Juan grabbed his blue suit out of his locker and said, “We’ll see what happens.”

###

As usual, Juan felt claustrophobic as he sat in his pressure suit inside the level-four biocontainment lab. Beside him was Jennifer, one of the few FBI lab techs that was authorized to enter, and together they looked over her report.

“How can you know the mouse is pregnant?” Juan asked. “I didn’t think there was a reliable non-invasive test.”

Her voice crackled through the speaker in his pressure suit. “Urine-based pregnancy tests don’t work on mice, as you likely know. It’s actually a rather recent development that fecal testing has proven to give us a pretty reliable indicator.” She tilted the papers so that he could see them through his visor and said, “In this case, the progesterone levels in the fecal matter are clear. Our girl is definitely pregnant.”

“Do you know how far along?”

Jennifer pointed at one of the graphs which showed the beginning of the progesterone spike just over two weeks ago.

“About seventeen days.”

Juan studied the mouse, which was in a cage in the biosafety cabinet before them. “Well. Let’s see if you’re thirsty.”

He grabbed the nearby canister of the spore-filled water and swirled it around. With an eyedropper, he extracted five milliliters of the water, and placed the liquid in the mouse’s water dispenser. Using tongs, he slid the dispenser across the lab bench and into the biosafety cabinet where the mice was isolated.

“Since we’re so close to the end of the twenty-day gestation period, I think we need to start doing twelve-hour shifts. We should separate the two mice into adjacent cages and keep watch. Also—do we have any cages with wire mesh?”

“I think I can find something, but why?”

“Just a precaution. I know that newborn mice can’t walk at first, and even if they could, they probably couldn’t squeeze through the bars of this cage. But given what we’re dealing with, we can’t make any assumptions.”

She nodded. “Understood, Dr. Gutierrez. I’ll go get two new cages right away.” She turned so that they were facing each other and with a worried tone asked, “Do you really think we’re going to have something dramatic happen?”

Juan shrugged. “I don’t know. The results that Hendrickson gave me on the viriol’s genetic makeup is insane. I’ve got the computers running 24/7 trying to trace what the makers of the viriol have done. Let’s just be prepared for the worst. Constant monitoring through video surveillance. If we stick to the protocols, there should be no reason to worry.”

“I understand.”

As Jennifer left for the decontamination shower, Juan turned back toward the biosafety cabinet and watched the mouse drink the infected water.

“What is that baby of yours going to turn into?”

###