Juan shrugged. “I hate to state opinion, but I have a hypothesis. Whenever you smell something, what that means is that you’ve ingested particles floating in the air. When you walk into a men’s room and smell the unpleasantness, that’s an indication there are volatile particles floating in the air and you’re ingesting them.”

The expressions on faces told Juan he’d hit on an analogy that people understood.

“So my hypothesis is that the infant mice, and the infant calves, are giving off a scent—that is to say, they’re sending particles through the air—that’s causing a severe reaction to anyone around them. We haven’t yet autopsied the dead mice, but we have autopsied the human victims from the ranches, and they all appear to have gone into anaphylactic shock, which fits with my hypothesis.”

Nate spoke up. “But the mice didn’t have any reaction to the samples I collected from the calves. Wouldn’t you think that a smell that powerful would linger?”

Juan tapped his thumbs on the conference room table. “I would. For now it’s just a hypothesis—one that requires study. But I will say this. Whoever did this is using a model of highly evolved DNA fragments, from very far in our future. And it’s conceivable that by that time, in this predicted evolutionary path, all creatures will have evolved immune systems that are so aggressive, they don’t wait for an infection to penetrate the body; instead they seek out things to destroy. Things outside the body. If that’s the case, it would make sense that the calf samples would have no effect. Because once the calf died, its immune system would have shut down.”

The silence in the room was lengthy… and unnerving.

Finally the director said, “Okay, folks, I think that’s all that I need. I’m meeting with the president later today. I want you to continue to track down these viruses. We have to put a stop to this before it ends up being an absolute nightmare. We don’t want these viruses to get into the water supply of a major city.”

As the meeting broke up, Juan pulled Nate aside. “Nate… this has gotten bigger than I expected. Jennifer and I are not enough to handle this. I’m exhausted as it is, and—”

Binghamton, who was hovering nearby, cut in. “Actually, Dr. Gutierrez, I’ve already gotten permission to increase your staff, effective immediately. Go home and get some rest. By the time you come in tomorrow, they’ll be waiting. Some of them will be there tonight.”

“Thank you,” Juan said.

Nate put his hand on Juan’s shoulder. “Your car’s still back at the lab, right? I can drive you to your place, and we can arrange to have someone pick you up later. Just give me a minute to talk with Jeff.”