“Believe what you want. All I know is that all the time I spent chasing down your prion duppies was time I could have spent developing something tangible. Something real.”

“I was so sure.” He let her hand slip from his. Rubbing his chin thoughtfully, he remained unconvinced. Yahya was never more insufferable nor intractable than when convinced of his own rightness.

Stacia geared up to go all in on him—to fully vent her frustrations on him—when the entrance to the med lab opened. The lead doctor strode out. His smock trailed him like a ghost, dissipating the farther he strayed from the sealed lab.

“How is he?” Stacia stepped toward him as if she’d receive the news faster if she met him halfway.

“Stable. We’re still running tests.”

“Is there nothing we can do?” Yahya sidled up to them, almost battling for position.

“Wait,” the doctor pronounced.

But the way his voice quavered, Stacia knew he held back another possibility. “Or what else?”

“Or we could do a homeo-bypass.” The doctor rubbed the bridge of his nose, a way to casually avoid eye contact as he pitched his long-shot idea.

“That’s little more than an induced coma,” Stacia said.

“Something is both taxing his system and eluding our scans. With an almost intelligence about it. A vandal sneaking in at night and dodging any authorities tracking him.”

“How do we know he won’t get better on his own?” Yahya asked.

“You’re catastrophizing?” Stacia stared at him in disbelief. “How can you go from wanting to move heaven and earth to find your mythical prions to just giving up and hoping for the best?”

“I hate it when you try to play cool logistician with me.”

“Real recognizes real, huh? Consider it my command training. You blame it for everything anyway.”

“This isn’t a command decision.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You can’t pull rank on me. I’m the boy’s father … Captain.” Yahya spat the last word like it was a curse. “I just want to give him more time before we do something drastic.”

“So now you want to do nothing.” Stacia threw her hands up.

“Waiting isn’t nothing. Some things have to be allowed to run their course.”

“And some things need to be acknowledged as done.” Stacia folded her arms in front of her. Her eyes fixed in a glare, her body almost trembling with her subdued wrath.

The doctor had taken a step back to allow them time to talk, glancing back and forth, taking their temperature in order to time his interruption. “Would you care to see him?”

Neither said anything, not breaking their deadlocked stare, but they trailed after him.