The Demon in the Freezer by Richard Preston

Author:Richard Preston
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781588362452
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2009-05-30T16:00:00+00:00

Panic in the Gray Zone

JANUARY 12, 2000

HENSLEY WAS WORKING ALONE in her blue suit in hot suite AA4, near the center of the Institute. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. She had been working with soups of Ebola for many hours. She wasn’t feeling well: she had a cold and was a little achy, as if she might have a slight fever. She had probably caught a virus, but she was in the middle of an experiment, and she couldn’t abandon it just because she felt sick. She would lose her data if she went home.

She was holding a pair of blunt children’s scissors with her rubber space-suit gloves. (Sharp scissors are forbidden in Level 4.) She was trying to open a bottle by prying on a tab with the scissors. Suddenly, they slipped, and the tip of the scissors jammed into the middle finger of her right glove. She felt a stab of pain near her fingernail.

She held her space-suit glove in front of her faceplate. What had just happened? Had she cut the glove? The yellow rubber was wet, and as she turned the glove in the light, she couldn’t tell if there was a cut in the rubber or not.

Inside her space-suit gloves, she was wearing latex surgical gloves, for an extra layer of protection. Wriggling her arm, she pulled her hand out of the space-suit sleeve and up inside her space suit—the way Dr. Hatfill did when he ate a snack inside his suit—and inspected the latex glove at close range, inches from her eyes.

The rubber was translucent. Beneath it, she saw blood oozing out of her finger, moving along the fingernail. A red spot under the rubber was spreading along the cuticle. It hurt.

It is believed that a single particle of Ebola virus introduced into the bloodstream is fatal.

Hensley felt a sudden rise of fear, which turned into a little bit of panic. What was the last thing I touched with my hand? What was I doing? What were the scissors touching? Was there any soup on the scissors? The mind goes sticky in a moment of fear. She blanked. She couldn’t remember what she had been doing with her hands. There was nobody to ask.

She began to talk to herself silently: Quit panicking and calm down. Did I make holes in both gloves? Or did I just crush my cuticle? She stuffed her arm back down into the sleeve of the space suit and wiggled her fingers into the outer glove.

Time to get out of here.

She opened the decon-shower air-lock door, stepped into the air lock, closed the door, and latched it. She pulled the shower chain, and a spray of chemicals hissed down over her space suit. While she was taking the chemical shower, she realized that she did seem to have a low-grade fever. Oh, this is great, she thought. I already don’t feel well, and now they’re going to take my temperature and then lock me up. She racked her brain trying to remember what she had been doing with her hand.

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