Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 110809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110809 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
“One of the samples I requested was factor from hemophiliac patients.”
I swallow hard, my mind making several large leaps to a multitude of interesting conclusions. “But hemophilia is genetic, not pathogenic, and we’ve already tried anti-coagulant.”
“Yes, but stay with me.” Her fingers tangle even more, her voice trembling slightly. “When combined with the virus, of course, the factor does nothing except reduce the subject’s ability to staunch bleeding while also being infected. Die from blood loss or plague, but dead either way. Nothing new there.” She clicks onto a slide image showing what she just described.
“Okay.”
“But if you take the factor and try different proteins, the cell reacts in other ways.”
My eyes widen. “How? What did—”
She holds a hand up, slowing me down. “Some proteins attempt to penetrate the cell, others work to form a barrier around it.”
“That’s not enough.” I frown. “The alien cells are too powerful. They survive no matter what.”
“Right.” She rubs the bridge of her nose. “But the interaction. The cells are strong, but with the right elements ...” She sighs. “It’s like it’s right here, but I can’t quite work out the next steps. I think I have something, but then it falls apart. I’m at a brick wall. So, maybe I was wrong about this whole thing. I don’t—”
“Holy shit!” An answer hits me right in the face.
Gretchen jumps.
“Signalosomes combined with the hemophiliac factor.” I can see it in my mind, the proteins working against the vampiric cell. If we find the right signalosome proteins, they can break through the outer wall, then the hemophiliac factor could get to work and destroy the entire thing from the inside out.
“That ...” Gretchen scrunches her nose, her eyes going distant as she thinks. “I didn’t think of that.”
I feel a hum in my veins, an electrical pulse. This could work. This could fucking work. The factor she’s using isn’t something I investigated, not when I was looking for a cure. Gretchen, though, isn’t working on saving humans from the plague. She’s been reverse-engineering a way to unleash a plague on the vampires.
“Signalosomes!” I feel like crawling out of my skin, doing a barbaric yawp, anything to release the pressure that’s rising in my mind, my chest. “I should’ve thought of it. We have to try this now.”
“Aye aye, cap’n.” She gestures over her shoulder toward the containment lab. “Let’s go.”
I scramble from my chair and race to the HCL. Every second I waste struggling with the protective gear is like a lifetime. By the time I get into the containment part, I’m sweating.
“I’m pulling it up on the screen out here.” Gretchen’s voice comes through the intercom.
I set up the microscope with a slide of vampire cells. Sweat trickles down my forehead, and I wipe it away against the inside of the suit.
“The tray of factor is in the front storage cooler,” she calls. “I’m not sure which one—”
“I have an idea.” I run my gloved hand along the array of vials, all of them different varieties of proteins, each one a possible answer. One sticks in my mind, though—a signalosome I’d been working with in Austin when the outbreak first started. It was able to break the envelope, but it did nothing to stop the viral replication. In fact, after multiple trials, I discovered it made the virus replicate faster. Like a supercharger. Dangerous. Useless when looking for a cure. But now?
I slide the tray back in, then pull out another, my eyes scanning along the vials as I try to find the correct combination of letters and numbers. “Gretch, look up COP9, the Falstaff variant. Tell me if it’s here.”
“Okay. Just a sec.”
It has to be here. I keep scanning, my exhalations trying to cloud the front of my suit. Slow down. I stand up straight, then catch movement. Wyatt is in the next containment room over. Loading a centrifuge, he hasn’t noticed I’m in here with him. Probably better that way. I don’t want to distract him, not when we might both be on the verge of discovery.
“Tray 7, vial B6.”
“Yes!” I move to the next refrigeration unit and open it, sliding out the correct drawer. When I find the variant, I pull the vial out gently then carry it over to the microscope with the vampire blood sample. “Got it.” It’s as if my mind is on autopilot, all the years I spent researching distilled into a crystalline knowledge of the specific formula that just might work.
My hands are shaking, and I flex my fingers to try to steady them. I’ve done this thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands of times. ‘It’s just another experiment,’ I tell myself. It doesn’t work to calm me down any. I feel this deep in my gut—the fear, the excitement, the electric sense of being on the cusp of something big.