AAROD stood for artiovirus-associated rapid-onset dementia. Joining Erika and Hai were a squad of other med epis who performed field surveillance, kept track of hundreds of biological samples, interfaced with hospitals, and crunched numbers from dawn to dusk.

What they’d discovered was chilling.

Based on the data from New York, one in every twenty survivors of the first variant of the virus went on to develop dementia. The percentage was lower for the second variant, but it didn’t matter how sick you’d been initially; if you’d had the virus and recovered, your chance of losing your mind down the road seemed to be between one and five percent. The younger and healthier you were, the higher your chances were of suffering the complication. When it occurred, it occurred with catastrophic rapidity, and so far, nothing anyone had tried could completely reverse it. We didn’t know why it happened either. Early histologic samples of the brains of the afflicted suggested an autoimmune-like condition. But we didn’t have enough biopsy data to confirm the specifics because AAROD didn’t kill you. It robbed you of your mind and left your body intact.

Since many of these patients were in the prime of their lives, brain biopsy samples were hard to come by. Most of the time, the team had to wait for the victims to die of other causes and then seek permission for a specialized autopsy to be performed in a hot-zone lab, which often meant a fraught transfer of the body. Nobody assumed AAROD was contagious, but then again, we didn’t know for certain how it was happening either. What if CARS-ArV-01 increased your susceptibility to some other infectious agent?

Needless to say, when this discovery went public, it was almost certain to cause a panic. The stock market was showing signs of climbing out of the toilet after what had been one of the worst crashes in history, and nobody looked forward to seeing it plunge again. Already, neurologists and internists and ER docs in New York City, as well as a few other places, were beginning to sound an alarm. It was only a matter of time before the battered market imploded at the news. The national task force and the president had been briefed and were working on a planned announcement. I didn’t envy them; how did you tell people about something like this when you had no reassurance to offer?

Beau wandered into the room, still holding the phone in front of him. I flipped my laptop shut; I didn’t need Beau wondering aloud what a brain biopsy was.

“Aunt Vani wants to talk to you.”

“Hey, Vee,” I said, taking the phone from Beau. “Thanks for listening to him for so long.”

“My pleasure. He’s the perfect child.”

“Ha,” I said. I opened my computer again as soon as Beau left and clicked on another depressing email. “I don’t think he’d ever bathe or change underwear if he weren’t forced.”