evidence. I didn't tell anyone what I was doing, and nobody else took part.
Interviewer: There's no way you could have--
Jace: Look, you have my answer, and it’s the truth.
Interviewer: Fine. Once you were outside what happened?
Jace: I started walking east, toward the market streets we drove past on the way to inspections. Have you ever been in a city during a power-out? Well let me tell you, away from the compound’s lights it got dark fast. I knew there'd been electrical problems since the fighting damaged the power grid, but I never thought through just how black the streets would be when the only artificial lights were candles and an occasional flashlight. The further I walked the more paranoid I got, 'cause sometimes I’d see someone watching from the windows. They were probably just lookouts, an eldest son or old grandpa keeping an eye out for the militia, but you could bet your bottom dollar they were armed and I could only hope they didn’t think I was a threat.
Despite how freaked out I was getting I made myself keep going. I heard the markets before I could see them, and the whole area reeked of diesel and spices. Some of the wealthier merchants set up generators and floodlights, but the market was still fairly hard to find. The sun hadn’t come up yet and they were sure to keep the lights as low as possible. Too bright and it'd just be a target for shelling.
As I got closer the sounds started to differentiate from each other. Truck engines, generators, and eventually I could make out the sound of voices. Finally I rounded a corner and there it was, already bustling. Remember when I said I was trying to get there just before dawn? Here’s why: that’s when all the trucks unloading the day’s goods arrived. The products that were sold here would be all over the city by the end of the day, and the people would spread even further than that.
Interviewer: How did you actually spread the bacteria?
Jace: I tried to be subtle about it. I’d open a tub, put it in my pocket and try to make direct contact with a person or wipe some of it on things people would pick up or eat. Produce was best where I could find it, because it’s often handled and eaten raw, but after a while I stopped being picky. When I ran out of the tubs I started wiping my nose or eyes and using that. Gross, I know, but HV-109 primarily colonizes the skin, eyes and mucus membranes, so if my own infection was advanced enough those fluids were possible vectors. I was just desperate to get everyone I could, because I needed the people who were at the market that night to spread 109 to everyone who wasn't.
Interviewer: How long you were there?
Jace: Honestly, I don't know. But it didn't take long for the locals to start taking offense. I could hear them asking each other who I was and more and more of them started staring. A couple even started following me. I started getting really scared then, and almost ran back to the compound. But I couldn't, because every extra moment I stayed meant an extra four or eight or however many people that would be protected when the attack came. But when an old lady blew up in my face things got ugly in a hurry.
She ran one of the shops that was buying produce off the trucks and saw me hanging around the back of the vehicle. When she came to see what I was doing and caught me touching the food she started screaming and pointing, and faster than I could have believed a crowd gathered around me. I guess they decided messing with the sweet old granny from down the street was the last straw.
Interviewer: Did they hurt you?
Jace: Not until her sons came out. One of them started shouting in my face and shoved me so hard I fell. It almost seemed to give the mob permission, because then they really came after me. The guys used fists and sticks, and the women threw rocks. See this scar, behind my ear? That's where a brick almost tore it off. I tried to run, but they were everywhere. For a while I really thought they were going to kill me.
Interviewer: How did you get away?
Jace: Eventually most lost interest and I ran. Guess they figured I'd learned my lesson, because instead of following they just laughed and let me go. I had no idea where I was going or what direction the compound was in, I was just trying to get as far away as I could. I ended up in some random neighborhood without the faintest idea where I was, but as the sun came up I was finally able to get my bearings and limp back home. I don't know how I managed to sneak back over the wall, but I did, and got Dr. Kuroki to patch me up off the record.
Interviewer: What were you thinking at the time?
Jace: I was totally high on success. Well, that and the painkillers Dr. Kuroki gave me. I barely remember the evacuation, but the next thing I knew I was on a truck driving the airport where we had a plane waiting to take us to Italy.
Interviewer: What did you do after landing?
Jace: We spent a couple weeks in quarantine while they made sure the HV-109 was dying off or mutating to benign forms. I spent them glued to the news, waiting for someone to report on the attack and how many people I'd saved, but as you already know, the goddamn attack never came. Engine trouble, I found out later! The engine on the truck carrying their launchers broke and none of the others had the horsepower to keep pulling it through the mountains, so they abandoned it. A WMD attack was stopped, right there, because a motor broke at the right time.
But if you ever want proof that good intentions don't mean a thing, it's right here: unexpectedly, HV-109 bacteria mutated.
Interviewer: Did you know what was happening?
Jace: Not a bit. I'd stopped following it. It was more than a month after the evacuation and the attack never happened, so I assumed the matter was over and done with. But then out of nowhere the police knocked on my door and arrested me on bio-terrorism charges.
Interviewer: When you were spreading the HV-109 did you know it might become dangerous to humans?
Jace: Only in the vaguest possible sense. If HV-109 had been used as intended such a mutation would barely have been noticed. The doctors are well aware that bio-defense bacteria can mutate like any other living thing, so they keep all kinds of antibiotics on hand in case they stop functioning as intended. But what were the chances of 109 not just mutating in a dangerous way, but that form spreading through a large part of the population? In clinical trials it almost never had side effects, not even an illness, but in the middle of war-torn city with thousands of people already sick or injured it had just the environment it needed to be a plague.
Interviewer: But the people in the city were never given a choice on if they wanted to take that risk.
Jace: There wasn’t time. How long would it have taken to educate them on how bio-defense bacteria even work, let alone the associated risks? How much time would it have taken to address the religious objections or overcome simple, anti-western paranoia? Should I have stood by and let all those people die just because they couldn’t offer informed consent?
Interviewer: The most recent death toll from the mutated HV-109 strain was sixteen dead, with hundreds more infected.
Jace: You think I don't already know?! Do you want know their names? Or how old they were when they died? I can tell you. Not a day goes by that I don't bear that burden, but you know what? I tried to do the right thing. None of the nations were going to do anything about the Sarin attack. None of the aid agencies, or the charities, or the rebels, government forces and religious leaders could do a single real thing to save those people, but I tried! And if I had a chance to do it all over again, I'd-
I'd . . .
You know what, we're done here. Turn that thing off, I don't want to talk anym—
###
About Aaron Lowry
Aaron Lowry is a Massachusetts native and has lived there all his life save the time he enjoyed at the College of Wooster in Ohio. He has been writing short stories since childhood when his parents cleverly linked his allowance to completing writing projects. Since then he has continued to practice and take on more abitious projects, and hopes to one day write full time.
Check out his website at: https://w
ww.byaaronlowry.com/
Other works by Aaron Lowry
Prisoner 721
The Way Across the Road
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