Martineau’s eyes narrowed. “But what you engineered was a form of staph aureus, not group-A strep, correct?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “But it would be so easy to pass that same resistance from the staph to strep species.”

“Merde, Ellen!” he said through gritted teeth. “Are you suggesting that someone at SeptoMed created MRGAS?” His voice dropped to a menacing whisper. “Is that what you’re accusing us of?”

“No, no, no!” She waved her hands frantically, suddenly afraid of the enraged face and icy eyes hovering over her. “Not on purpose,” she said contritely. “Anyway, it’s probably just a big coincidence, Luc, nothing more. But—”

“But what?” he snapped.

She shook her head and tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry.

“Say it, Ellen,” he hissed.

She held up her hands helplessly. “Maybe somehow our engineered staph areus escaped our lab and transferred its resistance genes to a group-A strep species it came in contact with in the community. That’s all.”

Martineau shook his head ferociously and sneered at her. “What the hell is wrong with you? You think ours is the only lab experimenting with bacterial resistance?” He shook a finger at her. “You can’t accept this as a simple chance happening. No. You have to see a conspiracy everywhere, don’t you?”

“Luc, listen—” she started.

“No.” He leapt off the bed. “I’m through listening to this.” He snatched his wine glass off the nightstand and strode out of the room, muttering angrily to himself in French that she didn’t understand.

37 - Seattle, Washington

37

Seattle, Washington

Haley Vallance blinked several times wishing the nightmare away. But every time the ten-year-old opened her eyes, she saw the same tubes and wires running from her body and hanging around her like a giant spider’s web.

Then, piece by piece through the fog, she remembered. The sore throat and cough had come while she sat in Ms. Jergen’s music class. By the time her mom picked her up at recess and brought her home, she was having trouble breathing. She felt awful that her dad—who had only been home two days from his appendix operation and was still hoarse from his cold—had to drive her back to the same hospital.

As soon as they had reached the emergency room, the doctors and nurses rushed Haley into a special room with bright lights and huge poles. Despite reassuring words, everyone around her looked so worried. There were too many awful needle pokes to count. They took an x-ray of her chest. Everyone, even her parents, put on masks like she had seen in hospital movies. They all kept saying how it was “going to be fine,” but her mom kept crying.