“And taken under advisement, I hope.”
Hatcher nodded. “And taken under advisement.”
“So he stays? Skeleton crew?”
Hatcher shook his head. “Tell his girlfriend to pack their stuff. We’re bugging out.”
Carol tiptoed back and forth across the narrow ward, her eyes constantly darting to the air vent. “Dam you Broussard. Now you’ve got me all paranoid.”
“It’s not paranoia if somebody is really out to get you.”
Carol jumped at the voice and grasped at her chest. “Good lord! You nearly gave me a heart attack!”
She slumped against the counter and stared at the researcher who had slipped into the lab. She wasn’t certain, but she thought he was a Biologist. She only knew him as “Kevin.”
“I’ve got two experiments I have to check on.”
“Where is everybody?” She peered through the glass entrance and saw only the red flashing lights across the walls.
“They’re on lockdown.” He opened the incubator and pulled out a petri dish of growth media. “If this experiment wasn’t so important, I’d be in my room hiding under the bed.”
Carol swallowed hard and eyed him carefully. “All of the researchers are on lockdown? That seems odd.”
“The skipper thought we would all be at risk with Dr. LaRue being infected. He thinks maybe some part of her brain would remember her work and compel her to come back here.” He snorted a laugh. “The man has no concept of the changes that the subjects undergo once the infection takes over.”
Carol slumped against the counter and stared at the door. “Maybe…I should go to my room as well.”
Kevin made a few notes then slid the petri dishes back into the incubator. “After your encounter with Viv the Impaler, I would think they’d have you in an isolation ward.”
Carol shook her head. “I wasn’t scratched or bitten.” Her face flushed when she recalled waking up nude on the examination table.
“You’re the lucky one then. From what I’m hearing, Vivian acts like it’s her life’s mission to infect as many people as she can.” He sealed the incubator and stepped back, peeling the rubber gloves from his hands. He dropped them into the trash and gave her a tired look. “I don’t know how much truth there is to the rumors, but I heard that she made a mess of things in the chow hall. She ran through there, raking her nails across people as she went. She supposedly bit like three people then just disappeared.”
Carol gasped. “Oh my god! How are we going to quarantine that many people?”
Kevin shook his head. “I don’t think we’re supposed to.” He glanced toward the door then lowered his voice. “Word is that the military is just waiting for the sailors and soldiers to start turning then they’re going to blow us out of the water.” He shrugged. “That’s why I’m trying to keep up with this experiment.”
Carol gave him a confused look. “What difference do the experiments make now if they’re just going to kill us all off?”
He gave her a weak smile. “I dunno. I guess there’s a part of me that hopes that if my experiment pans out, then there really is a chance for us and they won’t…you know. Kill us.”
She looked toward the incubator. “What are you working on?”
Kevin inhaled deeply and eyed her carefully. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, of course. If you think it might save us, especially.”
He shook his head. “It’s a long shot, but, I’m hoping that we can use temperature to beat this thing.”
“I’m sorry?”
“This is a heat loving virus, right?”
“And?”
“Okay, well, the retrovirus that Broussard cooked up? It might have a better mutation rate if the associated fever is allowed to run its course.” He pushed off the counter and approached her slowly. “Remember Carpenter? When his fever spiked, Broussard panicked and soaked him in an ice bath. The people out there? In the world? They won’t have Broussard there to push them into an icy lake.” He shook his head. “No. The primordial virus likes heat. It turned on Carpenter’s internal furnace because it wants to be in a warmer environment. When Broussard iced down Carpenter and forced his core temperature lower…the mutated virus took over and it won the fight.”
Carol gasped as the realization struck her. “By cooling his core…” Kevin nodded, waving her on. “We inadvertently altered the primordial’s preferred environment.”
“In essence, he signed Carpenter’s death warrant.” Kevin shrugged. “It’s all just theory though.”
“We need to capture Dr. LaRue and test which version she has.”
Kevin snorted. “Good luck with that. There’s a shoot to kill order out on her. If any of the military guys see her, she’s a goner.”
“Wait, didn’t Broussard say that some of the people she infected turned in moments? Even faster than the original primordial virus?”
Kevin shrugged. “Too many rumors to know what is and what isn’t true.”
“We need to find out.”
Kevin crossed his arms and gave her a droll stare. “Why would we do that? She was a bitch even before she was infected.”
Carol pushed off of the table. “Because. If she is carrying the primordial, we have an effective treatment for it!” She pushed him toward the door. “Anybody she infected on the ship could be treated and then there’d be no reason to nuke the ship.”
“Nuke? Did you hear something about a nuke? Nukes aren’t good.”
“Just an expression.” She pulled the door open to the lab then froze.
Dr. LaRue stood in the hallway, her head cocked to the side, staring at her two researchers. The crazed look in her blood-filled eyes was only surpassed by the blood dripping from her mouth.
Carol held her hands up, hoping to calm the woman. “Easy there, Vivian.”
She cocked her head to the other side, her eyes going wide. Carol took a half step back, her grip on the laboratory door tightening. Vivian threw her head back and loosed a scream
