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| PAGE TWENTY NINE |
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"Then our contagion's host will have to be at least that old, too.." "Insectoidal?" Jamie guessed. "We ruled that out. No bites on half the victims, remember?" Steven sighed. MacPherson was undaunted. "The Lopez house is deeply inside city limits on the edge of the mountains. No animals crawling in from the forest would go unnoticed there." "Birds?" "Too inefficient a metabolism for a retroviral infection. It would never survive in them." Taylor said, "I've tried on computer models." Jamie frowned.. "Their dogs and cats, and pigs and chickens were sacrificed by investigators. Couldn't have been them, they were all clean.." "Those animals are also young species. None older than a few hundred thousand years. Domesticated genetic lines. They can't be our hosts." Dr. Brackett had finished a toxicology series on Marco's blood samples and looked up when Dr. Taylor and Dr. Macpherson showed up in front of his work station. "Any progress..?" he asked. "Retrovirus.. Zoonotically transmitted. Our unknown is showing marked Shepherd's Crook pleomorphism and resistance to enzymatic lipase breakdown.." Dr. Brackett's eyes squinted and he blinked in reaction. "A retrovirus? I thought those were extinct and found only in the fossil record." "Not for some.." Jamie admitted. "The genus is rare, but can still be found in the wild. Just like the Listeria strain of cyanobacteria is still found in Yellowstone's hotsprings. That is living despite it being continually poisoned by our now oxygen rich atmosphere.." "Let me take a look at it.." Kel said. Taylor and MacPherson held out their hands to him to sit at the stool before the microscope. "Be my guest.." Taylor sighed. Then he pulled off his biocontamination hood. "We don't need these anymore.. This one can't reinfect anyone without an animal host.." Jamie concurred, shedding her biosuit too. "Totally true.." "Then the quarantine is unnecessary?" Dr. Brackett said. "Completely doctor.." Steven told Kel. "Only body fluid precautions are necessary. Like you would do for any hepatitis or meningitis patient in one of your wards. Anyone healthy would be able to easily fight this off." |
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"Marco wasn't healthy and so he got infected." Kel realized. "Most likely because he was burning his candles at both ends helping out his mother and working fires here. Roy did tell us that no one has gotten a lot of sleep for the last four days.." "Most certainly.." Jamie agreed. "And we hadn't been able to see these spirals and hooks until now, because when we got to the boy, he was already dead too long to present them clearly, except in the one splenic blood sample the forensic doctors managed to obtain. Your fireman's blood slide, has just made our problem crystal clear doctor.." Brackett caught a site of the deadly, yet ancient retrovirus on the slide. He clearly saw the purple staining of the enzyme lipase chemical that Steven had added earlier, but the tiny contagion stubbornly held together in its spiralled stringed, oddly hooked shape. "Frightening. This germ is technically not alive here. But you're telling me that it can still reproduce?" Jamie nodded, agreeing with the hospital doctor. "Ummhmm. Just by latching onto any cellular RNA and telling it to make more retroviral capsules, with its own RNA, instead of normal stem cells." "Then what causes the symptoms and the fever and the bleeding?" Dr. Brackett wanted to know. Jamie said. "I have always hypothesized to my superiors that retroviruses have a piggyback contagion living in symbosis inside the spore capsule. Each, separated from the other, is harmless, but together in combination..." "Deadly and fast.." Dr. Brackett agreed. Dr. Brackett lifted a handy talkie wrapped in plastic on the table. It was linked to both the triage center outside and to the CDC team working in the firehouse backyard. ##This is Kelly Brackett inside Station 51. I'm lifting the quarantine. There's proof positive on further non transmission.## Dr. MacPherson lifted her own. ##Confirming the order Atlanta base. We're in the clear. Bodily fluid protocols restrictions only..## "How long will it take your people to use these slide images to identify the organism?" Kel said. "Only as long as it takes to take a polaroid slide image here and transmit it over TV satellite to the CDC.. Our specialists will peg this in within minutes if we've seen it before.." "Then do it.. " Jamie started laughing.. |
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"What's so funny doctor?" he asked. "I just learned the best way to do that doctor and it's even faster than our finest military.." "Oh?" "Use the reporters." she said. "They'll spread those images like wildfire. And the CDC will get them seconds after they air.." "Are you crazy? What about the panic that would cause doctor?" Steven said. "What..." she said dismissively. "You mean the earthquake hasn't already accomplished that? We can just label these pictures X Case Influenza and they'll be none the wiser.." Steven started to snicker too. "Heh. Clever girl.." "I'm afraid I don't understand.." Kel Brackett said at their amused expressions. "X Case is CDC code for "identify and confirm this". Doctor Brackett. The word Influenza is bogus. Jamie wants to add that to make any viewers think we have just the flu in here to settle them down." Kel smiled too. "I'll go along with that.." "I'll get right on it.." Jamie said. Soon, she had a polaroid of the slide showing the retroorganism stains and was jogging out the kitchen to head through the garage and the waiting press milling about outside for the ten o'clock news broadcast about to go on the air. A minute later, she was back. Dr. Brackett turned back to Steven Taylor.."Uh, doctor, in your theory, what's the best way to treat retroviral hemorrhagic fevers?" "Aggressive fluid management. I've tested Idouroxidine, an anti-tumor medication, against bacteriophage of this virulence...and I've had good results.." Steven suggested. Jamie immediately countered. "That's against bacteriophage Taylor, not retroviruses. No one's ever seen an active retroviral epidemic before.." Brackett silenced her with a growl. "Not until now.. I'm willing to try anything.. Marco Lopez's too unstable to wait any longer on a solution.. Even if it's just a temporary one.. He and seven others in Mexico are counting on us to help them now. Even if it's just a shot in the dark!" Jamie sighed, but let her colleague continue advising Dr. Brackett. |
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