“How so?”
She gave him a soft smile and cupped his face with her palm. “Because this time it’s my choice.” She pulled him closer to her and kissed him gently. “What say we go and look at our room?”
Trevor nodded and bent to kiss her again. “You make me happy.”
She pulled back and gave him a playful poke to the ribs. “Remember that the first time we get into a spat.”
He shook his head as he pulled her hand and led her towards the stairs. “No spats.” He winked at her. “I’m a firm believer in never going to bed angry.”
She laughed as they rounded the corner and started up the stairs. “You like losing sleep, huh?”
Trevor paused and gave her a mischievous smile. “I LOVE losing sleep.” He wagged his brows at her. “Especially with you.”
She slapped at him playfully as they started up the stairs. Brandy appeared at the top landing, her face a mask of shock.
“Uh oh. What’s wrong, Peanut?” Trevor asked, reaching for her.
“My room is pink.” She wrinkled her nose at him. “We definitely have to paint over it.”
Carol poured another cup of coffee and sat down at the workstation. “Who has the blood test results from the secondaries?”
Tammy slid the printouts to her. “These appear to be the most current.” She shook her head. “Whoever performed these tests didn’t even bother with viral loads.”
Broussard groaned. “Fucking Higgins.”
The other researchers gave each other knowing looks before Dr. Randy Carlson noted, “Dr. Broussard, I believe that’s the fifth time in the last hour that you’ve said that.” He stifled the smile that fought the corners of his mouth.
“Perhaps if his ineptitude did not hit me in the face every time I turned around…” He sat back and groaned and he pulled the reading glasses from his face. “I’m beginning to entertain the possibility of using him for human testing.”
“Andre!” Carol chided.
He gave her a droll stare. “I would say I was only joking, but the deeper we delve into this mystery, the more he reveals his incompetence.” He gave her a shrug. “Human testing seems to be the only way he might actually prove himself useful.”
Dr. David O’Dell appeared at his side with a stand of test tubes. “These were the most recent blood samples taken from…them.”
Dr. Irene McDonald groaned. “We have to give them a name or at least a classification. We can’t simply keep referring to them as ‘them’ or…” She glanced to Carol.
“Fine.” Carol stripped the gloves from her hands and dropped them in the trash. “What do you suggest?”
“Assholes,” Tammy muttered. She looked up and blanched. “Sorry. I just have little regard for politicians.”
“While ‘assholes’ might work,” Carol replied, “I’m afraid it might get confusing, what with the caliber of people working at this base—the general included.”
A short round of snickering followed before David suggested, “How about ‘contractors’? They contracted their condition after the fact.”
“I like Secondaries,” Andre stated. “They are secondary cases of infection, regardless of the source.”
“Second generations.” Carol glanced at the others. “Gen Two’s.”
After a short round of agreement, the team returned to the tasks at hand. “Besides throwing Higgins into a cell with one, does anybody have an idea about testing the transmittance of their condition?” Broussard asked.
Randy leaned back in his chair and stared at the people trapped in the acrylic cells. “Are there any cases of cross speciation?”
“None that I’m aware of,” Carol replied.
Randy shrugged. “Then I guess we toss Higgins in with them and find out.” He smiled at her and it quickly faded as she narrowed her gaze at him.
Irene slowly stood and stared at the printouts from the primary virus. “I think first we need to make sure that it was your strep bacterium that carried the mutated viral DNA.” She looked to Andre. “I realize that I’m primarily a botanist, but in plants, fungi are often a vector for viruses.”
“Contamination.” He looked to Carol and shook his head. “I hadn’t even considered the possibility that…” he trailed off.
“You’re thinking that the process wasn’t sterile?” Carol asked.
“We created the strep variant on a ship in the middle of the ocean.” He groaned as he sat back down. “A ship crawling with other people, all carrying god knows what on their skin. There’s no way we could maintain a truly sterile environment.”
Carol groaned as she lowered her head to the table. “I was so focused on the genetics…I didn’t even think about other vectors.”
Andre stood and pointed to Irene. “You’re probably the most familiar with fungi, so I want you to take the lead on that search. Go through their samples and see if you can find anything that would indicate that as a vector.” He pointed to Randy. “I want you to go through all of their medical records. See if they have anything in common, and I don’t care how inane it might seem. If they were all exposed to…yellow fever, chickenpox, an STD…whatever they might have in common.”
“What are you thinking?” Tammy asked.
Andre turned and sighed. “Our cure might not have caused this.” He glanced to Carol, hope flashing across his features. “If they carried an unforeseen viral load from a different exposure…a different vector, it could have interfered with the viral coding in our strep cure.”
“Viral interference?” Carol asked, slowly rising from her chair.
“Oui. It’s a possibility,” Andre replied.
David O’Dell shook his head. “The odds are so slim,” he stated. “All of them were exposed at the same time and became symptomatic at almost the exact rate.”
Andre turned and raised his brow. “But they were also all members of Congress. If they had been exposed to Legionnaires or even minor exposure to anthrax or any other kind of biological…” He left his thought unfinished. “If there is any sort of connection, we need to find it.”
“Kevin,” Carol replied softly.
Broussard turned to her and shook his head. “We have no idea what he may have been working with prior to coming to the ship.” He took a deep breath
