Streams of Babel

Title: Streams of Babel
Author: Carol Plum-Ucci
ISBN: 0152165568

Plot Summary: Cora Holman is a high school outcast with a tormented, drug-addicted mother. When her mother and several neighbors die of a mysterious new ailment, Cora and her friends become increasingly alarmed when they too start getting sick. She and her friend Scott discover an abandoned store which appears to have been occupied by, and bears graffiti from, terrorists. Meanwhile, Shahzad Hamdani, a young Pakistani computer genius, has begun to notice some disturbing internet chatter among terrorist groups regarding a new weapon known only as Red Vinegar. Shahzad and Cora's lives will intersect as they both try to figure out what is killing people in Cora's neighborhood, who is causing it, and how it can be stopped.