Page 104 (1/1)

The best intentions weren’t enough to stop the clock All too soon, ere putting down our forks, finishing our drinks, and falling into an expectant silence Maggie stood, starting to clear the table; Alaric and I moved to help her She waved oing to need to ride herd on thisto distract yourself" She didn’t wave Alaric back down I guess she figured he could do his part from the sink if he had to

Mahir cleared his throat "I’ll just go get a few things, shall I?"

"I think it’s about that tireed "Get ready to explain some crazy science, Doc"

Kelly sie returned to the table, handing me a Coke as she sat down toa space between us for Mahir The air in the kitchen seeht

It was almost a relief when Mahir returned with an ar with multicolored tab dividers At least thisany here," he said, dropping the files onto the table without any preas, since there was a chance I was being watched after what happened with Dr Christopher"

"The Australian?" I asked

Mahir nodded "Precisely I ht not have been under surveillance before that, but the odds increased rather substantially after I got soht be best for everyone if I calanced toward Alaric and Becks, saying, "One of the scientists Mahir went to talk to about Dr Abbey’s research got kicked out of the country"

Alaric whistled, long and low "That’s not fooling around"

"No, it’s not," said Mahir, with dry gravity "What we have here is a coinally sent to me, the material provided by Doctors Tiwari and Christopher, some supplemental research I was able to request froy before I felt it was unsafe to make any further out-of-country contacts, and finally, the files I was able to retrieve from Professor Brannon’s mail drop before it was shut down I don’t have copies for everyone, but there’s enough here to keep us all predicting the end of the world until well past dawn"

"Who’s Professor Brannon?" asked Becks "Because I’ a bit like I missed a memo somewhere"

"Professor Brannon…" Alaric frowned "He was a world-renowned expert in the behavior of Kellis-A and studying viral substrains He…" Alaric’s eyes ide "He shot hiical co"

"I’m afraid that was my fault" Mahir handed hi the virus in lab conditions He’d never had the ti it in the wild I suppose we all require some measure of specialization in order to keep our heads above water"

Alaric started flipping through the folder in his hand, eyes narrowing in a focused "the rest of the world ht as well not be here" way I used to see that look on George’s face a lot

Kelly, meanwhile, looked horrified "Professor Brannon is dead?" she asked She sounded genuinely stunned "But… but… Professor Brannon can’t be dead He can’t be"

"You knew hi for a folder

"I attended one of his lectures while I was in medical school It was about the ways that Kellis-A virus--" She glanced around at the rest of us, taking in our expressions, and cleared her throat before saying, "Naturally occurring viruses have a pri where they, u on Like malaria, which is bacterial, but still sort of applies Even when there isn’t aon, theback, no matter how many times we think we’ve cured it in a human population"

"What does that have to do with Kellis-A That’s sort of the point" Kelly shrugged "Kellis-Amberlee doesn’t have a natural reservoir It’s infectious across all s too small to a It’s coood unless we could cure the rest of the planet at the sauy, you showed him Dr Abbey’s work, and then he shot himself Why?"

"There are several potential reasons, but I think this is the raphs They didn’t make ged lines, one red, one blue, one going up as the other went down The red line would occasionally fight against its descent, et quashed by the blue line as it arced unstoppably toward the top of the paper

All of us squinted at the pages Kelly paled, clapping a hand over herto throw up Alaric shook his head