The Rabid Mind Read online

  Phil’s wife, Debbie, was in real estate and had made great money for several years. They had been smart and saved most of it. After the bust in 2008, she got out of the real estate business and decided to be a stay at home mom. She stubbornly hung on to the money, telling her husband it was for something important in the future.

  Phil and Debbie were the first couple to join with Dr. Brash. They paid cash for everything that was needed for their supplies. Debbie was ecstatic. No matter what, they had a place to go to that they owned free and clear and it was stocked with a year’s worth of supplies for all of them. It was a vacation home, a hunting camp, a survival retreat, or whatever. It was perfect. It was a great load off her mind, knowing they had something solid to fall back on in these uncertain economic times.

  Chapter 2

  Government grant money was hard to come by, so Dr. Ben Dulling, UC Berkeley, was going to make sure his project was a success. The students he had helping him had no idea of the true nature of his experiment. As far as they knew, they were trying to help develop a vaccine to prevent Alzheimer’s, using rats as the subject vehicle. Unknown to the students, they were helping to create a biological weapon for the U.S. government, using rats as a vector. Theoretically, crates containing thousands of infected rats could be parachuted into target cities, breaking open on impact. Rats would quickly advance throughout the city, biting and spreading the infection. Within thirty days the population would be decimated. The military would then napalm the whole place and continue to commandeer the rest of the country. That was the ultimate goal of the experiment.

  Part of the goal was to genetically alter the rabies virus to cause highly-increased infectivity, but diminished mortality. The plan was simplicity itself: virologists would splice influenza A virus (H3N2) genetic material directly into the region of rabies virus’ responsible for how it was transmitted. The rabies would then borrow various genes from the flu virus, making it easily transmissible with a shortened incubation period, and largely non-lethal. The subtle component of the genetic engineering involved altering the way the virus replicated itself, in order to modify the specific mode of transmission — either by being bitten by an infected organism or by contact with infected fluids, but not by the respiratory route.

  The respiratory route of transmission was eliminated in order to control the pace of the epidemic. One fundamental principle of virology is that if the spread of the virus and tempo of the infection are too rapid, all the ‘hosts’ die too fast and the epidemic burns itself out. With these genetic modifications, people would be infected quickly with the virulent rabies virus and all would progress to the “acute neurological period”, exhibiting anxiety, depression and violent behavior. However, and most importantly, they would not all die, thanks to the influenza genetic material. This would be a very delicate process.

  The government had some stringent requirements for production of the new virus: it had to be cheap to produce and have at least a 50% survival rate of the victims at any one time. The idea was that, at the acute neurological symptom point in the infection, many victims would be highly infectious, leading to a pandemic and ultimately killing more off.

  Unfortunately for Dr. Dulling, testing of the new virus in rats was only producing a 20% survival rate, too low to satisfy the requirements of the military. If he could get the military brass to agree to lower the survivability requirement to 35%, he might just be able to pull it off. In addition, logistically, one of the most difficult tasks would be coming up with a strategy to manage large numbers of people in the violent neurological stage of the disease. He huffed to himself, that’s the military’s damned problem.

  The phone rang, breaking his thoughts. "Hello?”

  “Dr. Dulling, just the man I was looking for. This is General Wright. Do you have a minute?"

  The doctor politely answered. “Yes. What can I do for you, General?"

  “I understand you are having some success with our little project?” The General probed.

  “Yes, General. We have been able to increase the survivability rate up to 20% on our last live test. General, our current data indicates a cap on percentage of survivors. I’d like to ask you to consider lowering the target survivability numbers.”

  “Actually, doctor, the reason I am calling is to let you know Congress is on our back to save money, so we are going to have to cut corners somewhere. I am authorized to drop the 50% requirements to 35%, if you can have it finished by the end of this fiscal year. That would be October first. If you can achieve the 35% benchmark, we can most likely renew your grant money. The Defense Department budget allowed eighty billion dollars for Research, Development, Testing and Evaluation. I’ll grant you, it seems like more than enough money. Unfortunately, the DoD’s Inspector General made an internal audit public, revealing enormous unrecognized budgetary discrepancies. Further, the Inspector could not rule out that these shortfalls were not the result of fraud, waste and abuse, so we are really under the microscope now. If you cannot get those kinds of numbers, then unfortunately we will have to shut down the project and the grant money will come to an end.”

  Dr. Dulling quickly responded. "I understand, general, two months. Just give me two months — I believe I can come in under the wire, so to speak.”

  “Thank you, doctor. Don't let me down. I need not remind you of the urgency of this project and keen interest in the final product extends all the way up the chain of command.”

  “I'll do my best, general. Thank you.”

  “Good day, Dr. Dulling. Please contact me A.S.A.P. with some results.”

  “I will do that, sir.”

  Two months was not enough time to perform further intricate genetic manipulation of the virus. Dr. Dulling thought back to when he had fudged some data back in grad school. He was lucky not to get caught back then, but in this case it was worth the risk. He was sure these stupid jarheads wouldn’t know the difference. With that, he decided to alter the data to make it look like he had achieved the desired military specs. It would be easy to do and he knew it would even fool others in his field if they saw the report. Besides, he was almost there now. He assuaged his guilt by thinking of the Christmas bonus he’d get from the university for landing another huge government grant. It would simply be icing on the cake! The real power was for others to recognize his genius.

  He also needed a lab assistant to work in the isolation lab at his home, where the real work for his experiment took place. An intern working on a master’s degree would be perfect. Preferably, he wanted to hire a girl. She could do all the work and get her degree, and he would get all the credit — for both of them. Hopefully, the young intern would be willing to show him some ‘gratitude’ some night, should they be working late. He broke into a smile. What wonderful opportunities opened up with grant money! Dr. Dulling got out his laptop to outline a lab guide for the students.

  Dr. Dulling reviewed the Military Specs about why rabies was chosen in the first place and the goal of the bio weapon.

  Rabies, from the Latin meaning ‘madness’, is a viral disease that causes acute encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). It is zoonotic (i.e., transmitted by beasts), most commonly by a bite from an infected subject. For humans, rabies is almost invariably fatal, particularly if post exposure medications are not given before the onset of severe symptoms. The rabies virus infects the central nervous system, ultimately causing disease in the brain, followed by death.

  The incubation period of the disease is usually a few months in humans, depending on the distance the virus must travel to reach the central nervous system. Once the rabies virus reaches the central nervous system and symptoms begin to show, the infection is untreatable and fatal within days.

  The period between infection and the first flu-like symptoms is normally 2 to 12 weeks, but can be as long as two years. Symptoms progress to slight or partial paralysis, cerebral dysfunction, anxiety, insomnia, confusion, agitation, abnormal behavior, paranoia, terror and hallucinations, prog
ressing to delirium. The production of large quantities of saliva and tears, coupled with an inability to speak or swallow, typify later stages of the disease. This results in “hydrophobia“, where the patient has difficulty swallowing because the throat and jaw are slowly paralyzed, shows panic when presented with liquids to drink and cannot quench thirst. Death usually results 2 to 10 days after first symptoms.

  The route of infection is usually, but not always, by a bite. In many cases the infected animal is exceptionally aggressive, may attack without provocation and exhibits otherwise uncharacteristic behavior. The second stage is the excitative stage, which lasts three to four days. This stage is often known as ‘furious rabies’ because the affected animal is hyper-reactive to external stimuli and will bite at anything near it. The third stage is the paralytic stage and is caused by damage to motor neurons.

  It did reveal that the purpose of this biological weapon was to quickly produce vast numbers of victims experiencing the ‘furious’ second stage, while preventing them from progressing to the third stage and death. Dr. Dulling thought that the relaxed requirement of only 35% survival rate was very doable. Changing the incubation period from the normal months to days and limiting the virus to the critical furious insane rage stage required genetic engineering by a world class virologist. Dr. Dulling was happy to oblige. It would be very exciting to find out if it would be possible to alter all future rabies outbreaks to a non-lethal kind of disease. This was just the first step in the research he planned to conduct.

  Chapter 3

  The fusion center was contacted by the FBI to monitor Dr. Brash because of the bunker he had purchased. They had a tap set up on his cell phone and land line, recording everyone that called using basic keywords of interest. This allowed them to capture and record information they were interested in and filter out unimportant calls that had nothing to do with the doctor and his group of followers. The keywords included ‘bunker’, ‘survival’, ‘food storage’, ‘guns’, ‘homemade weapons’, etc.

  Within a month, the FBI had put together a list of fifteen members that had bought into the property and had their ticket. The sixteenth member was the CI. The amount of information the Total Information Center (fusion center) could gather on the preppers was unsettling to say the least.

  Using the members’ complete phone records, the center tracked their every move, as well as those of their friends and family, even if they were out of state. Anyone who uttered any of the keywords was added to the list and a tap was immediately put on their phone. That individual was now part of the file. Every shift in position was recorded in numerous ways and it was all being fed into a file and master computer program that would extract a psychological profile on each person and on the group’s goals.

  Like most Americans, the preppers had no clue how much information was being gathered on them. If only they could unplug the internet, cut up all their credit cards and move to cash-only transactions, they’d be more private.

  The government wanted to know everything about everybody at a moment’s notice. This was so easy to do too. Most of the time people volunteered to display their lives out in the open. They knew nothing of the ramifications of something as simple as signing for a delivery package, or using their credit cards for purchases. So much personal information was being kept on computers that it was just a matter of time before they found it.

  The government had access to everything through the internet, on software, gateways and servers. Social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook allowed them to know exactly where someone was, where they were going and, most of the time, what they were doing, every minute of the day.

  “The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” --Ayn Rand

  Every purchase made by anyone even remotely connected to Dr. Brash’s group was recorded and fed into the government file. They knew it all. ISPs were being tracked and websites visited were recorded, including every post and comment. Medical, dentist and marriage license records were also fair game. Ex-wives or husbands could easily be located and interviewed, if necessary.

  Chapter 4

  Rebecca Miles was a brilliant young woman, who finished at the top of her class. She was conducting the final stages of the research she needed to finish her master’s thesis and earn the title of ‘Doctor Rebecca Miles.’

  Her close friends called her Becca. At twenty-five years old, she was stunning, tall at 5’11” and a mere 130 pounds. She had long dark black hair, with beautiful bright green eyes.

  Earlier in the year Rebecca had applied to the Masters’ Board to do her research on Dr. Dulling’s project. Dr. Dulling had no way of knowing during the interview for his assistant that Rebecca was a member of ALF, the Animal Liberation Front. She hated animal testing. Why did they have to torture poor sweet innocent animals when there were plenty of useless old people to test their drugs on? She had worked hard to get in on the testing, but the FBI did a full background investigation on each student applicant and denied her entrance into the program. She was arrested once at a peaceful protest of old growth logging before attending college, but that didn't matter to the FBI. It was all laid out in her file — she wasn’t allowed to work on any project that involved government grant money. All Dr. Dulling knew was that Rebecca was a real knockout and seemed highly qualified for the job. He never bothered to ask Becca what her thesis was on. So, for the first time in his career, he bucked the admission board and had Rebecca assigned to his research project, despite their protests.

  She couldn’t believe her luck! She was in on the secret animal testing for two whole months! It was perfect! She would covertly video document the evil torture of the animals while finishing her paper. Once her thesis was approved, she planned to release the film and expose the corruption inside Berkeley. She wanted the whole world to see their inhuman treatment of animals. Given Dr. Dulling’s affection towards her, she knew she needed to be careful but, then again, she also knew that wearing tight shirts and a short skirt and showing cleavage would ensure her success. Of course, a suggestive smile once in a while wouldn’t hurt either. Becca was on cloud nine and she couldn’t wait to share the news with her boyfriend. He would be as excited as she was.

  Her boyfriend was Jason Albright. He was born in 1968, the “summer of love”, a great line he used to use for picking up girls on campus. His mother was part of the Charles Manson cult and swore Charles was the only man she had ever slept with when she got pregnant. Jason was short, like his father, at 5’8” and 150 pounds. He had dark brown hair, which was a little longer than it should have been. Most women also thought he had mesmerizing brown eyes.

  Jason was a professional college student for years, until he finally graduated and was picked up as an assistant professor. He had finally gained tenure and now taught political science classes. His house was a major hangout for the older college students, mostly young women he would invite over to smoke dope with and talk about saving the planet.

  He thought he might love Becca. He called her his ‘Amazon’ woman and got such a kick out of it when she would run off the rest of the groupies that hung out at his place. Only other couples who shared their tiny world view were allowed to stay and smoke dope with them. He was the man behind the scene for the local ALF unit. It was a small, tightly knit underground family of ‘throw away kids’. He trained them on tactics for saving precious, innocent animals. This group was so secretive even Becca didn't know much about it. He could not risk it until they were married, if they got married. He thought about asking her after she finished her master’s thesis. He would help her make her underground video — the film that would shake Berkeley to its very foundation and, once and for all, end military projects and the use of animal testing in the search for cures of diseases. He was so happy and excited to be a part of the exposure of the c
ruelty to animals. It was a right passed down to him from his father.

  This was great. Jason knew that Dr. Dulling was a corrupt liar, stopping at nothing to get his hands on grant money for his projects — even if it meant hurting innocent animals. Jason and Dr. Dulling had their differences, but now he and Becca would unite on a common cause to expose Dr. Dulling for what he was. Together, they would get that little military warmonger kicked out of the university forever. A little sex tape of Dr. Dulling and his dearest Becca blasted across Youtube would surely get him in some major hot water with the college, not to mention what it would do to his marriage! Everyone frowned heavily on anyone stupid enough to mess around sexually with a student, no matter how old they were. Releasing the footage of the animal torture in his secret lab at his house using the university’s money might just get the little prick locked up for life, he thought.

  For the life of him, Jason just couldn’t figure out why the military would care about anything to do with Alzheimer’s research. It made no sense at all. Something else had to be going on here and they would soon find out what it was.

  Becca was totally stunned to see the full modern lab with so much new expensive equipment set up in Dr. Dulling’s basement. It had to have cost several hundred million dollars to set it up this complete. There were two security doors with key pads, which were hermetically sealed with reverse laminar flow, powering up as the door sealed shut. There was everything Dr. Dulling needed to run tests and produce results.

  Becca’s job was to feed and care for the hundred test rats, observing and recording any behavioral changes. Of course, she also had to clean out their cages. Additional duties included monitoring the test rats during the testing phase, recording their reactions to the virus and calculating morbidity and mortality rates.