Phase Six

by Jim Shepard

  “Have you heard back from Atlanta?” Jeannine asked.

  “Nothing besides all the Oh nos, and the news that I’m in everybody’s thoughts and prayers,” Danice said.

  “I’m gonna call Kenneally himself,” Jeannine said. “Maybe we can even get you out of there.” She was pacing back and forth and hadn’t realized it until she paced right out her door.

  “Yeah, Jerry had the same idea,” Danice told her. “But I don’t think they have the wherewithal at this point to saddle up a whole isolator transport just for me.”

  “You let me worry about that,” Jeannine said. She came back into her office and shut her door.

  “Be my guest,” Danice said.

  “You sound exhausted,” Jeannine said.

  “Yeah, well,” Danice said.

  “All right,” Jeannine announced. “I’ll get back to you with news.”

  “Don’t get off yet,” Danice begged, and she sounded so lost that Jeannine’s eyes teared up.

  She wiped them. “We need to get moving on this,” she said, despite herself. Maybe the way they’d get through it was by using procedure like a handrail.

  “It’s so weird, how it changes everything,” Danice confided. She said that she was keeping notes because they might be of some use. She said that the temperature spikes and breathing difficulties seemed to come in waves, each lasting a little under an hour. She said that in between, it was like the way you could still hear the reverberations of a big noise after the silence had set in.

  “Oh, honey,” Jeannine said again.

  “Stop saying that,” Danice said.

  “Sorry,” Jeannine said.

  Neither of them had anything else to offer for a few minutes. Jeannine went over to her computer and called up a search engine. “Where’s Jerry?” she wanted to know. “Has he been able to stay with you?”

  “We’re a little busy here,” Danice reminded her.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Jeannine said to herself.

  She could hear the breath catching in Danice’s throat when she tried to speak. It probably wasn’t all that shocking, Danice reminded her. When you thought about it, she had a zillion microbial passengers on her little boat, and they’d all been well-enough behaved up to this point.

  “You need to worry about you,” Jeannine told her. “It’s like the coaches are always saying: you can’t worry about the other team; you have to just concentrate on getting your team to where you want it to be. You need to rest as much as you can.

  “Are you getting any rest?” she asked, after Danice didn’t say anything in response.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Danice told her. She said that after however long she’d lain there sleepless the previous night, she’d ended up conking out on what felt like a big pillow of sadness and collapse.

  “So what are they telling you?” Jeannine wanted to know. “Are they overnighting the inhibitors? Does Jerry seem on top of this? Does Hammekin?”

  “They’re scared too,” Danice told her. “The last time Hammekin was here he told me that he wasn’t sure they were going to be able to prevent this thing from doing what it set out to do.”

  “Doing what it set out to do?” Jeannine repeated.

  “I think he realized after he said it that it hadn’t been the most helpful thing to say,” Danice agreed.

  All Alone in the Dark

  Whenever Danice had had trouble sleeping as a child, her mother had turned into even more of a sleep Nazi than usual, insisting that measures like nightlights and open doors were only contributing to the problem. This was before Danice’s father had moved out. He hadn’t fully supported her mother’s regime, but he hadn’t argued with it, either. “Please don’t leave me all alone in the dark,” Danice would beg her mother, and then shriek, once her mother had shut the door behind her on her way out, and her brother had told her one morning afterward that he had counted, and she had repeated that same sentence in various forms thirty-two times.

  Her problems with breathing kept waking her up. The jolts of adrenaline that accompanied trying not to panic didn’t help, either.

  As a fourth-year med student she’d attended a class in public health taught by a guy who’d been an EIS officer. She’d loved the way he had started lecturing before he was even fully in the room, and the way he had written on the blackboard with both hands simultaneously. He’d told students when recruiting for his lab that he was looking for people who got there early, stayed late, and hated taking Sundays off. He’d told them he didn’t love his work more than he loved his family, but he sure thought about it more. Whenever she’d talked to him, she’d been reminded of what Watson was supposed to have said about Crick: “I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood.” Once she had landed at the CDC she liked telling everybody afterward that as a mentor he had both taught and caused concern.

  She pulled her phone from the bedside table and got on the internet. She scrolled through posts of people in surgical masks, online shopping, or giving Zoom presentations, or kissing.

  She had to get some rest or she wasn’t going to be good for anything. She told herself that it was very possible that the inhibitors would work. And if they didn’t there were other options. When she had started out in medicine, her method when she hadn’t known something had been to pick up the phone and badger someone until her problem was solved.

  * * *

  —

  She remembered all of those experimental initiatives that had gone south, leaving everyone to put on their sad faces while they marked down the data in their notebooks. Researchers had a saying for it: If you wanted quick results, you should have become a surgeon.

  She closed her eyes and tried counting sheep. Whenever she closed her eyes, though, she started crying. Think about how Jeannine sounded when you told her, she instructed herself, and it made her smile. She had a coughing fit, and then it subsided. Both hands were wet where she’d put them over her mouth. All she’d ever wanted to do was find somebody to love and make one or two discoveries that shook the pillars of biological thought. She smiled again. One out of two wasn’t bad.

  XII

  CNN Would Like a Word

  The night before the news of Danice’s infection it had dimly occurred to Jeannine, before she’d dropped off to whatever sleep she could get, that she might be a part of that group that had to deal with some media attention, given their discovery. All media requests coming into the Integrated Research Facility were rechanneled to the NIAID Office of Communications, and still by the afternoon of that next day, her Instagram and email and phone had blown up, the latter so much that she turned off its notifications and had to text Danice and Jerry that she’d just check in with them as often as she could. Danice forwarded her a Daily Mail front page that featured photos of the two of them from the CDC website and a picture of Bonner under the headline “THE GIRLS WHO SAVED THE WORLD?” Apparently Graff and Jimenez didn’t rate, as far as the Daily Mail was concerned. Danice had captioned what she’d sent Who needs NATURE? and had added an emoji that Jeannine couldn’t decode.

  Hank poked a head into her office and told her grimly that it looked like an RV dealership outside. His mask was a little askew. She asked what he meant and he told her that the streets leading up to the building’s main gate were already a four- or five-block logjam of news trucks and vans. He said it like she’d invited them. “I don’t even know how they all got here so fast,” he added. “We’re in Montana.”

  He said he’d requested additional help from the state police and that the local police had attempted a cordon that had already been overrun by reporters. He said the state police had told him they’d start cracking skulls if that’s what it took to clear some access in and out.

  He followed her down the hall to the second-floor windows on the front of the building while she checked out the s
ituation. She could see out toward the hills more trucks and vans arriving, and the flashing lights of the state troopers stuck behind them trying to get through. Camera crews were abandoning their vehicles and hustling along the streets toward the main gate.

  The whole afternoon was meetings so the entire building could review the new situation and whale away at her hypothesis. It turned out that a number of her colleagues had also been working in these directions, with Graff and Jimenez and Bonner and others, including two groups in Sweden and one in Germany.

  “Was anybody going to let me in on it?” she asked Hank.

  “Have you checked your inbox?” he answered.

  Before the first meeting, she ducked outside onto the second-floor deck to have a minute to pull herself together. A couple of people eyed her and a few congratulated her, part of the crew that came out there to smoke. Then she went back inside and retrieved her laptop and coffee and made her way into what Hank volunteered was the agile workspace with the highest capacity in the building. Even with social distancing, there were a lot of people here, and everyone else was going to be watching on screens all over the building. While she unloaded what she had onto the podium, even through all of the hubbub and the settling in, she was conscious of the whole room regarding her while her laptop was being synched to the overhead projector.

  Jerry had already been tasked with trying to have Danice ready for Zooming if she was up to it, and while Jeannine was waiting for that call to go through, she realized how much she’d been counting on doing this as a team with Danice, and having someone there who had her back.

  “Don’t sweat it too much,” Hank told her before he took his seat. She hadn’t realized her eyes were giving her away. “Look at it this way,” he suggested. “Whatever happens at this point, you guys have already made a pretty serious contribution.”

  She thanked him, less reassured than ever.

  Danice’s face finally popped up on the screen, looking awful. The crowd in the room made a low, shocked sound, and Jeannine lowered her chin and swallowed as a means of getting ahold of her voice, and said, “Hey, Dr. Torrone! How’re you doing?”

  “How’re you, Dr. Dziri?” Danice responded, and the crowd applauded. The applause went on for a few minutes. Danice’s smile broke out on both sides of her venturi mask, and Jeannine was so pummeled with gratitude for her friend’s happiness, and desolation at her condition, that she stood at the podium peering down until uncomfortable murmurs began to arise, and she only snapped out of it when Danice called, as though she’d pulled together every ounce of energy she had left, “I’m ready when you all are.”

  Victory Laps in a Wheelchair

  There was more bad news from Porton Down: they had just gotten up and running again and a lab tech who ran the autoclave had become infected and had infected her family. The whole place was being shut down again and all Level 4 labs were being put on notice to re-review their safety procedures. Hank announced the news at the end of their session after thanking Jeannine and Danice.

  It had mostly gone well. A number of problems with their theory had been raised and pursued, but none of those concerns had demolished it completely, and some people had pointed out that what they’d come up with also at least had the virtue of somewhat elegantly explaining a number of baffling aspects of the outbreak. And there also seemed to be a palpable feeling in the room that maybe this was real progress.

  Jerry intervened to say that he didn’t think Danice had much left in the tank for the follow-up meetings, and Danice didn’t argue with him. Jeannine said not to worry, that she could take it from this point, but she did want to hear about the apoptosis inhibitors before they got off. Jerry started to answer, but Danice said, “I’ll tell her,” and then started coughing so much that she couldn’t, and Hank found Jeannine a room for the little time that she had left between meetings, and after he shut her inside, she could hear him turning people away at the door.

  When Danice finally stopped coughing, she seemed spent, and hung her head. It looked like Jerry had gotten her a bedpan. Jeannine didn’t know whether or not to say something, and he poked his head in front of the lens and indicated concern with his eyebrows.

  Two minutes ticked off the digital clock on the desk of whoever’s office she was occupying before Danice told her that that morning she’d been given the first of the five most likely therapeutics that had progressed to clinical testing, a caspase inhibitor that had been successful in clinical trials with liver diseases associated with accelerated apoptosis. She said that everybody back in Atlanta was hopeful about it.

  “They really are,” Jerry chimed in.

  “How long is it supposed to take before we can see if it’s having any effect?” Jeannine asked.

  Danice breathed out, and again took as much time as she needed before she answered. “It varies,” she said.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Jeannine responded. “And are there side effects?”

  The question brought a little snort from Danice, who had closed her eyes. “Oh, yes,” she smiled.

  Jeannine waited to hear what they were, but Danice just kept her eyes closed. “So am I going to get to learn what they might be?” Jeannine finally asked.

  “Well, let’s put it this way,” Danice told her, after an uncomfortable silence. “I may be taking my victory laps in a wheelchair.”

  Turns Out They Did Just Stick Him in a Room

  The meetings went on past eight p.m. and she felt like if she had to confront one more skeptical face on Zoom she would slap somebody, but she reminded herself that, to be fair, most people had looked more absorbed than skeptical. It turned out that a group had been meeting there about the idea, as well, and when she complained to Hank about not having known about it, he said, “That’s what we do here. This place is called the Integrated Research Facility.”

  “Well, why wasn’t I notified?” she asked.

  “I’m sure you were,” he said. “Have you checked your inbox?”

  “You already asked me that,” she said. He asked if he could get her something to eat, and she said no.

  She was back in her office to collect her bag and jacket and thinking she didn’t have the energy to pick up either when the nurse technician who’d drawn the cells from Aleq’s lungs knocked on her open door and told her that the boy had said he wanted to see her.

  “Thanks. I’ll check on him in the morning, then,” she said.

  The technician remained, and gave her a pained expression. “He’s pretty distraught,” she told Jeannine.

  Jeannine rubbed both her temples with her fingertips. “Is what’s-his-name even still in the building? The guy who knows Danish? Elias?” she asked.

  The technician told her that since Elias was with the support staff who oversaw waste material and sinks and drains and chemical showers, he came in late and stayed late, and had already said he’d be available if Jeannine needed him.

  Jeannine closed her eyes and counseled herself to go home. Even with help, it was probably a terrible idea to go through all of the safety checks on a BSL-4 suit as worn-out and impatient as she was. And whatever the kid was upset about, she was unlikely to be able to fix it.

  “Dr. Dziri?” the technician offered.

  “All right, I’ll check on him,” Jeannine told her.

  She pleaded with herself not to rush, and to be as methodical as ever when getting into her suit. It took forever. Once she finally had her earpiece in and was standing outside Aleq’s room, she could hear the crackle of the translator coming online.

  “Hey, Elias,” she said wearily.

  “Hi, Dr. Dziri,” Elias answered into her earpiece.

  “All right, let’s see what’s going on with our patient,” Jeannine told him. And she unhooked her air and passed through the airlock and inner door and hooked back up inside Aleq’s room.
/>
  He was sitting up in his bed and unleashed a series of what she imagined were complaints or accusations in her direction as she secured her air hose and approached him.

  “Somebody’s upset,” she noted to Elias while she stood by the boy’s bed and waited for him to finish.

  “He wants to know where the man with the beard went,” Elias began, once Aleq stopped talking.

  There were crayons and paper on the floor near the bed. A little blue superhero figure lay on its back on the other side of the room. Even the plastic hourglass had been flung all the way under the rolling cart. The tablet was on his bedside table, facedown.

  She told him that Branislav had had to leave, and that he’d been very sorry about it, and that she thought they had already had their Goodbye Day, and had talked about all of that.

  While Elias translated, Aleq peered at her as if checking her story against Branislav’s. After Elias finished, Aleq didn’t ask a follow-up question, and Elias evidently didn’t feel the need to translate whatever else Aleq had been saying while she’d been hooking in.

  Maybe the kid had some mutant form of something that prevented the apoptosis from going haywire, she found herself thinking. Maybe he was just genetically lucky, for whatever reason. Since apoptosis was this whole pathway, during which a lot of things had to happen, he might have had a mutated form of some kind of super-competent downstream effector or regulator, so the normal cascade that would have been set off was stopped in its path.

  “Which would, of course, be of great interest to the rest of us in the human race who hope to survive this thing,” she said aloud.

  “Want me to translate that?” Elias asked, puzzled.

  “Just talking to myself,” she said.

  Aleq said something else while still looking at her. “He wants to know if you’re just going to stare at him,” Elias said in her ear.