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and that some important people needed to know the answers. He was used to working in an intelligence vacuum. He often worked with samples that came from “somewhere.” He didn’t need to know where the cylinders came from. What was unusual was the lack of any supporting information on what they suspected the cylinders to contain. He first figured this was some sort of a blind test, to see if he could identify a virus properly with no information.
    Colin had already done all of the standard assays and proved that the virus wasn’t similar to any of the well-known bioweapon agents. Whatever this was, it wasn’t something typical enough to have a standard assay procedure made for it. The next step in the process had been to do a DNA breakdown of the virus to see if it was close to any known species. It had actually taken him a while just to isolate the virus DNA. It wasn’t quite like any he had seen. It had a protein coat that was different somehow and that made it hard to detect. It was certainly a new class of virus. It had some similarities to a retrovirus but not quite. It was exciting and frustrating to work with. He was now trying to find out what sort of cell it attacked. He had been told by the person who had brought in the cylinders that it was probably a human phage, and that he should start there, but Colin was having trouble activating it.
    He had some suspicions about the bug that he hadn’t shared with anyone yet. He thought that it looked manipulated. He wasn’t a bioweapons expert, but he could guess that from the cylinders he scraped it out of and the hush-hush secrecy of the whole operation that it was some sort of genetically manipulated virus. He had heard of these things before. There were all sorts of rumors about what the Russians had been producing during the Cold War (not to mention what was going on in other parts of this very facility). It was probably something that they had dug up in a field in Kazakhstan. Colin would never know. He had been hired as a researcher, he wasn’t privy to any of the secrets they kept around here, and there were a lot of secrets.
    He eludicated the final sample for the day. He was mixing viral samples with different types of human cells to see if he could find a substrate that the virus would grow on. That would give him some idea of what sort of infection it caused. He was anxious to get finished. He didn’t like being in all this protective gear. Besides, his wife was now pregnant, and he needed to get home to help fix up the baby’s room. The child was due in three months.
    He looked up at the double reinforced glass window that separated the BL-4 from the rest of the Institute. Looking through the window back at him was a man that he only knew as Ray. A bead of sweat ran down Colin’s temple. He really wanted to be done for the day and get out of that damned suit.

    Late morning. The Watley family residence, Tyler, TX

    Lorraine watched the wisps of steam rise from the coffee mug. The light streaming from the window made the vapor seem brighter, more three-dimensional. She wasn’t even listening to Joyce’s droning on and on as she fixed the muffins. She just stared as the steam played around in the light. It wasn’t the sound of Joyce’s voice, nor her sitting down at the kitchen table that brought Lorraine out of her self induced oblivion, it was the motion of air that Joyce made as she roughly lowered her bulk into her seat. It disrupted the steam. Lorraine shook her head and looked up.
    “Why Lorraine, I don’t think that you’ve heard a word I’ve been saying. This whole thing really has you torn up.” Joyce was Lorraine’s neighbor. Their houses sat reasonably close together, nestled between the fields of corn. Joyce’s husband was also a farmer, and the two men were out on their tractors, preparing the fields for the spring planting. Joyce was a big, wild Texan of a woman. She had always lived in Tyler. She couldn’t imagine living