Joel barely waits for the scanner to beep negative before pushing past the guards at the gate and breaking into a run. Fireflies up and down the wall tense and start to raise their weapons, probably worried he's trying to outrun a positive test, but a sergeant calms them down. Joel plows through the main entrance, cuts through the morass of people's daily routines, and takes the four flights of stairs two at a time. All the while, he cradles his pack to his chest, trying to keep it from clinking.

He reaches Ellie's room and nods shortly to the guards still posted outside. "Let me in."

The older of the two hesitates. "Dr. Anderson said . . ."

"Son, if you know what's good for you, you'll let me in."

Fortunately, Anderson himself notices Joel through the glass and ends the standoff by waving him through. Joel finds the room and its occupants much like they'd been when he left them hours before. Ellie is pale, covered in sweat, and almost senseless with pain. She's clutching her abdomen and rocking in bed while an IV drips yellow-stained fluids through her permanent catheter. The younger nurse - Nancy - stands beside her in a mask, gloves, and full surgical gown, stroking her hair and holding out a plastic basin, reeking of vomit. Ellie heaves again, but gets up nothing but a bit of white foam. Anderson stands on her other side, similarly dressed, checking her pulse and adjusting her EKG leads.

"I got it," Joel says without preamble, "That animal hospital down by the university. Like you said." He rips open his pack and pulls out a square pallet, wrapped in plastic, containing about a hundred tiny glass vials.

"Thank god," Anderson says shortly. He rips open the packaging and holds one of the vials up to the light, squinting at the faded label.

"It's dolasetron." Joel's tongue doesn't slip on the unfamiliar syllables. "Like you said. I wouldn't fuck that up."

Jerry nods and draws half the bottle up into a steel syringe. "It's twenty years expired, but it beats the hell out of nothing." He pushes up Ellie's hospital gown, pinches the skin over her abdomen, and injects. She screams, and Joel is about ready to go through the doctor to get to her, but Mia grabs him from the other side and holds him back.

"You can't touch her before you're scrubbed," she says, "Her white blood cell count is still too low. If you touch her, you could make her sick."

Joel swallows. "What the hell, doc? You said that drug would help."

"It will," Anderson says steadily, "Stings like a bitch going in, but it'll help. Go clean yourself up, Joel. She'll be feeling better by the time you get back."

Joel wants to stay and fight, but, like most days, there's nothing he can do. He lets the nurse nudge him back out the door and down the hall to the showers. At this hour of the day, the men's locker room is abandoned. Joel strips one layer at a time, shedding the black Firefly armband first. His coat is splattered with blood from the five infected he'd had to take down in the vet clinic's lobby. The flannel beneath is soaked in sweat from running in the August sun. He pants raggedly for breath, fighting the aftereffects of adrenaline.

The water from the rainwater showers is cold today, but that's mostly a blessing given how overheated he is. He sluices sweat and grime and gore off of himself as quickly as possible, using the antiseptic soap the nurse gave him. He's almost caught his breath by the time he towels himself off and dresses in the scrubs Mia left for him. She greets him without comment in the hallway and helps him dress the rest of the way, in a green surgical gown, mask, and gloves.

By the time he gets back to Ellie's room, she's no longer retching and convulsing. She's slumped in bed, eyes closed, panting and shining with sweat, but she no longer seems in danger of puking out her own stomach at any moment. Joel goes to her side, hardly noticing when he pushes Nancy out of the way in his haste. "Ellie?" He lays a hand over hers, but it barely twitches in response.

"She's out," Anderson says wearily, "With the extra anti-nausea medication, we were able to turn her morphine up. It's best if she sleeps through the worst of it."

Joel swallows and stares at the dripping IV. The yellow color bothers him, though Anderson has assured him that it's nothing but saline and vitamin supplements now. Or maybe it's the dripping that's getting to him. Just yesterday, Ellie was lying right here, cracking jokes and telling him not to worry and all the time, that damn IV had been dripping, filling her veins with Anderson's "experimental treatment," flooding her with what turned out to be poison.

"What went wrong?" Joel asks, his voice low but intense.

Anderson's face is cautious. "We don't know that anything did go wrong, yet. Nausea is a known complication of the therapy. Now that we have these other medications, we'll be able to control it." He's pulling another vial from the potpourri of medications Joel had tucked into his pack. This time, the injection goes in Ellie's IV line, and she doesn't react.

Joel scowls. "Then, why the hell didn't you give me your little shopping list two days ago, when it could have prevented this mess?"

"I didn't realize her symptoms would be this bad." Joel rounds on him, but Anderson holds up his hands, his voice placating but firm. "I made a mistake. It won't happen again."

All Joel can do is swallow his rage. He looks for another outlet. "And you're sure this is gonna be enough? Jesus, we're using animal drugs on her."

"They're human drugs. The vets used to get them from us." Anderson is unloading Joel's pack, taking a quick inventory. His face falls a little. "Did you find any of the controlled drugs I mentioned? Hydromorphone, methadone, even buprenorphine?"

Joel shakes his head. "Anything you could get high off of got used or looted ages ago."

"Okay. We'll make due."

"There's a couple more clinics I could try to the south. And the Shriner's hospital . . ."

"That hospital's been overrun by infected practically since Outbreak Day. You'd never get in and out alive."

"If she needs the drugs . . ."

"We'll divert morphine that normally would've gone to wounded operatives. She won't go without."

Ellie winces and grunts without waking. Anderson pushes a button on one of the fluid pumps and her face slackens. Joel stares at his hands. "What the hell are we doing here?"

"It's an early-stage trial. We're trying to use the therapeutic agent to modulate her immune system and study the Cordyceps response. That'll give us an idea of how her body is doing what it's doing, and from there, we can work towards more specific drug therapies."

Joel lets the medical jargon wash over him. Water off of a duck. "What the hell are we doing here?" he repeats.

"Did you read the info packet I gave you?"

Joel glares at him because, yes, he spent over two hours poring over the thick file, written entirely in doctor-speak, that supposedly detailed Anderson's plans. He'd even smuggled a dictionary out of the small, makeshift library on the second floor and looked up every word he didn't recognize only to see that half of them were Greek even to Merriam-Webster. And Anderson knows this, or at least he can guess.

So, he glares, but the look lacks heat because he is so tired of this brittle helplessness - of every day bringing some new horror that he has no way to fight.

Jerry doesn't get angry. His expression is conflicted. Joel wonders if he realizes, on some level, that what he's doing is breaking Ellie, or at the very least breaking Joel. "Look . . . maybe you should take a break from this for a little while? Just until her symptoms aren't as dramatic. I promise you, we're doing everything in our power to keep her comfortable."

Joel shakes his head. "I'm not leaving her."

"Joel . . ."

"I'm not. That was the deal, right? I let you try your little mad science, I don't put up a fuss, and you don't take her away from me."

Jerry sighs. "Okay. She'll sleep for a while longer. You can spend a little time. Just don't take your mask off - her condition is still fragile."

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Joel enters the clean room the next day and is enormously relieved to see Ellie sitting up in bed. She's pale but not sweating. Her hands are trembling a little, but she's sketching in her notepad. A tube down her nose carries nutrition she hadn't been able to stomach yesterday.

"Hey, kiddo. Feeling better?"

She manages a small smile. "Yeah. Good drugs."

He steps close to the bed but pauses when his eye catches on a book. It's a paperback, and it's lying in a corner with its pages crumpled, as if someone threw it against the wall with some force. He picks it up, smoothes it out, and reads the cover. The Parable of the Talents. Something about that rings a bell. He arches an eyebrow at Ellie. "This book do something to you?"

She huffs a sigh. "No." After a half second, though, she rolls her eyes. "Yeah. Kind of."

"Should I give it a good, stern talking-to?"

"Ha ha."

He flips to the back cover, but it's just an About the Author. Looks like she died a couple years before the outbreak. Good for her. "This is one of the ones Abby loaned you, right?"

"Yeah. It's the sequel to the one I told you about. Parable of the Sower."

"Not what you were hoping for?"

That's all it takes to open the floodgates. "No, and it's so fucking stupid. The last one was dark, but this one's just hopeless. So, they make it to northern California in the first one, right? And a bunch of people died along the way, but it's okay because they're gonna build their own settlement and be safe and maybe someday make it to the stars. And they were doing it, but this book just throws all of that out the window. As soon as they start trying to build, these crazy people attack them for no reason and burn everything down and take them all prisoner. And they get away in the end, but the main girl loses her brother and her husband and even her daughter gets taken away and . . ." She trails off and shrugs. "I just got tired of seeing them miserable."

Joel rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah, well . . . end of the world stories tend to be pretty grim. All the same, you shouldn't be damaging a book that ain't yours."

She huffs. "Sorry."

He tucks it under another half dozen books on her bedside table, so that the hard covers will press the bent pages flat. "Did you get to the end?"

"No. I kind of gave up."

"Maybe you should. You never know. She might still make it to those stars."

She sighs. "Maybe."

He sits down by her bedside. "How are you feeling."

"Better," she says quickly, "A lot better. Dr. Anderson says I can try some solid food tonight."

"Yesterday sucked."

"Yeah, but he says the first treatment is the worst. The rest shouldn't be bad, and there's only three more scheduled." She pauses and smiles. "Besides, it was worth it. Marlene came by this morning. Check out what she got me."

From under her loose-fitting tank top, Ellie pulls out a small silver chain. Joel feels his chest tighten with foreboding. She pulls the pendant from her neck and holds it out so he can see. On one side, the Firefly emblem stands out, all sharp angles. After a moment, she flips it so he can read the other side.

Ellie Miller.

She misses the look on his face. She's running the chain between her finger and thumb. "Marlene says my mom's name was Williams. She wanted to put that on the pendant. But, I convinced her to do this instead."

"Give me that." His voice is harsh and rough. She looks up, confused, but holds it out for him. He snatches it and stuffs it deep in his pocket, without looking at it.

The confusion turns to hurt. She seems close to crying, but she makes her face harden and forces a scowl instead. "Look, Joel, if you don't want me using your name, you could just say so. You don't have to be a dick about it."

"It ain't that." Joel's eyes are squeezed shut. Then, he opens them, looks at her, and realizes how badly he's fucked up. He sighs. "It ain't that. Ellie . . ." He reaches out to touch her shoulder, but she twitches away, angry. "Ellie, listen to me . . . You're family. Of course you can be a Miller if you want to be, though I'm not gonna leave you much of an inheritance. But, you ain't a Firefly."

"Joel . . ."

"No. Look, these people oughta be thanking you on bended knee for what you're doing here. Not giving you little pats on the head while they try and recruit you into their little crusade."

"And what if I believe in their crusade?"

"You can believe all you want, but once you put on that pendant, they own you. You're one more foot soldier in their war, and most of those soldiers have ended up dead. You ain't seen what I've seen, girl. You're not joining them."

"You joined them!"

"That's different. I did that to keep you safe. And lord knows I'm old enough to make my own decisions."

"Yeah, well so am I!"

"You're not. I know you think you're all grown up, but, Jesus Christ, Ellie, you're fourteen!"

"I'm fifteen."

The sharpness in her voice stops him.

She swallows. Shrugs. "It was my birthday. Yesterday. That's why Marlene brought the pendant. It was my birthday present."

Joel stares at her for a moment, then sighs and sags in his chair. "Why the hell didn't you say anything?"

"I had a treatment scheduled. Dr. Anderson warned me it was gonna get rough, and I knew you'd pitch a stink. And I want it to be done."

Joel stands and paces. "I'd have gotten you something."

"You broke into an overrun clinic, killed god-knows how many infected along the way, and brought back the medicine that got my symptoms under control, and you did it in two hours. I think you're off the hook for presents this year."

Joel rakes his hands through his hair. He returns to her side. "Ellie . . . we're gonna have presents. And cake and a fucking party, but that's for when all this is done. And it will be done, sooner or later. This ain't gonna be your whole life."

She blinks a few times, turns away, and nods. She forgives so easily. It scares him, sometimes. She gestures towards her guitar. "C'mon. Teach me something. I've almost got that one chord down."

He nods and settles the guitar in her hands and walks her through some chord progressions. But, the whole time, the pendant sits heavily in his pocket, a weight he can't ignore.

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The next three treatments aren't as bad, but when they're over, Anderson announces that they'll have to do another round. Even with the feeding tube, Ellie is losing weight - fast. Within two weeks of her birthday, she's thinner than she was in Colorado. Her white blood cell count is up and down. Most days, Joel has to wear full mask and gloves to be around her. Some days he can't touch her at all. What scares him the most, though, is when her hair starts to fall out. She tries to hide it by pulling it back into ponytails. She tucks her hairbrush under her mattress so he won't see the big clumps that cling to it each morning. Still, he finds long strands - once russet-brown, now dull and lank - on her pillow and her sheets and the floor around her bed.

Joel might be stubborn, but even he can admit when he's out of his depth. After too many nights of staring at the tiny font of the "literature packet," he decides to call in someone better equipped to translate this kind of gibberish. His options are limited. Joel hasn't exactly been personable. The Fireflies in his "unit" know him as the loner who somehow weaseled his way out of PT, goes on solo scouting runs, and is constantly skirting the edge of insubordination. He knows them well enough to say hello and he doesn't think he's made any major enemies, but they won't be lining up to help him either. The rest know him only by reputation - as the immune girl's guardian and as a bit of a loose cannon. His options are slim, but he thinks he knows who might be in the best position to help him out.

His first instinct is to look for her at the gym, but she might not take kindly to him pestering her if she's there doing PT with her buddies. He decides instead to check the library, late in the evening when her older comrades are off drinking and gambling in the off-duty hours. Tucked in among dusty stacks of science textbooks, political theory, and military training manuals, there's a small fiction section featuring paperbacks and hard covers in varying states of disrepair. He finds her there, lying on her back with her booted feet kicked up on the wall, seemingly immersed in something by Steinbeck.

"Hey, Abby."

She sits up and tucks her book away at once. "Joel." Her brow furrows. He hasn't had much one-on-one interaction with her since their first meeting, though she's been coming by to visit Ellie a couple times a week. Might be her dad keeping her away, Joel thinks, especially since things have turned frosty between them. "Is everything okay? Is it Ellie?"

She thinks he's come to tell her that something's gone wrong, and Joel feels a pinch of fear that if she's worried too, then there must be something to worry about. He forces that down and makes himself smile. "She's fine. She's feeling a lot better today. Kept down breakfast and everything. I'm here because I was hoping you could help me with something."

She rolls to her feet - a nifty little move without using her hands that she probably learned in PT. "What is it?"

There are a handful of small tables here and there, surrounded by cracked plastic chairs repurposed from waiting rooms. Joel gestures her over to one of them. The library is mostly empty at this time of the evening, but there's no point in drawing attention to themselves. From his pack, he pulls out the damn literature packet, now much creased and dog-eared. He lets his smile turn a little self-deprecating. "Now, I'm sure this'll be a surprise, given I'm such an upstanding citizen now, but when I was your age I didn't have much use for school. Never finished and never paid much attention while I was there - way too preoccupied with raising hell and chasing tail. Now, your dad gave me this info packet on his plans for Ellie. I've gotta parse through it so I can know what to expect and be there for her. But, I can't make heads or tails of the damn thing. Wondered if maybe you could."

Her brow is furrowed with doubt, but she reaches for the packet and flips past the title page. "I'm not a scientist like my dad. It was never really my thing."

"Sure, but you had to have picked up something. Gotta imagine he'd rub off a bit."

"A little." She chews on her lip. "This . . . this is written like a grant proposal. Like they used to write in the old days to get funding or get permission to do a study. Dad's had me read a few of them."

"There's no one here to ask permission from," Joel points out, "Besides maybe Marlene."

She shakes her head. "Maybe he was just writing it as a record. To organize his thoughts and plan out the study."

She flips the page and scans for a moment, twiddling idly with her braid. "A lot of this is way beyond me," she says, "And the parts that I do get . . . they don't make any sense."

"I know he's been dosing her with drugs. Different 'chemical therapies' every couple days, plus daily pills and other medications. She keeps getting sicker, and he keeps telling me it's all just expected side effects. I don't get half of what he's talking about most of the time."

She consults the table of contents for a moment. "They have the drug therapies listed later on." She flips a few pages forward and squints at a list of words that look like mixed-up Scrabble blocks to Joel. "I know a couple of these . . . but why would she be on prednisone? And . . . holy shit, doxorubricin? Cyclophosphamide? Nobody's used these drugs in . . . decades, probably." Her face is tightening as she studies the list. She swallows hard.

"What is it?" Joel prompts.

"It's nothing, it's . . . it's probably nothing. I've gotta be misunderstanding this. My dad's taught me a little, but I'm nowhere close to his level."

"Just give me something. Even if it's just a hunch. Please."

A hint of suspicion suddenly enters her eyes and she looks up at him. "Why are you so set on figuring this out? Why not just ask my dad if you've got questions?"

"I have. He gives me the same doctor-speak runaround every time."

"I'm sure if he knew you really didn't understand, he'd . . ."

"Trust me, he knows. But, I suspect it's easier to keep me in the dark about this kind of thing. Keeps me from pitching too much of a fuss if I don't like what I hear."

She tugs on her braid nervously. "Joel . . ."

He holds up a hand. "Now, I'm not asking you to go against him. I'd never ask that - he's your dad. But, I just need to figure out what all this means for Ellie. Because I don't understand, and she doesn't either."

Her square jaw tightens with sudden determination. "Okay . . . but I have to be sure. A lot of this stuff is above my level, but I've got this . . . friend. She's one of his students, and if anyone can figure this out, she can."

"Abby . . ."

"Just give me a little time." She stands and rolls up the packet so she can stuff it in her pocket. "I've got it. Promise."

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It's two nights later and Joel is kicking back in his bunk, trying to get at least a couple hours shut-eye before he has to take first watch on the wall, when he's startled out of a near-doze by an urgent knock at the door. His first thought is that it must be Marlene or Jerry, come to tell him something's gone wrong. He springs to his feet and wrenches the door open, but on the other side there's just Abby, wearing a haunted expression. She pushes into the room and closes the door, not giving him a second to point out that it's deeply inappropriate for him to have a teenage girl in his room at this hour of the night.

"We figured it out. Sort of."

This room was equipped to sleep four in bunk beds pressed against either wall. Joel sleeps in one bed, with his extra clothes and gear on the upper bunk. The other holds his weapons. Abby shoves his shotgun aside and sits down on the bare mattress. Joel is suddenly glad that he never got out of the habit of sleeping in a shirt, jeans, and boots.

She plunges in without giving him a chance to ask why she's there. "When I was little, my dad used to teach me how to tie knots. He'd always start by having me untie the finished knot. He used to say that if you can undo something, you know at least half of how it's done." She pulls the now battered sheaf of papers from the pocket of her coat. "I went through the whole protocol. With that friend I told you about. I knew those drugs sounded familiar, and there's a reason for that." She flips to the page with the various drugs listed. They've been underlined or circled, and there are scrawled notes in the margins, written in pencil. "The drug protocol that Dad put Ellie on . . . he didn't invent it. All of the drugs she's getting were used pre-outbreak, only they were used on cancer patients."

Joel nods, more weary than surprised. "Yeah, I had a feeling."

She blinks. "What?"

"Her symptoms . . . they all fit with someone who's getting chemo. Used to be pretty common before the outbreak. Happened to a friend of my dau . . . to a family friend. So, I got to see some of the symptoms up close." He fixes his eyes on the girl. "What I don't understand is why."

Abby chews on her lip. "Why is worse than what." She looks down at the papers in her hands, but she's clearly organizing her thoughts more than she's reading. "The drug regimen - the chemo? - it was designed to fight lymphoma. That's an immune system cancer. The drugs target the bone marrow and end up suppressing her immune system. That's why her white blood cell count keeps dropping and why she keeps getting sick. But that's not the worst part. That's back in the objectives section." She flips back a few pages and points to a section that's been circled with a pen stroke so hard it almost tore through the paper. "Just read it."

Joel picks it up and reads, though he has to sound out a few of the words like a first grader. "'Objective: to investigate whether suppression of antibody-based immunity is efficacious in enabling spread of target organism within and beyond the central nervous system, thereby enabling less invasive sampling and excision methods.'" He looks at Abby and arches an eyebrow. "What the hell does this mean?"

"That he's suppressing her immune system."

"Right. He did that months ago when he took away her food. He said he was looking for little changes on blood work or brain scans that would tell him what he needed to know."

"This isn't the same thing. The therapy is going for 'full blown immunocompromise.' That's what my friend called it. You can't give chemo to someone who has an infection. Whether it's a fungal infection or bacterial or anything else. Once the drugs hit the immune system, the infection runs wild. It grows out of control. I think . . ." She hesitates, swallows, then makes her decision. "I think he was trying to take away her immunity. To make her turn. If you can't figure out how to tie the knot . . . you try untying it."

Joel hadn't thought that anything could surprise him anymore, but at those words he feels something icy spread through his veins. He stands and paces in the small open space by the beds. It's too terrible to be true.

It makes too much sense not to be true.

"Joel?" Abby says quietly. "What now? What do we do?"

He forces his mind back to practicalities. "We don't do anything," he says firmly, "You've stuck your neck out way too far for Ellie and me already. You go home, you forget this conversation ever happened, and you let me handle it."

Her jaw tightens mulishly. "She's my friend."

"He's your dad."

"But, he's wrong!"

"He has his reasons, like everybody does. Don't get yourself involved in this. I know what I've gotta do, and I can't have anybody else getting involved."

"But, Joel . . ."

"Girl. It's time for you to go."

She hates it, but she obeys, and that's all he needs from her.

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The night guards by Ellie's room aren't more than teenagers themselves. They're easy enough to bribe, though it costs Joel two bottles of alcohol and all of his remaining coffee. They've both seen him coming and going at all hours for months; there's no reason for them to suspect any harm in one late-night visit.

Ellie is asleep when he enters. The only light is what filters through the windows from the wall outside and the soft red glow of the pulse ox that she now wears 24/7. Joel sits beside her and touches her shoulder, gently.

She wakes with a start and he lays his hand over hers. "Hey, kiddo."

She blinks a few times. "Joel? What are you doing here? What's wrong?"

He doesn't respond immediately - just smiles and squeezes her hand.

"Joel, you're scaring the fuck out of me. What is it?"

"Ellie . . ." He trails off, pauses, and tries again because this is important. "There's something I've gotta do. They probably won't let me see you for a while afterwards, or . . . they might not let me see you ever again. I need you to know that, whatever you might hear, it's not about me wanting to leave you. There's something I've gotta do to keep you safe. That's all. There's no other choice, here."

"Joel, what the fuck?"

Her hair is falling into her face. He brushes it back and a few long hairs cling to his hand, long after it's left her head. "I need you to be brave for a while longer. Don't trust what they tell you an' don't . . . don't give them permission to hurt you. No matter how important they say it is. No matter how good a cause it seems. You do everything that you can to stay safe."

"Joel . . ."

He leans down and kisses her forehead, feeling the weight of something unsaid between them - something that'll just have to be understood. "Goodbye, baby girl."

Before pain can overwhelm duty, he stands and turns toward the door. She calls after him, but he doesn't turn back.

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Anderson inspects the wall once a week. It's largely ceremonial but represents his one concession to the responsibilities of commanding the Salt Lake base - all of his other logistic and administrative duties get farmed out so he can focus on his research. The inspection is a chance to see and be seen by the Fireflies' rank and file and a chance to remind them all of their mission.

It's Joel's best chance to catch him out in public, with as many eyes around him as possible.

Joel leaves his weapons neatly arranged on the spare bunk - even his shivs and club. He's not here for a fight. He arms himself only with the research information, now tucked in a folder to protect the battered pages.

He finds Jerry by the gate, talking to the watch commander while a few dozen Fireflies stand at attention. It's only a fraction of the couple hundred that live and work in the QZ, but it's the widest audience Joel's going to get. The rumor mill is certainly up to the task of carrying his words to every corner of the facility.

He sees the moment Anderson notices Joel striding towards him. The doctor trails off mid-sentence. His brow furrows . . . then hardens. As for Joel, his own face is a mask of righteous anger. The Fireflies nearest him shy away despite themselves. "What the hell, Anderson?" he says in a tone that's controlled but meant to carry, "You want to tell these folks the truth?"

Jerry takes a half step towards him. "Joel, whatever it is, we can discuss it privately."

"No, I think we ought to discuss it right here. Everybody here is affected, after all." A couple of guards step between Joel and the doctor, rifles in hand. Joel smiles without humor. "Relax, kids. I'm not here to hit him." He turns toward the crowd, which is now shifting anxiously. He's not one for speeches, but he's always been able to do what he has to do to survive. He raises his voice. "I am here," he raises the research packet, "To talk about the lies this man has been telling you. To talk about how he's puttin' your lives - your mission - at risk just to test out his theories."

"You don't know what you're talking about," Jerry says tersely.

Joel glances at him. "I know that I brought you a completely immune person. The first one in the whole world. A breakthrough. A miracle. And you're trying to piss that away." He looks back at the crowd, which is now murmuring quietly. They fall silent when he speaks. "I'm sure you all know that people die from Dr. Anderson's experiments. A lot of them turn first. Some of you have lost friends that way - heroes to the cause that thought they were giving their lives to make somethin' better. What they didn't know - what he's kept from all of you, too - is that he's been trying to add one more casualty to the list of people who've turned." He pauses and spits Anderson with a sharp glare. "Ellie," he says flatly, "The immune girl. The only girl in the goddamn world that's immune . . . and he's trying to make her turn."

"You are so far out of your depth it's almost funny . . ."

"Why don't you educate me, then? Why don't you tell us all about the immunosuppressive cocktails you put her on - the chemo drugs? What happens if you give chemo to somebody with a fungal infection? The fungus spreads. Gets out of hand. It ain't really that complicated."

"Miller, this is your last warning . . ."

"And letting it get out of hand was the whole point, wasn't it? It's right here in your notes for anybody to read. You wanted the Cordyceps to spread - to take over her brain. You thought somehow if you could just watch that you could figure out how it happened. Only, that's gonna kill her. She'll turn, like all the rest of your guinea pigs, and then your last chance for a cure is just gonna be so much spore-riddled meat inside a crematory oven. And you'll have lost all hope of a cure."

The crowd is muttering, now. Nobody calls out in protest or support, but many faces are conflicted. Conflicted and young and scared. Jerry's face is white with rage. "I think we've heard enough of these ravings. Sergeant, take Private Miller to the brig. Charges of insubordination."

The guards hesitate, and Joel thinks, just maybe, he might have a shot.

Anderson swallows and raises his voice. "I want everyone besides essential personnel assembled in the mess hall at twelve hundred. I'll address questions and clear up any rumors. But, right now I want this man out of my sight."

There's conflict in their faces, but the guards who'd moved to block Joel now step forward and grab his shoulders. Joel doesn't resist as they twist his arms behind his back and secure his wrists with zip ties. Joel recognizes one of them as Private Hernandez, a woman he'd met on his very first day here. She takes the research packet from him. He lowers his voice to a whisper. "You pass that around, now, you hear?"

tbc