The silence in the Bethany Women's College undergraduate chemistry lab was almost like bullion -- not quite golden but sterling in its purity. The image of the coronavirus' namesake, its crown, hung on the canvas drop over the blackboard like a banshee in the night. She was beautiful, and she was terrifying.

"This is the spike that infects us," Helen said, her voice low in reverence. "The genes with the highest similarity amongst different strains of coronavirus share the region that codes for this mechanism."

The Spike. Even the name spoke murder.

To Viral's right, sitting at the same long table-top facing the presenters, Smooshy let her jaw hang loose. She sounded as if she were assembling a jigsaw puzzle with her lips. "So nature evolved the perfect weapon to invade our cells," she said. Viral couldn't tell if Smooshy felt fear or wonder.

"Perfect is the right word," Fey added.

"No shit," Alan offered from the rear.

Ankur, the leader of the group presenting, the Fear Mongers, responded as if Alan had just called his mother hirsute. "Why's that?" Ankur challenged.

Viral heard as much as felt Emir widen his feet near the door and settle his heels deeper into his Jordans.

Shrugging, Alan leaned back against the wall from his chair. "Fey said it herself. The probability of that level of match on the one part of the genome that codes for its deadliest part? Low would be an understatement."

"But it's not impossible," Emir said, flatly.

Alan grinned and answered, "Exactly."

"Would you mind clarifying for the rest of us?" Smooshy asked.

Alan leaned forward, his face cutting into the light thrown from the projector. "Nature's good but she's not perfect," he said.

Viral nearly jumped when Dr. Hackman spoke behind him. He hadn't realized how close the man had been sitting. Viral could feel his breath on his ear. "The Chinese boy's right," the doctor said.

"I'm Canadian," Alan offered.

Viral watched Dr. Hackman pick at the frayed edges at the bottom of his tie. His voice shook like he hadn't spoken in front of people for weeks, maybe months. Hackman said, "For the covid strain you collected from the Shangai submission to just happen to incorporate the most efficiently deadly parts of the other three viruses to humans -- well, at least two of them would have had to find incubation in the same host."

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Smooshy uncrossed her arms and turned toward Dr. Hackman. "That's why it struck people at a wet market. A human made contact with an animal that ate an animal. Viruses jump from animal to human all the time. You know Ebola came to humans from monkeys," she said.

Dr. Hackman did his best to hide the creak in his voice. "Mammal to mammal transfer is one thing," he said.

"Malaria?" Smooshy countered. "Lyme disease?"

Hackman pursed his lips and nodded.

Choco, the tall boy still still standing behind Fey spoke up. "Um, I'm not sure if it matters, but uh -- " he pointed at Smooshy with a finger as long as a popsicle stick, "-- that girl said something about a wet market?"

Smooshy and the others stared back at him. She shook her hands with annoyance, begging him to spit it out. Farooq, the Egyptian -- ahem, Iranian -- with the flat nose looked around. To seemingly no one he asked, "Is Lerch asking us or telling us something?

From beside him, Fey patted Choco on the back of his arm, nodding encouragingly for him to continue. "One thing I saw in the Wuhan physician's notes," he said, "Was that there weren't any bats at the market where the patient worked."

Ankur snapped his neck toward Choco. Helen did too. "What?" Ankur asked.

In a tone that teetered between accusal and disappointment Helen said, "You didn't think to mention this before, Choco?"

Choco ran his hand through his hair after lifting his hat. "I just remembered," he said.

Viral thought he saw Helen say the F word at the ground.

A grin spread across Alan's face. In the light of the projector he looked to Viral like the Joker. "You don't say," he said. He drew the words out with a sarcastic drawl.

Dread soaked the walls of Viral's butt crack like blood at a motel crime scene. His unconscious mind had made a connection that his cortex couldn't untangle. The fear of the conclusion, however, had already sent his adrenal system into overdrive. His right knee shook, and Viral tried to press it down to stop it. His armpits felt cold; he couldn't answer why he was trembling.

"Nature isn't perfect," Emir said, repeating Alan. His breath escaped his body like a ghost.

Dr. Hackman scratched at his beard. The lab was quiet enough for everyone to hear it. The rustle of the fibers boomed in Viral's ear canal. He wondered for a moment if the doctor was scooting his chair closer.

"Ummm, can someone please tell me why you all are suddenly so quiet?" Monica asked. Her little head poked from the pages of a People magazine like a groundhog in the winter.

The words bubbled forth from Viral's chest before he knew that he was speaking. "Either the virus perfectly formed from two different strands in the bloodstream of a single host, or --" his voice trailed off as he searched his medulla for its conclusion.

"Or..." Monica prompted.

"Or something influenced its formation," Gyn added. Viral looked across the table. Her eyes met his. She shrugged her shoulders.

"Or someone," Alan said.

The groan that came from Smooshy was almost as loud as the sound her forehead made as she hit it against the table top.

Viral's chills went hot all over. Monica captured the mood in the lab best when she said, "Fuuuuuuuuuuhk."

Over them all the Spike still lorded...