Chapter 5

BETHESDA, MARYLAND

Infection Date 10, 1600 GMT (12:00 p.m. Local)

Isabel was late for her first NIH meeting even before she got lost in the maze of D.C. streets, and then again in the labyrinthine NIH hospital. When she finally found the right conference room, two men in dark suits just outside flashed FBI badges. Oh, shit! They led her into an empty office. “Here she is,” one said into a speakerphone.

“Dr. Miller?” boomed a voice from the speaker. “I’m Andrew Pearson. Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”

Isabel’s mouth went dry and her voice broke. “How do . . . How do you do, sir?”

“I hear you just met with your brother, Noah Miller, at Patterson Park in Baltimore.”

The agents in the room returned Isabel’s searching gaze, but betrayed nothing. Maybe she should deny it, but he knew. “Uhm, yes . . . sir.”

“Did you sign a nondisclosure agreement?” Director Pearson asked.

“Yes. Yes, sir. I did. I know.”

The agents made no move to handcuff her. “I’m gonna lay my cards on the table, Dr. Miller,” Pearson said. “I just attended a Kafkaesque meeting with the AG, who wants me to resubmit my request for ammunition replenishment. This afternoon. He wants an SOW, a Statement of Work, raising our order from four million nine-mil rounds to fifty million rounds. Fifty,” he repeated. “I’ve got 14,000 field agents. Do the math. That’s 3,500 additional rounds per agent, and we’ve already got 100 million rounds in stock. So my specific question, Dr. Miller, is just what the fuck is going on?”

“Well, sir, as you know, I signed that nondisclosure agreement. . . .”

“Don’t yank my chain! The president may hate my guts, but I guaran-damn-tee you I can detain your ass on nothing more than I know now. So, last chance. What’s it gonna be, Dr. Miller? Friend or foe?”

Since asking to call Noah, her lawyer, wouldn’t sound like she’d chosen friend, she saw no alternative. “Okay. Being that you’re the head of the FBI and all. . . . So, this new disease emerged? In Siberia?” She heard nothing over the phone, and the two agents remained stone-faced. It’s in China but it’s going global soon. It’ll spread slowly, then accelerate. It kills half the people, and damages the brains of survivors, sometimes causing extreme violence. “I’m a neuroscientist, so I’ve been asked to study that behavior.”

“And,” he said, “because your twin sister caught it. How long until it gets here?”

How much does he know? Is this some kind of trap? “A month or two. Weeks, conceivably.” Pearson asked about the violence. “I was attacked in Siberia by an infected Russian who went from calm to homicidal in a split second. Marines killed him before . . .”

Before what? She shuddered suddenly. What would that Russian have done to me? She went on. Insensitivity to pain. Flat emotional affect. Lack of empathy.

“They sound like remorseless killing machines, Dr. Miller. When will the president go public?” Isabel assumed he was worried about unrest and assured him they’d keep it under wraps as long as possible. Pearson surprised her. “So only top officials get to plan for survival? We have a rule with terrorism, Dr. Miller. If threats cause you to take personal precautions, you inform the public even though it alerts the terrorists you’re onto them. It’s wrong not to give the public the same chance we have. And if it’s wrong for terrorism, it’s criminal in this case. Just so you know, every official in those NSC meetings, every doctor at the NIH, every pharmaceutical company exec is stocking up a cabin in the woods before all the regular folk find out.”

Isabel had no response. No good one anyway.

“I’ll be calling you for regular updates. You say nothing about our talks. Agreed?”

“What about my meeting with my brother?”

“What meeting?” Pearson replied.

“The one we just had in. . . . Oh.” The line was already dead, and she was alone.

Isabel crossed the hall in a fog and entered a crowded conference room, which instantly fell silent. Two dozen white-smocked scientists sat at a long table looking at her. Isabel waggled her fingers in a lame wave that she instantly regretted.

“Well!” said a middle-aged woman at the table’s head. “Dr. Miller, I presume? So glad you could grace us with an appearance. We’ve just been killing time waiting.” They were clearly mid meeting. Notes filled glowing tablets. Data cluttered white boards. Isabel took the only empty seat, beside the acerbic woman, as everyone stared at her, faces grim. “You settled in?” asked the presumably senior scientist in a patronizing tone. “Can we get you coffee or anything?” Isabel shook her head. “Okay, to catch you up, estimates are three billion dead, three billion zombiefied. As Dr. Street might say, it was fun while it lasted.”

Her reference to zombies offended Isabel, but she decided to make herself small, the way she felt.

“This is the newest member of our team.” The woman clearly added verbal air quotes around member. “Dr. Isabel Miller, twin sister of Subject Zero Zero One. Identical twin, obviously. For those who don’t have access privileges to the Subject, this is what Zero Zero One looks like, minus all this one’s . . . hair.”

“Patient,” corrected a heavily bearded man next her. Like most of the others, he wore thick, unfashionable eyeglasses. “Patient, not subject.”

The woman ignored him. “Dr. Miller is,” she read, “Stanford double major, molecular biology, oh, and art history! PhD, neuroscience, Cal. Hank, didn’t you teach neuroscience at Berkeley?” The bearded man replied that it was before Dr. Miller’s time. “Research professor at UCSB,” the woman continued, adding, “Hmm,” without explanation. But none was needed. Everyone understood she meant research, not full-tenured professor.

“Henry Rosenbaum,” the bearded man said. “Hank. And this ray of sunshine is Dr. Nielsen, the hospital’s director.” The woman at the table’s head fake-smiled through pinched lips.

“Walter Street,” said the nearly bald man next to Hank. “We’re so sorry about your sister.” His glasses magnified his eyes and his smile revealed crooked teeth. “I’m director, Office of Biodefense Research at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.”

“Dr. Doomsayer,” Nielsen called him.

“Also known as the bug-o’-the-day man,” Hank appended.

Everyone was a decade or more older than Isabel. Almost all wore clean white, thigh-length lab coats over business casual attire. They were presumably some dream team assembled for the apocalypse at the pinnacles of illustrious careers. And then there was Isabel, from a school better known for its surfing. She resolved to keep her mouth shut.

Street introduced the heads of Bioinformatics and Computational Research, Immunology and Emerging Infectious Diseases, and Vaccine Design Allergic and Infectious Diseases. The head of Epidemiology said, “Let me express my deepest sympathies.” CDC liaisons from the Special Pathogens and Vector-Borne Diseases branches each held up hands on introduction. An officer in camouflage under his lab coat from the Army’s Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases sort of saluted her. “Bioweapons lab,” Nielsen said. “Former,” the man corrected. A could’ve-been-good-looking woman from the Tumor Cell Biology Lab with a tan and, for some reason, a wilting red tropical flower tucked behind one ear smiled at Isabel, who winked back. Why? Jesus!

Next were an out-of-place outdoorsman with a mane of gray hair from the Delta Regional Primate Research Center and a doughty doctor who looked like a mother of ten from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Nielsen hurried through the rest, pointing and saying, “pathogenesis, genomics, virology, computational biology, biomedical research, and last and definitely least, White House spy.”

Patricia Maldonado leaned forward. “We’ve met. And I got the same treatment.”

“Okay, gals,” Nielsen said. “’Nuff chit-chat. We need to wrap this . . .”

Isabel interrupted. “May I just ask if we know yet what the pathogen is?”

Dr. Street replied. “No, not yet. We’re doing the morphological classification and the WHO the genomic sequencing. But the smart money’s on dsDNA virion.”

“Which is a . . . what?” Maldonado asked, taking notes. Nielsen heaved a sigh.

“Double-strand DNA,” Street replied. “Not single-strand RNA. A virion is like a virus’s seed. It can remain inactive theoretically forever, but practically for tens of millennia until, typically, it’s destroyed by strikes from naturally occurring radiation.”

“It’s so hard to believe,” Isabel said, “that SED just . . . came out of nowhere.”

Nielsen looked at her watch. Street said, “We worry about ecological disruption like jungle encroachment bringing us into contact with new microorganisms, but coming at us from the ice?” He too looked baffled. “In 1485, the English sweating disease, a suspected hantavirus, raged across Europe. Like with SED, death came in a matter of hours, for instance to Oliver Cromwell’s wife and children. Then, just as suddenly as it appeared, it disappeared. Last outbreak was in 1551, and it hasn’t been seen since. But it’s probably still out there, somewhere . . . waiting.”

Isabel asked, “Have you done any research into pathogens that affect behavior?” There was laughter, led by Hank, but it appeared good-natured.

Unlike Nielsen, who drummed her fingernails on the table. “Here we go!”

“They’re rare,” Street replied, paying Nielsen no mind, “but not unheard of. I’m sure you know about the protozoan Toxoplasma gondii, which infects one third of all Americans. In rats, it hijacks neurochemical pathways, turning rats’ fear of cat urine into arousal, getting the rats eaten so the parasite can reproduce in cats’ guts. Infection by it in humans correlates with schizophrenia and neuroticism, though that could just be a preexisting correlation between neuroticism and ownership of cats. Then there’s the common Streptococcus bacterium, which is suspected to cause Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome. Overnight, school-age children with PANS become terror-stricken, suffer extreme separation anxiety and regress to temper tantrums and bedwetting.”

Isabel said, “And there’s Cotard’s syndrome. People get sick, possibly from Lyme disease, and suffer damage to their right dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex. After drifting in and out of consciousness, they become convinced that they died and often quit eating and starve to death because, what’s the point? They’re already dead.”

Heads turned to Hank, who concurred. “Walking corpse syndrome. Good analogy.” Isabel couldn’t help but feel she had just passed some impromptu exam.

“And so here we are,” Nielsen interjected, “with a real-life zombie uprising.”

That ruffled Isabel anew. “Could we please not use that word?” Nielsen shot a look of surprise at Hank. “I’m sorry,” Isabel said, “but that word is a little judgmental. Its only scientific utility has been in thought exercises on consciousness, the philosopher’s zombie, so . . .”

Before Nielsen could respond, Street said, “Please elaborate.” Nielsen smiled and rested her chin atop interlaced fingers to listen. She wore half a dozen rubber wristbands of different colors signifying support for every cause imaginable but no wedding ring. She was amused that Isabel now had to discuss a term whose use she had attempted to curtail.

“Okay,” Isabel said to Street. “The question is whether consciousness is required for sentient behavior, or is rather an irrelevant byproduct of physiological processes in the brain—an illusion we invent to explain our sense of self. Theorists posited, as a thought exercise, the existence of a being who acts exactly like a human but has no sense of self.” A simulacrum, she thought, wondering how General Browner had come to know the word.

“A philosopher’s zombie!” Street exclaimed, clearly delighting in the name. His grin, while genuine, could’ve been improved with orthodontia and dental bleach.

Hank said, “Technically, an insentient, functional isomorph.”

“The point is,” Isabel continued, “if p-zombies can pass the Turing test . . . ?”

“Machines achieve consciousness,” Nielsen quipped, “and the robot wars begin! Let’s say we not worry about that one today, okay?”

“If p-zombies,” Isabel repeated, “can solve problems, use language, etc., indistinguishably from humans, then natural selection would be indifferent to consciousness, and consciousness therefore wouldn’t be expected to arise naturally from evolution.”

Nielsen scoffed. Her impatience, Isabel decided, called for a detailed, passive-aggressive explanation. “On one side of the debate,” Isabel said, turning again to Street, who seemed interested, “inessentialists argue that machines don’t need consciousness to pass the Turing test. Their Chinese Room Argument imagines an English-only speaker supplied with detailed instructions on how to respond to any Chinese characters he receives. A Chinese speaker in another room types, in Chinese: How are you? The English speaker, following the instructions, returns characters that read, in Chinese, I’m fine, even though he has no idea what was just said. The Chinese speaker thinks he’s having a conversation, but to the English speaker it’s all gibberish in/gibberish out.”

“Gibberish,” Nielsen said under her breath, “being the operative word, here.”

That was enough. What the hell is her problem? But Street said, “Have you asked your sister the same question? Her reply sounds a lot like your English speaker. And yet she’s been totally cooperative, while other survivors are extremely violent.”

Hank said, “Human behavior is as complex as any found in nature. Why would it not also be varied after infection?” Hank turned to Isabel. “You should know that your sister’s intake scans showed swelling in the areas of her frontal and parietal mirror neurons. That may have damaged, or severed, some or all of her emotional bonds.” Isabel looked down and nodded. “That could so fundamentally alter survivors’ relationships with others that it raises a profound question. If they feel nothing for other humans, just what are they?”

“Dangerous sociopaths,” Nielsen answered. A few heads around the room nodded.

Street raised his index finger. “You know, among higher-order species, there’s a notable absence of empathy in predators. If cats felt empathy for mice, they’d starve.”

“Are you saying,” Isabel asked, “that they’re the predators and we’re the prey?”

“That’s why we call him Dr. Doomsayer,” Hank explained to Isabel. A jumble of side discussions arose as if pent up nervous energy was being released.

“Okay!” Nielsen interrupted. “I need everyone’s attention! I’ve got something to announce that none of you is going to like. I just got off the phone with Dr. Aggarwal. This was our last all-hands discussion of the science. From now on, these meetings will be strictly limited to administrative matters only. All substantive discussion of SED is limited to your assigned working groups.” There was an explosion of griping. “Which for you, Dr. Miller,” Nielsen said in an aside, ignoring the insurrection, “consists solely of Dr. Rosenbaum.”

“Secrecy and compartmentalization!” said Street. “The cornerstones of science.”

“All reports,” Nielsen shouted over the commotion, “are to be marked classified!” Everyone began collecting their files, folders, and devices. “All communications via DoD server only!” People rose to leave. “That’s the law. I advise you to obey it!”

“Wait!” cried a scientist. “Let’s not abandon tradition.”

Everyone paused as Dr. Street rubbed his chin. “How about Heterosaccus californicus, a parasitic barnacle. It feminizes male sheep crabs. Their fighting claws drop off and abdomens widen to create a brood pouch for the parasite’s offspring.” At that, the exodus continued with everyone talking as they filed out in violation of Nielsen’s directive.

On passing, Maldonado made a face at Street’s weirdness. Isabel returned the look in kind. Nielsen noticed and shook her head in silent confirmation that Isabel didn’t belong.

* * * *

Drs. Nielsen, Rosenbaum, and Street led Isabel through the warren of corridors. Isabel texted a definitive reply to quell Noah’s doubts, probably breaking a bunch of laws. Security grew tighter. Unarmed security guards gave way to rent-a-cops with pistols, and then to Marines with rifles, who scrutinized Isabel’s new White House security badge.

“This is it,” Nielsen said, opening a nondescript door into a room dominated by a window running the entire length of its far wall. The much larger adjacent room into which the window looked swallowed up its hospital bed, equipment rack, desk, chair, and Emma, appearing tiny as she sat on the bed, supremely patient, in a hospital gown, with her hands folded in her lap.

Nielsen asked the nurse in scrubs, hair wet as if straight from the shower, what Emma had been doing. “She hasn’t done anything since lunch,” the twenty-something replied, consulting a tablet, “other than pour a drink of water, take a sip, and go potty.”

The nurse stared at Isabel. Nielsen said, “This is her twin sister, obviously.”

Isabel introduced herself. “Beth Foster,” the young woman replied cheerily. “I’m her day nurse, night nurse, whatever. We’re pretty shorthanded. Are you a physician?” She was thin, with sandy hair and a cherubic face to go with a sunny demeanor.

“Neuroscientist,” Isabel replied. Emma scratched her nose. Beth logged it.

The orientation was brief. A built-in desk with rolling chairs was mounted under the window. Atop it were a phone, a laptop, and three microphones rising from panels with buttons for lights, temperature, etc. One button, Opaque, was lit, which Nielsen said controlled the window’s smart glass. Emma now saw a white frosted pane but extinguish that button and she could see clearly into the observation room. Another button, Talk, was dark. The laptop displayed live video of Emma sitting on her bed from half a dozen angles but was also connected to a monitor in Emma’s room on which they could display their “Rorschach tests or whatever,” Nielsen said. “The military comes first, medical second, science third. Any free time after that for your . . . research, have at it.”

Hank said, “Everything in here and in Emma’s room is recorded. When Beth isn’t here, she reviews the feed. She also texts updates every four hours.” He turned to Nielsen and Street. “We’ll get to work now.” As Hank extracted a folder, Street frowned for some reason and shook his head before departing. Maybe some ongoing professional squabble.

Hank said, “Street’s a bit eccentric.” Beth snorted. “Lived with his mother till she passed, now with a menagerie of insects and spiders.” He perused his papers. “How about you, Dr. Miller?” She insisted he call her Isabel. “Anyone significant in your life, Isabel?”

“Nope,” she replied, reflexively resenting his query. “You?”

He took no umbrage. “Married forty years. Three daughters, two sons-in-law, two grandkids.” He slid across the desk to Isabel a questionnaire that Emma had also filled out. “Your responses will be a good cross-reference to see if her perceptions are altered.”

It was a personality survey. “On a one-to-five scale, do you agree with the following statements about Dr. Emma Miller?” One meant disagreed strongly. Five, agreed strongly. Isabel breezed through. “The subject likes to engage in high-risk behavior.” Four, which she changed to five. Emma had rejected offers of a lab job in favor of field epidemiology. On and on they went. Lots of twos, threes, and fours. Only a few ones and fives.

Halfway through, Isabel reached a new, nearly identical section heading. Only instead of asking about Dr. Emma Miller, it asked the same questions about Dr. Isabel Miller. Hank was prepared when she looked up. “We thought it’d be useful to inquire whether your sister’s perceptions of others had changed. So we asked her not only about herself, but also about you. Someone with whom she’s presumably quite familiar.”

Isabel answered the questions quickly. When she came to whether the Subject, Isabel, likes to engage in high-risk behavior, she circled hell-no, the box marked one. When finished, she returned it to Hank. “Can I see Emma’s responses?”

“Emma didn’t understand,” Hank said. “She’s still somewhat confused. We told her just to answer as best she could, so she filled out responses to every single question, and marked each a three. Nothing but threes. About you and about her.”

Then why the hell did I just fill it out? Isabel thought.

Emma stared into space. Isabel said, “She can be pretty passive-aggressive.” We both can, came the unheard accusation. “Do you think that was, I dunno, obstructionism?”

Hank said, “No. She’s been quite helpful. It’s something . . . more profound.”

Where the hell to begin? Isabel thought. She pressed the Talk button. Before Isabel could even say anything, Emma looked up at the ceiling. “Emma? Hi, sweetie, it’s Iz.”

Still looking up, Emma said, “Hi.” Her face remained expressionless. Blank.

“I’m in the room next door,” Isabel said. “Here.” She pressed the Opaque button.

Emma’s gaze turned to them. “This is Dr. Hank Rosenbaum.” Looking uncomfortable, he leaned to the mic and said, “Hello.”

“And Beth Foster, your nurse.” Beth gave an enthusiastic wave and grin.

“How are you feeling?” Isabel asked. “Does your head hurt?”

Emma raised her hand to her head, just like the Gazprom executive, and said, “No.” Curious.

“How about anything else? Does your . . . left knee hurt?”

Emma touched her left knee and shook her head.

Hank muted the microphone and asked, “What’s that about? Her knee?”

“When I ask if something hurts, she touches the body part before answering. Same with an infected Russian I spoke to in Siberia.” Before he was killed. She had barely processed that experience before the pace of events had overtaken it.

“A proprioception issue?” he asked.

“She’s not having trouble maintaining posture,” Isabel replied. “No wobbling or falling over. No problems getting water or going to the bathroom?” Beth shook her head. Isabel pressed the Talk button. “Emma, could you please describe for me all the steps involved in getting a glass of water. Go into elaborate detail. Spare nothing.”

“Stand, walk to the desk, lift the pitcher, hold it over the cup, pour, put the pitcher down, lift the cup to the lips, tilt the cup until the liquid pours out, and swallow.”

“Good! Thanks.” Isabel muted the sound system. “No proprioception issue. She wouldn’t have been able to do that kind of detailed motor planning.”

“Can she read lips?” Hank asked. “Every time we talk, she looks up.” Isabel shook her head in reply, then they sat still. After a few moments, Emma’s gaze drifted off. Isabel brushed her bangs from her brow. Emma’s eyes rose. After a short while, they lost focus and again settled on empty space.

Isabel asked, “Emma, can you describe what you see right now?”

Emma surveyed her room. “Bed, monitor, return air vents, six cameras, observation room glass, door, high window, desk, chair, walls, ceiling, floor.”

“Okay,” Isabel interrupted. “What else do you see?” Emma fell silent. “Do you see me?”

“Do you want a description of what’s in that room? You, Dr. Rosenbaum, Beth Hopkins, three chairs, three microphones, a laptop, a door, a camera on the ceiling.”

Isabel muted the mics. Hank said, “She’s having trouble with the word, see.”

Isabel replied, “Or the word, you.” She pushed Talk. “Emma, can you tell me about any dreams you’ve had?”

Hank frowned. “What, are we jumping right to Freud now?” That stung.

Emma said, “To complete and publish the research, find a good man, get married, buy a house, have children, and live to an old age with you, Noah, and your families.”

Tremors crossed Isabel’s lips. Emma had mistaken the word dream to mean goals and hopes. A tear escaped Isabel’s eyelashes and streaked down her cheek. She wiped it away quickly. They had never had this much trouble communicating. It had always been exactly the opposite. TSP, they had called it, a play on Twin ESP.

“What I meant,” Isabel said, “was did you have a dream while you slept?”

“Can you define that usage of the word dream?” Emma asked.

Hank leaned to the microphone. “It means a series of images, ideas, or sensations that occur involuntarily, in your mind, while you’re sleeping.” Emma sat stiffly, arms braced on knees. Hank asked, “Do you recall any dream you’ve ever had in your life?”

Emma said, “No.”

Isabel jumped in. “When we were young, and our parents lectured us about stranger danger, you were tormented almost every night for an entire year by the same nightmare. You were chased by a faceless man in a black cape. You’d wake up screaming. Do you remember what happened if the man caught you?”

“When he touched things, he imparted an electric shock.”

“Right! And then you would wake up,” Isabel said, “in my bed.”

“That was hiding from the man,” Emma corrected, “in your bed.”

Hank asked, “Were those dreams, or did the man actually chase you in real life?” Emma seemed confused. “Did the man who chased and shocked you actually exist?”

“Yes,” Emma replied. “He wore a cape.”

“Does it make sense,” Isabel asked, her voice rising, “that the man had no face?”

“The hood hid his face,” Emma explained.

“So mom and dad let a man,” Isabel said, fending Hank’s hand off her shoulder, “in a black cape and hood, chase you, night after night, shocking you with his touches?”

“The cape,” Emma reasoned, “could have generated static electricity.”

“Emmy!” Isabel shouted, tears flowing. “That was a dream. You were sleeping.”

“Nothing happens during sleep.”

Hank wrote something like: “Can’t distinguish sleeping from wakeful states.”

“Emmy,” Isabel said into the mic, “those goals you listed earlier—to get married and have a family—are those things you remember wanting, or things you want now?”

Emma was silent in the way Isabel now saw as fundamental incomprehension. Finally, she said, “Some things you say, Isabel, don’t make sense. Those . . . are the plans.”

“Whose plans, Emma? Your plans?”

“You’re making no sense. Plans are necessary. Without them, nothing happens.”