Moonlight Medicine: Inoculation (8 page)

“So, you want to borrow my lab to research a cure for the werewolf virus?” he said unceremoniously.

Evelyn was a bit taken aback by his forward approach since he hadn’t even bothered to shut his office door, but tried to take things in stride. “Yep.”

“Hmmmm, never really thought about it myself. I’m much better with bacteria, they just make so much more sense to me than viruses. They’re tiny organisms while viruses seem, I don’t know, freakish and alien? You know, it’s still a hot debate as to whether they should be classified as actually being alive or not.”

Evelyn nodded politely.

Dr. Jonson continued his rant. “And retroviruses weaving their DNA into our genetic loom, just bizarre. Anyways, I’m guessing that you are assuming a blending of wolf and human DNA facilitated by the virus?”

Again Evelyn nodded. “I’ve detected wolf DNA using primers developed to help ferret out wolf hybrids in dog bite cases, but I’m mainly concentrating on trying to excise the viral DNA with the assumption that the wolf DNA will always be tagged with viral DNA.”

“Sounds fascinating. I don’t want to be too forward, but are you both turned? I mean infected?”

Evelyn didn’t want to out Kim, but the other woman nodded, so Evelyn also nodded then blurted out, “Accidentally.”

“Accidentally, well, I can see why you’d be so interested in a cure then.”

Kim also seemed unable to hold her tongue. “How can you stand it knowing that the virus will drive you mad and eventually kill you?”

Evelyn bit her lip as she waited for the man’s response. Dr. Jonson’s eyes drifted up towards the ceiling and his face contorted in deep thought.

“Well, I guess I just thought it was a fair price to pay for such a rare gift. I mean, everything has a price, and for all the amazing things I’ve gotten to experience, and for the lives I used to save, I think it was worth it.”

Evelyn picked up on his phrasing. “Used to save?”

The professor focused on the two women again and leaned forward slightly in his chair. “I was a bit of a vigilante in my younger days, but now I know that I can save far more lives by researching diseases like brucellosis.”

Evelyn’s respect for Dr. Jonson grew with his statement, but since he was being so candid, she didn’t stop there. “And what made you choose theriogenology as a specialty?”

“Ah, the miracle of life, of course.”

Evelyn didn’t know quite what to say to that, so she tried to switch topics without a clutch. “Do you have many students in your lab?”

“Just the three right now, well actually two. Tyler is doing an externship in Chicago for the next three weeks. Margo and Melissa are both second year students, so they come in during the afternoon and usually work until around eight or nine.”

“So we could probably come into the lab early in the morning and work until mid-afternoon?”

“Well, I know that your research is very important, especially since I heard that there is a contagious mutation running amok? But sometimes the students do come in early in the morning to start projects, check on them between classes, and then return in the late afternoon or evening to finish them. I’m told that this all isn’t exactly official with the university and that you’re trying to keep a low profile, so best to avoid my students if possible. I mean obviously they will know that something is going on, but I’ll tell them that I received new funding based on a lab sharing program…Still, they are smart and curious which could be a dangerous combination for you.”

Evelyn’s hopes for sleeping normal hours were dashed. “Of course you’re right. Are you getting us parking passes and after-hours access to the building or should I contact Roberto?”

Dr. Jonson opened a drawer of his desk and rifled around inside it. “Oh, I’m glad you reminded me. This was in my faculty mailbox this morning.”

He handed Evelyn a blank manila envelope. Inside were two blank building access cards and a faculty parking pass. Evelyn pocketed one of the passes and gave the other to Kim. “Don’t lose that.”

Kim examined the card and then put it in her pocket. “I won’t.”

“One more thing, Dr. Jonson—“

“Oh, sorry, please call me Pat.”

“One more thing, Pat, any chance that we can get access to more than one room to keep the DNA sequencing separate from the extraction and PCR prep?”

Dr. Jonson straightened up in his chair. “Actually, we get a number of human samples in this lab, so we already have a separate room for the prep, and the PCR and sequencing machines are in a room down the hall. Here, I can give you the code.”

He searched around his desk for a spare bit of paper and ended up tearing the corner off a photocopy of a journal article. He wrote the number on the slip of paper and passed it over to Evelyn who put it in the envelope with the parking pass.

“Can I take a look around the lab to see what we are going to need equipment-wise?”

Dr. Jonson smiled broadly and winked at her while rubbing his hands together. “Certainly! And even if we have something already, it wouldn’t hurt if you wanted your own, say, set of brand new pipettes or PCR machines or negative-eighty freezer…”

13

The next few days were spent in a whirl of ordering equipment and reagents for the lab, with David constantly on the phone with one pack after another gathering information about the various strays. So far he had confirmed eleven strays, seven men and four women of varying ages, though it seemed that Katie was an isolated incident and no other children were reported. David also sat Kim down and interviewed her officially, entering all of her answers into a spreadsheet that he had made to log the responses and try to coax the data into a pattern. In addition to Kim and Katie, there was a male stray discovered by the Alonso during the last full moon cycle; the other known strays came from packs in other countries, though mainly from Europe and Asia. It was frustrating because both David and Evelyn knew that there were more strays out there, but they wouldn’t be able to track them again until the next full moon. They also had no way of knowing how many other people were becoming infected on a daily basis because the virus didn’t manifest symptoms until close to the completion of the lunar cycle.

After five days of interviews, compiling data, and mapping possible accounts of stray activity gleaned from the internet, David presented his findings to Evelyn and Kim as they sat around the dining room table after dinner.

“Alright, here’s what we know so far. First, the outbreaks are pretty well-defined and almost always follow with news reports of animal attack in the same areas where known strays live, sometimes only miles away. However, a couple of times the reports were definitely not connected to the known stray according to the resident pack.”

“Okay…so that suggests small scale infections that can be closely monitored and controlled.” Evelyn let out a long breath and nodded. “Makes complete sense if the Vulke intend to kidnap and draft the strays. They’d want to know exactly where they could expect a stray to pop up.”

“And they sure seemed to know where to find me,” said Kim frowning.

David cringed in sympathy before he continued. “Second, the target demographic was confirmed to be healthy males generally between the ages of fifteen and fifty, and not just healthy males, but males who exercised on a regular basis. In fact, every single stray admitted to being concerned with health and fitness.”

“Were all of them members of a gym?” Evelyn’s eyebrows shot up in excitement.

“I was getting to that, but no, not all of them were members of a gym.”

Evelyn deflated. “I guess the idea of a location being the source of infection is pretty much out then.”

“Yeah, and other than commitment to exercise, there really aren’t any other common connections.”

Kim interjected, “But that doesn’t really tie in with Katie’s infection.”

David sighed. “Nope.”

“So,” added Evelyn, “either Katie’s the key to figuring out the mutant etiology…or she’s an outlier in the data set whose infection is different from the rest of the strays. Great.”

“Well, one pretty unanimous thing is that none of the strays have any clue how they got infected, so it’s not just you, Kim. And according to the other pack’s interactions with the strays, you’ve been handling the whole thing pretty damn well. Most of the other strays are pretty much freaking out. It’s a big mess in some places as you can imagine. I didn’t mention the possibility of a cure to any of them. I didn’t want to…” he glanced up at Evelyn, his face coloring, “…well, most of them weren’t really grasping what was going on anyway, so…”

She smiled with only half her mouth. “It’s okay, David. I know you have confidence in me, but the truth is, we’re still a long way from success. A cure could be years away and we’re not even sure what’s going to happen in the next few weeks.”

Silence reigned for several minutes, until abruptly broken by David. “Gah! The more I think about it, the more I think that we’re missing something obvious.”

“Okay, let’s think about things in the simplest terms. The Vulke wanted to make infection easier and less recognizable than a bite wound. They could have tried blood transfusions, but those are rare and it would be difficult to control who got the blood unless they controlled the whole hospital. Now I’m willing to believe that the Vulke have resources we don’t know about, but I find it hard to believe that a bunch of crazy sadistic werewolves are in control of an entire hospital.”

Kim sat forward in her chair. “Maybe it wasn’t people receiving blood transfusions, but the Vulke infecting healthy people who were giving blood? They could control who got the contaminated needles and who got sterile ones.”

Evelyn mulled Kim’s idea over in her mind, but then shook her head. “But they wouldn’t need to mutate the virus for any infection route that involved blood or injections, so we’re left with oral and aerosol infection, and we’ve already pretty much ruled out aerosol infection because it would be difficult to control and we can’t pinpoint a place that the aerosol would’ve been released.”

Kim nodded. “So that leaves oral infection, right? But do viruses really spread that way?” She and David both looked to Evelyn expectantly.

Evelyn knitted her eyebrows in thought. “Well, rabies has been known to spread that way, when animals eat the infected tissues of other animals, so I guess, yeah that’s totally possible.”

David banged his fist on the table. “Great! So now all we have to do is ask all of the strays to remember everything they ate in the past month or so, and it could always be Vulke waiters slipping the virus into the food of healthy young males at restaurants.”

Evelyn frowned at David. “Sure, it would be nearly impossible to track the mutant if it was being administered in restaurants, and really difficult to cross-reference what all the strays have been eating, but it’s a place to start at least.”

Kim nearly jumped out of her seat. “Ooooh, and we can start with me! I’m not sure that I’ll remember everything that I ate last month, but I don’t think Roberto has sent someone to collect my clothes and things yet, so I can ask him to collect all of the food at my apartment too.”

David’s sour attitude was no match for Kim’s enthusiasm, and he smiled. “Okay. I’ll call Roberto, but are you sure that you really just don’t want your clothes?”

Kim stuck out her tongue at David in a playful manner.

Evelyn started to smile too, but it somehow lost steam and faded from her lips. She cleared her throat. “Tell Roberto to have other packs do the same if possible and send a list to us to cross-reference with Kim’s groceries. Receipts would be the best, but I don’t think that most people keep them. I don’t. Do you guys?” Both Kim and David shook their heads. Evelyn shrugged. “Oh well, we can suggest it to Roberto, maybe at least one of the other strays is more OCD than we are. If anything matches up with any of Kim’s food, then we’ll process it in the lab and search for viral DNA. In the meantime I’ll add designing better
Languorem luporum
primers to my lab “to do” list.”

“Speaking of the lab, when do you think that it’ll be ready for you girls to start working in?”

“It’s taken a little while to order supplies and a few key machines, but provided a big shipment comes in tomorrow, we should be good to go tomorrow night,” Evelyn said.

David smiled broadly. “That’s great news!”

Evelyn’s nod was only half-hearted. “It’ll take a while to really get going again, and I’m not particularly thrilled to be working nights, but it is what it is. I just wish I had more time. I doubt we’re going to make a big breakthrough in two weeks.”

David was thoughtful. “Maybe nothing will happen in two weeks.”

Evelyn stared him in the eye. “Do you really believe that?”

He looked away. “No. No I don’t”

14

Roberto spoke in a crisp tone, clipping each word just shy of full enunciation. “The Vulke have contacted us and officially declared war.”

“Damnit!” David kicked over a dining room chair.

Roberto continued without pause. “I have to say that I am a little surprised that they are following any kind of civil protocol, but I guess if they did not they wouldn’t get to fight us fang and claw.”

“Well isn’t that thoughtful of them.”

“They sent a list of preferred fighting grounds and we are either to choose our preference from the list or counter with our own list. To their credit, all areas seem to be far from human inhabitance.”

David snorted.

“Also, they have insisted that there be no weapons on either side.”

“And if we tell them we won’t fight them and try to find them and shut them down off the battlefield?”

Roberto cleared his throat. “They say that they will launch a much wider scale infection. They claim it will be thousands next time and that they will then let nature take its course.”

“Thousands of strays?!”

“Yes.”

“But, they might be bluffing, just trying to draw us out for the slaughter.”

The sound of Roberto’s exhaled breath issued through the phone. “Are you really willing to take that risk, David? Would you have the destruction of thousands of innocent lives on your shoulders?”