“Good to see you all,” Eighty said, “at least as much as I can see you. I wouldn’t call you all together unless you needed to hear this update regarding AP-Janus. To review, the Janus bacteria came to our attention some time ago thanks to N-Seventy-one, who stumbled on the germ accidentally while investigating another bacteria. The complete microbiology of Janus is too complex to go into here, but basically, most bacteria are divided into two major groups depending on whether or not their cell walls accept Gram staining—a process invented in the late nineteenth century, and still widely used today. Gram positive bacteria appear purple under a microscope, and Gram negative, once they are counterstained with the red dye safranin, appear pink.”

“Excuse me,” Twenty-six, a specialist in mass psychology, asked, “but you said most bacteria are either Gram positive or Gram negative. Most but not all?”

“Precisely.”

“But the Janus bacteria is neither?”

“Right again. Even though nearly all bacteria are either Gram positive or Gram negative, a very few, relative to the probably tens of millions of different species, are Gram intermediate—neither purple nor pink. There are even some that are Gram variable, staining either positive or negative depending on the age of the germ at the time it is removed from its culture medium for staining. But Janus is different. Janus has the genetic makeup that enables it to change from positive to negative and back again. Other properties of the germ are constantly in flux as well.”

“Like a shape-shifter,” Ninety-seven said. “That’s why it’s resistant to all antibiotics.”

Ninety-seven was a mechanical engineer and mathematician, just six years past earning a dual Ph.D. at MIT. The youngest of the Neighbors, her adult-adjusted IQ had been measured at 182.

“Actually,” Eighty replied, “it seems the Gram positive form is sensitive to some antibiotics, but the Gram negative is totally resistant to all—all, that is, except one—a sequence, actually. Almost by accident, Seventy-one stumbled on a combination of chemicals that, administered in a particular order, completely eradicated the Janus strain. It was tried on infections induced in pigs, then monkeys, and finally in several humans. The sequence eradicated every one of their infections—like magic.”

“No side effects?”

“None in the past three years that we can see. But now a problem has arisen.”

“You mean a challenge,” Bacon corrected.

“Of course. A challenge. The Janus strain is working as we hoped. In that regard, it is clear to everyone in the government that we are capable of delivering on our threat.”

The name of the demon germ had been carefully chosen. Janus, the two-faced Roman god of duality—beginning and end; comedy and tragedy; birth and death; health and sickness. There was something unsettling about the name, which was just what the advisory committee wanted. Something creepy.