Chapter 1
Day 1: Accident
A boring Monday, 4:45 p.m.
Employee entrance, Jeshyauss Laboratories, Inc.
Austin, Texas
Nineteen-year-old Joe Magner, the after-shift security guard, held his chip-embedded employee badge against the outside badge-reader. When the light turned green, he pulled the door open and took two steps inside.
Waiting in the hallway, just on the other side of the door, was Charlie, the day-shift employee-area security guard.
Charlie was grinning; he was seconds away from being able to leave. Before Joe could say a word, Charlie said, “Day shift was quiet, I expect for after-shift to be quiet, the flip phone”—Charlie gestured through the open door of the security station—“and the keys are laying on the desk.”
“And you, Charlie, are eager to go home,” Joe said, grinning.
Charlie grinned back. “Yeah, Joe, it is really nice to get a fifteen-minute jump on five o’clock rush-hour traffic.”
Charlie then put his hands on his head and slowly turned around in a 360-degree circle. “No stolen cash from Payroll in my pockets, no microscope hidden in the front of my shirt, no Petri dish shoved down the back on my shirt. I’m clean.”
Charlie rolled a sectioned table out of the security station and into the hallway. “Shall I empty my pockets for your inspection?”
Joe laughed. “Go home.”
Charlie reached a hand into the security station and smacked something.
Joe was smiling as he said, “Hey, that’s my job to hit the Okay button now, because this is my shift.”
Charlie grinned at him. “Right now I’m faster than you, because two green lights mean I get to go home.”
By the inside of the door was a badge-reader device, which still showed its usual red light. But by the badge-reader was a big green light; that light had been red till Charlie had smacked the Okay button. So long as the big light stayed red, the badge-reader would not recognize any badge, and every employee who wished to leave was trapped inside the building.
Which in turn meant that from this minute till Joe himself left Jeshyauss Laboratories at 1:15 a.m., every employee needed Joe’s permission to leave the building.
Meanwhile, Charlie had unclipped his employee badge from the breast pocket of his security-guard shirt. Charlie now was holding his employee badge against the badge-reader.
The badge-reader’s light turned green, which now matched the green color of the big light. Charlie opened the door. “And now I’m off the clock. See you tomorrow, Joe.”
Seconds later, as Joe waved goodbye to Charlie through the glass, the door pulled itself shut. Both the badge-reader’s light, and the big light next to it, turned red.
Joe ducked into the security station, dropped the security-guard flip phone into a pocket, clipped the keys to the belt-loop of his uniform pants, and returned to the hallway.
For eight minutes, Joe stood in the hallway, bored. At 4:53, Joe got his second “customer” of the night: a young woman from Personnel. Joe made a brief search through her purse, then patted down the pockets of the coat that she was carrying. Frisking her was, of course, forbidden.
Joe reached into the security station and smacked the Okay button; the Personnel woman already was holding her badge against the badge-reader. The big light turned green; a half-second later, the little badge-reader light also turned green; then the Personnel woman was gone.
****
5:06 p.m.
Joe hit the Okay button so that Stan, who was the day-shift front-desk security guard, could go home. While the day-shift employee-area security guard (Charlie) had an after-shift relief (Joe), the front-desk guard (Stan) had no such relief. At five o’clock, the front doors locked; no one could get into the building after five o’clock, unless he came in through the employee door and he used his employee badge to get through that door.
Now Stan walked out the employee door, clocking himself out in the process. Joe looked back behind. About fifty employees were standing in line, each waiting for Joe to hit the Okay button for him or her.
Most of the waiting employees were smiling at Joe: The smilers were hourly, and every minute they stood in line earned them money.
****
5:25 p.m.
Joe watched as April, the last of Jeshyauss Laboratories’ leave-at-five crowd of mostly hourly employees, walked out the employee-entrance door. She smiled at Joe and waved.
Joe knew why April was smiling: Until Joe let her walk out the door, she was still on the clock and was still earning hourly wages. The hourly employees liked it when Joe was thorough as a security guard.
Also leaving at five o’clock tonight, and impatient at being kept waiting, had been two lawyers from Legal and some flashy guys from Sales—all salaried. Two salaried medical researchers also had been in the go-home-at-five line; they had borne the wait patiently. Neither of the go-home-at-five medical researchers had been Aunt Brooke; Joe had not been surprised one bit.
Now Joe stood by the door, in the now-empty hallway, for five more minutes, in case more of the salaried employees decided to leave now.
Joe got zilch action for five minutes.
At 5:30, Joe rolled the sectioned table into the security station, locked the security-station door, and began his rounds.
****
Jeshyauss Laboratories did gene-sequencing and other work in genetics, to invent new medical treatments. Jeshyauss Laboratories, so Aunt Brooke had told Joe, was famous in the medical industry for its artificial viruses.
“Aunt Brooke” was 31-year-old Brooke Sinise, Ph.D. She worked at Jeshyauss Laboratories as a geneticist, and Joe thought she was wicked smart—certainly about genetics.
There were always salaried people working well past five o’clock at Jeshyauss—for the past six months or so, Aunt Brooke had always been among them. And sure enough, when Joe’s 5:30 rounds took him past Research Laboratory 17 on the second floor, Joe saw Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker inside.
But oddly, Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker were not doing whatever mysterious research-things they usually did. Now Dr. Baker was grinning as he handed Aunt Brooke a Coca-Cola—in a shaped glass bottle! Aunt Brooke was grinning as she accepted the glass bottle; then Dr. Baker toasted her with his own bottle of Coke.
Curious, Joe held his badge up to the badge-reader by RL17’s door and walked in.
Joe was not the only curious person. Teppo the janitor, a man with a foreign accent, at the moment was collecting trash in Research Laboratory 15; Joe noticed the janitor watching, through several glass walls, as Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker guzzled Coke.
****
Seconds later
In Research Laboratory 17, Jeshyauss Laboratories
Joe said, “Hey, Aunt Brooke, Dr. Baker, what’s going on?”
Aunt Brooke grinned. “Nephew, you are looking at two future Nobel Prize winners, I’m sure. Not bad for a former yoga instructor and”—she looked at Dr. Baker—“a former Marine corporal.”
Dr. Baker said, “We also celebrate today because any employee who owns shares of JL stock”—his Coke bottle pointed at Aunt Brooke, then at himself—“is about to get filthy rich when certain news gets out.”
Joe asked, “Whoa. What did you guys do?”
Aunt Brooke said, “About a year ago, I discovered a gene sequence on Chromosome 11 that actually reverses the aging process in women of childbearing years. Every human cell—whether belonging to a man or a woman, a baby or a geriatric—has two Chromosomes 11 in the cell. Well, over 99 percent of women have this youthening gene sequence in at least one Chromosome 11. And only one copy of this gene sequence is all the Delta virus needs.”
Joe said, “So you are celebrating because . . .?”
“Five minutes ago, we perfected an artificial virus, the Delta virus, that is 99-percent guaranteed to turn on those youthening genes in any woman we inject with the Delta virus. Joe, can you imagine how many women would want one of those shots to roll back the calendar?”
Dr. Baker grinned. “Can you imagine how much those women would pay for those shots? I can think of several fortyish Hollywood actresses who would consider a million dollars to be a bargain if they could look nineteen again.”
Joe stared. “Nineteen? Your shot will make women truly look nineteen again?”
Dr. Baker said, “Yes. A woman’s skeleton, her muscles, her skin, her internal organs—the Delta virus makes them all become young again. Only dental damage and a woman’s remaining egg-count can’t be rejuvenated. What Ponce de Leon looked for, Dr. Sinise and I have found! Well, for half the population, anyway.”
Joe said, “Hold on. If 99 out of 100 women have this in their chromosome, why do all women age? Why aren’t these genes kicking in?”
Dr. Baker sighed. “Because the rejuvenation gene-sequence in women is part of a bigger gene-sequence that activates under very emergency conditions.”
Aunt Brooke said, “The bigger gene sequence, which we named ‘EBS,’ is of no medical value. We studied it much, using VIRFE—that’s the Virtual Female program. We even went so far as to create a practice virus, the Gamma virus, that would activate the EBS in real women patients.”
Dr. Baker said, “Don’t worry, we’ve never exposed any real woman patient to the Gamma-series virus. Nor shall we, ever. But VIRFE shows us that if we did inject the perfected Gamma virus, or the woman breathed it, the full EBS would activate in that woman, even without any species-threatening ‘emergency.’ ”
Aunt Brooke said, “Anyway, developing the Gamma-series artificial virus was only practice for developing the Delta-series virus that would give women their youth back. The Delta virus is a stripped-down Gamma virus; but the trick has been how how to strip down the Gamma virus. Which after trial and error, we figured out—the Delta virus, we have just perfected it.”
Aunt Brooke hoisted her half-empty glass bottle of Coca-Cola. She was grinning, and her eyes were glowing, like a little child on Christmas morning.
****
Less than a minute later, Joe said his goodbyes to Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker, and walked out of Research Laboratory 17. Teppo the janitor watched Joe resume his rounds.
Joe thought it was odd that Teppo still was working in the Research Laboratories area. Well, Teppo has always acted a little odd.
****
Ten minutes later
Joe made a quick walk through the third floor, which contained upper-management’s offices, the Accounting Department and the Legal Department, the conference room—and the HazCon bunkroom.
The HazCon bunkroom, which was on the third floor and next to the fire stairs, looked at first like a cheap motel room. The bunkroom had a twin bed; a nightstand by the bed with an in-house telephone on the nightstand; a card table, a folding chair by the card table, and a deck of cards atop the card table; a microwave and refrigerator; and a television. A door led to a tiny bathroom with a toilet and sink.
But also in the bunkroom, hanging from a special hook, was a Hazard Containment suit; and mounted on a wall of the bunkroom was a stainless-steel cabinet that held specialized cleaning supplies.
Four people at Jeshyauss Laboratories were trained in HazCon, and one of them always stayed in the bunkhouse after five o’clock, as long as there was at least one other research-laboratory employee or production-laboratory employee in the building.
Now Joe opened the door and stuck his head in the bunkroom. “Hey, Larry, doing okay?”
Larry Ross, who was normally some sort of supervisor in the Production Laboratories, held up a book. “Looks like a slow night on TV; only good thing will be ‘Vampire Lawyer.’ ”
“So you expect to be bored tonight, you’re saying.”
Larry nodded. “Bored silly. Unless the book is good.”
****
Five minutes later
Joe finished his rounds for that hour, which consisted of—
• noting which salaried people were working late in the building;
• looking out for spies, saboteurs, and terrorists; and
• checking for signs of forced entry into the laboratories.
While the last two parts of Joe’s job were by far the most important, they were also the most unlikely. So in practice, “making rounds” meant nodding and waving at the scientists and technicians as Joe walked past their laboratories.
Fifteen minutes after Joe finished talking to Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker on the second floor, and five minutes after Joe touched base with Larry on the third floor, Joe was on the first floor. He walked up to the security station that was by the employee-entrance door.
****
5:45 p.m.
Waiting for Joe were seven salaried employees who needed his permission to leave the building. For whatever reason, six of the seven were women. One of the women was Aunt Brooke; the only man in line was Dr. Baker.
“Jeez, took you long enough,” said a pinched-faced woman who had been working in the Legal Department five minutes earlier.
As Joe unlocked the security-station door, he said, “Do you rush through your job? I don’t rush mine.”
Aunt Brooke applauded, while Dr. Baker said, “Good one!’
The woman lawyer glared at the two research scientists.
Joe was just about to give the six female employees and Dr. Baker a quick security screening when Teppo the janitor rushed up to the door.
****
One second later
“I in my car sumsink leaved,” Teppo said to Joe in his unusual accent. “I to go need it to take.”
Joe was already reaching into the security station, to slap the Okay button, when he noticed—
Teppo has a bulge in his pants pocket. A bulge that is just like what a small test tube would make.
Joe’s left hand, which had been reaching for the Okay button, now moved forward and down; Joe grabbed Teppo’s wrist. Joe shoved his right hand into Teppo’s pants pocket and plucked out—
—a rubber-stoppered test tube, around which was black marker-pen handwriting on a blue label.
“Fuck,” said Dr. Baker.
“[Foreign words]!” Teppo exclaimed.
Teppo broke free of Joe’s grip, as his other hand grabbed the test tube out of Joe’s hand. Teppo’s empty hand flailed around inside the security station, trying to hit the Okay button.
Joe tried to grab the test tube back from Teppo, but Teppo moved his hand away.
Dr. Baker rushed forward and grabbed Teppo’s forearm with both his hands; one of Dr. Baker’s hands was pressing down on the janitor’s tendons. “Let go of it, dickwad,” Dr. Baker growled.
Teppo did some kind of twisting and pulling thing with his arm, so that he broke free of Dr. Baker’s grip. But with the restraint on Teppo’s forearm suddenly gone, the forearm acted like a catapult.
Joe saw the test tube zoom up, bounce off the ceiling, and hit the floor between the lawyer-lady and Aunt Brooke.
Glass shattered.
****
One second later
While Joe and Dr. Baker again grabbed Teppo the janitor, a woman in Marketing yelled, “We’re all going to die!”
Nobody else said this, but Joe was thinking it, and—judging by people’s expressions—most of the other people also were thinking it. Only Aunt Brooke, Dr. Baker, and Teppo looked unworried.
Aunt Brooke said, “No, dear, a blue label means it’s harmless.”
The lawyer-lady said pompously, “This is not true. Blue label means that there is a risk of illness from accidental exposure, but the odds of illness are less than 1 percent.”
Aunt Brooke rolled her eyes. “Which means, for anyone not a lawyer, the test tube is harmless.”
While Aunt Brooke and the lawyer-lady were arguing, Joe and Dr. Baker had taken Teppo down, so that now he was lying on his stomach on the floor. Joe and Dr. Baker were not gentle as they jerked Teppo’s hands close together, then Joe used his never-before-used handcuffs on Teppo.
Joe remembered the flip phone he was carrying, and pulled it out of his pocket.
Aunt Brooke asked, “Who are you going to call? Our HazCon guy?”
Joe replied, “No, I’m going to call the police, have them arrest this toad.”
“Nuh-uh,” Dr. Baker said. “Don’t call the police until we get this hazardous spill cleaned up.”
The Marketing woman said, her voice panicky, “But you just told us it was harmless! Were you lying?”
Aunt Brooke said, “It’s procedure. We can’t open the door, even for the police, until this is decontaminated. Joe, call the HazCon guy now, before you do anything else.” Aunt Brooke looked around. “Make yourselves comfortable, folks; we’re here for a while longer.”
“We can’t get rid of that!” said the lawyer-lady. “A crime has been committed, and this broken test tube is evidence.”
“The broken test tube is a health hazard,” Aunt Brooke explained slowly, as to a dunce, “whether its label is blue or magenta,” meaning 99-percent fatal. “Joe, I’m serious, hurry up and call the HazCon guy.”
****
Minutes later
Larry, wearing his HazCon suit, walked into the hallway. He was carrying a stainless-steel box, from which he unpacked a handheld vacuum cleaner, an LED flashlight, and a bottle of rubbing alcohol. The handheld, battery-operated vacuum cleaner did not look like something sold in a big-box store; rather, the vacuum cleaner looked like it had been designed by cyborgs aboard a cube-shaped starship.
Now Larry used the small LED flashlight, which he laid flat on the floor, to find every piece of broken glass and every chunk of gelatin. Then HazCon-suited Larry, rather than vacuum up that piece of glass or gelatin, splashed rubbing alcohol on the piece of glass or chunk of gelatin. Soon the hallway smelled like a hospital.
But before Larry alcohol-splashed the broken glass that was attached to the test tube’s blue label, Aunt Brooke knelt and carefully pulled that blue label apart, so that it lay flat on the floor.
“Looks like my handwriting,” Dr. Baker remarked.
Aunt Brooke bent down so she could read the label better. Then Joe saw her whole mood change.
“17-DQ-Gamma-54F,” she read aloud, looking stunned.
Before anyone could ask what this meant, and before Dr. Baker could explain, Aunt Brooke rushed over to Teppo and yanked his head up by his hair. “You spy bastard!” she yelled. “You grabbed the final version of the Gamma virus, and it’s now airborne! Do you know what you’ve done to us women?”
Teppo sneered, “Yess, I to be you the young make. Oh, the life to be so sad is, of you.”
Aunt Brooke used Teppo’s hair to slam his chin against the floor three times. “Idiot! You are an idiot! It’s the Delta-series virus that makes women young! The Gamma-series—”
“Brooke,” Dr. Baker said in a warning tone.
“—the Gamma-series virus does much more than make women young,” Aunt Brooke said.
“Are we going to die?” asked the woman from Marketing.
Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker shared a look.
“No,” said Dr. Baker. “Dying you don’t need to worry about.”
****
A few minutes later
Larry shut off his hand-held vacuum cleaner, and pointed toward the waiting salaried employees. “Joe, the area is decontaminated. You may release them now.”
“I will,” Joe said, “after the police come.”
The lawyer-lady said primly, “When the police come, I will inform them that you destroyed evidence, contrary to the recommendation of a company attorney.”
Larry, Dr. Baker, and Aunt Brooke all gave the lawyer-lady a long, silent stare. Joe said, “Whatever, ma’am.”
As Larry was packing up his gear, the Marketing woman asked, “Is the crisis over?”
Neither Dr. Baker nor Aunt Brooke replied. But Aunt Brooke’s expression said, Lady, your crisis is just starting.
Chapter 2
Still Day 1: Mandatory Meeting
Right after HazCon-suited Larry left the hallway, Joe called the Austin, Texas police. Twelve minutes later, two policemen stood outside of the employee-entrance door.
The policemen looked annoyed when Joe opened the door only to hand the two policemen two flu masks, then slammed the door shut. The policemen were not allowed to walk into the Jeshyauss Laboratories hallway until they both were wearing the flu masks.
The two policemen looked even more annoyed when they were informed by the lawyer-lady that before the police even had been phoned, the evidence of the crime (the broken, scattered test tube) had been tampered-with and removed, presumably to be destroyed.
The policemen stayed in the hallway for an hour, questioning everyone. Larry was summoned downstairs and, without his HazCon suit, he was questioned too. Then Joe took his handcuffs off Teppo the janitor, the younger policeman slapped his own cuffs on Teppo, and Teppo was hauled away.
Then Joe went back to doing his regular job: checking the bags and briefcases of departing employees. Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker were unusually quiet during their bag-checks. Joe did not cut corners at bag-checking, but neither did he dawdle at the task. By seven o’clock, the grumpy and/or frightened salaried employees were bag-checked and out the door. Joe began his rounds then—his six o’clock rounds, an hour late.
Part of Joe’s rounds was to check the Personnel Office. Joe normally spent only ten seconds in an hour there; but this time, Joe walked into the Personnel Director’s office and wrote a note on her desk—
“Teppo the janitor was arrested tonight, for stealing a test tube from Research Laboratory 17. You need to hire another janitor.”
****
The rest of Joe’s work-night was normal: He checked the bags of late-working salaried employees, and he looked for saboteurs, other spies, and other thieves (but caught none). Joe took a half-hour lunch break around 9 p.m. He finished his workday and walked out the door at 1:15 in the morning; no guard took over and relieved him.
The drive home was normal—meaning that Joe’s car always passed at least one cop car that had pulled over a drunk driver.
Once Joe was back in his apartment, he got ready for bed.
On the carpet by Joe’s bed was a desktop land-line telephone. Joe took the handset off the hook.
****
Eight hours later
In Joe’s apartment
Joe woke up, rested well enough. After a shower, he hung up his bedside telephone, then wandered into the kitchen to drink coffee and to make breakfast.
Ten minutes later, Joe’s kitchen telephone rang. Joe rolled his eyes, expecting the call to be a telemarketer or scammer. No, the caller was a young woman who identified herself as “administrative assistant” to “Mr. Lancer,” one of the poohbahs on Jeshyauss Laboratories’ third floor. Joe was told that there would be a meeting of all Gamma-virus-exposed employees at 4:30 that afternoon, in the third-floor conference room, and that Joe was required to attend.
The administrative assistant, who spoke with more snootiness than Queen Elizabeth would ever use, then tried to give Joe idiot-proof directions how to get to the conference room. Joe stopped her—“Lady, remember I’m the after-shift security guard. I could give you directions to the conference room. You know—the big room with the big table that is next to the executive breakroom, which has the stainless-steel refrigerator and the sky-blue-painted walls?”
****
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Austin, Texas
Teppo had been taken from his cell in the city jail, and brought into a room with many city policemen and two men who each wore a suit and sunglasses. One of the two suited men handcuffed Teppo, then Teppo was dragged outside and was shoved into the back seat of a dark-blue sedan.
After the car was rolling, the driver said to Teppo, “You picked the wrong country to do your industrial espionage in, Russki. The FBI does not like Russians.”
Teppo hotly replied, “I the Russian am no, I the Estonian am.” Teppo would sooner be accused of eating babies.
The FBI agent in the passenger seat said, “Russian? Estonian? Same difference. You’re an ex-commie, or your parents are.”
In the interrogation room, two FBI men—one of whom was huge—tried to question Teppo in his “native” language, using a translator. Stupid FBI, the translator spoke only English and Russian. Teppo did not speak much Russian, but he managed to tell the young translator-man that a) Teppo’s native language was Estonian, not Russian; and b) the translator sexually preferred boys and his penis was tiny.
Teppo was then questioned in English, but Teppo made sure this was a waste of the FBI’s time.
The FBI, it turned out, had its own jail elsewhere in the building. Teppo was tossed into a cell and was ignored for the rest of the day (except for meals).
****
A little after 3 p.m.
Joe’s apartment
Joe got another work-related call—this time from Charlie, the day-shift employee-area security guard.
Charlie said, “Hey Joe, they’ve told you about the 4:30 meeting, right? Please don’t be late. I’ve been told I can’t go home till after you get out of your meeting.”
****
Tuesday, 4:29 p.m.
Third-floor conference room
Jeshyauss Laboratories
As soon as Joe walked into the conference room, the lawyer-lady said, “Took you long enough.”
Joe pointed to the clock above the whiteboard. “You’re funny. Look, I’m early.”
Joe looked around the conference room. All eight virus-exposed employees were in the conference room, including himself, Aunt Brooke, and Dr. Baker. The lawyer-lady was now talking quietly with a man in an expensive suit—Joe did not know his name, but Joe knew he was head of the Legal Department. The scaredy-cat woman from Marketing was taking deep, slow breaths—but her face still looked frightened.
Besides the eight virus-exposed employees and the head of the Legal Department, in the room were two men each wearing a lab coat, and a man and two women in expensive business clothing.
The man in a suit, and the younger man in a lab coat, both walked to the front. The man in the suit said, “Everyone, thank you for coming. I am Lyon Lancer, the Chief Executive Officer of Jeshyauss Laboratories. The purpose of this meeting”—now he smiled like a car salesman—“is to assure you that your accidental exposure to the viral agent, while unfortunate, is no cause for alarm.”
From the eight virus-exposed employees: silence. Joe saw that Aunt Brooke was biting her lip.
Lancer continued, “We truly expect nobody to take sick days because of this accidental release. But to soothe your worries, Dr. Underwood here will treat for free, any virus-caused illness you get in the next six months. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a sniffle—come see Dr. Underwood and he’ll fix you. We don’t mind—in fact, we would prefer—that you visit him on the clock.”
Joe saw Aunt Brooke whisper something to Dr. Baker.
Dr. Underwood murmured to Lancer, “Um, don’t forget about the blood samples.”
Lancer looked at the eight virus-exposed employees, and now his car-salesman smile got even bigger. “I say again: the virus is harmless. But as a precautionary measure, Dr. Underwood will take 2-cc blood samples from each of you when he feels the need. I’m sorry, but we must insist on this—failure to cooperate will be grounds for termination.”
Next to Aunt Brooke, Dr. Baker said, “I recommend quarantine. Immediately.”
Joe’s heart nearly stopped, and five of the other virus-exposed employees looked as frightened as Joe felt.
Seeing the other virus-exposeds’ reaction, Dr. Baker held up a hand and spoke soothingly. “We’re not going to die. None of us will probably even sneeze. But while none of us are infectious now—I just tested Dr. Sinise and myself—sometime between now and midnight, all of us will become infectious. Infectious means that anyone near you who breathes in what you breathe out will catch the virus, whether or not you show symptoms yet, and even if you never show symptoms. Before we all become infectious, all of us should be put apart from the rest of the world till Jeshyauss cures our infections.”
All eyes were on Lancer for his reply.
Lancer smiled. “Dr. Baker, your concern does you credit. But we will quarantine nobody. What escaped was a blue-label virus, and the contamination scene was cleaned up soon after the accident.”
“But—”
“On the other hand, quarantining anyone would be a public-relations nightmare: ‘Jeshyauss Laboratories must have let a killer virus loose, because why else would they be quarantining people?’ ”
“Besides,” Joe said, “no place in the building is set up for quarantine. Not on the first floor, or the second, or the third.”
Dr. Baker glared at Lancer. “You didn’t design a quarantine area? You made no plans for containing this kind of outbreak?”
Lancer said, “Dr. Baker, whatever plans that corporate management has made, or not made, are not your concern.”
Dr. Baker said, “Ladies, if we won’t be quarantined, then I urge all of you to stop off at the drugstore tonight, buy a flu mask, and start wearing that mask 24/7. Protect your family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers from the Gamma virus.”
This remark prompted Lancer and the head of Legal to whisper in a corner of the conference room.
When Lancer returned to the head of the table, he said, “We will allow flu masks, but won’t encourage them. Our employees seen in public wearing flu masks, undercuts our corporate message that ‘This virus is harmless.’ ”
Aunt Brooke reached into a pocket of her lab coat, pulled out a flu mask, and shoved the flu mask across the table toward Joe. “Joe, you’re going to need this. Dr. Baker and I figure you will turn infectious before you end your shift tonight and can drive to an all-night pharmacy.”
Lancer looked at Aunt Brooke, frowning. “Dr. Sinise, is handing out a flu mask really necessary?”
Aunt Brooke looked at Lancer as if he were an idiot. “It’s just like your mandatory blood test: a quote-unquote precautionary measure.”
One of the virus-exposed employees was a woman who had been silent and watchful in the hallway last night, and who had been silent in the meeting up till now. Now she said to Lancer, “A minute ago, you told us the virus is harmless. I don’t believe you.”
She turned to look at Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker. “I’m Marjorie Hobbs, Investor Relations. Since you guys seem to know, tell me: What will this virus do to us?”
The Legal head honcho said to Dr. Baker and Aunt Brooke, “The Non-Disclosure Agreement that you signed, prevents you answering this question.”
Marjorie said to the Legal bigwig, “I’m sure you can make an exception in my case. Or you’d better, or you will be hearing from my attorney. This bug that you don’t want those two to talk about? We’re infected with it!”
Lancer said, “Whatever those two said to you now would be self-serving. The company currently is investigating how much the negligence of Dr. Baker and Dr. Sinise contributed to this problem.”
“What?” Aunt Brooke said.
Dr. Baker growled, “What do you mean, negligence?”
Lancer said, “We are investigating whether you two failed to follow any procedure that, had it been followed, would have prevented the janitor from stealing the virus.”
Aunt Brooke looked at the second lab-coat-wearing man. “Are you part of this, Dr. Nelson? Will you throw Carl and me under the bus if the big boys tell you to?”
Dr. Nelson now was looking down, not returning the glares that Dr. Baker and Aunt Brooke were giving him. He gave no answer.
Joe had heard enough. “This is ridiculous!” he said to Lancer. “Dr. Baker and Dr. Sinise are blameless, and you know it!”
Lancer sneered, “Guard, we are talking about laboratory procedures, about which you know nothing.”
Joe said, “No, we’re talking about security, about which I know quite a bit. Look, the only lock to lock—or not lock—in Research Lab 17 is one drawer in each of two desks that every research lab has. And I could probably bust a drawer-lock with one well-aimed swing of a fireaxe. But the fancy refrigerators where bad bugs are stored? They have locks only in Research Labs 1 through 16,” which researched magenta-, red-, orange-, yellow-, and green-label artificial viruses. “Wherever in Research Lab 17 the test tube was taken from, I guarantee you the fridge had no lock. But that lab doesn’t need any. Because one, they do only green- and blue-label research there”—Dr. Baker and Aunt Brooke both nodded—“and two, the badge-reader by the door doesn’t let anyone into Research Laboratory 17 except for Dr. Baker and Dr. Sinise, their boss?”—Dr. Nelson nodded—“the security guard—that’s me or Charlie—and the janitor.”
The scaredy-cat woman from Marketing stared at Lancer. “Why do you let the janitor go into the research labs?”
Lancer gave her another car-salesman smile. “Our researchers have more important things to do than to set out wastebaskets in the hallway every night.”
Marjorie Hobbs looked disgusted. “This is just peachy. I came to this meeting expecting answers. Instead, I get told that I have to allow blood samples or I’ll get fired, and I find out that nothing stopped janitor-guy from strolling in and stealing that test tube. But an actual answer to ‘What will that virus do to me?’ Pfft.”
Lancer said, “Don’t let yourself be upset by the words of one security guard. Remember, he’s the least-educated person in the room.”
Joe grinned. “I’m also the guy who has the easiest time at getting another job with the same pay if I’m fired here. That’s the disadvantage of paying me minimum wage plus pennies, Mr. Lancer: I’m the one guy here who can speak honestly and it not cost me.”
Aunt Brooke smiled at Joe, then turned to look at Marjorie. “Actually, Ms. Hobbs, if you work in Investor Relations, you have another problem: The news media know something has happened. Soon investors will be asking you, ‘What’s the real story?’ ”
Lancer asked Aunt Brooke, “How do you know the story has broken? Has someone in Public Relations talked to you?”
“How do I know? Someone from the Austin American-Statesman called me this morning. They didn’t know much, but what they knew was true. Well, except the woman mentioned me punching the janitor in the face. I told her, ‘I didn’t punch the janitor in the face. Other than that, I have no comment.’ ”
Lancer looked angry now. “Dr. Sinise, you are not cleared for press inquiries! In the future, I insist you direct all press inquiries to our Public Relations department, since that’s what they’re there for.”
Marjorie asked, “And what will the Public Relations department tell the newsies? Because over in Investor Relations, we haven’t been told diddly-squat about what to tell anyone.”
Lancer and the head of Legal went off in a corner and whispered.
Then Lancer returned to the head of the table and smiled at Marjorie. “We will tell the public that the broken test tube had a blue label, which means that the risk of illness is almost zero, and the risk of death is zero. We will also say that the contamination was cleaned up and destroyed within a half-hour. Both these statements are true.” Lancer gave Marjorie an even bigger smile.
The Marketing woman said, “What is also true is that we watched her”—she gestured toward Aunt Brooke—“read what was written on that blue label, then she ran over to the janitor and yelled at him as she slammed his head against the floor. We saw this! Whatever this germ is, it is not a weak little cold virus! So would you please come clean with us?”
Lancer replied, “I have told you what our public statements will be. If pressed, we will reluctantly add that Doctors Baker and Sinise are suspended with pay, pending an internal investigation.”
Aunt Brooke said sarcastically, “Suspended with pay? Thank you for your generosity.”
Marjorie said, “In the meantime, I still don’t have a straight answer about what this germ is doing to me.”
Joe saw Aunt Brooke turn and give Lancer a fuck-you smile. Then Aunt Brooke looked at Marjorie, the woman from Marketing, the lawyer-lady, and the two other virus-exposed women. “You have a 1-in-200 chance that your body will kill the virus within hours; you won’t develop symptoms, and you won’t be infectious. There is another 1-in-200 chance that the virus won’t find the gene sequence it’s looking for; this means you’ll be infectious, but you’ll never develop symptoms. Males will never develop symptoms; girls who have not completed bone growth—”
“Meaning, they are under nineteen,” Dr. Baker explained.
“—will not develop symptoms. Women past menopause will not develop symptoms. However, while men and boys, girls under nineteen, and old women will all be symptomless, 99.5 percent of them, if exposed but symptomless, will become infectious. ‘But what about me?’ you’re wondering—”
Lancer yelled, “Dr. Sinise, say no more!”
Aunt Brooke ignored him. She said to the virus-exposed women, “For the six of us, women who are between nineteen and menopause—”
The head of Legal warned, “Dr. Sinise, you are about to violate your Non-Disclosure Agreement.”
Aunt Brooke smiled at Lancer. “Correction: I’ve been suspended, unfairly; now I’m about to earn my suspension.”
Then Aunt Brooke turned back to the other virus-exposed women: “For the six of us, we each run a 99-percent chance of becoming a nineteen-year-old girl with a big butt and big boobs, with a killer sex drive that never stops. Roughly forty-eight hours after exposure, our bodies will begin to change.”
Aunt Brooke looked at Lancer again. “Go ahead, fire me. Blackball me professionally if you want. In four weeks, I’ll be working as a pole dancer and I’ll love that life.”
Joe saw that the other five virus-exposed women were looking at Aunt Brooke in horror.
****
Lancer ended the meeting right afterward. He was wearing another car-salesman smile; but other than that, Lancer looked pissed.
Once Joe was out of the conference room, he went downstairs to the first floor, to the employee-entrance hallway, and went back to acting like a regular security guard.
Charlie was intensely curious, both about last night’s events and about what had been said in the meeting. But Joe brushed him off, saying, “I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say.”
Aunt Brooke and Dr. Baker had moved to the head of the bag-search line by 5:15. Neither Aunt Brooke nor Dr. Baker said much to Joe, and both researchers looked angry.
As Joe was making his rounds at 5:30, a thought occurred to him:
Lancer can threaten us eight Jeshyauss employees, in hopes that we keep quiet and the truth doesn’t get out. But somewhere out there is Teppo the janitor-spy, and Lancer can’t do jack shit to stop Teppo from talking.
In the meantime, us Jeshyauss Laboratories employees being threatened with “Don’t tell the world about the bimbo virus or you’ll lose your job”—this just isn’t right. People out there need to hear about this.
In the following hours, as Joe made his rounds, he thought hard about the problem and how he could solve it.
Chapter 3
Day 2: Infectious
Tuesday, 7 p.m.
(two hours after the end of the mandatory meeting)
Joe was working at Jeshyauss Laboratories as the after-shift security guard.
Teppo was sitting in his FBI-building jail cell, cursing his own impatience yesterday.
Dr. Baker and Aunt Brooke were sitting in her kitchen, drinking beers and talking about hidden YouTube gems.
Marjorie and the scaredy-cat from Marketing (Wendy) were each on the phone, ranting to a girlfriend about her future being stolen from her.
The lawyer-lady (Bertha) was on her computer, updating her résumé—even though she suspected her effort would be a waste of time. She wept as she typed.
Thirty-two-year-old Louise, who ran Jeshyauss’s technical library, and the other Gamma-virus-exposed woman (Michelle, in Sales) were each sitting in front of a jabbering TV set, but their minds were elsewhere.
None of the three men exposed to the virus would ever show symptoms; such was the nature of the virus. For the six women, it was too soon after exposure; they too were without symptoms (for the moment).
None of the nine exposed people knew it yet, but eight of the nine people were now infectious with the Gamma virus. The ninth person was not infectious now, and never would be.
****
One hour later (8 p.m.)
The Austin Police Department’s Officer Danbury and Officer O’Rourke had been the two policemen who had arrested the Estonian janitor. Those two policemen had been just a tiny bit slow to put on the flu masks that the security guard had insisted that they wear. Unbeknownst to either policeman, now these two men also were infectious with the bimbo virus.
****
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