Countdown: A Newsflesh Novella Read Online Free Page A
Author: Mira Grant
perfectly normal animals. Suddenly, it seemed like he couldn’t look away.
* * *
Dr. Alexander Kellis has thus far refused to comment on the potential risks posed by his untested “cure for the common cold,” released three days ago by a group calling itself “The Mayday Army”…
June 18, 2014: Atlanta, Georgia
The best description for the atmosphere at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, was “tense.” Everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and had been waiting since reports first came in describing the so-called Mayday Army’s release of an experimental pathogen into the atmosphere. The tension only intensified when Dr. Alexander Kellis responded to requests for more information on the pathogen by supplying his research, which detailed, at length, the infectious nature of his hybridized creation.
One of the administrative assistants had probably put it best when she looked at the projected infection maps in horror and said, “If he’d been working with rabies or something, he would have just killed us all.”
If he was being completely honest with himself, Dr. William Matras wasn’t entirely sure that Alexander Kellis hadn’t just killed them all, entirely without intending to, entirely with the best of intentions. The proteins composing the capsid shell on Alpha-RC007 were ingeniously engineered, something that had been a good thing—increased stability, increased predictability in behavior—right up until the moment when the idiots in the Mayday Army broke the seals keeping the world and the virus apart. Now those same proteins made Alpha-RC007 extremely virulent, extremely contagious, and, worst of all, extremely difficult to detect in a living host. The lab animals they’d requested from Dr. Kellis’s lab in Reston were known to be infected, but showed almost no signs of illness; four out of five blood tests would come up negative for the presence of Alpha-RC007, only to have the fifth show a thriving infection. Alpha-RC007 hid . It could be spurred to reveal itself by introducing another infection into the host…and that was when Alpha-RC007 became truly terrifying.
Alpha-RC007 was engineered to cure the common cold, something it accomplished by setting itself up as a competing, and superior, infection. Once it was in the body, it simply never went away. The specific structure of its capsid shell somehow tricked the human immune system into believing that Alpha-RC007 was another form of helper cell—and, in a way, it was. Alpha-RC007 wanted to help. Watching it attack and envelop other viruses that entered the body was a chilling demonstration of perfect biological efficiency. Alpha-RC007 saw; Alpha-RC007 killed. Alpha-RC007 tolerated no other infections in the body.
What was going to happen the first time Alpha-RC007 decided the human immune system counted as an infection? No one knew, and the virus had thus far resisted any and all attempts to remove it from a living host. Unless a treatment could be found before Kellis’s creation decided to become hostile, Dr. Matras was very afraid that the entire world was going to learn just how vicious Alpha-RC007 could be.
He sat at his desk, watching the infection models as they spread out across North America and the world, and wondered how long they really had before they found out whether or not the Mayday Army had managed to destroy mankind—with the help of Dr. Alexander Kellis, of course.
“Cheer up, Will!” called one of his colleagues, passing by on the way to the break room. “A pandemic disease that makes you healthy isn’t exactly the worst thing we’ve ever had to deal with.”
“And what’s it going to do to us in a year, Chris?” Dr. Matras shot back.
Dr. Chris Sinclair grinned. “Raise the dead, of course,” he said. “Don’t you ever go to the movies?” Then he walked away, leaving Dr. Matras alone to brood.
* * *
The Centers for Disease Control have issued a
* * *
Dr. Alexander Kellis has thus far refused to comment on the potential risks posed by his untested “cure for the common cold,” released three days ago by a group calling itself “The Mayday Army”…
June 18, 2014: Atlanta, Georgia
The best description for the atmosphere at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, was “tense.” Everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop, and had been waiting since reports first came in describing the so-called Mayday Army’s release of an experimental pathogen into the atmosphere. The tension only intensified when Dr. Alexander Kellis responded to requests for more information on the pathogen by supplying his research, which detailed, at length, the infectious nature of his hybridized creation.
One of the administrative assistants had probably put it best when she looked at the projected infection maps in horror and said, “If he’d been working with rabies or something, he would have just killed us all.”
If he was being completely honest with himself, Dr. William Matras wasn’t entirely sure that Alexander Kellis hadn’t just killed them all, entirely without intending to, entirely with the best of intentions. The proteins composing the capsid shell on Alpha-RC007 were ingeniously engineered, something that had been a good thing—increased stability, increased predictability in behavior—right up until the moment when the idiots in the Mayday Army broke the seals keeping the world and the virus apart. Now those same proteins made Alpha-RC007 extremely virulent, extremely contagious, and, worst of all, extremely difficult to detect in a living host. The lab animals they’d requested from Dr. Kellis’s lab in Reston were known to be infected, but showed almost no signs of illness; four out of five blood tests would come up negative for the presence of Alpha-RC007, only to have the fifth show a thriving infection. Alpha-RC007 hid . It could be spurred to reveal itself by introducing another infection into the host…and that was when Alpha-RC007 became truly terrifying.
Alpha-RC007 was engineered to cure the common cold, something it accomplished by setting itself up as a competing, and superior, infection. Once it was in the body, it simply never went away. The specific structure of its capsid shell somehow tricked the human immune system into believing that Alpha-RC007 was another form of helper cell—and, in a way, it was. Alpha-RC007 wanted to help. Watching it attack and envelop other viruses that entered the body was a chilling demonstration of perfect biological efficiency. Alpha-RC007 saw; Alpha-RC007 killed. Alpha-RC007 tolerated no other infections in the body.
What was going to happen the first time Alpha-RC007 decided the human immune system counted as an infection? No one knew, and the virus had thus far resisted any and all attempts to remove it from a living host. Unless a treatment could be found before Kellis’s creation decided to become hostile, Dr. Matras was very afraid that the entire world was going to learn just how vicious Alpha-RC007 could be.
He sat at his desk, watching the infection models as they spread out across North America and the world, and wondered how long they really had before they found out whether or not the Mayday Army had managed to destroy mankind—with the help of Dr. Alexander Kellis, of course.
“Cheer up, Will!” called one of his colleagues, passing by on the way to the break room. “A pandemic disease that makes you healthy isn’t exactly the worst thing we’ve ever had to deal with.”
“And what’s it going to do to us in a year, Chris?” Dr. Matras shot back.
Dr. Chris Sinclair grinned. “Raise the dead, of course,” he said. “Don’t you ever go to the movies?” Then he walked away, leaving Dr. Matras alone to brood.
* * *
The Centers for Disease Control have issued a
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