Chapter 34-1 It Only Takes One

[YetAnotherBloodyCheek]

Hi there,

@Jannit: I like your ideas, although - I admit - I don't agree with the the result of it. Carl and Robbins had to shoot a Little One of the third (maybe fourth?) generation three times to kill it; that was a soldier who already had one of the most potent physical abilities we have encountered so far on Little Ones or zombies; Robbins shot a video of the zombies attacking within Boulder, and they did not seem like being devolving or devolved specimen of zombies. And yet I am with you: maybe the zombie killed by Datu may have been different - or Datu may have been different.

@Witch_Doctor: Yeah, still a subject to be solved. And this could be important regarding Boulder. But considering the noises the zombie near Datu and Hope made (it sounded just like a Little One), where and how would this former human have been infected? Did Little Ones already exist not only in L.A., but elsewhere as well? Anyway: The 'patient 0' for Boulder must have been infected by a Little One; and the only available source we 'know' so far is the 'survivor' of the Chinook crash-side. Unless Robbins and Carl or the Blackhawk pilot did not hold back vital information, (for me) it is kind of hard to imagine that the source of Boulder-zombies is not Griggs.
And about #2: Number #2 was bagged in; to whom or how would it spread its inhuman agent?

@lr42186: How would Scratch know about Irwin? How would she be able to access the code? How would she ... etc. etc. ? Interesting alternate universe, Ir24186, but quite far-fetched as of now ...

@2bgood: Yeah, VERY GOOD POINT! Tanya took blood samples and stuff from #2, right? Thus she is able to do some more serious research and may even get (close) to the source of the zombie agent and maybe even find a way to disable it ...

@Pillars: Yeah, the sound at 7:56 sounded like the ones in chapter #25-3 or at any other time we heard Little Ones around; and in #34-1 we have some new sound-features of those beasts as well.

Zombie-fans: Two more days, then there will be #34-2 .. Yeeehaw! Are you as excited and curious as I am?

All the best!
Liam

I really appreciate Tanya's enthusiasm to examine the blood samples. But do her veterinary degree and experience prove sufficient when it comes down to find something in the blood samples? I have my doubts. My guess is that we are dealing with something that modifies your DNA than rather a bacteriological thing which can easily be found by using a microscope. It might even explain the variance of zombies or why Tanya and Saul are immune due to some sort of DNA "protection sequence." (Now I sound like a mad scientist, do I not?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RNA_splicing

In my option, a whole bunch of people is needed to conduct a wide range of examinations on more than just blood samples. And they also depend on good equipment, which is most certainly in Boulder but no in Fort Irwin or the LA area any more.


Do not get me wrony, I do not dismiss Jannit's ideas and input, it is great to speculate and what more can we do right now?

[Pillars]

The LOs might be spliced, we don't know what Ink was doing in the devil's workshop. But as far as the regulars are concerned, it should be some outside 'natural' phenomena that turned them. It was 3 or 4 months after the initial outbreak before we saw the LOs. Tanya might not be able to find how/why the LOs differ but she may find how/why the regulars are. We have not yet been inside the brain of a zombie. But will Tanya's skills reach that far?

[YetAnotherBloodyCheek]

[...] But will Tanya's skills reach that far?

Tanya finding a cure sound far too deus ex machina to me.

[Witch_Doctor]

@Witch_Doctor: Yeah, still a subject to be solved. And this could be important regarding Boulder. But considering the noises the zombie near Datu and Hope made (it sounded just like a Little One), where and how would this former human have been infected? Did Little Ones already exist not only in L.A., but elsewhere as well? Anyway: The 'patient 0' for Boulder must have been infected by a Little One; and the only available source we 'know' so far is the 'survivor' of the Chinook crash-side. Unless Robbins and Carl or the Blackhawk pilot did not hold back vital information, (for me) it is kind of hard to imagine that the source of Boulder-zombies is not Griggs.
And about #2: Number #2 was bagged in; to whom or how would it spread its inhuman agent?
Zombie-fans: Two more days, then there will be #34-2 .. Yeeehaw! Are you as excited and curious as I am?

All the best!
Liam

I agree that my suspicion about #2 being the source is mostly speculative. This is due to a tendency to 'glance over one's shoulder' while following a path. The path being the likely assumption that Griggs is the most likely source of the Boulder outbreak and the 'glance over the shoulder' is lesser assumption that Griggs is a Red Herring.

#2's possible roll has little support other than arranging several comments together to 'construct' a possible chain of events. In a nutshell, it's what's called abductive reasoning.
We know she (her body) was in Boulder.
We know she was not embalmed but was packed in ice.
By the smell of her corpse she is steadily decomposing.
When her body bag was opened to confirm that it was #2 in the bag everyone, naturally, reacted badly to the smell. Just bad smell or Ground Zero Z-gases
Tanya has no reaction to the decomposition gases. Could be because she's used to it professionally. Could be because Ground Zero Z-gases are part of the decomposition and she, like Saul, is not affected.
Others were in contact with #2's body besides Pvt Thomas in Boulder.
Pvt Thomas was very testy with Michael after the autopsy. Slow turner?

Boy, when I write everything out it sounds more and more wildly speculative.

[Witch_Doctor]

What really bugs me is that Pvt Thomas said that samples of their blood was indistinguishable from ours. But what about their brains? Tonya ended her autopsy before going there.

[Jannit]

Wasn't the zombie blood only compared against a sample from Tanya? If she's immune, it would make sense that the blood would be the same.

[YetAnotherBloodyCheek]

What really bugs me is that Pvt Thomas said that samples of their blood was indistinguishable from ours. But what about their brains? Tonya ended her autopsy before going there.

I guess it depends on what kind of test you perform. Moreover, I agree to you that the brain should have been examined by Tanya. Since my knowledge about brain processes is quite limited, the only way of finding out more seems to me doing an electroencephalography (global brain scan with low resolution) or a X-ray computed tomography (local scan, high resolution) on a living zombie. But it does not seem feasible currently.

[Witch_Doctor]

Wasn't the zombie blood only compared against a sample from Tanya? If she's immune, it would make sense that the blood would be the same.

Carl mentions this after Tanya's bite was discovered and they were trying to determine if she was infected.

[Deacon_Tyler]

What really bugs me is that Pvt Thomas said that samples of their blood was indistinguishable from ours. But what about their brains? Tonya ended her autopsy before going there.

Excellent post! For instance, rabies is only detectable in the brain after autopsy as well. I keep coming back to rabies as an analogy, as the WA 'virus' shows a lot of similarities. I'm not sure if, at some point, the series will go a more supernatural route, but all signs up to this point show a very rabies-like pattern.

Rabies is unique in that it penetrates the blood/brain barrier and is entirely unnoticed in the bloodstream. Signs however can be found in saliva (where the virus accumulates in large quantities), spinal fluid and sometime the skin and even the hair at the nape of the neck.

Another example would be Toxoplasma gondii, a parasitic organism that resides in brain cells and affects behavior and even more likely, the Ophiocordyceps fungus, the spores of which infect ants in the rainforest and actually control their behavior. Because it seems that the zombie infection in WA may have come from beneath the ground, the fungal infection seems a very likely candidate - the spores could be ejected into the air in large quantities from the fissures in the ground and infect human hosts.

It seems unlikely that a fungal infection could be passed along through a bite, which makes a retrovirus much MUCH more believable symptoms wise, but not distribution wise. Retrovirus mutate fast and often and a virus that (just throwing out ideas) could manipulate the pituitary gland or something, could create all sorts of mutations - gigantism, unchecked skin growth, etc.

Cymothoa exigua is probably the creepiest parasite though, as it actually kills and replaces the tongue of a fish while feeding off of the blood supply or mucus of the host organism and actually functions as a replacement tongue.

[fridginators]

I'll rep you but I want you to know how much I hate you for my ensuing paranoia about parasites.