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The quarantine area was desolate. Thick glass walls separated the afflicted, scratched and stained but still not fallen. Stacker Pentecost had been told the glass could survive a nuclear bomb. He had also seen enough nuclear bombs to doubt that.
The patients themselves— they called them patients only for lack of a better word— looked worse than their holding cells. Each of them appeared to be in a different state of decay, gaps in their flesh glowing with blood of the Anteverse. Chuck Hanson, an exemplary Ranger if a poor role model in personality, had declined so far he almost looked like a walking skeleton, grayish-blue skin stretched thin across his bones.
Hermann Gottleib was working at the back of the room, turned away from the containment chambers. Numbers and images Stacker didn't recognize flashes across a screen too quickly for him to understand.
"Dr. Gottleib," Stacker said shortly, a sort of curt, professional greeting.
The scientist started at Stacker's voice, pivoting to face him with the air of a man who had been interrupted from doing something terribly important. He gave only a slight nod. "Marshal Pentecost."
"I need an update."
Gottleib glanced away from Stacker, looking towards the quarantine. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I have… a limited amount of new information."
Stacker folded his hands in front of him, keeping his face carefully ordered. "What have you found?" he prompted.
"The disease affects more than just one system of the body," Gottleib began, gesturing broadly with one hand to the blocks of glass. "The nervous system, the cardiovascular system— an afflicted individual's very DNA is changed upon prolonged contact with the disease. An attempt to change to a form of DNA, one assumes, that is very common in the Anteverse."
"One assumes?" Stacker echoed.
"Well, yes." Gottleib made his way to another row of holographic computers lining the wall, beginning to bring up a display. "This is human DNA," he said, motioning to a double-helix model that had appeared. He pulled forward another model, three strands of data wound around what Stacker suspected were genes. "This is kaiju DNA. Evidently, human and kaiju genetics are utterly incompatible. However, this… is the DNA of those afflicted with the disease."
Gottleib pushed the two models down, replacing them with a new one. This, Stacker could see, was a human's DNA segment, but it was clearly deformed. Cracks and chips scarred the surface, offshoots of DNA protruding at random from the sides. Holographic fragments of the segment floated around the display, the shattered pieces of genes hovering static in the void. Text at the bottom of the image read "N. Geiszler".
"They're breaking apart," Stacker observed.
"Not just," Gottleib said. "They're changing. I believe… the virus is attempting to convert, so to speak, the carbon in the human body into silicon. Unsuccessfully, so far."
Stacker inclined his head. "And what happens when they are successful?"
"That, I'm not certain," Gottleib admitted. "Newton had some theories, but I… do not share them."
"So what can you tell me?" Stacker asked. He needed answers, not theories. Certainly not unreliable theories.
Gottleib considered, then appeared to come to a decision. "I have not discovered a cure," he began carefully, "but I may have something else."
Gottleib crossed into the next room, Stacker close behind, but Stacker slowed as he realized what the room contained. This was the rest of the quarantine bay, built off the edge of the Shatterdome once they figured out it was spreading too quickly to handle with the first four containment chambers. The patients started hissing as Gottleib and Stacker entered, pacing in their cells. "Changes in the patients have been behavioral, as well as physical," Gottleib said over the growling of the afflicted. He stopped in front of the one who wasn't walking, one who was simply sitting in the darkness of the glass cell and glowering out with glowing, wild eyes. Stacker could see Gottleib raise his hand to the window almost unconsciously, but a moment later he dropped his hand and his gaze. "Any and all semblance of personality has been erased. The same could be said of intelligence."
The silhouette in the cage snarled, a clicking kind of growl Stacker had only ever heard from kaiju. Stacker took a step closer and the figure launched forward, crashing into the transparent wall already spiderwebbed with cracks and claw marks. The patient tore at the slick glass, his discolored skin rotted to reveal gaping holes of unsettlingly blue muscle tissue. Patterns of stylized kaiju were barely visible around the blackened flesh on his arms.
Stacker backed away from the diseased scientist, years of military training keeping him from flinching. Newt threw himself again against the chamber, bright saliva burning from where it landed on the stone floor.
"They're acting like animals," Stacker said.
"Not… animals, exactly," Gottleib said, avoiding looking back at where his former partner was prowling the cell. "They have devolved, in a sense. Something in the change of their genetics… breaks something in their brains. Some part of them is sealed off, leaving only the basest instinct to fight and kill anything that may be a threat. Including, rarely, each other."
Stacker risked a glance along the other containment chambers, the patients watching him with furious, beast-like gazes. "How does it work?"
"I'm afraid I don't know," Gottleib confessed. "Newton was the biologist. I'm not trained in this area."
Stacker had his own reservations about Gottleib's continuation on this research. Occasionally he debated whether or not to bring in a specialist in disease, especially after the loss of Newt, but there were few left alive who had as much intimate knowledge of the Anteverse. If anyone had any hope of deciphering the disease, it was down to Gottleib.
"And, of course, there are those who could be asymptomatic," Gottleib went on.
Alarm flashed through Stacker. "Those who could be what?" he repeated, his voice low.
"Asymptomatic," Gottleib said again. "People who do, in fact, carry the disease, but don't show it. There are plenty of terrestrial diseases that display that effect… or rather, a lack thereof. It is not entirely impossible that this disease could also possess an asymptomatic variation." Gottleib looked back at Stacker, motioning with his free hand to the rows of imprisoned patients. "The afflicted would appear entirely well, but would still be carrying the disease. They would still transmit it. Perhaps something would be altered in their brain function, perhaps something would change in their internal systems, but on the surface, almost nothing would be affected. Hence, they would not display any symptoms. Asymptomatic."
Stacker could feel unease crawling over his skin, but he made certain his expression remained calm and stony. "How would you… identify those with the asymptomatic variant?"
Gottleib searched through the scattered documents on the desk pushed back against the wall, collecting them into a sheaf of papers. "DNA tests, first and foremost," he said. "Otherwise, there would be very slight alterations. I believe the blood of the afflicted would change; even the slightest modification of human genetics to be more like those found in the Anteverse have a tendency to increase the acidity of human blood. There would be behavioral changes, as well, though not to the same degree as the others. It could be even so simple as a change in attitude." Gottleib hesitated for a moment. "The afflicted may even be aware that they are diseased."
The unease rocking through Stacker grew worse. "Is that even possible?" he asked slowly.
"Newton was," Gottleib said, locking eyes with Stacker. "He knew even before he started to change." There was a stiff moment of silence, the snarls of the patients cutting through the quiet, both scientist and Marshal holding each other's wary gazes. Then Gottleib cleared his throat, looking back down at the papers as he neatened the edges. "This is all I could find on the disease so far. The… specifics, more than I detailed to you today."
He extended the file to Stacker, but as the research switched hands it slid roughly across their palms, digging into Stacker's skin. A small burst of pain flared in his hand, the paper cutting deep enough to draw blood. Tiny spots beaded at the gash, but Stacker had had enough experience with unwanted bleeding to press his kerchief over it. A minor inconvenience, but nothing more than that.
Stacker glanced around to find somewhere to put down the slightly blood-stained file, pausing when he caught Gottleib's expression. "Mr. Gottleib?"
It was then that Stacker noticed the blue marks on the file.
And the matching blue line drawn down Gottleib's hand.
Gottleib cursed softly. "And I was so careful," he muttered, considering the wound in his palm. "All because of a paper cut."
"Dr. Gottleib, you need to get to a secure quarantine," Stacker began.
"No," Gottleib said, looking up. "No, I don't. Perhaps I will limit myself to… digital data when the next Marshal takes over."
Stacker placed the file on the floor, treading carefully. "Dr. Gottleib, you are sick, and you may not be thinking clearly," he said, a warning clear in his voice.
"Sick?" Gottleib echoed. "Oh yes. Quite. I have been for… some time now. But I assure you, I am thinking more clearly than I ever did before."
The patients started laughing. The sound was rough and discordant, alien and mad yet somehow the most human thing Stacker had heard from them since entering the room. Newt pressed his palms flat against the cracked glass, his laughter human, animal, and something else altogether. The uneasiness creeping over Stacker surged into a thin blade of anger and, he would admit, fear. He knew how to wield that blade well; he had spent years honing it. When faced with no other options, Stacker Pentecost would fight.
"Dr. Gottleib, I am going to ask you one more time to quarantine yourself, or I will be forced to do it myself," he cautioned.
"You don't hold the power anymore," Gottleib said, "sir. I still have things to do. Unfortunately… you'll get in the way."
Stacker backed a few steps away, his foot hitting the closed door behind him. He hadn't realized it had shut. And he was starting to realize what a poor decision it had been to give only the scientists full access to the quarantine bay. The patients' laughter seemed to grow louder, echoing disjointedly in the room of metal and glass. Each of their glowing blue eyes were trained on him.
"Mr. Gottleib," Stacker tried again.
Gottleib smiled thinly. "Not anymore," he said, and pressed the switch to open the cells.