“To determine the evolutionary relationships between Wuhan Human CoronaVirus 1 and previously identified coronaviruses," Helen said from the head of the class, "We estimated phylogenetic trees on the basis of the nucleotide sequences of the whole-genome sequence, the non-structural protein genes, and the main structural proteins encoded by the S, E, M, and N genes."
Viral leaned in toward Smooshy and covered his mouth, trying to mask his laughter at the acronym.
“In all phylogenies, as you can see, WuHu1 clustered with members of the subgenus Sarbecovirus, including the SARS-CoVid of 2002, and a number of other SARS-like covids that have been obtained from bats.”
Helen was standing before the canvas screen which showed two columns that looked to Viral like the folder hierarchies he learned in his Developing for Linux class. Building a dexterity with the command line had pinched the sack of his GUI-oriented habits, but his professor at the time had told him familiarity with Ubuntu would turn him into a systems ninja on keel with Sensei Dennis Nedry. Viral did not expect the hours upon hours he spent navigating the file structure of his C:// drive to yield benefits related to the human body. If, as the more he learned from his better suited for biology peers, the more the body would come to represent one giant system of registries, memory allocations, data streams, and processes then maybe he'd have a chance to contribute to the group. He could already feel his shadow of self-doubt receeding in the light of rational self esteem.
Near the elbow of the blackboard at the front of the laboratory Ankur clicked his Thinkpad's remote. On the next slide, four uniquely colored lines moved like a time series graph from left to right. Helen said, “This shows the sequenced genomes of sabrecovid strains with the highest rate of similarity to WuHu1. Yellow is SARS and red is Bat SL-CoVC45.”
Monica had tasked the group she collected with the mission to find a cure for the virus she had been calling, insensitively, the Chinese Bat Bug. The most Viral had heard about the virus was from a snippet of an NPR story that Monica had abruptly cut-off while he changed into her husband's urban wear in her bedroom. At first, he had the impression she had been hiding something, but a presentation by a CDC liason named Portia LeGrande that morning underscored Monica's inclination toward subterfuge. It wasn't that Monica wanted to keep all information regarding the coronavirus from him; she wanted to keep misleading information from him. Since his detainment outside Tyler Osterhauf's burnt-down loft, Viral had thought of himself as a victim held in violation of his writ of habeus corpus. Now, as Helen Cho, the round-faced girl with the round-rimmed spectacles, spoke to him and the others of the Wuhan coronavirus' genotypic similarity to related bugs of its phylum, Viral began to see himself less as a hostage and more as a juror sequestered for a cause. Monica had kept him in the dark to preserve his objective ignorance, he figured. His tabula rasa was one on which she could imprint her state secrets.
From the shadows at the edge of the room, a low voice suddenly spoke. Viral recognized it as Alan’s, the quarterback whose scholarship McGill rescinded upon his arrest for allegedly murdering his high school girlfriend. “What do the peaks refer to?” he asked in reference to the graph behind Helen.
Standing on the tips of her black ballet flats to touch the screen with her finger, Helen said, “These are normalized rates of similarity.”
Emir, the boy who’d hit the light switch, said, “It shows what proteins could --”
But Alan interrupted. “Yeah, what proteins can be shared among the strands. I get it.”
"Then why'd you ask?" Emir shot back.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
Even in the dark Viral could feel the icy detente between Alan and Emir. If their dicks were rulers he’d have been caught in their game of inches.
“And the vertical lines?” Gyn asked, referring to two dotted lines that bisected two of the four, colored lines' peaks.
“Separations,” Helen said.
Plank -- like the constant -- bent his head and asked for clarification.
“Cuts,” Helen said.
Plank said it back to her hoping the feedback loop would change her answer. It didn't.
"What Helen's trying to say--" Ankur started, but Helen cut him off.
"What I AM saying is that DNA sequencing of this bug doesn't entirely match the viruses we have on file. But it's not different enough to be unknown," Helen said.
From the corner of his eye Viral caught sight of the shoulder bag from which Helen had been pulling her markers earlier that morning. What he had thought was a logo for a Swedish outfitter he saw now was a button that said Warren 2020. In context, Viral felt, Helen's persistence in the face of Ankur's diminutive mansplaining was even more laudable.
Placing her elbow on the tabletop, Gyn turned her shoulders toward Plank. "Mutations are normal in nature," she added. She was catty-corner to Viral. He tried to catch a glimpse of her tetons but without overhead lighting the shadow between them was too dark for him to lose himself.
Looking up at the graph on the screen, Plank tapped his finger on his lip ring. "That is true," he said.
Fey, the second woman in the Fear Mongers who had helped clear Agent LeGrande’s handwriting with the tall boy in the cap, spoke from behind the lectern where Ankur had first stood. In the glow of the Thinkpad her face looked ashen, as if she’d just given blood. "Yet the probability of 90% identification among four different codons on four different sequences is very low," she said.
The numbers and vocabulary swirled around Viral’s head like Dr. Hackman’s Congolese hair mosquitos. He’d barely started his second semester of organic chemistry before classes were cancelled, and he’d postponed probability theory until he’d have to take statistics his junior year. The Fear Mongers and the members of his cohort could have been speaking Malayalam and he’d have as much idea of their discourse. Sensing the habits of comparing his shortcomings to the expertise of others creeping back into his train of thought, he imagined the way Lron would talk him through his feelings. The thought of weathering cognitive behavorial change without Lron’s guidance or his James Blake mp3’s, however, reinforced Viral's rising anxiety. He pressed his palms into his seat to visit the washroom but the sound of an unfamiliar voice arrested him. It was Aleph, and he could hear her.
"But you said DNA samples were all from the same sabrecorona--whatever family," Aleph said softly. "Similarity seems probable."
The five members of the Fear Mongers must not have heard her because Viral watched them stare at Aleph waiting for her to speak. He surprised even himself by repeating her question.
Perhaps feeling challenged by the only other Indian, Ankur immediately spoke. "What we haven't mentioned is that the proteins for which these shared base pair sequences code are of integral importance to the mechanism through which this current coronavirus strikes," he said.
Choco, the tall boy who stood behind Fey, clicked the mouse on Ankur's laptop at the lectern. A 3D image of a crystalline structure appeared on the screen above the group. To Viral it looked like an ice cream cone. With wonder in his voice, Ankur said, "The Crown."
Stunned silence captured the room. It settled like dead skin cells on the lips of all who stared at the render. The projection cast the image at a hyper-intensified scale, but the crystal’s grandeur had little to do with its size. Red, blue, and purple nodes connected to each other like Christmas lights in a honeycombed pattern as clear as an acorn, yet as chaotic as the surf. It was a computerized depiction of the viral spike that cut the belly of a cell until its insides spilled into the bloodstream. It was the knife; it was the scepter. It was regal, yet it was innocuous. It was small, but it was massive, Viral thought. It flagellated through the humour of his father in a hospital near Chicago’s North Shore; it lay dormant in hundreds of millions more. It was the accoutrement of a killer, the saddle of a sinner without remorse. It sheathed the sword of an organism created to live at the expense of another. Despite its powers of the divine, it was an accident of nature. Unless, of course, it wasn’t an accident at all.