Page 74 of Outbreak Protocol

He listens, his jaw tight, his own eyes glistening with an emotion he rarely shows. When it’s over, he gently reaches out and closes the laptop, silencing the ghosts. He looks from the screen to me, his gaze direct and full of a shared understanding that needs no further words.

“He's right,” Erik says, his voice quiet but absolute. “We won't let them be forgotten.”

That night, after Emma is asleep, we go into her room. We hang the handsome German flag on her wall, the black, red, and gold a stark slash of colour against the pale paint. It feels like an act of remembrance, a prayer.

The next morning, she sees it. “Why is that here?” she asks, pointing.

I kneel down to her level. "To remember," I tell her, my voice thick. "To remember where we came from. And to remember why we have to keep fighting."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Day 227

FELIX

Spring arrives in Switzerland with a quiet, defiant beauty. It greens the lower slopes of the Alps, breathing life into meadows that seem oblivious to the fact that much of the continent is dying. From the window of our chalet, the world looks deceptively whole.

Inside, the late afternoon light slants across the kitchen table, illuminating the faint pencil marks on Emma’s homework. She sits with her tongue peeking from the corner of her mouth, a picture of pure concentration. I lean over her shoulder, the familiar, clean scent of her hair a comforting anchor in my day.

“Seven times eight,” she murmurs, tapping her pencil.

“Fifty-four,” I say automatically.

She glances up at me, her brow furrowed with the gentle condescension only an eight-year-old can muster. “Non, Uncle Felix. It’s fifty-six. Madame Dubois says so.”

A quiet pang, familiar as my own heartbeat, resonates in my chest. “You’re right. My mistake.” I ruffle her hair, and shegiggles, turning back to her worksheet. It’s the new architecture of my mind: fully functional, mostly reliable, but with the occasional crossed wire, a phantom limb where perfect recall used to be. The neurologist says I’ve regained 85% of my pre-infection cognitive function. Most days, I’m grateful for the 85%. Some days, I miss the other 15% like a lost friend.

In the background, a Pan-European news broadcast plays softly on a tablet, the newscaster’s crisp, neutral accent a sterile counterpoint to our domestic peace. “...ongoing sanitation efforts in the German Lost Zone continue to show progress,” she reports. “Territories are being secured according to protocol, neutralizing endemic reservoirs to ensure continental security.”

Sanitation efforts. Lost Zone.The clinical language makes my country sound like a contaminated lab sample. I feel a muscle in my jaw tighten, but then Emma tugs on my sleeve.

“Eliza’s birthday party is on Saturday,” she says, her eyes wide with the gravity of the occasion. “Can I go? There’s going to be a magician.”

The sudden, wonderful normalcy of the request is jarring. A child, worried about a birthday party. A magician. It’s a precious slice of the world we fought for. “Of course, you can,” I say, my voice thick with more than just the words. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Later, after Emma is asleep, her dreams hopefully filled with rabbits pulled from hats instead of the shadows that used to haunt them, Erik calls me over. He's at the table, his face illuminated by the glow of his screen. The easy contentment of the afternoon has vanished, replaced by the intense focus I know so well.

“Felix, you need to see this.”

It’s not his usual data stream of infection rates or supply chain logistics. On the screen is a formal, encrypted communique, bearing the emblems of the World Health Organization and the Pan-European Command.

It is an offer. A proposal to establish a permanentinternational research institute, a global centre for pandemic prevention and response. It outlines a purpose-built facility in a remote, secure location in Canada, under international jurisdiction. It would be funded by a coalition of surviving governments, a shield for the future built from the wreckage of our present.

The final lines are what make my breath catch. They are asking us to lead it. To be its founding directors.

Erik gets up and begins to pace, a rare show of restless energy. “Think of it, Felix. Everything we’ve learned. We can do it right, from the ground up. The right containment protocols, the right research priorities. A place built to stop this from ever happening again.” His eyes are bright with a passion I recognize. This is the ultimate, elegant solution to the problem that has consumed our lives. It’s his love language, written on a global scale. “We can build a future there. For us. A real home.”

I don’t move from the screen. I see the logic, the undeniable rightness of it. But my heart feels like it’s been packed in ice. I look around our small chalet, this temporary haven that has started to feel like a sanctuary.

“Erik, we just got here,” I say softly. “Emma… she’s finally stable. She has friends. Madame Dubois. She’s learning to ski, for God’s sake. We can’t just pull her away again.”

My gaze drifts as if I could see past the mountains, north toward the darkness on the map. “And Germany? We just... leave? We go to Canada and build this perfect new life while my country is erased and called a ‘Lost Zone’? It feels like we’re running away.”

He stops pacing and looks at me, his expression softening. He's learned to read my silences, the spaces between my words. “Then let’s walk,” he says.

The air outside is crisp and clean, tasting of pine and melting snow. We follow the path alongside the perimeter fence, its sharp, metallic lines a stark contrast to the majestic, indifferent peaks that tower above us. The first stars are beginning to prick the deep violet sky.

“She needs stability, Erik,” I say, breaking the silence. “More than she needs a new continent.”