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Terrifying! Wordcount: 11539

Ever since I finished up with my Patients One-Two, it’s been harder to get words. But, I know I’ll start to roll with Zachary Graves again. Right? Right.

More serendipity — I sorta aptly chose a random designation for the virus. P53 is a tumor suppressor that when mutated, causes cancer. What if a cure for cancer caused a weirder mutation…or something? Eh, the science is there…. Somewhere.

While Westphail’s body — and I imagine he was still alive, or reanimated, or whatever you want to call it — was being poked, prodded, and subjected to whatever tests the FEMA guys could come up with, cases were beginning to pop up around the world. During the next week, there were 23 documented cases of what had been identified as H5N3P53, a grossly mutated version of the H1N1 (and H1N2, H3N1, H3N2, and H2N3) flu viruses. It was the addition of a mutated P53 protein, normally a tumor suppressor. P53 (and the TP53 gene) had been an essential part of the cancer cure, and when a mutated version of it showed up in scientists’ microscopes, there were a few who smirked and uttered a quiet, “I told you so,” and went back to their work.
I uttered a “I told you so” of my own, but to be honest, I hadn’t told anybody, and I was all by myself in my room. The presence of P53, I was certain, meant that in curing cancer, we (they? I had nothing to do with it, but it had, in the intervening years, become one of those so-called “l’accomplissement de la population”  — an “accomplishment of the people”) had unleashed something so much worse that we would have been better off just leaving well enough alone, quitting while we were ahead, or at the very least, not so very very far behind. I had been working on my theories, mostly in my head, sometimes in the bars when I found a couple coins to rub together. I tended to get drunk — very drunk — and espouse my ideas to whomever would listen. I received a lot of crazy looks, but I noticed that more and more, there were people who would quietly nod their heads, perhaps not ready to voice their agreement, but they were there and that was all I needed.