Within one minute, Alek coughed a bit harder. Sutsoff watched the large flat screen that captured glowing droplets spraying from Alek’s mouth and traveling in the air. Some were inhaled by the other children. Some landed on hands that were then dragged over faces and eyes.
Sutsoff made another adjustment, increasing her level, and within thirty seconds, Alek sneezed. The magnification camera showed the spray of droplets traveling throughout the room and bombarding the other children.
Within ten minutes, all of them were coughing and sneezing. The levels on the computers monitoring them showed that they had each started presenting symptoms of a common cold.
It was astounding.
Sutsoff’s pulse quickened.
But she was not done. She typed more commands, inputting passwords and codes. Within five minutes the sneezing and coughing subsided.
Within ten minutes it ceased.
Sutsoff studied the computer monitoring the children’s levels. Everything had returned to normal.
It was over.
Sutsoff cupped her hands to her face.
Another trial had worked.
Like the others before it.
Sutsoff pressed her intercom and requested to see Alek. She made notes while waiting for the staff member to return Alek to her office for a follow-up examination. Alek was placed on the table while the doctor checked all of his signs again.
Perfect health. Not a problem
Alone, Sutsoff savored what she had dreamed of for years.
Everything she had been working for, everything she’d been struggling to achieve was now within her grasp.
She possessed the power at her fingertips to control who got sick. With the right synthetic biological agent, with the right microbe, she could determine who lived and who died.
Anywhere. Anytime.
She was poised to take the world into a new age.
She glanced up at the TV monitors. One was showing a report on the upcoming Human World Conference in New York. It was going to be one of the largest gatherings in history. As she watched footage of the preparations for crowds that would be in the millions, she reflected on Oppenheimer’s breakthrough and his invocation of Vishnu. It was now more applicable to her achievement, she thought, as she considered the scale of the conference.
“Now I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Let’s get things started.
Dr. Sutsoff went to another computer and entered commands on the keyboard until a head shot of a man appeared alongside some biographical information.
Name: Roger Timothy Tippert. Age: forty-one. Nationality: American. Residence: Indianapolis, Indiana. Occupation: teacher. Marital Status: married. Spouse: Catherine.
Sutsoff stared at Roger’s face. Then at Catherine’s face.
The Tipperts were cruise-ship passengers.
She’d selected them randomly for the next experiment.
If it worked, only one of them would be returning to Indianapolis alive.
28
Near Bimini
The Spanish luxury liner, Salida del Sol, steamed toward the Florida coast and the end of a seven-day cruise of the eastern Caribbean islands.
Before leaving his cabin, Roger Tippert, the school-teacher from Indianapolis, took one final look in the mirror, approving the shorts and flowered shirt he’d bought in Nassau.
He was headed to Twisters Cocktail Lounge high up on deck 14. Cathy, his wife of ten years, was somewhere on deck 11 with her new friends, enjoying the ship’s power-walking club.
He whistled softly as he strolled to the elevator and waited a moment. It chimed and the doors opened to that young couple in the cabin across the hall, the family with the cute baby. They’d come aboard in Nassau. Roger had greeted them a few times and by their accents guessed they were Russian or something.
The little boy had one arm extended over his head, holding his mother’s hand. She smiled. “Alek, say hello to the nice man.”
The toddler broke from her grip-or did she nudge him?-and made a teetering beeline for Roger, stumbling into him.
“Hey there, cowboy.” Roger felt the boy’s little hands slapping at his legs as he squatted down and helped him back to his mother.
“Thank you.”
Roger caught something under the woman’s smile. Was it the hint of a come-on? Whatever, Roger dismissed it.
“No problem.”
He stepped by her husband, who had the warmth of a zombie. The man eyed him while the doors closed. Alone in the elevator, he shook his head. Man, it was yesterday when his kids were that size. As he strolled into Twisters, he thought happily of his wife. Waiting for her in the lounge had become their predinner ritual during the trip.
He took in the ocean view, knowing he was one lucky son-of-a-gun.
Cathy, a dental hygienist, had survived a recent battle with breast cancer. Their two beautiful children, Simon, who was nine, and Melissa, who was seven, were treasures.
At times he thought that he didn’t deserve this family.
About three years back, Rosita, a thirty-year-old, divorced ex-beauty queen and substitute teacher had run her hand inside his thigh under the table at a school district lunch and offered to “rock his world.”
Roger was going to accept Rosita’s offer but on his way to meet her at a motel, he turned around. He knew it was wrong. He was happily married.
He never told Cathy about it.
Seven months later, she found a malignant lump.
But she beat it and in the process became his hero as her strength made him realize that she was too good for him. So it was while they were in the grip of an unrelenting winter that he surprised her with this tropical cruise for an anniversary present.
She cried.
It was something she had always dreamed of doing.
Now, as he sipped a Dutch beer alone at the bar, he reflected on all the places they’d seen-St. Thomas, St. Maarten, Nassau-and how much Cathy had loved every minute of the cruise so far.
This had been one of the best times of their lives.
“So we meet again, Tippert.”
A rugged-faced man in his mid-sixties took the stool next to him.
“Hey there, captain.”
Jimmy Stokes, a retired car dealer from Fort Worth, Texas, had been joining him at the bar around the same time every day. Roger liked their conversations on sports, politics, history and life in general. Jimmy was vacationing alone. His wife had died of a stroke five years back. They never had any children and Jimmy was genuinely happy for Roger’s situation.
“Sounds like you got things set just right on the home front, son.”
Stokes was also a Vietnam vet, who did two tours over forty years ago. After he started into a beer, he opened up to Roger about his time there. “Funny,” Stokes said. “For years I couldn’t tell anybody about the god-awful things I’d seen when I was in the shit.”
Stokes would gaze out at the sea as if something evil waited at the far side of the ocean. Today, Jimmy wanted to talk about 1968. Roger hadn’t even been born then.
“Do you know about the battle of Khe Sanh, son?”
Tippert only knew what he’d seen on the History Channel.
“Well I was there.” Stokes pulled on his beer then started his story. “We was in Quang Tri Province…”
Roger spasmed.
He dropped his beer and the glass shattered on the floor.
His fingertips tingled. Gooseflesh rose on his skin.
“What’s the matter, son?”
It felt like a switch had been thrown, his brain pulsated and his tongue started to swell. It wouldn’t stop swelling.
Oh, God-can’t breathe!
“Is everything all right?” a bartender asked.
“Call the ship’s doctor!” Stokes said. “My friend’s going into some kind of shock or seizure!”
Clawing at his throat, Roger fell to the floor.