Chapter 11: Petri Dish

Bixby wanted proof, and so did I.

He dug in his pack until he found a flat tin box, the kind a dentist keeps instruments in.

Inside lay a stack of paper test strips, a dropper bottle, and one glass ampoule wrapped in a sock.

"The ampoule came out of the fire," he said. "It was in my coat. It's the only Reeve serum I have left."

"What are the strips?"

"Reeve rapid kits. Calvin's own. The camp issued them to every clinic."

He held one up.

"Dip it in infected blood and it turns red. If something in the sample kills the virus, it turns clear."

"I need a sample," I said.

Jonas stood up.

"I'll get one."

He went out through the front doors with the hatchet.

I did not ask what he was going to do, because I knew.

He was gone eleven minutes.

When he came back, he held a jar with a thin red smear in the bottom, and his sleeve was wet to the elbow.

"One of them was in the ski racks," he said. "It's done."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me."

Bixby laid out the strips on the rental counter.

I rolled up my sleeve, and my hands were steady, because this was work I knew.

I tied the tourniquet and found the vein on the first pass.

I drew my own blood into a clean tube, and I felt something tighten in my chest at the sight of it.

Twenty-three times, somebody had done this to me with a smile.

This time it was my own hand.

Bixby let the blood stand for a few minutes and spun the tube between his palms.

Then he put a drop of Jonas's sample on the first strip.

It turned red within a second.

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