Free Pandemic by Daniel Kalla

his head. "Duncan, this is not Ebola."
    McLeod nodded. "I know. And it's a bloody shame."
    "Oh?"
    "Nice and clean killer, Ebola." McLeod nodded in admiration. "But its ruthless lethality is its shortcoming. Kills everything in its path. If this were Ebola, we'd have a few hundred dead farmers and some very cheap farm-land on the market, but the disease would bum itself out for lack of new victims."
    Haldane nodded, picking up on McLeod's logic. "Whereas ARCS only kills the significant minority of its victims, allowing the virus to propagate and spread beyond the site of the index cases"
    "And spread rapidly."
    "That is yet to be determined, Duncan," Haldane said, but he was unconvinced by his own argument.
    The car slowed before turning off the main road and onto the driveway of Jiayuguan's regional hospital. They passed through two checkpoints, manned by masked soldiers, and drove into the gravel parking lot in front of the hospital. A cold spitting drizzle fell as Haldane and McLeod hopped out of the car, bundled their jackets, and strode for the front entrance.
    Once they cleared the internal security measures, McLeod and Haldane were led into the change room. Haldane had slipped into too many biohazard, or HAZMAT, suits to feel the slightest alarm. As he stepped out through the two sets of sealed doors and into the clinical area, he actually felt relief to be among the appropriate high-level, scientific protective measures and away from the irrational fear he had seen on the streets in the eyes behind the surgical masks.
    A hospital guide, fully suited in blue HAZMAT gear like the rest of the staff behind the doors, acted as their translator. The chubby man led the two emerging pathogens experts to a hospital room on the second floor. Haldane was surprised to see that the door was locked. They had to wait for a security guard to let them in. "Why the guards?" Haldane asked the translator.
    The translator spoke to the security guard and then turned to Haldane. "The men might still be contaminated," he said in a voice that was muffled by the spacesuitlike hood he wore. He pointed to the guard opening the door. "They take no chances."
    Inside, with the door locked behind them, they stood in a bleak windowless hospital room befitting a second-world country. Two beds were hidden behind drawn curtains. On the other side of the room, two men wearing masks, gloves, and shower caps along with standard hospital pajamas sat across from one another on narrow cots and played mahjong with small white domino-like tiles.
    "Why are they still here?" McLeod pointed at the healthy-looking men.
    "Still might be contaminated," the translator replied.
    "'Infectious"', Haldane corrected distractedly. He waved to the two men, who responded with friendly nods, and then he asked the translator. "When did they become sick?"
    The translator spoke for several minutes to the two patients in their native Mandarin.
    "Watch," McLeod said, shifting impatiently from foot to foot. "I've seen translators do this a thousand times before. They'll gab back and forth for half an hour and then the guy will turn to us and say 'yes' or 'no.'"
    Haldane had witnessed the same frustrating happening, but in this case, McLeod was wrong.
    "Both men live in the same town fifty miles north of Jiayuguan," the translator said. He pointed to the smaller man on the cot nearest them. "Seven days ago, Xiang got a high fever. In a day, he started to cough. Then he became very, very sick. The oxygen did not help him. He was suffocating on his own mucus." He put both hands on his own throat and pantomimed a choke. "The town's doctor arranged to bring Xiang here, but he told his wife it was probably no good. Here at our hospital, the doctors put Xiang on a life-support machine. After three days, he got much better." The translator snapped his finger to indicate the rapidity of his sudden improvement. "Now, he waits for two days until the doctors say he is no longer infectious." The