Beta-anthrax, like the more "recent" gamma-anthrax, is a deadly, gengineered analog of the anthracosis bacillus bacteria.  Developed in 2014 through 2016 by the then United States of America, beta-anthrax was to be implemented as part of the solution to the "indian problem."  Of course, the Great Ghost Dance canned any shot the government may have thought it had at that time to use this biological weapon of mass destruction.

Upon exposure to beta-anthrax, it is necessary for the gamemaster to make a secret resistance test to see how the exposed character fares against the bacteria.  Unlike Gamma-Anthrax, no "masking damage" is engineered into the bacteria.  In fact, most will never know they've been exposed until days later.  Beta-Anthrax carries a rating of 4S, and it should be treated as a toxin/disease.  Staging this damage down to nothing means that the character remains unaffected by the disease.  If the character does not stage the damage down to nothing, then the number of successes the character achieves indicates the number of days it will take for the bacteria to gestate within the character.  Note that no real "damage" is assigned to the character at this point.

Once gestation is complete, the character will begin to manifest signs of the disease.  The character will start to develop black skin lesions, show signs of abdominal distress, and develop respiratory problems and mucosal lesions in the mouth and throat.  The character will show a fever and start to weaken.  For each day the character spends in this condition, the maximum for each of the character's stun and physical monitors should be reduced by one box.  After four days of the disease, for example, the character would only be able to sustain six points of wounds (a serious wound, two moderate wounds, etc) before they would go down and into overflow damage.  Should the disease progress to the point where the character has no boxes left in their damage monitors, the character dies.

While affected by the disease, the character also suffers a penalty to actions.  For every two days of infection by Beta-Anthrax, the character receives a cumulative +1 to any and all actions attempted (round down for days).  For example, after five days of infection, a character will have a +2 modifier for all actions attempted.

One of the engineered "features" of Beta-Anthrax is that it is not contagious -- one must be exposed directly to the bacterial spores to become infected.  This makes it a much more viable weapon of war, since the disease is normally restricted to the area where the spores are spread.  An area can be "cleared" with Beta-Anthrax, and only that area will be affected.  Persistance of Beta-Anthrax has also been engineered so that an area hit with Beta-Anthrax can be safely entered at the end of one week.  After that time, spores are rendered inert.

Treatment for Beta-Anthrax is fairly straightforward.  A combination of antibac and antidote patches yields the greatest success rate.  Once a character's body has defeated Beta-Anthrax, they "receive" wounds equivalent to the number of boxes that they had "lost" from their physical and stun monitors.  The monitors are also restored to their maximum.  Disease specific penalties/modifiers (for being infected with the disease) disappear and are replaced by any penalties that come with the "wounds" the character has sustained by defeating the disease.

Diagnosis of Beta-Anthrax requires a Biotech (6) test.  As with Gamma-Anthrax, laboratory conditions can modify this target number.  Good lab conditions reduce the target number to 5, while poor or no lab conditions raise the target number to 8.
 

Relay

[Yeah, it was wiped out alright -- only to be replaced by gamma-anthrax.  I feel a helluva lot better.]

Vizard

[A little bird tells me that it wasn't *all* wiped out.  Supposedly, some of the NANs found smaller stockpiles of the stuff once they inherited some of the old US military bases.  Kind of ironic, since it was supposed to be part of the solution to the "indian problem," neh?]

Sioux Me