Part One:
Part Two:
The Madagascan ports had been closed too late. The virus has slipped out. A case was recorded in Quelimane. Soon it was spreading through Mozambique, infection and panic going hand in hand. From a high vantage point, you could almost track it by the clouds of dust along the horizon, kicked up by the lines of cars fleeing the villages. Thousands of disease vectors dispersing towards the borders.
The World Health Organization was struggling to keep pace, to get ahead of the virus. Now it was a matter of containing it to Africa, or delaying it long enough for the wealthier nations to find a vaccine. But much of their aid and personnel were now tied down in Madagascar, behind sealed borders, unable to leave without worsening the spread. They desperately needed feet on the ground.
Doctor Mukhtar had been in Mozambique for humanitarian work, overseeing the construction of an eye clinic, when he got the call. Now he was sealed inside a hazmat suit in a humvee, touring remote villages for samples. The Humvee bounced along a rutted road, passing a convoy racing the other way.
They found the village half empty, with the infected women already corralled into the central square, where they weakly lay beneath the shelter of a tarpaulin. Even from a distance, Doctor Mukhtar could make a fair assessment of each patient's progression by the growths - starting with small nubs of flesh at the base of the spine on those recently infected, developing to pointed, feline ears and fully-furred, motile tails in the advanced cases.
He climbed out of the humvee, and the sun immediately began to heat up the yellow plastic of the hazmat suit, quickly turning the inside into a sweaty sauna. Still, he was grateful for it. His translator, Joaquim, was guarded by only a mask, which dangled like a necklace beneath his chin.
"You must wear it over your mouth and nose," Mukhtar pleaded for the tenth time.
The man shrugged. "Why? It only affects women."
"We don't know if men can be carriers. You might be contagious and not know it."
The translator merely waved away the suggestion, and the doctor wasn't in the mood to argue again.
His thighs squeaking in the rubber suit, the doctor waddled towards the infected. There were two dozen women. Those that were awake looked alarmed as the spacesuited figure approached holding surgical implements. One woman caught Mukhtar's attention. Evidently far down the stages of infection, she lay some distance from the others. Her tattered black shirt looked as if it had been clawed open, exposing a muscular torso glistening with feverish sweat, her small breasts heaving with labored breathing. Her posture was more aggressive than afraid. Her lips were curled back, exposing pronounced canines. Somebody had tried to bandage her fingertips and, as he got closer, she flexed her hands, as ten long, sharp claws slipped through the loose bandages. Mukhtar pointed.
"Claws. Those are new. I'd like it if we could biopsy her first."
"She looks ready to rip your throat out if you try," the translator said warily.
"Tell her we need a fresh sample to track the mutation rate. She might be harboring a new strain."
The translator nodded. "Kutangana," he barked harshly at the catgirl.
Begrudgingly, the woman turned over, presenting her new, catlike tail. Mukhtar knelt, parting the thick black fur to take a small punch biopsy of skin, and quickly packaging it away and labeling it. She complained bitterly as he did so, and he kept one eye on those long, lethal-looking claws at all times, though despite her half-feline appearance, she seemed largely in possession of her human faculties.
"Ask her if she has any female family members," Mukhtar said to Joaquim. "Daughters, sisters. They may be infected too. Is her husband around here? Perhaps we can speak with him."
The translator and the woman exchanged words in their native language. The woman scowled at something Joaquim said. As she talked, the translator's expression turned from disinterest to confusion, and then to alarm. He pulled his mask up over his mouth and sprinted towards the humvee.
"What did she say?!" Mukhtar yelled.
"That is not a she!" Joaquim screamed back, leaping into the drivers seat.
Mukhtar turned back to the infected. He looked down past the narrowing waist, and the flaring hips, until he saw the bulge filling the front of the shorts.
They had encountered their first male infected, Mukhtar saw with cold dread. They needed to get back, to warn the WHO before-
The humvee roared, sprayed gravel, and hurtled away down the track, leaving him behind.