geeky"We have a problem."
Ian Matras looked up from his computer screen, and blanched, barely recognizing his colleague. Chris looked like he'd managed to lose fifteen pounds in five days. His complexion was waxen, and the circles under his eyes were almost dark enough to make it seem like he'd been punched. "Christ, Chris, what the hell happened to you?"
"The Kellis cure." Chris Sinclair shook his head, rubbing one stubbly cheek as he said, "I don't have it. I mean, I don't think. We still can't test for it, and we can't afford to have me get sick right now just to find out. But that's what happened. That's what's happening right now."
"The McKenzie-Beatts TB treatment." It wasn't a question. Ian was abruptly glad that he hadn't bothered to stand. He would have just fallen back into his chair.
"Got it in one." Chris nodded, expression grim. "They died, Ian. Every one of them."
"When?"
"About an hour and a half ago. Dr. Li was on-site to monitor their symptoms. The first to start seizing was a twenty-seven year old male. He began bleeding from the mouth, eyes, nose, and rectum; when they performed the autopsy, they found that he was also bleeding internally, specifically in his intestines and lungs. It's a coin-toss whether he suffocated or bled out." Chris looked away, toward the blank white wall. He'd never wanted to see the ocean so badly in his life. "The rest started seizing within fifteen minutes. An eleven year old girl who'd been accepted into the trials a week before the Kellis cure was released was the last to die. Dr. Li says she was asking for her parents right up until she stopped breathing."
"Oh my God..." whispered Ian.
"I'm telling you, man, I don't think he's here." Chris rubbed his cheek again, hard. "You ready for the bad part?"
Numbly, Ian asked, "You mean that wasn't the bad part?"
"Not by a long shot." Chris laughed darkly. "Everyone who had direct contact with the patients—the medical staff, their families, hell, our medical staff—has started to experience increased salivation. Whatever this stuff is turning into, it's catching. They're sealing the building. Dr. Li's called for an L-4 quarantine. If they don't figure out what's going on, they're going to die in there."
Ian said nothing.
"The malaria folks? We don't know what's going on there. They stopped transmitting an hour before the complex blew sky-high. From what little we've been able to piece together, the charges were set inside the main lab. They, too, decided that they needed a strict quarantine. They just wanted to be absolutely sure that no one was going to have the chance to break it."
There was still a piece missing. Slowly, almost terrified of what the answer would be—no, not almost; absolutely terrified of what the answer would be—Ian asked, "What about the Marburg trials in Colorado?"
"They're all fine."
Ian stared at him. "What? But you said—"
"It was spreading, and it was. Half of Denver's had a nosebleed they couldn't stop. And nobody's died. The bleeding lasts three days, and then it clears up on its own, and the victims feel better than they've felt in years. We have a contagious cure for cancer to go with our contagious cure for the common cold." Chris laughed again. This time, there was a sharp edge of hysteria under the sound. "It's not going to end there. We don't get this lucky. We can't get this lucky."
"Maybe this is as bad as it gets." Ian knew how bad the words sounded as soon as they left his mouth, but he didn't—he couldn't—call them back. Someone had to calm Cassandra when she predicted the fall of Troy. Someone had to say "the symptoms aren't that bad" when the predictions called for the fall of man.
Chris gave him a withering look. "Say that like you mean it."
He couldn't, and so he said nothing at all, and the two of them looked at each other, waiting for the end of the world.
***
The CDC has no comment on the tragic deaths in San Antonio, Texas. Drs. Lauren McKenzie and Taylor Beatts were conducting a series of clinical trials aimed at combating drug-resistent strains of tuberculosis...
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