Informed Consent

Informed Consent

  By Aaron Lowry

  Copyright 2014 Aaron Lowry

  Cover image and font courtesy of the National Institutes of Health and Google Open Source Fonts respectively.

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  Table of Contents

  Beginning of the Interview

  Conclusion of the Interview

  About the Author

  Other Works by Aaron Lowry

  The following is a transcript of an interview with Henry Jace taken on 6/11/2028.

  Interviewer: So from your point of view, Mr. Jace, what happened during the incident?

  Jace: Only my point of view? Well, even if that’s all you want from me I suppose I’ll have to take what I can get. Where should I start?

  Interviewer: At the beginning, when you first knew there was a problem.

  Jace: It was just after dinner, and I was talking with Dr. Baumann. Do you know who he is?

  Interviewer: The leader of your UN Weapons Inspection Team.

  Jace: Right. As we were talking he got a phone call, and as he spoke to whoever was on the other end I saw him become . . . rattled, even scared. You have to understand how out of character that was. He was stubborn as a mule and I looked up to him a lot. I'd watched him face down dictators and generals, secret police, indignant scientists, and even a little old grandma who'd threatened him with a pistol when she thought he was coming to take her son away. But the longer he talked the more agitated he became.

  Interviewer: Did you have any sense of what the call was about?

  Jace: I had no idea, I could only hear half the conversation. It wasn’t a quick call, and as the minutes ticked by Dr. Baumann started pacing back and forth, whispering questions and almost arguing for so long that started to make me uneasy too. It wasn't my first time in the Middle East as a weapons inspector, but it was my first in a leadership position and the responsibility was like a lead weight around my neck.

  Interviewer: When did you know about the alleged attack?

  Jace: I knew about the attack when he said the word 'evacuate.' Everything stopped then, like God had pressed pause on the world. Because that was the very last resort, an explicit admission that we had failed. Nobody wanted a war, but if the Inspectors were pulling out it meant the armies were going in and a whole lot of people were going to die. Dr. Baumann wouldn't have even mentioned evacuating if it wasn't a catastrophe.

  I remember the look Dr. Baumann gave me, when he noticed how hard I was staring at him. It was real despair, like a man who can see the train coming but can’t do anything to stop it. I've heard there comes a point in everyone's life when you realize that your idols have all the same fears and doubts as you, and for me that was it.

  Interviewer: Did you ever find out who he was talking to on the phone?

  Jace: I asked the second he hung up but he couldn't tell me, which meant it was some intelligence source. But he did tell me what they found: satellite photos of armed men moving in the mountains to the south. They were coming our way, and would be in position to start bombarding the city with rockets in two or three days.

  Interviewer: The situation in the city was already extremely unstable. That alone wouldn't be reason enough to evacuate.

  Jace: Exactly right, except that the payload canisters they were bringing had the same markings a cache of Sarin gas we’d found two months earlier. After finding it we’d done an extremely thorough investigation and thought all the gas was accounted for, but someone very skilled must have doctored the documents.

  Interviewer: Did you ever find out who the men in the mountains were? Or how they got their hands on the Sarin?

  Jace: I'm told it was some rebel splinter group, but for more you’d have to ask the intelligence guys.

  Interviewer: So what happened next?

  Jace: I asked Dr. Baumann what we were going to do, because of course we were going to do something, right? Warn the U.N. and foreign governments, or at least inform the local authorities and have them begin an evacuation. But he had to tell me no. I didn’t understand; I was so worked up I hadn’t thought the situation through, but he had.

  See, we were at the very end of the information chain. Most of the people I wanted to warn were the ones who had given us the intel in the first place, and they didn’t have a U.N. mandate for intervention. The old wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the 2021 war in Iran had left everyone wary of getting involved unilaterally, espectially the Americans and Western allies. Worse, the evidence was only circumstancial; all we had were matching insignia, nothing to prove that it really was Sain that convoy was carrying. The remains of the local government had already been warned, but the U.N.’s credibility was so tarnished by the lack of commitment in solving the crisis there was no way they’d listen. Put it all together and you’ll see the same picture we did: no one was going to act.

  Interviewer: But you did.

  Jace: Well, not yet. Even after Dr. Baumann explained the situation I still wanted to argue, but he cut me off and told me to gather everyone in the team in the cafeteria. I understood why immediately. We had a new tool, see, a bio-defense against chemical attacks called HV-109. Even though we were evacuating Dr. Baumann wasn't taking any chances. He wasn't going to lose any of us because an intel analyst guessed wrong about when the attack was coming.

  We all carried radios for emergencies, so it didn’t take long. Then Dr. Kuroki, do you know about her?

  Interviewer: Your team's medical doctor.

  Jace: Yeah. Dr. Baumann had told her what was going on and she stood up to give us the spiel about how109 worked. We'd all heard it a hundred times, but apparently it was required before administration and . . . well, she never missed a chance to explain things whether you wanted her to or not.

  Interviewer: What did she tell you?

  Jace: You should just look up the 109 specs. There are more complete records out there now.

  Interviewer: I will, but I also want to know what she told you, in case it's different.

  Jace: Hmm, makes sense. Well, she told us that HV-109 worked by infecting us with a genetically modified beneficial bacteria, like the kinds that live in your gut and help digestion. But this kind is specifically designed as a countermeasure to Sarin. It’s applied as skin cream and it colonizes your body, surviving on dead cells and such until it's exposed to the gas. When that happens it starts eating the Sarin and its reproductive rate goes through the roof, topping off at a new generation about every six minutes. And the best part is, a lot of the waste it leaves behind is the chemical Atropine, a neurotransmitter blocker used to treat nerve gas victims.

  Interviewer: Impressive capabilities.

  Jace: Well, it's not perfect. Despite how fast it grows bacteria are a pretty slow means for responding to a chemical attack, so if you get too large an initial dose of Sarin, 109 won't help. It’s protection, not immunity. Having too much Atropine in your system isn't good for you either, but hey, it's better than the alternative! Also without any Sarin around it tends to lose potency, and after a couple weeks dies or reverts to a benign form without the energy-costly genes that let it deal with the gas.

  To me, though, the most important bit was how easily that rapid reproduction lets it spread between people. A large application would let it reach full effectiveness more quickly, but even sticking a finger in the application cream or coming in contact with the bodily fluid
s of someone who’s infected is enough for it to eventually reach full potency. Dr. Kuroki warned us there'd be quarantine when we got home while we waited for it to become benign, but I'd stopped listening, because in that moment the way to protect the city’s people had become obvious. If I could just sneak out there I might be able to infect enough civilians to significantly reduce casualties from the attack. Even if nobody else would do anything, I had a chance to make a difference.

  Interviewer: Why did you sneak out? Would the guards not have let you leave?

  Jace: Definitely not. A lone inspector, wandering the streets in the middle of the night? The militias couldn’t ask for a better kidnapping target. After we finished our applications I went back to my room and snuck in a couple hours of sleep. I wanted to leave just before dawn for reasons I’ll explain in a moment, and when it was time I slipped into Dr. Kuroki’s office, stole the remaining tubs of 109 from her refrigerator and went over a wall where they hadn't put in barbed wire yet.

  Interviewer: Did anyone help you?

  Jace: No, I acted completely alone.

  Interviewer: The team that investigated the incident was sure you had help from other members.

  Jace: They didn’t find any