The Laptev Virus

“Yes, ma’am. But I did have him visit with pretty much all of the mice,” she said. “I wasn’t sure which ones were more his friends and I didn’t want him to miss out.”

“All of the mice in all of the rooms?” asked Sarah.

Molly shook her head, glancing sidelong at Kevin. “No, just in the room I work in most of the time. Just in C12. I was afraid I might get caught if I went into any other room. Plus I didn’t know if Opus even knew any of the other mice.”

“And you’re sure you got the right mouse back now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sarah nodded, digesting the news. Then she sighed and looked at Molly. “Well, I’m not sure if it is important or not, but it’s good that you told us. The timing of that little social visit is certainly… intriguing. We will look into all of this a bit more. Does Kevin know how to reach you, if we have more questions?”

Molly blushed, and wiping a few stray tears from her eyes, she nodded and apologized again.

CHAPTER 18

The next morning, Sarah met with Tally, whom she noticed was wearing her dark blonde hair loose today, though she had the hair band around her wrist, ready to tie it back up at a moment’s notice.

Drew joined them, carrying some printouts in his hand. “We’ve got the results back from the mouse tissue analysis,” he said, handing her the papers. “You were right to suspect a foreigner.”

Sarah nodded. Ever since she had found out about Opus’s visit, she had been convinced that the purple dots were indicative of an infection, but Molly had said that her mouse at home continued to look and act healthy. She had even volunteered to bring him back, though Sarah had quickly refused her offer. Still, the fact that the mouse was healthy made for an unusual set of circumstances to be sure.

“What did you find? Bacteria? Some rogue Staph infection making cysts?” she asked as she inspected the papers. Staphylococcus aureus, a type of bacteria that commonly inhabited the skin surface, was usually referred to as an ‘opportunist’. As long as the body’s defense systems were in place, it stayed where it was, living quietly on the skin and doing no harm. However, if the skin was injured, and bacteria had a chance to enter the body, it could wreak havoc in the form of a massive, sometimes fatal infection.

As the body fought the intruder, it would typically build a wall or a cyst around the bacteria in order to isolate it from the rest of the body. For the last several years, strains of Staph had developed a resistance to antibiotics, and that made them particularly dangerous. Often they resided in hospitals, where they could attack people whose immune systems were already weak.

“No, actually, it’s a different organism, but not really one I’ve seen before. The closest I can figure is that it is a member of the Toxoplasmosis family,” said Tally.

“A eukaryote?” asked Sarah, puzzled. All living organisms are divided in two groups, Sarah had often recited to her classes: the prokaryotes and the eukaryotes. Bacteria were prokaryotes, beings so small and so simple that they didn’t even have a nucleus and lacked many of the cellular organelles, the machinery which made cells work.

All non-bacterial living beings, from single-celled organisms like yeast or amebas, to worms, plants, fish and reptiles and all the way up to human cells, were eukaryotes. This was an important distinction because the medicines used to fight an infection caused by bacteria, antibiotics, could not be used on eukaryotic cell infections. Infections caused by eukaryotes, such as malaria, were much more difficult to fight as their cells were more similar to human cells. This meant that medicines that would poison them would more likely poison people as well.

If the mice possessed a eukaryotic infection then there was no hope of curing them. They would have to be sacrificed and the study would have to be begun from scratch.

“Toxoplasmosis,” repeated Sarah, thinking back to her pathology classes. “I thought that it was only cats that got that?”

“Yes, well, we did a brief check of the literature, and you’re right, Toxoplasmosis is often associated with cats, but it can infect many different mammals. Cats are the main host, but it has been known to also reside in mice, rats, humans, and other mammals. What we don’t know is how the mice could have contracted it in the first place.”

Sarah snapped her fingers as an idea suddenly occurred to her. “Molly!” she said. She jumped to her feet, meaning to run out of the lab, but was immediately and keenly aware of her ankle. She made it to the nearest table and had to lean heavily on it.

Tally and Drew were watching her with concerned looks on their faces. “Can we help you?” Tally asked.

“Kevin,” she said, sitting down on the nearest lab stool. “Go get Kevin and tell him I want to see him right away.”

Drew left to go fetch Kevin while Tally stayed and discussed their findings with Sarah in a bit more detail. In another minute, Drew returned with Kevin trailing him, phone in hand.