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October 24th, 1918 Midtown Manhattan
PAGE slipped out into the corridor, looking in every direction to make sure Riggleston wasn’t lying in wait—though she didn’t think he could be up so early on a Sunday morning, not after all the drinking he had so obviously been indulging in the night before. All she saw was a maid at the other end of the hall—still, the woman might be a spy for him. Page didn’t know what the man might’ve been up to. Not wanting to take a chance on ordering room service, she’d decided to go out and gather provisions to stockpile in her room. The fresh air would be nice too.
Turning and locking the door behind her, Page kept the maid in her peripheral vision as she placed a single hair securely in the crack between the door and the frame. When she returned, that would alert her if someone had gotten into her room. She hung the ‘do not disturb’ placard on the door to keep the maids out—so if she found anyone had entered her room, she would know it meant trouble.
She strolled down the corridor toward the door to the stairwell. That brought her closer to the maid and the realization that Page need not have worried about being spied upon. The woman was in far too much distress to even notice her—she continued to stand in front of the same door, wringing her hands and staring in apparent indecision.
Page’s curiosity overcame her wariness. Walking the rest of the way down the hall, she saw another door with its ‘do not disturb’ sign up—but surely that couldn’t be what was agitating the poor woman. Then she noticed the room number—412. The same suite Matt has stayed in since that one time—
A strange sensation buzzed at the back of Page’s brain, but she forced her mind onto the maid. “Do you have some kind of problem here?” She’d automatically assumed the air of one who’d be an owner of this hotel in the future. “If the guest put that sign up, you really shouldn’t even be thinking of going in there.” I had better reinforce that idea right now. “I don’t know what duties you have that might require you to enter the room, but...”
The short, round, middle-aged maid spoke with a thick Italian accent. “No, you don’t understand—listen!”
At first Page thought the woman meant to listen to her, and she waited patiently for the maid to offer an explanation. Then she heard a faint sound. Inclining her head toward the door, she was soon able to discern a distinct moan, but the building was too solid and the carpet too thick for the sound to carry much.
Page was suddenly seized with a conviction that Matt was in that room. Was it conceivable that he’d been struck by the same notion as she had, and that she had somehow missed him being right down the hall? And he missed me.
Confident that Page had heard the same sound, the maid started talking again. “I think he must be in pain, but when I knocked he didn’t respond at all. We can’t just leave him in there without help. But if he’s sick, it might be the Spanish flu—in which case I shouldn’t go in, but I’m supposed to call the health department. But in a nice hotel like this, rich gentlemen are not supposed to be sick with the flu, and men from the health department—the manager, he would not like them coming to the hotel.”
Page could certainly understand the maid’s hesitation now. It was a no-win situation for the woman, but that would give Page an opportunity to help her out—and Matt at the same time. He would not want the authorities involved any more than the hotel manager.
Giving the maid a firm look, Page offered a suggestion. “I agree someone should check on him, but I wouldn’t want you to get into trouble, so why don’t you let me into the room to see what the situation is, and then maybe I’ll have an idea how we can handle it. I believe I know the gentleman—Mr. Matt Walker, isn’t it?”
“Yes, miss. I’m not really supposed to. But you promise you won’t get me in trouble?”
Page nodded and pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her reticule and pressed it into the woman’s hand with a smile. “I promise. It’s just between us.” And it was far too big for a tip—the maid would recognize it for a bribe, and a substantial one. But then Page intended to start collecting allies against Riggleston.
Shaking her head, the maid took a key ring out of her apron pocket and selected one, presumably a master key of some sort, and unlocked the door before standing well back again. “If he’s got the chain up, miss, you still won’t be able to get in.”
But he didn’t. Page opened the door only wide enough to slip inside, then marched through the sitting room and into the bedroom beyond, where she saw Matt—sprawled on his back across the bed and fully-clothed. He was red and sweating, and moaning much louder than she’d suspected until she was inside. She felt herself overwhelmed by an unprecedented emotion.
Turning back, Page saw that the maid had mustered her courage and entered, at least as far as the other side of the sitting room. Page strode back toward the woman and shooed her out of the suite altogether. Standing in the doorway, with her hands on her hips, Page spoke with soft determination.
“He’s clearly sick, but it’s not the influenza. You don’t have to worry, and nobody needs to notify the health department. Since I’m a friend of his, I’ll see he gets the care he needs.”
The maid hesitated. “But if something happens to the young gentleman, or if someone complains of the noise...”
Page shook her head. “I don’t think anyone will even notice the noise. And I’m not going to let anything ‘happen’ to Mr. Walker.” She pulled another twenty out and handed it to the maid with a nod. “I think we understand each other, yes?”
“Yes, miss.” She looked past Page, in the direction of Matt’s moaning, then brought the crucifix on a chain around her neck up to her lips, mumbling a prayer before heading off down the hall.
Backing up and closing the door, Page thought Matt could use any help he could get. He must have set up an account at the bank, but without identification that would be acceptable in this time, he was at a disadvantage if he had to deal with the contemporary authorities. Just like Page.
She stalked back to the bedroom and looked at Matt as he was lying there. He clearly needed medical attention. If it were simply a matter of calling a doctor, she wouldn’t hesitate—but with everyone in the grip of a pandemic, he’d be quarantined. Given his lack of ID and the primitive state of medicine in this era, he would likely be packed in together with plenty of other patients in some overcrowded hospital, if he were fortunate. And they probably wouldn’t be able to do any more for him than she could. They might even insist on quarantining Page as well—her assurances that she couldn’t spread the flu wouldn’t likely be believed.
While her bribe had worked on a maid who had not actually seen him, Page doubted she could pay a doctor enough to keep quiet once he had seen Matt. She certainly wouldn’t be able to bribe some health department officials to turn a blind eye. She would just have to take care of him herself.
The main thing she, or anyone, could do to help Matt at this point was to make sure he got plenty of fluids. She remembered a bit of Anya’s lecture concerning treatments available in the past—which was generalized information pertaining to the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and incomplete, for what that was worth. Acetaminophen might alleviate his fever, but Page didn’t think that was readily available, if at all, yet. A bath in cold water would be the next best thing.
Well, he needed to be gotten out of those sweat-stained clothes and cleaned up anyway. Page would have liked to hire someone to do that job for her, but she had taken a risk already with that maid—it had been necessary, but she wouldn’t take more chances unless she had to. Besides, anyone she hired to help her would also be exposed to the flu, and she didn’t want that on her conscience.
She stepped closer to the bed and wrinkled her nose at the smell. Leaning over, she reached behind to grab Matt under the armpits, but his dead weight was too much for her. So she took hold of the duvet under him and slid it, and him with it, off the sheets and onto the floor with a great thump. It was hard work, but she managed to drag the Matt-laden quilt across the carpet and into the bathroom, right up to the rim of the wide wooden platform that surrounded the tub. There she paused and considered how to get him in. She decided that because the bedspread and his clothes would all need to be cleaned anyway, she might as well soak them now.
So continuing to use the counterpane as a moving inclined plane, she stood in the tub and dragged and pulled at the bottom end of the quilt and shifted position several times until she’d managed to get all of him in, then turned on the cold water. Collapsing against the wall, she sat down on the side of the tub to relax while it filled.
Thankfully Page was still alert enough as she sat there to notice that Matt was wearing the professor’s watch. It might not have been properly fixed, but it never would be if she let it soak. She took the device off his wrist and leaned back again, listening to the water rushing into the tub and trying to think about the things she could do to help him. It was good that he was delirious with fever and next to unconscious, but not for what came next—getting him to drink.
She wondered how long he had been like this. If he’d come through when she had Traveled, he could not have been here one whole day. That was a short time to get this sick. Maybe he’d taken the slow path for three years to get here. He might’ve been ill for days. Neither explained why he hadn’t shown up on her locator screen though.
It became an effort to keep her eyes open while she watched the water level rise. When the tub was mostly full, she turned off the tap and turned to the difficult job of finding a way to get him to drink water. First she lifted him enough so the rim of the tub propped his head up. She checked to make sure he was stable and wouldn’t slip under and drown, then she went and got a glass and filled it with water out of the sink.
This time she sat on the end by his head, pressing the lip of the glass against his lips and forcing a sip at a time gently down his throat. Fluids into his system and soaking in cold water should help him a lot with the fever. It would also loosen all that sick and sweat that clung to him and his clothes and the quilt. She had done what she could for the moment, but she didn’t like to leave him alone like this—with a sigh she sat in the less than comfortable chair that sat against the bathroom wall, leaned her head back—and promptly nodded off. When she woke with a start sometime later, she was glad to see he was still alive and breathing.
Page pressed her hand to his forehead. He was burning up—no better as far as she could tell, but at least he didn’t seem to have gotten any worse. She really wanted to freshen herself up more than anything, but first she had to do all she could for Matt. And right now that meant draining the dirty water. So she unblocked the drain and let it all slowly run down and away.
Then she took a deep breath to gather her energy for what came next—she maneuvered the sodden bedspread out from under him bit by bit. Wringing it out took a lot of her strength, and even more dirty water washed down the drain. She folded the damp duvet and laid it across the far side of the tub. Her next job was getting Matt out of his clothes.
Half-averting her eyes, she slowly stripped the water-logged garments off. She wrung those out as well and tossed them on top of the folded bedspread before reaching to take one of the large, clean, plush towels from the cupboard by the tub and draping it over him for decency. Then she turned the tap, and clean, cold water flowed into the tub again.
Page took a washcloth and soaked it in cold water and laid it across Matt’s forehead before leaning back to watch the water level rise. Finally she shut the tap off and left the bathroom. She’d done everything she could for him for the time being—now she needed to take care of herself.
Checking her watch, she was amazed at how little time had actually passed. It should still be early enough that she need not worry about running into Riggleston. She looked out into the hallway and saw the coast was clear. Leaving the door to Matt’s suite unlocked and the ‘do not disturb’ sign in place, Page scurried down the corridor to her own rooms.
Seeing no one had been in, she entered her own suite with a sigh of relief. She refreshed herself and grabbed everything she thought she might need and left again, not forgetting to reset her little alarm. A bare half hour had passed by the time she returned to Matt’s room and found nothing had changed.
After she’d checked on Matt’s condition, she sat down in one of the comfortably stuffed armchairs in the sitting room and took the telephone receiver off the hook and asked the hotel operator to connect to the store she’d shopped at only yesterday—it felt as if it had been a week. She told them she needed her new clothes, the ones she’d ordered yesterday, to be delivered to a different room—Matt’s room, though she didn’t mention that aspect. She wouldn’t leave him on his own until he was well again.
Page didn’t know where Matt’s clothes might be—she had looked around his rooms but hadn’t been able to find any besides what he’d been wearing. He had worn a different suit when she’d seen him at the parade, so he must’ve gone shopping since, whether she’d Traveled him forward from nineteen fifteen to yesterday or he’d taken three years going down the slow path. But if he’d been here that long he should have a few outfits. Either way, he’d need something to put on once he was feeling better—more than that complementary robe hanging in the bathroom.
Page wouldn’t allow herself to consider the possibility that he wouldn’t improve. But she would let him shop for his own clothes then—all she would do was have the suit he had been wearing cleaned so he had something decent to put on.
Page pulled one of the comfortable chairs from the sitting room into the bathroom, then sat next to Matt. She managed to force him to sip down some more water, but his fever still raged. At some point her delivery arrived, and after that another delivery, of clothes Matt had apparently ordered for himself. Once she’d dealt with all that, she ordered room service.
Page had never been able to get out and get supplies, and now she was hungry. Because the request came from Matt’s room, hopefully Riggleston would not hear of it, but of course the hotel staff must have suspected something, so he might. If he discovered she was sharing a suite with another man, maybe he would lose interest in her. Another thing she hadn’t had time for was thinking of a way to deal with him.
Now, washed and fed and wearing new clothes, she had a break to consider it, but she couldn’t with Matt lying there in the bathtub—and possibly dying. He seemed to have gotten worse as the day had progressed. Despite her efforts, his fever had not gone down, and his breathing had become horribly shallow. He wasn’t moaning anymore.
Page left his side and went to stare out the bedroom window in frustration. The sun had started to set, and the eastern exposure was already dark—she could see her reflection in the glass, a ghostly image across the city’s skyline. A ghastly vision actually, as her appearance was suffering under the strain. But as she gazed out, she stopped seeing that and turned her eyes inward to inspect her memory. There must be something there that will help.
Her mind sped back across the lectures and orientations, the instructions, discussions, and preparations—surely Anya had dropped some snatches of medical wisdom along the way, something applicable to Page’s present predicament. But what finally came unbidden to her brain were some words from the professor as he’d strayed off onto one of his tangents.
Page had trained her memory, learned to discipline her thoughts and focus her attention. And she used that to recall every scrap she’d heard.
Research Leader Harold had asked some stupid question about catching diseases from the natives—the professor had glared hard at both him and Page but not Anya, who must’ve escaped because she already knew what he was about to say. Then he went on and on about how humans of the past had quite inferior immune systems. He’d reviewed a vast host of diseases that had plagued people in the past—in a way that had not reassured Harold in the slightest.
The professor had specifically referred to the influenza pandemic of the early twentieth century, because of how it had hit the young and healthiest the hardest. “Viruses can be clever devils,” he’d said.
The pressure of her emotions began to interfere with her focus, so Page stopped and took a few deep breaths, letting her mind grow calm and rested before she allowed the memory to return.
The professor had shaken his head, presumably at the viruses. “Even back then, the immune system was a marvelous thing. But it often didn’t work the way it was supposed to. That strain of influenza got itself a fighting chance by triggering a massive over-response from that incredible immune system. The healthy young human body would release a flood of antibodies that had not been properly programmed to target the virus and would target the very tissues damaged by the flu. Giving the virus a chance to get lost in the crowd, as it were.
“So the deadly danger was not the flu itself, but those very antibodies meant to protect the individual. In their frenzied attack, they would trigger a cytokine storm that perpetuated the body’s assault on itself. Various organs, particularly the lungs, would begin to shut down, and a lot of people died. But not many of those with weakened immune systems who only had to fight the flu. Rest and fluids and maybe ice to bring down the fever were usually enough.”
So Matt had two serious problems—the influenza virus and his body itself—with his own antibodies being the greater threat. If only he had Page’s superior system, with lymphocytes that would not be deceived. Her B-cells and T-cells could handle the flu virus with one protein chain tied behind their backs—but Matt’s stupid cells were fighting the wrong enemy. If only there were something Page could do to fix that. But her own immune system was an inheritance, and she couldn’t give it to him.
What she might be able to do, though, was give him the antibodies that could properly target the flu virus. Once the virus had entered her body—and it might have done so already—she knew her superior immune system would immediately identify the intruder and start pumping out the correctly calibrated antibodies to eliminate it. Those proteins would be perfectly matched to the same antigens along the surface of the virus’ molecules in Matt’s body. So all she had to do was make sure she was infected to get her super-lymphocytes into action and find a way to transfer her immunoglobulin into his blood.
It would at least take care of the virus. But there was nothing she could do to stop the cytokine storm ravaging Matt’s body. While her own immune system would recognize malfunctioning antibodies belonging to her own body, and destroy them just the same as it would take care of an alien invader, there would be no way it could know whether Matt’s cells were acting properly or not. But she had hope—that if the virus was eliminated from his body, maybe his immune system would realize it could stop fighting—that it would cease killing him by waging a war on the wrong front.
Whether it would work or not, that was the only thing she could do now. She went back to sit at the tub where she could look down into his fevered face and think about the easiest way to make certain she was infected with the virus. This wasn’t exactly how she had imagined their first kiss.
Page leaned over and gently pressed her lips to his. His eyelids fluttered and his lips pressed back, but that wasn’t enough to be sure. So she eased his mouth open and slid her tongue against his all the way to the back of his throat. He was far too out of it to be aware, and far too sick for it to be anything but unpleasant for her. But she had to give the flu plenty of time to try attacking her.
She held his head and continued the contact as long as she could, because not only did she need the virus to attack her, but in sufficient strength for her immune system to really start pumping out the immunoglobulin. At last she pulled away and allowed herself to relax and catch her breath. That had been the easy part.
It shouldn’t take long for her body to begin the process of churning out millions of little killers prepared to go after the influenza virus like trained assassins. Then the problem would be to get as many of them onto the battlefield in Matt’s body as possible, and as quickly. That would be the hard part, because she didn’t have the training or the equipment for a blood transfusion, or to try isolating the immunoglobulin from her blood and injecting it into him.
So after gathering her energy, she had to gather her courage. This would not only be unpleasant—it would probably make her sick. She deliberately bit down hard on her tongue, felt the blood running in her mouth, and kissed him again, her stomach turning over as she did so. Once again she also swapped fluids with him for as long as she was able to. That reminded her of a fad from the fifties, or maybe the sixties—kissing marathons.
She had intended to have Matt help her experiment with one of those, as part of her research, but now she was having second thoughts.
Her strength waning, Page pulled away again to rest. By now, the antibodies she’d generated would be doing their best to destroy all the influenza they could find, and she’d done what she could for Matt. Next was the hardest part of all—waiting.