Troy Rising 1 - Live Free or Die (34 page)

“Just look at the information we've got Mr. President,” the Commandant said. “A plague
which is not only a new species but acting in a way that our best experts cannot figure
out how it does it. Which has apparently been spread all around the world, more or less at
once.” He paused and looked around. The only one nodding was the head of SpaceCom which
was slowly migrating to being a member of the JCS.

“Horvath,” the admiral said, nodding. “They did that ball and twine orbit. They passed
over every major landmass...”

“Oh...” the general in charge of USAMRIID said, wincing. “Then... we can't be sure of
anything
.”

“Don't doubt yourself,” the Commandant barked. “You're saying that if you treat this
thing, there's no sign of more of these toad things?”

“Not... apparently,” the microbiologist said. “Nematode, General.”

“Whatever,” the Commandant said, sitting back and nodding. “Kind of weird, but it makes
sense in a way.”

“General,” the President said. “If you could perhaps make it clear to those of us who are
still... catching up?”

“Yes, Sir,” the Commandant said. “If it works like the brigadier said, sir, then it's a
separator.”

“Separator?” the Chairman said, shaking his head. “What the hell are you...”

“Separate the sheep from the goats, General,” the Commandant said. “If you treat it, you
live. If you don't, if you're just so... If you don't have good personal hygiene, or
access to medicine I guess...”

“
Alcohol
will kill it,” USAMRIID said. “Peroxide will kill it. Putting any antiseptic on the wound
will kill the bacteria and starve it.”

“If you just aren't worth...” the Commandant said and paused again. “People with any
sense
will treat it. They live.”

“Why would the Horvath do that?” the President said.

“Aliens, sir,” the Commandant said, shrugging. “But it looks to me like that's what's
going on. Question to keep in mind, is this the
only
bug they spread?”

“Oh,” the Chairman said. “What a sweetly good thought, Commandant. Thank you so much.”

“Yer welcome,” the Commandant said, his arms crossed. “Not my job to blow smoke, General.”
He paused in thought for a moment then shrugged his shoulders again.

“The Horvath are monolithic, communalist and Hobbesian,” the Commandant said. “They also
are eugenic Darwinists. They weed their own population, aggressively, for what they
perceive as defects. If they
did
spread other biologicals we'd better be ready for them to be as eugenic in nature. Looks
to me as if this was a test of personal hygiene. Of personal care?”

“More than that,” the Chief of Naval Operations said, thoughtfully.

“How?” the President asked.

“The...
nematode
can be killed with any number of antiseptics, correct Brigadier?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But... if you use alcohol, for example, what is the effect on the patient?”

“High levels of pain, sir,” the brigadier said, nodding. “It's painless if you leave it
alone. It's not even particularly painful to treat if you have the right materials. Field
expedient treatment will be painful.”

“You also need to have access to that information,” the admiral pointed out.

“So we need to do a broadcast,” the president said. “Fast. Blanca, get a press release out
as fast as possible. Do
not
mention the Horvath.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” the White House Spokesperson said.

“Do that now,” the President said. “Consult with CDC and USAMRIID. But get it out
fast
. Within the hour. Emergency broadcast regulations. We need to get people treating this
themselves. Or our medical facilities will be overrun.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” Blanca said, getting up and walking out.

“I may be extending this...” the CNO said, musingly. “But the first people to get treated,
or to treat themselves by buying the appropriate materials, will get the materials that
work and are painless. Those are going to be rapidly depleted. If everyone rushes to their
local drug store and buys...”

“Betadyne is the best choice,” the brigadier said. “There are also generic versions. Next
would be peroxide. Works most of the time but requires reapplication since it doesn't
always kill the parasite, just the bacteria culture. After that... you get to more painful
measures.”

“So the people that either have stocks or react quickly and effectively get the easy way,”
the Commandant said. “The rest have to suffer. If they're not willing to, they die. If
they don't listen, they die. If they don't have access to the information and aren't
interested in a little sore...”

“They die,” the President said.

“We're going to have a very significant die-off from this no matter what we do,” USAMRIID
said. “We're already seeing it. Mostly... I need to get unPC here, Mr. President.”

“Go ahead,” the President said.

“The majority of the casualties, so far, have been among the lower socioeconomic class,”
the brigadier said. “Minorities. Followed by elderly. And many of the victims,
unfortunately, have been children. Especially the lower socio-economic groups.”

“Their parents don't care,” the Commandant said, his face hard. “Wish it had been
something that just yanks a kid out of an environment like that rather than kills them.
Horvath...” His jaw worked as he clearly refrained from saying something.

“I agree,” the President said, his own face hard. “What about the military?”

“We've been seeing it turning up in our own medical side,” the CJCS said. “We're going to
distribute a FLASH order through channels immediately after this, Mr. President. Most of
that can be taken care of at the unit levels. We should be able to manage this fairly
effectively.”

“We need to make sure everybody knows it's
not
a hard-core issue,” the Commandant said. “There's probably twenty percent of those dumb
bastards are going 'Hey, it's just a little sore. I'm not going to be a sissy and go on
sick call.' We're probably going to lose some hardcores over it. Especially forward
deployed units. SEALs and Recon running around in the hills just aren't going to
notice
it.” He paused and looked at his wrist. “Case in point,” he finished, holding up his
wrist. “Wasn't there this morning.”

The President slowly pulled down his shirt sleeve and then looked up.

“Do we have any betadyne in the house?”

***

“Son of a
bitch
,” Tyler swore, quietly. “Doc, do we have any betadyne?”

“Yes, sir,” Dr. Laura Tobias said. Laura, despite a career as a flight surgeon and a
diving medical officer, had jumped at the chance to take a job for low pay and not much
prestige on the
Monkey Business
.

She wasn't actually being paid low but she probably could have made more as a specialist
on earth. Didn't matter. Like most of the crew, she was crazy for space.

Tyler had quickly solved the problem of finding crew for space operations. He simply
contacted various people in fandom. That didn't mean that most fans were suited for space
operations and given that he only had forty personnel on the
Monkey Business
everyone who was suited couldn't get a slot. But he sure didn't have to go looking for
people. They were queuing up.

“We've got plenty of betadyne,” Laura continued. “But the only person who's been on earth
since this started was
you
, sir. So if there's contamination...”

“I've got plants,” Tyler said, his brow furrowing. “According to my research, I should be
immune to practically anything. Sort of...” He paused and thought about it. “Unless it
really
is
a new organism. Then the hypernet has to get updated with the information.”

“Say again?” Nathan said. He'd come up with Tyler less to oversee the shift to mining
Twenty-Nine than because he could catch a ride.

“We're getting to the point, and the Glatun are long past the point, of Junior's Home RNA
kit,” Tyler said.

“Junior's
what
?” Dr. Tobias said, laughing. “What is
that
?”

“When any script kiddy can write a biological virus,” Tyler said, his face blank.

“Oh,” Laura said. “That's less funny.”

“Much,” Tyler said. “We've gotten to the point where we can tailor viruses to go after
particular DNA sequences. We can make a virus that makes most people sick but only
kills
one selected person. Or one race, because there
are
genetic differences.”

“I don't think a... script kiddy could modify a nematode,” Dr. Tobias said. “Much harder
than a virus. And this one is just... weird.”

“Didn't say it was a human,” Tyler said. “Spread is all wrong. Sorry, I'm looking at
information as we're talking and it's definitely Horvath. Point is that the Glatun already
have to deal with this sort of thing. Not a lot, but they do have to deal. It's like
computer viruses.”

“Lost me again,” Laura said.

“Lost me a long time ago,” Nathan said.

“If anyone can write a pestilence, how do you fight it?” Tyler said. “Like a computer
virus. Part of the implants is nannites that work with your immune system. They carry the
basic data for every known hostile micro-organism and update your... B cells Doctor?”

“Probably,” Dr. Tobias said, interested. “You're kidding?”

“Nope,” Tyler said. “Triple redundancy on all the... I guess you'd call it legacy stuff.
Black Plague. Smallpox. Measles. Yellow Fever. The sort of stuff you get vaccinated for if
you're travelling. There are at least three nannites, out of billions mind you, in your
body that have data on those. They update the B cells as they go through. Check to see you
have the antibodies ready and go on. Also for stuff like cancer by the way. The system
pre-programs your immune system to scrub for cancer cells. But that hardly fills up the
mass of nannites. The rest are filled by update. I don't know when it happens but when I'm
around a hypernet my nannites get updated with the latest virus to affect humans. I guess
this stuff if it's on the net, yet. I'm not even sure who does the updating or if new
stuff is covered for humans. But I'd bet nine to one that I'm immune.”

“It sounds like the whole planet needs that,” Dr. Tobias said.

“Sure would be nice,” Tyler said, then paused. “It might be possible but it would drive
people nuts.”

“Why?” Dr. Tobias asked.

“Most nannites are limited by numerics,” Tyler said. “You have to have a license for them
and the license spells out how many you can make. I looked this stuff up cause I was
interested. Anyway, the exception is medical nannites that can only survive in tissue and
have their own internal limitations. The nannites will only build a certain number in any
single organism. They survive and replicate on your blood. Calling them nannites is sort
of wrong. They're really biologicals with some nannite like features. But my blood, the
blood of any person with plants, should serve as a vaccine. To just about everything but
especially to this stuff. If it's even in the database.”

“How do we find out?” Dr. Tobias asked.

“I have no fracking clue,” Tyler said. “I never have really dealt with Glatun medical. I
know who to call, though.”

***

“Cori's Plants and Cybers! It only costs an arm and a leg!”

“Cori, it's Tyler Vernon,” Tyler said.

“Hey, Tyler!” Cori buzzed. “Good to hear from you! Thanks for all the business! Like the
new slogan?”

“Very nice, Cori,” Tyler said. “I need to speak to Louisa, please.”

“What, I'm not good enough?” Cori said. “Some friend.”

“Cori, we've got a plague,” Tyler replied. “You really want to be involved?”

“Hell no!” Cori said. “Louisa! Phone.”

“I heard, Tyler,” Louisa said. “The medical AI network monitors all hypernet transmissions
for word of biologicals.”

“Will the Glatun help?” Tyler asked.

“It is more or less one of those conditions where it is assured,” Louisa said. “But
support has to be requested.”

“They haven't asked?” Tyler said.

“Not so far,” Louisa said.

“Is the organism identified by the update net?” Tyler said. “I mean, if you've got plants
does it get... Do you know what I'm saying?”

“Yes,” Louisa said. “All six organisms have been identified and updated.”

“Six?”
Tyler screamed.

“Yes,” Louisa said. "Your pilots were infected when they came through. The organisms were
neutralized and updates created. I didn't mention it to them because there was little or
nothing they could do. You are updated as is anyone with the appropriate nannites in range
of a hypernode on your planet. Everyone else is at risk. That is not quite precise. All of
the organisms are tailored for specific tasks. The nematode is designed to sort for
persons who are lazy or sloppy. One might go so far as to say stupid. Despite current
reports it will require multiple treatments over the course of a month. With those
treatments, however, it is survivable. Anyone infected, which is by our estimate
eighty-seven percent of the human race, has to maintain the treatment or get Galactic
level of treatment to entirely remove the nematode and all released cysts. It is the only
one, however, that is treatable by human technology.

"Following the nematode attack there are five viruses. Four strike more or less
simultaneously, the fifth strikes last. All of the viruses are aerosol vectors as well as
blood pathogens. All of the viruses have a long infectious period followed by rapid
terminal phase. They're fairly merciful, actually. The nematode attack is the most painful
and the pain period is mercifully brief.

“There is a virus loaded to eliminate a host of genetic disorders including color
blindness. Then one that attacks anyone with a reduced immune system. One that eliminates
anyone with genetic propensity for cancer or several auto-immune disorders such as lupus.
Then one that attacks several teratogenic conditions. Those will attack simultaneously
and, based on probable infection period, quite soon. Which are all very much overkill
because the last one kills anyone who does
not
have a gene for blond hair. I'm not sure what the purpose of that is. But it will
eliminate ninety percent of your world population. It does, however, strike very last so
you have some time. It will initiate in between ten and fifteen days depending upon method
of transmission. The others will be entering initiation phase soon if they have not
already.”