Lindsey met them as they stepped off the elevator on the third floor. “That’s it, that’s where the virus was from, whatever the ‘dust’ was on the tents, it’s full of it, though they seem almost dormant.”
“Dormant?” Elizabeth asked as they walked into the lab.
“Yes, nothing was moving when I looked at it, but I thought I recognized the shape of the cells.” Lindsey gestured to the microscope and Elizabeth looked into the lenses. “So I added it to a nutrient agar and it started moving.”
“Really?” Ava asked, but Elizabeth was watching the cells wiggle around on the screen.
“They aren’t moving very fast,” Elizabeth said.
“I’m guessing that’s because it’s not the host the virus is looking for, the agar just activated it to look around,” Lindsey said.
Elizabeth nodded in agreement. “We need to go to the storage facility.”
“We do,” Ava agreed. “Great work, Lindsey.” Ava smiled at the technician.
“Thank you,” Lindsey said with a beaming smile. “Um… could I write a paper on this?”
“Of course,” Ava said with a smile, but Elizabeth’s jaw almost hit the floor.
“I’ll need your help,” Lindsey said quickly to Elizabeth. “You can cowrite it, or if you want it, then I just want to help, I’m not trying to take it from you.”
Ava’s brows furrowed until she saw the expression on Elizabeth’s face. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth,” Ava said. “I wasn’t thinking, Lindsey is working on her doctorate in microbiology, even if she just assists this will be huge for her.”
“Of course, sure,” Elizabeth sputtered. “Let’s figure it out first, then we can talk about publication.”
Lindsey nodded, her face turning red with embarrassment.
“Prep the same team we had before; we are going to Sandra’s business center. We need to look at where the tents were stored,” Ava said.
Lindsey straightened her shoulders and nodded. She quickly turned back into the lab as Elizabeth and Ava went back to find Dr. Mars.
Within the hour, the team was on its way to Sandra’s office. The place was not much more than an office cubicle with a storage area in the back. Equipped again with protective suits, masks and gloves, the team headed into the space, though with a bit more trepidation. The neighboring business owners nervously watched the crew. Ava was sure that the news of Sandra’s passing had spread like wildfire in the city, and she felt sympathy for them, but until they knew what they were up against, there was not much else she could focus on.
The storage room was neat and well-organized. It was clear that Sandra loved and cared for her business. Several sorted and packaged sets were laid out, ready to be picked up and used at a moment’s notice. Along the walls were several more tents and equipment meant for any type of weather or situation. The far corner was empty, and Ava knew in her gut that that was the place where they would find what they were looking for. Elizabeth seemed to have the same inclination as she followed toward the empty space.
“Be careful,” Elizabeth warned as Ava ran her hand along what looked like a section of wall that was bowed. Ava pulled back on the paneling and when she did the whole section of wall came loose, spreading a fine dust-like powder across everything.
“Everyone out!” Elizabeth shouted to the techs behind her. She rushed to Ava’s side as she stumbled backward in the cloud of dust.
“I think we’ve found it,” Ava gasped from behind her mask.
“Come on, we need to get this off of you,” Elizabeth said. She took Ava back out to the van as the techs called local police. They were already at work quarantining off the area. Elizabeth put Ava into the emergency wash station still in her suit and took her mask and gloves, placing them in a biohazard bag. She quickly sprayed down the entire van, and Ava, with a disinfectant. She just hoped it was strong enough to kill it.
Ava stayed in the van as Elizabeth and the techs finished at the scene. They made sure to quarantine off the area and addressed the local businesses to avoid it until they could decontaminate the scene. They had not yet tested the substance, but Ava had little doubt what they would find. When Elizabeth had gone back to collect a sample, she had found a lot of small bones, and she guessed that the dust was actually the remains of probably a dozen small rodents. The thought made her shudder, but it gave them something to work with. Now they knew that the virus was animal borne, and she could figure out how to keep it quarantined, and hopefully how to treat it before they lost anyone else.
When they got back to the hospital, it was later in the afternoon, and the first thing they did was make sure that Ava was in the showers and completely decontaminated. She had been wearing PPE, but they worried it wasn’t enough. Up until now they had worked on the assumption that the virus was not airborne, and while that remained true, the dust particulates were easily swept up and carried by the air.
Ava tried to keep her composure, but she noticed Elizabeth carefully watching for any sign of contamination, and that only made her more uneasy. When the doors opened and Dr. Mars hustled inside, Ava almost smiled.
“Tell me we have good news,” Doctor Mars said.
“We do,” Ava said, her eyes sparkling. “We’ve identified the virus and where it originated. We are working on different antiviral cocktails to figure out how best to fight it.”
“How close are we?” Doctor Mars asked.
“I can’t give an estimate, but we will find it, Doctor Mars,” Elizabeth said. “We will keep running trials until we get it, the tricky part is the dormancy, some of the antivirals don’t kill it, they just put it to sleep and then it wakes up once the threat is gone. We want to make sure that whatever we use will stop it completely.”
“That’s why the incubation times were so random,” Doctor Mars mused. “They were slowing it down, but not stopping it.”
