Sutton looked up and saw Sarah was a young intern and couldn’t be much over twenty-five. “Thank you again,” Sutton grinned. “Sorry you had to get that close to me when I’ve been wearing a pressured lab suit for days on end.”
“You haven’t been shown your quarters?” Paterson cried out across the table.
“Oh, I threw my suitcases in there with my home computer, but then I went to the lab,” Sutton replied, grabbing more food but putting smaller pieces in his mouth. “I may be senior in rank but not in the lab, and I hauled Dr. Skannish up here from Atlanta. He forgave me as soon as he got in the lab. We aren’t slowing down until we make some headway.”
“Thank you for eating smaller sizes, I don’t want to do the Heimlich,” Sarah smiled and moved back behind the president.
Sutton nodded at her, then turned to Paterson. “I had one of my assistants go and find some cots to put in our offices by the lab so we can grab a few winks. It took him over an hour and some major tried to arrest him for taking the cots,” Sutton told him.
“You have the name?” Paterson asked and Jackson tapped Sutton with his foot.
“Sorry, but that was several viral sequences ago and to be honest, he wasn’t worth my brain power to commit him to memory,” Sutton replied and several around the table laughed.
Very proud of Sutton, Jackson looked up from the report and over at Paterson. “So, there still isn’t any civil unrest?” he asked as Sutton continued eating, tapping on his laptop and reading the papers.
“Very little, and most are families of those we’ve told their patient has been flown elsewhere,” Paterson said.
The president stared at Sutton eating, reading his laptop and papers all at the same time. He watched how fast Sutton scanned the papers and then his laptop, knowing he was reading very fast. “When can we expect the stock market to crash?” the President asked, never looking away from Sutton.
“The day we announce the virus is deadly,” Temple answered. “Wall Street is helping support the losses, but they want to know what’s going on.”
“Jackson, what’s your thoughts on that?” the President asked.
Looking up from the report and setting it down on the table, Jackson turned to the President. “Sir, if you tell them, you tell the world,” Jackson answered. “Our primary goal has been to buy time, but we are losing that fast because this virus is beyond anything we’ve ever dreamed of in our worst nightmares.”
Still watching Sutton scanning pages and the laptop, the president nodded. “I agree, and that would only cause chaos,” he said as Sutton put the last page down and picked up the report Sarah had put beside him. Before the president could ask, Sutton started reading.
Several others noticed the president staring and followed his gaze to Sutton. Sutton’s eyes scanned each page from top to bottom quickly, then he flipped the page to start on the next. “Sorry, Dr. Sutton, but I have to ask, are you actually reading or scanning that report?” the President asked.
“Reading it,” Sutton responded, not looking away from the report as his hand grabbed the soda and brought it to his mouth. When he set the can down, his hand moved over to the empty plate. Glancing at his empty plate, Sutton sighed and then turned his eyes back to the report.
Sarah moved up behind the President, whispering in his ear and the president nodded. With the President still watching Sutton, Sarah left the room.
Laying the report flat on the table, Sutton picked up the folder and thumbed through the papers. “Jackson, compare that to page one hundred and four,” Sutton said, handing several pages to Jackson. “I’ll be with you in just a second, Mr. President,” Sutton called out, tapping his computer. “I hate giving half information and I’m sorry, but I didn’t prep before coming.”
“Quite all right,” the President smiled as Sutton looked from his laptop to the report and flipped the page.
“The Atlanta team is right,” Jackson said, handing the papers back.
Not taking the papers, Sutton handed the folder to Jackson. “There’s a graph on age dispersion infection rates in there, compare it to what’s in the report,” Sutton said, flipping another page in the report and then typed on his computer. “Am I reading right that youth has the highest survival rate?”
Everyone started flipping through their reports as Paterson spoke up, “Page ninety-six.”
The President flipped his report to the page and saw columns of numbers as Sarah came back in, carrying a plate loaded with sandwiches. She took the empty plate and set the full plate down, then opened the other soda before taking the empty can. “Sarah, my colleagues would love to have you around,” Sutton said, not looking away. “You can read people like we can read viruses.”
“Thank you, Dr. Sutton,” Sarah smiled and carried the empty can and plate out.
“Holy shit,” Jackson gasped, leaning back in his chair. “That’s why the numbers are so skewed.”
“Um, can you explain?” Paterson mumbled, looking at the rows of numbers.
“Prepubescent youth has a higher survival and recovery rate than any of the demographics,” Jackson mumbled in shock. “What if we tried autoimmune drug classes?” Jackson asked, turning to Sutton.
“That’s what I was thinking, but wanted confirmation,” Sutton said. “When I ask Dr. Skannish, he will know for sure.”
“Why aren’t we seeing this in the elderly?” Jackson asked.
“I’m not sure, but elderly immune response may be diminished, but it would also have histologic response based in the adaptive immune system. Then you throw in the somatic hypermutation in the receptor gene segments, they would overload to bring on full shutdown,” Sutton offered and everyone around the table sat
