The Viral Epiphany (20 page)

           
Roger stopped and turned to him with a slightly condescending smile, “The signs don’t mean ‘laboratory’,” he said, “The word ‘Lab’ means ‘Labyrinth’.”
 
With that he opened the door fully and motioned for them to enter.

           
Neither John nor Tom had ever seen, or even imagined, anything like the scene that now lay before them.
 
Directly in front of them was a brightly lit, gray and pink corridor that extended off into a distance so remote that the end could not be discerned by the eye. Far away from them the two walls, and the floor and ceiling, all simply converged into a single, brightly lit point of pinkish gray light.
 
Perpendicular to this hallway, intersecting corridors could be seen at periodic distances. Bright red or green pulses of light were radiating into the hallway at several of the intersections.

As vast as the scene in front of them was, a much more stunning and fearful sight lay directly below them.
 
They could see that they were standing on a large section of a completely transparent material that spanned the first thirty feet of the corridor floor.

           
“It’s glass,” Roger said, enjoying the look of fright on their faces. “Don’t worry, it won’t break. It’s over a meter thick and it’s stronger than steel.”

           
John and Tom gazed downward, hypnotized by what they saw.
 
Below them was a shaft of unimaginable depth.
 
Like the corridor in front of them, the brightly lit shaft seemed to stretch downward into infinity, with only a brightly glowing reddish colored point at the bottom.

           
“How deep is it?” John asked quietly, almost in a reverent whisper.
 

           
“Miles,” Roger replied, unable to hide his amusement at the men’s reaction. “That red glow you see at the bottom? Lava.”

           
“Lava!” Tom replied.

           
“Yes, there is a large magma chamber directly below us, and our project engineers were able to drill several shafts, including this one, all the way down to it.”

           
“Why?” John asked, still in awe of the sight.

           
“Two purposes.
 
Security and, perhaps more mundane, trash disposal.
 
See, the corridor floor you are standing on is retractable – sort of like a drawbridge. In the event of an enemy attack it provides a final layer of defense.”

           
“Oh,” John said, nodding his head, “but why trash disposal?
 
Seems like a pretty expensive way to throw out the trash.”

           
“Two reasons again,” Roger said with a smile as he started walking down the corridor.
 
“Follow me, I’ll take you to one of our labs. You see, some of the materials we generate here are extraordinarily toxic or dangerous.
 
There is simply no safe way to dispose of some of our experiments, except to just drop them into the molten lava far below where they are safely incinerated at extreme temperatures.
 
Secondly, as I’m sure you know, some of our work is done at the highest possible levels of classification.
 
A lot of it has to be destroyed when it becomes outdated or for other reasons. This provides the safest possible method of classified document disposal. The deepest and darkest secrets of Project Omega never leave here.”

           
“Good idea,” Tom said.
 
“It must have cost a lot of money and taken a long time though.”

           
Roger stopped at the doorway to a room marked Bio-observation Room 13-1A.
 
“Come on in.
 
Yes, the budget for the operation has always been enormous, but it’s about to pay some enormous dividends too - thanks in part to your work in the field.
 
As far as time goes, well, construction activities started here just after World War Two and they never stopped.”

           
“Never? That was over fifty years ago!”

           
“Yes, that’s right. In fact construction work has increased during the past ten or twenty years. What you see here is really nothing compared to the newer structures, Lab Two and Lab Three.”

           
“Really?” John said, his eyes wide in wonder. “What’s being done in those?”

           
“Sorry,” Roger said with a smile, “can’t tell you. You need a different clearance for that.”
 
He motioned for them to take a seat among the three rows of chairs that faced one of the walls and then pushed a button beside the door.
 
Immediately the wall opposite the chairs slid away and a glass partition was revealed that allowed them to see into a very large laboratory where more than a hundred people wearing biohazard suits could be seen working at lab benches.
 
Each bench had a bewildering assortment of electronic devices and video and numeric displays.
 
Many of the benches had exhaust hoods and a few had cages that held what appeared to be white laboratory rats.

           
“This is the Stage One disease research facility.
 
It’s where we begin to analyze and create our products.”

           
“I see,” John said, “so I guess this is where you’ll start looking at the mammoth tissue.”

           
“Exactly.”

           
“And then you’ll extract enough of the virus so you’ll be able to start mass production.”

           
Roger smiled in amusement. “No. Not exactly...
 
In fact, not at all.”

           
“What do you mean ‘Not at all’?
 
I thought this disease was going to be weaponized!”

           
“Oh, it is. Just not the way you think. Let me explain.
 
Our real interest in the disease is in sections of the viral DNA itself – not the virus
per se.
 
You see, if we analyze the DNA – and we are very, very good at that – we will be able to determine the molecular combinations that provide this virus with the ability to create a disease with certain characteristics.
 
That’s what we are looking for – characteristics.”

           
“You want characteristics?”

           
“Absolutely. For example, one of the things that intrigues us about this beautiful virus is its ability to spread so easily.
 
It’s really quite remarkable how it seems to be able to survive on surfaces for days or even weeks and how it seems to spread by all sorts of means. It appears that you can contract it if it is airborne or on a surface like a doorknob.
 
It also seems to be spread by bodily contact, in food, in just about anyway you can imagine.
 
It’s just amazing.”

           
“Yeh, I guess so.
 
But what about the way it kills. Aren’t you interested in that too?”

           
“Mmmm.
 
Maybe.
 
We have other types of DNA instruction sets that do a pretty good job of that too.”

           
“DNA instruction sets?”

           
“Yes, coded DNA.
 
See, what we do here is we design diseases. We use bits and pieces of DNA codes we gather, or manufacture, and put them together into new, uh, things.
 
Like viruses or bacteria or something else.”

           
“What do you mean ‘something else’?”

           
Roger smiled conspiratorially, “I shouldn’t be telling you I suppose, but in light of your contribution, and, uh, the circumstances, I will. I don’t think it will hurt.
 
Here’s where we are right now in our research: we think we can create an extremely potent, uh, thing now. It’s a combination of a bacteria and a virus that has the best properties of both.
 
Nothing could survive an attack by this new thing we are calling a ‘bacterius’.
 
No living thing would have any immunity to it.
 
It would be an entirely new creature never seen on earth before.”

           
John and Tom looked at each other in astonishment, and then Tom said, “That’s amazing!
 
So you also make the cures for the diseases here too?”

           
Roger gave him a cold, hard look. “Cure? No.
 
Of course not…we don’t do cures.”

           
“Uh, so how do we protect ourselves, then?
 
I mean won’t this thing just take over the world?” Tom asked.

           
“Ha, ha, ha,” Roger laughed at the earnestness of his question, “Oh, no. We’re more responsible than that!” He chuckled to himself again. “We also include in the genetic code of the bacterius a DNA instruction set that introduces aging. Its lifespan will be about two weeks. Furthermore, the bacterius is also designed so that it cannot reproduce.
 
It’s made for a one-time, short duration application. That’s all.
 
All we need to do is to stay out of the contaminated area for that amount of time and it will be safe for anyone to enter afterward.”

           
 
“How long do you think it will take to develop the bacterius?” John asked.

           
“Well, we are already pretty far along.
 
In fact all we needed was some of the DNA building blocks from the mammoth tissue you brought us.
 
We should have a completed prototype in about a month!” he said with a smile. “And a good thing too!
 
I heard the President is extremely anxious for this to be ready. I guess they already have a target somewhere.”
 
Roger walked over and pressed the button to close the window covering and the men got up from their seats.

           
“Gentlemen,” he said, “if you would come with me to the room next door we have a surprise for you. We want to honor you with the nation’s highest award for clandestine service.
 
Of course you won’t be able to tell anyone about it,” he said with a laugh.
 
“But you’ll know just the same that a grateful nation appreciates all of your hard work.” He led them out of the room across the corridor into a sparsely, but rather elegantly furnished, waiting room.
 
The walls were painted a very light shade of pink while the floor was a soothing off-white color.

“If you’ll take a seat, men, this won’t take a minute.”
 
He walked out of the room and the men sat down in the two very comfortable leather armchairs to wait. Less than a minute later a large screen dropped down on the opposite wall and the lights dimmed.
 
A photograph of a benignly smiling President Cranston appeared on the screen and the strains of
America the Beautiful
were soon heard through the speakers.
 
“A Grateful Nation Salutes You” appeared in large red letters on the screen.

“Gentlemen, welcome.” They heard the voice of President Cranston say from the speaker in the ceiling as the music continued in the background. “I am truly grateful to you for your efforts in retrieving the materials that we so desperately need.
 
I understand that this was not your primary mission, but a secondary mission of opportunity that you embarked upon. We shall make good use of this material.
 
Rest assured.
 
Despite the fact that you have failed in your primary mission we would still like to award you with the Legion of the North Star medal for you fine efforts in the clandestine service.
 
As you know when you joined the special services branch of the Omega Project we have an ironclad code of conduct and a complete and total dedication to our mission, even to the death.
 
Which is why the simple motto of the clandestine branch of Omega is ‘Do or Die’.”

The two men turned to each other and smiled.

“Gentlemen, my congratulations for winning this award; however, in light of your overall mission failure, I am sorry to inform you that, in accordance with our unwavering policy, the award in your case will have to be a posthumous award.”

 
The photo of the President faded away and the room became even darker.
 
Seconds later, a reddish glow began to fill the room as the final strains of
America the Beautiful
filled the room and the floor began to change color and then glow red as well. Then the hard surface changed from an opaque red to the clear transparence of glass.
 
It was then that the men saw the utterly deep shaft below them with an incredibly distant single point in the center that glowed a deep red.

John and Tom looked at each other for a moment.
 
“What the…” John started to say, but before he could say another word the floor below them abruptly opened and the men and their comfortable leather chairs dropped breathlessly into the abyss.