John Ringo - Under a Graveyard Sky

“I…” Shull said, looking up nervously.

“There are…signatures,” Karza said. “There are usually several ways to work out a genetic puzzle. In this case, I think what he’s saying is that this looks like this Miz Fondor’s signature.”

“Hey, hey, hey,” Tim said, holding up his hands. “She’s not a suspect! Jaime would never do something like this!”

“But you’re saying that is her signature?” the agent said.

“No,” Karza said. “Or most likely not. It’s similar . Someone has been looking not only as professional synbio but also closely studying amateur synbio.”

“And that’s important,” the agent said, frowning. “Here’s the thing. You guys get bio. I don’t. Or barely, which is why I’m in this lab. What we get is investigation. What you’re saying is that the unsub has been monitoring information in the amateur synbio stream. That means they’re probably members of synbio boards. You have those, right?”

“Yes,” Tim said nervously.

“And you’re saying that there are signatures to this thing,” the agent said, getting animated. “We love signatures. If we can get an algorithm for the overall virus, then we can build a database to compare posted genes or whatever and look for similar signatures… If somebody has ever posted on one of those boards, we’ll find them.”

“The point being that he’s copying other people’s methods and signatures,” Dr. Karza pointed out. “Which means you’re going to be terrifying a lot of innocent people. Innocent people who don’t work well terrified.”

“We’ll contact this Miz Fondor,” the agent said. “Bring her in as a material witness. Nicely , okay?”

“Can you control that?” Karza said.

“Just let us handle it. We can be polite. In the meantime, yes. Shull, you’re familiar with these people’s work. Keep looking for signatures. The more ‘suppliers’ we have the better we can build a profile. What boards the unsub frequents. Whose methods he’s been copying. It would be good if we could build an algorithm for that. Is there anything like that already?”

“So you want me to burn the only friends I have in the world?” Tim said angrily. “You’re all ready to go bust down Jaime’s door and you want me to do that to how many people?”

“I’ll send up that these people are probably innocent of any wrong doing,” the agent said. “But, Tim, keep in mind. While you’re worrying about hurting your friends’ feelings, the world is going to hell in a handbasket.”

“Point,” Dr. Karza said. “Tim, do you have any personal contact information for Jaime Fondor…?”

* * *

“Dr. Curry,” Bateman said, drily. “Thank you so much for joining us…”

The “meeting” was taking place by video conference. At least in Curry’s case. The boardroom the rest were meeting in was five floors up and a few suites over from Curry’s lab. But since he’d been given it he hadn’t left. And he didn’t intend to any time soon.

“As you might have heard on the news, the kid who figured out dual expression has been ‘cooperating’ with the CDC,” Curry said. “I’ll take an agnostic position on whether he has anything to do, directly, with the virus. He’s being helpful, he was just in a video conference with the WHO and others and not only pointed out some helpful stuff but a possible… Call it an ameliorative. Not a cure but something that might help. Again, might. Thing is he’s a little too pat or I’m a little too cynical. Doesn’t matter. The first news, well ahead of the news as it were, is potassium may inhibit the secondary neurological packet’s expression. Sort of. Bottomline is we all might want to start taking potassium supplements. Which people can OD on by the way. Too much potassium will kill you as dead as too much. But as long as the dosage isn’t too high, I’d recommend them.”

“That’s good news,” Bateman said, looking at Tom.

“I’ll get that promulgated through our medical personnel,” Tom said, composing a note on his iPhone.

“Then we get to vaccine,” Dr. Curry said. “Turns out this is one hell of a virus. I’m not going to totally bio geek out but not only does it express two viruses with one packet, it expresses two viruses so different they’re night and day. Just to give you the short version: Influenza is a DNA virus. It has a full DNA packet and is a fairly complicated virus. The neurological, blood-pathogen, packet is an RNA virus. RNA is, sort of, half of a DNA strand. And RNA viruses are so different from DNA viruses there are some pretty good theories that they come from two entirely different evolutionary processes. They might as well be alien lifeforms to each other. And, somehow, the mad bastard who created this thing got both to express from a single pathogen. Brilliant. And very problematic for the vaccine.

“The CDC, Hong Kong and Pasteur have all produced detailed directions for their experimental vaccines. You don’t want them yet. They are really experimental. Like ‘trial and error’ experimental. With lots of error. They’ve already mapped out a vaccine for the airborne packet. But producing influenza vaccine is…complicated. And it takes time. And I can’t do it in this lab even if we had the design. What I can do, if it works out, is the blood pathogen vaccine. Once they work out the bugs.”

“What are the differences?” Bateman asked. “And what are the risks?”

“Well the risks right now are high,” Curry said, chuckling. “They had some of their lab rats catch the bug. Which is the ‘error’ part. But they’ll work it out. Then the real problems come. However…I’m going to have to explain how this vaccine is going to be made, in general. Cause I’m going to need some more equipment.”

“Which is?” Bateman asked. “I thought you had everything you needed?”

“I have everything you’d have in a regular laboratory,” Curry said, nodding. “For its size, even a well equipped one. What I don’t have is what you’d use to produce a vaccine. For that I’m going to have to lecture. Ahem… Vaccination One-Oh-One:

“Various ways of innoculating people against smallpox date back to ancient China and India. But the way they did it was pretty damned dangerous and was just as likely to give you the disease. There’s lots of bits in the middle but Edward Jenner figured out a way to use cowpox to vaccinate and that was what really started modern vaccine methods.

“It was Louis Pasteur that figured out that there were ways to ‘weaken’ pathogens, what’s called ‘attenuation’ and then use those weakened pathogens as a vaccine. The first one was a mistake with chicken cholera but it lead to all his other successful vaccines. The way he did it, exactly, isn’t important because it’s been superseded by other methods. Modern vaccines are produced in a number of ways. Very few of them use attenuation any more. But it’s still the fastest way to make vaccine. And they’re pretty sure that this pathogen can be prevented with an attenuation vaccine.”

“Why did they stop using it?” Bateman asked.

“Problems,” Dr. Curry said, waggling his hand from side to side. “Issues. Lawsuits. Immunology One-Oh-One. Your immune system’s a lot more complex than it’s explained in high school but the basics work for this. Antibodies identify pathogens and bind to them. That signals other immunobodies to attack and destroy them. However, the antibodies are originally produced because immune cells have detected that there are pathogens in the body. So you’ve got to be infected, first. And if you’ve got a good immune system and all’s well, you shake it off after a bit. If you don’t have a good immune system or the pathogen’s really nasty, well, you die.