“Got that right,” I muttered, and cracked open the Coke, taking a drink before asking, “Doc, what do you know about viral parasitism?”

Kelly stared at me. “What?”

“It was something Mahir said before he went upstairs to crash—the virus acts like a parasite in people with reservoir conditions, and that teaches their bodies how to cope with it better. I’m not quite sure what he meant, but I figure you’ll be able to translate for us when we sit down for the big meeting.”

“I…” Kelly frowned thoughtfully. “It’s not a common theory, but I’ve heard it before. It basically says that the virus can change its behavior, go from being a strict predator to a sort of symbiotic parasite.”

“Isn’t that what both source viruses were originally supposed to do?” asked Maggie, turning on the stove. She began pouring dollops of batter onto the griddle, filling the room with the hot, sweet scent of cooking pancakes. “We were supposed to catch them and then keep them forever, like… I don’t know, weird immortal hamsters that cured cancer.”

“Only these hamsters developed rabies.” I sipped my Coke. “If it’s something people already know about, is there any reason for someone to get deported for studying it? Viral parasitism, I mean. Not hamsters.”

“No,” Kelly said, firmly. “There’s no good reason for someone to be deported for studying viral parasitism.”

“That’s what I thought.” I leaned back in my seat, sipping my Coke, and watched Maggie make pancakes. Kelly went quiet, a speculative expression on her face. I could almost see the wheels turning as she got herself a glass of water and sat down across from me, both of us waiting for the pancakes to be ready.

Mahir’s arrival changed everything. We’d been treading water, writing our reports, studying the material we got from Dr. Abbey, and waiting for something to happen, because something always happened when we got too comfortable. We’d long since passed the point where we could back out safely—maybe we passed that point the day George and I decided it would be a good idea to go out for the Ryman campaign. I don’t know—but that didn’t mean we’d exactly been hurrying toward the end game. We’d been waiting to see what would happen next. Now that Mahir was with us, it was time for things to start moving again.

I wasn’t ready. I don’t think any of us were, or really could be. I just knew that it was too damn late to back out. It had been too late since George died.

Maybe it was too late before that, and we couldn’t see it. I don’t know.