Bioterror! (an Ell Donsaii story #14) Read online

  The Imam began shaking his head in disbelief, “I don’t accept your idea that every nonbeliever’s evil and should be killed. We should be bringing them into the faith. But, even if I did think that Allah wanted us to kill every nonbeliever, I can hardly believe that Allah would accept as his tool a weapon that might kill 10 to 40 percent of his believers as well.” He stood and spat, “I stand in opposition to your misguided notions!” He turned and strode out of the room.

  Hamza turned to the man next to him and sighed, “Not every Imam will make the right choice. I never thought that one had the courage for Islam Akbar.” He jerked his head after the departing Imam, “Make it look like the Christians killed him.”

  The man got up and silently followed the Imam, eyes tracking the religious leader like a seeker weapon.

  ***

  On the first day back after Christmas, Kimberly Binder looked out over her classroom full of gifted kindergartners. Something seemed a little bit off, so she scanned over the class again. Ah, Zage Kinrais is missing. She had her AI report it to the office, then called the class to order. She’d barely had time to regret the lack of his calming influence on the rest of the kids when she got a message back from the office telling her that he’d been withdrawn from the school.

  At first Ms. Binder merely felt mild regret that she wouldn’t have Zage in her class any more. But as the morning went on, she remembered how he’d had a two-day absence for a headache after being hit on the head before Christmas. At the time she’d wondered about it since even gifted children were sometimes subjected to abuse. Now she developed an uneasy concern that the two events might be related. She sent another message to the office, asking why he’d been withdrawn.

  Shortly thereafter she got another message on her HUD, “Attending another school.”

  That eased her concern briefly, but then she wondered where they could’ve moved such a brilliant child. The Chapel Hill School for the Gifted where Kimberly taught was generally accepted to be the best school in the area for highly intelligent children. “What school?” she replied.

  “Duke University.”

  I didn’t know they had a facility for gifted children. Maybe it’s for the kids of some of their faculty members? she wondered. Then she remembered talking to his folks on Meet the Parents day. The mother worked out at D5R and the father worked at UNC. Even if Duke does have a facility for the children of their staff, it doesn’t seem likely that Zage would be going there.

  She resolved to visit his home and make sure the boy was okay.

  ***

  Mary looked around, warned by the pressure change when the door started to open. Even with two nurses assigned to her around the clock, she’d been living a lonely existence in the isolation room for almost 2 weeks now. The nurses didn’t visit very often because of the requirement that they put on extreme isolation gear, a process that took a substantial amount of time. Putting the stuff on also needed an assistant, the reason that two nurses had to be assigned to her.

  Everything they brought into her room was disposable, if possible. After it was used it was pushed through a little window into a heavy duty trashbag to be sealed up and incinerated. Big fans sucked air out of her room through filters designed to trap viral particles. That way when the door was opened, none of her possibly contaminated air blew out into the hallway because the air was flowing rapidly into the room. Technically, all these precautions were interesting, but personally it felt unnerving. The fact that she didn’t see anyone who wasn’t dressed in something like a spacesuit made her feel abandoned and deserted—even though logically she knew it wasn’t true.

  Dr. Tigner’d called into the room a few times to tell her not to worry. The people on Little Diomede seemed healthy and Tigner expected the CDC to rescind their isolation order, but that’d been days ago.

  Now Mary watched the door open wider, expecting to see Andrea, the nurse assigned to her during day shift. Instead, she saw Dr. Tigner and Mary’s infectious disease specialist Dr. Rosen, both with wide smiles on their faces. She liked Rosen because he’d put her on an antiviral agent which was known to be effective against orthopoxviruses. It’d made her a little sick, but as Dr. Rosen’d said, better a little sick than dead.

  The most astonishing thing was that neither Tigner nor Rosen were wearing isolation gear and they came waltzing into her room as if it were no big deal. “I’m off isolation?!” she asked hopefully.

  That question was answered when they each came over and gave her a big hug. Tigner said, “I hope you know that everyone here at the hospital appreciates the hit you took to protect the rest of us. It turns out it wasn’t needed, but it’s a case of better safe than sorry.”

  Rosen nodded, “Yeah, everyone who had lesions over at Little Diomede seems to be fine and I’ve been telling those guys at CDC that we should let you out for days now. Hell, you never even got a lesion, so I don’t think you were even exposed. Of course, Kelso and the other people at CDC wanted to play it safe, but they weren’t the ones who were in isolation!”

  Wanting to get out of the room, Mary nervously started packing up her kit, but she turned to Rosen, “Have they decided what it is?”

  He frowned, “Its sequence is closer to vaccinia than it is to smallpox. The biggest difference is a modification of the protein coat.”

  Uncertainly, Mary said, “Which one’s vaccinia?”

  “Cowpox,” he said. “You remember that’s the virus they used to vaccinate people against smallpox. This version’s more like the vaccination version than the original cowpox version.”

  “So, what’re they thinking? That some one of the geezers who got vaccinated for smallpox back in the old days is a carrier and his virus mutated or something?”

  Rosen snorted, “Well, maybe. More likely it’d be some kind of animal carrier. Cowpox infects several natural animal reservoirs. Interestingly it grows better in some small animals like cats and rodents than it does in cows. So, it might’ve mutated in one of them…” He paused, thinking, “It’s more worrisome to think that someone might’ve modified it intentionally.”

  “Why would anyone do that?!”

  “Practice?” Rosen shrugged, “Some bioterrorist who wants to modify smallpox but wanted to get his chops down on a safer virus?” He shook his head, “There’s a lot of scary questions that brings to mind. Hopefully the people at CDC are chasing down all the possibilities.”

  ***

  As Nate walked into the first day of his senior level cell biology class, he was surprised to see a chubby little kid sitting in the front corner seat by the door. What the hell? he wondered. Did one of the women fail to get a babysitter and just decide to bring her kid to class?!

  Realizing the kid was sitting all by himself, Nate thought, Where the hell’s his mother? He never considered the possibility that the boy might be an offspring of one of the male students. Nate decided that as long as the kid didn’t have a tantrum or otherwise screw up the class, it wasn’t his problem.

  After a few minutes, one of the girls who came into the class sat down next to the kid. At first Nate was relieved that the kid’s mother was there, though he still thought it was pretty bad that she’d left him alone in the class for a while. Nate’s attention drifted as he wondered whether any of his friends might be in this class. Since none of his buddies had come in yet, he let his eyes drift around checking out the women in the class. Eventually his gaze returned to the kid’s mother. He wondered what she’d been doing while she’d left the kid sitting there by himself. She seemed to be talking quietly with the boy and Nate got the impression she’d just asked the kid a question. She drew her head back as if she was surprised by his response. This time she spoke loudly enough that Nate heard her say, “Really?”

  The kid nodded solemnly. He shrugged, “It’s just because I want to learn though. Not for a degree or anything.”

  Nate had no idea what that might mean, but he didn’t get to consider it for long because just then Dr. Marshall, thei
r professor, came in.

  Marshall did a double take when he saw the child. He looked at the girl sitting next to the kid and said, “Um, we can’t have you bringing your child to class. It’s not fair to the other students.”

  The girl said, “He’s not my child.” Although he was looking at her from the side a couple rows back, Nate had the impression that she got a little smirk on her face before she said, “He says he’s a student in this class.”

  Dr. Marshall blinked in surprise then turned his eyes to the boy. Tilting his head, he said, “Where’s your mom?”

  The kid said, “She’s at work. Someone’ll pick me up later today.”

  Looking a little flustered, Marshall said, “But… but, who’s going to watch you during class?”

  “I will. I’m surprisingly mature. I won’t cause any problems.” The kid said, “I really am enrolled in this class. If you’ll look up the class roster, you’ll find my name, Zage Kinrais.”

  Dr. Marshall stared at the kid for a moment, then spoke to his AI. He glanced up at his HUD then back down at the kid. He cleared his throat, then said, “Are you related to Shannon Kinrais?”

  The boy nodded while Nate wondered who the heck Shannon Kinrais was. He heard someone in the row behind him whisper something about a Nobel Prize. Nate knew some people in the triangle had gotten Nobel Prizes in December, but the only name he remembered was Ell Donsaii’s.

  Marshall said, “Are you just auditing this class?”

  The boy shook his head, “No, taking it for credit, though I’m not actually working toward a degree at present.”

  Marshall frowned, “You don’t have an HUD, do you have an AI yet?”

  The boy nodded, “My mom works out at D5R and she got me some of the new contacts with an HUD built-in.”

  “Well… welcome,” Marshall said. He swept the room with his gaze and said, “Welcome to all of you.” Marshall’s eyes went back to the child one more time as if he had no idea what to do with him, but then he looked back at the class in general and said, “Let me lay out a few ground rules and tell you where we’ll be going in this course…”

  True to his word, the kid didn’t cause any trouble during class. When class was over, Nate found it surprisingly annoying that three pretty girls stopped to talk to the boy. Oh well, he thought, the kid won’t be around for very long.

  ***

  Adin was meeting with the man from Islam-Akbar again. The man said, “Your results so far have been perfect. In the tests on the boat, every unvaccinated monkey and man died and every vaccinated one survived. If anyone survived on Sentinel Island, the overflight didn’t find them. Now you tell me that every blood sample we acquired from the people on Little Diomede shows that they have the antibodies.” He smiled, “As do you and I.” The man paused, then fervently said, “Allah Akbar! I believe we’re ready to proceed, do you?”

  Adin swallowed, suddenly shaken by the magnitude of what he was about to put into motion. But then he nodded firmly. “Have you rented the facility I suggested and recruited the technicians?”

  The man nodded.

  “And Ibn Sinar’s set up the putative research company under whose name we’ll be ordering our supplies?”

  “Yes, Harrell Health. We’ve already purchased most of the equipment and set up standing orders for most of the chemicals and culture media.”

  Adin stood and put out his hand, “I’ll quit my job. We’re ready.

  “Ready to wield the world’s mightiest sword…”

  ***

  Carley was eating lunch with Alice and listening to her hold forth on just how unfair it was that Dr. Barnes wasn’t letting them work with D5R’s ET DNA. Rick, Dr. Barnes’ other grad student was eating with them. He said, “Come on Alice, you heard her say she had to sign all kinds of agreements just to be allowed access herself. She’s not supposed to let anyone else do anything with it.”

  Alice gave him a wide-eyed look, “They’d never know! Besides, she doesn’t have to let us actually work with the DNA, she could just tell us what’s going on.”

  Rick snorted, “They’d never know?! Come on! When’ve you ever been able to keep a secret?”

  Alice rolled her eyes, “I can keep a secret!”

  Rick turned to Carley, “What’s Marvin’s girlfriend’s name?”

  Carley winced a little, but quietly said, “Jim.”

  Rick turned back to Alice, “You outed him.”

  Alice folded her arms in front of her. “He didn’t care,” she said sullenly.

  “He did care. He just says he doesn’t care now, because there’s no way he can put that secret back in the box.”

  Alice said, “I’d be able to keep whatever we learned about the DNA a secret,” but Carley noticed she kept her eyes downcast.

  Rick didn’t let up, “You’re really smart Alice, but if I were Dr. Barnes, and having word get out would lose me this opportunity, I wouldn’t trust you with a secret either.”

  Alice’s eyes flashed up to Rick, “Has she told you about it?!”

  Rick gave her a sad smile, “No, she hasn’t told me either. She made a commitment not to tell anyone and I think she’s honoring her pledge.” He shrugged, “I do think we’ll learn about it before anyone else does. As soon as they decide that ET DNA’s not a threat to the world, we’ll probably get to help Dr. Barnes work on it—long before anyone else gets to touch it.”

  Carley looked up and saw Dr. Barnes approaching their table. She laid a cautionary hand on Rick’s arm as she brightly said, “Hi Dr. Barnes.”

  Barnes sat in the fourth chair at their little table but didn’t pull out a lunch. She looked a little worried and Carley feared she had some bad news. Barnes said, “Hi guys. Um, I’ve got to get on over to the BSL, but I’ve been wanting to talk to all three of you together, so when I saw you…” She took a deep breath, “I have some strange news that I hope won’t turn into a real problem.”

  Carley felt a sinking sensation in her stomach. What if they’ve withdrawn one of her grants? Carley didn’t really understand how research was funded yet, but knew that if a professor lost a grant it could mean that a more junior grad student like Carley could be looking for a new position.

  Barnes drew out a substantial pause as if she didn’t know how to proceed, but finally she cleared her throat and said, “You know I’ve been working with the people over at D5R?”

  Everyone nodded and Carley’s heart beat a little faster. Maybe Barnes was about to let her grad students work with some of the ET DNA?

  Barnes pursed her lips and looked down at the middle of the table. “Apparently, one of Donsaii’s assistants has a boy who’s somewhat of a prodigy. He’s skipping high school and going directly to college.” Barnes raised her eyes to look at the three of them and Carley wondered why a kid like that would affect them. Maybe Donsaii asked to have the kid’s DNA analyzed to see what made him tick, or something dumb like that? Barnes said, “This boy’s really interested in DNA and wants to work with it in a lab.”

  Alice, never one to hide her thoughts, said, “Oh my God! This kid’s, what, thirteen?! And we’re going to have to babysit the little geek in the lab?!”

  Barnes looked chagrined. With a little shrug, she said, “Donsaii said if he causes any trouble, we just have to say the word and he’ll be out of here. That said, the opportunity to work with extra-terrestrial DNA is huge. I know you guys haven’t been allowed to work with it yet, but I’m hoping someday…? Also the funding D5R’s providing’s really generous. Hell, they’re giving us unrestricted funding that adds up to fifty percent more than all three of my other grants. If I lose one of the grants, you guys’ll still have jobs.” Rick looked like he was about to interrupt, but Barnes waved him off and continued, “The kid must be pretty smart. I figure you can give him some rote tasks to work on, pipetting, centrifuging… Things he probably can’t screw up. The rest of the time you can just let him watch you do what you do and it’ll probably keep him happy.”

  Rick sho
ok his head, “Donsaii’s assistant had a genius level kid? Come on, we’re in genetics. Where’d he get the genes for that?”

  Barnes grinned, “Kid’s name’s Zage Kinrais. That make you think of anything?”

  The three grad students looked at one another and all shrugged.

  “His dad’s name’s Shannon Kinrais?” she said interrogatively with an eyebrow elevated. When the three of them still looked puzzled, she said, “Math professor at UNC who got Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry with Donsaii, just last month? You guys need to keep up with current events in science!”

  They sat stunned for a minute. “Still,” Rick said, “thirteen year old boys get bored in a hurry. Then they get to be a huge pain in the ass. I not only was once a thirteen year old boy myself, I have a younger brother.” He shook his head and eyed Barnes, “And you know you’re not going to want to tell Donsaii he’s a problem.”

  Barnes shrugged, “He’s registered as a student and he’s also taking senior level Cell Biology and graduate level Molecular Genetics… ”

  Alice interrupted, “Wait! He’s not only skipping high school but he’s skipping all his undergraduate classes too?”

  “Yeah,” Barnes said with a little laugh. And we all know how tough those courses are even if you’ve had all the prerequisites. “I figure it won’t take too long in those classes before he and his parents adjust their expectations. Most importantly, we won’t have said no.”

  The three grad students glanced at one another, but no one voiced any other objections. Carley thought that each of them was probably worried that they’d personally wind up doing most of the babysitting, but they could all understand how keeping Donsaii happy was important to the lab as a whole. When no further protests were forthcoming, Barnes stood, “Well, I’ve got to get to the BSL. He’s supposed to show up at the lab sometime tomorrow. Be polite and notify me when he gets there so I can meet him. Don’t be afraid to let me know if he starts causing any problems.”