A Conversation With The West Nile Virus

Great inventions sometimes come about in unorthodox ways. So it was with the first DNA computer. Jensen put down his soldering iron. "It's ready to go." Bailey peered at the machine on the worktable. It was a messy accumulation of motherboards, diodes, anodes, silicon chips, and, in their tiny glass cases, the all-important DNA chips. A microphone was connected, too. An endless array of multi-colored wires tied everything to everything else. If Jensen was correct, this computer would have unprecedented power and speed. Jensen was a computer maker and an itinerant genius, a middle-aged, small, sour-faced man who couldn't hold a job at any major software company because of his unorthodox ways.

Bailey had hired Jensen, financing the work from a sizeable inheritance left him by his mother. Bailey was a tall, stoop-shouldered man in his early forties. Little spectacles perched precariously on his high forehead.

"And it'll work?" Bailey asked.

"If the theory's correct, it ought to. Shall we fire it up and see?"

"Not quite yet," Bailey said. "First I need to propose a problem."

"There's plenty to choose from," Jensen said. "Want to solve for world peace? See what global warning is up to? Check up on threatening asteroids?"

"They are all important," Bailey said. "But I would like to start with something important but not crucial. And keep it our own secret until we've solved it."

"You're the money man," Jensen said. "You got a problem in mind?"

Bailey nodded. "In three words."

"And they are?"

"West Nile Virus."

"That's that Egyptian virus, isn't it?"

"Originally detected in Uganda, in the West Nile Province. The way it works, infected mosquitoes bite humans and animals, transmitting the virus. The virus interferes with normal central nervous system functioning, multiplies, and travels to the brain where it causes inflammation and death."

"Sounds serious," Jensen said.

"It can and does kill," Bailey said. "But even in a mosquito-infested area, less than one percent of mosquitoes will pick up the virus, and less than one percent of people bitten will become seriously ill. Of course, viruses mutate. It could all change. But that's the situation at present. "

"Sounds like a pretty good test situation," Jensen said. "I suppose you have some ideas for how talk to the virus?"

Bailey nodded. "There's a theory that families of viruses may possess something we would call group consciousness. If that is so, we can contact this virus, talk to it through high-speed translators, maybe work something out."

"Making a deal with a virus!" Jensen said. "This is something I have to see!"

"Me, too," Bailey said. "I've got all the data here." He held up a small aluminum briefcase. "I have a live infected mosquito. And we have your DNA translator. Let's see how it all works together."

"How did you get your data?"

"Evelyn, my wife, supplied me with it. She's a researcher at the Center for Disease Control here in Atlanta. Coming up with a cure or an eradication for West Nile would do wonders for her career. It's the best anniversary present I can think of."

It required endless adjusting and calibrating to get the DNA computer running. The sun had dropped below the horizon and the big overhead fluorescents had come on before Jensen declared they were ready.

"I'm sure your wife will appreciate it," Jensen said. "OK, we're ready to begin. We have connection between you and the virus. Another first! Just talk to it. The translator should handle the exchange."

Bailey tapped the microphone and said into it, "This is Thomas Bailey, and I'm trying to speak to what we call the West Nile Virus."

There was a suspicious sound in the loudspeaker. Then a voice said, " Hey, who is this?"

"I told you. I'm Tom Bailey-"

"I never heard of a virus named Tom Bailey."

"I'm not a virus! I'm a human being!"

"So how come you can talk to me?"

"I've got a machine that translates what I say into your language, and vice versa."

"That's amazing. Not even other viruses can speak our language. Or they speak it, but with the most terrible accents. Yours is pretty good. Did you learn it in Uganda? That's where we started out, you know."

"I know," Bailey said.

"Back in dear old West Nile Province. But you've got an accent. I'd place you as a southern West Nile province speaker. How's your translating machine handling the thought I'm sending you by the dzaza jalgaboo?"

"Pretty well, for the most part," Bailey said. "Occasionally there's a word or two I don't understand, but I can usually make out the meaning."

"Dsalih peek, we West Nile viruses often temper our speech with nonsense syllabification, gazagy boo. To put who we're speaking with at ease, and to keep up the noise to signal ration."

"Interesting... Listen, I got a favor to ask you."

"Tell me, namgale do."

"Well, we we'd like you to stop infecting humans. People are dying, and their wives, husbands and children resent it."

"Humans? You mean the tall ones who stand on two appendages, except when they're lying down, of course, presumably to sleep. We West Nile viruses don't sleep, ourselves, but we deduced the custom from the behavior of non-viral creatures around us. You want us to quit infecting humans?"

"Yes, if it wouldn't be too much trouble."

"How come you're asking rather than demanding?" Jensen asked.

"It's the civilized way to go," Bailey said. "Anyhow, I don't know what to threaten viruses with."

"No need for anyone to threaten anyone," the virus said. "By the way, my name is Ching. I'm a part of the universal West Nile viral mind, of course, but I also have my own individuality."

"I hail your individuality," Bailey said.

"And I yours," replied Ching.

"This is the craziest thing I ever heard," Jenson muttered to himself. "Both of these guys would fail a Turing test! Yet still, they seem to be getting somewhere."

"Who was that?" Ching asked.

"A friend, pay no attention to him," Bailey said.

"Anyhow, you want us West Nile viruses to leave you humans alone?"

"That's the general idea."

"I speak for all of us when I say I'd like to oblige you. But we need you big humans in our diet."

"Suppose I can offer you something better than humans, or at least as good?"

"What did you have in mind?"

"Hamsters.

"Now I've heard everything," Jensen said, again aloud but to himself. "Hamsters? Those little furry things? How did he come up with hamsters?"

"That's the beauty part," Bailey said. "My cousin, Floyd, breeds hamsters and guinea pigs commercially. Labs use them as experimental animals. You viruses can, too."

"But can you supply them in sufficient quantity?"

"I'm sure of it. We've got the hamster ranches. I can even dope them for you."

"Why would you want to do that?"

"To make it easier for you to feed on them."

"No need," Ching said. "Hamsters don't present us viruses with much of a problem, and we enjoy a bit of a chase. Makes for health-enhancing activity."

"Thank God this conversation is being recorded," Jensen said. "I'm going to play the tape later and laugh. Can't laugh now, though. This is too serious."

"OK, it's a deal," Ching said. "When do we see the hamsters?"

"I'll have to phone the ranch," Bailey said. "I'll get back to you."

"Sounds good. Catch you later."

Bailey said to Jensen, "OK, you can turn off the DNA computer now."

Jensen turned a switch.

"And reach me the phone, will you?"

"You're going to call your cousin at the hamster ranch?"

"Later. First I want to tell my wife that her PH.D. is practically assured."

But when connected with Evelyn a few moments later, he had no chance to tell his news. First he had to listen to her news that someone or something called Hamster United had delivered a message to the Center. Hamster United said that they had received word that humans planned to turn the West Nile virus against them. This was unacceptable. Any attempt to infect hamsters would call forth reprisals, not from the hamsters, who were pacific enough, but from their collateral cousins and allies.