Chapter 7

METROPOLITAN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Infection Date 12, 1000 GMT (6:00 a.m. Local)

Isabel rose early in Emma’s apartment and read two unremarkable Beth updates, the highlight of which was that Emma lacked REM sleep. In a towel, hair wet after showering, Isabel found that her jeans and T-shirt needed another spin in the dryer. She washed T-shirts and underwear daily, and jeans every other day.

She lived out of her overnight bag, which did little to make Emma’s place feel like home, so Isabel browsed Emma’s closet. Some skinny jeans might do in a pinch, but the rest was unwearable. Short party dresses, silky tops with plunging necklines, slinky backless and sideless gowns, and two, two, skimpy costumes, both with furry tails. They went well with the large box of condoms in the nightstand, probably from Sam’s Club. Isabel felt a pang of guilt at the thought, and in the end left it all alone. Emma hated when anyone messed with her things. Despite being twins, they’d never shared clothes.

Emma’s small writing desk was covered inches high in a chaotic mess of unopened mail. Bills, party invitations, catalogs, ads for duct cleaning. Mardi Gras beads draped the desk lamp. In a drawer, she found a Viagra bottle whose prescription was for a man she didn’t know. Her own place, she realized, was G-rated. Isabel yawned and got back into bed while she waited. Rick Townsend had been so nice on the flight back from Russia. He had found her crying during a break from being with Emma, and put his arm around her and repeated the magic words that all males should be taught in preschool: “I understand.” When she closed her eyes, she concocted an implausible scenario in which Rick needed a place to stay for the night. No rooms in any inns. He offered to sleep on the couch. Nonsense. He could have his side of the bed, she hers.

The dryer buzzed, waking Isabel. Her clothes were warm and smelled fresh. She turned on the TV as she brushed her teeth. “The State Department cited unrest in China,” the anchorman said, “as the reason for the travel ban but declined to speculate on the cause of the unrest. The BBC, however, confirmed reports of panic over a plague-like infection that broke out along the border with Russia. No details about the disease have reached Western news media since China shut down all contact with the affected regions.”

A loud knocking startled Isabel.

She peered through the peephole at two men in dark suits. When she opened the door, they flashed FBI badges and asked if they could come in. Isabel swept her arm back in a perturbed, what-the-fuck-ever invitation. An agent handed her a cell phone.

“You know you’re missing the whole point of cell phone technology. Normally, I would just give you my number.”

“This phone’s encrypted,” said a man on its screen, whom she assumed was Andrew Pearson. He sat at a desk, in a loosened tie and sleeves rolled up thick forearms as if he’d been there all night. A portrait of President Stoddard hung on the wall behind him. “I’ll be brief. Russia and China have begun general mobilizations. That’ll trigger automatic upgrades in our force posture, although people, ships and aircraft are already in motion all around the world, mostly redeploying back to the US. So, what’s your update?”

“Sir, science doesn’t move that fast. Empiricism requires steady, incremental . . .”

“Dr. Miller! Every disease research facility on Earth is now a twenty-four-hour operation.” She felt a stab of guilt for grabbing a little sleep. “Get in the fucking loop and call when you know something. And remember, nobody’s telling the truth. Trust no one.”

Including you? she thought about his warning. He hung up before she snickered. It was a paradoxical statement like, “I always lie.” But the humor seemed lost on the departing agents, who left the encrypted phone behind with her.

On the drive to the NIH hospital in her nondescript government car, she checked the rearview mirror repeatedly but saw only normal traffic. All was routine except at the Beltway exit, where soldiers in helmets unloaded a bulldozer from a green Army trailer.

Isabel headed straight for Emma’s observation room. “You’re early!” Hank said. Beth pulled her tablet to her chest, her eyes darting between Hank and Isabel.

“What’s going on?” Isabel asked before seeing the thumb-sized red dot smeared on Emma’s forehead. “Seriously, Hank? The Red Spot Technique? On Emma?”

“Beth marked her forehead during a pupil check two hours ago. Emma brushed her hair in front of her new mirror but didn’t recognize the dot as marking her forehead.”

“Really?” Isabel said, taking a seat. “She brushed her hair, but didn’t see the dot?”

Hank was defensive. “She didn’t rub it off. The test is valid across species. I don’t think she associates the image in the mirror with the body she inhabits.”

Isabel hit the Talk button over Hank’s belated objections. “Morning, Emma.”

“Good morning, Isabel,” her sister replied.

“Would you please point to the red spot?” Emma raised her right index finger to the red smear on her forehead. “And when did you first notice it?” Isabel asked, staring at Beth, who was stifling a smile.

“When they put that big new mirror on my desk.”

Hank swiveled the microphone stalk to his mouth. “Well why didn’t you say or do anything about it?” he asked grumpily.

“I was waiting for the Red Dot test to begin.” She again pointed to her forehead.

“She’s not an ape, Hank. She knows she’s the person in the fucking mirror.”

Beth kept trying to get a word in. “Yes?” Hank finally snapped.

“She said, ‘I’ and ‘my.’ Emma! She used first person pronouns.”

It was a significant observation. “Log it,” Isabel said. Beth beamed at her accomplishment as she got on her tablet.

Hank fidgeted for a while before casually saying, “Isabel, would you mind submitting to a few days of neuroimaging? We’ve gotten scans of your sister. Yours could sort of be the . . . before.”

“What were the results from Emma’s scans?” Isabel replied.

“Several sites showed a loss of neuronal mass, now filled with cerebrospinal fluid.”

Isabel winced and asked to review them.

Hank nodded. “So, if we scanned you, we could compare your sister’s . . .”

“Hank, there are ten-to-the-sixteenth synapses in the cerebral cortex. There’s so much variability, even in identical twins, that neurological comparisons are useless. And I don’t have the time.” She rose. He asked where she was going. “To visit my sister.”

* * * *

Isabel said, “Hi,” to the young Marine who would accompany her into her sister’s hospital room. “Isabel Miller,” she introduced herself.

“Yes ma’am, I know. I’m Lance Corporal Hendricks, ma’am. Tony. 8th & I.”

“Excuse me?” Isabel said as they waited on the decontamination nurse.

“I’m posted to the Marine barracks. It’s at the intersection of 8th and I Streets.”

“Oh.” The nurse entered her glass-enclosed booth. “Is this what you trained for?”

“This?” Hendricks chuckled. “No, ma’am. I’m a Marine Corps Body Bearer. We do military funerals, ma’am. I guess they were shorthanded.”

The nurse turned on monitors and a desk lamp and opened manuals. Isabel nodded at Emma’s hospital room door. “Have you been in there before?”

“This’ll be my ninth seal break, ma’am. I’m owed fifteen beers, one from each guy in the section, if I’m the first to get to ten.”

He looked like a classmate of her middle-school nephew. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen, ma’am,” he said, acting guilty and glancing up at the camera on the ceiling. Isabel finally understood. He wasn’t old enough to drink.

“Dr. Miller?” said the decontamination nurse over speakers from behind shatterproof glass. She explained the protocols required to enter and exit Emma’s room. Isabel and Tony Hendricks, separated by a chin-high partition, each fully visible only to the nurse, stripped naked. “Any gum in your mouth?” Isabel shook her head. “How recent was your last tattoo?” Oh come on! Isabel turned a full circle. No tattoos! She stepped into white disposable coveralls. “Are you wearing any rings?” Isabel held her bare hands up before she pulled on the first of three pairs of Latex gloves. “Do you wear contact lenses?” Nope. “Are you pregnant?”

“I hope not,” Isabel replied as she donned disposable booties. Hendricks laughed and said neither was he. The serious nurse glanced up but made another check mark.

“Are you immunologically compromised, or do you have any condition that might predispose you to infection?”

“No.” Check.

“Do you agree,” the nurse asked, “to collection of serum samples and to emergency prophylactic intervention in the discretion of biosafety personnel, including use of experimental medication?”

“Jeez. Uh, yeah, I guess.” Check.

“I’m required,” the nurse read, “to advise you that you are about to come into contact with a potentially fatal pathogen for which there is no known cure. Any suspected exposure will result in your isolation for up to 48 hours. Do you acknowledge and assume these risks?”

“Yes,” Isabel said. Check.

“Do you agree to self-report any suspected primary or secondary barrier breach?”

“I do,” Isabel said. Whatever that means. Check.

“Do you agree to periodic medical follow-ups by biosafety personnel?”

“Yep.” Check.

The nurse pointed out to Isabel, now fully garbed except for her head, the automatic, hands-free sink, emergency shower, and eyewash station. She was instructed to avoid all sharps: needles, scalpels, pipettes, broken glassware. Hendricks pretended to listen like a polite veteran traveler during a seat belt demonstration. “You are not to remove anything from the hospital room. You are to limit direct physical contact with the patient, and to minimize contact with all surfaces.”

They inserted wireless earbuds then donned goggles, masks, hoods, and face shields under the watchful eye of the nurse, who checked off item after item on her form. The Marine, pistol in one hand, finally went to the double doors, which bore a large biohazard symbol and the name and telephone number of some “Supervisor.” He punched a code into a keypad. A buzzer sounded and a red warning light on the ceiling lit and began rotating. He pulled the door open while stepping back, ready to shoot if Emma charged out. Three streamers on the ceiling fluttered inward. “Airflow direction verified,” the nurse said, making her final check. “You are now authorized for ingress.”

Isabel entered Emma’s world. From behind the observation room’s now transparent smart glass, Hank and Beth watched. “Can you hear me?” Hank asked over Isabel’s earbuds. She nodded, feeling like an astronaut exploring an alien planet.

The door closed automatically with a squeak, plugging Isabel’s ears, and the buzzer fell quiet. Emma returned from the bathroom gyrating her jaw. Her eyes flitted between Isabel and the armed guard. There was no hug or other greeting. “Sorry,” Isabel said of Hendricks. “Hospital protocol.” Something in Emma’s look troubled her. As if she regarded Isabel and the man holding a pistol on her in exactly the same way. And Isabel felt surprisingly ill at ease, perhaps as unsafe in her position as Emma felt in her own.

Isabel got wet wipes from the desk, sat, and patted the bed, then verbally asked Emma to sit beside her. She meekly obliged. Lance Corporal Hendricks subtly changed positions for a clearer shot. Isabel used the wipes to rub the red dot off Emma’s forehead. Emma tilted her head back and waited like a child. “There! All gone.”

Isabel threw the wipes away and held the large mirror up to Emma, who dutifully looked at her own image but had absolutely no reaction. Isabel placed the mirror back on the desk. “You used to say you didn’t need a mirror as long as I was nearby. Remember?”

“Yes,” Emma replied. “Because we’re monozygotic twins.”

She had again used a first person pronoun. “We are twins,” Isabel said. “We look alike.” Emma seemed to be following the conversation. Good. “But there’s one difference . . . other than the fact that I’m obviously far hotter!”

Emma didn’t smile but raised her fingertip to the scar on her jaw. “I have this.”

“There it is again,” Hank noted. “She’s got the hang of first person pronouns.”

Isabel was hopeful, but unconvinced that it proved that Emma’s self-awareness was intact. Standing beside her, she said, “Emma, you used to have trouble with first-person pronouns. You had no problem with he, she, or it, but never used I, me, or my. And you got confused when I said, ‘You.’ So, what changed?”

“Those pronouns all refer to Emma Miller. Pronouns are efficient. Repeating Emma Miller at every reference is tedious.”

“But those aren’t,” Isabel noted, “just references. They’re self-references.”

“Yes. To Emma Miller.”

“To you.” Emma nodded. “Emmy, I have some questions. About consciousness.”

Hank said, “I wouldn’t go there yet.”

Isabel ignored him, longing for her sister to dispel, or at least to understand her concern. “Emma, how would you define consciousness?”

Emma’s face conveyed no expression at all. “It means to be awake, not asleep.”

“It also means aware of one’s own existence. In that sense, is a chair conscious?”

“How could I know whether a chair is conscious? It can’t speak.”

“Do you think something like a chair can be aware of its own existence?”

“I don’t know.” Emma was so frank, so genuine, so open.

“Do you remember the Terminator movies? A cyborg travels back in time to kill John Conner? Do you remember, when we’re shown what it looks like through the cyborg’s eyes, you see a view of the outside world overlaid with information about targets and things like that? So who is it that’s inside the cyborg reading all that data?”

Emma appeared stuck. Finally, she said, “I don’t know.”

“There must be someone in there, right? Why else would data be displayed if not to inform some sentient being inside the cyborg? Remember, in the movie those machines had achieved consciousness. What does that mean, to achieve consciousness?”

Emma startled Isabel by bolting to her feet. Hendricks raised his pistol, but Isabel shook her head. Emma stared up at the high outside window, then walked to the rack of equipment. “There’s an error screen on the third device from the top,” she said. “A hard drive is failing.” Isabel saw that she was repeatedly clenching and unclenching her fists.

“Emmy,” Isabel said, keeping her distance, “what’s the matter?”

“You’d better leave.”

“Why, Emma?”

“Your questions . . . I don’t like your questions.”

“About consciousness?” Isabel knew she should stop. “It’s the person inside you looking out. Watching the theater of the mind. It’s the ghost in the machine.”

“Ghosts aren’t real. Please go over there.” Emma pointed toward the door. Isabel and the Marine complied, but not so close that the decontamination nurse—watching on closed-circuit TV—would buzz the door open. Emma stared up at the high window.

“What’s wrong, Emmy?”

Emma looked at the guard and the door. “When am I leaving here?”

“Do you want to leave?” Emma nodded. “Sorry, sweetie, but you’re still contagious.” Emma’s knuckles were white from their clench. Her whole body strained.

“She’s agitated,” Hank said. “Why don’t you get out?”

Shit! Emma’s behavior seemed vaguely threatening. It would set back Isabel’s efforts to relax her confinement. But she coaxed Emma back to the bed. “Are you angry?” Emma shook her head. “Annoyed? Frustrated?” To each, a no. “But you’re anxious?” Emma pinned her hands under her biceps. “Why, Emmy? It’s me.”

“I’m anxious when locked up. When someone has a gun. When I should know answers to questions but don’t. When there are too many people around. When I’m strapped down for testing. When I’m waiting for someone to decide whether to kill me.”

“Kill you?”

“Yes. Kill Emma Miller.”

“Sweetie, everyone here is trying to help you.”

“And when people lie,” Emma said. “You should leave. Right now.”

* * * *

The door opened onto the corridor, where Beth waited. “Dr. Nielsen just called a staff meeting.” In the large conference room, Isabel’s colleagues were engaged in a half dozen unruly conversations. The din reminded her of a high school cafeteria. But maybe Nielsen had finished her hazing and would leave Isabel alone. She sat beside Dr. Street, who immediately leaned over. “We completed the morphology. It’s a DNA virus in the Pandoravirus genus. It’s been given the binomial Pandoravirus horribilis.” He pronounced the latter “hor-REE-buh-lus.”

“Catchy, huh?” Hank quipped.

Street replied, “That pun didn’t get any better on your third try.”

“Can we talk about all this now?” Isabel asked.

“Not legally,” Hank responded. He then turned back to Street. “You know, Walter, the public is going to call it Pandoravirus.” People’s attention was drawn to the two men.

“The other Pandoravirus species,” Street objected, “aren’t pathogenic. Like most viruses, they only infect defenseless amoebae, who eat by absorption through their cell walls. Human cells are comparatively well-defended. Plus, Pandoravirus is a genus, not a species. What about Pandoravirus dulcis or salinus?”

Hank replied, “Nobody’s ever heard of them.”

“And horribilis is little overly melodramatic.”

“No, Walter, it’s appropriately melodramatic.”

“Why not sibericum, after where it emerged like Ebola for the Ebola River?”

Isabel interrupted them. “What else do we now know about it?”

Street said, “Not much. Because it’s a virus, it’s small enough to be a bioaerosol and linger in the air. And it’s the same blob shape as the other Pandoraviruses, and roughly their genetic size, 2.4 megabases of DNA, which is huge, by the way. The WHO is sequencing it, but so far only seven percent of its code is recognizable.”

“Hence the Pandora’s Box allusion,” Hank said.

“Technically,” Street replied, “it was a jar, not a box. The Greek word for . . .”

“My point,” Hank said, “is we don’t know what that never-before-seen DNA does.”

“Yes, we do,” Isabel blurted out. Everyone turned to her. Was she not supposed to interrupt the two senior men? “I mean, we know its effects on its victims.”

Street shrugged. “Fair enough. But we don’t know how it does what it does.”

“Or why,” Hank added. Isabel looked around the silent room. There was fear on everyone’s faces. This is what really bad looks like, she thought. It was Hank who broke the tension. “Oh, Walter! We missed your bug of the day yesterday.”

“It was Cotesia glomerata. It causes the cabbage butterfly to spin a cocoon around the parasite’s larvae and fling its head back and forth.” Street imitated. Maldonado caught Isabel’s eye. “To ward off predators, you see.”

The door burst open. Instead of convening a meeting, Nielsen threw papers onto the table in front of Isabel. “Your brother filed these in federal court!” Shit! Noah! “There’s gonna be a hearing! At this lab! Now how, I wonder, does he know your sister is here? Hmm? You’re in fucking hot water, missy. The FBI is all over this.” To the group, Nielsen announced, “And you can all thank Dr. Miller for the lie detector test we all get to take today. Go back to work, but expect a visit from the Gestapo. Meeting adjourned!”

* * * *

Isabel never got an FBI visit. At the end of the workday she dialed the only number stored on the encrypted cell phone. Director Pearson answered. “You have something?” She told him about Pandoravirus horribilis. “Anything else?” he asked.

She felt oddly at fault in disappointing him. “Well, there was also this thing with my brother?” The real reason for the call. “With the Petition?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Pearson said.

“And they said something about a lie detector test?”

“Do you think I’d have an agent ask you, on video, hooked up to a lie detector, if you’re disclosing classified information to anyone? Call when you have something.”

Isabel ate alone at the small corner table in the cafeteria that she had commandeered as her office. She was bleary-eyed from scrutinizing her sister’s various brains scans while waiting for brief openings in Emma’s testing schedule. She decided to clear her head with a drive and went to her car in the dark parking lot. The Bethesda streets were empty.

There was absolutely nothing on the radio about the end of the world. But on the road ahead, a soldier in a hardhat and reflective vest held a stop sign and waggled a flashlight. A huge semi crossed the street in front of Isabel pulling a flatbed trailer. Atop it sat an enormous tank. Then another, and another, and another. Eighteen! she counted.

When she got to McLean, Isabel called from the gate of Noah’s McMansion, with its circular drive and expansive lawn. Her fifteen-year-old niece Chloe let her in, and at the front door squealed and hugged her, followed by an awkward embrace from thirteen-year-old Jake. “Wait,” Jake asked in a newly faltering pubescent voice, “are you Aunt Izzy or Aunt Emmy?” Chloe punched him and pointed to Isabel’s chin. “No scar. It’s Aunt Izzy!” Noah arrived and asked if it was okay before wrapping his arms around her. Isabel then gave Natalie a perfunctory, shoulders-only bump and air kiss.

While following Noah and his family into the living room, Isabel flashed a furious look at her brother. “Noah,” Natalie said, “why don’t you offer your sister a drink?”

“She probably has to work tonight,” he replied.

“No,” Isabel said. “I mean, yes, I’m working. But I’d still love a glass of wine.”

Natalie seated Isabel far from the sofa on which she settled with slender arms around her gorgeous kids. Noah clearly told her. She was keeping even more distance than usual. Chloe, Isabel thought, got Natalie’s blond hair and slender build; Jake her blue eyes. Luckily, there was little trace of her brother in either of them.

Noah arrived with wine and kept glancing nervously at Isabel, who wiped a tear from her eye. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“You just have such a beautiful family,” Isabel said, happy for him but envious.

“How is . . . ?” Natalie sort-of asked.

“The same,” Isabel replied.

Noah sank into no-man’s-land between his sister and his wife. Jake asked if Isabel had heard he was playing football and showed her the bruise on his hip. Chloe asked if she’d heard about her boyfriend. Natalie mouthed, He’s cute!

“How about you?” Natalie asked Isabel. “Any boys in your life?”

“Nope,” Isabel said. Probably never will be again, she thought but didn’t say.

“But you’re so pretty!” Chloe exclaimed. “And I thought you were a player.”

“That’s Aunt Emma,” Natalie sort of said, sort of whispered. A player?

After a humiliating silence, Noah asked if Isabel was there about “that thing.” Isabel cocked her head, then understood and followed him into his study. As soon as the door closed, she said, “What’s the deal with this fucking Petition, Noah? Jesus!”

“It’s for a writ of habeas corpus. I told you, I won’t have them disregard . . .”

“It caused a fucking shitstorm! And after I expressly warned you how freakish they’re being about secrecy? You need to withdraw it or whatever! Tomorrow!”

“Nobody’s arrested you or anything, right?”

“Only because I’ve got this kind-of deal with Andrew Pearson at the FBI.”

“The director-of-the-FBI Andrew Pearson?” She nodded. “What kind of deal?”

“I don’t know! I’m in way over my head, Noah! But I warned you not to do this!”

“They can’t just lock Emma up without any grounds.”

“Yes they can! They can do anything they want. Rules don’t apply anymore!”

Noah disagreed strongly. “As long as this is America, Emma has rights.” As if to change the subject, he unlocked a closet door in the bedroom-turned-study. On one side were Noah’s golf clubs, high school trophies, and diplomas. On the other were rifles, pistols, a shotgun, and boxes emblazoned with pictures of the ammunition inside.

“Jesus Christ.” Isabel leaned heavily against his desk as Noah locked the closet.

“And I’ve got a contractor working overtime at the Old Place. Izzy? You okay?”

“I’m . . . I’m just . . . I should get back.” She headed for the door. Noah stopped her. Turned her. Put his arms around her. Isabel dissolved into tears against his chest.

“It’s gonna be okay,” he said in a soothing tone.

“No.” Her voice was muffled by his shoulder. “It’s not. Have you seen the troops around D.C.? I just saw tanks, Noah, not three miles from here. It’s gonna be horrible. Everybody’s gonna get sick.” He held her as she told him what they’d learned.

“Pandoravirus horribilis?” Noah repeated. “The name alone sounds terrifying.”

“I know, right?” Isabel said, channeling Beth. Her phone chirped. Right on cue, it was one of Beth’s updates. Isabel paraphrased her report for Noah. “Antibiotics and antiprotozoals discontinued. She’s eating well. And her bowels are functioning superbly, on camera for the world to watch.” Noah cringed. Isabel read on, then snorted.

“What?” Noah asked.

“It’s just . . . this guy at the hospital. He’s funny.”

“Is this, like, a special guy-friend at the hospital?”

She glared back. “What’s the deal with you and Natalie and my love life? Or lack thereof?” She read the text to her brother: “From: Walter Street. Re: Bug of the Day—Paragordius varius. When their larvae, which infect house crickets, are ready to enter their aquatic stage, they cause the cricket to take a suicidal leap into water.” She looked up. “That kind of funny. But he’s available, believe it or not. Bald, maybe thirty years older than me, but he’s the right species, most likely. I’m no player, but should I give it a go?”

Noah frowned and cocked his head. “So, there’s nobody?”

“Well, there is Rick, this, like, six-four Marine officer. Smart eyes. Really hunky.”

“Anybody else?” Noah asked.

“Oh fuck you, Noah.”

“You’re staying at Emma’s, right? She was always meeting guys there.”

“Seriously? Do you know what Emma’s NIH password is? Tinderella.”

“Tinderella, like Tinder?” he asked. “The hook-up app?”

They started when Natalie knocked on the door. “Everything okay in there?” Chloe stood in the hall, hands on tiny hips, in a cute cheerleader outfit. After hugs and kisses at the front door, Noah watched his baby sister drive off. A dark sedan suspiciously took off after her, its lights coming on only after it was up to speed.

“Your cheerleader uniform?” Jacob said. His unpolished laugh sounded like a seal at SeaWorld.

“Your freaking bruise?” Chloe shot back half way up the stairs.

As Natalie cleared away the wine glasses, Noah said, “Hey, uhm, I gave the contractor down in Shenandoah some . . . change orders.”

She shot him a look. “Without talking to me? I spent months finding a designer who’d go all the way down there. We almost got stuck on that freakishly scary road.”

“I gave him changes we might need, if . . .” She rolled her eyes. He decided not to tell her about liquidating their life’s savings. He kissed her and was about to say how much he loved her and to thank her for giving him their wonderful family and beautiful life.

“Not now,” Natalie said. “After the kids go to bed.”

Noah spent the rest of the evening trying not to screw anything up.