The Viral Epiphany (41 page)

The people of New York stayed in the streets long after the planes had vanished and the rumble of their distant engines could no longer be heard. For more than half an hour they remained in the streets, breathing deeply and then, for the first time in months, laughing.
 
Some sang and danced. Others hugged each other. Many cried. Finally, the people drifted away, back into their apartments and offices, feeling safe and amazed and joyful and sad.

           
The Alpha Two Wing, led by Captain Dave McKenzie, went on to spray several more cities after Newark before returning to JFK to refill their vaccine bladders and then take to the skies again and yet again. Many other similar Wings, some of them made up of commercial airliners and some made up of military aircraft, were also flying across the rest of United States spraying the life-saving vaccine throughout all of the major cities in the country. Vaccine distribution continued around the clock and in the days that followed, V-shaped formations of jets flew over the smaller cities and towns while a separate, ground-based effort was made to deliver handheld inhalers to people in the most remote parts of the country.

           
While the American fleet of aircraft had been outfitted with vaccine bladders, additional bladders from the Omega warehouses had been installed in the foreign fleets and the U.S. pharmaceutical companies produced enormous amounts of vaccine to supply the needs of the world.
 
Then, as soon as the U.S. fleet of large, intercontinental aircraft had finished their flights in the United States, they joined their foreign counterparts and began flights over the rest of the world’s major cities. Within three weeks every large city in the world had been sprayed and the progress of the disease had been halted.
 
Asian Fever, a disease that had lain dormant for ten thousand years in the tissue of an extinct Siberian mammoth, had utterly disappeared from the earth.

Forty

           
President Cranston sat at his Oval Office desk and quietly watched the snow fall softly on the lawn outside his window.
 
The tops of the gray, bare branches of the trees were slowly turning white as the snow accumulated, and the traffic on the streets had all but disappeared.
 
The forecast was for at least six inches of snow before nightfall, but there would only be an occasional snowplow on the roads from now until morning.
 
He glanced at the clock on his desk; it was almost a minute before one o’clock in the afternoon.

           
“One minute, Mister President,” the television director said and the President quietly nodded his understanding.
 
He took one last look at his notes, read the final paragraph over again, and then, without thinking, straightened his tie. He looked directly at the television cameraman and saw him holding up five fingers, then four, three, two, one…

           
“My fellow Americans,” President Cranston said on cue, “As you know, the enormously destructive powers of Asian Fever were brought to a sudden end by the combined efforts of a gallant team of research scientists, the pharmaceutical industry, and the aviation community. Now, as we approach a time of the year that, in the past, has been a time of thanksgiving and the beginning of joyous celebrations, I believe it is appropriate for us to stop for a few minutes and take stock of ourselves, and also to remember, not only those dear ones who have lost their lives in this, the greatest tragedy in the history of the world, but also those whose heroic efforts have truly saved the human race from certain extinction.”

The President paused for a few seconds and looked away, as if he were carefully considering his next words, although he was looking only at the director who was giving him the thumbs up signal.

“I am fully aware of the toll that this disease has taken on the lives of the people of this country. There is hardly a family that has not been touched by this disease, and many of you are still recovering from the loss of family members, the loss of income, unavailability of resources in some places such as basic utilities, lack of sufficient medical personnel, and so much more.
 
As we mourn the loss of our loved ones, as we struggle to return our lives to some semblance of normalcy, as we give thanks that we have survived while others have perished, let us begin to look forward to a new life, secure in the knowledge that this deadly disease has been completely eradicated from our planet.

I think it is appropriate to take a few minutes to recognize those people who stepped up in our time of need. It is time to recognize the heroes who, like those mythical heroes of storybooks, have saved our lives and those of our families; indeed they have truly saved the world.”

President Cranston stopped for a moment and took a sip of water from a glass on his desk. From the corner of his eye he could see the television director nodding his head affirmatively.
 
Then he continued speaking.

 
“In June of 1776, as Thomas Jefferson was writing the Declaration of Independence, he could not have foreseen the terrible events that we would all endure.
 
Nevertheless, he wrote in his document a reminder to all of us about the sole purpose of government.
 
I believe it is appropriate that we recall those words today.

 
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident,’
he wrote, speaking so eloquently, about our ‘
inalienable rights’
– rights that we all know in our hearts: the rights of ‘
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’
.
 
In his very next sentence he said,
‘that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men’
, and that is exactly what the heroes I am speaking of did for all of you – they have secured your rights.”

“My fellow Americans, I am proud to say, that due to the magnificent efforts of so many people in these tragic times, this government has, indeed fulfilled its obligations.
 
It has secured for each and every one of you, from this time onward, your right, once again, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
 
We have so many heroes within the government who have come forth during this time of crisis and helped to fulfill this vision of one of our greatest presidents, that I cannot name them all here.
 
However, there are a few people, heroes that helped save us all, that I want to tell you about now.”

The President paused and looked straight at the camera, put his notepaper down on the desk, and folded his hands on the desktop. “At a time when things were looking very grim for the world, I found it necessary to make a secret and dangerous voyage on one of our nuclear submarines, the
Seawolf.
 
It
quickly took us to the shores of the south coast of Ireland, where I learned critical information about some early vaccine work being done over there.”

“During this time of deep crisis, while I was aboard the
Seawolf,
I appointed one of the world’s leading experts in disease control, Doctor Charles Goodfellow of UNAPS, to lead the U.S. efforts in containing Asian Fever in this country. Sadly, even Charlie couldn’t cope with the devastation that was happening so fast.
 
Like many people who took part in the heroic efforts to stop the disease, Charlie has vanished without a trace.
 
Despite our best efforts, we have been unable to locate him, and we must presume he has perished in the line of duty. We will award him the nation’s highest honor posthumously.”

“Another one of America’s greatest heroes, one who did survive, is Doctor Harold Fields, the director of the Centers for Disease Control. Under his direction, our own researchers at the CDC made enormous strides in their search for a vaccine.
 
Doctor Fields worked closely with the vaccine workers in Ireland, and then, entirely on his own initiative, he contacted the American pharmaceutical industry and began large-scale production of the vaccine that you have all received.”

“At that time I, and the entire crew of the
Seawolf,
were conducting the first large scale American tests of the vaccine.
 
When I spoke on the phone with Doctor Fields about the possibility of mass production of the vaccine, I was surprised to learn that he had already gone ahead and started production, even before he had heard the results of our tests about the
Seawolf.
 
His actions saved at least a week, perhaps two in the process and thus prevented countless additional lives from being lost.
 
That is the kind of drive and initiative that makes this nation of ours so great.”

“Finally, there is one other person that I believe we all must acknowledge, his name is Brigadier General John L. Baker, and he runs a very highly classified research program called the Omega Project. General Baker had the amazing foresight long ago to purchase and store in our military warehouses a huge supply of aircraft-qualified, liquid-chemical bladders, the very same ones that were installed in all the aircraft that sprayed our vaccine worldwide. Without this one item, these thousands of liquid-chemical bladders, the vaccine could not have been dispensed in time. We all owe General Baker a deep debt of gratitude.
 
For my part, I plan to do more than merely thank him. Effective immediately, I am using my authority as Commander in Chief to promote Brigadier General Baker to General John L. Baker. That is a promotion from one-star general to four-star general. It is an extraordinary step for an extraordinary man.”

“Now, my fellow Americans, I have one last thing I want to talk with you about this afternoon.
 
Many years ago, my predecessors in this office had begun efforts to pursue new types of weapons based upon the use of chemical or biological agents. These programs, I am sorry to say, continued clandestinely, despite international treaties to the contrary, for many, many years.”

“Our experience with Asian Fever illustrates that biological weapons, if misused, could have unintentional and absolutely devastating consequences. It is my considered belief that these types of weapons are simply too dangerous and too difficult for us, or anyone else, to control. As a result I am ordering, effective immediately, the complete, unequivocal, and absolute end to all biological and chemical weapons research in the United States for all time, regardless of the security classification level. From this point onward any and all such projects in the United States, whether they are so-called “Black Programs” or not will cease immediately. This is my promise to you, my fellow citizens.
 
If there is one lesson we can learn from this nightmare we have all endured, it is that we must not tamper with the very forces of life, we must not toy with that which we do not understand.”

“My fellow Americans, as this season of thanksgiving and rejoicing begins, let us go forward with a renewed sense of hope and vision.
 
Let us remember with deep gratitude and respect those who have lost their lives in this great battle, and let us vow to live our lives with renewed courage, devotion to each other, and trust in a bright future.
 
Let us give thanks for these true American heroes who have secured for us again, the opportunity for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

“May God bless you all.”

Forty-One

           
President Cranston sat behind his desk in the Oval Office and watched as the last member of the television crew picked up an equipment case and walked out the door, closing it quietly after him.
 
The President waited until the door closed and then took a deep breath.
 
For a while he simply sat in his chair and looked at the portraits of the Presidents that now hung on the walls of the room: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt.
 
What would they have done?
he thought.
 
He looked out the window; the snow was falling harder now and the wind had picked up.
 
He could hear the occasional swishing sound of ice crystals as they were softly swept against the windowpanes.
 
Somewhere, off in the distance, he heard the wail of an ambulance’s siren.