Page 16 - Unlikely Stories 3

The World Trafe Center

“Hey, what’s that?” Ayla was taken aback.
“You said, ‘no questions asked,’” I replied. “I must hold you to
that same requirement. This won’t take long.”
The stuck pig squealed, but took too long to figure out what was
happening before it could mount a defense. I got my sample, capped
it, labeled it and put it in an insulated pouch. Then took half a dozen
more from other residents of this level of hell.
“You sure you’re a reporter?”
“I will be filing a report,” I said. “Your name will not be on it—
unless, of course, you want that kind of publicity.”
“Not for this caper!” she hissed. “When the world learns the
identity of the Green Guerillas, it will be for something big, like
pouring a bucket of blood on the head of the FDA chairman while
he’s testifying to Congress.”
We moved on, finally arriving at the maternity ward on the top
floor. Half the sows were on their sides, nursing a litter; the other half
looked like they were due any minute. I hated to do it, but I put on
rubber gloves and pulled a piglet away from the teat. That raised a
racket, but I had plenty of experience phlebotomizing animals; the
tiny creature was back in place in less than a minute. I repeated the
process until I had no more syringes.
Ayla Beck continued to regard me with suspicion as we silently left
the building. I ignored her. The reassortment of genes producing an
epidemic of human swine flu could happen anywhere humans and
pigs were together in large numbers. In 1918 it happened, spreading
across the Atlantic and killing millions. Since the last swine flu scare
in 1976, anti-vaccine ignorance has gripped a significant portion of
the American populace—and now the movement to bring farming
within city limits has taken on the feeling of a religious revival.
Unscrupulous companies like PigPackers were taking advantage of
lax standards of hygiene and a corrupt and weakened regulatory
regime. With immigrant labor and tight security an operation like this
one in the old Pigiron Building could flout federal authority. We
needed a judge to give us a warrant, and to do that we needed
proof—not just that this business existed, but was an immediate
menace to public health.
A month ago an epidemiologist brought me a map of the Five
Boroughs showing where cases of a previously unknown H1N1 virus
had turned up. The epicenter was Manhattan, specifically in
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