Greg Bear - Darwin's Radio

“Have you seen it?” Dicken asked.

“Just a video feed when they took it from the ice chest in Building 15.”

“Monster?”

“Major,” Salter said. “A real mess.”

“For whom the bell tolls,” Dicken said.

“I’ve never figured out your position on this, Christopher,” Salter said, leaning against the door jamb. “You seem surprised that this is a really nasty disease. We knew that going in, didn’t we?”

Dicken shook his head. “I’ve chased diseases so long…this one seemed different.”

“What, more sympathetic?”

“Jane, I got drunk last night. I fell in my house and cracked my shoulder. I feel like hell.”

“A bender? That sounds more appropriate to a bad love life, not a misdiagnosis.”

Dicken made a sour face. “Where are you going with all that?” he asked, and shoved his left forefinger at the files.

“I’m moving some stuff over to the new receiving lab. They’ve got four more tables. We’re putting together personnel and procedures for a round-the-clock autopsy mission, L3 conditions. Dr. Sharp is in charge. I’m helping the group doing neural and epithelial analysis. I’ll keep their records straight.”

“Keep me in the loop? If you find something?”

“I don’t even know why you’re here, Christopher. You flew way above us when you went with Augustine.”

“I miss the front lines. News always gets here first.” He sighed. “I’m still a virus hunter, Jane. I came back to look over some old papers. See if I forgot something crucial.”

Jane smiled. “Well, I did hear this morning that Mrs. C had genital herpes. Somehow it got to little Baby C early in its development. It was covered with lesions.”

Dicken looked up in surprise. “Herpes? They didn’t tell us that before.”

“I told you it was a mess,” Jane said.

Herpes could change the whole interpretation of what happened. How did the infant contract the genital herpes while still protected in the womb? Herpes was usually passed from mother to infant in the birth canal.

Dicken was severely distracted.

Dr. Denby passed by the office, smiled briefly, then doubled back and peered through the open door. Denby was a bacterial growth specialist, small and very bald, with a cherub’s face and a natty plum shirt and red tie. “Jane? Did you know they’ve blocked the cafeteria from outside? Hello, Christopher.”

“I heard. It’s impressive,” Jane said.

“Now they’re up to something else. Want to go look?”

“Not if it’s violent,” Salter said with a shudder.

“That’s what’s spooky. It’s peaceful and absolutely silent! Like a drill team without the band.”

Dicken walked with them and took the elevator and stairs to the front of the building. They followed other employees and doctors to the lobby beside the public display of CDC history. Outside, the crowd was milling in an orderly fashion. Leaders were using megaphones to shout orders.

A security guard stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at the crowd through the glass. “Will you look at that,” he said.

“What?” Jane asked.

“They’re breaking up, boy-girl. Segregating,” he said with a mystified look.

Banners stretched in plain view of the lobby and the dozens of cameras arrayed outside. A breeze rippled one banner. Dicken caught what it said in two sinuous flaps: VOLUNTEER. SEPARATE. SAVE A CHILD.

Within a few minutes, the crowd had parted before their leaders like the Red Sea before Moses, women and children on one side, men on the other. The women looked grimly determined. The men looked somber and shamefaced.

“Christ,” the guard muttered. “They’re telling me to leave my wife?”

Dicken felt as if he were being whipsawed. He returned to his office and called Bethesda. Augustine had not arrived yet. Kaye Lang was visiting the Magnuson Clinical Center.

Augustine’s secretary added that protesters were also on the NIH campus, several thousand of them. “Look on the TV,” she said. “They’re marching all over the country.”

Augustine drove around the campus on the Old Georgetown Road to Lincoln Street and made his way to a temporary employee parking lot near the Taskforce Center. The Taskforce had been assigned a new building at the surgeon general’s request just two weeks before. The protesters apparently did not know of this change, and were marching on the old headquarters, and on Building 10.

Augustine walked quickly in the warming sun to the ground floor entrance. NIH campus police and newly-hired private security guards stood outside the building, talking in low voices. They were eyeing knots of protesters a few hundred yards away.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Augustine,” the building’s chief of security told him as he carded himself in through the main entrance. “We’ve got the National Guard coming in this afternoon.”

“Oh, goodie.” Augustine drew in his chin and punched the elevator button. In the new office, three assistants and his personal secretary, Mrs. Florence Leighton, matronly and very efficient, were trying to reestablish a network link with the rest of the campus.

“What’s wrong, sabotage?” Augustine asked, a little savagely.

“No,” Mrs. Leighton said, handing him a sheaf of printouts. “Stupidity. The server decided not to recognize us.”

Augustine slammed the door to his office, pulled out his rolling chair, slapped the brief on the desktop. The phone cheeped. He reached over to punch the button.

“Five minutes uninterrupted, please, Florence, to put my thoughts in order?” he pleaded.

“It’s Kennealy for the vice president, Mark,” Mrs. Leigh-ton said.

“Double goodie. Put him on.”

Tom Kennealy, the vice president’s chief of technical communications — another new position, established the week before — was first on the line, and asked Augustine if he had been told about the scale of the protests.

“I’m seeing it through my window now,” he replied.

“They’re at four hundred and seventy hospitals at last count,” Kennealy said.

“God bless the Internet,” Augustine said.

“Four demonstrations have gotten out of hand — not including the riot in San Diego. The vice president is very concerned, Mark.”

“Tell him I’m more than concerned. It’s the worst news I could imagine — a dead full-term Herod’s baby.”

“What about the herpes angle?”

“Screw that. Herpes doesn’t infect an infant until it’s born. They must not have taken any precautions in Mexico City.”

“That’s not what we’re hearing. Maybe we can offer some reassurance on this? If it is a diseased infant?”

“Quite clearly it is diseased, Tom. It’s Herod’s we should be focusing on here.”

“All right. I’ve briefed the vice president. He’s here now, Mark.”

The vice president came on the line. Augustine composed his voice and greeted him calmly. The vice president told him that the NIH was being afforded military security, high-security protected status, as were the CDC and five Taskforce research centers around the country. Augustine could visualize the result now — razor wire, police dogs, concussion grenades, and tear gas. A fine atmosphere in which to conduct delicate research.

“Mr. Vice President, don’t push them off campus,” Augustine said. “Please. Let them stay and let them protest.”

“The president gave the order an hour ago. Why change it?”

“Because it looks like they’re venting steam. It’s not like San Diego. I want to meet with the leaders here on campus.”

“Mark, you aren’t a trained negotiator,” the VP argued.