<~?~ART 003 TK: Two mummified viral corpses side by side>
These mummified remains, one male, one female, were recovered twenty-three months ago in an arid basin at the foot of Southern California’s San Jacinto Mountains. Their monstrous appearance is inarguable. Note the elongation of the bones, particularly those of the hands and feet, which have taken on a clawlike aspect; the softening of the facial support structure, creating an almost fetal blandness, devoid of personality; the massive jaws and radically altered dentition. Yet, surprisingly, genetic testing indicates that they are, in fact, human beings—a paramutational counterpart of our species, endowed with the physiological attributes of nature’s most fearsome predators. Excavated at a depth just under two meters, these remains were found in the midst of many others, suggesting a mass die-off of some kind, probably occurring at or near the end of the first century A.V.—the same time frame to which carbon dating has attributed the writing of “The Book of Twelves.”
Are these the “virals” that our forebears warned us of? And if they are, how did these dramatic changes come about? To this there appears to be an answer.
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<~?~ART 004 TK: Two viruses side by side>
On the left we see the EU-1 strain of the GC virus, taken from the body of the so-called “frozen man,” a polar researcher who succumbed to the infection a millennium ago. This virus, we believe, was the primary biological agent of the Great Catastrophe, a microorganism of such robustness and lethality that it was able to kill its human host within hours and virtually wiped out the world’s population in fewer than eighteen months.
I draw your attention now to the virus on the right, which was extracted from thymus tissue of one of the two corpses found in the Los Angeles basin. We now believe this to be a precursor to the EU-1 strain. Whereas the virus on the left contains a considerable quantity of genetic material from an avian source—more specifically, Corvus corax, known as the common raven—the one on the right does not. In its stead we find genetic material linking it to an altogether different species. Though our teams have yet to identify this organism’s genetic author, it bears some resemblance to Rhinolophus philippinnensis, or the large-eared horsehoe bat. We are calling this virus NA-1, or North America–1.
In other words, the Great Catastrophe was not caused not by a single virus but by two: one in North America and a second, descendant strain that subsequently appeared elsewhere in the world. From this fact, researchers have built a tentative chronology of the epidemic. The virus first emerged in North America, infiltrating the human population from an unknown vector, though in all likelihood a species of bat; at some later point, the NA-1 virus changed, acquiring avian DNA; this new, second strain, far more aggressive and lethal, subsequently made its way from North America to the rest of the world. Why the EU-1 strain failed to bring about the physical changes caused by NA-1 we can only speculate. Perhaps in some instances it did. But by and large, the consensus of opinion is that it simply killed its victims too quickly.
What does this mean for us? Put succinctly, the “virals” of “The Book of Twelves” are not fiction. They are not, as some have claimed, a mere literary device, a metaphor for the predatory rapaciousness of North American culture in the B.V. period. They existed. They were real. “The Book of Twelves” describes these beings as a manifestation of an almighty deity’s displeasure with mankind. That is a matter for each of us to weigh in the privacy of his of her own conscience. So, too, is the story of the man known as Zero and the twelve criminals who acted as the original vectors of infection. Speaking for myself, the jury is still out. But in the meantime, we know who and what the virals were: ordinary men and women, infected with a disease.
But what of humanity? What of the story of Amy and her followers? I turn now to the matter of survivors.
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<~?~ART 005 TK: Map of North America, overlaid with three points: First Colony, Roswell, and Kerrville>
As everyone here certainly knows, it has been an exciting year in the field—very exciting, indeed. Excavations of several newly discovered human settlements in the North American West, dating from the first century of the Quarantine Period, have begun to bear fruit. Much of this work is still in its infancy. Yet I think it’s no understatement to say that what we’ve uncovered in the last twelve months alone has signaled a truly radical reconceptualizing of the period.