The ABO Serum

The Prodigal

The National Guard had a camera on the road, so they cooperated with the police to start tracking down every vehicle that had been at the campground. In the meantime, Rhonda, along with the Chief of Police, the senior Guard officer, the Mayor, the Governor, and the senior CDC official on site met with Daryl Hancock at GenLife to discuss the repercussions of what happened there.

The CDC had additional information that hospitals around the country were beginning to report patients coming in for the ABO follow up treatment. The reporting was slow. Fortunately, they'd got follow up protocol and kits out months ago. But they needed to ramp up production and distribution immediately.

They couldn't keep up with quarantining the new infections because they kept spreading the disease before identifying themselves and refusing to say to whom. The disease was out. It had gone beyond containment. The governor called off the National Guard and the town opened back up.

The CDC directed hospitals to quarantine alphas for two months to complete their transition as part of their follow up and omegas indefinitely. They also wanted to know how soon GenLife would have birth control and suppressants available so they could release the omegas. Daryl told them custom birth control was ready, but it took three to four months of daily hormone level records to make it work for the individual omega, so transition isolation would be longer than that of alphas.

If the FDA could speed up approval, they were ready to start pheromone suppressant trials on humans. Because omegas were relatively rare, GenLife would be happy to have any found outside the area transported to town to participate in the trials. They would cover the costs involved. The larger the pool, the better the data.

By the end of the meeting, the politicians and various heads of departments had coordinated statements prepared for the media and it seemed immediate crisis conditions for the town were over. The CDC took themselves off to coordinate the national and international response through hospitals, since they had to presume someone had taken the disease north and south over the borders. The way the campers scattered looked organized.

Since they released all the alphas quarantined at the lab a month prior, GenLife opened their fourth and fifth floor space to omegas formerly quarantined on the college campus, and the Mayor released his emergency order so school could resume there with the fall semester. The rest of the alphas quarantined on campus were due for release shortly except for the trickle of new infections which they decided could safely quarantine at home for their durations. To keep them from going out, their daily checks and follow-up treatments would go to them via a new ambulance outfitted for the purpose. Other hospitals getting swamped with new ABO infections duplicated this model of home quarantine for alphas.

Daryl hired a documentary crew to make an informative special to educate the public about the new danger they faced, or opportunity as some would see it. He wanted GenLife to control the narrative.

That left Rhonda, not terribly worried about the ABO disease spreading, but about her sister, who'd been raped and kidnapped and who was likely being kept somewhere only to be raped again and again.

Jonathan wasn't allowed in the meeting, but he knew it was happening and waited in the lobby for Rhonda to emerge. He saw from her face that she was not holding up well. He couldn't do much more than hug her and plead, "oh Lord. Oh Lord, help us." Rhonda held tight and tears fell from the usually tough woman's face. Then, something occurred to him, "They probably crossed state lines with her, right? And you have evidence that she was kidnapped. Shouldn't the FBI be involved?"

With all thoughts focused on the ABO disease, no one had alerted the FBI yet about the kidnapping. Those were the additional resources she could now bring to bear. She gave Jonathan a final squeeze and said, "Go away now. I'm busy." With that she rushed off to get the FBI involved.