“I never have before,” I said. “I figure, why start now? I wouldn’t want to ruin a good thing.”

The light went green before she uld say anything. That was probably for the best. She still glared as she stepped through the door, and flipped me off as it slid shut again behind her.

Mahir sighed as he pressed his hand against the panel. “I do wish you wouldn’t taunt her while we’re in the field.”

“She wouldn’t know what to do with me if I didn’t.”

“I suppose not,” said Mahir, and stepped through the newly open door, leaving me alone in the hall.

Not entirely alone. Your turn, said George.

“Yours, too,” I said, and pressed my hand down.

The lab on the other side of the door was standard-issue CDC: equipment I didn’t understand, refrigerator full of things I didn’t want to know about, desk heaped with paperwork that was probably several weeks overdue. A dry-erase board, covered in what looked like meaningless gibberish, took up most of one wall. Kelly was staring at it, transfixed.

“He’s figured out the settlement problem,” she said, as much to herself as to the rest of herself. “I don’t know how, but he’s figured out the settlement problem in the immune response. This whole thing, it’s so simple, it’s so…”

“It’s elegant,” said Mahir.

Kelly smiled. “Yes, it is.”

“Good for it,” I said, stepping up behind her. “Want to explain it to the rest of us?”

“Oh! Well, this here—” She waved a hand at a segment of the board and began to talk, medical jargon flowing from her lips too fast for me to follow. That didn’t matter. I didn’t need to follow it live; I never go anywhere without half a dozen active cameras running, and I could review the recording at my leisure. Assuming we all got out of here in one piece. Since we couldn’t transmit, I couldn’t make backups. If we died inside the CDC, it was all for nothing.

I pushed that grim thought aside. Kelly was still talking, and at least Mahir seemed to understand whatever the hell she was saying. He interjected periodically, asking questions and restating things that had been particularly confusing when she said them.

“I love having a smart guy around,” I said to Becks, sotto voce.

“Me, too,” she said, and grinned, all that familiar field excitement filling her face. Irwins are never more alive than when they’re five minutes away from getting slaughtered.