- Dr. Krause: You have a cold?
- Big Man: Oh it is nothing.
- Dr. Krause: If I were to open this ampoule to the air, you would be dead within three days.
- [Big Man laughs]
- Dr. Krause: It is no laughing matter! Men, women, children, livestock as well... birds, dogs and cats even, all vertebrate life on earth without exception is susceptible.
- Ensign Smirnov - Submarine T232: I have a responsibility to my men!
- Captain McCloud - HMS Nereid: You have a higher responsibility.
- Dr. Krause: Unless a way is found to neutralize this monster, we are left with a doomsday weapon.
- Spy Z: Which means a weapon that would never be used.
- Dr. Krause: By a rational man, but any student of history can tell you that a rational mind is not always a prerequisite to a position of power.
- President Richardson: [watching the sun set, for what he suspects will be his last time] I wanted my name to be entered into the history books, but I wanted it to be for something meaningful, something lasting. What could I have done that would have made the slightest damn bit of difference... wha... what could I have done?
- Colonel Rankin: At the moment, we don't have a credible deterent in the United States arsenal.
- Dr. Ed Meyer: At the moment, we are capable not only of reducing each other to rubble, but of reducing the rubble to rubble!
- [explaining why a Soviet nuclear missile is aimed at the American polar station]
- Captain Nevsky: The United States had no particular monopoly on idiots.
- President Richardson: [about Senator Barkley] You were my opponent in every political battle, but you were never... you were never my enemy.
- President Richardson: [his last words, to General Garland] You are a fool, General. There's nobody left!
- Sen. Barkley: Mr. President, has the plague been identified yet?
- President Richardson: Senator, we don't know whether we're dealing with one plague germ or six. We don't even know where it came from or how it is being transmitted.
- Sen. Barkley: Maybe we've been looking in the wrong direction.
- President Richardson: We have looked in every direction, Senator.
- Sen. Barkley: Tell us something about Operation Phoenix, General Garland.
- Gen. Garland: Phoenix?
- President Richardson: What is Operation Phoenix?
- Gen. Garland: Just a... just a paper study.
- President Richardson: Oh?
- Gen. Garland: One of several options being studied in purely theoretical terms, Mr. President, nothing more.
- Sen. Barkley: Maybe a little bit more, General.
- President Richardson: What're we talking about?
- Sen. Barkley: Operation Phoenix was a top secret military study of a new weapon system.
- Gen. Garland: There are many such studies, it goes with a new job. New weapons, new studies... new alternatives...
- Sen. Barkley: A *biological* weapon system.
- Gen. Garland: [to the president] It was a *paper* study.
- Sen. Barkley: It was an *active* research project, involving a genetic manipulation of existing pathogenic viruses!
- Gen. Garland: It was theoretical!
- Sen. Barkley: New strains were not just studied, they were *created* in a laboratory.
- Gen. Garland: Under completely controlled conditions, I assure you, Mr. President!
- Sen. Barkley: *One* strain, MM88 was stolen and never recovered, and the president was never told about it. Now I'd like to know why!
- Gen. Garland: [tosses papers, gets on phone] Colonel Rankin, get in here this minute!
- [Rankin enters, coughing]
- Gen. Garland: Colonel Rankin, Operation Phoenix was *your* baby. MM88, was such a strain developed?
- Colonel Rankin: Yes, sir.
- Gen. Garland: Was any of it stolen?
- Colonel Rankin: No, sir, but it wouldn't have made any difference anyway.
- Gen. Garland: Why not?
- Colonel Rankin: MM88 was a failure. It was benign.
- Sen. Barkley: He's lying.
- Gen. Garland: Senator, I have had enough accusation for one afternoon. Now I demand to know the source of this horrible slander!
- [Barkley has Dr. Meyer brought in, Rankin reacts in horror]
- Colonel Rankin: Sir, this man is a paranoid schizophrenic, I can vouch for that.
- Gen. Garland: Well there you have it, rumors from the funny farm.
- Sen. Barkley: This is Dr. Baldwin's report, Dr. Meyer is incurably sane. It took us a little while to find that out because Colonel Rankin had him put away.
- Gen. Garland: Colonel, why was he committed?
- Sen. Barkley: To keep him from passing information about Operation Phoenix to my sub-committee.
- Gen. Garland: Colonel Rankin, I could have you shot! You are relieved of your duties!
- President Richardson: Tell me something, is this Italian flu actually MM88?
- Dr. Ed Meyer: I'm sure of it, sir.
- Gen. Garland: Sir, I fully support you in this last ditch effort, but I must stress the importance of the strong military posture at this point. Again I urge a State 1 alert, including the ARS activation,
- President Richardson: General... get out of my sight!
- Dr. Krause: [presenting the ampule of MM-88] It is critical the content is to be delivered directly to Dr. Leisenhau at the viral research institute at Zurich. Transport it exactly as it is, under no circumstances take off the dry ice packing, under no circumstances allow the dry ice to run out. Is that perfectly, absolutely clear?
- Spy Z: I understand, professor.
- [Dr. Krause sighs and rubs his temple]
- Spy Z: You seem... relieved, is that the right word?
- Dr. Krause: Dr. Leisenhau is in my opinion the leading authority in the world today on the subject of viral infections.
- Spy Z: And the test data? The documentation?
- Dr. Krause: [scoffs] I had enough trouble getting the specimen out of the lab.
- Spy Z: You expect me to take this to Dr. Leisenhau with no proof, no idea of its characteristics, its properties? "Here, Dr. Leisenhau, here is a germ, fix it, please"?
- Dr. Krause: [turns away] It is more than a germ, it's a weapon! MM-88 is an accident! It is a Frankenstein monster masquerading as a virus!
- Spy Z: MM-88?
- Dr. Krause: Soon after it was found we could take DNA apart and reassemble it in different ways, the American geneticists developed this MM-88, when we heard of its characteristics we decided to... borrow, some of it.
- Spy Z: What kind of characteristics?
- Dr. Krause: Essentially it is a mimic.
- Spy Z: A what?
- Dr. Krause: A mimic attaches itself to existing viruses such as polio, influenza, et cetera, increasing both the toxicity and the reproductive level of the host's disease. In other words, it hits so hard and multiplies so fast, it simply overwhelms any vaccine known.
- Noriko Asami: [gasps in pain] Excuse me.
- [pushing through a crowded hospital corridor, screams in pain, runs into the bathroom and throws water on her face]
- Yoshiko Tatsuno: [enters the bathroom] Miss Noriko?
- Noriko Asami: [turns around] Miss Yoshiko.
- Yoshiko Tatsuno: What's wrong? You're so pale!
- Noriko Asami: [shakes head] Nothing's wrong, I'm just a little tired.
- [to Yoshiko's daughter]
- Noriko Asami: Akira, what's wrong? Do you have a cold?
- Yoshiko Tatsuno: Vaccinations. It was hard... so early in the morning.
- [Noriko gasps and falls to the floor]
- Yoshiko Tatsuno: Miss Noriko!
- [gathers her in her arms]
- Noriko Asami: [wakes up in a hospital bed]
- Yoshiko Tatsuno: You're awake.
- Noriko Asami: You stayed with me? I'm so sorry.
- Yoshiko Tatsuno: What are you saying? More importantly, are you okay?
- Noriko Asami: Yes.
- [looks in the operating room, turns back in horror]
- Noriko Asami: They couldn't save it? The baby. Recently I've been so busy, I overexerted myself.
- Yoshiko Tatsuno: Did Mr. Yoshizumi know about it?
- Noriko Asami: I did something cruel. I thought I could raise her myself.
- News Reporter: [as President Richardson and others watch the news coverage] The raging epidemic of the Italian flu sow in seeds fear and panic throughout the world, a severe shortage of vaccinations of every kind is reported in almost all countries. Everywhere there are ugly confrontations martial law's the order of the day, but civil disorder has escalated with widespread damage to private and public property, and rising death tolls in a number of countries: in the United Kingdom, Spain, France, West Germany, and Japan. The United States is no exception, for the past several days on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., mass demonstrations of tens of thousands of people are daily events. This morning the National Guard and the police attempted to restore order, only to inflame the angry mood of the vast crowd demanding effective vaccines. Reports of bloody encounters continue to stream in. President Richardson's television appeal to the nation asking for calm and restraint has no appreciable effect. No one dares to say when order can be restored, even now in Washington, authorities cannot maintain order.
- President Richardson: That's enough!
- News Reporter: -and everywhere in the country there is confusion, chaos, and destruction.
- [TV is turned off]
- Gen. Garland: Mr. President, my apologies for being late, but I have been gathering the latest intelligence estimates of our situation.
- [circles parts of a map]
- Gen. Garland: This shows where the Italian flu first broke out
- [turns page]
- Gen. Garland: and the routes by which it has spread.
- [turns to another page showing ratio circles colored yellow and black]
- Gen. Garland: Here we have a break on the victims: alive - yellow, dead - black, according to region. As of this morning, Mr. President, I would like to point out the very real possibility that we might not just have an epidemic on our hands, we may have a case of germ warfare!
- President Richardson: From where, hm? What source? Every country on this chart has massive casualties, can you explain that?
- Gen. Garland: As far as we know. Some of our information is quite sketchy, still, the most suspect country should be obvious.
- President Richardson: You have any hard evidence to support this theory?
- Gen. Garland: We're working on it. In the meantime, Mr. President, as chairman of the joint chief of staff, I must request that we go out to the stage 1 alert, including the activation of the ARS network.
- Sen. Barkley: A nuclear strike, General? Or stage 1 alert if it makes you feel any better, but the automatic reaction system is aimed at the Soviet Union and no one else, which leaves us no flexibility at all.
- Gen. Garland: How flexible are we gonna be when Soviet missiles are incoming?
- Sen. Barkley: Well the only thing that's *incoming* are the germs, General.
- Gen. Garland: The Soviets must be made aware of the fact that they cannot take advantage of this situation!
- President Richardson: All right, that's a point to consider.
- Dr. Ed Meyer: Did you get it back?
- Colonel Rankin: No, a scientist named Krause was making a discreet increase to the Swiss about something that sounded like MM-88. I sent him some of my people posing as Swiss, they never came out.
- Dr. Ed Meyer: Well send in some more, dammit! It's vitally important to find out who stole that virus!
- Colonel Rankin: My only link was Krause, East Germans are saying he committed suicide. So MM-88 is still out there, and we don't know where. That's why it is imperative for you to develop a vaccine against it immediately.
- Dr. Ed Meyer: There's not a vaccine in the world that can stop it, not likely to be one either.
- [draws curtain and turns on project]
- Dr. Ed Meyer: At extremely low temperatures the virus is completely dormant, but at minus 10 degrees centigrade, it begins to reproduce itself. By minus 3 degrees centigrade, its reproductive rate is increased by a factor of 100. Above zero it starts growing at a horrendous rate, reaching its peak activity, at above 5 degrees centigrade, at which time its reproductive rate, the speed with which it multiplies, reaches massive proportions. Its reproductive rate is now something on the order of 2 billion times greater than what it was at minus 10. Look at this, and look at this, and look at this!
- [turns off projector]
- Dr. Ed Meyer: I'm scared to death of this thing. It's not just a vaccine you want to develop from this little monster virus, is it?
- Colonel Rankin: I don't know what you're talking about.
- Dr. Ed Meyer: [scoffs] I know how this system works, Colonel! You develop a part of the weapon here, another part over there, the trigger some place else again, and nobody involved even knows what the hell they're working on until it's all put together!
- Colonel Rankin: Go on.
- Dr. Ed Meyer: Militarily, a vaccine would be a very useful defensive element.
- Colonel Rankin: And that is all you're being asked to develop.
- Dr. Ed Meyer: Come off it, Colonel! Why is Columbia being asked to do a study on MM-88's resistance to extreme heat?
- [sighs]
- Dr. Ed Meyer: You *are* developing a weapon system based on MM-88, aren't you?
- Colonel Rankin: You're a fool.
- Dr. Ed Meyer: For God's sake, why?
- Colonel Rankin: Ed, at this moment we do not have a creditable deterrent in the United States ourselves.
- Dr. Ed Meyer: At this moment, we're not only capable of reducing each other to rubble, but of reducing the rubble to rubble!
- Colonel Rankin: We *were*, before we installed the automatic reactions system, the ARS.
- Dr. Ed Meyer: So how does that leave us defenseless?
- Colonel Rankin: The Soviets installed the same system! Now neither side can employ their missiles even if they want to! So this, this so-called disarmament treaty of President Richardson's, is more of his political showboating. We are back to square one unless we can develop a new weapon system fast!
- Dr. Ed Meyer: [groans] Oh, Christ, not again. Why can't you people ever leave it be?
- Colonel Rankin: Are the Russians gonna leave it be?
- [Ed storms out]