Free The Chimera Sequence by Elliott Garber

couldn’t stop herself from reaching up to plant a light kiss on his scruffy cheek.
    “Now take that with you back to the lab and be ready to tell me everything over breakfast.”
    “Ugh. You’re a cruel woman, you know that?”
    He took her head in both hands, leaned in, and gently rubbed his nose against her own. She felt his lips brush hers for the briefest second, and then he was gone.

GOMA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
9:24 a.m.
    Lars Olsson nodded to the two guards as he stepped between them and pushed through the heavy white canvas flap into the tiny space that served as office, bank, and bedroom. Lowering himself onto the cot, he took a deep breath of the cool clean air. It was a welcome respite from the oppressive heat outside, even worse than usual due to the stench of burning tires wafting over the entire city.
    The portable air conditioning unit and accompanying HEPA filter were unnecessary luxuries in a place like this. He knew that, of course. But after thirty years of moving from one hot and smelly location to the next, he was ready for a taste of luxury.
    Had it really been thirty years since he hopped on that flight to Addis, a starry-eyed volunteer full of plans to save the starving children of Ethiopia? It was the day after his graduation from the University of Copenhagen as a newly minted physician. Thirty years. His tall wiry frame and full head of sandy blond hair might keep people guessing about his age, but he knew the deepening creases in his tanned face would give him away soon enough.
    Olsson leaned into the tent’s solid corner post and opened up his laptop. It always took several minutes for the mobile data link to find a connection, but he had to resist the urge to tap aggressively on the touchpad while he waited. Even the satellites did their best to avoid this god-forsaken rubbish heap.
    Thirty years was a long time. A long time to devote to a cause that never seemed to get any better. The faces changed, the skin color changed, and the diseases changed. But everything else was constant, disaster after disaster, year after year. He loved it, this never-ending challenge of broken people needing his healing touch and organizational expertise. But he was tired.
    A chime let him know the connection was live, and he watched his inbox fill with news from the outside world. His boss in Nairobi wanted an update. A nurse needed confirmation that they could still use her before starting the long journey from the States. Some freelance journalist requesting an interview. You’d think they would realize their readers didn’t want to hear about it every time Africans start killing each other again.
    And then the ProMED e-mails, this steady stream of reports detailing all the different ways people and animals got sick and died. Lars skimmed the subject lines with a passing interest. Another outbreak of cholera in Haiti, that came as no surprise. He spent two years running a post-earthquake field hospital in Port-au-Prince and saw enough watery diarrhea to last a lifetime. Wild ducks dying in Mongolia from the latest strain of influenza. Worrisome, but probably just another false alarm. He was tired of the media’s feeding frenzy every time the next big flu pandemic loomed on the horizon.
    “Dr. Lars, you have a visitor outside.” The booming voice of one of the guards interrupted his reading.
    “Right, who is it?”
    “She says she is from the magazine, that she sent you a message this morning.”
    Well that was a bit presumptuous. The lines around his mouth deepened in an angry grimace, but the bolded subject line of one more e-mail caught his eye as he reached to close the laptop:
    ProMED > Monkeypox, gorilla - Virunga, DRC; Unconfirmed Report
    The grimace changed to an open-mouthed gape as he opened the message.
    “How the hell did someone manage to get into Virunga?” he said out loud.
    “That’s what I’m here to find out, too.”
    Olsson looked up toward the crisp British voice and