Pestilence

5

Samantha leapt out of the double-engine plane over a clearing outside of Atlanta. The chute was wrapped tightly around her, and the wind screamed in her ears. Her goggles were coming off, and she wished she’d adjusted them beforehand, but her mind had been elsewhere.

The ground in front of her looked like a patchwork of green and yellow squares stitched together with roads. Cars moved on the stitching like parasites, and she had hoped that she wouldn’t see any. She’d wanted the flight to be her, the sky, and the ground.

On some jumps, she would imagine she didn’t have a jumpsuit and that she was racing toward the ground to her death. She tried to imagine it so vividly that she would think the actual thoughts she might have before her death, rank the priorities in her life. It never happened. Something about the feel of the chute on her back never let her believe that she was actually going to die. But she had gotten that feeling in the biosafety level four laboratories more than once.

On one occasion, she had suited up and inflated the biohazard suit with negative pressure, letting the air from the hose push everything away from her body, then began running a routine test using samples of Lassa virus. By all accounts, Lassa hemorrhagic fever was one of the most dangerous diseases in the world.

The Lassa virus was known as an ambisense RNA virus, which meant it was a non-coding strand of RNA that attached to the main RNA code. It could cause RNA interference, blocking an expression of a gene. Experiments were being done on RNA interference, mimicking Lassa, to attempt to block the expression of genes that cause Down syndrome or even genetic heart conditions.

But Lassa’s RNA interference had a much more sinister purpose: to stop the host’s immune system from attacking the virus. It took over the immune system and used the body to reproduce the virus itself. In Sierra Leone, Samantha had seen what this did to a human body. Some of the symptoms were flu-like, such as headache and sore throat, and others were hemorrhagic, like bleeding from the eyes and genitals.

But she wasn’t thinking of that when she had been handling the Lassa. She was thinking of her sister’s upcoming wedding. Almost immediately after the experiments were complete, she noticed something on one of her gloves: a small tear.

The glove was thick double-stitched rubber. When she decontaminated, she pulled it off and checked the glove underneath-and spotted the same tear. Underneath that was the final layer, a thin sheet of latex. It was torn, as well.

Panicked, she quarantined herself in the laboratory. The CDC staff could do nothing but wait. They brought her meals, fluids, and books, but they had to wait for the incubation period to run its course. Once it had, a blood test showed she had not been infected.

Sitting in quarantine late at night, listening to the hum of the machines and the occasional plane flying low overhead, she questioned her life and her choices. She had reached decisions, but she couldn’t remember them anymore. The terror of the moment was so strong that it overtook her reason, and her memory of the quarantine epiphanies faded every day that she was away from the laboratory.

Samantha pulled her ripcord later than she should have. The recoil jerked her up and sideways, and the sensation was jarring. She hit the ground hard and fell on her stomach as the chute collapsed around her like a deflating balloon.

She lay on the ground a long time, staring up at the sky through her rose-tinted goggles. Pulling them off her head, she took in a deep breath and then exhaled through her nose. She did this until some of the others who had jumped came up and asked if she was okay.

The jumps were relaxing and uplifting, but something was different this time. She couldn’t exactly put her finger on it. But it seemed, almost, as if she were just going through the motions rather than experiencing the moment. The jump felt futile.

Whatever it was, she felt the same as she had before she’d jumped out of the plane.

After a change of clothing, she headed back into Atlanta, to Clifton Road, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were headquartered.

Multiple buildings dotted the landscape, and most of them were rectangular and made of blue glass. A blue-and-white sign marked the white CDC emblem of a bird that she guessed was a hawk, but looked like a pigeon, and it sat at the forefront of the building.

After parking in her reserved stall, she tried her sister again and left a message, probably her fifth one, stating she was worried and would like a call back. Jane usually called her immediately. Going black for long periods of time was definitely out of character for her.

The metal detectors didn’t buzz when Samantha passed security. She went up to her office on the fourth floor, which overlooked the grassy knoll across the street, and collapsed in her chair. Her hair was a mess, and she took out a hair elastic and pulled it back. Several papers were scattered over the desk and piled in two boxes in the corner. She pushed the papers aside and then turned on her Mac.

Her inbox said she had ninety-six unread e-mails. The number was so overwhelming that she turned on Pandora and sat there for a good fifteen minutes, unable to open even one. Then she stood up, stretched her arms above her head, sat back down, and began going through them. She scanned them quickly for anything important, anything about California. But she saw nothing relevant.

Someone knocked on her glass wall, and she glanced up and saw Frederick Hess, assistant director over Infectious Diseases, who waved to her. She waved back, and Fredrick came to the door. He leaned against it but didn’t come in.

“How was it?” he said.

“Hot and terrifying. How was everything here?”

“Pretty much the same.”

She grinned and leaned back in her chair. “The outbreak was contained. I think the final nineteen patients will probably pass, and that’ll be it as long as the doctors from the WHO treat the bodies with care.”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“Some of them are poorly trained on hot viruses. They’re not common enough for someone from Thailand or Peru to deal with. They don’t recognize how deadly they are.” She paused. “There was a doctor there that became infected because he refused to leave patients untreated. I’d like to write an article about him. Maybe a blurb on the CDC website, if that’s okay.”

“He didn’t run out the door like everyone else?”

“No. He knew he would probably die, and it was worth it for him.”

“I didn’t think doctors like that existed anymore. I’m on the admissions committee over at UMD medical school. You should see some of the reasons people put for wanting to become doctors. They think it’s prestigious or they’re going to make a lot of money. I tell them for the hours they’re going to put in, they’d make more money managing a restaurant. And nothing’s more prestigious than doing rounds, asking patients how much they pooped the night before.”

“It has its moments. My uncle was a doctor as well, and he worked for Doctors Without Borders. I don’t know of any other professions that let you travel to any country in the world and do good. I don’t think lawyers and politicians can do that.”

“Yeah, well, maybe actors adopting kids from countries nobody’s ever heard of.”

She hesitated. “Can I ask you something, Freddy?”

“Sure.”

“Do you know anything about California?”

“Their taxes on small business is killing their economy.”

“I meant have you heard anything about military involvement there?”

He glanced away. The movement was quick, but she caught it.

“It’s classified, Sam.”

“Classified? Since when is anything at the CDC classified?”

He stepped into her office and sat down across from her. “I know in medical school they trained us to question everything. To find every detail, even what someone’s grandmother did for part-time work back in Uzbekistan when someone comes in with flu-like symptoms. But sometimes, as employees of the government, we have to stop questioning and just do what we’re told.”

“That sounds like you don’t agree with what’s about to happen.”

“Doesn’t matter what I think. I’m a cog in a wheel.” He rose and started out of her office, turning back to her at the door. “I can tell you one thing, though. There’s a Chinese curse that says, ‘May you live in interesting times.’ And this is definitely an interesting time.”