Chapter 18
Chapter 18
Revelations
Gary and Renee Lincoln were pulled over to the side of the road reading through the files provided by Carl Heinrich's brother. Project Lazarus. Gary had read about half the file already, and it had said that GrumTech, a leading pharmaceuticals research company had been working on a way to reanimate dead tissue in order to save victims from amputations. And that, as most research of that nature, it had been failing incredibly. Until the government sent in several specialists from Johns Hopkins, and MIT to work on the project. The point all along had been to reanimate tissue that had died only minutes before using a biological DNA based answer.
Lots of the file, Gary had understood, but plenty of it went over his head, even in the summary Heinrich had gotten his hands on. But, Carl Heinrich had been a Doctor before entering Congress. Perhaps he'd understood more of it. According to what Renee and himself had pieced together, an DNA sequence had been injected into dead human tissues, and it had somehow successfully reanimated dead tissue. "Brought the dead back to life." They apparently had gotten to use whole bodies. But when they tried to reanimate a human corpse, the sequence had not worked as planned. Although it could bring a liver, or a piece of skin back, it couldn't reanimate nervous tissue the way it could reanimate other kinds. And, even when it brought back the necrotic, dead tissues, eventually that tissue died again.
Things had gotten strange somewhere aroudn the time they began to splice cancer DNA into the mix in order to stimulate growth of tissues. Somehow, some way the best and brightest there at GrumTech had stumbled upon creating a plague. The DNA of the retrovirus mutated so that a human could be fully reanimated, but as a katatonic. The neural pathways that made a person human didn't come back. But the retrovirus was altered a little more by the researchers until they designed a virus which could reanimate "zombies." They tried to advance the science but were unable to, when the CEO of GrumTech, Spence Miller found out about this project that was sapping away larger ammounts of corporate resources.
But instead of shutting the project down, he called the DOD, and said there was something they might be interested in. Five more years of research, and the Lazarus Project produced the "Lazarus Virus." It made a perfect weapon.
The two of them looked at each other for about two minutes after trading pages, and figuring out this was a government project run through a defense contractor.
As they looked at each other, Renee broke the silence. "We have to search for it. See if he has proof of what I gotta know."
Gary looked at her knowingly, "Was this on purpose, or was it a huge mistake?"
Yet More Revelations
Stewart Clark got off the helicopter that had brought him to a place in the middle of nowhere in the Arizona desert, along the New Mexico border. He even had a suit on. He wanted to look sharp if he was going to see both the Governors of Arizona and New Mexico. He had a laptop with him, and nothing else, other than a Beretta 92F under the coat. While he didn't think there would be a zombie attack here, especially with the National Guard setting up a perimeter around the political bigwigs, he still felt the need for the protection. After what had happened he thought he might never go anywhere in the world unarmed again.
He walked to a tent there in the sand, and saw the middle aged Gorvernors. Governor Hamm of Arizona, and Governor Ortiz of New Mexico. The two men both had on cargo pants, and while Hamm had on a gray pullover sweater, Ortiz wore a t-shirt. Clark began to snicker, seeing that formality was a second on the list to functionality. He smiled and shook hands before getting seated.
"Well, Mr. Clark, we've been told you have something for us."
"Yes. I do. It is concerning the disease."
"Well, we're waitin' on you." said the Arizona Governor, chuckling, despite the situation.
"Yes. Um, because of the nature of what was discovered, I was told it was best to meet you directly."
"Yes," said Ortiz, with a far more grave look on his face.
"Well, let me boot my laptop up here," said Clark, turning on his machine. "Um, I can show you the uhhh,,, well what happened on the computer, but, why I wanted to tell you directly, um. This was called Brazillian rabies because the first instances of the disease showing were there. But, the US government put it in Brazil"