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from around the world, but the scope of what they were dealing with was beyond anything he could even imagine. Paulson was a strong man, not prone to outbursts of emotion and certainly not given to crying in public, but it was all he could do to contain himself. Yet he had to focus now, focus on the tasks at hand—keep the nation functioning and maintain strong leadership. He touched the icon on his screen showing the video call from Dr. Bellany. He pulled the widow up beside General Rowan’s so all of them could talk. Bellany’s torso appeared as a hologram beside Rowan’s.
    “Dr. Bellany,” Paulson said.
    “Mr. Vice President, glad to see you’re okay.” Dr. Bellany was wearing full contamination gear, including a large white helmet with a clear plastic visor.
    “It’s Mr. President now, Doctor. So what can you tell me about this attack?”
    “Sir, we believe this is a virus, a virus unlike anything we’ve seen before. It even hit the CDC hard. The only survivors were already in containment suits or airtight chambers at the time of the attack.”
    “I thought that most viruses took at least several days to spread through and infect the population, that there was an incubation period before people start dying,” Paulson said. “This virus seems to have infected people and killed them in a matter of hours.”
    “You’re right, sir,” Bellany said. “But this is no ordinary virus. Now keep in mind I’ve only had about three hours to gather data, so this is very preliminary. Most of our staff was at home at the time of the attack, so we're woefully short-staffed. There were only a dozen or so of us working late tonight, and just four of us were in the containment chamber suited up when the virus struck. The others . . . the ones outside, are all dead.”
    Bellany wiped a shaky hand across his visor, as if he could wipe the tears from his eyes. “I’m sorry, gentlemen, it’s just that this has happened so quickly and we’ve lost so many good people—friends, colleagues, my family. I . . . I don’t know what’s happened to them.”
    “It’s okay, Doctor,” Paulson said. “We’ve all lost people in this attack.” He thought of his wife, his two sons, and his daughter, as well as all the grandkids. He didn’t know for sure, but it was likely all were gone. He pushed the thought from his mind. There would be time for grieving later. First they had to get organized, care for the survivors, and prepare a defense. That meant finding out what caused this and devising plans to fight it.
    “Based on the evidence,” Dr. Bellany was saying, “my first thought was that the virus has already gone airborne and has been that way since symptoms started to appear. I confirmed that with air samples taken here in our offices. We’ve been able to isolate the organism, filtering out dust, other microbes, and small particles. It’s something we’ve never seen before. Our analysis shows that it’s part organic and part mechanical, and about twice the size of your standard virus. I’m sending a picture to you now.”
    A strange organism appeared, floating silently across the screen. It was circular, with short spikes jutting out at odd angles all around it. Some parts were light and others dark, similar to the look of an X-ray of a bone repaired with metal parts.
    “Is that metal, Doctor? ” Paulson asked. “Something that can occur naturally?”
    “No, sir. These miniature components were definitely constructed by someone.”
    Paulson frowned. That meant that this virus was engineered to kill. His worst fears were now confirmed; this was indeed a terrorist attack.
    “It’ll take us a while to determine exactly what it is,” Bellany continued. “But we do know that it’s all over the air, twelve hundred parts per cubic meter, which is about the same quantity of pollen you’d see at the peak of allergy season. In other words, it’s everywhere, and there’s really no way, without wearing a gas mask, to