The APOCs Virus by Alex Myers Read Free Book Online Page A

technology and most expensive paraphernalia the United States Army could buy.  One large window filled the east end of the room with a view of the small city of Frederick below.  The lights of the village were like phosphorescent sea animals on the black waves of the ocean—only it was an ocean of steel and stone.  A lone figure stood with her back to the room staring blankly at the view.  Her name was Ava Porter. 
    She turned and took in the sight of the once-familiar room.  Trained as a research scientist, she was able to recognize some objects: the tissue culture incubators, the chromatography units, the large hoods of the HEPA filter systems, double - headed Zeiss binocular microscopes, and immense refrigerator units for the storage of liquid nitrogen kept at - 70 degrees centigrade.  Inside the commodious freezers were samples of every virus and bacteria known to man.  The collection equaled or surpassed those of the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, and the labs of the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland.  Very few people had ever heard of this room.  Even fewer had been in it. And this was just level 2 biolab, you had to put on a moon suit to visit levels 3 and 4. 
    She tried to avert her eyes from the tables in the middle of the room on which lay four cadavers—two human and two victims of the MDR - V6 virus.  The pale gray corpses lay naked encased in plastic like frozen human fish sticks.  Their faces were locked in an eternal grimace, each displaying their personal death story. 
    Lost in her thoughts she was startled by the sound of the air lock.  The laboratory was kept at a negative pressure to prevent the escape of contaminants.  Two figures entered the room, both wearing surgeon's aprons and gloves. 
    "Ah Ava my dear, you seem to have forgotten your scrubs," the first man said mockingly. 
    Dr. Puck was Ava's boss.  He was Dr. Angus Puck, director of the center.  He was a meticulous, waspish man, five - foot eight and underweight.  He had a regal profile, but when he turned full-face, people experienced a disappointment.  His face was not handsome.  The eyes were the flaw: they were vaguely pale, neither gray or blue, lifelessly devoid of expression.  Though he wasn't what you'd consider ugly, few people liked his face: the face was too cold, the eyes too fleeting, nothing to lend him to endearment or compassion.  His mousy brown hair was thinning and barely covered the top of his head.  He bragged about saving money by cutting it himself with surgical shears and a mirror. 
    "No Dr. Puck, I'm just following your orders—I just came here to observe. Why are we not in level 4 or at least level 3?”
    “There’s not a need—when the host dies, so does the virus.  It’s not contagious, it’s completely inert.”
    She wondered why she was here at all.  She noticed the way he lingered over her body with his eyes.  She unconsciously closed the front of her lab coat over her blouse. 
    "So how long has it been now that you've been the center's liaison to the CDC?  Six months, seven?”  Puck asked.  He made it sound as if it were something for which Ava should be forever in his debt.  He didn't wait for her to answer before he continued. "You haven't been away from the lab so long that you're getting squeamish around a couple of cadavers now pray tell?"   
    Ava watched Dr. Puck give a secret smile to the man that had entered with him, before turning to a tray of instruments.  The second man, a ClassA security lab technician, began preparing the bodies for autopsy.  The large man with forgettable features unzipped the plastic coverings and removed the remains to the cold chromium tabletops.  The horror of the sight was amazing.  Differences appeared, and it was easy now, even for Ava's untrained eye, to tell which had died with the virus. 
    All the bodies had abnormal dents and indentations on their stomachs, chests, and legs, even their ears.  Puck