AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The head physic decides to relax the lockdown long enough to send us more patients and more personnel. He’s heard everything the virologist told me over the miniport, so he’ll decide how to report it all to the Pilot. I’m glad that’s not my job.
But I do have one request for the head physic. “When you send in the new personnel,” I say, “make sure they know this new form of the virus hasn’t responded yet to the cure. We don’t need anyone else trying to run. We want them to know what they’re getting into. ”
It’s not long before several Rising officers, armed and wearing hazmat suits, escort the new personnel to our wing. The officers take the virologist away with them. I’m not sure where they’ll quarantine him—in an empty room on his own, perhaps—but he’s become a liability, and we can’t keep him here when he’s so volatile. I’m so focused on making sure he’s taken care of that it takes me a moment to realize that one of the new staff is Lei.
As soon as I can, I find her in the courtyard. “You shouldn’t be here,” I tell her quietly. “We can’t guarantee that it’s safe. ”
“I know,” she says. “They told me. They’re not sure the cure works on the mutation. ”
“It’s more than that,” I say. “Remember when you and I were talking about the small red mark on the people who had the earlier virus?”
“Yes. ”
“The virologist they took out had a theory about that. ”
“What was it?”
“He thought that if someone had the red mark, it meant they’d had the virus, like we thought—and he also thought that it meant that they were protected from the new mutation. ”
“How could that be?” Lei asks.
“The virus changes,” I say. “Like those fish you were talking about. It was one thing, now it’s different. ”
She shake
s her head.
I try again. “People who had the immunizations had been exposed to one form of the virus, a dead one. Then the first round of the Plague came along. Some of us might have contracted the virus, but we didn’t get really sick because we’d already been exposed to it in its weakened form. The immunization did its job and our bodies fought off the illness. Still, we had exposure to the live virus itself, which means we might be safe from this mutation. The dead virus wasn’t close enough to the mutation to protect us, but our exposure to the original live version of the Plague might be, as long as we actually contracted it. ”
“I still don’t understand,” she says.
I try again. “According to his theory, those who have the red mark are lucky,” I say. “They’ve been exposed to the right versions of the virus at the right times. And that means they’re safe from this mutation. ”
“Like stones in the river,” she says, understanding crossing her face. “Going across. You need to step on them in the right order to get safely to the other side. ”
“I guess so,” I say. “Or like the fish you were talking about. They change. ”
“No,” she says, “The fish remain themselves. They adapt; they look completely different, but they’re not fundamentally altered or gone. ”
“All right,” I say, though now I’m the one who’s confused.
She can tell. “I suppose,” she says, “that you have to see them. ”
“Do you have the mark?” I ask Lei.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Do you?”
I shake my head. “I’m not sure either,” I say. “It’s not exactly in an easy place to see. ”
“I’ll look for you,” she tells me, and before I can say anything else, she steps around behind me, slides her finger under my collar, and pulls it down. I feel her breath on my neck.
“If the virologist is right, then you’re safe,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her voice. “You have the mark. ”
“Are you sure?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says. “I am. It’s right there. ” After she takes her hand away I can still feel the spot where her finger pressed against my skin.
She knows what I’m about to ask.
“No,” she says. “Don’t look. I don’t want it to change what I do. ”
Later, as we leave the courtyard, Lei stops and looks at me. As she does, I realize that not very many people have eyes that are the color of hers: true black. “I changed my mind,” she says.
At first I’m not sure what she means but then she sweeps her long hair to the side and says, “I think I want to know. ” There’s a faint tremor in her voice.
The mark. She wants to know if she has it.
“All right,” I say, and suddenly I feel awkward. Which is ridiculous, because I’ve looked at plenty of bodies that are just bodies. I know they’re people, and I want to help them, but to some extent they’re anonymous all the same.
