The Tide: Breakwater (Tide Series Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

diseases like cancer, malaria, or even the flu. Healing instead of killing...”
    “I know,” Lauren said. “What a waste of intellect and scientific progress.”
    “And now we’re wasting our time cleaning up their mess. Instead of worrying about all the maladies Mother Nature throws at us, we also have to fight off what humans are engineering to destroy each other.”
    Lauren nodded, silent for a moment. “I suppose we could keep waxing philosophical about the ramifications of biological weapons, but that doesn’t help us right now.”
    “Fair enough,” Peter said. “So back to business: We can eliminate the nanobacteria that cause the extra-skeletal formations and produce the prions in the Skulls. And if we do that soon enough, we can prevent neurodegeneration and the resulting aggressive tendencies.”
    “Right,” Lauren said. “We can even eliminate the nanobacteria in people who’ve been exposed to the Oni Agent for an extended period of time, but if the nanobacteria have had time to produce the prions, we have no way to reverse the damage.”
    Lauren turned off the microscope. She pressed a gloved hand against the window separating the lab from the isolation ward where Scott Ashworth and Ivan Price were medically sedated. Though the outward signs of their Oni Agent infections had been eliminated, their brains were still overrun with the debilitating prions left there by the nanobacteria.
    “God, even if we can somehow stop the prions, we still have to find a way to restore the ravaged brain tissue,” she said.
    “Now we’re getting ahead of ourselves.”
    “Can’t help it,” Lauren said, turning away from Scott and Ivan. She couldn’t believe they might as well be as good as dead. “So let’s focus on eliminating the prions.” She scrolled through the research papers she’d compiled. “I found a few case studies on a small-molecule treatment used to prolong the lives of those with prion disease.”
    “But it doesn’t cure the disease?”
    Lauren shook her head. “There have been half a dozen studies using strong antibiotics, but those too simply slowed the onset of prion disease symptoms.”
    “I feel like we’re out of our league here.”
    “Yeah, immunotherapy, silencing RNA, polyanionic compounds...nothing seems to do anything more than delay the inevitable.”
    “All these papers make it seem like a prion disease therapy might be on the cusp of scientific development, but I wouldn’t know where to begin. So many different experiments to run, treatments to test...” Peter drummed his fingers along a lab bench. “And I imagine you need someone skilled in neuroscience to deal with the matters of degeneration, along with someone who knows more about drug development than we do.”
    “No doubt. I’m used to handling bioweapons, when we can apply existing cures and therapies to a well-characterized disease, but this is something else.”
    “So what do we do?”
    Lauren glanced at the list of scientific papers on her monitor. Each paper had been spearheaded by different research groups in academic and medical institutions worldwide.
    “What do we do?” Lauren repeated Peter’s question. “We find someone who can help us.”
    ***
    Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases
    Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston
    ––––––––
    A distant rumble shook the windows and jolted Navid Ghasemi awake. He froze at the sound, his eyes wide. The sound of the blast faded. A few ghostly howls rent the air. Then silence. He wrapped his arm tighter around Abby Martin as they lay on the hard floor. Abby continued to sleep, so Navid slowly stood, careful not to disturb her. A crick in his back hurt. He straightened his spine to assuage the slight pain.
    He glanced out the window but a pervasive darkness shrouded the world. Not even the moon was visible, hidden behind a blanket of unseen clouds. Probably better that way , Navid thought.
    He knew what it looked like in the daylight. Crazy