“Who are we waiting on?” I said. Danielson continued to ignore me, so I got up and poured myself some coffee.
“Anyone want any?” I held up the pot. Ellen Brazile kept her eyes focused on a stack of paperwork she’d pulled out of a briefcase. Molly Carrolton shook her head.
“We can’t have coffee.”
I poured some cream into my mug and stirred.
“Want to know why?” Carrolton said.
I didn’t really want to know, but there she was, perched and pert, looking like she wanted to climb inside my ear and collect a sample from my prefrontal lobe. I figured it was best to play along.
“Why?” I said.
“We work with live pathogens, so we get our blood scanned every week. Just a precaution. Caffeine throws off the diagnostics on some of the tests. We can have limited amounts of dairy, but cream is, like, pushing it.”
“That’s very interesting,” I said.
“We drink a lot of Diet Coke. Caffeine free.” Carrolton smiled. I smiled back and moved down the table, sitting a few seats closer to Danielson. The man was an asshole and might like to pop his colleagues when they became inconvenient, but he didn’t work with viruses that could wipe out half the world in a single exhale. And he didn’t have to get his blood screened like Count Fucking Dracula.
“Who are we waiting on?” I said for the second time. Just then the door opened.
“Thanks for coming, Mr. Mayor.” Danielson stood up and stuck out his hand. John J. Wilson gave him two flaccid fingers and scanned the room, taking in the two women before fastening on yours truly.
“Kelly. I was wondering if you’d be here.”
The mayor took a seat at the end of the table. In his wake floated a gray smudge of a man whose features seemed to collect in a holding pattern and hover at the mayor’s shoulder.
“This is Mark Rissman,” Wilson said. “My chief of staff and acting city counsel.”
The smudge moved to a corner and sat. Danielson gestured to the two scientists sitting to his left. “I believe you know everyone, Mr. Mayor, so why don’t we just get started.”
Molly Carrolton used a remote to lower the shades on two picture windows and to dim the lights. The wall across from me began to glow, and I realized it doubled as a flat screen. A series of images appeared before settling on a picture of a black box about a foot long and a foot high. Ellen Brazile stood and began to speak.
“This is an early bio-warning device we’ve developed called the Canary. As some of you know, we placed three such devices in strategic locations along the CTA’s Blue Line.”
“An early warning device?” I said, and glanced at the mayor, who didn’t flinch. Danielson motioned for Brazile to continue.
“These devices are prototypes,” Brazile said, “and thus I caution that their reliability is problematic. If I could give just a little background?”
Brazile gave a cursory look around the room and continued.
“The Canary continuously monitors its environment, putting random air samples into contact with human cells, B-type cells, that are specifically engineered to trigger when they detect certain pathogens. The Canary can identify thirty different pathogens within three minutes of their release, including anthrax, plague, small pox, tularemia, and E. coli.”
Danielson creaked forward in his seat. “Do we have the uplink?”
Brazile touched the screen. The image of the Canary dissolved into video of a CTA subway stop, deserted save for a stack of silver crates piled in the center of the platform. A man clad in a white space suit appeared at the corner of the screen. He walked across the platform, holding some sort of instrument in his hand.
“You’re looking at a live feed from the Clinton subway station on the Blue Line,” Brazile said. “Three hours ago, the city was kind enough to shut it down for maintenance work. An hour before that, one of our Canaries located two hundred yards down the track line registered the possible presence of a pathogen.”
I felt a cold flush in my body. Four hours ago. I looked around the table and realized I was the only one standing up.
“Sit the fuck down, Kelly.” That was Danielson. “We told the city about the reading ten minutes after we got it.”
I glanced at Wilson, who nodded.
“The Canary, as Dr. Brazile explained, is a prototype,” Danielson said. “As such, it’s got some flaws. Among other things, it occasionally triggers for fossil fuel compounds. Gasoline, oil, shit you might find floating in a subway tunnel. We expected it, and now it’s happened.”
“Now what’s happened?” I said.
“A false positive,” Danielson said. “Most likely, the result of some sort of oil-based vapors.”
“Oil-based vapors?” I turned to Wilson. “Is that what you think?”
The mayor shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “We’re very concerned, hugely concerned, about the safety of the people of the city of Chicago. That is our primary focus.”
Rissman was peeking inside his briefcase. Ten to one he had a recorder in there, taking in every word. I guessed it wasn’t the only recorder in the room.
“As Mr. Danielson knows,” the mayor continued, “I expressed concern about these devices when they were put in. I especially expressed concern about the need for them and whether we shouldn’t shut down the subway system at that time for a full sweep by a team of experts. Mr. Danielson, however, felt that wasn’t the best approach.”
Danielson had slumped sideways in his chair, eyes half closed, index finger and thumb working his lower lip.
“Today,” Wilson said, “the city will hand-deliver a letter reiterating our concerns and our desire that the entire matter be made public so the people are aware of this potential threat.”
“We’ve discussed this, Mr. Mayor.” Danielson was up again, walking the length of the room and running a hand through thinning hair. “If we go public with things like this, we’re guaranteed widespread panic. Not only will it create a problem for your police force, it will make the job of the people who have to investigate these threats infinitely more difficult.”
Danielson circled back around the mayor. Wilson sat like a bullfrog in the weeds, watching the room without seeming to, waiting for his breakfast to fly just a little bit closer.
“Mr. Mayor?” Danielson’s voice cracked with frustration.
“Our concerns are outlined in the letter, Agent Danielson. We shut down the Blue Line stop this morning and stand ready to do whatever else you need to neutralize whatever threat might exist.”
“Meanwhile, your ass is covered either way.”
“That’s not how we do things in Chicago.” Wilson actually smiled when he said it. Then he poured himself a glass of water and took a sip. Danielson sat down again and let his chin hit his chest.
I pointed to the live feed on the screen. “Can we get back to this? What are you doing, and why are we sitting here?”
Danielson pulled a folder off the table and opened it. “Twelve minutes after the first reading, I authorized Dr. Brazile to begin her evaluation.”
“And?” I said.
“And that’s what we’re doing,” Brazile said.
“All due respect, that was four hours ago.”
Danielson flipped his folder shut. “Dr. Brazile is not here to explain herself to you.”
“Think of it as practice for the congressional hearing.”
Wilson coughed at the end of the table.
“Our first priority,” Danielson said, “was to get people out of the subway without creating a panic. The Canary that triggered was collected and is being examined as we speak. These aren’t fucking parking meters, Kelly. This shit takes time.”
“So why do you need me?”
“First intelligent thing you’ve said all morning. Dr. Brazile is about to lead a small team into the tunnels. She will analyze initial data from air and soil samples and confirm that we’re looking at a false positive. She will also be deploying another prototype device, designed to seal off the tunnel areas and render any pathogen that might be
