Panic in Level 4: Cannibals, Killer Viruses, and Other Journeys to the Edge of Science Read Online Free PDF Page A

tested by doctors who’d ruled out the more common infections and illnesses.) It was the job of the researchers to determine whether the blood contained a virus and, if so, to try to identify it. This was detective work. The procedure was that of Sherlock Holmes: you rule out possibilities until only one possibility remains.
    Martha wanted to look at the monkey cells to see if any of them showed signs of being infected with a virus. She sat down at a counter and placed one of the little flasks under a microscope. She did not open the flask. She stared into the eyepieces of the microscope through her faceplate, turning her head back and forth. “DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO GET YOUR HEAD COCKED SO YOU CAN SEE INTO A MICROSCOPE?” she yelled over the unending roar of air. She stood up. “DO YOU WANT TO LOOK?”
    I sat down on the chair before the microscope. I had difficulty seeing through my faceplate into the eyepieces. I began twisting my head around. Finally I got a clear look through the microscope into the flask.
    I could see glittering fields of monkey cells, reddish gold in color. Were they sick or healthy? They were just cells to me. As for the X virus, if any particles of it had been present in the cells they would not have been visible through the microscope. Virus particles are too small to be seen with an optical microscope. Most viruses can be seen only with an electron microscope, which magnifies things that are extremely small. A cold virus particle sitting at the base of an eyelash hair would be like a peanut sitting by the Washington Monument.
    As I was staring into the eyepieces of the microscope, I felt a popping sensation. Something felt weird around my chest. My suit began to feel sloppy and loose. But I was interested in the cells and wasn’t paying attention to my space suit. Eventually, though, I moved away from the microscope and stood up. That was when I realized that my space suit had blown open in the hot zone.

     

    A IR WAS RUSHING OUT around my neck and chest, pouring out of the suit. With a growing sense of alarm, I looked down to try to see what was happening, but couldn’t see anything. The lower part of my helmet hood blocked the view. I started feeling around with my gloves, but couldn’t get much sensation, for the gloves were thick and clumsy. I began tugging on something, some sort of fabric. To my horror, I realized that I was grabbing at my surgical scrubs. I was feeling around inside my space suit.
    I knew what had happened. As I had been bending over the microscope, the movement had twisted the zipper that ran across the suit’s chest, and the lips of the zipper had pulled apart, and the pressure in the suit had opened it completely. And now I couldn’t get the zipper closed. I almost threw a tubular cast.
    “DO I HAVE A PROBLEM HERE?” I yelled.
    Jeremy had been working with his back toward me. He swung around, looked at me, and swore. He moved toward me, holding his palms outward. He ran his palms back and forth on my chest, closing the zipper.
    My suit swelled up and tightened, regaining pressure.
    “HOW BAD WAS THAT?” I asked.
    He looked a little embarrassed. “THE ZIPPERS GET WORN. THEY CAN POP OPEN.”
    I had ended up with a ratty old piece of Army gear, a space suit that belonged to nobody. A little voice started speaking in my head. What are you doing here? the voice said. You’re in an Ebola lab in a fucking defective space suit. I started to feel giddy. It was an intoxicating rush of fear, a sensation that all I needed to do was relax and let the fear take hold, and I could drift away on waves of panic, screaming for help.
    Martha was looking into my eyes again.
    The little voice went on: You’re headed for the Slammer.
    Jeremy tried to soothe me. He assured me that the incident was not, in fact, an exposure to a hot agent. The suits did occasionally pop open, he admitted. “THE THING IS, YOUR SUIT HAD POSITIVE PRESSURE THE WHOLE TIME,” he explained.