“That’s right!” says Smert jauntily, as if responding to even a modicum of positivity on my part. “We’d love to work with you on a show about female doctors during the pandemic. People recognize you from those press conferences where you explained what was happening . . .” Here, his eyes slide to the side. People don’t like to mention the worst outcome that can occur if you survive ART, or if they do, it’s usually in an undertone.

Some months into the pandemic, certain unpleasant truths about the illness began to make themselves known. By then we knew the basics: who was most likely to contract it, who was most likely to die. Like a typical virus, ART targeted the very young, the very old, and the weak. But this particular mortality curve followed an unusual shape when it came to the age distribution of the dead. Like an ongoing M, it peaked and fell and peaked and fell and peaked again; it turned out the virus had a predilection for strapping adults in the prime of their lives. Like a food snob, it cultivated its tastes precisely. It preferred men to women, eastern seaboarders over southwesterners, people with type A blood over types O or B, and so on and so on through a range of attributes. But it would—and did—devour anyone who crossed it, if the mood struck.

What we didn’t know then would turn out to be far worse than the immediate deaths. ART causes a delayed but catastrophic complication in a small but significant percentage of people, brought about by an autoantibody targeting certain proteins in the brain. As of today, we cannot predict who will suffer this effect, or when, although we believe it is likeliest to occur within a year or two of recovery from the initial illness. Now that we’ve conquered the virus, all of humanity is united in the fervent desire to find a cure for its most infamous sequela. Barring that, they want a predictive test. Everyone wants to know who will get the complication.

Artie Smert warms to his pitch. “That press conference you did with POTUS? You’re a natural-born speaker.”

I offer him a glance of considerable skepticism.

“It’d be a limited-run series,” he says, one finger unconsciously tracing the line of his mustache. “But not depressing. We’d allude broadly to the details of the pandemic—the deaths, the morbidity, the cratering and recovery of the financial sector—but there’s no appetite out there for another exposé of those circumstances. Everyone on earth’s already familiar with them. And you know, no need to go into detail about the . . . brain thing either: this isn’t a horror film.”

“Then what?” I ask.

“This series,” he says proudly, “will focus on the personal stories of those on the front lines, especially those with an unusual story to tell. In particular, the series would focus on you.”