underwear. She pulled a cloth surgical cap over her head and tucked her hair up into the cap while looking in the mirror. She did not appear nervous, but she was starting to feel a little bit nervous. This was only her second trip into a hot area.
Standing in her bare feet, she turned away from the mirror and faced a door leading into Level 2. A deep blue light streamed through a window in the door—ultraviolet light. Viruses fall apart under
ultraviolet light, which smashes their genetic material and makes them unable to replicate.
As she opened the door and entered Level 2, she felt the door stick against her pull, sucked in by a difference of air pressure, and a gentle drag of air whispered around her shoulders and traveled inward, toward the hot zone. This was negative air pressure, designed to keep hot agents from drifting outward. The door closed behind her, and she was in Level 2. The blue light bathed her face. She walked through a water-shower stall that contained an ultraviolet light, a bar of soap, and some ordinary shampoo. The shower stall led into a bathroom, where there was a shelf that held some clean white socks. She put on a pair of socks and pushed through another door, into Level 3.
This was a room known as the staging area. It contained a desk with a telephone and a sink. A cylindrical waxed cardboard box sat on the floor beside the desk. It was a biohazard container known as a “hatbox,” or “ice- cream container.” A hatbox is blazed with biohazard symbols, which are red, spiky three-petaled flowers, and it is used for storing and transporting infectious waste. This hatbox was empty. It was only a makeshift chair.
She found a box of latex rubber surgical gloves and a plastic shaker full of baby powder. She shook baby powder onto her hands and pulled on the gloves. Then she found a roll of sticky tape, and she tore off several strips of tape and hung them in a row on the edge of the desk.
Then she taped herself. Taking up one strip at a time, she taped the cuffs of her gloves to the sleeves of her scrub shirt, running the tape around the cuff to make a seal. She then tapped her socks to her trousers. Now she wore one layer of protection between herself and the replicative Other.
Lieutenant Colonel Johnson came in through Level 2 wearing a surgical scrub suit. He put on rubber gloves and began taping them to his sleeves, and he taped his socks to his pants.
Nancy turned to the right, into an antechamber, and found her space suit hanging on a rack. It was Chemturion biological space suit, and it was marked in letters across the chest: JAAX. A Chemturion is also known as a blue suit that meets government specifications for work with airborne hot agents.
She opened up the space suit and laid it down on the concrete floor and stepped into it, feet first. She pulled it up to her armpits and slid her arms into the sleeves until her fingers entered the gloves. The suit had brown rubber gloves that were attached by gaskets at the cuffs. These were the space suit’s main gloves, and they were made of heavy rubber. They were the most important barrier between her and Ebola.
The hands were the weak point, the most vulnerable part of the suit, because of what they handled. They handled needles, knives, and sharp pieces of bone. You are responsible for maintaining you space unit in the same way that a paratrooper is responsible for packing and maintaining his own parachute. Perhaps Nancy was in a bit of a hurry and did not inspect her space suit as closely as she should have.
Lieutenant Colonel Johnson gave her a short briefing on procedures and then helped her lower the helmet over her head. The helmet was made of soft, flexible plastic. Johnson looked at her face, visible through the clear faceplate, to see how she was doing.
She closed an oiled Ziploc zipper across the suit’s chest. The zipper made a popping sound as it snapped shut, pop, pop, pop. The moment the space suit was closed, her faceplate fogged up. She reached over to a wall and pulled down a coiled yellow air hose and plugged it into her suit. Then came a roar of flowing air, and her suit bloated up, fat and hard, and a whiff of dry air clear away some tiny beads of sweat that had collected inside her faceplate.
Around the Institute, they say that you can’t predict who will panic inside a biological space unit. It happens now and then, mainly to inexperienced people. The moment the helmet does over their faces, their eyes begin to glitter with fear, they sweat, turn purple, claw at the suit, try to tear it open to get some fresh air, lose their balance and fall down on the floor, and they can start screaming or moaning inside the suit, which makes them sound as if they are suffocating in a closet.
After he had helped Nancy Jaax put on her space suit, and had looked into her eyes for signs of panic, Tony Johnson put on his own suit, and when he was closed up and ready, he handed her a pack of dissection tools. He seemed calm and collected. They turned and faced the stainless-steel door together. The door lead into an air lock and Level 4. The door was plastered with biohazard symbol and warning:
The international symbol for biohazard, which is pasted on doors at USAMRIID whenever they open through a major transition of zones, is a red trefoil that reminds me of a red trillium, or toadshade.
The Level 4 air lock is a gray area, a place where two worlds meet, where the hot zone touches the normal world. The gray area is neither hot nor cold. A place that is neither provably sterile nor known to be infective. At USAMRIID, toadshades bloom in the gray zones. Nancy took a breath and gathered her thoughts into stillness, using her martial-arts training to get her breathing under control. People performed all kinds of little rituals before they walked through that steel door. Some people crossed themselves. Others carried amulets or charms inside their space suits, even though it was technically against the rules to bring anything inside the suit except your body and the surgical scrubs. They hoped the amulets might help ward off the hot agent if there was a major break in their suit.
She unplugged her air hose and unlatched the steel door and entered an air lock, and Tony Johnson followed her. The air lock was made entirely of stainless steel, and it was lined with nozzles for spraying water and chemicals. This was the decon shower. Decon means “decontamination.” The door closed behind them. Nancy opened the far door of the air lock, and they crossed over to the hot side.
TOTAL IMMERSION
1983 September 26, 1330 Hours
They were standing in a narrow cinder-block corridor. Various rooms opened on either side. The hot zone was a maze. From the walls dangled yellow ar hoses. There was an alarm strobe light on the ceiling that would be triggered if the air system failed. The walls were painted with thick, gobby epoxy paint, and all the electrical outlets were plugged around the edges with a gooey material. This was to seal any cracks and holes, so that a hot agent could not escape by drifting through hollow electrical conduits. Nancy reached for an air hose and plugged it into her suit. She could not hear anything except the roar of air in her helmet. The air rumbled so loudly in their suits that they did not try to speak to each other.
She opened a metal cabinet. Blue light streamed out of it, and she removed a pair of yellow rubber boots. They reminded her of barn boots. She slid the soft feet of her space suit into the boots and glanced at Johnson and caught his eye. Ready for action, boss.
They unplugged their air hoses and proceeded down the hallway and entered the monkey room. It contained two banks of cages, positioned facing each other along opposite walls of the room. Jaax and Johnson replugged their hoses and peered into the cages. One bank of cages contained two isolated monkeys. They were the so-called control monkeys. They had not been infected with Ebola virus, and they were healthy.
As soon as the two Army officers appeared in space suits, the healthy monkeys went nuts. They rattled their cages and leaped around. Humans in space suits make monkeys nervous. They hooted and grunted—“Ooo! Ooo! Haw, wah, haw!” And they uttered a high-pitched squeal: “Eek!”.
The monkeys moved to the front of their cages and shook the doors or leaped back and forth, whump, whump, whump, watching Jaax and Johnson the whole time, following them with their eyes, alert to everything.
