Lost Immunity by Daniel Kalla (free reads TXT) 📕

“Postpone, hopefully.”

“That sucks, Nathan.”

He shrugs. “The boys took it pretty well, all things considered.”

“You have sons?”

“Two. Sixteen and fourteen. The older one just got his learner’s permit, and you can’t keep him off the road.” He grins. “Even though it would probably be best for everyone if we did.”

“Two teenage boys, huh? That must be a handful for you and your wife.”

“We don’t handle them at the same time. We’re divorced.” He clears his throat and decides to ask, “How about you? Kids?”

“Nope. Got a little sparkplug of a niece—a twenty-year-old trapped in a six-year-old’s body. But my husband is a workaholic. And I’m almost as bad. We’re just a couple of dinks.”

Nathan wonders if he misheard. “Dinks?”

She laughs self-consciously. “As in dual-income-no-kids. Guess no one uses that term anymore?”

“Thou seldom doth hear it, m’lady.”

“Yeah, yeah, cute. I’m out of touch, I know.” She nods to the table in front of them where a boy is squeezing his eyes shut and scrunching his neck as the nurse plunges the needle into his upper arm. “This seems to be going all right.”

“So far, so good. I can’t believe the demand.”

“We expected it. Once we’ve ironed out the kinks, we’ll run three or four clinics simultaneously across the city. That’ll take some of the pressure off.”

“Should help,” he says as he watches the boy breathe a sigh of relief after the needle slides out of his arm. “I keep thinking about the poor kid from the ballpark.”

“Only eight years old.” Lisa shakes her head. “Even worse, it’s already spreading. Three of his friends have been admitted to Children’s Hospital. One of them is in the pediatric ICU. She’s only seven.”

“And you still haven’t found the connection to the camp or other campers?”

“No,” she says. “But these cases represent a distinct second cluster of the outbreak.”

“That’s a problem, isn’t it?”

“A big problem. Bellevue is fifteen miles from Delridge.”

“This pathogen is covering a lot of ground on its own.”

She tilts her head. “Are you suggesting the spread might not be natural?”

“No. Not at all. Just that it’s spreading far and wide.”

She studies him for a long moment and then nods. “Not only that, but it’s infecting a whole new age demographic.”

Nathan spots the intent in her eyes. “Lisa, you’re not thinking…”

“What choice do we have? Four cases in less than twenty-four hours. All in kids under ten. We’ve got to lower the age requirement to cover those kids, as well.”

“Neissovax isn’t approved for children under ten.” Nathan shakes his head adamantly. “It’s never even been properly tested in that demographic.”

“How else are we going to protect the younger kids?”

“I don’t mean to sound harsh, but that’s not our problem, Lisa. We’ve stretched our risk and exposure as far as we can on. We can’t do this.”

Lisa meets his stare with a look of absolute conviction. “We have to, Nathan.”

CHAPTER 25

Lisa steps into her office to find Angela again seated behind her desk, with another colorful scarf tied around her head, this one in a tie-dye design. While she’s still pale and gaunt, she doesn’t look any worse than the last time Lisa saw her.

“Hi, stranger,” Lisa says, masking her relief. “Where have you been?”

“Remind me again which one of us is paid to be here,” Angela says, without taking her eyes off the computer screen.

“Good point. But everything is OK with you?”

“Depends what you mean by ‘OK.’ I still got a drama queen for a husband. And a daughter who thinks that you can opt out of society and still live like a top one-percenter.”

Lisa sits down across from her. “You know what I mean, Angela.”

“It’s a process, my oncologist keeps reminding me.” She shrugs. “What a miserable job she has. Makes working in public health seem like a traipse through the meadow.”

“What process?”

“Well, maybe, not so much of a meadow these days, huh? What with young kids dropping left, right, and center from meningitis. In Bellevue, right?”

Lisa realizes her friend doesn’t want to talk about her own health issues, and she knows better than to pry. “Yeah, four kids now. A new cluster in Bellevue, all from around the same neighborhood. But we have no idea how the index case—the boy from the ball game—connects back to the camp.” She swallows. “Only eight years old. He died in the middle of the night.”

Angela closes her eyes for a moment. “What do the parents say?”

“I’m going out to see them this morning.”

“Want some company?”

“No. Thanks, though.” Lisa also declined Tyra’s offer to accompany her, sensing that another person—even one as sympathetic as Tyra or Angela—would only make it more uncomfortable for the parents. “I think this is a one-person job.”

“Maybe oncology isn’t looking like such a miserable career after all.” Angela sighs. “How did the first clinic go yesterday?”

“Surprisingly well. No medical disasters. No protests. No huge meltdowns.”

“Excellent. How many people were vaccinated?”

“Eight hundred,” Lisa says. “Double what we planned for on the first day. They were still lined up for blocks when we closed the clinic. The biggest complaints were from those who didn’t get inoculated.”

“And what about the website? Anything untoward?”

“There are fourteen reactions listed so far.” The data is fresh in her mind, as Lisa spent the last hour before coming to work reviewing the first reactions to be logged onto the website. “Most were redness or sore arms near the site of injection. Very typical for any vaccination. Two unusual ones, and I tracked down both of their parents. One mom said her daughter had a high fever. But I soon learned that she considers ninety-nine point two degrees to be a critically elevated temp. And that was before taking Tylenol.”

Angela rolls her eyes. “And the other one?”

“A kid with a diffuse rash. Her mom texted me a couple of photos.” Lisa grabs her phone, finds the photos, and turns the screen around for Angela to see the images of the girl’s exposed thighs, which bear scattered red wheel-like welts the size of nickels.