The panorama of monitors covered every channel; CNN, FOX, NBC etc with the news. Reporters stood in front of cameras, most wearing surgical masks that muffled their voices, as they gave totals of dead, and sick for Billings, Montana. Next came Cheyenne, Wyoming, Boise, Idaho and finally Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
The CDC officials interviewed were exhausted, frustrated and short tempered on camera as more and more people came into ER's and hospitals. "The r-nought for normal measles is 15. That means for every sick person, they'll infect 15 people. This… "the doctor scraped a hand down her face and looked wearily at the camera, "This… has an r-nought of about double that. We can't get in front of it. It's like a brush fire."
"What about immunization? Isn't measles a preventable disease?" the reporter spoke into the microphone through their mask. Someone coughed off camera. Nervous glances went around.
" Yes, but this isn't normal measles. It's like super-measles." The exhausted doctor stated plainly. "Please, don't congregate. Don't come to the hospitals unless you are sick and wash your hands."
"Thank you, doctor." The reporter replied and turned back to the camera and sneezed.
Steepling her fingers under her chin, Erica stared at the monitors as if it was visual heroin. Every cough, sneeze and death toll thrilled her beyond imagining. Never did she think her experiment would work so well!
When her university dismissed her from graduate school, she was angry. That was an understatement; she was livid. In her mind, she had done nothing wrong. The academics and FBI saw it differently when she used CRSPR to mutate the bacterium she was using from a new beneficial drug making form of the organism to a horrifically dangerous "super germ" capable of killing. Erica watched as all her work was autoclaved into non-existence. Her notes, files and data all destroyed. Did they do that to Jane Foster when she 'discovered' Thor and the bridge to Asgard? No. She got a goddamed Nobel Prize in physics, practically. Instead, here on Earth, Erica Martin became an outcast, banned from labs across the country and even internationally for her lack of 'responsibility' to the greater good.
What good was 'good' if that envelope wasn't pushed from time to time? She wasn't some doctor taking an Hippocratic oath to do no harm. She was a cell biologist, and a damn good one too.
Martin shifted her gaze around the array of monitors all telling the same tales but in different voices and pondered how she arrived at this glorious place. Two parents, middle class upbringing. No miserable Batman story of loss or endless cycles of abuse that would drive a young mind to the darkness for revenge. There was that one time in Girl Scouts she was dismissed for torturing beetles when they worked on their science badges. Tony Stark had a weeklong workshop for bright teens at the Avengers compound and she was selected. Everyone student hung on the words falling from Tony's mouth except her. She recalled yawning several times in boredom. Otherwise, she as normal as they come in just about every way from her auburn hair to her porcelain skin dotted with freckles.
Erica Martin just wanted to be known for something other than being good.
She wanted to be known for being great at being bad for just that sake.
And now it was all happening because of her.
Her assistant knocked gently on the door frame interrupting her thoughts, "Ma'am, should we ready another drone?"
She blinked to take the dazzle out of her eyes, "No. Not yet. Let's see if the CDC really did get the r-nought right."
"Yes, ma'am." He replied and then retreated.
You say it's 30, but it's more than that. So much more, Erica thought wickedly. It is a brush fire and everyone is going to burn.