The stairwell door to the fourth floor slammed shut behind Viral. Its clank reminded him of his roommate, Lron, who at that moment sat in a crowded detention center across the Rhode Island border. Throughout the first semester of the two living together, Viral had often been struck by the conflict between Lron’s behavior and appearance. On the outside Lron was a five-foot-two-inch, light-skinned, black boy with a wavy flattop and bony elbows. Inside, however, as expressed through his tastes in everything from derby hats to vinyl, Lron was a dapper, middle-aged man. The last time Viral had seen Lron, days ago at the Howie Young detention center, he thought he’d noticed a couple grays cropping up in Lron’s otherwise obsidian ‘do. The bags beneath his eyes looked like they'd cost him extra on a Southwest flight. Lron was weary, and Viral felt guilty.
“Where were you?” a woman asked. It was Gyn.
Buying time to think, Viral looked around his surroundings. “I was just walking,” he said.
“Did you leave the floor?” Gyn asked. She looked fresh as a daisy, showered and in a floral, peach blouse buttoned just high enough to conceal her cleavage. Viral thought he caught his reflection in the glare from her lip gloss.
“No,” he said.
“Good, because otherwise Monica would put you into quarantine.”
“We’re just going on the honor system?”
“What’s wrong with that?” Gyn asked, tilting her head.
“Nothing, it just seems trustworthy is all,” Viral backpedalled.
Squinting at Viral and sizing him up from toe to head, Gyn asked. “Where were you really?”
Viral’s hands went hot. “The bathroom,” he blurted.
Gyn pointed down the hallway behind her. “Your room is that way. I was just there.”
“You were looking for me?” Viral asked, his heart rising.
“No, I was looking for Ada,” Gyn said. Viral’s chest sunk. “Well,” Gyn asked, tapping her foot. “Where were you?”
Viral looked at the hands he wrung at his waist. “I was peeing in the potted plant near the stairwell,” he said.
Gyn’s nose curled into a question mark. “Why?” she asked. “They’re fake.”
Viral looked up, surprised. “Really?” he said, “But they smell so verdant.”
Gyn laughed, and she put her elbow in the nook of his. “Sometimes I can’t tell when you’re playing,” she said, tugging.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“Breakfast.”
----------------
They walked into the conference room where a spread of fruits and pastries festooned the tables which last night had been covered by aluminum Chipotle wrappers. A morning glow simmered through downtown Wilmington, its streets noticeably quiet.
“The CDC has officially issued its stay-at-home order. Google has gone remote,” Monica said, holding a USA Today in her hand. “Everyone in the country has gone home to work. Everyone except essential workers.”
“Is that us?” Viral asked.
“That depends on if you all do anything useful,” Monica said.
Feeling chagrined, Viral noticed that Gyn had removed her arm from his.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Give us time, boss,” Plank said, wiping cream cheese from his beard. “We’re cracking on some dope stuff. Gynny, tell the agent what we found yesterday.”
Gyn blushed, pulled her fingers through her chestnut curls. “Well, it was mostly your discovery,” she said.
“Nah,” Plank said, sorting through a bough of grapes with his long fingers. “What’s your is mine.”
Viral resented both the way Plank put Gyn on the spot and the cavalier manner with which he handled the grapes amidst a grotesquely infectious disease.
“Well, okay,” Gyn said. Tucking a strand of hair behind her cartilage ring, she smiled demurely at Viral before turning to face the group. “Well, Plank and I were helping Aleph with her crystallography last night,” she started, “and Plank...I mean...we had the idea to do a genomic trace of the strain we sampled from Emir.”
“How is this different than the genomic strain the Fearmongers presented at the women’s college?” Monica asked, stoking her zaibatsu capitalist model of competition. “It sounds to me like a waste of time and money.”
“Let her finish,” Plank interjected. Monica waved her hand in a gesture to continue.
“After sequencing the genome and comparing it to the assay Ankur had found,” Gyn said, “I concluded that what Emir has is in fact a strain of Sars-Covid 2, or Covid-19 as we’ve taken to calling it. Our analysis verified Helen and Ankur’s findings that the current, dominant strain is indeed an amalgamation of SARS and a bat bug identified as RATG-13.”
Officer Avril gingerly raised the half-eaten croissant in his hand. “Did you say ‘bat bug’?” he asked.
“Another coronavirus,” Plank clarified.
Monica lost it. “We are literally exactly where we were two days ago. Hours with all this expensive equipment, not to mention the refurbishment, and the best you guys can offer is an identical account of what your much more intelligent peers confirmed on day one?” she shouted.
“Hold on, Agent Treyna,” Plank said, sliding his body in front of Gyn’s. “I also found that the S-protein the Fear Mongers told us about in their presentation in Emir’s strain has three specific genetic modifications.”
Licking jelly from the edge of a butter knife, Dr. Hackman asked, “What do you mean by specific modifications?”
Plank took a step forward, now completely overshadowing Gyn, Viral noticed. “That’s a great question, Dr. Hackman,” said Plank. Smiling proudly, Dr. Hackman helped himself to another miniature container of marmalade. “Typically,” Plank said, “The S-protein of a coronavirus is the most stable molecule of the viral structure. Since it’s the location of the coronavirus spike, a stable S-region prolongs a virus’ efficacy for infection.”
“If ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Officer Avril said, mouth full.
Plank chuckled into his fist. “My guy,” he said. “But that’s what I think is so odd.”
Viral couldn’t help but start counting the first person references Plank dropped in a spiel that began with the axiom of what was his was Gyn’s too.
“What are the chances,” Plank continued, “that the virus just happened to modify its most consistent, effective feature only to become more deadly?”
Aleph, Alan, Smooshy, Dr. Hackman, Officer Avril, and even Monica nodded their heads. Viral sensed Plank’s sway intoxicating the group. Viral still had his suspicions about Plank. The group had yet to get to the bottom of his disappearance from Alan and Viral’s bathroom, and Viral still wanted to know how Plank had become so conversant so quickly with Aleph’s signing. Before he realized what he was doing, Viral was stepping in front of Gyn and next to Plank. He willed the group’s attention to himself. “Why are you all nodding along like this guy is drawing some revelatory conclusion?”
A piece of honey dew bounced off his forehead. Viral saw Aleph reaching for another. “If the virus has been doctored then it’s in our best interest to know how,” Alan said.
Viral scoffed. “Come on, Smooshy, help me talk some sense into these people. Virus’ evolve; it’s no sign of foul play”.
“I don’t know, Viral,” Smooshy said, rubbing her chin. “Three mutations along the entire genome all isolated in the spike? That’s awfully coincidental to be random.”
“Who said it’s random?” Viral challenged. “Plank himself said it’s in the virus’ best interest to mutate. It evolves to improve infection. Back me up here, Dr. Hackman,” Viral cried.
Scooping his knife against the bottom of the marmalade container, Dr. Hackman said, “Viral has a point. Nature moves with a biological imperative toward function and performance. It’d be more novel if a virus as unstable as a coronavirus didn’t significantly mutate.”
Viral saw Monica’s eyes squint, her finger tap at her tooth. He wanted her to interrupt, to talk some sense into the dunces quartering around him, but Gyn spoke first from behind him.
“What’s significant is how significantly the virus hasn’t mutated except in its most stable, S region,” she shouted.
“Why are we yelling?” Monica said, finally breaking in.
“Viral started it,” Gyn said. He turned to see her finger pointing at him like an arrow to the chest.
“I think the brown one’s jealous,” Officer Avril offered from his seat next to Monica, who stood with her hands on her hips.
“Jealous of what?” Viral demanded.
“The handsome white guy, duh,” Officer Avril said.
Viral huffed through pursed lips. “That’s ridiculous,” he said.
“Is it?” a voice said from behind him. Turning back toward Gyn, Viral hoped she hadn’t said it, that one of the ghosts from the sixth floor had somehow appeared to taunt him instead. But it was Gyn, and she shrugged as if challenging him to tell her that she was wrong.
“I’m just trying to keep us focused,” Viral said.
Aleph rapped at the cloth covering the conference table, pointed at Viral and then her nose.
“That’s right,” Plank said, “Focused on only what he thinks is important.” Viral turned in a circle and looked into the eyes that bore through him. He’d become the petri dish, the object of observation.
“Do you guys understand what you’re suggesting?” he asked.
Officer Avril looked at the faces around him. “Um, not really; I don’t,” he said.
“We’re suggesting the possibility that the virus was engineered,” Alan said.
As a last hope Viral looked toward Smooshy. She frowned. “We’re just open to exploring the possibility, Viral” she said.
“Like scientists do,” Plank added with a sting.
And with that Viral’s hopes vanished. He’d taken a stand against Plank in the forum of public opinion, vying for authority on the merit of his persuasion. But how could he combat facts as faded and suspect as their source, without veritable ammunition of his own? He needed evidence to bulwark his thesis. He needed math. He needed Farooq Hossani.