Lost Immunity by Daniel Kalla (free reads TXT) 📕

younger children to the vaccine clinics,” says Kevin. “We’ll be circulating it through the usual media and social media channels.”

“The press is going to lap that up,” the balding rep from city hall grumbles. “Seattle’s outbreak is already regularly headlining CNN.”

“Not just cable news,” Kevin says, as if almost proud of the coverage. “The big networks all covered the story last night. In prime time, too. Since COVID, this kind of story is a huge deal.”

“Do we even have the capacity to expand the program to younger kids?” Benning asks.

“The manpower, yes,” Lisa says. “In terms of supply, we calculated that the initial fifty thousand doses would be enough to cover the original demographic target of youths and young adults. But with the younger kids included, Delaware will have to ship us more vaccine.”

“This product launch just keeps growing bigger and bigger,” Moyes says.

Something in his tone and his earlier comment about rotavirus reminds Lisa of her conversation with Max. She wrote off the naturopath’s insinuations about the pathogen emerging contemporaneously with the new vaccine as little more than the musings of a conspiracy theorist. But the coincidence is undeniable. And besides, what the hell was Max really doing at that clinic? He clearly had no intention of getting his son vaccinated.

Lisa ends the meeting with the slide that lists the schedule of the upcoming vaccination clinics, and then opens the floor to a roundtable discussion. People have little more to add and quickly file out of the conference room.

Lisa’s assistant, Ingrid, is waiting for her at the door. “Your sister’s in your office,” she tells her.

“Amber?” Lisa frowns. Her sister has never visited her at work before.

Inside the office, Amber greets her with a tight hug, and Lisa picks up on a whiff of marijuana. She understands that her sister works in the industry and is a relatively regular user of weed, particularly for insomnia or stress, but she’s never smelled it on her before.

Lisa slips out of the embrace. “What’s up, Amber? Everyone OK?”

Amber nods. “I was just in the neighborhood.”

“Nope.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t buy it. You basically work in the neighborhood. Not once have you ever thought of dropping by my office before today.”

“OK, OK. I’m worried about Olivia.”

“Why? What happened?”

“No. Nothing,” Amber assures Lisa. “She’s fine. But the girl who died this morning. Rebecca Cohen—”

“How do you know her name? We never released it.”

“She was in Liv’s kindergarten class. The posts are flying around the parents’ social media pages.”

Lisa grabs her sister’s arm. “Has Olivia been around Rebecca this summer?”

“No. Not since school ended in June.”

Lisa releases her grip. “Thank God.”

“But it’s too close a connection. And all these sick kids in Bellevue…” Amber looks at her plaintively. “Just how bad is it, Lisa?”

“It’s bad, Amber. Very bad.”

“So what do we do?”

“It hasn’t been announced yet, but we’re about to lower the age of eligibility on the new vaccine.”

“And Olivia would… qualify?”

“Yes.”

Amber slumps down into the chair beside her. “A vaccine? That’s all you can offer? You know how I feel about those.”

“Listen to me. This isn’t tetanus or measles. Some theoretical infectious risk, where Olivia already benefits from all the immunity around her.”

“Nice, sis,” Amber snaps.

“You know what I mean.” Lisa kneels beside the chair. “This outbreak is deadly, Amber. And you live in the heart of the hottest zone. There is no herd immunity. We don’t even know exactly who’s contagious and who’s not. If Olivia were to be exposed…”

“But a vaccine…” Amber drops her chin in silence for a few moments. “Can’t imagine what Allen would say, let alone Dad.”

Fuck Dad! Lisa has to bite her tongue. “Fine. Skip all the others—polio, tetanus, measles, HPV… Who cares? But this meningitis vaccine? Oliva can’t skip this one, Amber. She just can’t.”

CHAPTER 31

Susan Meyer’s hand brushes up against something firm, but she’s not awake enough to recognize it as someone’s back until the person stirs. For a disoriented moment, Susan wonders if there’s a man in her bed. No. No one has slept over since it ended with Owen, that hopeless man-child of a broke guitarist.

Waking more fully, Susan realizes her daughter Mia has crawled into bed with her. Susan is touched. Her fiercely independent fifteen-year-old usually keeps her bedroom door locked at night and hasn’t climbed into her mom’s bed in years.

“My mouth hurts, Mom,” Mia says without rolling over toward her.

It’s not Mia’s words but rather her extreme hoarseness that jolts Susan to full alertness. “You mean your throat?”

“That, too,” Mia croaks. “My mouth feels like I burned it. And my lips are all weird.”

“Weird?”

“I dunno. Swollen.”

Susan switches on the bedside lamp. “Let me see.”

Mia turns over to face her.

It’s all Susan can do not to cry out. She can’t even discern where her daughter lips end and the blisters begin. “Oh my God, sweetheart! Your mouth.”

CHAPTER 32

The usual chaos reigns inside Harborview’s emergency room. Lisa has to flash her ID badge and ask three separate staff members before she’s finally directed to the correct room within the department’s resuscitation zone.

“Never seen one like this,” says the harried ER doctor, Sofia Cortez, as she stands with Lisa outside a door with the curtain drawn across it.

Lisa wonders what possible experience Cortez could already have. To her eyes, she looks barely old enough to have graduated college, let alone work as an attending physician at a major teaching hospital. “How so?”

“The swelling spread in front of my eyes,” Cortez says. “Mia was talking—I mean barely, but she was—when she showed up. Her throat closed over as I had my stethoscope to her chest. We had no choice but to intubate her. There was so much swelling and debris in her airway that I could barely pass the tube through the vocal cords. She got lucky. Five minutes longer at home and she probably would’ve suffocated.”

Lisa has yet to see Mia, but the description is enough to send a chill through her. “And you’re sure it’s