“Gabriel,” Gareth said, “can you show me your work?”

Gabriel’s eyes lit up. “Really? Right now? You mean—”

“Father Gareth,” Henry said, “I appreciate the gesture. But really, you don’t need to entertain such fantasies when—”

Gabriel lowered his head and dug his hands into his pockets.

Gareth chuckled. “No, I’d like to see it.”

Gabriel looked at his parents. “Dad, Mom, can I? Can I show you, too? All of you?”

“Us?” Marilyn asked.

“Yes.” The boy nodded. “If you don’t mind.”

“That’s… um… yes, son,” Henry said. “I suppose we can all see it.”

Gabriel jumped back to the blackboard with the kind of enthusiasm that most boys reserved for sports and girls. Henry and Marilyn nervously moved closer together, as if watching a bomb drop from the sky.

Gabriel gestured at the board. “I want to study the cognitive potential of the immune system.”

Henry frowned. “Cogni… immune… what?”

Gabriel jabbed a finger toward a graph on the board. “I just had this idea, a few months ago, and every part of the immune system… For example, you see those notes on the top?” He pointed at some writing. “About lymphocytes and antigen presentation? Y’know, where the B cells and T cells go out and identify a foreign object? I’ve been thinking, if the primary function of these lymphocytes is to—hold on.” He picked up the chalk and began writing on the board again.

Gareth watched him with fascination. The boy sounded more like a professor than an eleven-year-old child.

Henry cleared his throat. “That’s all very interesting, Gabriel, but—”

“Isn’t it? This is what I want to do with my life, Dad! I want to advance the immune system. I want to test the idea of the immune system being a kind of cognitive system. A second brain.” Gabriel pointed at the upper left corner of the board. “See? If you look right there, it explains it all pretty quick.” He glanced over his shoulder. “No, not that part you’re looking at. That section is about the collective nature of ant colonies compared to the nature of the human brain.” He stretched out his arm and tapped the board. “Look at this part.”

Henry squinted at the board. His wife nibbled on a fingernail, while Gareth took a step closer, trying to make some sense of what he was seeing.

Gabriel nodded. “Yes, the notes to the left of that! See them? That explains it better than I can, but basically, just imagine that the immune system is a machine, a network of processes of production. Transformation and destruction. It’s really cool. Imagine that instead of defining existence as—”

“Oh my God!” Marilyn cried. “I thought you were insane, but no. Gabe, you’re amazing. I was so worried, but now I understand. You’re a genius. The next Einstein. This brilliance is a miracle, a gift from God.”

Gabriel frowned. His hands disappeared into his pockets. He glanced at Gareth apologetically and then announced, “I don’t believe in God.”

Standing there during the awkward vacuum that followed his statement was like undergoing a silent root canal. As Henry and Marilyn’s smoldering glares melted through Gabriel’s resolve, the boy’s head dropped, and he returned to his blackboard. Though Gareth insisted that their son had not offended him, Henry ushered Gareth back into the living room and poured them glasses of bourbon as Marilyn hurried back to the kitchen.

Dinner was awkward. All conversation revolved around current events, and Gabriel didn’t utter a word or eat more than a few bites. After they had eaten, Gareth asked if he could have a word alone with the boy. Marilyn shot to her feet then sat back down with a shudder. Henry nodded and spread his hands out as if to say, “What could it hurt?”

Gabriel led the way back down the hallway. Gareth smiled at the sight of their shadows on the wall. A tall, gangly scarecrow strolled beside a short, big-headed child. In Gabriel’s room, Gareth’s gaze lingered on the blackboard. He pulled a chair close and sat on it backward. Gabriel perched on his bed, staring down at his swinging feet.

“That was some impressive stuff earlier,” Gareth said.

Gabriel didn’t look up. “Oh.”

“Why so glum?”

“’Cause…” The boy hesitated then spoke in a shy whisper. “’Cause you’re not here to talk to me about what I like. You’re just gonna tell me it’s bad and that I shouldn’t do it. Like everybody else says.”

“Well, that’s not what I’m going to say.”

Gabriel gave him a dubious look. “You’re a priest. You’re just here to—”

“I’m here to be your friend, Gabriel. I’m here to talk to you and to help you achieve your goals. And this stuff you’re doing, all of this immune system business, don’t let anyone ever tell you that it’s bad.”

Gabriel’s grey eyes were intent and filled with both hope and worry. “Really?”

“Really.” Gareth grinned. “Frankly, I think the stuff you’re studying is absolutely beautiful. I can tell that you think so, too.”

Gabriel laughed, and a blush rose into his cheeks. “Why does no one else think so?”

“Because your ideas are quite different, Gabriel. You’re a unique kid. Special. I have a pretty darn good feeling that you’re going to be somebody very important someday.”

“Huh? What about me is so special?”

“Your mind, that’s what! You have an amazing mind, Gabriel. And someday, mark my words, that mind? It’s going to change the world.”

Chapter 9:

Residual

Spring 2018

Though the onset of the Black Virus was unexpected, Gabriel wasn’t surprised by the aftermath. He’d seen it all before, back during the AIDS epidemic in the ’80s. If there was one thing that the bureaucrats knew how to do, it was cover their asses.

On the news that morning, he had seen headlines about foreign relations, an important new bill in Congress, and another spike in the national debt. They had shown nothing about the new virus, and his intuition told him that the government was carefully keeping the news from going viral to avoid a nationwide panic.

Five days had passed since John Morris had flipped out in the lobby. The nurses were saying nothing, and they avoided answering Gabriel’s questions. Men in black suits came into the building, and the staff was forced to sign a confidentiality agreement, probably under threat of lawsuit, loss of licensure, and a long list of other consequences if a leak occurred. From what he could gather, the document stated that John Morris’s illness would be referred to as a case of influenza.

A few people had already quit. Even so, they’d still signed the forms. They had to.

Four days ago, the government sent in its top specialists. They disguised themselves as everyday doctors so that the residents wouldn’t be alarmed, but Gabriel could spot those young government immunologists, virologists, and pathologists, fresh out of school and eager to prove themselves, from a mile away. They took blood and tissue samples and sent them back to their labs.

After that, the doctors stopped trying to cure John Morris. The virus had proven stubbornly resistant to antibiotics, time, prayer, and everything else the doctors had thrown at it. Morris was confined to his room, with no visits from anyone but the nursing staff or approved doctors. The nurses were ordered to load him up with morphine, and that was the extent of the treatment. Clearly, the government had decided that there was nothing they could do for John Morris except keep him away from others.

Gabriel knew what they were thinking. Morris was old, so he was going to die soon, anyway. There was no sense wasting time, money, and resources on a person like that. That line of reasoning disgusted him to no end, but he knew how the system worked. A cover-up was always preferable to mass panic. Everyone liked to keep their hands clean.

Unfortunately, the spread had already begun. Yesterday morning, another resident had been hit with the virus—Rebecca Holzweiss, of West Wing. She and John Morris often sat together in the lobby, sometimes holding hands, so Gabriel didn’t find her infection too surprising. She was now also quarantined in her room, for all the good that accomplished.

Gabriel shook his head. In a building where the majority of the residents wandered the halls from sunrise to sunset—touching the same items, using the same silverware, and sometimes even sharing the same bathrooms—he highly doubted the virus could be contained.

They kept Morris’s room guarded, but even guards needed to take a break, if only for emergency bathroom trips. Gabriel had been standing at the corner of the hallway, ostensibly staring at a yellow birdfeeder outside the window but actually keeping an eye on Morris’s door. When the nurse on duty, Dana Kleznowski, hurried out of the room, he stayed still and gazed forward in a fake glassy-eyed stupor. Dana raced past him and cut left down the hallway, and the bathroom door clicked shut behind her.