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alarm.
    Later, as he drove along the quiet, blue-washed streets, he rubbed the back of his neck. He’d have to remember to call Ann and arrange to see the girls over the weekend, before they headed east to visit Ann’s family. He’d be alone for Thanksgiving. He’d treat it like any other workday. Probably get more done. No phones ringing, no people stopping by.
    He unlocked the door to his lab and went around turning on lights. Long fluorescent tubes flickered, then sprang to life. He sat down at the laptop and opened to the gray grid covered with tiny printing. It was always a relief to find results waiting for him. He was old enough to remember the days when nothing got done unless you were there doing it.
    Rows of colored graphs popped up across the computer screen as he clicked through each square. He studied them, one by one, and frowned. Something must have gone wrong. Maybe the test had failed or the samples been somehow contaminated. He returned to the first graph and checked it again. The curving blue line verified that the PCR had worked. He scanned the temperature spike of the green band. Okay, so the first sample was positive. He moved to the second reading, then the third. One by one, he proceeded through each square.
    He sat back, stunned. Out of thirty-two samples, twenty-nine were positive. That meant that ninety percent of the dead teal had the virus in their systems. Ninety percent. An unbelievable rate.
    Viruses jumped quickly from migratory birds to poultry. It was only a matter of time, maybe even just a few short hours, before every farm within miles of Sparrow Lake was at risk. Millions of dollars were at stake, an entire industry.
    He checked the time and picked up the phone. But Dan didn’t answer. Peter tapped his fingers on the counter and waited for the beep. “It’s Peter. Call me.”
    The door behind him opened with a pneumatic sigh.
    “Morning,” Shazia said.
    Peter swiveled in his chair to look at her. “You were careful yesterday, weren’t you? No spills, nothing like that?”
    “Why?” She came over to stand behind him and bent to stare at the screen. Her hair brushed his cheek. He scrolled through the graphs so she could see for herself. She sucked in her breath. “Influenza?”
    He stood. “I’ll get the aliquots.” Shazia had assumed the risk yesterday. “You prepare the red blood cells.”
    She stepped back, watching worriedly. He couldn’t blame her. Those teal had suffered. This didn’t look like a virus either of them would want to battle.
    He pulled on gloves and his lab coat. Opening the freezer, he selected some of the samples and carried them over to the hood. Thirty minutes at room temperature should be ample time to defrost them. Now he brought over fresh pipettes and plates and set them alongside the aliquots.
    “Which antisera are you going to run?” Shazia asked.
    “Let’s do H1, H2, H5, and H7.” They’d test for the most common subtypes first, move on to the others if those didn’t show up. He pulled down the small glass bottles and settled himself on the stool. They were going to be working fast. They wouldn’t have time to neutralize the virus’s infectivity. He’d just have to be careful.
    Reaching beneath the clear plastic faceplate of the hood, he drew out four thin, flexible plates filled with cylindrical depressions. Labeling them, he lined them up before him. He pipetted one hundred milliliters of raw sample into each of thirty-two wells on the first tray and repeated this for the remaining three trays. He changed pipette tips as he went, covering each tray as he finished it and moving it aside.
    No need, really, for him to be holding his breath. After all, the hood was working. He was gloved, and his hands had been steady. He hadn’t knocked a tube or spilled anything. Nevertheless, he felt a rush of relief when he finished with this step.
    Now he dripped one hundred milliliters of H1 antiserum into every well across the first tray. He