At no point in this process does GrEp-Ag01 appear to be contagious: No fruiting bodies or other reproductive structures have been observed. However, the agent does rewire the behavior of its victims at the neurological level, inducing the so-called Wanderlust that draws the infected toward Charybdis aggregations. In approximately 70% of cases it also hijacks the religious-impulse circuitry in the temporal lobe (hence the term “pilgrim”); we speculate that it is also responsible for the self-mutilation behavior among some infectees. While victims sometimes refer to the resulting injuries as “stigmata,” the behavior is thought to function as a means of increasing exposure to further spore infection.
While the neurological reprogramming of complex behavior is well documented even among earthly parasites (see Dicrocoelium; Entomophthora; Holy See; Sacculina; Toxoplasma; others), it should be emphasized that the cognitive abilities of infected “pilgrims” do not appear to be significantly impaired until infection renders them effectively immobile. Victims remain capable of intelligent conversation, complex problem-solving, and other hallmarks of legally competent adults. Areas in which mental faculties are impaired—unsupported beliefs in mystical spirits, cryptic behaviors such as “speaking in tongues,” and even self-destructive acts born of a desire to give up their lives for their “god”—are well within the pale of mainstream religious practices around the world. While the agent does proliferate throughout the brain and central nervous system, its impact on CNS function is remarkably subtle until the tertiary stage.
Prognosis: Ultimate mortality rate among infected human hosts is believed to be 100%; while not all known victims have yet died, none are known to have recovered. We are unable to provide a cure at this time. The relative resistance of related primate species does, however, suggest that some form of gene therapy may prove effective. This avenue is under intense investigation, although it is currently hampered by a lack of funding and personnel.
Conclusions: GrEp Ag-01 presents a paradox. Its extreme host specificity points inevitably to an engineered bioweapon specifically intended for human targets. However, it is not contagious among humans; to date, the only observed means of infection is via direct contact with a viable spore. This is a profoundly ineffective strategy for wide-scale attack, one which limits human casualties to within a few kilometers of the spires themselves.
It is not plausible that a species with Charybdis’s obvious capabilities would commit such an elementary oversight. We propose two hypotheses to account for this discrepancy:
1. The enemy is solely interested in establishing local control, and has no interest in expanding beyond Manhattan (and perhaps its immediate environs);
2. The bioweapon is still under development, and the enemy is not yet ready for a wide-scale release. This would suggest that the Ceph are practitioners of the “Precautionary Principle,” and do not wish to globally release an agent that has not been thoroughly field-tested. In this case the limitations we have thus far observed would only be temporary, and the appearance of a truly infectious variant would herald the end of the prototyping stage.
It is our opinion that the second hypothesis is the more plausible of the two. We note, however, that our opinions arise from a distinctly human perspective, while the beings we are trying to second-guess are anything but. Perhaps this offers some grounds for hope.
* In vitro testing is ongoing. Dr. Strahan has submitted an expedited request for additional live specimens across a range of primate species, and for a temporary waiver of the board’s Experimental Ethics rules.
Crash
Oh, Roger, the things I have seen.
Cities turned into swamps. Oceans on fire. Mobs so desperate to get out of the zone they barely even notice the razor wire slicing them open, so desperate for even a chance at clean water or a mouthful of freeze-dried Spirulina they’ll scale livewire fences, jerking like marionettes. I saw a woman’s hair catch fire halfway up and she just kept going because really, what did she have to lose? I’ve fed mass graves so big you could barely see the other side, so big you could see them from fucking orbit.
And then they sent me to Manhattan.
In one way, you know, it was almost a relief. To be picking on something your own size for a change, you know? Something that could fight back. We were the underdogs. We’d probably all end up dead or worse, but if we didn’t—if we actually survived, or even won—well, maybe for the first time in our lives we could feel good about winning. We were fighting a superior force for a change. We weren’t mowing down refugees.
Except when we were.
I remember running across my first—mop-up. Containment. Whatever word they used to whitewash the whole massacre thing. I’m climbing down off the rooftops, coming down a fire escape into this little cul-de-sac off William Street and there’s a pit dug into the road, lined with PVC. A couple of mercs are standing there shooting random civilians, and the cloak gets me close enough to hear them talking. They’re yucking it up because they don’t even have to go out hunting, you know, the civvies come to them, all of ’em heading the same way like salmon swimming upstream to sp—
What?
I don’t give a flying fuck if they were infected. They were civilians.
Yeah, that’s how they always justify it, isn’t it? Quarantine, protecting the population, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. All that shit. Let me tell you, these assholes were not racked by remorse over the necessary evil they were committing. They were laughing. They were using those poor bastards for target practice.
’Course, you’re trained that way. It’s an old trick. Never call them civilians, never learn their names. It’s tough to kill a fellow human being. In fact we make it a point to never kill human beings. We kill niggers and ragheads and terrorists instead. You know what they call infected civilians down in the zone, Roger? Pizza Pockets. Pukeheads. Because of the way they explode when you shoot them. Their insides are all pulpy, like rotten fruit.
When I saw those first few victims I assumed it was just some random alien fungus or something, you know, like that flesh-eating disease. But it’s more than that. It doesn’t just eat you, it doesn’t just turn you into a walking mass of tumors. First it reprograms you. It gives you purpose. Something to live for, something to die for. Some of those guys, you’d swear that getting raptured was the best thing that ever happened to them.