Target Zero

“Tell me, Renault,” said the older man. His eyes twinkled as he watched the coffee bubble in the cap of the percolator between them. “Why did you come here?”

Dr. Cicero was a kind man, jovial, the sort who liked to describe himself as “fifty-eight years young.” His beard had turned gray in his late thirties and white in his forties, and though usually neatly trimmed, it had grown wispy and unruly in his time on the tundra. He wore a bright orange parka, but it did little to mute the youthful light in his blue eyes.

The young Frenchman was slightly taken aback by the question, but he knew his answer immediately, having rehearsed it in his head many times. “The WHO contacted the university for research assistants. They, in turn, offered it to me,” he explained in English. Cicero was native Greek, and Renault from the southern coast of France, so they conversed in a shared tongue. “To be honest, there were two others given the chance before me. They both turned it down. However, I saw it as a great opportunity to—”

“Bah!” the older man interjected with a simper. “I’m not asking about academics, Renault. I’ve read your transcript, as well as your thesis on forecasted influenza B mutation. It was quite good, I might add. I don’t think I could have written it better myself.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Cicero chuckled. “Save your ‘sir’ for boardrooms and fundraising. Out here, we are equal. Call me Cicero. How old are you, Renault?”

“Twenty-six, sir—uh, Cicero.”

“Twenty-six,” said the old man thoughtfully. He warmed his hands over the heat from the camp stove. “And nearly finished with your doctorate? That’s very impressive. But what I want to know is, why are you here? As I said, I’ve reviewed your file. You’re young, intelligent, admittedly handsome…” Cicero chuckled. “You could have gotten an internship anywhere in the world, I imagine. But these four days you’ve been with us, I haven’t heard you once talk about yourself. Why here, of all places?”

Cicero waved a hand as if to demonstrate his point, but it was wholly unnecessary. The Siberian tundra stretched in every direction as far as the eye could see, gray and white and utterly empty, save for the northeast where low-lying mountains sprawled lazily, capped in white.

Renault’s cheeks turned slightly pink. “Well, if I am being honest, Doctor, I came here to study by your side,” he admitted. “I am an admirer of yours. Your work in hindering the Zika virus outbreak was truly inspiring.”

“Well!” said Cicero warmly. “Flattery will get you everywhere—or at least some Belgian dark roast.” He pulled a thick mitten over his right hand, lifted the percolator from the butane-powered camp stove, and poured two plastic mugs of steaming, rich coffee. It was one of the very few luxuries they had available in the Siberian wilderness.

Home, for the last twenty-seven days of Dr. Cicero’s life, had been the small encampment established about a hundred and fifty meters from the shore of the Kolyma River. The settlement was comprised of four domed neoprene tents, a canvas canopy enclosed on one side to protect from the wind, and a semi-permanent Kevlar clean room. It was under the canvas canopy that the two men currently stood, making coffee over a two-burner camp stove amid the folding tables that held microscopes, samples of permafrost, archaeology equipment, two rugged all-weather computers, and a centrifuge.

“Drink up,” said Cicero. “It’s nearly time for our shift.” He sipped the coffee with his eyes closed, and a soft moan of pleasure escaped his lips. “Reminds me of home,” he said softly. “Do you have someone waiting for you, Renault?”

“I do,” answered the young man. “My Claudette.”

“Claudette,” Cicero repeated. “A lovely name. Married?”

“No,” Renault said simply.

“It’s important to have something to long for, in our line of work,” said Cicero wistfully. “It gives you perspective amid the detachment that is often necessary. Thirty-three years I’ve called Phoebe my wife. My work has taken me all over this earth, but she is always there for me when I return. While I’m away, I pine, but it is worth it; every time I come home it is like falling in love all over again. As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

Renault grinned. “I would not have pegged a virologist for a romantic,” he mused.

“The two are not mutually exclusive, my boy.” The doctor frowned slightly. “And yet… I don’t believe it is Claudette that haunts your mind most. You’re a pensive young man, Renault. More than once I’ve noticed you staring at the mountaintop as if looking for answers.”

“I think you may have missed your true calling, Doctor,” said Renault. “You should have been a sociologist.” The smile dissipated from his lips as he added, “You are right, though. I have accepted this assignment not only for the ability to work at your side, but also because I have dedicated myself to a cause… a cause predicated on belief. However, I have fears of where that belief might take me.”

Cicero nodded knowingly. “As I said, detachment is often necessary in our line of work. One must learn to be dispassionate.” He put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Take it from someone with some years behind him. Belief is a powerful motivation, to be certain, but sometimes emotions have the tendency to blur our judgment, dull our minds.”

“I’ll be wary. Thank you, sir.” Renault grinned sheepishly. “Cicero. Thank you.”

Suddenly the walkie-talkie squawked intrusively from the table beside them, shattering the introspective silence of the canopy.

“Dr. Cicero,” said a female voice edged with an Irish brogue. It was Dr. Bradlee, calling from the nearby excavation site. “We’ve unearthed something. You’re going to want to see this. Bring the box. Over.”

“We’ll be there momentarily,” Dr. Cicero said into the radio. “Over.” He smiled paternally at Renault. “It seems we’re being called in early. We should suit up.”

The pair of men set down the still-steaming mugs and hurried to the Kevlar clean room, stepping into the first antechamber to dress in the bright yellow decontamination suits the World Health Organization had provided. Gloves and plastic boots went on first, sealed at the wrists and ankles, before the full-body coveralls, hood, and finally, mask and respirator.

They dressed quickly but quietly, almost reverently, using the brief interim as not only one of physical transformation, but mental as well, from their pleasant and casual banter to the somber mindset required for their line of work.

Renault disliked the decontamination suits. They made movement slow and the work tedious. But they were absolutely necessary to conduct their research: locate and verify one of the most dangerous organisms known to mankind.

He and Cicero stepped out of the antechamber and made their way toward the bank of the Kolyma, the slow-moving icy river that ran south of the mountains and slightly east, toward the ocean.

“The box,” said Renault suddenly. “I’ll fetch it.” He hurried back to the canopy to retrieve the sample container, a stainless steel cube fastened shut with four clasps, a biohazard symbol emblazoned on each of its six sides. He trotted back to Cicero, and the two resumed their hasty trek to the excavation site.

“You know what occurred not far from here, yes?” Cicero asked through his respirator as they walked.

“I do.” Renault had read the report. Five months ago, a twelve-year-old boy from a local village had fallen sick shortly after fetching water from the Kolyma. At first it was thought that the river was contaminated, but as symptoms manifested, the picture became clearer. Researchers from the WHO were mobilized immediately upon hearing of the illness and an investigation was launched.

The boy had contracted smallpox. More specifically, he had fallen ill with a strain never before seen by modern man.

The investigation eventually led to the carcass of a caribou near the river’s banks. After thorough testing, the hypothesis was confirmed: the caribou had died more than two hundred years earlier, and its body had become a part of the permafrost. The illness it carried froze with it, lying dormant—until five months ago.

“It is a simple chain reaction,” said Cicero. “As the glaciers melt, the river’s water level and temperature rise. That, in turn, thaws the permafrost. Who knows what diseases might lurk in this ice? Ancient strains the likes of which we have never seen before… it is entirely possible that some might even predate mankind.” There was a tension in the doctor’s voice that was not only concern, but an edge of excitement. It was, after all, his livelihood.

“I read that in 2016 they found anthrax in a water supply, caused by a melted icecap,” Renault commented.

“It is true. I was called to that case. As well as the Spanish flu found in Alaska.”

“What became of the boy?” the young Frenchman asked. “The smallpox case from five months ago.” He knew that the boy, along with fifteen others in his village, had been quarantined, but that was where the report had ended.

“He passed,” Cicero said. There was no emotion in his voice; not like when he spoke of his wife, Phoebe. After decades in his line of work, Cicero had learned the subtle art of detachment. “Along with four others. But out of that came a proper vaccine for the strain, so their deaths weren’t for naught.”

“Still,” Renault said quietly, “a shame.”

Less than a stone’s throw from the river’s shore was the excavation site, a twenty-square-meter patch of tundra cordoned by metal stakes and bright yellow procedural tape. It was the fourth such site the research team had created over their investigation so far.

Four other researchers in decontamination suits were inside the cordoned square, all hunched over a small patch of earth near its center. One of them saw the two men coming and hurried over.

It was Dr. Bradlee, an archaeologist on loan from the University of Dublin. “Cicero,” she said, “we’ve found something.”

“What is it?” he asked as he crouched low and sidled under the procedural tape. Renault followed.

“An arm.”

“Pardon?” Renault blurted.

“Show me,” said Cicero.

Bradlee led the way to the patch of excavated permafrost. Digging into the permafrost—and doing so carefully—was no easy task, Renault knew. The topmost layers of frozen earth commonly thawed in the summer, but the deeper layers were so-called because they were permanently frozen in the polar regions. The hole that Bradlee and her team had dug was nearly two meters deep and wide enough for a grown man to lie down in.

Not unlike a grave, Renault thought grimly.

And true to her word, the frozen remnants of a partially decomposed human arm were visible in the bottom of the hole, twisted, nearly skeletal, and blackened by time and soil.