Page 59 (1/1)

"Dad" I straightened, wiping ood thing, since it looks like you told ht at your boyfriend’s house, and now you’re sitting on your bed crying on the dog That’s the sort of thing that ive so man"

I shookI cao to the hospital, and he wasn’t sure when he’d be able to make it back It see all right?"

The backlighting made it impossible for me to see the expression on hed, wiping ain, and said, "No Not really"

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Maybe" I sniffled

My father took that as an invitation He walked into e This close, and without the light shining from directly behind him, I could actually see the concern in his eyes "What happened?"

"We were asleep when Nathan’s phone rang and woke us both up His… his research assistant’s wife caught the sleeping sickness Her name’s Devi The research assistant, I ht her to the hospital for treatether because ould be the har sickness is pretty passive Only it wasn’t passive when Chave caught it She was attacking people"

"And Devi’s wife did the sa," said my father It wasn’t a question

I nodded "She did" I was crying again I wiped my cheek and said, "She went for Devi They didn’t expect it, and Devi didn’tand just cried It was all I could do To his credit,me until the tears tapered off When I pulled away, he let o

I don’t think I’d ever loved him more than I did in that moment

"Did Devi die?" he asked, very quietly

I nodded, biting ain That was the last thing I wanted to do

My father sighed "You know there are things about my work that I’m not allowed to talk about It’s always been that way, since before Joyce was born"

"I know," I whispered

"No, you don’t Because I forget sometimes you don’t have--you don’t re told you couldn’t ask me about my job You lost those memories in the accident, and we’ve all co back, but soht to knohen you can’t ask , and I’"

"I know" He shook his head "It’s difficult, Sal Heck, even things like this are difficult for rew up in this room would never have let ht crying, she would have locked ht out in the hall when she realized it"

I frowned So about the woman I was before the accident made me want to punch myself in the nose "I’hter was a wild girl from day one, and we never did learn how to see eye to eye on round her" My father shook his head "As for what you asked yesterday, it’s… co discussed with the public, but we’ve been able to share most of that information with the medical community We have reason to believe that soreat deal less, which, as you can i us all just a little bit unhappy"

"You’re talking about Syirl A little naïve sometimes, but that’s to be expected with the a about SymboGen They aren’t the first corporation to turn public health into a stockholder concern, but they’re definitely the one that’s causing ht now And not just because they saved your life, which makes it politically difficult to cut ties with theovernment Can’t you etting sick, doesn’t that ?"

Tocalled ‘burden of proof’ that even the government has to respect Thus far, we haven’t been able to prove that Sy, or that the current epidemic is in any way related to them or to their business SymboGen is a very powerful corporation, and if we overstep too soon, we et any answers out of theovernovernovernment is? Money SymboGen has lots and lots of money, and they kno to spend it Their lobbyists are extreainst them before we are absolutely sure we have a case, we could find ourselves in a lot of trouble I could lose my job We still wouldn’t have any answers And you…" He stopped, looking uncomfortable