The Fall: Victim Zero Read Online Free PDF Page B

back home. If things go bad, Cincinnati is going to be where it will all start.”
    There was a stressed-out sigh on the other end of the line. “I wish you could tell me what's going on, Kell. I don't like sitting here in the dark.”
    He pondered that for a moment, acutely aware that the cell phone he was talking on was probably being monitored. “You're smart, Karen. You know the kind of work I do. It's not quite worst-case scenario, but it has the potential. Stay at the hotel, but if I call you and tell you to run, be ready to do it. Not in an hour, but right then.”
    “ When will you be able to join us?” Karen asked.
    Biting back tears, Kell tried to put a smile in his voice. “You know I want to be there with both of you, but they need me here. I might be the only one who can fix this. I just need to know you're both safe. And I need to get to it.”
    “All right. Just finish this soon, okay? I love you, stretch.”
    Kell laughed. “Love you too, little bit. Kiss her goodnight for me.”
    “I will.”

Chapter Four
    Kell stared at the computer screen, at what he had written. The words weren't enough—couldn't be enough—but they were the best he could do. Three days of constant work, barely sleeping, had confirmed what he'd suspected from the start; Chimera was completely off the leash. He couldn't even begin to figure out how to slow down the organism, much less eradicate it completely. There was talk among the staff that perhaps the outbreak, which was now common knowledge within the office, wasn't a bad thing. After all, when you left it alone, Chimera ended up being a boon to whatever host it attached to.
    Kell remembered the mice, however, and knew the potential was there. Though he had some hope. Leibowitz pointed out that with so many positive results for carriers of the thing, they should have seen a mutation occur by now. If the whole outbreak was going to pivot into a nightmare, it should have happened already. At least thousands of people in the local area were infected, yet none of them had gone mad and attacked anyone else.
    The data seemed to bear out John Leibowitz's hypothesis that the variant strain introduced in David Markwell was unusually stable, but Kell still worried.
    Which was what drove him to write the note on his computer screen.
    My name is Kelvin McDonald, it began. Whoever is reading this is doing so in a worst-case scenario. If this message is found, it will only be because the organism that most of you have no idea you're carrying has mutated, turned into something destructive. I take full responsibility for this: it was my research that led other, less cautious men to take risks they shouldn't have.
    I've spent a lot of time trying to solve this thing, but I haven't had any luck. With the hope that someone else might be able to do the job, I have attached to this note all the research I have access to. Which is almost everything known about the organism.
    Kell read over that short introduction and decided it would need more work before it was final. There was so much he could say and probably should, but if Chimera hit the far end of the terror bell-curve and mutated in the same way it had in the mice, his guilty admissions would mean nothing. Anyone looking at his research would be aiming for a cure, not absolving him.
    He saved the file and shut down his computer. Three days of sleeping on the sofa in his office—not at all designed for someone of his size—was enough. Sitting there and pondering the same data sets wouldn't magically bring a solution.
    So he packed up for the day and left, calling Jones on his way out to let him know he'd be heading to see his family.
    “ I'll have a car pick you up at your house in the morning, then, Doctor McDonald,” Jones said after Kell told him he was leaving.
    “ No, that's fine. I'll just drive back in. I'm not going to the house anyway.”
    Jones cleared his throat. “Actually, I think you are. Your wife and daughter have left