Page 60 of A Wilderness Within

Erica hesitated. “I plan to, but you have to realize, it could behave differently inside the human body. She could worsen and die even sooner. Caroline should be the one to—”

Lincoln turned to Julian. “Get Caroline in here.” Julian nodded and left the room. Lincoln refused to leave Ellie and he knew Caroline would understand.

Erica and Lincoln watched Ellie silently while they waited. Ten minutes later, Caroline, fully suited up, came into the lab. She went straight to the baby, her face wet with tears. She splayed her gloved hands on the plastic case. Lincoln’s vision blurred, and he had to remind himself to breathe.

“Julian said there might be a vaccine that could also be a cure?” she said.

“It’s far from certain, but it’s our best shot yet,” Erica explained. “We won’t know right away if she will survive. It’s possible it can even speed up the virus.”

Caroline stared at Lincoln and then at Ellie, her face pale as alabaster.

“Dr. Kennedy, if Ellie were your child, what would you do?”

Erica’s eyes brightened with tears. She had to be thinking of her own children.

“I…would take the chance. She’s already close to crashing. She can’t survive if we do nothing. If she were an adult, she’d have a five percent chance of surviving. We don’t have any records on infant survivors.”

“We need to try.” Lincoln could hear Caroline suck in a shaky breath through the radio.

Erica went to a lab station and prepared the vaccine. She came over to Ellie and opened the bassinet. Caroline reached down and carefully grasped one of Ellie’s small hands. Lincoln took Ellie’s other hand.

Caroline met his gaze and mouthed the words“I love you.”He managed a nod back as Erica injected the needle into the baby’s tiny thigh. Ellie twitched, and her small mouth opened with a startled cry.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Erica breathed. She wiped the injection site. No blood welled up. “Now we wait.”

“Can I stay with her?” Caroline asked.

“Yes, but the battery on your suit will die in a few hours. I’ll go get a replacement battery ready.”

Lincoln pulled up a pair of stools by the baby’s bassinet. “Grab two.” He and Caroline both sat down to wait.

“Anything we can do?” Julian asked. He, Miles, and Jason still stood in the back of the room, wearing their spacesuits.

“Pray.” He’d never been much of a believer, not in the churchgoing way. But there had been moments of his life, times when the darkness was ready to take him over, that he thought he could sense something, a peace and tranquility that came from an unknown place outside him. Whatever that was, he did believe in it.

Don’t let Ellie die. We need this hope more than you can know.

17

Final radio broadcast from Adam Caine, the last president of the United States:

I know you are afraid. I know it feels like darkness is all around you. But you must remember that you are not alone. We are all in this together.

We have faced war, natural disasters, times of true crisis. This is no different. But this time we risk losing ourselves to the madness of our own fears. We must stop ourselves from falling apart. We must come together. A dozen sticks bound together are stronger than a dozen sticks alone. Trust each other, move past fear, leave behind hate.

We face hard times ahead. But if we work together, we will save each other. We will not go quietly into the night, we will not vanish without a fight. We will survive if we believe in each other. Do not give up that which is our greatest strength.

Do not give up our hope.

Caroline was exhausted, but she kept herself upright on her stool, her hand clasping Ellie’s. From time to time, she would drift into a near sleep state and see flashes of memories of her family, both painful and beautiful. Like finding an old photo of lost loved ones hidden at the back of the drawer. She embraced the pain and the longing for what she had lost and poured that blend of emotions into her heart. Tears dropped down her cheeks inside her spacesuit.

She kept her vigil all night. By two in the morning, she jolted when the baby in the bassinet stirred and started to cry.

“Ellie?” She and Lincoln tensed, afraid they were seeing the spasms of death, but then Caroline really looked at the baby. The pallor of her skin was gone, replaced by a healthy peachy color. Ellie squirmed and fussed in a way Caroline had come to recognize.

“I think she’s hungry. Dr. Kennedy, can we feed her?” Caroline asked.

Dr. Kennedy came over to check Ellie’s vitals and take a blood sample. “Yes, if she’s wanting food, we definitely should.”

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