Riposte (The Redivivus Trilogy Book 2) (35 page)

On the other side, Dr. Sodecci worked on something else with a woman they had not met. Upon noticing them enter the room, Dr. Sodecci said, “Dr. San, this is my research assistant, Maria Abrams.”

“Pleasure to meet you. We’re glad to have you,” Maria said. She had kind eyes and a down to earth manner about her; Lin instantly liked her.

“Dr. San, do you feel up to discussing where we are with the pathogen?” Dr. Sodecci asked.

“LNV,” Lin said.

“Excuse me?” Dr. Sodecci asked.

His simple question made her realize how little they actually knew about the virus they were dealing with. “The pathogen—they named it the lyssa-niuhi virus, or LNV,” Lin replied.

With a puzzled look, he said, “It sounds like
you
should tell
us
about the pathogen, Dr. San.”

Lin informed them about the USB drive recovered in Brazil, recapping everything she had read about the origin and design of LNV thus far. When she was finished, she produced the small USB drive she had been guarding with her life since leaving Brazil. Their eyes went wide, and the mixture of emotions Lin saw on their faces made her wonder if they were about to genuflect or destroy the little drive.

“Ho-ly shit,” Dr. Sodecci said, taking in everything Lin had just told him.

They inserted the USB drive into one of the working computers and were relieved to find that it had not been corrupted. The monitor displayed row after row of files. “The first thing we need to do is back up the drive to at least one computer and print a hard copy of everything in case that fails,” Lin said.

Dr. Sodecci agreed, and Maria began working on the task immediately. Being a Biosafety Level 4 facility, the building was equipped with generators to ensure uninterrupted power delivery to the containment systems. “Even the generators have generators,” Sodecci quipped. “It will take a while to get everything printed out. Let me show you around and get you up to speed on what has been done so far.”

Dr. Louis Sodecci had worked at the CDC for two years at the start of the outbreak. His office was in the adjacent building, and it was only by chance that he was not in his own building when it was overrun by the infected. With a PhD in epidemiology, he was far from comfortable around nonlethal biosafety level 2 pathogens; anything above that positively terrified him. Despite that, Dr. Sodecci became the most qualified scientist left at the CDC facility when Dr. Banks and Dr. Dallman were
incapacitated
.

As they walked, Dr. Sodecci gave Lin the background on the work that had been done on LNV. “Dr. Jim Banks, one of the foremost scientists in the CDC’s Emerging Infectious Disease division, along with his longtime associate, Dr. Clifford Dallman, began work on LNV as you call it as soon as the first cases were reported. They were both highly experienced with BSL-4 work, and considering how little time they had, the amount they accomplished was quite remarkable.”

Something about his use of the past tense sent a cold chill through Lin’s gut. While she wondered where they were and why they were not telling her all of this, she sensed Dr. Sodecci had more to say on the matter so she did not speak. At the end of another long hall, they came to a closed door.

Dr. Sodecci said, “This room is being used as the research office. It was a conference room but as it seemed that everyone was always in here if not in the labs or sleeping, we just reassigned it.”

When he pushed the door open, what Lin saw bore little resemblance to any conference room she had ever seen. With a sheepish grin, Sodecci added, “Pardon the mess. We weren’t expecting company and we haven’t really had time to clean things up.”

Trash, clothes, and blankets were mixed in with the papers strewn across the large, boardroom-style conference table. At one end set a large microscope while at the other set a piece of equipment that she did not immediately recognize. Covered in sticky notes, the large flat panel screen hanging on the wall had been converted into a bulletin board of sorts. When she noticed a poster of a Hollywood zombie tacked to the adjacent wall, her jaw dropped. A bull’s-eye had been drawn on its head and several Nerf darts stuck to its surface. The sleeping bag unrolled on the floor made it appear as though squatters had recently taken up residence in the cluttered room.

“Wow. It doesn’t look like you guys get out of here much,” Lin said wondering how they were able to accomplish anything amidst such squalor. “The two of you made all this mess?”

“What? No, there were quite a few of us at first,” Dr. Sodecci said as his eyes drifted to the floor.

Lin immediately regretted her words.

He continued, “Nearly a dozen, in fact. Some left to try to find their families, a few cracked under the stress of it all, others succumbed to the infection. Maria and I are merely the only two left. This thing is so far out of my league that I hardly know where to start. Maria, on the other hand, has worked with Dr. Banks for years, so I should probably be her research assistant.”

Lin found the fact that he was even trying to be remarkable, given that ninety-five percent of those originally working on the problem were gone. She was unsure that she possessed such resilience.

When she did not say anything, Dr. Sodecci added, “Now you see why we are so glad you made it.”

She did see.

Upon entering the room, they moved to the large table and sat down in front of a laptop. Sodecci cleared a few empty coffee cups with a swipe of his arm while he waited for the computer to boot up. After logging in, he immediately began calling up file after file of information. “Banks and Dallman received samples from early victims of the infection and began working on gene sequencing right away. They were not able to sequence LNV’s entire genome, but they did uncover several interesting findings,” Dr. Sodecci said as he called up the genetic data they had generated. He then opened another folder entitled
rhabdo
and put the images side by side. The computer quickly identified a matching sequence from both genomes.

“The fact that the new pathogen possessed such a large, continuous segment of the rabies virus genome told us that it was manmade. This particular segment codes for the rabies protein responsible for cell binding,” he stated.

“That is how LNV gains access,” Lin said, recalling the journal entries of Marcus Johnson. Although she was not an expert in the field of virology, her study of encephalitis had taught her enough to know that this was going to make their job infinitely harder. The moment a pathogen crossed the blood-brain barrier, it became virtually untouchable by the host’s immune system, as well as most drugs.

“Dr. Banks thought that was also the reason the virus is transmitted via the bite of an infected host. LNV appears to be secreted in human saliva at far greater levels than the rabies virus. The similarity with rabies also made us worry about the possibility of other mammals contracting the disease,” Dr. Sodecci said.

The terrifying thought caused them both to pause as they considered its implications.

“Many of the remaining areas show homology with HIV, but there are still portions of the genome that are a complete unknown,” Sodecci added. “Before Dr. Banks discovered the similarities to HIV and rabies, we tried a wide range of antiviral drugs including acyclovir and oseltamivir, but since we weren’t dealing with herpes or the flu, they worked about as well as pissing on a forest fire.”

“Have you had success with any treatment?” Lin asked hopefully.

“Oh, yes, some—but nothing to get excited about. When we switched gears to consider HIV and rabies therapies, we saw some effect. Using AZT and protease inhibitors targeted against HIV, we were able to slow the virus down. As treatment options for rabies are more limited, we got less help there. Are you familiar with the Milwaukee Protocol?” Dr. Sodecci asked.

“Not really, no,” Lin replied.

“Well, it is a marginally effective treatment for someone with rabies infection that has started showing symptoms of central nervous system involvement. It is essentially an induced coma using ketamine, midazolam, and amantadine, and it’s really a person’s only hope once the infection has made it that far.” Dr. Sodecci wiped his brow and rubbed his eyes. He suddenly looked very tired, as though merely speaking about the virus added five years to his age. As he continued talking, Lin felt very sorry for him.

“Anyway, Dallman got the idea that perhaps they could try something like that for those infected with LNV. Their initial attempts were complete failures—the virus just moved too fast.” Dr. Sodecci’s eyes grew pensive, and he seemed to be gazing into some far away abyss.

After a long and uncomfortable silence, Lin finally found her voice, and said, “We should get back to Maria and start sorting through those files. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Dr. Sodecci turned his head slowly as if struggling to free himself from the bonds of the bottomless pit, before saying, “Sure, but there is one more thing I have to show you. We can stop there on the way back.”

As the two scientists walked through the deserted halls, every footfall echoed like a gunshot, making Lin flinch slightly with each step. While she found the profound quiet that filled the world to be unsettling, noise bothered her even more because she knew it attracted the infected. She found herself glancing all around, looking for the monsters she knew were lurking in the shadows.

Dr. Sodecci stopped walking when they reached the door at the end of the hall. He stood there, unmoving for several seconds before he switched on a small handheld flashlight. The sign next to the heavy door read:

Quarantine and Isolation

Authorized Personnel Only

Proper Protective Equipment Required

The dim light cast an eerie shadow across Dr. Sodecci’s face, distorting his features, and giving him a rather ghastly appearance. When he did not speak, Lin asked, “Back in the conference room, you said the initial attempts were unsuccessful. Does that mean later attempts fared better?”

He nodded weakly, his shadow a magnified caricature dancing on the wall behind him. “That remains a point of debate, I suppose. If by better you mean that not everyone died or became a walking, infected monster, then yes.”

He pulled out a set of keys and flipped through them until he found the correct one. The bolt slid back with a click, and he pushed the door open with a hard shove.

Lin was taken aback by the smell that wafted through the doorway. Stale, putrid, and rank, it triggered alarm bells in Lin’s mind instantly. Without thinking, her body tensed and she took a small step back. When she stopped, she was in a half-crouched position like an animal that just detected an apex predator in its midst.

“Whoa, there. Take it easy. It’s safe in here—nothing’s going to hurt you,” Sodecci said, panning his light around until he found a can of commercial grade orange citrus air freshener. He depressed the button, spraying a heavy mist into the putrescent air.

Lin stared, transfixed by the aerosolized droplets floating toward the ground. The final olfactory result was only marginally less nauseating, like someone who covers his or her stench with deodorant instead of taking a shower—only much worse. As the air cleared, Lin saw that two small light fixtures partially illuminated the expansive labyrinth beyond. She heard faint scuffling noises like that of rats slinking through the tenebrous depths.

Dr. Sodecci took a cautious step into the room before turning to regard Lin, who had not budged an inch.

At that moment, everything came crashing down upon her, burying her like an avalanche as it suffocated her mind. She found herself utterly incapable of moving or speaking, and in that instant she knew she was not strong enough to face something like LNV even if she survived.

Softly at first, as though coming from a great distance, Lin heard someone calling her name. The sensation was akin to being underwater, the sound gradually increasing as she ascended from the depths until she finally broke the surface. At once, her senses returned and she felt as though she was in control of her faculties again. Desperately looking for any way to shirk the responsibility of fighting this monster, Lin asked, “What happened to Dr. Banks? Is he dead?” Her question was met with a brief, uncomfortable silence before Dr. Sodecci spoke.

“No, he’s not dead,” he replied.

“Then where can we find him? We need to get him back here. With his assistance we might have a chance at beating this thing,” Lin added with a sense of urgency in her voice.

Again, Dr. Sodecci’s head dipped slightly as he said, “He
can’t
assist us. He’s still here. He never left—not completely.” Directing the beam of his flashlight to the right, he added. “Meet Dr. Banks, the greatest success story of the Banks protocol to date.”

* * *

While Dr. Sodecci and Ms. Abrams discussed the scientific aspects of the plague with Lin, Lt. Weaver briefed Garza and Montes on the current military situation as best he could. Despite the heavy conversations in the room, Anthony and Charon frolicked about, playing as though completely unaware of the apocalypse happening all around them.

“The building we are in is number 18. It is one of the main research buildings on the campus, and it houses the Biosafety Level 4 lab. Most, if not all, of the other buildings have been overrun and are untenable at the present time. There are even parts of this building we have yet to reclaim,” Lt. Weaver said, as he indicated the locations on a map of the facility.