Dymphna sat back, letting her words sink in. “How do you know?” I finally asked.
“I kept in touch with friends who were still working with Howard,” Dymphna said, “friends personally closer to me, even though their work was more adjacent to his. They kept an eye on him for me over the years, even as he left academia and started building his empire. His scientific work continued to break new ground, but they were all concerned about his increasingly extreme personal views, and his obsession with me. Two years ago, they told me about this new stage to the Wellplant implantation procedure: infecting the subject with some sort of virus that would bolster the patient’s immunity. They got hold of a sample, and some of Wells’s data on it.”
“Your immunity virus?” Rex asked. “He finally perfected it?”
She looked at him grimly and nodded. “It was an almost perfect genetic match to my virus, with one simple but brilliant tweak, one I might never have thought of. Maybe Howard wouldn’t have, either, if not for his Wellplant. But it was definitely a version of the same virus. He had indeed perfected it. I don’t think he realized his virus had any connection to the splice medium—he might not have wanted it had he known, he’s such a bigot. But here’s the thing: from his notes we learned that he’d actually perfected the immunity virus quite some time ago. A decade, in fact. The second year of the great pandemic. But he never released his findings.”
“Why?” Rex asked.
She ignored him at first, turning to me with eyes welling as she waited for me to do the math. It took me a second.
“But”—my own tears came on fast—“that means he had perfected it before my dad died. Before so many other people died.”
She nodded. “I’m afraid it does,” she said softly. “He was serious about letting nature take its course. When it suits his purposes, at least.”
I had no words. I was breathless, drowning in an ocean of fury and sorrow.
“I’m sorry, Jimi,” she said. “I was devastated, too, when I realized that implication. But there were other terrible implications, as well.”
Rex stepped closer and put his arm around my shoulders. “Like what?” he asked, his voice grim.
“Like, why would he start administering the immunity virus to his Wellplant customers now?”
“And…why would he?” Rex asked her.
But I spoke first, as the answer clicked into place in my head. “Because he was also perfecting his super-flu. And he was planning on releasing it. To finish the job the first pandemic started.”
“Precisely,” Dymphna said. “They call it a slate-wiper in epidemiological circles, an extinction-level event that would reset the planet. Wells was immunizing his subjects against the avian flu because he was entering the operational phase of his genocidal master plan. And he didn’t want his chosen few to perish with everyone else.”
She paused for a moment, maybe to give us a chance to respond or ask questions. But we were both speechless.
“I called an emergency meeting of Chimerica’s governing council,” she continued. “And we came up with a plan. We were pretty sure chimeras were already immune to whatever Wells would unleash, because I had used our original attempt at an immunity virus as a medium.”
“But you couldn’t be positive?” Rex asked.
She shook her head. “Not without a sample of his super-flu. To be sure, though, we changed up the splicing medium. We started using an altered version of Wells’s own improved immunity virus as a vector, and we pushed it out through the genie distribution network.”
I turned to Rex. “That’s why the chimeras working at that facility never got sick. When they got spliced, they got immunity from avian flu.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “So that’s fine for the chimeras who’ve gotten spliced since the changeup. But what about the ones from before?”
“And everyone else?” I added.
She smiled, weary but smug. “Wells built on my work, and I built on his. Before introducing it to the splicing medium, I tweaked his immunity virus to be highly contagious. It still confers immunity, but it comes with a very slight cough. Mild enough that you probably wouldn’t even know you were sick, but enough to get the droplets into the air, so it can spread immunity through the general population.”
“But it’s still a form of the flu,” Rex said. “Aren’t you worried someone could get sick from the vaccine?”
“No,” she said. “Just the minor cough, like I said. I admit, we were uneasy inoculating so many people without their consent, without their knowledge. But the threat was too serious. By the time we explained ourselves, it would have been too late. For the sake of humanity we had to try to vaccinate as many people as possible before Wells could release his plague.”
“And when will that be?” I asked quietly.
Dymphna shook her head. “When he’s ready. We’ve been trying desperately to make sure he doesn’t know about our operation, so he doesn’t accelerate his plans to release his super-flu before the immunity virus has penetrated the population at large. The fact that his flu has already escaped from that chicken and is spreading, that might cause him to release it, as well. It certainly seems to be in fine working order, but we don’t know if he’s satisfied that it’s ready.”
I felt a momentary wave of guilt so intense my insides felt like they’d turned to liquid: we had caused that escape, when we broke into the facility and left with the carcass. But I reminded myself that it was Dymphna who persuaded me to go.
“The people we spoke to at the chicken facility,” I said, “they told us the supervisors were constantly checking the workers’ vital signs, temperature and stuff, and that the supervisors had seemed frustrated by the fact that the chimeras were all healthy,” I said. “Then they brought in nonchimeras as laborers, and they all got sick.”
Dymphna grunted softly in response. “How sick?”
“Pretty sick, it sounded like. But I think once they got sick, they never came back.”
“So, possibly fatal.”
“Maybe,” I said.
Now, Dymphna looked grim. “So Wells may already know that his super-flu is highly effective, and that the chimeras are somehow immune. We’re simply going to have to hope time is on our side as immunity spreads through the population.”
“So, people with splices are spreading immunity,” Rex repeated, shaking his head. “And any nonchimeras they spread it to can also pass it along?”
“That is my hope and expectation, and our research suggests it is working.”
“How is it transmitted?” I asked. “The immunity virus?”
Dymphna shrugged. “It depends, really. At its most contagious, with a new infection, all it would take would be breathing in the same room for a few minutes. When it’s less infectious, it might take a day or two of proximity, or kissing or hugging, physical contact like shaking hands. But even at its least infectious, mere proximity would be enough, if it is over the course of more than a day or two.”
“So what about the people who got sick?” Rex asked. “The ones who were hassling us, and came into contact with the chicken carcass. What about them?”
She leaned farther forward and pointed at him. “That’s the crux of the situation. It takes a while for a bug like mine to penetrate a population, and since the initial vector is through chimeras, the last people to gain immunity are going to be those with the least direct contact with people who have been spliced. The people out there who do not have Wellplants and have not interacted with chimeras, they will be the last to be inoculated.”
Rex snorted. “Was that intentional? Leaving the chimera-phobes out there unprotected?”
Dymphna turned solemn. “I would never intentionally try to harm them, or allow them to be harmed.” Then she softened. “But the irony is not lost on me.”
“So, is that why we can’t tell anyone?” I asked. “Because the immunity hasn’t spread enough?”
“Precisely. The last thing we want is to tip our hand so that Wells accelerates his time frame and releases his virus before ours has completely spread. Unfortunately, if Wells Life Sciences has figured out that chimeras are immune, and that the super-flu is lethal and highly contagious to everyone else, that’s exactly what he might do. Especially if he realizes it’s already out there.”
I nodded slowly, considering what she’d just told us, trying to reconcile it and the reality of having met her, with all the mystery surrounding her on one hand, and the deep-down, intimate family connection I had with her on the other. She held a special place in my mind, in my heart, really, but now there was something even more. I knew she was a brilliant scientist, but I didn’t realize she was a brilliant tactician, too. As the head of Chimerica, she was playing a long game, and the stakes were millions of lives and the future of the planet, of humanity. I felt my face turn hot with shame. Dymphna was doing her best to save the world, and I was being a pain-in-the-ass teenager, getting in the way, condemning all the secrecy and demanding to know why, instead of trusting her, instead of helping her.
Rex snorted. “I’d love to see the look on Howard Wells’s face when he finds out he’s just killed everybody but the mixies and mixie-lovers.”
Dymphna frowned. “We’ve seen the type of use he deems suitable for chimeras. I imagine he’ll come up with something horrific.”
The was a sobering thought, as if the preceding conversation hadn’t been sober enough.
My mind turned back to the idea of trust. I had perfectly good reasons for not simply trusting Dymphna at first: I didn’t know her, really. I had no idea what she was up to. And when I’d needed help in the past, when dozens of lives were at stake, Chimerica had let me down. Still, knowing what I did, I wanted to tell her I was sorry for having caused so much trouble, for not trusting her when so much was at stake. But now was not the time. Instead, I added it to the list of things we’d talk about later, and I asked, “How long will it take for his super-flu to spread?”
Dymphna furrowed her brow at me for a moment, maybe wondering why my face was so red. “Assuming he has some method to release it broadly, simultaneously around the world, I’m guessing it shouldn’t take more than a week or two for it to spread everywhere.”
“And you said you have no idea how he’s going to release it?”
She rubbed her eyes. “That’s the one thing we can’t figure out. I’m sure he has something in mind, something global and synchronized, so big and in so many places that it would be impossible to defend against, but I can’t figure out what that might be. We’ve identified thousands of ways he could be planning to do it: through the water, through the air, through food, clothing, pharmaceuticals. I’ve modeled many different methods that he may have access to, but none are broad enough for what he seems to have in mind. But he must have a vector in mind, something that will spread his virus more effectively than a simple contagion being distributed through the splice medium.”
“And do you have any idea how well your immunity virus is spreading?”
“We have sophisticated computer models and we’ve been doing a lot of monitoring, on every continent. There are twenty-seven Chimerica camps around the world, like the one on Lonely Island, and close to three thousand individual operatives who have completed training. They’re prepared for actual fighting, should it ever come to that, and they have, on occasion, intervened to help or defend chimeras in danger. But we’ve had to be extremely judicious in how we allow ourselves to get drawn out, because virus monitoring has been our primary task of late, using devices like air sniffers and sticky pads, tens of thousands of them, all around the world, and hundreds of operatives who go around and collect them, send in the samples.”
“Wait a second…” Rex said suddenly. He looked at Dymphna questioningly.
She smiled at him. “Yes, Rex. When you were out West, you were part of that effort.”
I looked at Rex. “So that’s what you’ve been doing? That’s what you couldn’t tell me about?”
“Apparently, yeah,” he replied. “I thought I was doing climate testing.”
I turned to Dymphna. “So, you didn’t even tell your own operatives what they were doing?”
“I know it seems excessive, Jimi, but as much as I want to trust everyone, the stakes were simply too high. If Wells caught on to our plan because one of our operatives was overheard talking shop with a friend or something, if he somehow found out that with each passing day, more and more people would be immune to his super-flu, he undoubtedly would move up its release. Absolute secrecy was an absolute imperative.”
“Okay.…And now? Where do we stand with that?”
“The immunity virus is spreading rapidly now, and we’re approaching a tipping point, half of the population exposed and half immune. But it’s possible the spread will slow as fewer and fewer people are left unimmunized. It may take a few more weeks before we get the level of penetration to achieve herd immunity, when there are too few people susceptible to Wells’s super-flu for it to spread.”
“We really screwed up,” I said, feeling guilty again. “By taking that chicken carcass, giving the virus an opportunity to spread prematurely.”
Dymphna leaned over and patted my knee. “CLAD would have gone in with or without you, and it was important for us to know how much they knew about Wells’s plan, and how close to completion Wells thought he was.…Besides, I asked you to go.”
“I understand your taking precautions, Aunt Dymphna. I really do. But if we’d been told before,” I said quietly, “if Chimerica hadn’t been so obsessed with secrecy across the board, we might have suspected what we were dealing with and been more careful with the chicken carcass.”
“Maybe,” she said. “Or, maybe word would have gotten out earlier and Wells would already be releasing the virus globally.”
“So what now?” Rex asked.
“Again, we must do our best not to tip our hand, avoid doing anything that would prompt Wells to move up the release. And meanwhile, we keep an eye on him and his people, and see if we can figure out how he is planning on releasing the virus, so that when he makes his move, maybe we can stop him. If he releases that virus, even if it’s not an extinction-scale event or a slate wiper, it will still kill millions and be massively disruptive. Breakdowns in food production and medical care could take as many lives as the virus itself.”
“But won’t the Plants be impacted by that, too?” I asked.
“To some extent,” Dymphna said. “Many won’t, because they have much more in the way of resources, but plenty of others will be killed in the chaos and carnage. It is a plan born of insanity.”
We were quiet for a minute after that as Rex and I absorbed the magnitude of Wells’s plot, and Dymphna allowed us the space to do it.
After a minute, Dymphna cleared her throat. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know this is a lot to lay on you young people. But now I have some questions for you,” she said.
Rex was still in a daze.
I nodded. “Go ahead.”
“You mentioned that CLAD had a plan to take down the Wellplant network. Have you managed to learn anything else about that?”
I shook my head. “No. But I don’t see what that has to do with a flu outbreak.”
“It’s important for the same reason Chimerica hasn’t done anything overtly to head off Wells’s plans for the super-flu. If he realizes people know what he’s up to, he’s going to release the virus as soon as possible. Taking down the Wellplant network might make it harder for him to do that, but it will be back up before long, and he will pull the trigger on his plan as soon as it is. The bottom line is, if CLAD attacks him or the Wellplant network, he’s going to release that virus. And we’re simply not ready.”
“Are you doing this alone?” I asked. “I mean, is Chimerica? Are any governments or other organizations helping you?”
She let out a sad sigh. “We are alone. We considered enlisting help from kindred organizations, but I’m glad we didn’t. With Wellplant’s public service program, giving free stripped-down versions to law enforcement and first responders, and deeply discounted, fully loaded models to political leaders, CEOs, and heads of nonprofits, Wellplants have become ubiquitous, particularly among the ruling class. Once an organization has been…infiltrated…we can’t fully trust them.”
“Why is that?” I asked, although I suspected I knew the answer.
“They’re networked,” she said. “We don’t know exactly what that means, whether every person with a Wellplant is privy to everything every other Plant knows or sees, but we do know they are connected in ways we can’t completely understand.”
“What about CLAD?” I said. “They’re not networked.”
She smiled condescendingly. “CLAD is hopelessly misguided. As I’ve said, they may even be secretly funded by Wells himself, a tool to further divide chimeras and our nonchimera supporters from the rest of humanity. So yes, I’d like to reach out to them and see if we can delay any action on their part, but I cannot trust them, so I cannot tell them what I’ve just told you, because I can’t be sure it won’t get back to Howard Wells.”
Just then we heard a noise, the soft scuff of a shoe against grit and concrete. All three of us turned and saw Dara walking toward us, her hands raised, her mouth duct-taped, and her eyes blazing.
Behind her was Cronos, wearing the same mask and shades as before and holding a sleek black machine gun that looked like death itself.