Invasion of the Ticks
For years, Dr. Kosnik looked had studied the climate crisis which continued to grow out of hand. Carbon emissions from industrial agriculture, particularly from the meat industry, was a constant source of frustration.
Incremental change was just a myth as the ice caps melted and storms grew worse every summer. Cultured meat was never going to happen. Beyond meat was similarly never going to satiate the endless hunger of his neighbors. A radical solution was the only answer.
So he'd been working on that radical solution. From inside a small glass container in the middle of a laboratory freezer were thousands of genetically modified ticks. While they were common in the forests of the northeast, these new creatures had been given a new mission. A bite from one of these tiny arachnids would transmit a bacteria giving the victim an amplified immune response to alpha-gal.
Alpha-gal is a carbohydrate found in most meats. When that bacteria entered the human bloodstream, their immune system would be reprogrammed to violently reject foods like beef, pork, and lamb. An allergy to meat would have a more forceful effect on meat consumption than any sort of appeal to morality or 'Meatless Monday'.
"For a greener world," he murmured as he opened the container and dumped the first batch into the grass. They scattered and made the world their own.
Weeks passed by without any indication of results. But then, Kosnik found a post on his neighborhood's NextDoor feed which made him smile:
@AlewifeShepherdess
Anyone else get a weird reaction from Burger King? Felt fine, normal burger, and then BAM! Stomach cramps and hives. Thought I just had food poisoning, but husband had the same. Never felt anythng like it b4. Just us?
Replies followed:
@UrbanHiker:
YES! I thought I was going mad. Had a mincemeat pie in North End. Saw a doctor who said I was making it up. Called it an 'atypical allergic reaction'.
@FarmDad85
My youngest had some bacon just this morning and his face swelled. Got a scare. ER called it 'unknown allergy'. What's goingon??!!
People were confused and uncomfortable while the doctors were stumped. They thought it was some sort of new foodborne illness or some change in pollen counts. Nobody had managed to connect the dots.
Colin settled into his usual seat at "The Canopy", the latest star in Boston's foodie scene. The entire restaurant felt like being inside a rainforest, with solar panels on the roof and mushrooms available for harvest right under their seats. Even the tables were crafted from reclaimed timber, with embedded charge pads to power up one's phone.
This afternoon, he was here for a business meeting.
"Mark, the problem is beyond clean energy. You need microgrids to ensure communities have independence during outages," he said, articulating with his hands and causing drops of coffee to fall.
"I see the vision, but capital is conservative," Mark spoke slowly, splitting his focus between Colin and something on his phone. "Honestly, there are so many extreme weather events happening around the globe, but people are really only focused on immediate fixes. Hurricane season forecasts just came out and it's looking rougher than usual down south."
"Exactly my point. Incrementalism is going to kill us. We need to build new adaptable systems from the ground up, not just get us to the next quarter."
"I'm not disagreeing. I'm just trying to let you know the thought process happening out there."
"And those thoughts are shallow."
"You may need to convince more people."
"Maybe so... hey did you see that odd post about an allergy outbreak? They became allergic to meat?"
"I thought it was just some bad lunch. Someone undercooked it?" Mark dismissed it with a wave and returned to his scrolling.
Colin nodded and finished off his coffee. He had to keep his focus on building a greener future, not be concerned with a few online posts of medical mysteries.
Still, the stream of posts soon turned into a torrent. They were picked up by local and state news, causing a wave of news cycles and desperate pleas on social media. Hospitals in Boston, then Rhode Island, then across New England, all reported overwhelming numbers of patients presenting with the same terrifying, delayed allergic reaction to meat consumption. Anaphylaxis rates soared and ambulance sirens became a constant, chilling sound across the city.
News headlines grew increasingly frantic:
Mystery Meat Allergy Sweeps Massachusetts: Health Authorities Baffled
Red Meat Recipes or Russian Roulette?
Governor Wu Urges Caution as Alpha-Gal Syndrome Confirmed in Thousands
The last headline was the turning point as the governor appointed Dr. Paige Harris as the lead investigator on this growing public health crisis. She was a sharp epidemiologist who had arrived from London with a long list of credentials and awards.
Her small team worked overtime tracking down various leads, but most of the initial theories went nowhere. They couldn't detect any new pathogens in the environment. Farms were as clean as usual. Processing plants weren't introducing any contaminants or environmental toxins. The only thing linking all these cases together was a newly introduced reaction to alpha-gal.
Colin sat down at The Canopy. He was in the neighborhood to meet with the councilman on a new solar project he was designing. He hoped to get more feedback before presenting it in community meetings. As he waited, he ordered a chicken sandwich at the counter.
"Colin?"
"Councilman Dean, it's good to meet you."
"You ordered lunch?"
Colin picked up the sandwich.
"Yeah, just something small. Should I flag down a waiter?"
"No, I usually eat lunch late. I'll be fine til then."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, don't worry about it. Now let's talk about your project. I'm eager to learn more."
"Okay, I have a presentation right here on my phone."
Colin passed over the phone and took a bite of his sandwich. It was moist and his mouth was full of chicken and mayo. He chewed a few times and then described the first diagram.
"After looking through public records, I think the North End would be a great fit for a microgrid project. It has had more power outages and longer outage times from storms in the last five years."
"And this microgrid would fix that?"
"The idea is that during an outage, it could run on its own, without depending on the rest of the system."
"Where would the power come from?"
"Yes, so that's where the solar..."
Colin stopped. There was something in his throat, an itchiness, like there something large was stuck in there. The tingling sensation grew, spreading to his tongue and then all of his mouth.
"Everything alright, Colin?"
Colin tried to speak, but all he could do was cough. The itchiness spread to his neck, then his arms.
"I don't know," he pushed the sandwich away and started scratching his arms frantically.
He stood up suddenly and felt a wave of dizziness strike him. His chest was growing tight.
"I need air," he excused himself amidst concerned glances from other tables.
He grabbed his phone and hastily left. He knew what was happening to him. The terrifying meat allergy had finally come for him. No longer was this some problem relegated to the headlines. Now he was involved. He quickly dialed 911 as he focused on his breath. His throat felt tight. Things were starting to look blurry.
"Colin, patient nine-thousand two hundred seventeen," Dr. Harris recorded just as he was beginning to wake up.
"Excuse me?" he grunted, his throat still hurting.
"My name is Doctor Harris, part of the governor's task force on the alpha-gal allergies. I just heard from the hospital about your case."
"I'm sorry you had to come out of your way for me," Colin's Irish Catholic guilt suddenly manifested itself.
"If it wasn't you, it'd be someone else. Don't consider yourself special," she said sarcastically. "What I'm interested in knowing is what caused this to happen to you."
"I just ate a chicken sandwich. I've been going to that place for a year. I'm a regular."
"We don't believe it's caused by the food itself. There seems to be something else tying everything together."
"I don't think I know of any other affected people I could've caught it from."
"We don't believe it's contagious. Instead, there's something odd in the environment that is affecting many people."
Colin shifted his posture so he could reach his leg and absent-mindedly scratched at it.
"Colin? What are you doing?"
"Hmm? Oh, scratching. Just a bit of a bug bite."
"A bug bite?"
"I went up to Harold Parker over the weekend. I go hiking sometimes, when the weather is nice."
"Did you notice anything else unusual about it?"
"Unusual? It's the woods. You're gonna get bug bites."
"The last patient was also outdoors. They were mowing particularly tall grass on an unused plot."
"So bugs? Is this like fleas spreading the plague?" Colin joked.
But Harris wasn't listening. She received a phone call from MassBio.
"We found something strange," came the voice on the other side.
"A bug?" Harris asked, putting together the evidence.
"Not just any bug, a tick. But these are not normal ones. Our sequencing shows it's been deliberately modified."
"Genetic manipulation?" Harris asked in a hushed whisper as she stepped out of the hospital door.
"Some of these gene changes are unnatural. It has been purposely introduced to pass along a bacterial infection on biting the host."
The implications were catastrophic. This was some sort of biological warfare, and the spread was accelerating.
"We are facing an intentional re-engineering event. Someone, or some group, intentionally released GM ticks to give humans Alpha-Gal Syndrome," Dr. Harris presented her findings to a hushed emergency summit of global health officials, the room filled up with horror.
The public was similarly full of fear and outrage. Was this eco-terrorism? A rogue experiment set loose? An accident? Details were scarce, leaving a vacuum for pundits debating morality and making vague gestures of anger.
Colin was released from that hospital the same day. He had recovered, as much as possible. The syndrome was irreversible, so there was nothing more they could do. He returned to his small townhouse and looked around. He had a grill. Barbecue sauce sat in his fridge. There were a lot of lifestyle changes that had to happen which he didn't even realize. He barely knew how to adjust.
Others struggled too. The Canopy had to replace most of the menu with plant-based ingredients. Chefs struggled to prepare the meals and quality suffered. Even Colin decided to stay away. Supply chains for non-meat products became stressed due to a large rise in demand. Colin's clients, who had once been skeptical of green tech, were now mired in discussions on meatless schools and the plummeting value of cattle farms.
Giles sat at a desk and looked at his letterhead. "Gile's Greener Pastures" now felt like a bitter jest. The farm had been in his family for five generations. He'd been able to get through crises before: foot-and-mouth, mad cow disease, and the occasional pest outbreak. Yet something was different now.
"Mr. Giles?" the loan officer tried to get his attention.
"Yes? Sorry?" Giles looked up, finding himself in the fluorescent-lit office of a bank.
"We appreciate your long-standing relationship with us."
"My great-grandfather was one of your first customers."
"Yes, we understand that. It's in your file. But your application for a pivot loan... well today it presents a significant risk."
"Risk?" Giles leaned forward with an air of desperation. "I've been farming this land before you were born! I'm not asking for a handout. I'm asking for a chance to adapt. I've got plans. My Herdwick sheep are prize-winning. I don't need to slaughter them. Maybe I can convert the grazing land to agrivoltaics. Start a new line of sustainable wool. There's grants for that, right?"
"While government incentives for sustainable agriculture are becoming more common, the market volatility in rural Massachusetts is too high for us to make a reasonable assessment of value. The Alpha-Gal Syndrome is causing too much uncertainty. The bank's algorithms flag this as too high a liability."
"What am I supposed to do then? Just go bankrupt? Let my family legacy fall apart?"
"We are advising clients in your position to consider alternate pathways."
"Alternative? You mean sell?" Giles scoffed and slammed his palm on the table. "My family has lived on that land for generations. It's not just some commodity to do away with when the market is a little uncertain."
He immediately regretted his outburst. He understood what she was talking about. Developers were eager to buy cheap land for new, government-subsidized rewilding projects or massive solar farms. There was nothing that could be done.
He left the bank and felt a chill in the air. He buttoned his coat and crossed his arms. He was a civilian casualty in this biowar that was waged without considering all the collateral damage.
Three years since those first ticks were let loose upon the Northeast, the entire country had been reshaped. The allergy continued to spread, growing less rapidly during periods of cold, and everyone had settled into a new normal.
Giles had agreed to lease the land. Generations of sheep had been replaced by an expansive array of photovoltaic panels feeding energy into the regional grid. Beneath them, nutrient-dense soybeans grew under the watchful eye of autonomous drones. Giles had stubbornly built a new model of profitable farming despite the vast changes in consumer demand.
As he grew grayer, he found neighbors close down and get forced into retirement. Old families spoke bitterly about "eco-terrorists" during their weekly poker nights. They resented the younger residents who were building a new green industry and embracing the meat-free future with zeal. The cultural gap felt wider than ever.
Boston had continued to grow, becoming a solarpunk utopia of sorts. The Canopy had evolved into a thriving restaurant so successful that Colin could hardly find a table. Top chefs from other countries were brought in to prepare special plant-based dishes. His sustainable infrastructure business had finally found investors. Buildings were retrofitted with electric-only climate control, closed-loop water systems, and sustainable construction materials. The city had reached a level of carbon emissions unseen in a century.
Page Harris continued her work quietly in a public Boston research facility. The ticks had spread much farther than the local region, and the damage was still happening in other states. These ticks seemed to be resistant to common pesticides in addition to spreading its own disease. The ecological impact continued to unfold and so did the conversation about ethics.
Dr. Kosnik was never found. The closest they got was a small radius in Alewife where the first reports came in. He was never suspected and his tenureship at Harvard was never interrupted. He never engaged in debates on ethics, but always smiled when he went to the grocery store and saw what options existed and which didn't.
Despite all of Colin's success, there was something that continued to nag at him: "We have cleaner air, healthier diets, and less deforestation. The ends were good, but what about the means?"
What would happen when the next solution involved gene-editing people without consent, or controlling populations for resource management? Where is the line drawn between the greater good and individual liberty? And who has the right to draw where that line should be?