There was an argument to get Joanna Reece to make an appearance because she fears for her job and her personal safety. Luckily, Abe has everything planned as a push to get more people to use his bar. That covers new people coming and going where they had not before.
Jo sits casually in front of the TV trash talking the latest sports event, and Lucas sits near her but not with her. He takes a drink off a long-neck bottle of beer and eats one of Abe's famous sandwiches. At one of the loud moments in the game, Jo gets up as if she's going to the bathroom, and she doesn't come back.
A few minutes later, Lucas has finished his beer, and he takes a stroll only to disappear from the bar down to Henry's secret lab. The press of bodies keeping Abe in business that night takes their seats as if Jo and Lucas were never there. Abe runs around the Antiquarian keeping everyone happy and noisy while the secret meeting goes on down below.
When Lucas descends into Henry's lab, he sees that Jo and Reece are already there. Joanna Reece is giving Henry a look that can most reasonably be interpreted as "Are you kidding me?"
Henry acknowledges him. "Thank you for coming, Lucas. This is Joanna Reece. She is a virologist working for the government, one of the best there is, actually."
Lucas offers his hand to shake, and she pumps his hand one time firmly.
"Henry, whatever you've got planned had better be good," Joanna says.
He pauses her with a wave of his hand and turns his attention to Lucas. "Jo says I can trust you. I need to know for sure. If I can't, you can go back upstairs and enjoy the rest of the free beer and chicken wings that Abe is treating you to."
"Trustworthy how?" Lucas asks, suspiciously.
"Henry might know how to cure the plague," Jo says. "Well, he knows what caused the plague, but he needs help finding a cure."
Lucas pivots, looking at both Jo and Henry. "And how long have you known this?"
Henry smiles his smug secret smile. "That is privileged information only if you're staying. I need help. We all do, and Adam's government isn't going to find the cure."
"Why not?" Lucas asks.
"Because it's in his best interest that the cure is not found," Henry says as if dangling a carrot. "Are you interested?"
"Yes," Lucas answers and sits down.
Henry paces a little to organize his thoughts so he can get Lucas quickly up to speed with Jo and Joanna who know his secret now.
"I am old, Lucas. I was the original Dr. Morgan who was doing nanotechnology research before the outbreak of the plague. I am him, not his descendant. The reason I don't look old is that the nanites work. But there is one catch."
Because he was answering Jo's questions recently, Henry's mind is primed for those questions, but Lucas races ahead to Henry's conclusion. "The nanites caused the plague?"
"In a manner of speaking. Only two doses were ever made, and those doses were administrated to me and to Adam. They repair a body wonderfully when it's damaged or dies," Henry says, intrigued by the reveal of Lucas's intellect.
"Oh," the younger man says. Then he stares at Henry with a fortitude that hadn't even been hinted at during his work at the Center. "Tell me exactly what the nanites do."
"They harvest biological material to repair that which is dead or broken. Usually they scavenge fetuses in utero because those cells are easier to take."
Lucas nods his understanding, bobbing his head as he thinks about it. Then he stills and turns back to look at Jo, already suspicious if her miscarriage was a casualty of the nanites. She nods quickly to confirm his suspicion but turns her face away because she doesn't want to talk about it.
"So why do they only work for you and Adam?" Lucas asks. "If you're the expert, why aren't they working properly?"
"I don't know," Henry says in frustration. "Something essential about the programming of the nanites was changed. I've looked at my original research, what notes I still have. For simple machines, I can't change their behavior."
"That's why he talked to me," Reece says to Lucas. "I have researched some viral strains that might have changed the programming of the nanites."
"Is that even possible?" Lucas wonders aloud. Then he changes his thoughts. "How can I help with this?"
"I don't know if you can," Henry says coldly as he would to his former assistants. "Jo has a high opinion of you, and I have few resources to find this cure."
"Oh," Lucas says as if he understands. "I'm the only choice you have left."
"Sadly, yes," Henry answers honestly.
"So what do you want me to do?" Lucas asks and takes the files from Henry's desk. Jo sits quietly beside him and looks at the information he's holding.
"I'd like to turn the nanites off. Yes, their coding is wrong, but if they can just be turned off, then they'll never harvest another fetus again," Henry says as if it's simple.
Lucas turns the pages in the folder and asks casually, "Have you ever tried an electromagnetic pulse?"
"As a way to die? Yes. I'm still here," Henry says and sits down behind his desk.
"Can you help us, Lucas?" Jo asks him gently, her hand on his arm for added emphasis.
He sighs as he skims the notes. "I can try."
"If this works, our lives will change," Reece tells the group. "Some of the very institutions we've erected to combat the plague and its effects will no longer be necessary. Such as the Department of Reproduction."
"I wouldn't mind being out of work for that reason," Lucas says, his eyes still on the paperwork. "I assume I am working with you, Joanna."
"Yes," the older woman tells him before they size each other up.
"Can I take this with me?" Lucas asks of Henry's research.
"I'd rather you didn't," he says to protect his research, but then he relents. "If you must, but keep it hidden."
"Thank you," Lucas says as he stands. "I must be going. Joanna, it was lovely to meet you. I'll have to look you up soon for lunch, and we can talk one government employee to another."
"Good plan, Mr. Wahl," she says, shaking his hand.
He smiles at her and leaves. Henry visually follows his wake, surprised that another person has joined his crusade.