The Second Sphere
Chapter 33

I spent the afternoon trying to find an angle on the Gagotrothe interviews that didn’t include Olga Dahlgren. With an emphatic no, the Dahlgren Institute shut its doors to the Laslow Corporation, informing me that hell would be frozen sooner than any provision of assistance.

But the day wasn’t horrible just because I couldn’t get past the obstacles in front of me. I couldn’t find the right groove in which to work. I felt lost, as though an unknown force led me down paths overgrown with information. I reached moments where I thought I might discover a symphonic coordination to the mess. But, pushing up against those moments, I quickly realized that my breakthroughs were really supposition, that I still lacked evidence.

My chip wandered about, moving from thoughts of Cody Beans to the TSG conspiracy, to the color paint I’d put up in Bryant’s office. The tedious work and bizarre threads that I couldn’t sew together ground me down, until near the end of the day, when I felt as though I just couldn’t take any more lunacy.

It was late; almost ten o’clock, and most of the analysts were gone. I stood with Malinda in front of my office, waiting to go into the conference room to meet with Luis to talk about his ultimate findings on the biological agent that caused Newberry’s death. We stood in silence, taking a much-needed break from the unrelenting investigation.

“You ready?” I asked when the last of the analysts left.

“Sure, let’s go,” she said.

Luis was in the conference room, running through a few slides on the link-up. His fingers clasped together. His mouth pursed. Bryant came into the room just after us, slid across the floor, and fell into a chair across from Luis. He nodded at me without saying anything.

“Tired?” Luis asked.

“Long day,” I said.

“I’ll get right to the point then,” Luis said.

He brought an image up on the link-up. There was something odd and freakish about the sheer size of the data. We observed some kind of amoebic monster of ones and zeros.

“This is what killed Victor Newberry,” Luis said. “Or rather, this is what caused Victor Newberry to be killed.” He cleared his throat. “What we’re seeing in front of us is perhaps the most sophisticated biological threat to Transfer life that we’ve ever seen.”

“And what exactly is this threat?” Malinda asked.

“A virus,” Luis said.

“Shit,” I mumbled.

“When I sent Newberry’s chip over to Biological along with what I found…” He paused and let his gaze fall on each of us. He was sad, desperate almost. “They confirmed my suspicion.”

“What does this virus do?” Bryant asked.

“In this case, the virus destroys all higher-level functions on the chip. It essentially creates the perfect destructive being that cares nothing for itself. There appears to be, from the description of the behavior of the infected, some kind of hysteria caused by this virus that induces a desire for Transfer flesh.”

I chuckled. “Sounds like you’re talking about zombies,” I said.

Luis’ eyes clouded. “This is serious,” he said.

“And how exactly does this virus destroy all higher level thinking?” Bryant asked.

“That’s a very good question,” Luis said. “It’s one that I wish I could answer right now. Unfortunately, we’ve had this thing for two days. We still don’t know.”

“Is there any indication who created this?” I asked.

“That was the first thing they looked for over at Biological. There’s no signature that we’ve yet found, but we’re still looking.”

“What are the chances that we get a handle on this sometime in the near future?” Bryant asked. “Can we get some kind of an antidote together soon?”

“The chances aren’t good; not at all. This thing is complicated. We haven’t unraveled all of the coding. And if this virus is still out there, assuming that the throwaway and Newberry aren’t the only cases, then what we’re really looking at is a serious threat to transfers. And we have no way of knowing if it’s out there, do we?”

“No,” Bryant said. “We don’t.”

“What’s more troubling is that it appears that this virus was inserted,” Luis said.

“I’m sorry, what?” Bryant asked.

“The virus is time stamped as being placed just before Orion and Malinda entered the room. It’s like someone drew them in; like they actually waited for them to get there before releasing it.” Luis validated my suspicion.

“That’s pretty serious,” Bryant said. “Any ideas on how it was transmitted?”

“Not yet,” Luis said. “Whoever made this seems to have found a way to cover his or her tracks. It may be virtually impossible to find this person or people. Or worse, actually prevent another outbreak from happening.”

An unnerving silence settled in the room. It seemed that someone, somewhere watched us.

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