Wednesday

On Wednesday morning, you still weren’t exactly sure what your new job was, or who was paying you, but you went back to the institute to compile statistics on the number of healthcare professionals exposed to a novel virus sweeping the country.

You stopped to feed Dr. Khan’s dogs on the way in.

No word from Dr. Khan, Mac and Sara. They must be where they were going by now. You saw Katia’s white car parked near the Institute, but she was nowhere in sight.

You began the process of consolidating merge requests for Wednesday’s data for the East Coast around nine o’clock from a distributed group of volunteers.

It was just Jody alone in the conference room.

You begin to make the acquaintance of your various new colleagues by their chat handles and avatars.

You looked at the little tripod conference phone while waiting for data to come in. The conference phone had an 802 number. That’s funny.

You had brought a three bean salad from your refrigerator at home. No need to do food runs if it’s just you today.

You took a break around four o’clock to feed Thor and Lightning.

By five o’clock, you were merging your second complete day of individual count data on a national level, which gave you one step in a differential rate of change.

On Tuesday, the number of exposed healthcare professionals nationally had been about 538. By Wednesday, the count was 1585. That was a bit scary for a rate of change, basically three-fold in a day. However, there were millions of healthcare professionals nationally, so you comforted yourself knowing only a very small fraction had been exposed, so far. But you knew too much about exponential growth to take much comfort in the magnitude of current counts.

You didn’t need to plot or do much interpretation to see vaccination rates. Only five hospitals seemed to have gotten the memo and begun deploying available vaccine stockpiles: one near Baltimore, one in Boston, a New York City hospital, San Francisco, and a hospital near Atlanta. They were able to cover those that had been exposed, but they had stopped short of vaccinating their entire staff. Presumably, they were already rationing their current vaccine stocks.

Even the most conservative epidemiological models suggest that ring vaccination alone, after an attack of this magnitude, would be totally inadequate to contain the subsequent outbreak.

The fragment of a commentary from a USAMRIID epidemiologist echoed from the nightmares of your bedtime reading.

You plotted the data on a national map and began flying around looking for anomalies of cases per capita.

The most obvious feature that presented itself regarding exposed healthcare professionals per capita was that certain locations with higher exposure had also hosted major events in the previous weeks.

In those population centers, the fraction of healthcare workers exposed was already approaching fifty percent. More rural healthcare systems were seeing far fewer cases. Major urban hospital systems were seeing a fair number of cases per capita.

You were looking at your map and trying to spoon the last beans from the clear plastic clamshell when someone walked by the conference room.

You looked up to see a large black man dressed in a uniform had passed by in the hall. He doubled back and poked his head in the conference room to say:

“Is this nonproliferation?, Is this the center for the uh let me see here. “

“Yes. You’re in the right spot.” you say.

“I’ve got two envelopes here for a Dr. Khan at nonproliferation.”, he said.

You see from his uniform the delivery business is called Carl the Courier with a cartoon caterpillar holding a parcel.

This second Carl is setting off your warning bells.

“Carl?” you ask.

“Ha, no. My name is Francis. Carl the Courier was just the name of the business when I bought it.”, he said.

“See” he says pointing to the embroidered Francis on his uniform.

“So you bought the courier business from Carl?”, you ask.

“Nah, I bought it from a guy named Jose, He bought it from a gut name Scott. There may have been a Carl in the 50’s, but we just liked the name.” Francis explained.

“Anyway, I’ve got two envelopes here.” he says as he hands you a large white envelope addressed to the center. The return address in the upper left hand corner simply reads:

Alliance of
Like-minded
Independent
Cryptocurrency
Experts

There is no other return address. There are no post-markings or machine labels. The paper felt thick and soft.

He hands you a clipboard with an empty manifest to sign for the first envelope.

As soon as you sign he reaches in his bag to pull out a black coin envelope the size of a credit card. Inside is what feels like a heavy metal card with plastic protectors on either side.

“Do you know what a wallet is? Like for cryptocurrency?” he asks.

“I think I did that once. Like the twelve words?”, you say.

“Exactly” he said.

You sign for the black envelope too.

“What’s your name kid?”, he asks.

“Jody” you say.

Francis types your name into his phone and snaps a picture of the completed manifest with the conference room in the background. You hear a whoosh as a message leaves his phone.

Francis takes out a large vape and takes a drag. You and Francis wait awkwardly in silence for a moment.

You listen closer; it isn’t silence.

Francis isn’t setting off your alarm bells. There are literal car alarms going off all around the institute. You hear a kid screaming and someone frantically whistling.

“Were we just in an earthquake Francis?” you ask.

“Don’t think so.” he says, “I get USGS alerts on my smart watch.”

You hear an 8-bit video game coin sound effect emanate from Francis’ phone.

“Alright kid. I’m out.” Francis says as he turns to leave.

Francis walks into the hallway but then slowly walks backward into the conference room with his hands raised.

The conference phone starts ringing. You go to answer, but there is no time.

From the main entrance, a loud male voice yells “CLEAR!”.

You turn your head to see a canister knock it’s way down the hallway. You close your eyes and try to protect your head with your arms as the flash bang explodes.

Federal storm troopers marked as POLICE fill every room in the wing, pointing military-style rifles and yelling contradictory orders.

“DOWN ON THE GROUND; HANDS UP! HANDS BEHIND YOUR BACK; GET BACK! ON YOUR KNEES!”

You just sit stunned at the conference table, too scared to move.

They get Francis pinned on the ground zip-tied calling him the N-word as they try to scan his face while also holding him to the ground with a knee in his back.

“You can’t say that word.” you say, but you’re knocked in the forehead with the butt of a rifle in rebuttal.

“Scan whatever that is quick before it swells or you’ll never get a green.” you hear one of them say.

You get zip-tied and maneuvered up by your shoulder so they can scan your face.

[BOOP]

“Red letter. No good.” the storm trooper mutters through a mask.

“Chin up kid. Try it again.” says the commanding officer.

He presses the palm of his hand into your temple to momentarily reduce the swelling like a boxing coach.

You open your eyes as much as possible and lift your head up.

[BEEP]

“Green. Lucky day kid.”, he says as he drops your shoulder.

The storm troopers leave you zip-tied on the floor at the end of the conference table as they begin rolling in demolition waste bins and clearing the contents of every room on the wing.

Papers, books, journals, electronics, personal effects, you can hear as every desk and filing cabinet is popped and drilled open. Every single piece of electronic equipment is put in a steel bin and carted toward the curb where you can hear the screeching of garbage trucks consuming the contents of the institute.

You see the boots of someone clearing the conference table. All the papers, the phone, your workstation. The white envelope Francis just delivered gets knocked on the floor, but is quickly slam dunked into the bin. Everything goes in a demolition bin, everything but the dumb smart TV mounted to the wall.

You look around to notice that underneath the conference table is like a little safe room. The table is made of two solid vertical supports running most of the length. The table is like a giant double T-beam.

‘Avoid capture at all costs.’ you hear Sara say.

You crawl underneath the conference table toward the middle, but just before you reach the halfway point, the floor gives out and you tumble forward off a trap-door head first.

You summersault forward and downward until your head is caught in someone’s arms. The rest of your body keeps tumbling over and your feet land on a firm mat.

“Are you okay Jody”, you hear a familiar voice.

It’s Katia.

“I think so. I’m just a bit concussed.” you say.

You see the trap door close above you and latch. You hear a piercing screech as your ears pop from a sudden increase in air pressure.

You see a lone white carry-on suitcase in a nook.

“Am I in the vault?” you ask.

“You’re in a fallout shelter Jody.” Katia says, “You are safe here. The room goes into a safe room scenario when that entrance is used. There is no way for anyone to get in here now.”

You begin to examine the room as your eyes adjusted to the dim lighting.

You see a shower head and an open drain on the floor. You recognize an eye wash station.

“May I?” you ask and point with your elbow.

“Of course, that’s what it’s for.” Katia says as she motions toward your wrists with a pair of diagonal cutters.

She cuts you loose, and you rinse the chemicals from the flash bang from your eyes and face. The eyewash station solution doesn’t rinse off concussion.

Katia shines a flashlight in your eyes, which doesn’t fix concussion either.

You both watch on dull green monitors as the storm troopers ransack the institute.

They take Francis, they take the security guard.

You watch as the storm troopers leave the front door of the institute open with every door and lock broken. The only limiting factor to the raid was the rate the hydraulic jaws of dump trucks could chew through the contents of the demolition bins.

“What was in the envelope Jody? Who was it for and who was it from?”, Katia asked.

“It was for Dr. Khan. From some kind of alliance. I didn’t open it.” You say.

“That was fast, but also too late.” Katia said.

The two of you watch on a monitor as they clear the contents of the computer lab and basement storage rooms.

You wait nervously as they examine the door of the fallout shelter.

“Listen to me Jody.” Katia said.

“There are things I need to tell you”, she says, “I need you to repeat after me.”

“Specification, infection, selection.” Katia said.

“What?” you say, still a bit tumbled.

Katia tries again: “Repeat after me, Specification, infection, selection.”

“Specification, infection, selection.” you say.

“Good.” Katia says.

“There is a field of white flowers, but every fiftieth flower is red.”, Katia says.

“I don’t understand”, you say.

“Shhh!”

“There is a field of white flowers, but one of every fifty flowers is red.”, she repeats.

“You take the red flower. You say this is the one, but more. That is your specification.”

“You pick all the red flowers, and you burn the field. Then you sow only red flowers. When your flowers grow, you harvest the seeds of the red ones and burn the rest again. You repeat this process until only red flowers grow.”

“Finally, when you take your seeds, and compare them with seeds in the wild, you have a measure of what you did to nature. Anyone can see what you did with the earth and the magnitude of your actions. They can count the seasons and what you did to the soil.” Katia says.

She pauses briefly,

“Do you understand what I’ve said.” Katia asks.

“It’s possible to accentuate a naturally occurring specimen through a process of husbandry and selection.” you stammer.

“Good.” Katia says.

She then continued.

“I’m not from Ukraine Jody. I was born there, but I am from somewhere much farther east.”

“My mother was a doctor. She was educated at a time when it was very common for women to be doctors, and equals with men. She was very brilliant. She was caring.”

“But she was too smart, too proud, and too caring to be in the place where she was born.”

“She deduced, as part of her work, that there seemed to be a place where people were sent where no one ever returned. She asked too many questions about that place, so the authorities eventually told her that if she was truly interested in finding the answers to her questions, she must go. And they would arranged for her passage.”

“The place was like a prison, or a camp, but with a despicable unspeakable purpose. It had many different configurations. There were cells outside and inside. Large groups of cells and individual cells placed at varying distances.”

“The place was profoundly isolated by geography. It was only accessible by rail.”

“They put her in that prison. They raped her. They mocked her for questioning. They mocked her empathy. They said she could be reborn as a cure for empathy.”

“They put her in various cells adjacent the sick until she became infected. She knew no one could be allowed to leave that place alive, so she pretended to be dead after the sixth day of being sick. They took samples from her and threw her in a pit.”

“Her body was scarred by the disease and the lime they threw in the pits. She was partially blinded. But she made it back to the train tracks and covered herself in dirt to wait. She caught that train and she hid under the train.”

“When the train reached the end of the line, she hid herself on the longest train she knew would be going in the other direction from its markings. When that second train finally stopped, she asked a stranger to take her to a couple who wanted a child but had been unable to have one. The stranger took her to a farm. That is where I was born. Those were the parents that raised me.”

“What happened to your mother?” you ask,

“My mother knew her scars and her entire body was evidence. Her body was evidence that an international treaty had been broken. It was evidence of the intent to commit the worst crime against humanity possible. She knew if the authorities ever found her, with her scars, and the fact that she had now given birth, it would eventually lead them to me, and they would kill us both.”

“She told my adopted mother her story. She wrote down the red and white flowers in a letter for my eighteenth birthday. She instructed me to always flee from evil and keep the secret of the weapon alive.”

“With my adopted father’s help, she had all the evidence of the existence of the weapon she carried through her body destroyed forever. Only the secret she passed to me remained.”

“I’m so sorry.” you say.

“Jody. There is no science fiction. There was nothing invented. There was no splicing, no editing, or cross-breeding, no new genetic design techniques. The weapon was made through specification, infection and selection. The weapon was made by rejecting humanity, and embracing death and secrecy. Do you understand?”

“I think so.” you say.

“I have to leave this place tonight Jody.” Katia said. “I’m telling you the secret so you can understand who you are fighting and how to stop them.”

“Alice will be coming back.” Katia said.

“Who is Alice?” You ask,

“The Alliance wants something from you Jody.” She said. “They know you are here, you signed for Dr. Khan. The alliance wants something; they will not stop.”

“But their courier was captured. He was probably taken to a detention center, which is probably not good given the circumstances.” you say.

“They’ll send someone else.” Katia said.

“Are they good people? Should I work for them?”, you ask.

“If the Alliance is looking to enlist the aid of a country mouse to fight the scariest monsters in the world, you probably don’t want to know what the world will look like if you don’t try to help them.” Katia said.

You and Katia look at the security feed on the old cathode ray tube monitors as the last bin of material from the institute is tipped into the yawning jaws of a garbage truck.

“Do you think we will be seeing red flowers or white flowers?” you ask Katia.

“We won’t really know what we’re looking at for another week. There are many other things they could have done too.” Katia said.

“Why are they doing this?” you asked. “Why are they attacking us?”

“Do you know the parable of the frog and the scorpion?” Katia asked.

“That’s the one where the frog agrees to carry the scorpion across the stream, but the scorpion stings the frog midway and they both drown?” you ask.

“What was the moral of the story? Who had the moral failing?” Katia asked.

“Well the scorpion killed them both, but his retort is that he’s a scorpion.” you offer.

“So where did the real problem lie?” Katia asked.

“The frog didn’t understand the scorpion. The frog was incapable of empathizing with the scorpion.” you say.

“Right now, on the institute’s own website, (if the server was not in a bin) it says the attack currently underway is unlikely because the virus would spread back to the country that launched the attack.” Katia said.

“The institute says the scorpion won’t sting us because it would die too.” you summarize.

“We failed to have empathy with our enemies.” Katia bullets the point.

There was no more action on the feeds. Just empty rooms and offices. A few scattered papers. There was no sound except the hum of the cathode ray tubes and the ballast of the overhead florescent lights.

“Someday soon (or perhaps it has already happened) near the frontlines of the war in my home countries, there will be a young soldier tasked to paint the silhouette of a group of running school children on a tank to see if it will stop an AI-enabled drone targeting system. And on the other side of the frontline, a technician will get a tap on the shoulder to rerun an AI training model without an exclusion set and redeploy an over-the-air update to all active drones.” Katia said.

“The war they are fighting, and the weapons they are building are not confined by geography. They are coming for us next.” She said.

“What if we could stop the war.” you ask.

“It’s quicker and easier to eat your young.” Katia retorts.

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