Dustin Thomason - 12.21

And as she disappeared from his sight, he fought back tears.

IT HAD BEEN NEARLY SIX HOURS SINCE DAVIES HAD DROPPED Thane outside the hospital, and Stanton was anxious. He stared out the window, watching the sun creep over the horizon, waiting for his phone to break the silence. For anything to break it. The Venice boardwalk was also too quiet for his taste. He wanted to hear one of the vendors yelling at tourists not to take pictures of his “art,” or the bearded guitarist, the Walk’s honorary mayor, playing as he roller-skated back and forth. Or hear Monster knocking on his door.

“I’d suggest a nip.”

Davies held a lowball glass of Jack Daniel’s in Stanton’s direction, but Stanton waved him off. He could use something, though. Why hadn’t Thane called? The injections should be done. He’d tried her cell but had been unable to get through. Cell service in L.A., always spotty, was basically nonexistent now. Still, Thane should’ve found a landline.

Finally his phone rang. A local number he didn’t know. “Michaela?”

“It’s Emily.”

Cavanagh. Shit. “What’s up?” he asked, trying not to raise suspicion.

“You need to meet me at the command center immediately, Gabe.”

“I’ve got some denaturing experiments running here,” he lied, glancing over at Davies. “I could get over there in a few hours.”

“The director’s here in L.A., and he wants to talk to you,” Cavanagh said. “I don’t care what you’re doing. You need to come now.”

CDC DIRECTOR ADAM KANUTH had been in Washington and Atlanta since the outbreak began, and his absence in L.A. had been noted by nearly everyone, including the press. Advocates said he’d been deftly administrating cases popping up around the country and now the world. Detractors said he’d been avoiding L.A. because he didn’t want to risk infection.

Ash rained down on Stanton as he stepped out of the car at the CDC’s command center. Wildfire had erupted in the hills above the HOLLYWOOD sign and consumed a hundred acres, hanging smoke clouds from downtown to the ocean. Stanton did his best to gather himself before going in. He had never liked the CDC director. Kanuth had come from the Big Pharma world, and he talked about science as if it were economics—supply following demand. Rare diseases got rare grants. Now, Kanuth would want to talk exclusively about containment. He’d want to talk about how quarantines in other cities should be managed. And Stanton would have to do it with still no word from Thane.

Inside the old post office, CDC employees worked behind bullet-proof-glass windows that once protected against unhinged postal workers. Aging posters advertising Ronald Reagan Forever stamps still hung on the walls. A J-1 officer led Stanton toward the postmaster’s office.

Cavanagh sat in a chair in front of the desk. Stanton noticed that she wouldn’t look him in the eye. Behind the desk sat Kanuth, a barrel-chested man in his mid-fifties with thinning silver hair and a beard.

“Mr. Director. Welcome to Los Angeles.”

There was no chair for Stanton to sit in. Kanuth nodded perfunctorily. “We have a problem, Gabe.”

“Okay.”

“Did you send a resident from Presbyterian Hospital in to give injections of murine-based antibodies to a group of patients? Despite our orders not to?”

Stanton froze. “Excuse me?”

Cavanagh stood. “We found two dozen syringes, and they were full of murine-based antibody solutions.”

Had they caught Thane trying to give the injections?

“Where is Dr. Thane now?” Stanton asked carefully.

Kanuth looked at Cavanagh. “She was found at the bottom of a stairwell with her neck broken. As far as we can tell, she died on impact.”

Stanton was in shock. “She fell down the stairs?”

Cavanagh stared him down. “She was killed by a patient.”

“Unless you want to tell me that she was carrying on a secret antibody trial on her own,” said Kanuth, “I assume that you are responsiblefor this.”

Stanton closed his eyes and saw Thane’s face as he arrived at Presbyterian for the first time, after she’d dragged him in to see a patient he might well have ignored. The look on her face when she saw the lab they’d built inside the condo; her quick willingness to help, with little concern for her own career. He heard the hope in her voice when she left to give the injections to her colleagues.

“I enlisted her to give the antibodies,” he whispered finally.

“You wanted permission to test them on a sample group,” Cavanagh said. “We’d already brought it to the FDA chief, and we were less than a day away from clearance. We could’ve done it under controlled conditions. Now a woman is dead because you decided to ignore direct orders.”

Kanuth said, “Not only that, but when people out there learn what happened—and they will—they’ll say we’re losing internal control. We have a whole fucking city looking for any reason to burst, and you’ve given them another one.”

“Turn in your ID, and don’t try to go back to the Prion Center or to any other CDC facility,” Cavanagh said. She sounded disgusted.

“You’re fired, Dr. Stanton,” said Kanuth.

CHEL SAT BENEATH THE APPLE TREES ON THE GETTY’S SOUTH lawn, smoking and gazing down on the maze of azalea in the courtyard below. She needed a moment to rest, to distract herself, to recharge.

“Chel , ” someone called from a distance.

Through the fog she made out Rolando standing at the top of the stairs leading to the central plaza. Behind him was Stanton. Surprised, Chel wondered why he had come. Had the satellites found something? Whatever brought him here, she was pleased to see him.

Rolando waved and peeled off, leaving them alone.

“What’s happening?” Chel asked Stanton at the bottom of the stairs. She immediately noticed how exhausted he looked. It was the first time they’d been physically together since the night she’d come clean and they’d visited the Gutierrez house. Whatever she’d been through the past few days didn’t compare to what was written on his face.

They moved to one of the chessboard-covered tables on the south-pavilion landing. Stanton told her everything that had led up to Thane’s death, then what had happened after.

“I should never have let her take that risk,” he said.

“You were trying to help. If you could get the antibodies to work—”

“The antibodies are useless.” His voice had a bitter edge to it. “The tests failed, and even if they worked, they’d be considered too risky. She died for nothing.”

Chel understood only too well what it felt like to be cut off from everything you knew. But she’d had a reprieve—thanks to him. She didn’t know how to give him the second chance he’d given her. So she just took his hand.

They sat in silence for nearly a minute before she broached the other subject on her mind. “So I guess… nothing on the satellites?”

“I’m not exactly in the loop anymore,” Stanton said. “I thought maybe you would have heard something from CDC. But I guess not. What’s happening on your end?”

“We’re close to deciphering the end of the codex. There could still be some kind of a locator in the final sections, though we’re facing a few significant challenges.”

“Let me help.”

“With what?”

“With your work.”

“Do you have a PhD in linguistics I don’t know about?”

“I’m serious,” Stanton said. “Our processes aren’t so different. Diagnose the problem, look for comparables, and then search for solutions from there. Besides, maybe an outside perspective could be useful.”