Doctor Dakota Thomas watched the clear amber-colored liquid slowly drip into his veins. He wasn't sick, he wasn't hurt. He was simply doing his job.
"How you doing, Dakota?" The female voice came through the intercom into the sealed bio-chamber where he lay, surrounded by medical staff in biohazard suits.
"So far so good, Maggs."
"Okay, just checking. Your temp is starting to spike, and your heart rate bumped up ten BPM in the last few seconds."
Dakota looked at the monitors displaying his vital signs. "Yeah, and it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. We expected that, didn't we?"
Maggie, who was watching through the hermetically sealed window, smiled. "Yeah, but this makes me nervous. It's not like anyone has ever done this before, you know."
That wasn't exactly true. He had done this before, but not under the same conditions. Despite having been infected with a version of the avian influenza virus about two years ago, he had survived, thanks to an infusion of a very special serum.
That infusion had left him with a unique immune system. One that seemed to fight off anything they threw at him.
As far as anyone knew, only one other person in the world had the same invincible immune system. Michael Ricco inadvertently saved his life, and now Ricco and he were repaying the debt they felt they owed society.
Well, not exactly owed, not in Dakota's case anyway. More like compelled by guilt to comply with the Department of Medical Research's less than subtle requests.
He'd quit his job as an ER physician in his little hometown of Caliente, Nevada, had given up every personal freedom imaginable, and had moved across the country to become nothing more than a glorified guinea pig for Medical Research and Development.
It wasn't all that bad. In between raging fevers and puking his guts out, he got the warm fuzzy feeling of knowing he was helping humanity.
"Relax, Maggie." He blew her a kiss through the window. However, the truth of the matter was that forty minutes into the infusion he wasn't feeling that great. He'd expected it, but he always hoped the next time would be different. It never was.
This time he'd been infected with a variant strain of the avian flu he'd already been exposed to, hoping he would have natural immunity against it.
Nothing ever worked out like they thought it would.
"Dak, your temp just jumped to a hundred and three. I'm shutting it down."
Dakota coughed, but shook his head. "Maggs, stop panicking. Shutting it down now won't make a bit of difference, you know that. Just give it time."
"I don't like it."
"You never do." Dakota closed his eyes when his vision blurred. He wished this reaction wasn't familiar, but unfortunately he knew what came next. In the beginning it had taken a day or two for the symptoms to kick in, but the more often they exposed him to different pathogens, the quicker his immune system jumped into high gear. Now it took only minutes for the symptoms to appear. When they did, they took him down hard.
The only thing that kept him doing this was the fact that the research team had nearly perfected a vaccine for the avian virus. But seeing how viruses had a nasty habit of mutating, he figured he had great job security. Right now, though, his job pretty much sucked.
Without warning his stomach clenched. Rolling to his side, Dakota puked on one of the medics, and then promptly passed out.
* * * *
Dakota opened his eyes, recognized the pale yellow walls of the hospital containment unit, and slowly took stock.
Dodged another bullet.
He smiled at the thought and stretched. He was still hooked up to an IV and the monitor, but the numbers he saw told him he was stable.
"Hey."
He turned toward the voice. Michael Ricco was sitting in an uncomfortable-looking chair next to his bed. "Hey yourself. What'd you do, pull the short straw for babysitting duty?"
Ricco seemed very young as he grinned. Dakota knew better. Michael Ricco was a human anomaly. Somehow, through a series of inhuman experiments, the genes that controlled aging had been turned off, or radically slowed down. Although nearly one hundred and eighteen years old, he barely looked twenty.
"Volunteered," Ricco said. "Maggie was worried about you. You started seizing after you passed out, and they had a little trouble getting you stable."
Dakota waved off his concern. "Your wife worries too much."
"That she does."
Ricco had spent most his life being a guinea pig. All that was required of him here was to give a little of his blood every now and then for development into a serum, the same serum that had saved Dakota's life two years ago. "I just made her go get some sleep, but that's not the only reason I'm here."
Dakota hitched himself up on his elbows and pushed the pillows behind his head. "What's the other reason?" He wasn't sure he wanted to hear it. If they'd sent Ricco to bargain for them, it was guaranteed not to be something he liked.
"How you feeling?"
"Stop stalling, Ricco. What's up?"
"You have a visitor."
That got Dakota's attention. Visitors were not only discouraged, they were simply not allowed. Security was something the facility did not take lightly.
"Ito is here."
It took Dakota all of two seconds to realize the implications of Ito St. James not only flying cross-country, but convincing the army to let him in. None of them were good.
"It's Montana, isn't it? What's happened?"
"Yeah, it's Montana," Ricco confirmed.
Dakota licked his lips. "Is he dead?" He didn't want to hear the answer.
"No, not dead. In jail."
Relief flooded through Dakota. "Jesus, Ricco! Don't do that to me. Montana's been in jail before. What's all the drama for? Why is Ito here?"
"Dakota, he's been arrested for murder. Apparently, there was a girl..."
A girl? There was always a girl where Montana was concerned. Then he remembered. Montana had called and told him about the woman he was seeing. Montana's tone had told him that this one was different.
"Linney?" he said, unwilling to believe. "Linney's dead?"
"Yeah, I think that was her name. Montana's been charged with her murder. It doesn't look good. The evidence is pretty damning."
"I'm out of here." Dakota whipped the covers off and stood. He pulled the monitor leads off his chest, causing alarms to sound. He shut the monitor off and pulled the IV catheter from his vein.
"Kind of thought you'd feel that way." Ricco reached under his chair, pulled out a satchel and placed it on the bed. "I took the liberty of packing for you. It wasn't easy, but arrangements have been made."
Dakota knew what it must have taken to have him released in the middle of research. "I owe you, Michael. Thanks."
Ricco shook his head. "No, you don't. Just go and get Montana out of the mess he fell into. That's all the thanks I need. Tell him we're there for him, will you do that?"
"You know it."
"Get dressed. You need to be cleared by medical first, but then you're as free as you get, considering the department owns your ass." He started for the door. "Ito is waiting with a plane to take you back to Nevada."
Dakota couldn't help but smile. Despite the reason that precipitated it, he was going back. After everything, he still considered Nevada home. Ito was waiting for him and he was going home.
* * * *
Medical didn't want to clear him. He was still running a low-grade fever and his lungs sounded congested. Dakota didn't care. By the time he landed in Nevada he would be fine.
"Clear me and let me go, or you can forget about any further cooperation from me," he said, while pulling his shirt back on.
Maggie pushed off the counter she was leaning against. "I can't allow you to be jeopardized."
"No, you can't allow this program to be jeopardized. And without me and Ricco, there is no program. So either plan on pumping dear hubby full of the shit you've been filling me with, or you can kiss your nice cushy job bye-bye."
"You know I won't do that," she said. "Don't you think he's been through enough?"
"I'm leaving, Maggie, clearance or no. You can't stop me." Dakota walked to the door and pulled on the handle, only to find it locked. He turned back to Maggie, confused and angry.
"Actually, we can," she said.
"You promised me when we started this whole thing, I could leave any time."
"As long as it was safe for you to do so. Right now it's not." Maggie ran a hand through her thick, dark hair and let out a frustrated breath. "Dakota, you're a physician, for God's sake. Just stop and think for one minute. Less than six hours ago, you were infected with an extremely contagious agent. Can you, in good conscience, expose yourself to the general public knowing you could be a threat?"
Dakota looked at Maggie, free of any mask or protective clothing. "Doesn't seem to bother you any to be exposed to me."
"I'm not the one getting on a plane with a hundred other people. Look, I'm not saying you can't leave, I'm only asking you to give us some time. A couple days just to make sure your immune system has a handle on this virus."
"You know as well as I do that by the time that plane lands in Nevada, I'll be fine," Dakota argued.
"No, I don't know that and neither do you. Whatever Michael's serum did to you, it's not predictable. Sometimes you bounce right back, other times, it takes weeks for the symptoms to even show themselves. And let's not forget the time your own system attacked itself. You almost died, Dakota, and would have if not for Michael and his serum. We have nothing but unknowns here. I cannot in good faith let that loose on the general population. Can you?"
"You're asking me to abandon my brother."
"All I'm asking for is some time. I talked to Ito. Montana's not going anywhere. They haven't even arraigned him yet. One day is not going to matter in the grand scheme of things."
"It might." Dakota walked away from the door and sat back on the exam table. She was right. God, he hated it, but she was right. "Don't take this the wrong way, but fuck you, Maggie." He wiped a thin sheen of sweat off his face with the back of one hand and looked up, defeated.
Maggie smiled. "I will expect a full apology for that when you get clearance."
"One day?"
"Don't pin me down on this. Most likely one day, but it depends on you." Turning back to the medics who had examined him, Maggie said, "Take him back to medical. I want him monitored and labs drawn every two hours. Let me know any changes, understood?" When they nodded, she hit a button on the console, unlocking the door.
He stopped with one hand on the door frame. "I want to see Ito. Can you do that for me at least?"
She considered him for a moment. "Yeah, I can do that."
"Thanks, Maggie."
"And I'll see what information I can find out for you concerning Montana."
"I'd appreciate that."
"He saved my husband's life. He gave him a chance to be a human being again instead of somebody's lab rat. I owe him more than you know. If this facility can help, I'll do everything in my power to make it so."
"Spoken like a true bureaucrat," Dakota said, but he smiled just the same. As he left with the medics, he tried to convince himself that Maggie would hold up her end of the deal when the time came.