Poisoned Chalice
6: Natural Solution
I couldn’t just sit here. I did a search on Ebola virus and went through all the work done by the World Health Organisation, the Institut Pasteur in Paris and the US Army Institute of Infectious Diseases, among others. I found nothing useful — it was all too old. I widened the search to include other filoviruses. That brought in a host of information, more than I could read in a year.
There had to be something! The virus couldn’t have come from nowhere. I had another idea. I used my high level access code to get into the Health Department’s data banks. They must know, by now, where the first contact had come from. My degree in Database Mining started to come in handy. I found thousands of documents — memos, answers to Question Time in Parliament, statistics on disease progress and variations, different symptoms, gene testing, mortality rates. But I couldn’t find the origin of the pandemic.
I tried the records of the Department of Immigration. My code let me in there, too. Working back from the date of the first casualty, and allowing for an incubation time of up to 21 days, I knew which dates to check.
There was little overseas travel in these days of recession and isolationism. Less than a hundred Australian residents and visitors had been in Central Africa in the time I was concerned with, and all had been examined. None showed any symptoms of the disease, or even any antibodies to it. That meant none had been in contact with the virus. A memo to the Health Department noted that Immigration had been unable to find any link to the African source area. There were no reported cases overseas, anywhere in the world. The pandemic was entirely confined to Australia.
What about Defence travel? I scanned through an organisation chart of the Defence Department while I wondered how to get into their systems. Suddenly I struck a familiar name — General Samuel Anders-Lofts, Deputy Chief of Staff. I recalled Ben saying that his uncle was a general. I noted his address, but my code would not let me into Defence’s network.
So how had the epidemic come about? What if the infection was deliberate, a new kind of terrorism? I searched for the records of the first victim, the man who had died so publicly on the NetNews. His name was Jasper Xavier Maxime. Unfortunately, every file came up with the same message.
ACCESS DENIED.
I tapped in my high level access code again.
ACCESS DENIED.
There was more than one way to dress a flea. I looked in the Directory. He was the only person in Australia with that name. He lived in the western suburbs of Sydney, out past Strathfield. I did a search in every database my codes allowed me access to: employment records, electoral rolls, criminal records, traffic offences, credit details. I did not find much.
Jasper Maxime had been single, mid-thirties, with no genetic deficiencies of even the most minor kind. Occupation — laboratory technician. He rented a one bedroom apartment, had been in the same job for ten years, had no criminal record. The most that could be said against him was a minor speeding fine and two parking tickets.
I realised that it was 3 a.m. I was exhausted and getting nowhere. I made some toast, heated a tin of soup in the fire and ate half of it. It was beef broth, quite flavourless. I diluted half a cup with warm water and fed it to Kirrily with an eye dropper. It stayed down, which seemed like a miracle. I sponged her forehead, wiped her mouth, lay down beside her and slept fitfully.
I jerked awake some hours later. It was morning, still raining. I’d found another way to attack the problem. The virus!
The results of genetic testing showed that it had an unusual structure. It was clearly derived from Ebola virus, but parts were so different that it was hard to see how they could have originated naturally.
This wasn’t a normal infection at all! I didn’t think it was terrorism, since no organisation had claimed responsibility. It had to be a laboratory escape. Someone in Australia must have been doing genetic manipulation of the virus. Illegal research — no Ethics Committee would ever have allowed such dangerous work!
And the first victim had been a laboratory technician. Which laboratory? I did a personnel search on all the laboratories in Australia that worked with human or animal viruses. There were only a few dozen and the name came up at once — the Centre for Advanced Bio-Engineering. The man worked at my own institute, where my sacred mother had carried out her research. And I, who had been put in charge of the investigation, had not been told. Clearly I was part of a cover up!
The research was a very well-kept secret, for I’d not had an inkling of it in the years I’d been at the Centre. But it was a very big institute, with more than a thousand staff and half a dozen laboratories across Sydney.
I wondered who the victim’s head of department had been. I searched that out, too. Prof. Eolie Chalmys. The Director of the Centre. My boss.
Where did the money come from? That wasn’t hard to find out. There were many documented sources of funding to the Centre, including a moderate-sized grant from the Medical Inspector’s Office which had been received every year for the past fifteen. But those grants were accounted for on programs I knew about. How was the Ebola research funded?
I used my mole program to crack into classified files I had no right to see. It was a huge risk. If they detected the entry they might trace me, and my career would be finished.
I continued anyway, and found evidence of three grants, identical large sums of money, provided by organisations I had never heard of. Shelf companies, set up specifically to hide the source of the funds.
That was as far as I got. I couldn’t find where the money originated, what research was being done on the virus, or what it was for. It was as if no records had ever been kept.
That was impossible. Most researchers spent more time writing grant applications and progress reports, and publishing scientific papers, than they did carrying out their research. It was worse than strange — it was highly suspicious.
The PocketBook began to beep urgently. One of Ben’s security programs had been activated.
WARNING! ENTRY DETECTED. LINKS BEING TRACED.
‘Who?’ I yelled at the mike.
HIGH LEVEL! CANCEL SEARCH?
I panicked and did an emergency shutdown. High level meant something higher than the police or even the Medical Board. Something like National Security. I must be close to uncovering something very nasty. Either incompetence on a grand scale, or worse!
More than a hundred thousand people were dead already. The truth about the epidemic would destroy hundreds of careers. My life, and Kirrily’s, weren’t worth a cent.
On the other hand, the good thing about using the Tantalum satellite uplink was that my account, and the records that could trace me to here, were on computer databases in the US. National Security must approach its US counterpart for the data. Procedures would have to be followed before the satellite company would part with the data. It gave me a little time, but I knew they’d find me within hours.
That thought was demolished by the next. Once Security identified me they’d know where to look. I’d been scanned at a dozen checkpoints since leaving home. This house was in my name.
Where could I go? With all the rain, I couldn’t drive anywhere that wasn’t a proper road. The only place I could go was into the forest. There was plenty of it around here. A skilled bushwalker could hide for months. But I wasn’t a skilled bushwalker and I had Kirrily. I couldn’t leave her. I’d been down that path before.
There was an old track, I remembered, that led across the paddocks a kilometer or so to the escarpment. The rugged slopes below that were clothed in rainforest. There were caves, too. We would have a last day together, if I could get Kirrily there.
I threw bags, blankets, food and other essentials into the car, enough to do us for several days. I lifted Kirrily onto the back seat. She weighed nothing. I drove, wheels spinning in the mud, down to the edge of the escarpment. It was raining heavily and banners of mist streamed up over the edge. I carried her down into the forest, and along to the third of the caves. There I laid her on a blanket. I ran back for the rest of the gear, dumped it in the cave and staggered up to the car. I thought my heart was going to explode by the time I got there. My ankle, the one that had been repaired, started to throb.
I roared across to the house, parked the car, hid the keys and stumbled back along the track. The rain was already washing away the car tracks, I was pleased to see.
I reached the cave. My ankle and foot were now extremely painful, as if the bones had moved and were grinding against each other. There are no miracles! I thought. Kirrily lay on the blanket exactly as before. I dripped a few more teaspoons of beef broth into her. She kept it down but it didn’t seem to be making any difference. This was where the real miracle was needed.
Well, let’s say I had a day to find out the truth. There must be records in several places. In the Centre, in whatever shadowy institution was funding them, and perhaps in the Medical Inspector’s Office.
I made a couple of reconnaissance searches over GoverNet but the alarm went wild. It was too dangerous — their security systems were on high alert. I had the same result with the Medical Inspector’s computers. That left the Centre. I knew their system pretty well.
No longer daring to use my access code, I used the mole to get in. As I did the PocketBook lost the signal. I tried to get it back but there was nothing coming through at all. What had gone wrong? Had they frozen my account? If so, I really was finished. Then I recalled that message in the handbook. Maybe the satellite had moved out of range, or behind the escarpment, so it couldn’t get through the roof of the cave.
I ran outside, a garbage bag over my head and the precious PocketBook. Pointing the aerial at the sky, suddenly the signal was back.
Then the search froze.
CREDIT EXHAUSTED.
I couldn’t believe it. My account balance had been over $8,000 when I began. Surely the charges couldn’t be that high. I tapped in my cheque account number. I held my breath.
ACCOUNT ACCEPTED!
Now I worked desperately, knowing that there wasn’t much in the account. I used everything I had ever learned about computers, and what Ben had taught me so long ago. I mined the network to the best of my ability but what I was looking for simply wasn’t there.
There must have been less money in the account than I’d thought, for after twenty minutes,
CREDIT EXHAUSTED.
I only have the one credit card. I gave its number. It didn’t have a high limit either.
ACCOUNT ACCEPTED.
The files had to be in the Centre somewhere. They couldn’t run the Ebola Program without them. Then I had a flash of insight. One computer I had never seen on the network was the Director’s own, that squat black cube in her office. Maybe it wasn’t connected to the CentreNet at all, the perfect security. Or was it?
I scratched at a memory — something Ben had showed me in those late night talks so long ago. It had to do with using the electrical wiring of the building to network computers together. If the Director’s computer was plugged in … I typed a search into the PocketBook and up Ben’s program came. It found the Director’s computer right away. I ran the Code Cracker and suddenly I was in. I searched for my mother’s name. Jackpot!
Abstract.
The Modified Ebola RNA String shows considerable promise as a biological agent. The Human Genetic Diversity Database indicates particular problem genetic types which can be targeted by the virus, a concept first proposed by Athanor, C (2004, 2005a, b, c, 2006a). Research in our own Genetic Bio-Engineering Lab is now well advanced. Shortly we will begin pilot testing with suitable clients.
I felt a chill of horror. It couldn’t be true. The references must have been put there to get at her, or me. I highlighted the five references by my mother and called them up.
I had just begun to read when I heard the whuff-whuff-whuff of a helicopter, flying low. They must have been desperate to fly in this weather. It was blowing a gale, visibility was about 20 metres, and the hills were wreathed in mist. The helicopter roared then went away again.
By the time I’d read the first reference there was no doubt. No wonder these papers were held under the highest security. My mother’s work on the design of future societies had proven unexpectedly difficult, and she’d gone off on a tangent. A project to cleanse the human gene pool of problem genes, by targeting it with particular viruses.
She’d not been thinking about eliminating whole races, or genetic variants — at least, she’d not written about doing that. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. Surely her research had not had that intention, though the possibilities were perfectly obvious from what she didn’t say.
Her research had redesigned the future, in the most monstrous way possible. My first impulse was to delete the files and try to cover it up. But I couldn’t, not even to save my mother’s name, or my own. Anyway, the files would be backed up somewhere.
The discovery still didn’t give me what I needed so desperately. I continued my search into the other two questions — the purpose of the current research and the source of the money. Then I heard the chopper again.
It appeared out of the strands of cloud, only a few hundred metres away. I crouched down between the rocks. I didn’t think they’d seen me, among the foliage with a green garbage bag over my head. But they knew I was here somewhere.
When it was gone I ran down to the cave, gave Kirrily some more soup from the eye dropper, bathed her brow and hugged her. ‘Don’t leave me!’ I cried. She still looked no better, though she didn’t throw up this lot either.
I ran out under a tree, tapping furiously at the keyboard, running half a dozen searches at once. Another chopper appeared, a big, armoured military transport, bristling with antennae. It headed down the escarpment in the other direction.
Suddenly a different alarm went off and the screen went fuzzy. I shifted to another frequency and the search continued. While it was going on I set up the email program, searching the Directory for dozens of addresses and popping them into the mail slots, one by one.
The beeper sounded and suddenly I had it — a series of memos from Prof. Chalmys, detailing progress on the Human Genome Cleansing Project. The evidence was absolutely damning. The memos didn’t have an addressee, but I found a link to videos of a face I knew very well, demanding faster progress on the project. ‘The cleansing isn’t going fast enough,’ the President, the great sporting hero, raged.
CREDIT EXHAUSTED.
I heard the military chopper coming back. I could have torn my hair out. I only needed a few minutes but I wasn’t going to get them. I didn’t have any other accounts. I typed in the number of my main research account.
ACCOUNT INVALID.
I typed in another, the Centre’s petty cash account.
ACCOUNT INVALID.
They had cut off my access to those accounts, of course.
The noise of the chopper was deafening. They knew I was here. What could I do? I remembered that Kirrily had a savings account with a few hundred dollars in it. It could also be operated by my signature. I battered the number into the keyboard and prayed.
ACCOUNT INVALID.
I felt like smashing it with my head. Had they frozen our personal accounts already? I checked the number in my personal directory. I had a digit wrong. I corrected it, hit the button.
ACCOUNT ACCEPTED.
Last of all, in case I didn’t survive and Kirrily did, I typed a brief letter explaining about her and her father, attached copies of the incriminating files, added General Anders-Lofts’ email address and put it in the mail queue.
Too late! With a deafening roar the big military chopper landed on the grassy edge of the escarpment, not fifty metres away. Leaves and water droplets blasted into my face. About twenty soldiers leapt out, waving weapons.
I queued the files, clicked TRANSMIT and turned on the video eye above the screen. Then I ducked away between the rocks and came out on the other side of the chopper. Putting up my hands, I walked slowly toward them. I had no idea what to expect.
The soldiers surrounded me, their weapons raised. They did a body search, very thoroughly. They were coldly courteous. And why wouldn’t they be? Any one of them could have broken me in half, bare-handed. I wondered if they had orders to shoot me.
‘I don’t think you’ll be needing all those weapons,’ I said with an attempt at a smile.
‘You don’t look quite … what we expected,’ muttered a burly soldier as he handcuffed me.
‘Will you come with us please, Dr Athanor?’ said their leader. He was younger than me, though a full Colonel. ‘Stand here!’ Weapons were trained on my chest. He seemed to be under some strain. ‘If you attempt to escape I have orders to shoot to kill.
‘Find her computer, and the child!’ he barked to his troops. A group ran off in the direction I had appeared from. I held my breath. It would take some time to transmit all those files, even if Kirrily’s money lasted …
‘I have to go to my daughter!’ I said.
‘Stay where you are! Where is she?’
I gave directions. ‘She’s dying of the fever. You’ll need isolation suits.’
Two medics were despatched down the track, shortly to return with Kirrily on a stretcher. She looked so tiny.
‘Did you find it?’ the Colonel demanded.
‘No!’ said the first medic.
I wanted to sit down. My foot was killing me. I would have cheerfully exchanged it for the old one if it could have saved her. I took Kirrily’s hand. The medics put her in a portable isolation chamber, with a drip in her arm.
The Colonel began to talk urgently on the radio. He kept looking back at me uneasily. ‘I’d better have that in writing!’ he snapped into the mike.
The response made him jump. He issued orders. ‘Form a firing party. Don’t shoot until I give the order.’
Two soldiers led me to a solitary beech, a gnarled old thing covered in moss and trailing lichens. Six others pointed their weapons. I didn’t feel anything except a strange, momentary exhilaration. My atonement, at last.
The Colonel paced back and forth. ‘Anything on the fax?’
‘No!’ shouted someone from inside the chopper.
The fog swirled in and reduced visibility to a few metres. The firing party moved closer. I didn’t say anything, and nor did they. I knew what they were thinking, though. How could this little woman, hampered by a dying child, possibly be any threat to the nation?
Inside the chopper a radio began to chatter. I couldn’t hear what was said, but I heard the operator say incredulously, ‘Confirm, confirm!’
The radio chattered again. The operator came running out and spoke urgently to the Colonel.
‘Firing party, lower arms,’ snapped the Colonel. He personally unlocked the cuffs. He didn’t know where to look.
They escorted me to the chopper. I strapped in beside the isolation chamber. We sat uncomfortably, waiting for the fog to lift.
‘I wonder,’ I said casually, though my heart was going flat out, ‘if we could see what’s on NetNews. You might want to collect my PocketBook, over by that rock. I dare say it’ll be evidence — you’ve been on the net for the past twenty minutes.’
The Colonel almost had a heart attack. He ran and fetched it himself, then sat there, just staring at the open files.
‘Lucky you didn’t shoot me,’ I whispered.
The addresses I had transmitted those files to included the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Department of Defence, every news agency in the country and key agencies in New York, London, Paris, Singapore and Tokyo. The video of my arrest had run live on NetNews, until the Colonel closed down the PocketBook.
It was more than enough. A State of Emergency had been declared. The President had committed suicide, his wife was under arrest, as was Margaret Mulcted of the Medical Inspector’s Office and Prof. Eolie Chalmys. The Government had fallen, the Centre and the Medical Inspector’s Offices were sealed and guarded by a batallion of troops. The story was on all twelve channels of NetNews.
It was over and I had won, though I could not have cared less. Kirrily was no better. She seemed to be slipping into a coma. When the fog lifted we flew straight to Sydney and she was whisked into a hospital ward.
I sat by her side day and night. A thousand people wanted to see me, and though I avoided most of them there were some I had to see. Like the new Prime Minister, and the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Defence Forces, Ben’s uncle, who had been ordered to have me killed but had stayed the order.
He was a handsome, harried man who reminded me of Ben. He gazed at Kirrily through the isolation chamber. ‘Ben was always my favourite,’ he said, shaking his head.
There was also a very persistent man from the Centre, who looked rather like a ferret. I refused to see him. He refused to go away.
The doctors tried a variety of new drugs on Kirrily, some experimental. She got worse, and I knew she was dying. Then she got better. Then she got worse again. I despaired. My terrible crime was getting its due at last.
Though I’d been awake for days, I could not sleep. I dozed fitfully in the chair by her bedside. I held her hand all night, taking comfort from it as I slept. Then, just as another day was dawning I felt her fingers slip out of my hand.
The shock woke me at once. I sat up, expecting to see her lying dead in the bed. She wasn’t there at all. ‘Kirrily!’ I screamed.
I felt something touch my other hand. ‘I’m starving, mum,’ came a hoarse little whisper. ‘What’s for breakfast?’ I knew I was dreaming. I knew she was dead. Then I turned my head and she was kneeling on the floor by my chair, smiling up at me. She was so terribly, terribly thin, my Kirrily, my love. She was going to live.
‘What are you doing out of bed?’ I said.
‘I’m sick of bed. Is there anything to eat?’
‘Whatever you want in the world,’ I said. ‘And after breakfast …’
‘I want to go looking for frogs.’
The old nurse, who had just come in, was scandalised. ‘We don’t have any frogs here. Nasty, slimy things!’ She lifted Kirrily back into bed.
‘They’re not slimy!’ Kirrily croaked, annoyed.
‘As soon as you’re better,’ I said, ‘we’re going home. You and I are going looking for frogs.’
‘I don’t know where to look,’ said Kirrily.
‘I used to find them between the old water tank and the wall of the house, when I was nine.’
‘Oh, mum!’ said Kirrily, as if I was the most wonderful parent in the world.
I imagined that I was, for a second, until old memories drifted to the surface. I put them as far in the past as they would go. I would never be free of my baby. I didn’t want to be.
The man from the Centre pushed into the room. ‘I’ve got to see you!’ ferret-face said self-importantly.
‘I’m glad you’re here.’ I handed him a letter. ‘It’s my resignation. I’m finished with the Centre.’
‘But … I’ve come to offer you the position of Director!’ He dropped his voice. ‘We’re even prepared to destroy those papers of your mother’s. No one need ever know what she did.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said.
‘But surely you want to protect her reputation?’ he exclaimed.
For just an instant I was tempted. Then I thought better of it. Cyssa’s work had laid the foundations for the world that had just come crashing down, maybe even the Genes Act itself . ‘Not if it’s a lie. I plan to put all her papers on the net, so everyone will know the truth.’
‘What about your research? This is the most exciting opportunity in the country. There’s thirty years of damage to undo. A whole new society to create!’
‘I don’t want it. It was never my work anyway. It was always hers, and now I’ve finished it.’ Though not the way she ever intended. ‘I don’t plan to do any of my own. Anyway, it’s folly for anyone to try to design the future. Nature does it so much better.’
He went out. I hit the TRANSMIT button on the PocketBook. It was done. My baby could rest in peace.
‘Let’s get some breakfast, Kirrily. What do you say to waffles with cream and maple syrup?’
‘And ice cream?’
‘As much as you can eat.’
