Page 59 of A Wilderness Within

One of her technicians, a woman named Isabel, met them at the entryway to the labs.

“Can we speak to the doc?” Miles asked.

“Only if you suit up.” She nodded at the door behind her. It had a sign that said “Decontamination Area.”

“I’ll walk you through the procedure. You won’t be near the hot zones. But you’ll be next door, so it’s an extra precaution.”

“But we’re immune,” Jason pointed out.

“Yes,” Isabel said. “But you could still take the dormant hot agent outside with you. We want to keep the CDC clean. If we ever find a way to stop this, we don’t want an immune person years from now to walk through and touch a doorknob or an elevator button and give the virus a new home. Or God forbid, a chance to mutate into something that could kill even those of us who are naturally immune.”

“You heard the woman,” Miles said. “Suit up, guys.”

Lincoln donned the suit as instructed and taped up his wrists and ankles before he followed Isabel inside. They were showered with chemicals and their suits inflated with air. The sound of the air filtration was loud.

“Can you hear me?” Isabel’s voice came through a comm in her helmet. Lincoln flashed her a thumbs-up. She laughed a little.

“I can hear you if you talk.”

“Oh.” He felt a bit like an idiot. Of course these suits had microphones.

“Follow me, gentlemen.” She led them down the hall and through another pressurized zone before they found Dr. Kennedy and Ellie. The baby was in an isolette incubator, to keep her body temperature maintained. Several little, flat, white pads with wires were taped on her chest, monitoring her vital signs.

She’s so small.All this time, he thought Ellie was a fighter, this little bundle of strength, but now he saw how very small and delicate she truly was. Her breathing was shallow, and her temperature was at 101 degrees.

“Dr. Kennedy.” Lincoln joined her at her desk, where she was peering into a microscope. Her clear face mask on her helmet was pressed against the eyepiece.

She waved him over and vacated the stool. “Come take a look at this.” He looked into the microscope and saw several strand-like shapes wrestling with red blood cells.

“What is it?”

“The enemy. Hydra-1. The strands of the virus attacking Ellie’s blood sample.”

Lincoln’s entire body went rigid with primal fear for the child he’d come to see as his own in the last week. To see what was happening to her, to see the devastation the virus wreaked upon her cells was horrifying in a way that would haunt him for the rest of his life. He focused on the microscope again, watching the most ancient battle play out. Deadly virus versus living cells.

“I injected a test vaccine into the cells. Normally, a vaccine works only to prevent falling ill, but I think what I’ve been creating so far may be a dual cure and vaccine, which means if it works, it could stop the progression of the virus already present in a person’s system. So far the virus is fighting it but not succeeding in breaking the cells to replicate. If they were, we would see tons of bloated cell membranes exploded into a gooey gray residue.”

“Is that the medical term for it?”

“You don’t want the medical terms, trust me.”

Lincoln peered hard at the virus in the cells. He didn’t see any gray residue.

“So…is this the cure?” he asked, too afraid to hope.

“Itmightbe,” Erica said. “The virus takes a few days to manifest itself inside cells normally, so I can’t say for sure.”

Lincoln’s breath shook as he glanced at the baby inside the incubator. “How long does Ellie have…before?”

“Before she crashes and bleeds out?” Erica said and blushed. “Sorry, that’s the medical term. I didn’t mean to—”

Lincoln shook his head. “It’s fine. You warned me. But how long does she have?”

Erica looked to the bassinet.

“A day, maybe less. She’s so small, the virus can destroy her much faster than it would an adult.”

“Give the vaccine to her.Now.”

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