Page 88 of Viral Justice

Large scale?He was talking about that worldwide pandemic again, but it had to start somewhere.

“Where did it come from? I mean...did people catch it from the local chickens first and it changed? Or did it come from somewhere else?”

“Chickens?” Max said, staring off into space. He glanced at his journal and flipped through several pages. “Death occurs within twenty-four to forty-eight hours after symptoms begin to take their toll.”

He paced the length of the room and back again. He looked at his own latest entry. “This is very close to the Indonesian strain, but not quite.” He shook his book at the air. “Not quite.”

“Max?” she asked carefully. “You’re not going all mad scientist on me, are you?”

He muttered to himself for another minute, then seemed to find something significant in his journal. He stared at the page, then closed the book with a snap. “We have topreventpeople from getting sick. We need to create a vaccine.”

“You said a vaccine would take a few months, so that’s out.”

“Maybe not. I said the drug companies would take three months to create large-scale doses of a vaccine. If I do it the old-fashioned way, I could cook up a vaccine here, but we’d have no way to test it to find out if it actually works.”

“Well, get started already.”

“It could just give us the disease.”

Fuck, he wasn’t giving her too many options that had a reasonable chance at success. “Can we call in an extraction?”

“If we leave, we condemn most of the people here to death, and so far, we have a disproportionate number of previously healthy adults dying. That would leave a lot of children to fend for themselves with only the very elderly to care for them.”

“What about all the millions in the rest of the world?”

“I can’t risk exposing the extraction team to the virus. We could all be infected. I could request more supplies, but the militants might get it, and those supplies in their hands would not be good.” He paced the room again, rubbing his eyes with one hand. “Things are too volatile. We’ve got an unknown number of militant extremists in the area, missing aid workers, and a deadly outbreak in progress.”

“Maybe there’s no perfect answer. Maybe we need to decide on the one that has the best chance of succeeding?”

“I wish I knew which one that was.”

“It’s been a while since you got some sleep,” she said, taking a closer look at his eyes.Yup. Bloodshot. “You’ll think better if you sack out for a little while.”

“A nap,” he said pointing an index finger at her. “I can’t afford to lose too much time.”

“Thirty minutes?” she offered.

“Yes, okay.” He nodded. “I need a clear head for this.” He headed toward her patch of wall where she’d zonked out for a little while. “Have Hunt and Tom collect a unit of blood from everyone who’s had the flu and survived.”

“They’re working on it.”

“Good, good.” Max sat down then lay down on his side, his head on his backpack. “I’d like a few more donors.”

“I’ll see what I can do after you wake up.” She walked to the doorway. “Sleep.”

He closed his eyes and appeared to drop off immediately.

The man was going to work himself to death. When this was all over, she was going to have to insist on a few changes in the way he did things. Take care of himself better. Ali shook her head, then went to check on Hunt, Tom, and the donors.

Fatima was donating blood now, along with the teenager she’d decided to take under her wing. His baby sister slept on the floor between them.

Ali grabbed a bottle of water and a couple of protein bars and put them where Fatima could reach them.

The woman didn’t smile, but she nodded.

Hunt looked up when she came in and gestured with his chin at the door. He followed her out. Tom stayed in the room to monitor the donation.

“Sorry,” Hunt said in a whisper. “I didn’t want to wake up the ones who are sleeping. They’re all worn out.”

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