shooting down a missile containing Pandora won’t do anything but release it into the atmosphere where it will inevitably drop to earth.”
“If you were to feed it a large amount of its supplement, how would that affect its reproduction rate versus feeding it a smaller amount of the same supplement?”
“An increase in supplement is directly proportional to its reproductive rate. The more food it ingests, the more offspring it produces.” Marx then motioned in the direction of the door. “Judging from the distance between here and where the helicopter was, whomever used this weapon must have fed Pandora with a fair amount of the protein supplement in order for it increase in such numbers that it would’ve reached it so quickly.”
“But wouldn’t the force of the helicopter’s propellers be strong enough to fan away the microbes?”
“Not necessarily. As I mentioned earlier, the reproductive rate of a single Pandora microbe is directly correlated with the amount of food it ingests. If a large enough quantity of the complex protein supplement were fed to it, it would not only reproduce so extremely rapidly as to appear as a green-colored explosion.”
“Which is probably what happened here,” said Fox.
“No doubt,” Marx nodded. “And the wonderful thing about Pandora is that energy from the parent is transferred to its clones, only gradually decreasing in each generation.”
“I don’t know which school of thought you come from, but I don’t find anything wonderful about Pandora.”
Marx gasped at the comment. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it that way. I was only speaking from a scientific point of view.”
Fox followed her out of the isolation chamber as she continued with the conversation. She put her hands into her pockets. “A few years ago there was a second outbreak, again up in Northern Canada, near the north pole, when two university scientists accidentally exhumed a Pandora-infected prehistoric man, buried under the ice for what could’ve been a few millennia. Their SOS was intercepted by the National Security Agency’s Echelon system. You could imagine the horror I felt when my phone rang soon after.”
Echelon was the National Security Agency’s computer program that automatically intercepted keywords in regular conversation, either on a regular phone or through cyberspace, used to track potential terrorist threats. The system had been updated to include references to Pandora.
“I flew up there with a team and fortunately arrived on time to contain the outbreak. I thought that was the last we’d see of Pandora, until now,” said Marx.
Fox ran a finger over his left eyebrow. “Pandora wasn’t created, after all.”
“Most definitely not. The ice man’s discovery suggests that Pandora is a microbe that existed in prehistoric times. It managed to survive over time by lying dormant in the ice man. My guess is that at the time that he and members of his community were infected, he either fell through a frozen lake or was buried under an avalanche while the rest were wiped out.”
They reached the doorway to the dome and exited where Walsh was.
Fox walked up to Walsh. “You all right? You’ve lost some color in your face.”
“I’ll live, and I tan easily,” Walsh replied. “What I still can’t figure out is how Ares managed to get their hands on Pandora.”
“Ares has spies everywhere, unless they discovered it on their own.” But Fox felt that the latter explanation was the least likely.
“No matter how they discovered it, whoever’s responsible for this disaster went far enough to kill everyone to cover their tracks,” said Walsh.
Dr. Marx turned when she heard a cleanup-crew member shout out to her. “Dr. Marx, we found another victim.”
“I’ll be right there,” she replied. She turned to Fox and Walsh. “I have to go. I’ll send you my results when I’m done.”
“Sure thing, Doc,” replied Walsh.
Fox nodded to her. He was about to walk away when Marx called back to him. “Oh, Fox, watch your back. You never know what or who may turn up.”
“I’ll make sure of that.” Fox checked the ground to make sure he didn’t step in anything gelatinous as both he and Walsh walked back to their transport helicopter that was outside the compound.
With no survivors or any retrievable data so far, the trail was about to run cold. And those responsible wanted it that way. Fox knew he would go sleepless for several nights knowing that a surprise attack was imminent.
Chapter 8
West Tokyo
Hideaki Hashimoto usually read the morning news from his laptop computer at 6:00 AM while he sipped on a cup of hot tea. He preferred sitting outside at the gazebo in the garden when it was sunny and warm. But this morning was different. It was 5:35 AM, and he was inside his office tearing through webpage after webpage on his laptop as his tea sat untouched on his desk. Three hours ago, a telephone call woke him up, alerting him of the incident in Uganda.
He must have checked the same news pages several times over, convinced he had missed something. CNN. com, BBC. co. uk-they had nothing. Maybe news on the Pandora outbreak in southern Uganda would only break later that morning, unless the officials wanted to keep the incident under tight wrap to avoid a worldwide panic.
There was a knock at the door.
“Enter,” Hashimoto said in Japanese. His personal secretary walked in holding an envelope and an agenda. She then closed the door behind her. “Come in, Ms. Miyake.” His eyes never left the monitor.
Ms. Miyake removed her heels at the door as she crossed the Kars rug on her way to her boss’s desk and handed him a manila envelope. “Good morning, sir.”
Hashimoto placed the envelope on the edge of his desk. “Any news worth telling me about?”
“Yes, sir. The approval of Hexagon’s recent purchase of Warner-Parke Pharmaceuticals in the US has yielded great results. Shares have shot up from $820 US to $1027 US per share.”
“Anything else?”
“There’s another testing of Project Clarity this morning.”
“At nine o’clock?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Make sure my driver knows I want to be there at least half an hour early. I personally want to meet the two test subjects.”
“I’ll see that he gets the message,” said Ms Miyake as she scribbled notes into her agenda. “There’s also your scheduled teleconference with a Nick Archer from Financial Planet Magazine at-”
“Cancel that meeting. I’ll conveniently be busy during that hour.”
“I’ll email him the message right away, sir.” More notes were scribbled into the agenda.
The desk phone rang and Hashimoto snatched it. “Moshi moshi?”
“I’ve arrived a few moments ago with the package. I couldn’t contact you sooner for security reasons,” said a Russian-accented voice in English. Hashimoto covered the ear piece and gave a head signal to his secretary to leave. She quickly obliged, understanding his need for privacy.
“That’s understandable,” Hashimoto replied in the same language, recognizing Valerik’s voice.
“Not too much trouble, I expect.”
“Of course not. I know these people. It was a piece of cake, as the Americans say. Nothing complicated. I only wish the two men you assigned to accompany me would relax a bit. A shot of Vodka to celebrate wouldn’t hurt.”
“My men were not trained to drink, but to obey. The Undertaker would be very disappointed to hear you talk like that, after everything she’s done for us. I trust they’ve done everything you’ve asked?”
“Yes, and all too well. They were both a bit more passionate than I was. Anyhow, I’ll see you later this morning after I get sleep. It was a long flight.”
