Read Online The Hot Zone by Richard Preston - Free Book Online Page B

bare feet, she turned away from the mirror and faced a door leading into Level 2, A deep blue light streamed through a window in the door—ultraviolet light. Viruses fall apart under ultraviolet light, which smashes their genetic material and makes them unable to replicate.
    As she opened the door and entered Level 2, she felt the door stick against her pull, sucked in by a difference of air pressure, and a gentle drag of air whispered around her shoulders and traveled inward, toward the hot zone. This was negative air pressure, designed to keep hot agents from drifting outward. The door closed behind her, and she was in Level 2. The blue light bathed her face. She walked through a water-shower stall that contained an ultraviolet light, a bar of soap, and some ordinary shampoo. The shower stall led into a bathroom, where there was a shelf that held someclean white socks. She put on a pair of socks and pushed through another door, into Level 3.
    This was a room known as the staging area. It contained a desk with a telephone and a sink. A cylindrical waxed cardboard box sat on the floor beside the desk. It was a biohazard container known as a “hatbox,” or “ice-cream container.” A hatbox is blazed with biohazard symbols, which are red, spiky three-petaled flowers, and it is used for storing and transporting infectious waste. This hatbox was empty. It was only a makeshift chair.
    She found a box of latex rubber surgical gloves and a plastic shaker full of baby powder. She shook baby powder onto her hands and pulled on the gloves. Then she found a roll of sticky tape, and she tore off several strips of tape and hung them in a row on the edge of the desk. Then she taped herself. Taking up one strip at a time, she taped the cuffs of her gloves to the sleeves of her scrub shirt, running the tape around the cuff to make a seal. She then taped her socks to her trousers. Now she wore one layer of protection between herself and the replicative Other.
    Lieutenant Colonel Johnson came in through Level 2 wearing a surgical scrub suit. He put on rubber gloves and began taping them to his sleeves, and he taped his socks to his pants.
    Nancy turned to the right, into an antechamber, and found her space suit hanging on a rack. It was a Chemturion biological space suit, and it was marked in letters across the chest: JAAX . The Chemturion type is also known as a blue suit, becauseit is bright blue. It is a pressurized, heavy-duty plastic space suit that meets government specifications for work with airborne hot agents.
    She opened up the space suit and laid it down on the concrete floor and stepped into it, feet first. She pulled it up to her armpits and slid her arms into the sleeves until her fingers entered the gloves. The suit had brown rubber gloves that were attached by gaskets at the cuffs. These were the space suit’s main gloves, and they were made of heavy rubber. They were the most important barrier between her and Ebola. The hands were the weak point, the most vulnerable part of the suit, because of what they handled. They handled needles, knives, and sharp pieces of bone. You are responsible for maintaining your space suit in the same way that a paratrooper is responsible for packing and maintaining his own parachute. Perhaps Nancy was in a bit of a hurry and did not inspect her space suit as closely as she should have.
    Lieutenant Colonel Johnson gave her a short briefing on procedures and then helped her lower the helmet over her head. The helmet was made of soft, flexible plastic. Johnson looked at her face, visible through the clear faceplate, to see how she was doing.
    She closed an oiled Ziploc zipper across the suit’s chest. The zipper made a popping sound as it snapped shut,
pop, pop, pop
. The moment the space suit was closed, her faceplate fogged up. Shereached over to a wall and pulled down a coiled yellow air hose and plugged it into her suit. Then came a roar of flowing air, and her suit bloated up, fat and