Free Mercy 6 by David Bajo

never rule that out too soon. But viral is the way to go. Hemorrhagic and sudden. Thorpe’s fear.”
    â€œThorpe’s hope, you mean.”
    Claiborne closed his eyes and took a breath. There was a draw on the violin. “I want you to be right, Dr. Mendenhall. Like I want to be eating Thai with my wife. But he is right. You know it, too.”
    She thought, searched past the fatigue. She looked at Silva’s face, relieved to find the tech’s mask down, furtive lips and nose, eyes lifted. “No. I don’t know it.”
    â€œLook, Doctor.” Claiborne opened his hands, his arms. “You are very good at what you do. You made the call right away. You saw it.”
    She looked at the clean bodies, their skin reflecting the aimed light. “There should’ve been more bleeding, less isolation. Even in something fast. Dengue fever, even. Any VHF.”
    â€œThat’s what I thought. After you sent your predictions. So I searched. . . . I found this.” Claiborne changed Verdasco’s overhead to show a scan of his brain. Mendenhall saw a faint cloud along the edge of Verdasco’s frontal lobe.
    â€œAnd this.” Claiborne changed the scan to Verdasco’s left kidney.
    Another cloud.
    â€œThose are pretty vague.”
    Claiborne shook his head. “They just got started. Then he died.”
    Silva stepped closer, almost getting between them. Mullich would have found that interesting, would have drawn the triangle, noted its slightness.
    â€œWe found similar hemorrhaging in the others,” Silva said. “In other major organs. Dozier’s liver and brain, Fleming’s kidneys and brain. Thorpe confirmed something similar in Peterson’s brain and lungs.”
    â€œYou mean incipient hemorrhaging.” Mendenhall eyed Verdasco’s display as she spoke, trying not to lessen her tone.
    â€œDon’t fight this,” said Claiborne. His gaze was that same look again, the one he gave her on the trail before he increased his pace.
    â€œYou are the one giving us—including Thorpe—some of the best anticipations. Use them right.”
    He motioned to Verdasco’s brain scan, then continued, “We most likely have a virus that produces trauma. We know viruses that do that—induce trauma, shock. This is new, yes. But it’s in the continuum. New means nothing more to me than indication.
    Indication to find and identify. It doesn’t mean panic. It doesn’t mean containment. It means work for me. For us.”
    Mendenhall could not help inverting his first premise. It was what she did. It was what she had been taught. It was why she had gone to that abandoned file room. She closed her eyes and went there in her thoughts, just for the moment it took her to think out the inversion. Trauma that produces virulent hemorrhaging.
    â€œI know what you’re thinking,” said Claiborne, “and it makes no sense. Not with what we have. Not with time and placement. It all happened here. Inside.”
    Mendenhall looked across the lab at Mullich’s displays.
    Claiborne followed her gaze.
    â€œHe’s doing it right, too,” said Claiborne. “Using you right.
    Finding patterns. Hopefully a center.”
    Mendenhall looked at Silva.
    â€œNo,” said Claiborne. “She’s doing it right, too. Don’t go there.”
    â€œYou’ll get me fired.” Silva returned their looks.
    â€œI want you to keep coming down here, Doctor.” Again
    Claiborne opened his hands to her. “Because it will help you up there.” He motioned toward the ceiling. “And it’s helping us down here. But not if you’re going to fight every finding. For fight’s sake.”
    Mendenhall rubbed her own shoulders, kneaded them, resisting the urge to press her eyes and face. “When does containment end, then? Assuming no more outbreak. Assuming Thorpe disregards those last hystericals.”
    â€œAll