The Junkie Quatrain (10 page)

‘No,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t like that. I was just...’ He decided to stop talking. It seemed like the wiser path of action.

The elevator doors opened and she guided him to the left. Sam realized he could see little traces of his breath, the air conditioning was set so high. They opened a set of double doors and he stopped in his tracks. Then a junkie threw herself at him and let out a silent howl as she clawed the air.

A huge wall of plexiglas stretched in front of him, like an aquarium. Sections of the clear wall were streaked with dark material. Some of it was dried blood.

There were dozens of junkies in the aquarium. They wore blue hospital smocks with large numbers painted on them. Two or three clumps cowered in the different corners of the pen. A few dashed from one end of the tennis court-sized space to another, while others slammed into the walls, confused by their imprisonment. Right in front of him, a dark haired woman threw herself against the plexiglas again and again. She had a bloody nose. While he was watching she knocked one of her front teeth loose.

‘Kind of takes your breath away, doesn’t it?’

The speaker was an older man. He had the long gray beard, gleaming scalp, and pleasant smile of a college professor. The man strode down the narrow hall in front of the aquarium. He ignored the junkie concussing herself on the huge window and held out his hand. ‘You must be Doctor Sam Clemens.’

‘No relation to the writer,’ Sam said as he took the hand. ‘Doctor Bradbury, I presume?’

‘You presume correctly, although it’s been a while since anyone called me doctor.’ He gave a sly wink to Hogan. ‘They’re all pretty hooked on ‘director’ around here.’

‘Sorry,’ said Sam. ‘I didn’t mean any offense.’

Bradbury shook his head. ‘Don’t worry about it at all. To be honest, these days I almost wish I was just a doctor. It would mean a lot less paperwork.’

They shared a smile at the joke and then the junkie lunged at them again. Another one joined her, a black man, and they continued to beat themselves senseless against the plexi. It sounded like a muffled drum solo.

The older man glanced at them ‘Sad, isn’t it? I come down here now and then to remind myself what we’re up against. These were all regular people once. American citizens who didn’t deserve this kind of fate.’

Sam nodded. ‘These are your test subjects?’

‘We started out with fifty-five,’ said Bradbury, ‘but a lot of them attacked each other. Part of their mental makeup we can’t figure out. Some are welcomed into the pack, some aren’t. We’re down to thirty-nine, I believe.’ He looked at Hogan and she gave a quick nod.

‘If I may ask, sir,’ said Sam after a few moments, ‘I’m not entirely sure why I’m here.’

The director blinked. ‘The middle of a devastating pandemic and one of the brightest young virologists in America can’t figure out why he’s been brought onto a project?’ He clicked his tongue and gave another wink. ‘Doesn’t say much for you, young man.’

Sam smiled. ‘No, I understand that. I’m just not sure why I was pulled from my CDC group and transferred here.’

Bradbury’s head moved up and down again. ‘A lot of the work we’re doing here parallels the CDC,’ he said, ‘but we’re reporting up a different chain of command. Someone much further up asked who I thought might be able to help us here. I thought of some of your reports I’d read. After that...’ He shrugged. ‘More paperwork. And now here you are.’

‘I see.’

‘Why don’t we go up to my office,’ said Bradbury. ‘We can have some coffee and go over the work we’re doing here.’

‘That sounds great.’

They walked back to the elevators. The junkies followed them as well, and slammed their bodies against the aquarium window again and again until Bradbury led Sam past an oversized airlock door and moved into another hall. Sergeant Hogan stayed a few steps behind them the whole way.

Bradbury’s office was large and surprisingly un-Spartan. He’d set his own rug down over the institutional pebbled-brown carpet, and the walls of his office were covered with notes and pictures. A large-leafed plant stood in the corner by the window. His desk had numerous papers and a well-used laptop, but also a small collection of family photos and what looked like a collection of Lego people. Near the center, on a disk of granite, was a small golden statue the size and rough shape of a football. Its oversized head had wide eyes and a mouth opened in a silent shout. Right behind the cluttered desk was a black-outlined inspirational poster showing a skydiver and the word DARE.

The director waved him to one of the chairs in front of the desk. Hogan stood by the door. She rested her fists behind her back again.

‘You’ve got some remarkable recommendations,’ Bradbury said. He dropped into the chair behind the desk the way someone sat down to watch the big game. ‘An exceptionally bright, logical young man. To be honest, I’m surprised someone else didn’t scoop you up ages ago.’

Sam shifted in his chair. ‘Well, someone did,’ he said. ‘One of the crisis directors at the CDC saw some of my papers on pandemics. Based on that, they pulled me for the duration. It’s a dream job, really.’

The director looked confused for a moment, then smiled. ‘Right, he said. ‘I just meant someone big.’

An aide came in with coffee for each of them. It was made just the way Sam liked—two sugars, no milk. In the past two months of government work, he’d learned not to question how such things happened. He took a sip and let the mug rest on his thigh. It made a warm circle against the air conditioning. ‘So, sir,’ he asked, ‘what angle are you working on here?’

The older man sipped his own coffee. ‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, ‘why don’t we start with you. Talk to me about H1B6.’

‘Sir?’

‘I want to hear it in your terms, see what kind of a grasp you’ve got on it.’

‘
Are you looking for case histories or—’

‘I want,’ said Bradbury, ‘to see if you understand what’s going on right now. Not in some clinical, by the numbers way. Tell me what the virus does. Tell me what it’s doing to the world.’

Sam fiddled with the coffee cup’s handle for a moment. It was too loose for two fingers, too tight for three. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘H1B6 is a complex virus which attacks the nervous system, primarily the brain. After incubating, it affects the amygdala and the medial orbitofrontal cortex, reducing inhibitions. The two most common results are increased bouts of violence and-or sexual proclivity, both of which allow the virus to spread further.

‘Once it becomes fully symptomatic, it compromises the Broca’s area. The afflicted can’t process language and lose their ability to communicate in any way. Their adrenal glands are also affected and result in a pretty much constant flow of epinephrine into the blood.’

Sam paused for a sip of coffee, cleared his throat, and continued.

‘The virus also causes a hyperphagic condition similar to Prader-Willi syndrome. Infected individuals suffer from insatiable, often ravenous hunger. Combined with the damage to the amygdala and the continual fight-or-flight state caused by the epinephrine, the afflicted will do whatever they can to feed. There’ve been reports of them gnawing on trees, eating pets and other animals, and of course...’

He paused again and took another sip. A longer one.

‘Cannibalism,’ said Bradbury. ‘Just say the word. What’s the CDC predicting as a mortality rate?’

‘It’s hard to be sure. A large percentage of the infected die from secondary causes. Malnutrition, mostly, or they tax themselves to the point of cardiac arrest or stroke.’ He studied his mug again. ‘A fair number of them have been killed by the National Guard in self defense.

‘However, in the subjects we’ve managed to isolate, brain damage continues to progress. It hasn’t been a statistically viable number of cases, but at the moment it looks like the initial reports out of China and India were correct. Mortality rate is one hundred percent. Once it goes symptomatic, the average victim has five weeks or less to live.’

Bradbury drummed his fingers on the desktop. ‘And how many victims is the CDC talking about.’

Sam took another sip. The coffee was already getting cold in the chilly air. ‘At the moment the estimate is that seventeen percent of Americans are infected. Possibly another fifteen percent have already died from it or from attacks by the infected. So the current projected estimate is ninety-two-point-two million dead.

‘We’re still on the uphill side of this, though. Estimates put combined deaths in China at close to nine hundred million in the past six months. India is almost at seven hundred million. Russian deaths number at least three hundred million, but they stopped sharing information right about the time I was recruited.’ He shrugged. ‘It looked like Irwin Baugh was taking big steps toward finding a cure before he died, but most of his work was incomplete. Brilliant mind but a sloppy scientist.’

‘Yes, said Bradbury, ‘that was a tragedy.’ He moved his head up and down in a slow pattern. It was like he wanted to acknowledge the facts, but didn’t want to dismiss them with a quick nod. ‘Do you like movies?’

Sam blinked. ‘What?’

‘Movies. Films. DVDs. I love
Raiders of the Lost Ark
. One of the greatest movies ever made.’ He gestured at the golden statue on his desk. ‘Limited edition, but it was worth it. Did you know the ‘throw me the idol’ guy in that scene is Alfred Molina? Same guy who played Doctor Octopus in the
Spider-Man
films. What kind of movies do you like?’

‘Ummm... comedies, I guess. Mysteries. I’ve been kind of busy. Haven’t seen anything new in a year or so.’

‘Not a horror fan, then?’

Sam shrugged again. ‘When I was a kid, I guess. I grew out of it.’ He tilted his head toward the window. ‘Besides, there’s enough horror out there right now, isn’t there?’

Bradbury pointed a proud finger at the younger man. ‘Good answer,’ he said. ‘To be honest, I was never a big fan of horror films. Nowadays I try to make sure everyone working here avoids them, too. The last thing you want to do is to have some movie clouding your judgment about what’s happening.’

‘Fair point,’ said Sam. He was relieved to see the segue actually lead somewhere. He’d had babbling bosses before.

‘Believe me, Romero’s rules of zombies don’t apply to H1B6 and the Baugh-ridden. We’re not going to find out there’s infected monkeys or alien worms behind this. We need to keep level heads and make sure everyone stays focused on the important thing—how to stop this.’

‘I agree.’

A wide grin appeared in the director’s beard. ‘Excellent.’ He rapped his knuckles twice on the desk. ‘Now, forgive me for being melodramatic, but I have to ask this. Are you sure you want to know what we’re doing here?’

‘You’re researching the H1B6 virus.’

‘Well, yes, but the... I know this sounds very cloak and dagger, but we need to sign some forms before we go any further and I tell you anything else.’ Bradbury slid open a drawer and lifted out a ream of paperwork. ‘It should only take a few minutes. I just need nine initials and five signatures.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Sam said. He set his coffee down on his side of the desk. The director raised a bushy eyebrow and he picked it back up again. ‘I don’t understand. You requested for me to get transferred here, but you can’t tell me why until I agree to work here?’

‘Well,’ said the director, ‘until you sign the forms. After that you can still decide not to work with us, but there will be some penalties.’

‘What kind of penalties?’

His grin faded a bit. ‘You’ve heard that old joke, ‘I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you’?’

‘Yeah, of course.’

‘Well, in this case, Sergeant Hogan will be the one to kill you.’ He gestured to the woman at the door.

Sam looked over his shoulder. Hogan dipped her head in acknowledgement. His eyes dropped to the pistol on her thigh.

‘This is insane,’ he said. ‘You’re going to shoot me?’

Bradbury looked offended. ‘Well, not just out of the blue for no reason,’ he said. ‘You must understand, the work we do here is beyond top secret.’

‘Top secret medical research?’

‘Well, we’re getting access to a lot of classified data. Material the CDC doesn’t have and isn’t going to get.’

Sam’s brow furrowed. ‘Why not?’

Bradbury made a gesture that was half shrug, half waving off the question. ‘That’ll be clear as we go over the data. And that’s really all I can say until you sign the forms. Or we can have you back in Sacramento by tomorrow night.’

Sam looked at the stack of paperwork. He could feel Hogan’s eyes staring at his neck. Was she picking out a target? A bullet to the base of the skull would sever the spinal column. A quick, almost painless death according to most sources.

Bradbury picked up his gold idol and passed it from hand to hand. It had some heft to it, the way it moved. He stared absently out the window.

‘Tell me this,’ said Sam. ‘Are you closer to a cure than the CDC is? No hype, no politics. Do you think you’ll get it first?’

The older man nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I can tell you that. We’ll have a cure long before they do.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘How can you be so sure?’

‘You’ll have to sign the paperwork. But we will have the cure first.’