Sun, Mar 19, 2006
Attempting to flee his guilt David escapes to China and bums around trying to forget. After six weeks Homeland Security interrogates the team at NORBAC wanting to know why David is in China. David is arrested by the Red Army and taken to a remote location where they want him to investigate a mysterious, virulent pandemic that is killing 2 out of 3 people. David eventually agrees but is appalled by the antiquity of the equipment and the secrecy he must work under. He gets a partial message to NORBAC and after some analysis they reply that the mystery bacteria is an unknown hybrid of two bacteria, one of which causes food poisoning and is not usually fatal! One useful fact provided by NORBAC is that the hybrid contains over 100 copies of the same gene for some unknown reason. David is baffled by the hybrid and doesn't understand the 2-in-3 death rate. The team in NORBAC are frustrated by the lack of communication with David and eventually come to the conclusion that the mysterious bacteria is not a hybrid but the granddaddy of the two individual modern bacteria. While watching an old man draw water with an old-fashioned lift pump, David has a flash of inspiration realizing that the repeated gene is for a pump and that the bacteria must be very old and live in very hostile conditions. With this information the team conclude that survivors are those that have had food poisoning previously. Back at NORBAC, Caroline entertains a new investor. She and Carlos are to attend the Toronto AIDS conference. At the conference she is attacked by a protester and infected with a previously unknown strain of HIV.
Sun, Mar 26, 2006
David returns to Toronto and visits Caroline and Audrey Graves in hospital and explains to her how NORBAC can help her to fight the HIV injected into her. David returns to NORBAC and he team gets to work sequencing the new strain of HIV. They discover it really is a new strain and that none of the standard anti-retro viral drugs will be completely ineffective against it. Mayko Tran has been following the effects of the mass prion infection to see if anything positive has arisen and apparently IQ spikes have been noted in some of the affected children. David returns to Audrey and explains their findings and ask her to use her influence to get samples of all the cutting-edge HIV anti-viral drugs for NORBAC to test. The team try all the combinations to no avail, worse they discover that this strain is very virulent and Audrey becomes HIV+ within days. Also she must have an emergency Cesarean section to save her baby! Mayko contacts Prof. Simon Jessop, a British neuro-scientist, and invites him to NORBAC to study the IQ spikes. In sheer desperation, to help Audrey, David suggests making drug cocktails from the HIV anti-viral's and more common drugs such as Asprin.
Sun, Apr 16, 2006
The news of Gill's discovery leaks out and NORBAC becomes the focus of stem cell protesters. The team at NORBAC can't find anything unusual in the samples from New York, so start to do more exotic tests on the samples. Gill, a U.S. citizen, comes under pressure from the U.S. government for using an unauthorized stem cell line in her research. While trying to get her research ready for publication, Gill discovers that the unauthorized stem cell line contains an active retro-virus which is very serious but very strange as this line is used in laboratories all over the world and a problem hasn't been reported. David's mother dies and he goes to Vancover to attend her funeral. The politics surrounding the stem cell line become increasingly complicated but Caroline decides to go on the offensive and report the problem to the scientific community. After the funeral David's problems with his father re-emerge and he delays his return to NORBAC. Bob thinks that Glenn will awake from his coma which gives Caroline hope for the future.
Sun, May 7, 2006
Bob's attention turns to the escalating danger in the skies over Mexico City where a massive brown cloud has begun to combine with toxic emissions from a nearby volcano. The new mixture could rain sulfuric acid down on the city and Bob must try to convince the Mexican officials of the gravity of the situation before all of Mexico City is destroyed.