “You heard the man; we’re out of time.”

“They’re going to be pissed. They think they’re preparing the last option.”

“Let them think whatever they need to just as long as they get it done. As soon as GARC produces 2GenGEN, we shut it down and lock it up. The Board was emphatic about that. We want the single dose method. That’s all that matters.”

“No last option?”

“There always has to be a last option…” Pamela lifted a toast point.

Alexander downed his drink. “It just won’t be theirs.”

Chapter 50

Seven Weeks Later

GARC’s Sub-Basement BSL4 Lab

It could have been midnight or noon. Without windows to tell and absorbed by the work at hand, Janis was mentally in a place out of time. The narrow workspace around her was sterile and confining. She stared into a microscope then glanced to one side to correlate what she was seeing with readouts from the controlled atmosphere glove box behind her. The stainless steel and safety-glass behemoth had twelve glove ports, enough for six researchers to work side-by-side.

Tonight, only she and one other technician had survived until the late hour.

The
Advance
Research
Center
’s Biosafety Level-4 Suit Lab demanded the highest concentration and precision. As the maximum biological confinement area, work and safety procedures were rigorous. There was no room for error when the slightest mistake could be the difference between life and death.

Even more reason to fear work exhaustion.

Moving around in a ten-pound pressure suit connected to the ceiling by a spiral air hose was fatiguing. Being confined behind a helmet and face-shield that added six inches to one’s height took some time getting used to. Everything from the smallest instruments to computer keyboards had to be handled through doubled neoprene gloves. It was easy to feel separated from the world. Work too long in such a space and a technician could feel separated from themselves.

A voice squawked through the headset built into the pressurized helmet.

“Hey, Janis, isn’t it about time to knock off?”

Janis turned reflexively, at first thinking it was lab assistant Karen who had spoken. Then she recognized the voice as Faye’s and turned the other way. On a computer screen, a video window displayed Faye sitting up in her apartment.

“What time is it?” asked Janis, too tired to look for herself. Absentmindedly, she lifted a hand to scratch her nose only to find her face shield in the way.

Noticing the gaffe, Faye answered, “It’s time to come out of there.”

Janis looked over to Karen who gave an approving nod.

“I think you’re right,” agreed Janis. She turned to Karen, “Why don’t you go ahead. I’ll catch up in a minute.”

“Sounds good.” Karen stood from her work stool, stretched then disconnected her air-hose umbilicus. “I’m out of here. Good night.”

“Good night.” Janis watched for a second as Karen stepped off headed for the chemical shower room. Turning back to the video screen, Janis found a second head next to Faye in the picture.

Faye smiled. “Someone else is here that you might know…”

“Hi Mom!” chirped Alyssa. “I decided to wait up for you.”

“I see that,” remarked Janis. “You two having fun?”

“Oh, yeah…” Alyssa was quick to answer.

“As much as can be expected in Building Two,” smirked Faye.

“Yeah, I know,” added Janis. “All the fun happens in Building Three.”

“How did it go tonight?” asked Faye.

Janis leaned back from her microscope. “I may look beat but actually I’m feeling good. We replayed the interaction tests for the last time. Once again, they came out negative.”

“That’s great news. That was the last hurdle. I think you’ve done it!”

“Done what?” asked Alyssa. “Didn’t you finish 2GenGEN last week?”

Faye interrupted. “Maybe it’s a bit too late for long explanations; your mother’s tired…”

“That’s all right,” Janis interjected. “I need a few minutes to decompress anyway.” She looked to Alyssa on the screen. “You’re right, Alyssa. I finished synthesizing 2GenGEN last week. But we can’t just release it into the wild without testing how it might interact with other things already out there.”

“Why not?”

“Because we wouldn’t want it to get together with something else and create a hybrid we didn’t plan and couldn’t control.”

“Get together with what? What did you test it with?”

Janis hesitated. Her daughter’s questions were perceptive. “It’s called 3rd Protocol.”

Alyssa’s eyes lit up. “Isn’t that another name for the GGD3 virus, the one that’s killing all those people in Asia and
Africa
?”

“Where did you hear that?” Janis noted how inquisitive and resourceful Alyssa had gotten over the past few weeks. She had become much more interested in what was going on in the lab. Her precociousness was to be commended but restrained.

Faye chimed in. “I’m afraid I’m the culprit. We got talking about all the news reports about how the disease is spreading;
Europe
had its first case just today.”

“Oh…” Janis paused, wondering if Alyssa was being given too much information. The news of late had her daughter rattled, especially given everything going on in the labs around her. Janis had thought she could get away with the 3rd Protocol reference without Alyssa knowing the tie-in.

Alyssa leaned closer to the screen. “You have GGD3 in Building 3?”

Janis did her best to make light of it. “In a modified form. It’s not contagious.”

“How can you be sure?” Fear swept across Alyssa’s face.

Faye saw no end to this. For the sake of Janis’ need to sleep, Faye butted in and tried to preempt Alyssa’s line of questioning. “That’s much too complicated to go into right now…”

“I don’t know,” countered Alyssa. “I’m getting pretty good at this stuff. I sit over in the lab with Mom lots of times and she explains things to me.”

Janis cut in. “Alyssa, we talked about the virus within the virus…remember the parasite virus called a sputnik?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, GGD3 or 3rd Protocol, whatever you want to call it, it’s built like that too. The giant virus on the outside is just a nasty cold virus. The sputnik on the inside is what contains the deadly payload. All I did was take the sputnik out of the giant virus. We’ve been studying the deadly part without it being loaded in the contagious part. The sputnik is actually a fragile virus that doesn’t live long outside the body. Even if someone in the lab accidentally got sick from the sputnik, they couldn’t infect someone else unless they shared bodily fluids…”

Alyssa made a face. “Eeww…”

Faye added. “The version in the lab is now more like HIV.”

“Oh, HIV/AIDS?” Alyssa responded. “We learned about that in class.”

Janis summed up. “I need to make sure that the new 2GenGEN will not mix adversely in the wild with the deadly part of 3rd Protocol. We wouldn’t want to release something that might make the plague any worse than it already is.”

Enthused with the answers and attention she was getting, Alyssa carried on. “So the giant virus makes it contagious. But how does it do that?”

Steeped in her work from hours in the lab, Janis found it reflexive to answer in spite Faye’s attempt to end the questioning for the night.

“The giant virus acts like a rhinovirus, a cold virus,” answered Janis. “Ghyvir-C is highly contagious. The sputnik goes along for the ride as Ghyvir-C is passed from person to person.”

“Oh, I see,” announced Alyssa. “So you’re going to make 2GenGEN contagious the same way.”

“That’s right.”

Alyssa’s brow furrowed. “But didn’t you say everyone caught Ghyvir-C back when I was a baby?”

“Yes, it’s one of the reasons why you’re special…”

“But in biology class we learned that the body builds up antibodies to stuff it’s already been sick with. You can’t use Ghyvir-C again can you? Everybody’s already got antibodies to it.”

“Smart girl,” remarked Janis. “You’re thinking like a scientist. And you’re right. But I’m not using the same Ghyvir-C from thirteen years ago. I’m using a variant that was created for something called 2nd Protocol. The variant was specifically engineered to get around that problem.”

Proud of being called a scientist, Alyssa pressed her logic further. “Do you think the same thing happened with 3rd Protocol?”

Janis sighed and glanced towards the glove box. “I’m certain of it.”

“OK, that’s enough,” snapped Faye. “There’ll be plenty of time tomorrow for questions and answers. Right now, why don’t you let your mother get some rest?”

Alyssa smiled then mugged into the screen. “I’m coming over. I want to walk home with you.”

“All right,” relaxed Janis. “I’ll meet you in the outer work area. Faye, if you could warn the guards she’s coming…”

“Sure thing,” answered Faye. “And stop by…I’ve got midnight snacks.”

“I’m on my way.”

Janis smiled but slicing behind her smile was an edge of melancholy. Alyssa’s reference to
walking home
had struck a nerve. To hear her daughter refer to confinement at a corporate blockhouse as being
home
was unnerving. Beyond that, to think of a clandestine Project controlling them and the terrible fate befalling the greater world only expanded the sadness at hearing mention of
home
.

Even if The Project released them, nowhere in the world was ever going to be the same. What kind of home would be possible again? In retrospect, day-to-day troubles and cares of life before any of this happened now appeared idyllic.

Janis looked up to find Faye repositioning the webcam in front of her.

“You still there?” asked Faye.

Jarred out of a reverie, Janis turned back to the video screen but said nothing.

“Alyssa’s taken off,” reported Faye. “She’s excited to see you. She missed meeting you for lunch.”

“I know,” admitted Janis. “I couldn’t break away.”

“Before you go,” prompted Faye. “There’s just one thing…”

“What is it?”

Faye vacillated. “It’s about seeing Colin.”

“Not that again,” snapped Janis. “I told you, Colin and I have an agreement. I do my work and he stays out of my way.”

“He wants to see both of us. He says he has important information but prefers to tell us in person. I think we should meet with him.”

“I don’t see why he can’t tell you and then you can tell me.”

Faye became grave. “There must be a reason. Janis, really, I’ve never seen him this serious before. It must be something major.”

Janis followed the concern in Faye’s face and tone of voice. “…major.”

“I really think we should meet with him. We need to know what’s going on.”

“All right,” Janis relented. “Anything so I can get out of here. Signing off…”

The video connection ended. Karen, the lab assistant, was long gone. Except for the transfer of pressurized air inside the bulky suit and a weary pull and release of her own breath, Janis suddenly found the lab tomblike in silence and confinement. Being alone in the late hour only amplified the effect.

Janis stood and paced to the glove box for one last look inside for the night. Through thick safety glass on the near side she stared at samples of 2GenGEN and 3rd Protocol brought together in various containers and Petri dishes to see if they’d interact. Looking down to the far end, Janis could barely see the sectioned-off area of the box where final synthesized versions of 2GenGEN had been inserted into a sputnik and then the sputnik was inserted into the 2nd Protocol version of Ghyvir-C.

The finality of the accomplishment settled over her. At last she had finished work that was a decade in the making. Not so strangely, there was little joy. Janis thought back. If only Riya Basu were here to see it.

And then there was 2nd Protocol, the newly crafted select agent that had greatly aided making 2GenGEN contagious. Janis dropped her gaze on thoughts of Knockout Mouse. For obvious reasons, she preferred not to remember him as Kevin Mass.

She turned away, tired but determined to not allow thoughts to wander into an emotional down spiral. She had to believe that what they were doing was important and would make a difference. In the most ultimate terms, they were simply trying to make the best of a horrific situation. They might not be able to solve the problems in time but maybe it would be possible to engineer some hope from their lab work.

With a pop and a whoosh, Janis disconnected the air hose feeding her suit and turned towards the door leading to the way out. Now all that remained between her and a good night’s sleep was the required gauntlet of windowless rooms and procedures that all technicians had to endure to enter or exit a BSL4 lab.