11. 11
Dr. Novikov spent meal periods in the mess hall socializing, and every time I’d been eating, he’d also been there.
He always arrived before and left after I did, so I knew where he would be.
I wasn’t hungry, not after the day Elias and I had, but I tried to grab something small.
Elias was like the little angel on my shoulder, reminding me to put something in my stomach.
He was busy chatting with Misha, and they both smiled as I approached the table.
“Did you lose your bodyguard?” Misha asked.
“He’s working on something,” I said.
“I thought you two were attached.”
I huffed, sitting down. “Have you made any progress?”
“Not much, but the samples from the United States have been helpful. The virus, uh, vector, you requested is very hardy.”
“Thank you, it’s my creation,” I said. More than that, it was my life’s work. It had ruined my life, getting me into situations like this, but would save the lives of so many others. How nice.
His eyes widened in surprise. “It’s beautiful.”
“I know.” I turned my attention from Misha to Dr. Novikov. “I need to talk to you. Right now.”
“My friend,” he said, smiling. “You should eat.”
“I don’t have much of an appetite right now, if we are being honest,” I said, taking a bite of the bread I’d grabbed. It was dry. “Do you want to do this here, or would you like to go somewhere more private?”
His smile faltered. “We will go somewhere private.” He turned to Misha. “Keep working, we will talk later.”
I stood up, looking down at Misha, too. “I’m sorry, by the way.”
“Why?” He asked, taking a bite of his lunch.
“For abandoning you there in the lab. I’ll come back, I promise.”
He waved a hand. “You have helped already.”
I nodded, and followed Novikov out of the room. We didn’t go far, just to his living quarters down the hall. His room was much nicer than ours, and he had photos and decor on the walls, making it a little more homely than I had anticipated was possible.
The photos were of him and Dr. Petrova.
I hadn’t noticed the double bed in the room, the lack of stacked metal bunks. They had a couch and a television, the coffee table between was stacked with magazines. The two of them had made a home here, in the midst of their research.
“You were together,” I said.
He nodded. “Just like you and your escort.”
I didn’t say anything.
“There is nothing like working with your partner. Sharing a mind and goals,” he said. “We were married ten years ago.”
“I’m sorry this is happening to you.” I couldn’t imagine what it would feel like. Elias had been infected, only briefly, and after the vaccine was already in my hands. We hadn’t been together for a decade either, it was no comparison to the situation Dr. Novikov was in.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing to the couch. He pulled a chair from the nearby desk and sat to the side of the coffee table.
I sat down, setting Dr. Fassi’s file on the table between us. I opened it, letting the first picture show what the file entailed.
“How did you guess the password?” He asked.
“I was being funny and put my own dog’s name into the terminal,” I answered. “Why was it my dog?”
He stared at me, mouth agape. “What?”
“The password was my fucking dog, Dr. Novikov. Why was it my dog?”
He shook his head. “The other Doctor–”
“Dr. Taylor, right?” I asked.
He nodded. “You know him?”
If I wanted information from him, if I wanted him to trust me, I was going to have to divulge some of my own.
“Dr. Taylor is the reason Elias is here with me. He caused an outbreak where I worked. Dr. Fassi was my coworker, and he tried to kill me in the lab.” I held up the photo of him still human.
“Then Taylor sewed him back together after Elias killed him, and he tried to kill us again.” I paused, taking a breath.
“He infected Elias with something we were calling Variant-13. I finished the vaccine just in time to save him.”
“NT01,” he said. “That was NT01. We created it here.”
Novikov-Taylor. NT. I felt stupid. “Why did you do that?”
“I do not know anymore,” he admitted, leaning back in his chair.
He crossed his arms tight across his chest. “Dr. Taylor has been coming here for years, working with us. It started as medical research. He was trying to find a way for the body to heal itself. He travels around the world, meeting with other scientists, then he returns here and we improve upon what we have made.”
“Judging by some photos, I’d say he just left.”
“You are correct. As soon as he was gone, I reached out to my government for help. You know what happened next.”
“You made a mistake, and now you want me to clean it up for you?” I hoped this wouldn’t become a pattern.
Novikov stood and walked to a small fridge, pulling out a beer. “Do you want one?”
“No.”
He popped the top, drinking half of it at once, then leaned against the wall.
“My wife has cancer.”
My legs uncrossed themselves, and I fell back into the couch. “I’m so sorry.”
“That is why she did it,” he confessed. “That is why she infected herself.”
“I’m not trying to be insensitive, but how would that help her?” Everyone deals with bad news in a different way, but I couldn’t imagine putting my husband in a position where he would have to kill me himself.
“She saw how well Dr. Taylor was doing. He was sick, did you know? He cured himself with his viruses and my wife thought she could do the same.”
“I didn’t know that.”
He reached into the fridge again, pulling out a syringe. “It is time for her injection,” he said. “Come with me.”
I hesitated. Elias had told me not to go back without him, but Dr. Novikov had kept her docile for days. He knew this virus better than I did, he created it. If he believed he was safe, I had no reason not to believe it, too.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll come.”
He slipped the syringe into a small case, carrying it like it was nothing. Walking through the hallways, he greeted passersby with a smile and a wave from his free hand. This was what he did every six hours, the other scientists here none the wiser.
I would have to tell Elias about our conversation, and how I followed Novikov right back to where I was politely asked not to go.
He didn’t seem like he had the energy to be upset with me today, but I considered that his lack of energy might result in him losing his temper, unable to stay patient. I’d find out.
I wasn’t even sure if I should tell him when I got back, or if I should wait until he had recovered.
It was important, but I didn’t know how much more he could take.
Even without his confessions to me, and the photos of Julia, the video of his debrief would have broken him regardless, the emotional back and forth just compounded the guilt he felt from that mission.
I shouldn’t have left him alone, but he wouldn’t have let me stay. He was safe, at least.
Dr. Novikov entered the password to the door. “I will not change the password. Dr. Taylor seems to want you here.”
“He left us quite a few surprises,” I said, pointing to the small office that held Julia’s photos.
“I have not been in the rooms here. I only come for Katya.”
“Dr. Taylor has private photos and videos of Elias here. Things he shouldn’t have access to.”
He shook his head as we rounded the corner to Katya. “He likes to play games.” Stepping forward to the glass, he placed his hand there. “My love.”
She rested against the partition, leaning where his hand was. Her eyes held no emotion, but she looked at me, registering my presence.
“Hello, Katya,” I said.
She tilted her head, just barely.
“She is from the United States. She is working on a cure for you,” Dr. Novikov said.
Katya only grunted in response, and stumbled to the small cot to sit down.
Dr. Novikov held his thumb to a small sensor near the door to her cell and it opened. Involuntarily I gasped, taking a step back. My hand went to the gun on my hip, but I stopped myself from pulling it out.
“She will not attack,” he said, the door closing as he entered the small space.
He hovered over her, pulling her arm up and stabbing her with the syringe.
She flinched, such a human response, and it startled me.
Looking at her movements, her eyes, it had seemed evident that Dr. Petrova was no more.
Seeing her so compliant, watching her understand the words coming from my and Novikov’s mouths, I realized that she might really be able to be saved.
Novikov left the cell, leaving Katya to lay down on the cot. “I would appreciate if you do not share this with your government. I am showing this to you because we want to trust each other.”
“If they order me to kill her then I just won’t do it,” I said. “They aren’t here, they can’t force me. Besides, if we can save her, we could really use her. Both of you know far more about these pathogens than I do.”
“I understand,” he said. “You must do what you have to.”
“Thank you for your honesty, today.”
“I regret so much that has happened.”
“I have some reading to do,” I said, holding up the file in my hands. “We will talk soon.”
It would take a lot more than being honest with me to make up for what he’d done.
I could lie to myself and say that Dr. Taylor was the reason for all of this, that his motivations caused the destruction in Richmond, in Cote d’Ivoire, the countless other places that Elias had been to, but I knew better.
Dr. Novikov and Dr. Petrova played just as big a part in this as Taylor did.
I hurried back to our room. If Elias was sleeping or moping, I would read.
I hadn’t finished the files I’d begun reading the night before, and I had a fresh new file to go over about Dr. Fassi that I was eager to dig through.
On the off chance that Elias wanted to talk about work, then I was looking forward to sharing what I’d learned with him.
Misha was standing outside my room, his hand poised to knock on the door.
“Hey,” I called, trying to stop him from potentially waking Elias.
He turned at the sound of my voice. “Are you coming to the lab?” he asked.