“It is usually placed into a cola-like drink – preferably one with caffeine; it helps the system by pumping up the metabolism and spreading the virulosin faster – and consumed that way. Then it is absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract, and goes systemic.”
“Hm.”
“Yes.”
“All right, lemme get to the point of this visit,” Ashton decided. “Out in the field, here, us investigators are kind of grasping at straws. We don’t know where the virulosin was introduced, so we don’t even know where the crime scene is. I was kinda hoping maybe you medicos had developed a method of detecting the stuff?”
“Well, no,” Botha said. “Since it’s a medication, normally there’s no need to detect it. It’s right where it needs to be.”
“Shit!” Ashton cursed with feeling.
“No, now wait, Detective,” Botha said. “I–”
“It’s Captain Investigator, sir, or just Officer. I haven’t made detective quite yet.”
“Ah, right,” Botha said. “So hold on, Officer. Just because the answer to that specific question is no doesn’t mean I can’t help you, here.”
“Oh? What have you got in mind?”
“Centuries ago, back on Earth, humans had many difficulties with viral pandemics,” Botha explained. “Hundreds of thousands to many millions of deaths, with the worst of them; economies destroyed or crippled at best, as they tried to quarantine entire segments of the population. The history is...grim.” Ashton nodded understanding, so Botha continued. “Even with more and more advanced medicines, detecting them was sometimes difficult. More, if the person had already had the virus and survived it, that meant the immune system was likely proof against it, but it was often hard to know who had already had it. Attempts were made to slow the spread, and were, at best, only partially effective...often at the cost of the nation-state’s economy. Over time – think a couple of centuries, here – the medical community began to realize that the ability to detect a given virus or its antibody in a person or in an environment was paramount in an epidemic or pandemic. It gives us a leg up on knowing where the disease is, and how bad it is, where it’s being transmitted, who needs treatment, and whose immune system is already protecting them against it.”
“Okay. So?”
“So,” Botha told him, “scientists developed a swift means of detecting the presence of a given virus based on its core nucleic acid structure. They also developed the means of detecting its antibody, but that’s neither here nor there for our purposes now. So. This method is especially effective for retroviruses, where the segment of RNA contained in the core of the virion is replicated and spliced into the host’s DNA, apparently in order to replicate. And this is how virulosin works. We – the medical community – use certain specific strains of retroviruses, then replace the core RNA with the segment we want replaced to cure the specific genetic disease we’re trying to fix. Then we introduce the modified retrovirus into our patient, ensure the virus reaches the specific body parts needing repair, and let it do its thing.”
“That’s...brilliant.”
“Well, it is, and I don’t take any credit for it; that’s not my field of expertise. But, since the viral detector system works best for retroviruses, I suspect it can be easily modified to look for your virulosin that’s being used to murder.”
“Ooo. That would be useful!” Ashton exclaimed. “Should I ask how that works?”
“Probably not,” Botha chuckled. “Because that was not something I studied in depth, and while I could take a cut at an explanation, that doesn’t mean I could get it to make sense to you.”
“Heh,” Ashton chuckled. “I get that. Why didn’t anybody use this when the Sandman first appeared?”
“I suspect because nobody thought of it,” Botha concluded. “The technology I’m referencing was still relatively new at that time, and wasn’t in common use as yet. There were other methods before this technique was developed, but they were cruder and slower.”
“Okay, I can understand that. So how long do you think it will take you to get hold of whoever, and get a...what do you call the shit?”
“Epidemiological Viral Detection and Early Warning Reagent,” Botha said. “Shortened – a little – to E.V.D.E.W.R.”
“Damn. That’s a mouthful and a half.”
“Yes, but you should have seen the alternative name,” Botha laughed. “Anyway, I know who to call, and since it is designed to go into action early in a suspected epidemic, it’s designed and set up so they can turn it out pretty fast, and one of the principal manufacturers is here on Sintar. I can have a case of what they call ‘puff testers’ to the ICPD headquarters in...probably about an hour or two, coded to the G.A.S. virulosin. And it will not be expensive – it is designed not to be, per an Imperial decree, so that sectors in the midst of an epidemic or pandemic can afford it – so we can send the bill through to the bean counters and they won’t pass out.”
“That’s great! Let’s do it,” Ashton ordered. “We need all the help we can get, before somebody else gets hit.”
“Agreed. I’ll do it immediately we end this meeting.”
“You’re kidding,” Demetrius said, once Ashton had explained. “Why didn’t they use that when the Sandman showed up the first time?”
“I expect because nobody thought to,” Gorski said. “And they might not even have had it yet. After all, it was the last Empress who finally got the drug companies to get off their collective asses and start pumping out the various virulosins to begin with. They were sitting on ‘em because they were making more money off ongoing treatment drugs than off cures.”
“That’s pretty much the way I understood it, yes,” Ashton confirmed. “Because I asked the same thing. The technology was brand-new at the time, and nobody was familiar with it. And older methods were
