Contagious

A slash entered the screen from the top right. A split second later, the screen lit up in blinding white. That white quickly vanished, revealing a rising plume of smoke that started out hot-white but soon faded to a flickering light gray.

Everyone sat and silently watched. Donald finally broke the silence.

“I sure as h.e.l.l hope they didn’t build a third.”

AUTOPSY NUMBER ONE

Margaret watched Gitsh and Marcus push the st.u.r.dy autopsy trolley up the ramp and through the right-side door in the back of Trailer A. There was a lot of room in the body bag on that gurney, the little boy’s body inside like a single pea in a pod made for three. She followed the trolley into the white airlock room, then shut the gas-tight outer door behind her. The three of them waited in the narrow airlock as the pressure inside equalized, which had to happen before the gas-tight inner door would open. Smooth white epoxy covered every surface, just as it did in all of the trailer’s biohazard areas. The entire trailer, including the computer room, had a double seal—a continuous epoxy coat, then all wiring and ductwork, then a second epoxy wall. As in any BSL lab, the goal was to remove as many nooks, crannies and edges as possible.

Above the inner door, a light changed from red to green. Margaret opened the door, then followed the trolley into the decontamination chamber. Gitsh closed the inner door behind them. She stood back as the men worked controls that brought forth the high-powered spray of liquid bleach and chlorine gas from nozzles mounted on the walls, floor and ceiling. Gitsh and Marcus moved the body bag around, making sure the nozzles..h.i.t every last square inch.

Margaret spread her arms and turned slowly, letting the lethal spray cover her biohazard suit. She checked her heads-up display for breathable air—her suit tank had twenty minutes left. The decon chamber was really the only place they used the oxygen tanks. The rest of the time they connected the helmets to the trailers’ air supply via built-in hoses or just relied on the filter system. The suit’s filters could handle anything a half micron or larger, but chlorine gas would seep right through, burn the lungs and bring a painful death

After Marcus and Gitsh finished rinsing themselves in the chlorine spray, Margaret opened the final gas-tight door and stepped into the autopsy room. At eight feet wide by twenty feet long, this was the largest area in the MargoMobile.

Gitsh pushed the trolley all the way to the room’s far end, where it locked in place at the front of an epoxy-coated sink. The two-foot-wide trolley left three feet of s.p.a.ce on either side, plenty of room to work. He turned a k.n.o.b at the foot of the trolley, raising the end one inch. The shallow angle ensured that any fluids would run down the ridges on the trolley’s sides and spill into the sink, which drained into the waste-treatment system.

“Okay, guys, let’s get connected,” Margaret said. Four curled yellow hoses hung from the ceiling. She reached up, pulled one down and handed it to Marcus. He connected the hose to the back of her helmet. She felt a quick hiss as pressurized air slid into her suit, making it puff up a little bit more. In her HUD the internal air-supply timer faded to a thin, ghostly illumination while the circular logo that marked an external oxygen supply glowed to life. The wireless communication icon also faded as the network connection light lit up.

“Let’s get him out of the bag,” Margaret said.

After connecting their own helmets, Gitsham and Marcus unzipped the outer body bag and pulled it off. Marcus put it in a red disposal chute marked with a bright orange biohazard logo. They repeated the process for the second bag and put the child’s body on the table.

Margaret couldn’t suppress a shudder. His Milwaukee Bucks s.h.i.+rt had slid up around his armpits. Dawsey’s kick had smashed at least eight of the boy’s ribs, caving them inward like so much broken pottery. The child’s spine was snapped on the right side of the eighth thoracic vertebra, bending him at nearly a ninety-degree angle to his right. A mask of pure rage had frozen on the boy’s face, a wide-eyed, teeth-bared snarl that broadcast absolute hate even in death. She had seen faces like that too many times. The faces of the infected.

“Gitsh, get a sample in the microscope right away—I want to see the level of decomposition—then prepare the injections. Marcus, bring me the swab-test prototype.”

“Yes ma’am,” Marcus said.

“Recorder on,” Margaret said. A green light flashed in the upper right-hand corner of her HUD, signaling that everything she said and saw was being recorded in the control room.

“I’m online, Margaret,” Clarence said, his voice in her earpiece. “I have the other bodies in the second trailer. Amos is checking out the baby, but he looks fine. Did you run the test prototype yet?”

“Hold tight, I’m doing it now.” She held out her hand and Marcus gave her a small white electronic device the size of two packs of cigarettes joined end to end. He then opened a thin foil packet and pulled out a four-inch plastic stick, the last half inch coated with damp fabric. She slid the fabric end along the boy’s gum line and against the inside of his cheek.

The triangles harvested sugars common in the human body and used them to make cellulose, a material found only in plants. The cellulose formed a construction material that allowed the triangles to grow into hatchlings. Her theory was that some of the cellulose would leak into the bloodstream and eventually permeate bodily fluids, including saliva.

The prototype had few controls. The primary feature was a row of three square lights near the top: orange, green and red. She slid the plastic swab into a matching slot in the handheld device, and the orange light flashed, indicating a test in progress. The next indicator would be the green light, showing no trace of cellulose, or the red if the material was present in concentrations greater than one might find in a random gra.s.s stain.