Victor Methos - Plague

He suddenly appeared melancholy and Samantha didn’t follow up with any questions. She figured it was something he would discuss when he felt the urge, although he had once mentioned in an offhanded comment that not having children was the biggest regret of his life.

“Anyway,” he said, taking in a large breath, “why don’t you stay and have dinner with me? Then decide if you want to stay or leave the island.”

“I have plans.”

“Oh, that Duncan fellow, correct?”

“How could you tell?”

“His face lights up when you enter a room. I’ve dealt with him a few times; he’s a decent man.”

The waiter brought her Perrier and she opened it as Wilson sipped more of his wine. They sat in silence a while, enjoying the calm atmosphere of the restaurant. She couldn’t tell if it was really calm or if it was just comparatively calm to the chaos and tension that were building outside of these walls, but it was relaxing nonetheless.

“I better go,” she said. “Thanks for the drink.”

“Samantha, in a few days, when the data’s compiled and digested, I’ll have a much better picture of what’s going on here. If it turns out to be what I think it is, I’ll be having you sent back to Atlanta.”

“What? Ralph, I’m fine. I can take care of myself.”

“This isn’t about that. You don’t know what can be unleashed here. This will become a fully military-run operation and there’ll be no need for us anyway. But we’re not to that point yet. I was hoping you’d go back voluntarily but I had a hunch you wouldn’t. I just wanted to tell you so there are no surprises. Now go have fun before they close everything.”

Samantha left the restaurant and as she started her bike, she noticed for the first time how empty the streets were. The sun was high though it was late in the evening and there were no clouds.

She wondered how it was that a paradise like this could be harmed by anything.

It was dark by the time Samantha arrived at Niche Café. It was small and cozy with a view of the beach outside. There were only a handful of people inside and most of them were locals having a final meal at the closest restaurant; a sign over the door letting everyone know that the café would be closed tomorrow morning at ten.

Duncan was sitting at a booth, sipping a fruity drink. He smiled and waved when he saw her. Wilson had been right; his face seemed to light up and Sam found it cute.

“How’d the meeting go?” he asked.

Sam sat down and ordered an ice water. “Depressing.”

“I’m not there yet. This isn’t the most virulent outbreak I’ve seen, but I haven’t seen a pathogen spread so quickly in the population. We’re lucky this is an island, so there’s that to be grateful for.”

“Do you always look on the bright side of everything?”

“That’s the only way to live. Whatever thoughts you put out into the universe, that’s exactly what the universe gives back to you. It’s like some magical genie granting your wishes. But it doesn’t know what’s a wish and what’s just random thought. You have to keep your thoughts positive.”

“If one of your loved ones was dying slowly in our cots, I don’t know how positive you’d be.”

“True. You can never really know until you test it. Luckily, or unluckily, depending on how you look at it, I have no loved ones.”

“No family?”

“No, I was adopted by an elderly Mormon couple when I was six. They had some siblings, an aunt somewhere, but no one else. When they passed, that was the end of my family.”

“Did you ever try to track down your biological parents?”

“Once, when I was in college. I met my dad actually. He was a trucker in Wyoming. I called and asked if I could come see him. He had a new family now and didn’t really want to but I had to see him. I had to see where my genes came from.”

“And what’d you find out?”

“That genes are overrated.” This made her smile. “What about you?” he said.

“I have a brother and two sisters. My brother’s a physician. One of my sisters is a stay at home mom and the other is a physicist. My mom lives in Atlanta.”

“What about your dad?”

“He passed away when I was in my twenties. He was a really successful entrepreneur. You remind me a little of him actually. He was really into the positive thinking and self-help movements.”

“Sounds like a smart guy. How do you think he would feel about you chasing down the worst diseases in the world for a living?”

“I think he’d be worried about me but he’d understand the odds. Death due to exposure to pathogens is nearly unheard of for CDC employees. We’re very careful.”

The waitress came and took their order; Sam ordered a pulled pork sandwich and Duncan had chicken nachos.

“Did you see the report by Pushkin?” Duncan asked.

“No? What’d it say?”

“It was just released a few hours ago. He’s termed the pathogen Agent X. Essentially, the report found that the cultures he developed resemble smallpox and Ebola, but are a distinct entity.”

“An unknown hot agent,” she said as she absently played with the straw in her water. “I knew they existed, but I never thought I’d be in the middle of an outbreak for one.”

“There’s a section of USAMRIID’s labs devoted to unknown hot agents.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Most people don’t. You need top secret clearance just to go in there. See what happens is American-well, don’t really know what to call them-corpses I guess, are shipped to USAMRIID after death when a hot agent is suspected. These are usually CIA operatives, FBI agents on special assignment, military intelligence, people like that. We never learn their identities or even where they picked up the pathogen. We don’t know anything about them other than they’re a body on our slab.

“If we find a hot agent after autopsy and analysis of blood and tissues, and it turns out to be unidentifiable, it’s stored in the unknown agents lab. We have over a hundred unknown agents in there. I’d kill to find out where they came from. We added one several months ago that caused the brain to lose consistency. Didn’t affect any other part of the body. The brain would just melt. It came from the corpse of a woman, but of course that’s all I know about her. It’s fascinating how many ways nature can dream up to kill us.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want us here. We are the only species that actively destroys her. This could be her way of fighting back,” she said.

“We’re her children like anything else. She doesn’t strike me as the type to destroy her children.”

“I disagree. Look at extinction. Ninety-nine point nine percent of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct. Extinction is the norm on our planet, not longevity. It’s that change that allows a new species to rise, have their moment in the sun, and then fade away. It’s required somehow, but from our perspective, we’re infinite. Like we have to exist forever. It’s just not the case.”

“We’re the most intelligent beings that have ever existed, though. If anyone can find that longevity it’s us.”

“There’s actually some argument to be made that intelligence is counter-evolutionary. It gives us the ability to destroy ourselves at a speed that nature never could. Just look at nuclear weapons. Every time one is ignited there’s a small probability the nitrogen in the atmosphere will ignite and burn away all the oxygen. Yet we’ve still taken that risk over and over again. Eventually, we won’t pull our lucky card.”

“You know, I think if you want to believe we’re helpless cogs in the wheels of nature, then that’s how you’ll see the world. But if you believe we’re luminous beings put on this earth for a purpose, then that’s how the universe will appear to you.”