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Therefore, capillary and machine need to be DNA-free.’
    My mind is overloaded. It feels good, exhilarating. I notice that he didn’t lecture me once and didn’t call me slow or stupid.
    Yet.
    ‘What you don’t want in your drinking water is anything that can harm you. There are several pathogens — microbes that make humans, animals, or plants ill. Vibrio cholerae , for example, is a human pathogen.’
    Every child knows what Vibrio cholerae is. The first words we learn are mama, papa, cholera. In that order. “Pandemic” is a bit too complicated for toddlers, so that word comes later.  
    ‘How could this thing kill most of us?’ I interrupt.
    ‘We need to find shelter.’ He points up at the sky. It hangs heavy and low and dark above our heads. Wind pushes against my back as though to urge us forward. ‘I believe you know the area better than I.’
    ‘Is that a test?’ I ask.
    ‘Of course. Everything is.’ His hair stands on end. The air is charged.
      So this is it, then. I’ll have to turn my back to him and lead him into the woods. He can slam that machine on my head and my lights will go out and I’ll know nothing of what comes after. Or nothing of all this will happen and…my life will change. I could be a Sequencer.
    I nod. ‘This way.’ Rushing ahead and into the forest, I seek a low stand of trees. My neck doesn’t even tingle. I’m quite ready for change, whatever it might be.
    When we climb through a dry wash, the first drops hit my shoulders. We reach a small elevation covered with spruce trees. Farther from us are pines, spruces, and the occasional oak. I point at a pine that is short enough as not to attract lightning, yet broad enough to protect us from rain and flying branches.
    We crouch underneath it, our backs against the trunk, our butts poked by spruce needles. Or at least mine is. I have problems focussing on anything. Hope is growing stronger, inhabiting my stomach like a sharp-toothed beast, making it ache, pucker, and lurch.
    ‘What do you know about the Great Pandemic?’ he asks and BLAM! I feel like I’m back at school.
    ‘The Great Pandemic was caused by Vibrio cholerae and ended sixty-eight years ago, leaving only 1/2986 th of humanity alive.’ That sentence comes easily because I’ve written it only yesterday, in my history finals.
    ‘How can it be that one small microbe killed most of us?’
    ‘The water…’  
    He tilts an eyebrow. My answer doesn’t seem to please him. I look at my shoes. ‘I…don’t know.’
    ‘Question everything, Micka. The Earth is one very large piece of rock that once harboured ten billion humans. Disease is as common as birth and death, and life adapted to it hundreds of millions of years ago. Cholera has been around for thousands of years. That’s a long time for humans to adjust to it, don’t you think? So how can it be possible that close to ten billion people died of this one disease?’
    His stare is intense. I feel myself growing smaller with every silent second that ticks by, while hope is screaming, “This is it, Micka, the real thing! Don’t screw up!” I see myself failing this very first test, not even an hour into my so-called probation period. It pisses me off, big time.
    ‘I don’t have enough information,’ I say. ‘All I’ve ever heard and read about the Great Pandemic was that so-and-so many people died because cholera suddenly and inexplicably swept over us, and that it will never happen again. All we’ve ever learned at school are a few names of cities that were hit first, when they were hit, which way the pandemic spread, and how many died in which year and place — never an answer as to why . Whenever I asked ‘why,’ people told me ‘because I said so.’’
    He smiles. How come he smiled?
    ‘And what does that tell you?’ he asks.
    ‘How would I know? Maybe they don’t know, either.’
    He tips his chin. ‘Historic reports of the Great Pandemic are impossible to count, and it’s