The Laptev Virus

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment. Now that she was finally sitting down, in her own apartment, the exhaustion that she felt washed over her again. “We checked all of that too. Nothing,” she said, her voice heavy and falling to a whisper, as if the words were too heavy for her throat. She sat quietly for a few minutes, watching as John expertly chopped the rest of the vegetables, lettuce, tomato and cucumber, for the salad. Then he got out a chunk of feta cheese, carefully cut off a portion of it, and crumbled it over the lettuce.

“The only difference we have seen is that Kevin said that the two groups were housed in different rooms in the vivarium. Rooms C12 and C8. But I went and took another look at both of those rooms and they are totally identical.”

John shrugged his shoulders. “Yeah, I’ve been down there too. All of the rooms are the same, I’m fairly certain, so that shouldn’t make a difference, should it? And can you tell which mice came from which room?” asked John as he turned to stir the mushrooms which he was sautéing in some olive oil and garlic. The aroma made Sarah’s stomach growl lustily.

“I don’t think so, but I don’t think it matters. We know that some of them came from one room, and some from the other, but I don’t think we have a record of which ones came from which…” said Sarah, stopping in mid-sentence. A thought had occurred to her and she sat up straighter. “Wait a minute! Why didn’t I think of that before? We can check to see which mice came from which room. I’m not sure if that’s important, but I’ll text Kevin right now and ask him to compile a report in the morning. You’re brilliant, honey!”

“And I thought you married me for my body,” he said, chuckling and raising his arm to show a pretend muscle bulge.

“Oh, definitely that too,” she said, winking and blowing him a kiss. Then she typed out her note to Kevin. Everyone had assumed that since the mice were from the same control group, they could not be traced, but the new ear tags had codes which did allow for tracking individuals, and by plugging the barcodes into the computer, they would be able to tell which room each mouse had come from. It wasn’t much, most likely just another blind alley, but it made her feel slightly better to at least have one new idea to look at tomorrow morning.

CHAPTER 17

Sarah looked at her watch impatiently. It was almost 11:00 am, and she was sitting at her desk trying to focus on a report that she was writing for Rhonda. Normally Sarah would have trudged upstairs to deliver the bad news in person, but Rhonda was away for a few days at a conference in Atlanta. It was convenient timing, thought Sarah, with a sigh of relief.

“Call me as soon as anything comes up,” Rhonda had said. But Sarah had decided that the best way to present the disappointing news would be in the form of a well redacted statement. However, she wasn’t making much progress. If she was honest with herself, she still held out hope that Kevin would uncover something interesting about the rooms the mice came from, or that Tally or Drew or Emile would figure out something, anything, which would help them salvage some dignity. Then she would not have to say that some of the mice from each group had died and some were perfectly fine and that they had no understanding of how or why this had happened, and that furthermore, there had been some sort of contamination which she also did not understand and had no clue as to whether it was related to the mice surviving or not surviving the Laptev virus infection.

She glanced again at her watch. Only one minute had passed since the last time she had looked, but surely there would be some answers by now. She had heard nothing all morning.

She rose, walked to her door, and looking out into the hallway she saw Kevin quickly approaching her office. Walking next to him was a young woman. She was dressed in jeans, a cotton T-shirt, and tennis shoes. Her brown hair was pulled up in a casual ponytail, from which a few wisps had escaped.

As Sarah looked at Kevin, she could tell that something was amiss. It took her a moment longer to realize that for once, he did not have his phone in his hand.

“Dr. Spallanzani,” he said, increasing his pace to a jog. “I think we might have something.”

Sarah felt her heart skip at the news. She motioned Kevin and the young woman, whom she now recognized as Molly Greenburg, one of the vivarium technicians, into her office and sat back down at her desk. She had hoped for answers but had not expected them to come running to her in the form of Kevin.

“Dr. Spallanzani,” repeated Kevin, catching his breath. “I think I found something important.”

Sarah nodded, “Go on.”

“Molly here, she works in the vivarium, C12,” he said, now looking at Molly, who blushed and looked down at her lap.

“Yes, we’ve met before. How are you, Molly?” said Sarah.

When Molly didn’t reply, Kevin prodded her. “Molly, you gotta tell her what you told me.”