white.
“How long have
you been sick?” he asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t
know,” he said. “I guess I kept hoping if I worked hard
enough, I would find some kind of answer to this whole thing.”
“What is this,
Dad? It’s not the flu, is it?”
“Is that what
they’re calling it on the news?”
Noah nodded. “They
keep saying it’s some kind of super-flu, but I don’t
think anyone’s really buying that anymore.”
His father ran his
hands through his hair and sniffed again. “No, it’s
definitely not the flu. In fact, it’s not like anything we’ve
ever seen before,” he said. He stood and motioned for Noah to
follow him. “Most illnesses like this are either viral or
bacterial. We can usually isolate it inside the blood and study it,
but we can’t seem to figure this one out.”
Noah paused at the
bottom of the stairs. He’d never seen his father’s lab
before. He’d never been allowed down here. The room was bright
with stark white walls and metal countertops. There were all types of
lab equipment from microscopes to glass vials and everything you
would expect to see in a lab. But it was the containment cell along
the back wall that caught his attention.
“What’s
that for?” he asked, pointing.
His father turned to
look, then his shoulders slumped. “It’s a quarantine
cell,” he said.
“Okay. So what’s
it doing in our house?”
“I had it
installed as a precaution,” he said. “In case I
accidentally exposed myself to a deadly virus and needed to be
quarantined.”
His words hung in the
air between them.
“I thought of
using it as soon as my symptoms began yesterday,” he said. “But
the truth is that we’re way past the point of quarantines
helping to contain this disease. It spreads too quickly and by the
time any symptoms appear, you’ve already exposed everyone
around you.”
“So what is it,
then? If you can’t find evidence of it inside the blood, what
is it?”
His father looked up at
him, his eyes full of fear and frustration. “That’s
exactly the problem,” he said. “No one knows. We’ve
got everyone looking at this. We’re talking global cooperation
here. No one has been able to identify the source of the sickness. We
can see its effects on the body, but not the virus or bacteria
itself. It’s like a ghost in the system.”
Noah shook his head.
How could this be happening? For most of his life, he’d
listened to his father’s paranoid talk about a super-flu or
virus that might someday wipe out millions—even billions—of
people within a matter of months. If everything he was saying now was
true, this was the modern-day equivalent of something like the Black
Death. Or worse.
“So what exactly
do you know?” Noah asked. He sat down, ready to listen.
His dad grabbed his
laptop from the workspace and came to sit down beside him. He propped
it open and logged in through the backdoor of the CDC’s
website. He worked fast, bringing up a series of files labeled
““Unidentified Virus”.
“Everything we
know so far is in these files,” he said. “These are
classified and I’m not supposed to be showing them to you, but
I need for you to understand what’s going on.”
He stopped to cough,
leaning far away from Noah. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket
and Noah noticed a smear of blood as he tucked it back in his lab
coat.
Noah felt short of
breath. Coughing up blood couldn’t be good. And with no
official treatment, what exactly did that mean for his dad? Fear shot
through him, but he swallowed it down. He didn’t want to panic.
His dad would figure this out.
“The disease is
airborne,” his father said. “This is one of the main
reasons why it’s simply too late for a quarantine to work.
Anyone who has come close to someone who was infected or touched
anything they’ve touched is probably already infected.”
Noah wrinkled his
forehead. His mind was spinning.
“But with the
massive amounts of
“How long have
you been sick?” he asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I don’t
know,” he said. “I guess I kept hoping if I worked hard
enough, I would find some kind of answer to this whole thing.”
“What is this,
Dad? It’s not the flu, is it?”
“Is that what
they’re calling it on the news?”
Noah nodded. “They
keep saying it’s some kind of super-flu, but I don’t
think anyone’s really buying that anymore.”
His father ran his
hands through his hair and sniffed again. “No, it’s
definitely not the flu. In fact, it’s not like anything we’ve
ever seen before,” he said. He stood and motioned for Noah to
follow him. “Most illnesses like this are either viral or
bacterial. We can usually isolate it inside the blood and study it,
but we can’t seem to figure this one out.”
Noah paused at the
bottom of the stairs. He’d never seen his father’s lab
before. He’d never been allowed down here. The room was bright
with stark white walls and metal countertops. There were all types of
lab equipment from microscopes to glass vials and everything you
would expect to see in a lab. But it was the containment cell along
the back wall that caught his attention.
“What’s
that for?” he asked, pointing.
His father turned to
look, then his shoulders slumped. “It’s a quarantine
cell,” he said.
“Okay. So what’s
it doing in our house?”
“I had it
installed as a precaution,” he said. “In case I
accidentally exposed myself to a deadly virus and needed to be
quarantined.”
His words hung in the
air between them.
“I thought of
using it as soon as my symptoms began yesterday,” he said. “But
the truth is that we’re way past the point of quarantines
helping to contain this disease. It spreads too quickly and by the
time any symptoms appear, you’ve already exposed everyone
around you.”
“So what is it,
then? If you can’t find evidence of it inside the blood, what
is it?”
His father looked up at
him, his eyes full of fear and frustration. “That’s
exactly the problem,” he said. “No one knows. We’ve
got everyone looking at this. We’re talking global cooperation
here. No one has been able to identify the source of the sickness. We
can see its effects on the body, but not the virus or bacteria
itself. It’s like a ghost in the system.”
Noah shook his head.
How could this be happening? For most of his life, he’d
listened to his father’s paranoid talk about a super-flu or
virus that might someday wipe out millions—even billions—of
people within a matter of months. If everything he was saying now was
true, this was the modern-day equivalent of something like the Black
Death. Or worse.
“So what exactly
do you know?” Noah asked. He sat down, ready to listen.
His dad grabbed his
laptop from the workspace and came to sit down beside him. He propped
it open and logged in through the backdoor of the CDC’s
website. He worked fast, bringing up a series of files labeled
““Unidentified Virus”.
“Everything we
know so far is in these files,” he said. “These are
classified and I’m not supposed to be showing them to you, but
I need for you to understand what’s going on.”
He stopped to cough,
leaning far away from Noah. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket
and Noah noticed a smear of blood as he tucked it back in his lab
coat.
Noah felt short of
breath. Coughing up blood couldn’t be good. And with no
official treatment, what exactly did that mean for his dad? Fear shot
through him, but he swallowed it down. He didn’t want to panic.
His dad would figure this out.
“The disease is
airborne,” his father said. “This is one of the main
reasons why it’s simply too late for a quarantine to work.
Anyone who has come close to someone who was infected or touched
anything they’ve touched is probably already infected.”
Noah wrinkled his
forehead. His mind was spinning.
“But with the
massive amounts of
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