“On a positive note,” Art said, “it really isn’t that easy to transfer to a surface. An affected person really needs to be exposed to that surface for a while and steadily. Just stopping in the store won’t do it.”
Craig waved out his hand and facially showed he was confused. “By no means am I a virus expert, but this thing sounds very different with a unique set of rules you seem to know very well.”
“I do and sadly I should,” Art said. “I created it.”
12.
A BREEZE
“You’re a scientist,” Kit stated.
He reined in control when Cass and Craig both seemed to go off after Art took credit or responsibility for what was happening.
“Yes,” Art answered. “A microbiologist. My specialty is mycology, study of fungi, bacteria, that sort of thing,”
Kit looked at Bill. “Are you a scientist, too?”
“No, no, no.” He shook his head. “I’m a rancher. I just know weather patterns.”
“And it’s a good thing,” Art said. “He and I wouldn’t be alive if he didn’t.”
“I am so lost,” Kit said. “What is happening?”
“Let me go back to the beginning,” Art said.
“Please,” Kit said.
“As you know the ladybug was an issue with crops. So the stinkbug was genetically manipulated to quell the ladybug problem. Then the stinkbug got out of control. Enter the pred bug. No one would have thought that was going to be as bad as it got. It destroyed everything. All of you know this. This year alone it was predicted that sixty percent of the crops would be lost if we didn’t do anything. The Secretary of Agriculture called me,” Art said. “Find a solution. Nothing was working on them. Nothing previously tried. The pred bug was impervious to anything and they multiplied at an astronomical rate.”
Craig spoke, “I read an article that if they weren’t eliminated this year, they’d be everywhere.”
“One shouldn’t mess with mother nature,” Art said. “That’s correct. So I was called in to find a solution. And it hit one night in a hotel when I saw a bed bug. Beauveria Bassiana. A fungus. The hardest bug to kill is a bed bug. They’re resilient. Yet, they die from Beauveria Bassiana. So I needed to find the right fungus. It’s not unusual or uncommon to use fungi or bacteria on bugs to wipe them out. But nothing worked. I had to create a superior fungus. One that didn’t hurt plants or agriculture, only the pred bugs. I mean I knew we could lose other bugs, maybe some birds, but the end result was the elimination of the pred bug and that was most important. All testing showed it was safe.”
“When did you learn it wasn’t?” Kit asked.
“A week before the extermination blitzkrieg launch. The whole plan was to spray everywhere within a twenty-four-hour window, all across the globe. Now you can’t spray every location so you have to rely on using a highly concentrated formula that would carry with the wind, jet streams, a global extermination. The effort was quite ambitious. Because the spores lose effectiveness in twenty-four hours, they would spot exterminate after that.”
“So that,” Kit said, “was how you determined which places were safe.”
Bill answered, “Yes, but it was a crap shoot. There are a few places that were clear, safe places. Griffin was one. There aren’t many.”
Art added, “If we’d just had more time. We tried to warn them but no one listened. Testing never went beyond the four-hour mark with humans, twenty-four hours with mice. It was so rushed.”
Kit shook his head in confusion. “I don’t understand. How can you not test longer?”
“There was nothing that indicated long-term effects. We were worried about the immediate effects since the bugs died instantly,” Art answered.
“Four hours is not long term,” said Cass.
“No, it’s not. My colleague discovered the mice were dying at the twenty-five-hour mark. They showed no symptoms whatsoever. It was by accident that we learned what it did to people. The tech that removed the live mouse, she didn’t have gloves on. The spores of the fungus transferred to her skin. It spread, the skin deteriorated, there was no way to stop it. We tried but she died in twelve hours. And that was when we learned. The fungus was releasing extremely high levels of mycotoxins. Which meant each mode of infection or affection caused different symptoms. Much like anthrax.”
Craig commented, “Cutaneous, inhalation, and gastrointestinal. Eat, touch, breathe.”
“Exactly,” Art said. “Sometimes all three. The symptoms would be horrendous. If they caught it by the skin exposure, a rash would just eat the skin, releasing the same deadly toxin into the blood stream until death. Inhalation or ingestion would be a faster, less painful death. But we don’t know. Because we were never able to see its effects beyond the tech. All our warnings were based on her and for that, we were dismissed.”
“So you ran,” Kit said.
“My team did,” Art replied. “I thought they’d be here.”
Kit paced some, then stopped with a swing of his hand. “Do we know though? Do we know it caused this effect? I mean what you are saying is the extermination carried out across the globe wiped everyone out except for a few places. Do we know this to be true? We are in Griffin, the out-of-touch capital of the world.”
Cass peered up to him. “You tried Seaver. No luck.”
“Then I’ll go there.” Kit walked toward the door.
“Officer, stop,” Art called out. “I beg of you not to. It hasn’t hit the twenty-four-hour mark. It takes at least twenty-four hours for the spores to die off, lose effectiveness. I know that. You go there; it could still be there. Wait. Wait until tomorrow and go. In the meantime, we need to go door to door. Check to see who was in town, who was not and if anyone has any symptoms. Our main goal is to give the fungus no more hosts to latch on to.”
“So contact tracing,” Craig said. “What do we do with those infected? If we find any.”
“Isolate. One area,” Art replied. “Make them as comfortable as possible. Twenty-four hours, spore free, we are in the clear.”
“What do we tell people?” Kit asked. “Just knock on the door and say hey, we need to check you in case you are going to die?”
Art shook his head. “Tell them the truth. Well, in part. Tell them there is a biological threat, you’re checking on anyone who may have left town and ask if they are experiencing any symptoms. After the town is in the clear, then we tell them. We tell them the truth when we know the extent of everything.”
“I don’t think you’ll find anyone,” Cass said. “No one really leaves. We’re not a big social town.”
“That’s optimistic and good to hear,” Art said. “The sooner we get on this the better. Officer, I need you to make sure no one leaves town.”
“I have two off-duty officers I’ll call in,” Kit replied.
Craig exhaled loudly, stood, and slowly shook his head. “I never thought it was possible. But we’re looking at complete omnicide.”
Art nodded his agreement. “Yes, because if I am right. This is global.”
Cass looked left to right, Art to Craig. “Wait. What? Stop. Omnicide? What the hell is that?”
Craig explained, “It starts with good intentions. Something that is to protect and better the world. Basically, it’s something man made that causes the extinction of the human race. Obviously, it has never happened. Yet, that’s what we have. If he is right, if this hit everywhere, it’s a pure definition of the word,” Craig said. “Omnicide.”
13.
HIDE AND SEEK