Page 16 of Outbreak Protocol

CHAPTER TEN

ERIK

The conference room has transformed into our fortress against chaos.

Three laptops hum on the long table, their blue glow mixing with harsh fluorescent light.

Data printouts carpet every surface—transmission models, mortality projections, clinical summaries stacked in precise towers that Felix somehow navigates without disturbing my organizational system.

Empty coffee cups ring the table like soldiers in formation, testament to our third consecutive sleepless night.

Felix hunches over patient charts spread across the table's far end, reading glasses perched on his nose as he updates clinical progressions.

His pen moves in deliberate strokes, annotating symptoms, treatment responses, time of death.

Each notation represents someone's last hours, but his handwriting remains steady, controlled.

I track his peripheral vision while analyzing transmission data.

When he removes his glasses to rub tired eyes, I know he's lost another patient.

When he unconsciously runs fingers through already disheveled hair, the case is particularly young.

When he sets down his pen and stares at the wall—like now—the death was unexpected.

"Frau Kellner?" I ask without looking up from my screen.

"Four-seventeen this morning." His voice carries exhaustion that sleep won't cure. "Respiratory failure. We thought she was responding to the antiviral cocktail."

I save my analysis and swivel toward him. "How old?"

"Twenty-three. Art student. She painted landscapes."

Before, I would have coded this death as Case #247, female, age 20-29, Day 4 symptom onset, respiratory complications.

Now I picture hands mixing watercolours, easel positioned to catch morning light through apartment windows.

Felix's influence has infected my epidemiological detachment with dangerous humanity.

"Her boyfriend brought in her sketchbook," Felix continues. "Drawings of parks, churches, the Alster Lake at sunset. She made Hamburg beautiful on paper."

I stand and move behind his chair, hands settling on his shoulders. Tension knots the muscles beneath his scrubs, weeks of stress calcified into permanent ache. My thumbs work against the worst spots, feeling him gradually relax under pressure.

"Tell me about pathology," I say. "Why you left."

His head drops forward as I massage deeper. "Specific reason or general dissatisfaction with dead people?"

"Specific. There was a moment."

Felix sighs, settling into my touch. "Seven-year-old boy. Jakob Hoffman. Leukemia, just like your sister. His parents requested autopsy to understand what went wrong with treatment."

My hands still momentarily before resuming their rhythm.

"I spent four hours examining tissue samples, documenting cellular changes, writing detailed reports about disease progression.

Very thorough. Very professional." Felix's voice grows quiet.

"When I finished, Jakob's mother asked if I could tell her whether he suffered.

Whether the pain was manageable. Whether he knew how much they loved him. "

"What did you say?"

"That cellular examination couldn't determine subjective pain experience or cognitive awareness during final stages." Felix laughs bitterly. "I gave her pathology textbook answers when she needed human reassurance."

I continue working knots from his shoulders, understanding now why he chose emergency medicine's chaos over pathology's ordered quiet.

"She thanked me anyway," Felix continues.

"Said at least someone took time to understand what happened to her son.

But I realized I'd spent four hours studying Jakob's death without learning anything about his life.

I knew his tumor margins but not his favourite bedtime story.

I could describe cellular destruction but not whether he liked football or drawing or ice cream. "

"So you switched to emergency medicine."

"Where I can know patients before they become cases. Where Jakob's mother's questions actually matter more than microscopic tissue analysis."

I lean down and press my lips briefly to his temple, tasting salt and exhaustion. "You made the right choice."

He tilts his head back to meet my eyes. "Now you tell me about Astrid."

I return to my chair, suddenly uncomfortable with the emotional exposure Felix's presence encourages. But his expectant expression won't accept deflection.

"Sixteen months," I begin. "From diagnosis to death. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, relatively good prognosis initially."

"How old were you?"

"Sixteen. She was fourteen." I pull up meaningless data on my laptop screen, needing the visual barrier.

"I documented everything—blood counts, treatment protocols, side effects, survival statistics.

Kept spreadsheets tracking her progress, calculated probability curves for different treatment options. "

"You were trying to save her with mathematics."

"I was trying to understand something that made no sense.

" My fingers find familiar keyboard patterns, muscle memory providing comfort.

"Why did healthy fourteen-year-old girls develop aggressive blood cancers?

What environmental factors contributed to cellular mutation?

Could statistical analysis identify intervention points we'd missed? "

Felix pulls his chair closer, not quite touching but near enough that I feel his warmth. "Did the numbers help?"

"They gave me illusion of control. If I could model disease progression accurately enough, predict treatment responses precisely enough, maybe I could find the variable that would save her."

"But you couldn't."

"No." The admission scrapes my throat raw. "She died on a Tuesday morning at 6:23 AM. I was calculating revised survival probabilities based on her latest lab results when my mother called from the hospital."

Felix's hand covers mine on the keyboard, stopping my restless typing. "I'm sorry."

"After the funeral, I decided emotional distance was the only way to function in medical fields. Study populations instead of individuals. Focus on preventing future outbreaks rather than watching people die. Statistical analysis provides necessary objectivity that personal attachment destroys."

"Until now."

I look at him—hair mussed from my fingers, stubble darkening his jaw, eyes soft with understanding—and realize how completely my careful emotional barriers have crumbled. "Until you."

The conference room door opens, interrupting our moment. Sarah enters carrying fresh coffee and wearing the satisfied expression of someone who's made important discoveries .

"Erik, I need you to see something," she says, then notices our proximity and smiles knowingly. "Unless you're busy with very important epidemiological discussions."

"We're working," I reply, but my hand doesn't move from Felix's.

"Of course you are." Sarah sets coffee cups before us. "Aleksandr told me you two have developed impressive professional synchronization. Finishes each other's sentences during briefings, anticipates research needs, operates like medical partnership."

Felix accepts his coffee gratefully. "We've found compatible working styles."

Sarah's Irish accent makes everything sound like gentle teasing. "So, is it true what Aleksandr says? That you two have developed your own language consisting entirely of shared glances and half-finished sentences?"

I feel heat creep up my neck. "We're working efficiently under pressure."

"Right. 'Efficiency.'" Sarah winks. "Which is lovely, actually. You're both more effective when you're together."

She's right, though I won't admit it. Felix's presence has made me a better epidemiologist, more attuned to human costs behind statistical projections. His emotional intelligence complements my analytical approach, creating more complete understanding of outbreak implications.

"What did you discover?" Felix asks, smoothly redirecting conversation.

Sarah spreads new lab results across the table. "Viral sequencing shows something extraordinary. The pathogen isn't just mutating—it's incorporating genetic material from infected hosts."

I study the data, immediately grasping implications. "Adaptive evolution in real-time."

"Exactly. Each generation becomes more efficient at exploiting human physiology. It's learning from every host, optimizing transmission and pathogenicity simultaneously."

Felix leans forward, reviewing clinical correlations. "That explains why second-wave patients show different symptom profiles. The virus is customizing itself."

"Which means traditional containment models are worthless," I conclude. "We're not fighting static pathogen—we're fighting an evolving adversary that improves with each infection."

The three of us sit in sobering silence, contemplating implications. Traditional epidemiological approaches assume consistent pathogen behaviour. If the virus continuously adapts, our models become obsolete before we can implement interventions.

"How do we fight something that learns faster than we can study it?" Felix asks.

"We learn faster too," Sarah says firmly. "Combine real-time genetic analysis with immediate clinical feedback. Update models continuously instead of relying on historical patterns."

I'm already pulling up new analytical frameworks, mind racing through adaptive modelling possibilities. "We'll need parallel processing—simultaneous genetic sequencing, clinical monitoring, and epidemiological projection."

"Can the hospital systems handle that computational load?" Felix asks.

"If we optimize data streams and prioritize critical variables." My fingers fly across keyboard, sketching preliminary algorithms. "But we'll need the team working around the clock."

"Already am," Yuki says from the doorway. Dark circles shadow her eyes, but her voice remains steady. "I've been monitoring data flows since yesterday. Can implement adaptive modelling within six hours."