Page 33 of Night of the Living Manny
“Yeah. Look, Liam, I’m not gonna lie. People are jumping ship. I’ve been trying to work in your projection software all night, but—”
“What do you need?” Liam would do what he could. They had no idea if Greg really took anything, but if he did, he would do one of two things: sell it or infect people with it. Either way, they were fucked.
“I need a full projection of what this thing will look like as an infection. We’ve only been looking at it as a localized thing, in case it infected a single patient in a controlled hospital situation rather than killing the sepsis. I need information on epidemiology.”
“Did you call the CDC?” There were protocols.
“I did, and they’re sending a team. But you know as well as I do that if Greg is spreading this thing, or selling to someone who wants to….”
“I do. You coordinate with them. I’ll get back down there and get you those models.” He could run all that while cleaning out his office and getting all of the work he’d done on the antidote in hard copy, as well as pack the samples of the serum he’d been working on. If he had to bug out fast, he needed to be prepared.
“Thanks, Liam. I know we haven’t always seen eye to eye—”
“But this is an emergency.” He winked. “We got this.”
“I appreciate it more than you know. I’ll be making calls and such.”
“I’ll holler when I have something.” Liam lifted a hand before heading down to the lab. He pulled out his phone to text Brenden, then paused. What was he going to say? Prepare for an apocalypse? Get ready to run? He was selfish enough to hope they could fix this and that Greg had just decided to cut and run without screwing them all. He would run the simulation, print and pack what he needed, and wait to sound the alarm until he knew what to sound it for….
The lab was almost as empty as the executive offices when he got back downstairs. Looked like Emmy had spread the word about packing her go-bag. Tad and Aliya were still there, heads down at their computers.
“Hey, guys. Thanks for staying.”
Aliya shrugged. “My family is in Pakistan.”
Tad chuckled. “Except for me, and we’re together.”
“Huh. You learn something new every day. Okay, Steve says he needs an epidemic model. Tad, can you monitor that while it runs to make sure the software can handle it? Aliya, I have samples I need you to pack for cold travel.”
“You got it, boss.”
Tad started keying in numbers, and Aliya followed him to the bank of fridges. “Is it true? Did Greg steal the virus?”
“I don’t know. Steve seems to think so, but are any samples unaccounted for?”
“We have the right number of vials. Kimberly had us run an inventory last night. No one checked the actual levels.”
“Well, suit up and check. I need two full vials of virus, and there’s a special set of samples in the classified area. They’re marked with my initials and numbers. Can you pack those when you go through and check the rest?”
Her eyes widened. “You’re working on an antidote.” She waved a hand. “I know it’s an antivirus, technically, but then what we made is technically not a virus per se, either.”
“Right.” Terminology was complicated. Bacteria, virus, poison, serum, antidote… in this case, they could interchange a lot of terms. This was a hybrid monster.
“Thank God. Okay, I’ll pack everything you need and test the rest.”
“Suit up. Please. No one can afford to be messy.”
“You got it.”
Aliya was a solid scientist, so he could depend on her.
Liam went to his office and set up his printer for double-sided mode. He would save everything electronically, but if he had to work without a computer somewhere, he needed to have it all on hard copy.
They worked until the morning, all of them doing the jobs of ten people. Everything was packed, duplicated, stored, and ready to shut down.
Even Steve was in the lab by 8:00 a.m. They were just waiting for the damn software to finish compiling and for some calls to come in, apparently.
The mainframe dinged about the same time as Steve’s phone rang.
