Autumn Belfontaine had been watching Ken Redmond’s people install the new main board when she got the message from Medlab. Part of her wanted to call and ask what the heck was going on, but the message was plain: report to Dr. Thuc’s office.
So here she was, hoping she was ready for whatever she was about to find out. Given that it was Dr. Thuc, it was most likely news rather than something about her own personal medical situation. Not that it made it any easier.
And then the door opened and Dr. Thuc stepped out. “Thank you for coming down here so quickly. I hadn’t expected you until later.”
“I’d just finished my last news segment of the morning, so I was watching the installation of some new equipment. I shouldn’t need to be back for at least an hour, so there’s time to talk.”
“That’s good to know. Please come in and sit down.”
As Autumn took a seat, she noticed Dr. Thuc closing the door behind her. Whatever they were going to be talking about was confidential.
“I just got some news that Captain Waite thinks you should know. There’s been a discovery at an old hunting lodge in the Alps which suggests the diablovirus is probably artificial.”
“OK.” Autumn recalled the earlier statements to the opposite effect. “I thought it was a natural mutation because several key proteins would’ve been arranged more efficiently if it were artificial.”
“That’s what everyone thought, because we were all assuming that genetic engineering would be done by professionals, to best standards. Instead, we think we’re looking at an amateur job by eco-fanatics. We aren’t even sure if the building was burning because they were careless with their equipment, or they decided it was time to commit suicide.”
“Good Lord.” Autumn recalled a couple of the groups who’d been active at U of Minnesota a decade ago — and while they were fringe, they weren’t completely out there, for the simple reason that the university didn’t tolerate any student group that promoted violence or other criminal activity. “The sort of people who believe humanity is a plague upon the Earth. It’s a sort of secular Calvinism, absolute depravity without irresistable grace.”
“I’m afraid I’m not overly well versed on the theology of Protestant denominations, but calling them a cult is probably not too far off the mark. At this point, our best hope is to try to recover enough information from their computers and paper files to get a working model of the diablovirus. If Voronsky is as good as people say, we can hope we’ll have it under control in a few months.”
“Then we can start to rebuild.” Why did that not sound nearly as hopeful as Autumn really wanted it to. “Which raises the question of just how much we can rebuild. From some stuff I’ve heard, there are areas where whole communities have been wiped out, and a lot of places where civil society has broken down altogether, even in the US. And even in the places that are holding together, do we have enough people to rebuild back to the same place we were, or are we going to have to allow some areas to slip backward? At least up here we’ve dodged the bullet, so personally we shouldn’t be worrying about losing any critical technologies. But I’m thinking it’s going to be a lot rougher than people anticipate.”
“That may very well be. Right now almost everyone I’m in contact with is focusing on trying to keep the health care system reasonably functional, even in the face of inadequate supplies and often inadequate staff. So I really don’t have that much of the big picture.”
“But even what you’ve given me will help. I’m going to see what I can find out about it, and whether we’re going to want to start broadcasting about it, or we want to hang onto it for a more opportune time.”