Page 35 of Viral Justice

He had to work to control the urge to grab Ali and run. Where didn’t matter, hehadto get her away from the monster about to kill them.

“Max?” Ali’s voice cleared the fog of memory from his sight. She stood at the door, her hand still on the knob.

He cleared his throat and attempted to breathe normally. He had to fight his own body to do it. “An interesting idea. Can I think on it? Possibly discuss it later? The rest of my afternoon is already busy.”

“Of course.” She fixed him with a look that told him she wasn’t going to let the topic slide. She opened the door and left.

Max collapsed into his chair and stared at his shaking hands. He’d had two flashbacks in as many days. That hadn’t happened to him in years.

A knock at the door gave him two seconds to compose himself, then Eugene came in with a note from Medical about an outbreak of what might be a flu in the supply department.

“Check your email, sir,” Eugene said.

Max read with some concern that half of the staff in the supply department were now showing flu-like symptoms.

Max stopped in the medical clinic and suggested the sick be encouraged to either isolate themselves in their quarters or be partially quarantined in the clinic’s overnight ward.

Flu was a concern because of its ease of infection and transference from person to person. Unchecked, it could have a third—or more—of the base personnel down at one time.

Max left Eugene in charge of the outer office while he went to the supply room where he had his portable lab stored. All his specialists had their own version of a portable lab. Some of the equipment was the same: microscopes, rapid test analyzers and the special media needed to grow bacteria and viruses. Each specialist, however, added their own equipment depending on what they might need. Max specialized in emergency care and infectious diseases, which meant he tended to have more first aid supplies tucked away in several of the bags that made up his lab-on-the-run.

He checked his supplies often. A task that was mandated for once a week, but he often added or removed items based on what he was seeing as hot diseases or pathogens out in the world. Today he was adding an additional backpack filled with IV sets and bags of saline.

Stone walked in while he was adjusting the checklist of supplies.

Memory of hands on him, the sexy growl her voice became during sex, punched him in the gut. His dick got so hard he had to adjust more than the damn checklist.

One of the techs, Jones, was giving Stone a more in-depth tour, explaining equipment and how it was used.

Ali stared at the bags lined up against the wall and asked incredulously, “You’ve got a complete diagnostic lab in those bags?”

He managed to get control of himself and answer in a professional tone. “Yes. With its own specially designed tent and ultra-compact, ultra-energy-efficient batteries. I can run the lab for forty-eight hours before I need to recharge.”

“How do you do that?”

Smart questions apparently turned him on. He cleared his throat. “Multiple ways. On base, I can plug them into the wall plugs and recharge off the base’s electricity. Off base, the preferred method is solar panels.” He showed her the panels, which were flexible and could be rolled up for storage.

“This is impressive,” she said, looking at all the bags and the checklists of contents on the wall above each bag.

“Feel free to examine the contents,” Max said. “Now’s the time, before we’re on the ground at an outbreak.”

“Tomorrow,” she said, nodding at him. “I’d like to find out how to set up those panels.” She and Jones left, already discussing a time to meet to go through the bags.

Max blew out a relieved breath, then finished up, put the room to rights, and headed to the food court for a little dinner. He ate quickly and retreated to his room to write in his journal. A lot had happened today. Most of it good, some of it surprising, with the odd moment of terror thrown in for fun.

Ali had somehow opened up the black hole full of horror he thought he’d locked shut in the base of his brain a long time ago.

She kept pushing and pushing, and he was afraid,terrified, she wasn’t going to stop until she had him all laid out before her.

What she didn’t know, what he didn’t want anyone to know, was that parts of him were broken. Some of them beyond repair. He hadn’t had this problem with his ex. She’d never asked, but he had the feeling Ali wasn’t going to leave it alone.

He never wanted that part of his life to touch her.

Mulling over it all wasn’t going to help. He shut his journal after writing what he deemed was safe to commit to paper, then took a shower. He stepped out, dried off and wrapped a towel around his waist before leaving the bathroom.

His bed was occupied.

Heat flashed through him. Fuck, he loved seeing her waiting for him wearing those soft pajamas.

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