The Death Angel Pt. 1

The Death Angel pt. 1

No one can possibly know what going through such a devestating and lethal pandemic is like. Knowing two-thirds of the world had already lost their lives to this Death Angel amplified the anxiety over the situation. My brothers family was already breaking out in painful, puss filled sores all over their bodies. I had planned on having Sage and the girls (Ember and Azure) help me with alternating 12 hr shifts but Sage refused to come over and expose herself to the infected. I explained to her that we were all already exposed but she still refused to take the chance. All I knew was my brother and his family had absolutely NO chance of surviving without a make shift nursing staff to monitor them and administer meds. I had no qualms about being over there, caring for those I loved. In fact, there was no other place I would rather be. Needless to say, I was there for the entire time and Ember and Azure were there helping me. I was so very proud of my girls who selflessly volunteered to aide me as long as needed. I could only reflect that Solomon and I had obviously done something right in raising two amazing, beautiful souls. Even alexis begged to come help but I told her she would help best by taking over at home caring for the younger children while we were gone. It would be a long and exhausting first few days but I knew when Harper came home she would be able to give us a break.

We started by putting in a central line and immediately started them all on IV fluids, antibiotics and an antiviral. The most important thing was keeping them comfortable. We treated the sores with a topical cream, being careful not to burst the boils, as the fluid inside would spread the disease further. You could see where the pustules were going to erupt because it started with a bright red rash that within hours painfully arose. It was unlike anything I had ever seen before! I reflected back to when we were kids and all four of us got chicken pox. Reuben, who always had been more senstive to insect bites and such, got it so severe that he was hospitilized. Yet, it was nothing like this! By the end of the day everyone in the house was covered from head to toe with these raised puss filled sores. I had to put gloves on the kids to reduce the temptation to scratch. Zeke would scratch anyhow and how could you blame him?

I carefully collected samples of fluid and tissue that erupted from the sores, sealed them in the hazmat containers and set them aside for Dan to analyze. Even with pain relievers and fever reducers the body temperature rose and the pain was excruciating. It was painful just to watch my neice and nephews in such agony. I didnt even have time to think about the pain that I would soon endure myself. Liza was so mortified by her appearance that once we got her IV set up and all of her supplies in her room, she locked her bedroom door and opted to fight the disease alone. It certainly concerned me but Liza had always been stubborn and I knew that once she made up her mind I nor anyone else was going to change it. I did leave her one of the boys walkie talkies in her room so I could keep tabs on her progress, I knew that was the best we were going to get. Little did she know, I knew how to pick the lock if I did need to get into assist her later on. And I wouldnt hesitate to do it either. Liza had become a surrogate mother to the Gray clan when Sam married Reuben. Our mother left us when Harper was a baby and our father was such an abusive drunk and religious zealot, we were alone in the world. We often felt like a clan of orphans with no one but one another to rely upon. It was a welcome experience to have someone mother us. Liza was the Mama/Mimzy to the entire cul de sac and I wasn't going to loose her now.

I documented and checked vitals once every hour. Blood pressure, pulse, temperature, I noted each symptom and its severity as it appeared in each person. Interestingly, the symptoms seemed to display differently in each person. For example, Gabriel had the worst time with all over body pain. He cried out that he felt like his bones were breaking inside of him. Zeke ran such a high fever I had to surround him with Ziploc bags of ice just to keep it below 104*. Shiloh seemed to slip in and out of consciousness which I felt was probably for the best. Sam complained of an excruciating migraine which even the highest doses of pain medications didnt seem to relieve. Reuben had body aches and chills, being around 250 lbs he seemed to shake the bed. Beths pain seemed to be centralized in her legs and lower back. I assumed due to her already damaged legs and kidneys. Beth had her kidneys suddenly fail in her late twenties, she recieved one transplant that did not take and had been on dialysis for years. I was most concered about Beth since she had the most compromised immune system. But then again, Beth had the strongest will to fight coupled with a beautiful disposition. I had never heard Beth pittying herself and her medical issues. If anyone would or could beat the odds it was going to be her.

I got very little sleep the first 24 hrs, I think I took a few cat naps with the cat but so much was going on I just couldnt get much rest. Day two of the illness brought few surprises and complete exhaustion. Around 6 pm I somehow managed to have everyone dosed up and they all had fallen asleep. Ember was cooking us some soup, cooking was one of her special talents. Azure was the academic one where Ember was the domesticated one. Azure was asleep in the big comfy chair. I thought it was a good time to get Dr. Dan on Skynet and update him on the goings on.

"You looke terrible, Ezra!" Dan said with a cock eyed grin.

"Gee thanks, you should see everyone else in the house. I look like a beauty queen!" I laughed. How I found humor in a time like this was beyond me yet somehow I pulled it off.

"Well I am sure they are recieving excellent medical care." he smiled flirtatively.

I sighed, "I guess so."

"I know this is not an easy thing to go through. Your family is lucky to have you and your girls. Most families would have left them for dead in the art of self preservation." he was looking over some paperwork as he spoke.

"Tell me about it. My sister in law flat out refused to help out even though I know damn well she has already been exposed. I just don't understand how you can expect to survive this if we don't all pull together." the frustration was apparent in my voice. "This is the worst thing I have experienced in my entire life. But I cant let myself feel bad because my brother and his family are suffering far more. I am terrified I will watch each and everyone of them die...and then my own husband and children will be next..."

Dan stopped me, "No Ezra, I do not think any of you will die. And let me explain why."

I didn't know if I could hold onto any glimpse of hope because it was surely going to make the reality that much more painful when hope digresses into hopelessness. "How can that be Dan? No one in this latest outbreak has survived. I watch the news, they say the virus has evolved and is now at a 100% fatality rate! HOW is it NOT going to kill us also?"

"First off stop watching the news, the media is being told to report on this in a falsified manor. I'm not sure if they are being fed false data or if they are being told directly to decieve us. Nonetheless, they are not truthful. Just as some people are genetically predispostioned to develop certain diseases, you and your family are of the minority of poeple who are genetically predispositioned to fend off this disease." he explained.

"You mean like an immunity?"

"Not exactly like an immunity, let me expalin. As I began studying RV16-1 I asked Harper to assist me in recording the genetic sequences of the DNA/RNA or the viral genome . I saught to identify what disease this virus had evolved from. My first incling was smallpox as the presence of the pustules resembled those of smallpox."

"Wait," I interrupted, "I thought smallpox was completely irradicated and the remaining samples were ordered to be destroyed by the world heath organization in the late 1990's"

"You know your history"

"I am a writer and I teach a class on World History. Pandemics are part of history"

Dan smiled, I could tell he admired intelligence, probably more than any other human characteristic, "Well, Ezra, you are correct. Except for the fact that the last samples in existence, held in labs in Russia and the US, were not destroyed as ordered. The scientists thought the samples could be of use in future research. And it certainly was aggrivated by the tension and mistrust between the two super powers post Cold War. If one nation destroyed the vaccine and the other did not the chance for a biological warfare disaster increased ten fold."

"Which is what happened isn't it? So either the US or Russia did this? We purposely spread smallpox?"

"Well lets not jump the gun. There could be other samples circulating or the smallpox virus was so resilient it could have been unearthed from a tomb or some other historical requisition. The smallpox isn't even the most astonishing part of the discovery."

"More astonishing than a dead disease re-infecting the entire world??"

He nodded, "More astonishing! I not only identified the smallpox genes in RV16-1 but I also found various other markers that were not natural to smallpox."

"So the virus mutated?"

"Not a mutation. A mutation is a natural occurance that happens in the evolution of an organism. These variations display the tell tale signs of genetic modification or rather genetic engineering."

I was truely astonished, "You mean WE human beings did this?"

"One can only assume so, these changes could not have happened naturally."

Perplexed I asked, "Why modify a disease that is already so devestating to a population with no natural immunity?"

"My thought is that we have a vaccine for smallpox that was proven to be highly effective in treating and preventing and eventually wiping out the disease. The reason smallpox was easily irradicated had to do with the lack of natural mutations occuring in the virus. When the vaccine was produced the virus didn't change and the treatment was continually useful. Once you develop an immunity to smallpox, similiar to its cousin chicken pox, you will not be suseptible to the disease again. Without hosts lacking immunity, smallpox dies off. Whomever created RV16-1 was seeking the largest casualties imaginable. A super disease that could evolve quickly and would be extremely difficult to combat."

"Exactly, WHAT modifications were made?"

Dan continued, "Once we isolated the smallpox strand of the disease we began looking at the variations and compared them to genetic sequences of other disease. I knew there was a good possibility that some sort of viral hemorrhagic fever like Ebola was present due to the traits of the disease. These VHF's are very deadly and difficult to treat. Up until now most outbreaks occured in Africa and were easily isolated through geographic quarrantines. VHF's are not an airborne pathogen. But there were further sequences to identify. I suspected the bubonic plague from the eventual formation of black, swollen lymph glands. Sure enough, it was there. The plague was spread by fleas and is difficult to spread now that we have flea control."

"So this is smallpox, ebola, plague"

"Each of those diseases, albeit quite deadly in their own right, had one weakness or another. They did not spread easily and did not mutate quickly. That is where the simple influenza virus came into play. Just as I had isolated the plague, Harper discovered the flu genes, namely the genes that made for the adaptability of the disease. Enabling it to evolve as the human immune system builds up a new immunity each season."

My mind tried to wrap around the concept of a super disease, created by man with the sole purpose to destroy man. It was as if the human race was committing mass suicide. "How can we ever expect to survive something like this?"

Dan's serious tone was taken over by a smirk and he lifted up a sketch, "that my dear is the MOST interesting thing. The very first thing I noticed was RV16-1 appears to be a retro virus."

"Like HIV"

"Yes. It appears to behave like HIV in the way that the virus pirates the cells they infect. The viral genes are permanently inserted into the DNA of the host cell. That means you cannot cure this disease. Because the cells are forever genetically altered, those cells then go on to replicate the new mutated genes."

I interrupted him, "Again, then how can ANYONE survive this?"

"Not just ANYONE can survive this. But I am fairly certain YOU can survive this." He smiled.

"I don't understand. Why me..er us? What makes you so sure?"

"Before RV16-1 my pet project was called the Indigo Anomaly. I had isolated a unique indigo colored gene that had begun to show up in the human population over the past 75 to 100 yrs. It was unclear where the mutation had come from or how the mutation effected the people hosting it. What we did know is the Indigo's seemed drawn to eachother, they tended to seek out other Indigo's for mating thus passing along the gene to their offspring. Still only a very small percentage of people carried this gene. I found that when the Death Angel virus pirates the Indigo gene it mutates in a unique way compared to a normal cell."

"What...unique way?"

He shrugged his shoulder, "We will find out soon enough. See, Harper and I got to know eachother because when studying various employee samples (something we often do here for research purposes), I found that Harper was the only other Indigo here other than myself so we began to work together researching this gene. We had several subjects that we worked with, one being Brian, the man who escaped the CDC and returned with orange skin and superior strength. Changed yes, but alive. I assumed your family would also carry the Indigo gene since Harper did, after DNA analysis you all carry the gene. I have to assume we may have found the use for the Indigo gene...survival of RV16-1."

Again, I just didn't want to allow myself too much hope. I couldn't be so sure that the one case of this orange man Brian could be the proof needed to believe we would beat the odds. "Perhaps, only time will tell."

"Well keep me informed Ezra!" If you have any further questions feel free to ring me on Skynet. Harper and I are finishing up our clinical requirements for the night and will be heading home to prepare for our own battles with the Death Angel."

"Will do Dan...um...take care." I sighed and signed off. I closed my eyes and without even time to ponder all of the information I had just been given, I drifted off into a deep, slumber of exhaustion.