Ch. 5 - Lollipops
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Ray slipped into the lodge, looking distinctly uncomfortable when his entrance into the quiet room drew several glances. Father Jeff was speaking and, from the corner of his eye, Danny saw Ray cross himself before he began maneuvering through the crowd, heading in Danny's direction. If Danny were feeling more charitable, he would have met Ray halfway, but he didn't. His last instructions were for Ray to notify him immediately if there was any change in the group outside the gate and Ray had clearly taken those instructions to heart, most likely still smarting from his earlier lapse of judgment. Danny could think of no other reason why Ray would take the risk of interrupting the memorial.
Which could only mean that people had started getting sick.
As the priest droned on, Danny took the opportunity to pull Frankie closer. Feel her solid warmth. Touch her bouncing curls. Kiss her silky cheek. Smell her baby scent. Glancing up, he saw Kara watching him, Ray hovering a few steps back. Her mouth opened, then closed, both of them aware that this was neither the time or place to talk. Instead Kara reached for Frankie, shushing the child's somewhat sleepy protest at the transfer, allowing Danny to follow Ray back across the space. At the entrance he turned, catching one last glimpse of the two, memorizing the sight of Frankie's curls spilling over Kara's shoulder as she swayed, lulling the child.
As they stepped outside, Danny was briefly blinded by the sun. With the drapes closed the lodge was dark enough to forget that it was barely noon. He waited for the spots to disappear before moving briskly towards the armory, Ray hurrying to catch up. "Who is sick?"
"The first two guys. Kemper and Erm..." Ray began before Danny cut him off.
"I know that. Who else?"
"Your friend, that Eddie guy. And another guard, David Choy," Ray replied.
Danny froze in the process of sliding his knife into his belt, before forcing himself to continue gathering his gear. The chance of Amber and Tyler avoiding exposure if Eddie was sick was...well, Danny didn't know the stats but they weren't good. Re-locking the door to the armory, Danny scowled at Ray. "Who else?"
"That's it. Really. I called Doc Rios to double check because it seemed weird, right? I've never seen only four people in a group get infected. Usually it's everybody or nobody or maybe one person gets lucky but..."
Danny stopped listening. Only four people were sick.
The four people who didn't get the vaccine.
Danny scowled, dismissing the thought, but it was too late, he was already imaging it. A world with a vaccine. A world where they could fight this virus. A world where he might be able to leave his daughter without wondering if this was the last time he would see her. Pulling on every bit of patience his possessed, Danny kept his voice calm when he cut Ray off. "What did Rios say?"
"Oh," Ray paused in his babbling. "He and Doctor Scott need to see you ASAP. Lieutenant Burk is already with them. Lieutenant Bivas is at the command center."
"Thank you Seamen. You are dismissed."
As Ray practically ran in the direction of the guard shack, Danny forced himself to move towards the lab despite his feet feeling like blocks of lead, memories of the last time that he, along with Captain Chandler, was called to see Doctor Scott during a trial rising unbidden. Then, like now, the vaccine had seemed to be working. At first, anyway. Sure there were signs that there there were problems, high fevers and trouble breathing, but nobody was dying. Besides, Doctor Scott didn't seem concerned, likening the problems to the side-effects of a baby getting a vaccine. In fact, Doctor Scott had been ecstatic, her excitement so contagious that Captain Chandler agreed to share the news of the vaccine with the civilian government, bringing on a round of celebrations. Celebrations that abruptly ceased when those given the vaccine developed new symptoms, ones that neither Doctor Scott nor Doctor Tophet could explain or correct. Different from the virus, but with the same result.
Death.
A stark reminder that, no matter how close they got, the virus always won.
Approaching the small, isolated building that Doctor Scott and Doctor Tophet used as a lab, Danny could to hear the woman shrieking. "You don't understand. I need those samples!"
"Sorry ma'am but it's against protocol," Carlton was replying when Danny stepped through the door, the sight of the two clearly at loggerheads enough to leave him drained.
Doctor Scott's eyes flew to Danny. "Commander Green. Thank goodness! I need you to authorize me to go outside the gate. I absolutely must examine those people."
"Absolutely not." Besides the fact that it was against protocol, Captain Chandler's position on this was intractable. If he returned to find out that Danny allowed their best shot at stopping the Red Flu put herself in danger, no matter the reason, he might as well volunteer for latrine duty for the next year- and that assumed nothing happened. If something did... "You leaving the walls is non-negotiable."
"Then I'll go." Doctor Tophet stepped forward, causing Danny to notice him, Rios, and Kat for the first time.
"Same answer, Doc. You both know the drill. You need something, I can get it for you."
Doctor Scott looked like she might explode, her body practically quivering with rage or excitement or both. "It's simply too complicated. I need to be able to look at these people to figure out what is going on."
Danny folded his arms over his chest, wondering how far away Captain Slattery was in case Doctor Scott could not be convinced to see reason, something that had happened on more than one occasion. "Sorry, Doc, not happening."
"Let me go, Green." Rios's offer was unexpected. Unlike Scott and Tophet, Rios was rarely involved in the vaccine trials, the majority of his time spent handling the day-to-day medical needs of the camp, much as he had on the Nathan James back in the day, albeit on a larger scale.
Danny pinned Rios with his gaze. "Fill me in. Why is this so important?"
Rios picked up a folder, handing it to Danny, ignoring Doctor Scott's exasperated sigh. She scowled, foot tapping as Rios began explaining. "Based on the timeline we developed for the likely time of original exposure, those with the virus should have begun showing signs of infection by now. But the only the four who didn't receive the vaccine are sick."
The graphs in the folder meant nothing to Danny, medical information being something that he typically relied on Kara to translate. He passed the folder to Carlton, who looked equally perplexed. "So you think it worked? How do you know that they won't get sick later?"
Like the last time hung in the air.
"It more than worked!" Doctor Scott insisted, grabbing the folder and flipping to a different page, her finger stabbing at the left-most column. "Do you see this? It's a list of those infected with the virus at the time of the second blood draw when the trial vaccine was administered."
Jocelyn Kemper
Donna Kemper
Richard Ermer
Rob Abbott
Laura Abbott
Michaela Abbott
Hannah Abbott
Ted Moses
Jean Moses
Simon Costellini
Judy Barstow
Eddie Ward
Amber Ward
Tyler Ward
Danny stopped reading, the weight on his chest making it almost impossible to breathe. Forcing him to face how much he had hoped that Amber and Tyler might have escaped infection. How much he hoped that this vaccine might work. How much he wanted to tell Eddie that his self-sacrifice had meant something...
"But none of the people who received the vaccine are sick," Doctor Scott continued, flipping through the pages almost frantically before shoving them back at him, her eyes burning. "Based on these levels they should be sick but none of them are. Even the children. None of them are sick."
"So it hadn't been long enough," Danny replied shortly, slapping the folder closed, wanting to erase the sight of Amber's name, of Tyler's name, on that list.
"That's not it." Doctor Scott ground her teeth, her frustration with Danny's inability to comprehend the importance of what she was saying obvious. "The virus acts in a very specific way. It is scientifically impossible for this number of infected people to have avoided symptoms simply by chance."
"She's right," Rios added with a slightly-nervous glance at Doctor Scott. "I've seen the data."
Doctor Scott scowled at them as the silence stretched. "I have never lied to you. When I tell you that I am certain of something, I am certain. And I am certain that at least some of those people should be sick right now."
Danny nodded reluctantly. "So why aren't they?"
"I can think of only one reason," she replied.
"The test was wrong," Danny offered, that traitor hope creeping back in.
"The virus has mutated and is behaving differently," Doctor Tophet threw in.
"Is that possible?" Carlton demanded, looking sick at the very idea.
"The laboratory results are absolutely accurate," Doctor Scott replied, shooting a quelling look at her assistant. "Leaving only two possibilities. The possibility of a mutation. Something that is extremely unlikely given the fact that the virus has been stable for the past four years and that the bloodwork we took was completely consistent with past samples. Or..."
"Yes?"
"Or we didn't find a vaccine," Doctor Scott paused, taking a deep breath. "We found a cure."
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Forty-five minutes later Danny stood outside the wall, sliding a needle into Eddie's arm once again. On the opposite side of the clearing Rios was busy examining the eighteen members of the group who remained symptom-free. Doctor Scott had given Rios detailed instructions about what questions to ask and what symptoms to look for, but that had not stopped her from sitting in the command center and firing off question after question in a running commentary, leading Danny to turn off his com within minutes.
Eddie's face was pale, his skin burning up (102.5 according to the temperature Danny took in an effort to make it look like they were doing something for the sick men besides giving them cots and blankets and morphine), with large bruises forming under his skin where blood vessels had broken. Eddie answered Danny's questions about how he was feeling absently, eyes glued on Amber and Tyler, who was sobbing over the blood draw, despite the bribe Rios offered in the form of a lollipop. "They aren't sick yet. That's a good sign, right?"
"Eddie I can't.." Danny stopped. The man was dying. What was the harm in offering comfort, no matter how false it might be? "Yes, it's a good sign."
"And you'll take care of them?"
That pressure, the one that lifted slightly at the idea of Amber and Tyler surviving, was back, making it hard to speak. "Yeah."
"You'll make sure Tyler goes to school?" Eddie coughed, bending over almost in half, his action drawing the attention of his wife, tears spilling down her cheeks as she watched them, knowing that there was nothing she could do to help.
Danny imagined saying goodbye to Kara, to Frankie, trusting their safety, their very lives to another person. To a man he hadn't seen in years. Danny barely trusted Carlton to watch his daughter and the man was trustworthy as a rock, how could Eddie possibly trust Danny to take care of Amber and Tyler? "Yeah, I will."
Still coughing, Eddie grabbed Danny's sleeve. "You can't tell Amber either."
Rios was waving Danny over, presumably needing help with some of the tests that Doctor Scott wanted done. Not that anything was overly complicated but the thick hazmat suits made doing many of the simplest tasks tricky. "Can't tell her what?"
He waited while Eddie finished coughing, taking a drink from his water bottle. "You can't tell her that I didn't get the real vaccine. She'll be pissed off. Maybe do something stupid like blame you, which means you won't be able take care of her. You can't tell her. Promise me. Tell her that I was one of the people who was already exposed."
Eddie was right, Amber would blame Danny. And there wasn't a damn thing that Danny could do about it because, if this worked, if they could really cure the sick, she would know. She would know that Eddie died not because he was exposed before he received the vaccine, because there was nothing they could do. No, she would know that Eddie died because of Danny's decision to give the vaccine to someone else.
"Eddie..."
"Promise me."
Danny looked again at Amber. At the devastation on her face. At the way she held Tyler tightly against her chest. She would never forgive Danny once she knew. But what was one more lie when Danny had already told so many?
"I promise."
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Ravit was the only one who wasn't pacing, probably due more to the state of her ankles than a sense of calm. Doctor Scott had only been gone for thirty minutes, but Danny felt like days must have passed since he left Kara and Frankie at the memorial. There was complete silence when Doctor Scott finally exited the hazmat chamber where she conducted her testing, removing her mask slowly.
"Their bodies are producing antibodies, fighting off the virus. We should wait a few days to be safe but..." A tear slid down Doctor Scott's face, and then she smiled. "We did it."
Time slowed as her words sunk in.
They had a cure.
A way to heal the sick. A way to protect the healthy.
And they were out of ethanol.
So they couldn't make any more.
Danny turned to Carlton. "We need to contact Captain Slatter. Now."