Kelly stepped beside the Ranger.
"We can't go back," Zane said, shifting further down the trail.
A second scream, bone-chilling, garbled, echoed from the forest.
Kelly noticed the swarm of locusts whisk from around them, retreating back toward the original campsite. "They're leaving!"
Professor Kouwe spoke at her shoulder. "The corporal must have succeeded in relighting the symbol."
By now, the agonized cries were constant, prolonged, bestial. No human could scream like that.
"We have to go help him," Manny said.
Carrera clicked on a flashlight in her free hand. She pointed it back toward the campsite. Fifty yards away, the condensed swarm was so thick, the trees themselves were invisible, swallowed by the black cloud. "There's not enough time," she said softly and lifted her own bamboo torch. It was already sputtering. "We don't know how long a distraction Jorgensen has bought us."
Manny turned to her. "We could at least still try. He might be alive."
As if hearing him, the distant cries died away.
Carrera glanced to him and shook her head.
"Look!" Anna called out, pointing her arm.
Off to the left, a figure stumbled out of the swarm.
Carrera pointed her flashlight. "Jorgensen!"
Kelly gasped and covered her mouth.
The man was impossible to identify, covered from crown to ankle with crawling locusts. His arms were out, waving, blind. His legs wobbled, and he tripped in the underbrush, falling to his knees. All the while, he remained eerily silent. Only his arms stretched out for help.
Manny took a step in the man's direction, but Carrera held him back.
The swarm rolled back over the kneeling man, swallowing him.
"It's too late," Carrera said. "And we're all running out of time." Punctuating her statement, her own torch cast a final sputter of fiery ash, then dimmed. "We need to get as far from here as possible before we lose our advantage."
"But--" Manny began.
He was cut off by a hard stare from the Ranger. Her words were even harder. "I won't have Jorgensen's sacrifice be meaningless." She pointed toward the deeper wood. "Move out!"
Kelly glanced back as they headed away. The swarm remained behind them, a featureless black cloud. But at its heart was a man who had given his life to save them all. Tears filled her eyes. Her legs were numb with exhaustion and despair, her heart heavy.
Despite the loss of the corporal, one thought, one face remained foremost in Kelly's mind. Her daughter needed her. Her mind roiled with flashes of her child in bed, burning with fever.
I'll get back to you, baby,
she promised silently.
But deep in her heart, she now wondered if it was a pact she could keep. With each step deeper into the forest,
more men died.
Graves, DeMartini, Conger, Jones...and now Jorgensen...
She shook her head, refusing to give up hope. As long as she was alive, putting one foot in front of the other, she would find a way home.
Over the next hour, the group forged through the forest, following the path the other half of their team had taken the previous afternoon. One by one, their torches flickered out. Flashlights were passed around. So far, no sign of renewed pursuit by the swarm manifested. Maybe they were safe, beyond the interest of the blind locusts, but no one voiced such a hope aloud.
Manny marched close to the Ranger. "What if we miss the other team?" he asked softly. "Jorgensen had our radio equipment. It was our only way of contacting the outside world."
Kelly hadn't considered this fact. With the radio gone, they were cut off.
"We'll reach the others," Carrera said with a steely determination.
No one argued with her. No one wanted to.
They marched onward through the dark jungle, concentrating on just moving forward. As hours ticked by, the tension blended into a blur of bone-weary exhaustion and endless fear. Their passage was marked with hoots and strange cries. Everyone's ears were pricked for the telltale buzz of the locusts.
So they were all startled when the small personal radio hanging from Private Carrera's field jacket squawked with static and a few scratchy words. "This is...if you can hear...radio range..."
Everyone swung to face the Ranger, eyes wide. She pulled her radio's microphone from her helmet to her mouth. "This is Private Carrera. Can you hear me?
Over
."
There was a long pause, then..."Read you, Carrera. Warczak here. What's your status?"
The Ranger quickly related the events in a dispassionate and professional manner. But Kelly saw how the soldier's fingers trembled as she held the microphone to her lips. She finished, "We're following your trail. Hoping to rendezvous with the main team in two hours."
Corporal Warczak responded, "Roger that. Dr. Rand and I are already under way to meet you. Over and out."
The Ranger closed her eyes and sighed loudly. "We're gonna be okay," she whispered to no one in particular.
As the others murmured in relief, Kelly stared out at the dark jungle.
Out here in the Amazon, they were all far from okay.
Act
Four
Blood Jaguars
HORSETAIL
family:
Equisetaceae
genus:
Equisetum
species:
Arvense
common name:
Field Horsetail
ethnic
names:
At Quyroughi,
Atkuyrugu,
Chieh Hsu
Ts'Ao, Cola de Caballo, Equiseto Menor, Kilkah Asb, Prele,
Sugina, Thanab al Khail, Vara de Oro, Wen Ching
properties/actions:
Astringent, Antiinflammatory, Diuretic,
Antihemorrhagic
Lake Crossing
AUGUST 15, 8:11 A.M.
INSTAR INSTITUTE
LANGLEY, VIRGINIA
Lauren slid the magnetic security card through the lock on her office door and entered. It was the first chance she'd had to return to her office in the past day. Between stretches in the institute's hospital ward visiting Jessie and meetings with various MEDEA members, she hadn't had a moment to herself. The only reason she had this free moment was that Jessie seemed to be doing very well. Her temperature continued to remain normal, and her attitude was growing brighter with every passing hour.
Cautiously optimistic, Lauren began to hope that her initial diagnosis had been mistaken. Maybe Jessie did
not
have the jungle disease. Lauren was now glad she had kept silent about her fears. She could have needlessly panicked Marshall and Kelly. Lauren may have indeed placed too much confidence in Alvisio's statistical model. But she could not fault the epidemiologist. Dr. Alvisio
had
indeed warned her his results were far from conclusive. Further data would need to be collected and correlated.
But then again, that pretty much defined all the current
levels of investigation. Each day, as the disease spread through Florida and the southern states, thousands of theories were bandied about: etiological agents, therapeutic protocols, diagnostic parameters, quarantine guidelines. Instar had become the nation's think tank on this contagion. It was their job to ferret through the maze of scientific conjecture and fanciful epidemiological models to glean the pearls from the rubbish. It was a daunting task as data flowed in from all corners of the country. But they had the best minds here.
Lauren collapsed into her seat and flicked on her computer. The chime for incoming mail sounded. She groaned as she slipped on a pair of reading glasses and leaned closer to the screen.
Three hundred and fourteen messages waited
. And this was just her private mailbox. She scrolled down the list of addresses and skimmed the subject lines, searching through the little snippets for anything important or interesting.
[email protected] - re: simian biosimilarities
[email protected] - call for sample standardization
[email protected] - prog. report
[email protected] - large scale biological labs
[email protected] - pharmacy question
[email protected] - quarantine projection
[email protected] - request for interview
As she scrolled down, one name caught her eye. It was oddly familiar, but she could
not remember exactly why. She brought her computer's pointer to
the name:
Large Scale Biological
Labs
. She crinkled her nose in thought, then it came to her. The night
Jessie's fever developed, she had been paged by this same outfit.
Well after midnight, she recalled. But the sick child had distracted her from
following up on the page.
It probably wasn't important, but she opened the e-mail anyway,
her curiosity now aroused. The letter appeared on the screen.
Dr. Xavier Reynolds
. She smiled,
instantly recognizing the name. He had been a grad student of hers years ago and had
taken a position at some lab in California, perhaps this same lab. The young man had
been one of her best students. Lauren had attempted to recruit him into the MEDEA
group here at Instar, but he had declined. His fiance had accepted an
associate professorship at Berkeley, and he had naturally not wanted to be separated.
She read his note. As she did, the smile on her lips slowly faded.
From:
[email protected]
Date:
14 Aug 13:48:28
To:
[email protected]
Subject:
Large Scale Biological Labs
Dr. O'Brien:
Please excuse this intrusion. I attempted to
page you last night, but I assume you're very busy. So
I'll keep this brief.
As with many labs around the country, our own
is involved in researching the virulent disease, and I think I've
come across an intriguing angle, if not a possible answer to the root puzzle:
What is causing the disease?
But before voicing my findings, I wanted to get your input.
As head of the proteonomic team here at Large
Scale Biological Labs, I have been attempting to index mankind's
protein genome, similar to the Human Genome Project for DNA. As such, my take on the
disease was to investigate it backward. Most disease-causing
agents- bacteria, viruses, fungi, parasites- do
not cause illness by themselves. It is the
proteins
they produce that trigger clinical disease. So I
hunted for a unique protein that might be common to all patients.
And I found one! But from its folded and
twisted pattern, a new thought arose. This new protein bears a striking similarity to
the protein that causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy. Which in turn raises the
question:
Have we been chasing the wrong
tail in pursuing a viral cause for this disease?
Has anyone considered a
prion
as the cause?
For your consideration, I've
modeled the protein below.
Title:
unknown prion (?)
Compound:
folded protein w/ double terminal alpha helixes
Model:
Exp.
Method:
X-ray diffraction
EC
Number:
3.4.1.18
Source:
Patient #24-b12, Anawak Tribe, lower Amazon
Resolution:
2.00 R-Value: 0.145
Space
Group:
P21 20 21
Unit cell:
dim:
a 60.34
b 52.02 c 44.68
angles:
alpha
90.00
beta
90.00
gamma
90.00
Polymer
chains:
156L
Residues:
144
Atoms:
1286
So there you have the twisted puzzle. As I
value your expertise, Dr. O'Brien, I would appreciate your
thoughts, opinions, or judgments before promoting this radical theory.
Sincerely,
Xavier Reynolds, Ph.D.
