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Atta shook her head. It would help if they knew what those symptomswerebefore it was too late.

In the early days of the Plague, the whole of Dublin entered a dangerous Group Think somewhere along the treacherous lines of: It could never happen to me. And, in their defence, it hadn’t happened to most. But who it did happen to was usually unexpected and wholly unpredictable. The sickness did not breed in lower-income areas, it didn’t happen to those who were in close contact with the Infected, and it didn’t always happen to those in pre-existing poor health. It was an enigma. A curious, confounding disease that began with an unidentified spore in Patient Zero and spread how it saw fit, making the Infected first mildly ill, then quickly fading into organ failure and eventually death, their teeth coated in the black blood and bile they coughed up.

The spore.

The black blood.

Those were the things Atta zeroed in on.

“Morning!” Atta was greeted by a cheery woman behind the front desk as she entered the Admissions Office in House 5. “Where can I direct you?”

“Mrs O’Sullivan’s office, please.”

“Sure thing, love. Name?”

“Atta—” She caught herself. “Sorry, habit. Ariatne Morrow. Grad student, Botany.”

The bubbly brunette picked up the receiver of her phone while Atta turned to look out the windows, studying the students as they walked by down below, Campanile standing sentry and HPSC notices in their hands.

If Achilles House orsomeonecould discover what all the Infected had in common, it would make things much clearer. Atta thought the notices from HPSC were most likely bogus, created to lull the general populace into thinking they were accomplishing something with their research. In turn, if that was the case, it meant they’d actually accomplished nothing.

The thought was depressing.

“Miss Morrow?”

Atta turned to face the desk clerk.

“Mrs O’Sullivan will see you. Third door on the right.”

She found it easily enough having been there before, and went in the open door, preparing herself mentally for the number of cat figurines crowding the small office.

“Hello there,” her kind, lovely and round advisor greeted her. “Have a seat Ariatne.” Mrs O’Sullivan smiled, gesturing to the only other chair in the cramped office.

“Oh, it’s Atta,” she corrected, avoiding eye contact with the creepy cats. Atta loved cats as much as the next reclusive, bookish girl, but she drew the line at figurines.

Dropping her bag to the floor, she took a seat on the upholstery that hadn’t been updated since at least the early 70’s. It was a horrid shade of pink, situated across from a porcelain cat statue posed mid-paw cleaning.

“No one calls me Ariatne except for my gran, and that’s only because I was named after her.”

The advisor opened a file in front of her with Atta’s Christian name stamped on it in ink slightly smudged on thewof Morrow. “See now, I thought you were named after Agatha Christie’s heroine.”

“Ah, nope. That is spelled with ad, not at.But if you ask my gran, she’ll tell you Ariadne Oliver was named after her.”

Mrs O’Sullivan chuckled. “Your gran sounds like a delight.”

“She is.” Atta fiddled with her thumbnail. “Em.” She cleared her throat and sat straighter. “I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what I’m doing here.”

“At Trinity?” Mrs O’Sullivan’s brows met in the middle over her red cat-eye glasses. Atta was wildly out of fashion herself, but she was certain those glasses had been purchased in the same year as the chair she was sitting on.

“No, in your office.”

“Oh!” The advisor bopped and bobbled in her seat. “Right. Well, dear.” Fitting her fingers together, she set her hands on Atta’s file and looked at her with what had to be pity. “I’m afraid it isn’t good news.”

A thousand thoughts assaulted Atta. Her father had another accident. Her mother was dead. The Plague was shutting down Trinity?—

“The majority of your funding was not approved.”

Atta uncrossed her legs and sat forward. “What?”