The Laptev Virus

Sarah’s relief came and went in the blink of an eye, and now she remembered that she needed to get off the phone with alacrity. “Mom, please, I’m really sorry but I’m waiting for an urgent phone call. Let me call you back in a few minutes, once I hear from this other person.” Sarah quickly put the phone down.

As she waited, her impatience rose. She was frustrated that her ankle was taking so long to heal. She was upset that the mice had been contaminated. And now she was worried that the contaminated mice, which she had thought were a burden, might turn out to hold answers, but they wouldn’t be able to find the answers before the mice were killed. She rose to head toward the door, then changed her mind and sat down heavily. Her father’s words to her as a child came back now. “Be patient, Sarah. Patience is a virtue. All in good time.”

Then she remembered her freshman roommate saying, “Patience is a virgin,” and that made her smile.

Suddenly the phone rang. Sarah hesitated, wondering if it might be her mother again. She stared at the little screen but all it said was “INCOMING CALL.” Not the least bit helpful.

“Kevin?” she asked.

“Dr. S.,” he said, breathing heavily as if he had run all the way to the Waiting Room. Maybe he had.

“Yes?” she asked, fearing the worst.

“Got ‘em,” he said confidently. “Where do you want ‘em?”

Sarah said a silent prayer of gratitude. “Thank you so much, Kevin. Please have them sent to the lab and ask Tally to call me when they arrive. They need to stay in quarantine, so be careful. But I want every last one of them to have a special blood test.”

CHAPTER 20

“We’ve got an intriguing situation,” Sarah explained the next day. She was addressing all of her group, as well as Rhonda and Angela, who had insisted on being a part of the meeting. Sarah was not at all pleased about having these last two members attend her group meetings, but there was nothing she could do about it. She had briefly explained the contamination issue to Rhonda that morning, and Rhonda had insisted on calling Angela and having her attend the next meeting.

“I made a chart of which mice lived and which ones did not for each dilution level, and it turns out that the C12 prefix ones, meaning all of the mice that came from room C12, are the ones that survived…” began Sarah.

“‘The boy that lived,’” said Shane in a mocking voice.

Sarah scowled at him.

Shane blushed and she wondered if he had meant to make his comment out loud. “Sorry, it was just the way you said it reminded me of Harry…” he said quietly. “Sorry, won’t happen again.”

Sarah took another breath and continued, “As I was saying, we know that we have a group of mice that lived, but what we don’t know is why that is the case. At first we thought it was a bad thing that half of our groups had perished, but we were focusing on the wrong half of the groups and asking the wrong questions. What is clear now is that we can see this situation as an opportunity. The first question we need to ask ourselves is why did the C12 group live?”

Everyone was silent for a moment as they pondered Sarah’s words.

“What if the mice were resistant to the virus because it has undergone a mutation and it was no longer virulent?” said Tally.

“If that were so, wouldn’t more mice than just half have been resistant?” asked Miquela.

Tally nodded, “Yeah, good point.”

“Well, Miquela’s right that it’s not likely, but it is still a possibility,” admitted Sarah. “Let’s try infecting a few fresh C8 mice with the same vial of virus and see what happens. Tally, do we still have that vial? Yes? Good. Would you mind taking care of that test and report back to us?”

Tally nodded, jotting down the experiment outline.

Then Sarah addressed the group again. “What else could it be?”

“What if for some reason the mice did not receive the adequate dose for infection?” asked Emile.

Sarah nodded. She was back in her element now. Ever since Kevin had managed to save the mice the day before, she had been feeling exuberant. “That’s also possible, though it would be strange that only the C12 mice, which were mixed with the C8 mice, were the ones who did not receive the adequate dose. Kevin, are there any C12 mice left that we haven’t used?”

Kevin jabbed his thumbs at his phone a few times. “Yes,” he said, momentarily. “There are about 20 more.”

“Okay, Emile, please take two of our C12 group of mice that have not been used before and inoculate them with a fresh batch of virus. Let’s see what happens.”

“But you don’t think that either of these things are what has happened, do you?” asked Rhonda.

Sarah had to smile. “It’s just a hunch,” she said, “but no, I don’t.”

The room was silent for a few seconds.

“Well, are you going to tell us what you think might be happening?” asked Angela.