“I’ll give you one hour.”
Geist shook his head. “You’re talking about the wholesale infection of a U.S. city. There are certain philosophical concerns. I like to be able to sleep at night.”
But Geist clearly was intrigued. Maryk saw in Geist’s face the seditious eyes of a true man of science.
“Just how do you plan on infecting all of metro Atlanta today?” Geist said.
Maryk strode to the glass door. “Leave that to me.”
Maryk posted Freeley from his office and instructed her to stall the BioCon cleanup and keep the airport shut down into the night. She was to establish checkpoints along every highway outside the city and await his instructions.
He called up a map of metro Atlanta His target area extended beyond the metro I-285 loop, from Roswell to Smyrna, down to Union City, through Riverdale and Panthersville and out to Stone Mountain, and back north again through Decatur and Duluth.
He scanned Atlanta for places Zero might seek out as primary targets. He pulled down population distributions by metropolitan district and accessed the departments of public works network. He highlighted every regional waterworks station. He had to think like a virus now. Maryk could get into places Zero could only dream of.
He tapped into the BDc’s Genetech computer and traced the flow of air through all thirteen on-campus buildings back to a below ground central air-conditioning system. The Tank and other negative-air-pressure security labs were supplied independently and could be spared.
He dialed Suzy Lumen and had Zero’s computer trace rerouted directly to his own tablet. He would be paged automatically in the event of any unauthorized access.
He checked the Atlanta Bureau of Tourism home page. The international Star Fleet Convention of the hinge Enterprise Church was due to kick off at noon that day with a service at Turner Stadium.
Eighty-five thousand devotees were expected to attend.
He consulted the National Weather Service last. Heavy rain was forecast for midday over most of the city. Maryk grinned at his great good fortune.
Geist was wearing a contact suit now and dark circles owled his browless eyes inside the hood. Engineers milled about the labs outside the glass walls of the work station and he watched them conspiratorially.
“The Korean virus is lock-solid,” he said, “or as lock-solid as any virus can be. Nasty little spud. A real runt virus. Tenacious.”
Maryk turned the sealed petri dish over and over in his gloved hand and the translucent fluid slid around with the consistency of corn syrup. “I’ll need heavy concentrations, both liquid and crystal.”
“Being worked up now.”
Maryk brimmed with nervous energy. “Did you take a look at the Zero sample?”
“No reaction to plants. Human cells, it infects as before. And I can see the genetic resemblance to smallpox. It’s remarkable.” Geist breathed deeply inside his suit. “The vast, vast majority of the population will survive this. I truly believe that. But there will be ramifications.”
“All area hospitals are being alerted to Biohazard 2 as we speak.”
“What about the BDC?”
“Every potential host must be removed from Zero’s grasp. Air-conditioning gives me a direct pipeline into each building.”
“What about Building Thirteen? Certain things have to be looked after.”
“The Genetech runs the bug vault. It will preserve security there and keep all the stored pathogens in deep-freeze. This is all or nothing, Geist. Anything less than the entire metro population means failure.”
Geist nodded inside his hood. “What about Zero? I combined this thing with his virus, and there were no fireworks. But what if it puts him to sleep too?”
“Just as well. His virus will break down while he sleeps. My hunch is that he’s holed up in a car somewhere, hiding in the dark, an underground garage probably, medicating himself and conserving his strength for tonight. I think it will miss him completely.”
“And what about the girl?”
Maryk had been holding the dish up to the ceiling lights. He lowered his arm and returned the solution to the counter. “What girl?”
“The look on your face,” said Geist. “The girl you’ve been taking around with you everywhere, of course. A hostile antisocial such as yourself. Who is she? A patient?”
The chill of failure threatened to envelop Maryk again. He reminded himself that Melanie Weir was a small price to pay for the preservation of the human race. He answered, “Not anymore.”
Geist had more to say but Maryk was no longer listening. He was moving toward the glass door.
Atlanta
The twin-engine planes took off from De Kalb Peachtree Airport around ten o’clock that morning. They flew in shifts, climbing high over the city and punching through the gathering clouds before releasing their payloads. The hired pilots were unaware of the extra cargo they carried, the translucent solution soaking the rainmaking silver iodide crystals. They seeded the thickening clouds in patient box patterns growing wider with every passing hour.
The downtown area was the first to see rain. Umbrellas opened, collars went up, and paces quickened all across the city as raindrops smattered the gold dome of the Georgia State Capitol Building, sprayed the tourists standing in line for the World of Coca-Cola Pavilion, and nourished the trees edging the birth home of Martin Luther King, Jr. The rain tapped at the window panes of the governor’s mansion in Buckhead to the north and blackened the empty airfields of Hartsfield International Airport to the south. At midday the rain turned driving, tropical in force, slashing against the sidewalks and the streets and highways, flooding each of the thirty-two Peachtree streets, and lashing the skyscrapers and high rises like a squall battering ships at sea.
By noon, Maryk’s Special Pathogens agents had gained access to most of the municipal waterworks. Their credentials allowed them past the secured screens, filters, and boilers, the pumping and purifying equipment that ensured the integrity of the city’s running water, into the testing areas, beyond which the out-tanks pushed water through the underground utility system to every business and residence. They released colorless, odorless gel caps the size of human eyeballs, still soft from the mold, in multiples of ten corresponding to population density.
Atlanta drank its water. Atlanta washed its hands. Atlanta splashed in toilets and urinals and used common handles to open and close doors. Atlanta brushed its teeth. Atlanta bathed.
The rain continued to fall outside and crashed against the antebellum homes and plantations of historic Roswell. It shut down attractions at Six Flags Over Georgia and swamped the legendary college gridirons and pelted the Confederate Memorial in Stone Mountain Park.
By two o’clock the infection was raging all across the city. Highways jammed with sick people heading home from work. Downtown streets emptied with the shortened workday, and the first news reports came on, warning of a disease spreading exponentially throughout the metro region. By four o’clock the local news anchors had been lost to illness, and holiday event cancellations were read on air by sallow-eyed stagehands. By six o’clock, the stations put up “technical difficulty” cards, with the official BDC bulletin crawling across the bottom of the screen.
The causative agent was said to be an extremely rare Korean virus causing gastric discomfort, low-grade fever, and languorous fatigue. “Patient Zero” was thought to be an unnamed “Admiral” of the Enterprise Church visiting Atlanta for the Star Fleet Convention, where the illness had ignited and was quickly spread by conventioneers moving throughout the city. There was no known treatment for the disease except bed rest, but the populace was assured that the natural curative processes of the human body would expel the virus within thirty-six hours. Neighboring states were being asked not to attempt assistance, and in order to preclude the spread of the epidemic to the rest of the country, the metro area of Atlanta was effectively quarantined as of seven o’clock that night.