She took my hand, raised it to her lips, and kissed it twice. “Creighton,” she said slowly, “you have a brain infection. You’ve been in a coma. You’re in the hospital recovering.”

Recovering. I’m recovering. I tried to lift my head and look around the room. A man was sitting in a chair against the far wall, looking at me. “Who is that man?”

“He’s an FBI agent. His name is Ben Steele. He’s been assigned to your case.”

I turned back to Abby. “My case? Of what?”

She leaned forward. “Creighton, we think someone infected you with the same type of nanites that killed my village. They probably tried to infect me too. Agent Steele is trying to track down the perpetrator.”

Nanites. The village had died from them. “How long?”

“How long what?”

“To live?”

Abby smiled and squeezed my hand. “We hope a very long time. The infection seems to have been arrested.”

Arrested. “It stopped?”

“For now, yes. The doctors are watching you, but the damage doesn’t seem to be getting worse.”

Damage. Do I have damage? Grogginess overtook me. I just wanted to sleep. “Abby, I’m…I…”

Abby reiterated for me the sequence of events that had transpired. Once. Twice. Three times. It finally began to sink in.

After leaving her grandfather’s town house, she had gone to the National Mall, the only place she knew where she could be alone and think. She returned early that evening to Lauren’s place, found me asleep on the couch, and woke me to apologize. I was incoherent. She tried to get me to stand. I couldn’t. She tapped for an ambulance.

Abby accompanied me in the ambulance. I lost consciousness en route and was rushed into the emergency room. Brain scans revealed that part of my brain’s frontal lobe was gone. The doctors couldn’t explain it. Abby told them about the nanites. They had no way of predicting the spread of the infection.

I was placed in intensive care. My condition worsened. I lapsed into a coma. The infection continued to spread.

The hospital’s neurosurgeon wanted to operate to remove the infection, even if it meant performing a lobotomy. Abby objected. How could he be sure that all the nanites would be removed? Since she had no legal standing, her objections were overruled. I was prepped for surgery. One last brain scan, however, revealed that the infection hadn’t progressed in the previous twelve hours. The surgery was placed on hold.

Subsequent scans continued to reveal no progression. The surgery was scrubbed. I had stabilized. Nineteen hours later I awoke. Abby had been with me the whole time.

Lauren had come to the hospital when she found out. After talking to Abby, she tapped the attorney general and requested an FBI investigation and FBI protection for the two of us.