Then, once again, his eyes fixed on the counter, he initiated the program.
Once again, Orion began to synthesize a blocker against the growth of the WRX virus.
At the nine-minute mark, Griff felt a tremor of anticipation begin. At nine minutes and forty-five seconds he began to hyperventilate—short, shallow, rapid respirations.
He closed his eyes, waited for as long as he could stand, then looked at the timer.
Eleven minutes and forty-eight seconds, and Orion was still running.
In all, it took twenty-five minutes for the program to complete. Griff, flushed with excitement, waited for the output to compile. When the data finished processing, he sank into his chair. He’d been so conditioned to expect failure that when success finally had occurred, he did not exactly know how to feel.
Angie was the key. If she had not succeeded in New York, none of this would have been possible. Because of her, they had an antiviral treatment. He wished he could call and tell her, but with Rappaport listening in, he wasn’t certain the idea was a good one.
Then Griff began to wonder. Orion had worked. At least, according to the computer it had worked. The data said the drug would be a success, but he had no empirical proof—no infected subjects that he had cured.
What should be done next?
The laboratory had an extensive supply of biological and synthetic agents to work with. He checked the reagent case and confirmed there was enough antisense/ODN on hand for him to perform at least one test.
Then he asked himself if he really needed a test to prove that his treatment worked. Wasn’t his computer model proof enough? Wasn’t that the point of his work? Hadn’t he found a way to develop and test drugs that spared animals from the agony and torture of experimentation?
He studied Orion’s output files again, imagining himself standing at a crossroad. But unlike the crossroad immortalized in song and story, Griff suspected the devil was waiting for him regardless of which direction he chose. He closed his eyes and waited for the answer to come. Soon, his thoughts became filled with noise. It took time for him to recognize the hideous sounds—they were the screams of monkeys, dying in Hell’s Kitchen from an accidental overdose of WRX3883.
In that moment, Griff knew exactly what he had to do.
He stood up from his workstation. His legs were barely functional from sitting for so long. He carefully retrieved living WRX3883 virus from the cultures that Melvin had maintained, and used a syringe to mix the virus with a hundred milliliters of saline solution. In theory, his computer models alone should be enough proof that he had succeeded.
In his heart, though, he knew that was not enough.
Perhaps one day Orion would be used to jump-start a movement that would reduce or, better still, eliminate animal testing in both virology and other areas of medical and product research. But for now, the certain path to an antiviral treatment, no matter what his computer spit out, was to work with an infected host.
Moving as in a dream, Griff disconnected his air hose and unzipped his biocontainment suit. He removed his helmet and gratefully wiped the sweat from his face. Then he set the syringe down on the table and prepared a single dose of Orion’s theoretical antiviral treatment—a mixture of Johnny Ray Davis’s serum and a powerful IL-6 boosting adjuvant. He had the perfect test subject to prove all of his theories and validate all of his work.
He had himself.
CHAPTER 61
Griff knew that calls made from the phone system in the Kitchen were being monitored around the clock, but he didn’t care. Rappaport was about to learn that there might have been a breakthrough, but Griff would figure out what to do about that when it became a certainty. He moved the intercom over to his workstation, put it on speaker, dialed # 9 for a long-distance line, and called Angie’s cell phone. If she didn’t answer, he would try a call to her nurses’ station to get a message to her to call about a family emergency.
His biocontainment suit lay crumpled in a ball by his feet. Win or lose, the die was cast.
Two rings and Angie answered. She sounded as if she might have been sleeping. Griff glanced up at the wall-mounted clock. It was twelve fifteen in the morning Kansas time, one fifteen Eastern.
“Hiya, lady,” Griff said, leaning back and savoring air that wasn’t coming into a helmet via a tube. “Greetings from the heartland.”
“Griff! I’ve been hoping each call was you. Allaire and his doctor have been in touch with me, and they’ve sent specialists in and put some guards outside the door and in here, but I was wondering when I’d ever hear your beautiful voice again. You don’t sound like you’re speaking from behind a mask, though. Where are you? What’s going on? You got news?”
Griff smiled at the phone, wishing she could see how happy she was making him. The rocket-fire questions continued. Always the reporter. He held off answering for as long as he could, content just to listen to her. The elevation in his spirit confirmed two things he already knew: He loved her as much as ever, probably more, and he was right in needing to hear her voice before he injected himself with the virus.
“Angie,” Griff cut in finally, “tell me how you’re doing. You sound okay.”
“I’m fine. Really. Tired is all. That may have something to do with that I’m not sleeping regularly. Instead, I drop off for twenty minutes here and twenty there, but no real REM sleep, if you know what I mean.”
“I do, yes. When this is all over, we’re going to this South Pacific island that’s covered from one end to the other with mattresses. I read about it in
“Looks like today. Sometime this afternoon. I want to get back there to you guys. I miss you both so much.” Angie read Griff’s silence almost immediately. “Something’s the matter. What is it?”
More silence. Griff’s eyes begin to well and he wondered if he was going to be able to speak.
“It’s Melvin,” he finally managed. “He’s dead.”
Now the prolonged silence was from Angie’s side of the line.
“Tell me,” she said after a while.
Griff shared an abbreviated version of the events following her injury up to the plasmapheresis on J. R. Davis.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Griff,” she said when he had finished. “I am so sad and so sorry. What a terrific fellow he was. I know how close you two were. And I’m glad you got the man who killed him.”
“Thanks. As soon as we can, we’ll go visit his family in West Virginia.”
He looked over at the loaded syringes on a metal tray by his desk. It seemed almost wishful to be talking about their future.
“I do have a bit of good news,” he continued.
“Tell me, tell me.”
“Thanks to you and Melvin, I believe we’ve done it. According to Orion, I’ve got a workable antiviral treatment.”
He had hoped there would be more exuberance in his voice, but Angie understood and the excitement in her voice filled in for his lack of enthusiasm.
“Oh, Griff, that’s wonderful! I knew you could do it. I knew it!”
Griff hesitated. It was time to tell her.
“I still don’t know for certain that my conclusions will work.”
Not surprisingly, Angie sensed what was coming.
“I don’t understand.”
“Just that. All I know at this point is what Orion has told me, and he looks suspiciously like a computer.”
There was prolonged silence.
“Griff, what are you going to do?” she asked finally.
He could hear the apprehension in her voice.
