She playfully ran her finger down his chest. “So how would you make it smarter?”
“Look. When you get your immunization shots, they give you a bunch of them, but they only do a few at a time, and you have to go back for the rest. Imagine if that could all be combined into a single mega-shot. If my theory pans out, then my vaccine would reprogram the immune system in such a way that, instead of just reacting to the damage caused by an invader, it actually plans ahead for every potential attack, and by the time the invader comes, the bad guy is knocked out before it can cause any damage.”
“That’s amazing!” Yvonne rolled the tip of her finger into his navel then traced upward into the furry center of his chest hair. “So this relates to that future disease business again? That disease that you want to find a cure for before it even exists?”
“Superbug. I believe pretty strongly that we’re on the cusp of something big, something deadly breaking out… a blood-borne pathogen that could potentially wreak enormous damage on the population. There have been some isolated incidences of a new virus in Africa, with enough similarities to my hypothesis that it makes me wonder.” Gabriel scratched his chin. “But that’s not where my prediction stems from. I believe that, at this point in our history, the gates are wide open for the next epidemic of this kind to walk in.”
She shuddered. “So if such a thing happens, a disease like that, how will it work? How would it spread?”
“Well, it’s complicated. If it’s a blood-borne pathogen, the common source of infection would be through bodily fluids.”
“Sexual contact, too?”
“Certainly, yes. But anyway, I think we’re going to see a virus that has evolved to overcome our current defenses, medications, and vaccines, and takes the battle right to our greatest military defense system, our immune system, and then takes that army out.”
“Takes out the immune system? How?”
Down the beach, someone set off a sparkler, but Gabriel didn’t seem to notice. “ Imagine a virus that depletes us of our vital T-cells and takes away our ability to produce new T-cells, disarming the immune system and leaving us vulnerable to any number of opportunistic infections. Suddenly, you’re going to see people getting swollen lymph nodes and flu-like symptoms then dying from previously harmless diseases. The body will be wide open for whatever hits it, and the infected will drop like flies.”
She peered deeply into his eyes. “And you’re going to stop it?”
He shifted his gaze. “I hope so, yes.”
“You, the man who finds people boring, are devoting your life to the effort of saving millions.”
Gabriel stared down at the sand. At that moment, she knew he was exactly what she’d wanted. Yvonne kissed him. Gabriel wrapped his arms around her and rolled her onto her back, pinning her to the damp sand.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered.
She pulled closer, ready to kiss him again. But she stopped when she felt a cool, damp, crawling sensation on her leg. She looked down and saw something small and shiny inching down her calf. A leech? A worm? No. A slug. The slimy creature was the color of mustard with two black stripes running down it. The slug’s little antennas rose. Gabriel must have seen where she was looking because he raised his hand to slap the slug away. Yvonne caught him by the wrist, stopping him just in time.
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“Don’t hurt the poor little guy! I like him.” Yvonne reached down and gently picked up the tiny little slug, allowing it to nestle in the cup of her palm. She watched the scared, startled movements of its petite antennas. She held out her hand to show Gabriel. The slug steadily crawled down her arm.
Chapter 16:
Transfer
Summer 2018
Beaming with pride, Gabriel stood at the entrance of Room 116, his new home. North Wing was the green wing, with its olive-green floors, green-grey wallpaper, and mint-green curtains. He carried a small suitcase in one hand, his cane in the other, and a gym bag over his shoulder. The staff had already moved the rest of his possessions into the room.
Stepping inside, he was immediately impressed. Though smaller than a studio apartment, it was a substantial improvement over his old quarters. His new roommate, Bernard, was nowhere to be seen. The sound of running water was coming from the bathroom, so perhaps Bernard was in there.
Oddly, Bernard the Fourth appeared to have no bed. Where a bed normally would have stood was a leather recliner directly facing a flat-screen TV. On the wall were several photographs of old trucks, a couple of family photos, and a large black-and-white picture of a WWII army troop holding a US flag. On the table were nearly a dozen empty Styrofoam cups, a bunch of empty plastic pudding containers, four handkerchiefs, a pile of scrunched-up napkins, and a canister of sugar packets. Next to the recliner was a hamper filled with white V-neck T-shirts. It was a strange setup, and Gabriel hoped that his experiments wouldn’t upset Bernard’s daily schedule.
He went past the curtain divider and over to his side of the room, the window side. He’d missed having a window beside his bed. He hadn’t realized it until that moment, but as warm, golden sunshine poured into the room, warming the icy blood in his veins as if he’d stepped into a Jacuzzi, he knew that he’d never agree to taking the door side of a room ever again. The view was dull—nothing but grass and a parking lot—but the sunlight was wonderful.
A dirty old desk with chipped black paint and old pencil graffiti scrawled on the legs had been placed right next to the window at Gabriel’s request. A cardboard box sat on top of the desk, filled with all the equipment and devices he’d ordered online with the net-savvy help of Harry Brenton.
The water was still running in the bathroom. Gabriel sat on his new green-blanketed bed, reached for the briefcase on the pillow, and snapped open the latches. He took out his graphs, paperwork, Polaroids, and his Nobel Prize, handling each with affection. Using thumbtacks, he began recreating his wall collage, whistling as he worked.
After tacking all of his photos on the wall, he opened a secret compartment at the bottom of the briefcase. He pulled out his top-secret item, just to make sure it was still there. He hadn’t told anyone about the blood sample he’d managed to get from Matthew Lecroix. The administrator would never have agreed to Gabriel’s demands if he’d known.
The sample had been easier to acquire than he’d expected. Because the Crooner was diabetic, he had his finger pricked on a set schedule for checking his blood glucose levels. All Gabriel had needed to do was to wait for the nurse to stick Matthew then stand by her medcart—gazing at the wall, slack-jawed, pretending to be in a demented daze—until she continued on her rounds. As soon as she was gone, he’d quickly retrieved the test strip from the wastebasket.
Someone knocked on the door. “Hello?”
Gabriel turned around to see Dana Kleznowski in the doorway. A stethoscope hung around her neck. She looked frailer than usual, as if her already slender figure had lost a few pounds since he’d last seen her, when she’d ushered him away from John Morris’s room. Dana looked confused for a moment, then her face brightened. She had an astonishingly beautiful smile, though it didn’t surface often enough.
“Oh, hey!” she said. “The detective! Oh, you’re over here on North now?”
“Yes.”
“That’s awesome.” She clapped her hands. “So do you need anything? Since you pressed your call button, I mean.”
Gabriel glanced at the red call button strung up on the other side of the bed. “I didn’t press the button.”
“Oh. Okay. It must’ve been Bernard. He never stops.” Dana rolled her eyes, looking toward the bathroom door.
The tap was still running. The toilet was flushed three times in quick succession.
“So what time do you like your pills?” Dana asked, still watching the bathroom door.
“As late as possible. They make me drowsy. What were you saying about Bernard?”
