The Snake
Chapter 42
XLII
It had been four weeks since Max and Michael had been officially certified free of the virus. Dan, Diane, Liz, Max, Michael, Maria, Jim, Kathleen, Kyle, Jeliya, Alex, Isabel, Tess, Rayylar, Jeff, Nancy, Philip, Diane, and the Whitmans all sat around the fire at Jim and Kathleen's ranch estate. Kathleen and Jeliya served everyone coffee or a drink of Snapples and jubish and some light Antarian Jaht-Roo cookies with chilled japo-mevanish, a chilled version of the famous Antarian flaming flan (also known as refrigerated left-overs).
Having no Antarian DNA, Dan, Jim, Kathleen, Alex, Jeff, Nancy, the Whitmans, and Philip and Diane Evans had proven to be immune to the virus. Maria had suffered a runny nose and a bad headache. No one was sure why she was affected, but she was. Jeliya, Kyle's wife, had been in a coma but survived, thanks to the Kiren mist that Varec, Ayr'gith, and Liz developed, thankfully just in time in her case, as in Max and Michael's. Tess had escaped being infected, apparently because she and Rayylar had received decon suits in time before she was exposed; but her husband, Rayylar, caught it anyway and almost died from the virus. He, too, was saved by the Kiren mist. Liz had had a mild to moderate case, a bit more severe than Maria's, but she had never stopped going, even helping to develop the cure while she suffered with the effects of the virus. Diane Casey Klein had contracted a light case of the virus, which in retrospect, might have been foreseen, since she was, after all, one of the "Antarians Too," the humans who had residual Antarian DNA in them. Kyle came down with a light case. Everyone surmised that it must have been because of Max healing him years before. However, Max healed Jim, too, as well as several others later, yet none of them contracted the virus.
"How many have you saved so far," Dan Klein asked Liz.
"So far," Liz said, "1,477 Antarians have been certified free of the virus after having had it. That doesn't count Max and Michael. They're technically not full-blooded Antarians, since their DNA is mixed with Earth DNA."
"That's wonderful, Liz, Diane said.
Liz frowned. "No, it really isn't, Diane, when you consider that over thirty thousand have died… 30,283." Liz added this exact count for no particular reason, but the fact is that she knew the number down to the last individual. She couldn't seem to help it. She took every death personally. And every one saved was a personal celebration.
"Have you figured out where the virus came from," Dan asked.
Liz shook her head.
"We think I brought it back from Earth," Michael said for her. "We just don't know how."
"Well, what did you do while you were there," Dan asked. "Have you retraced all your steps?"
"A thousand times, Dan… a thousand times. I just can't come up with anything."
"Nothing seemed strange or out of place?"
"Everything seemed strange! But I still don't know where the virus could have come from. I'd say Zwolinski could have cooked it up, but he never had the chance that I know of. I mean, he never did anything that could have given it to me, you know."
"Where did you go while you were there?"
Roswell… I saw the CrashDown and myself as a kid… and Hank. Hank couldn't have made a hybrid virus. He doesn't even know what viruses look like. He thinks they're little sharks swimming around in our blood."
Diane giggled and shook her head.
"I went to Nashville to see Alex. I went to Boston to see Liz once. Then there was the rock pit… the quarry."
"Quarry?"
"Outside of Roswell. The shape-shifters had their ship in it. It was buried under the rubble at the bottom. They had an elaborate sort of electronic alarm system… neuronic or something… that warned them when anything was around the quarry and allowed them to see it from wherever they were. You think they could have given it to me?"
"Could be. Would they have had something to gain by destroying Antar… killing everybody on the planet?"
Michael thought about this for a few moments. "I don't know what they would gain by it. They were loyal to Kivar, and Kivar wanted to take over Antar. I can't see what he would have to gain by having no one to be the king of. Besides, he would have been affected by the virus, too."
"And the shape-shifters?"
"I don't know. They're not native to Antar. But they do have a similar nervous system… with a few important modifications that allow them to shape-shift."
"Did you go anywhere else?"
"Yeah. I was on a yacht off the east coast of the Bahamas."
"The Bermuda Triangle," Dan said.
"Yeah, so?"
"Nothing." Dan shook his head. "I just thought it was curious… or interesting. There's nothing to those legends, so it really doesn't matter."
"Didn't a lot of ships and planes and stuff disappear in the Bermuda Triangle," Kyle asked.
Dan nodded. "Yeah, a whole squadron of military planes, Avengers I think, disappeared there in the forties. Ships and boats have disappeared there, too. But if you consider the amount of traffic that area has… the sheer number of boats and planes that fly or move through that area every single day… I mean, the triangle reaches from Fort Lauderdale, Florida to San Juan, Puerto Rico and then over to Bermuda… it's not unusual that that area would seem to be plagued with a lot of accidents… or unexplained occurrences for that matter. I never heard of any aliens getting any unusual viruses there, though."
"Yeah." Michael nodded. "I don't think that has anything to do with it. The yacht was leased by Nicholas… and he was working for Kivar, so exterminating everyone on Antar wouldn't be in the interest of either one."
"Who would have an interest in killing everyone on Antar, Michael," Diane asked.
Michael thought about it and shook his head. "No one. That's the problem. Zwolinski might have done it in the past… or in another timeline, but he actually helped me to track down Jim's killers in this timeline. He wanted the shape-shifters and Kivar's guys, not me. We worked together once he understood that we were on the same side."
"A snake is always a snake," Diane said. "I'm not saying he did it, but I wouldn't be too quick to rule him out. He had the motive and the desire… in the past at least. He had the ability… Didn't he have a lab and people working with him? And he had access to you."
Kathleen nodded. "She's right, Michael. A snake is always a snake, and Zwolinski is always Zwolinski, even when he's not rattling his tail to warn you."
"I know," Michael said. "I would suspect him in a heartbeat, too, but… how? He was very nice to me once we started working together. He never did anything that I know of that could have given me this virus. I watched my back around him. I was never asleep… and I was never unconscious around him. There's just no way…"
"Did you bring anything back that he gave you?"
"No. I didn't bring anything back at all… just me… and the clothes I was wearing."
"Have you had the clothes checked," Jim asked.
"No. This is the same shirt I was wearing there. It's been washed since then, of course. It got torn while we were capturing the shape-shifters, and Zwolinski paid to have it sewn up. He also had that little silver monogram sewn on the pocket for me when they fixed the shirt."
"Zwolinski?" Diane and Dan both asked at once.
"Yeah. But he didn't do the repairs. A seamstress at a local shop did it. Zwolinski just put it on his account. I didn't know about the monogram till I got the shirt back. Zwolinski said it was the least he could do for the help I gave him, and he was getting the shirt repaired anyway, so he just had them do it at the same time. It's nothing… just a few threads. You think that…?"
"Let me see it," Dan said, moving over to study it closely.
"The thread in the monogram is shiny. It sort of sparkles," Diane said.
"Yeah. It does look nice," Michael said.
"Yeah," Dan agreed. "It does."
Michael unbuttoned his shirt and took it off. Then he stared at the monogram for several minutes. He turned the shirt inside out and looked at the thread inside the seam. It was the same shiny, sparkly, metallic-looking thread. He ran his fingers over it and looked at his fingers. A few very tiny silvery sparkles remained on his fingers.
"What's that," Diane asked.
"I don't know," Michael said, shaking his head solemnly. "But I'm going to find out." Michael stood up and looked at Maria. "You can hang out here if you want to till I get back," he said. Then he left the ranch house. Maria knew where he was going. And she knew he'd be back with an answer from Varec.
**********
Dressed in full contamination gear, Varec removed the small vial from the chemical bath he had placed it in and looked at the silvery thread in it. Then he removed the silvery thread with a small forceps and placed it on a glass slab, which he placed on the plate of his electron-neuron binary scanning microscope. He turned on the monitor on the wall, and both Michael and Varec watched as the screen came alive… almost literally. The silvery thread, when enlarged to a factor of 200,000X, seemed to wriggle and crawl with tiny worm-like organisms. It was all Michael needed to see.
"He did it to me, didn't he, Varec? That son of a bitch poisoned me… tried to exterminate our whole planet!"
"Well, it's a virus, not a poison, Michael, but in a way, you're right. This particular virus has an unusual profile. It's part virus, part chemical."
"Don't we all have chemicals in our bodies," Michael asked. "Aren't we all part chemical?"
Varec nodded. "We are. But this is unique. It's something I've never seen before, Michael. The reason Antarians can't catch viruses is because we have… I guess you could say 'mutated' the DNA of Antarians in such a way that no known virus or bacteria can penetrate our cells or bodies without being immediately destroyed. What Zwolinski has done is create a hybrid virus-chemical… a living chemical! It's ingenious actually."
"You can spare the praise, Varec. I'm going to kill the son of a bitch, so nobody's going to be giving him any achievement awards."
"I wasn't praising him, Michael. He's obviously very evil. I was just amazed by his ingenuity. The chemical that this virus is bound with attacks Antarian cells, rendering them vulnerable to attack by viruses and possibly bacteria. But this particular little creature is also a virus, so it blasts the door open then goes in and… well, you know."
"Yeah… I do," Michael said. "Can you use this information to help come up with a better cure or antidote?"
"I think so. It's the best key we've had to what this thing is. We can use it, sure."
"Keep the shirt, Varec. I don't want it back."
Michael left Varec's lab and drove back toward Jim and Kathleen's. His jaw was set like a vise; his eyes were like steel. He knew what he was going to do.
tbc