“She’s not coming,” Dev shook his head. “There’s no way.”

It couldn’t be true. He refused to believe it. 

Eric grinned and pulled something out of his back pocket. It was Dev’s phone. He waved it teasingly in his hand. 

“I have copious footage of you typing in your phone’s passcode around the lab, doctor. As if your daughter’s birth year wasn’t obvious enough. I had full use of your phone while you were asleep. That’s before I turned it off so no one could track where you were. I mean, Anika knows, obviously. But the message she thinks you sent has her coming in a real hurry from her university. She wouldn’t want her beloved father getting in trouble for the virus he’s about to release, so she is on her way to stop you. Can’t lose two parents at the same time of year now, can we?”

“You!” Dev cried out, pulling so violently against the cuffs that he ended up wrenching his back and wincing in agony. “You fucker! She wouldn’t! She would never fall for that!”

“You don’t think so?” Eric asked, sadistic glee on his face, “Let’s see shall we?”

He turned on Dev’s phone, waiting until the lock screen came up, then typing in the passcode. He tapped a few things on the screen until messages came up, then crossed the room to kneel on the mat, the phone held in front of Dev’s face.

There before him, clear as day, were messages back and forth between his phone and Anika. Warning her that he was in bad space from the anniversary of Indira’s death, that he needed Anika’s help. That if she called anyone, he would likely be shot, that maybe it was for the best. She had begged him to reconsider. Well, begged Eric’s version of him. Eric had told her to come immediately, that Dev needed her. She had promised she would. 

Dev let out a sob as he thought of Anika showing up, of Eric hurting her, or worse. 

Eric turned off the phone and sat back in the chair. 

“And when she gets here, and papa is nowhere to be found, I’ll be there with a soothing drink and  kind words to calm her down,” he pulled a small white baggy of powder out of his pocket and shook it for emphasis. “She can rest just like her father did, while you and I figure some things out.”

Dev felt fire in his gut, a burning urge to murder Eric right then and there. Something he had only felt once before. 

“Now imagine it, doctor. A world where your daughter can be a leader. Given the vaccine, she would be safe, and the monsters who murdered your wife would choke on their own blood like the pathetic cretins they are.”

Dev couldn’t speak, he was so angry. So freaked out at the prospect of Anika being involved in this insane nightmare. 

“I mean, we currently have the country following a leader who suggested injecting bleach into our veins to cure a virus, instead of actual scientists, doctors, nurses, and people who knew what the hell they were talking about. Just think of how many brilliant people may be lucky enough to survive anyway because they can follow the basics of science and sanitation.”

Injecting bleach. 

An image popped into Dev’s mind. The bottle of ammonium salts that Evers had left out in the lab. Even Evers, a brilliant scientist, was careless. The rest of the world didn’t stand a chance. 

He slowly turned his gaze up to meet Eric’s. He needed to say something to allay the fire within him, to collect his thoughts until he could figure this out. 

“How would you start the spread?” Dev asked, genuinely curious. 

“What?” Eric blinked. 

“How would you start the spread of the virus? How would you ensure it goes global?”

“I’m so glad you asked that,” said Eric, looking giddy now. “International Airport. Spread it around bathrooms, kiosks, those plastic security trays that are already teeming with germs. In no time at all it would be propagating across 6 continents. And because nature is adept at adaptation, and your genius expanded on that, it would take weeks before anyone could even begin to try and slow it down. A longer incubation window and asymptomatic infection will spell doom pretty damn quickly. A few months from now, it’s all over. Billions dead. Then you come out with the vaccine, and you’re a hero. A god among men!”

“We would no longer have the systems in place to produce the vaccine,” Dev pointed out. “No one able to manufacture it. We wouldn’t even have the abilities to dispose of the bodies of all the dead. Do you know what a world full of rotting corpses and dying people drowning in their own sick would smell like? How long it would take to clean up all the contamination? What would you suggest we do then?”

“I’m actually pretty handy with an excavator, from one of my first jobs. And lucky us, having the only supply of the vaccine. We can make it a lottery for the survivors, or you can choose the best scientists in the world. It’s up to you. Personally, I could give a shit if all of humanity died.”

“Yourself included?” Dev raised an eyebrow. 

Eric smirked, “It would be nice to live long enough to see the effects. I won’t lie.”

“No one else has had a chance to confirm my vaccine works,” Dev pointed out. 

“Your Rhesus buddy, Eeyore, seems proof enough for me. I saw you on the lab video the day you found him still alive. You were so ecstatic, so proud, and that’s all I needed to know.”

“He was one case out of twelve others that died.”

“Let’s not be disingenuous. There are also fourteen thriving mice down in the lab who all survived the virus with your vaccine. Only one died, if I recall. And Eeyore was only the start of your current vaccine in monkey trials. The other monkeys never had a chance, they never got the vaccine. You’re so brilliant, doctor, that the Boston lab even had you pegged for finishing the vaccine on the Marburg virus, if our lab wasn’t being shut down. I’ve read your emails.”

“I’m not stopping because of our lab being shut down,” Dev corrected, “I’m stopping because of the tremor I’ve developed from my panic disorder after my wife’s death. I thought I could get past it, but it’s only gotten worse. It’s made my work in the lab unsafe for everyone. That’s why Tuesday was meant to be my last day.”

“I’m helping you come out of retirement. A mind like yours shouldn’t stagnate in academia. You deserve to be by my side in our new world together.”

Dev wanted to point out how dangerous it was that there hadn’t even been human trials for the vaccine, that Eric was putting his blind trust into something so novel that it could take months, even years to figure out if the vaccine could work in humans, but it was like talking to a brick wall. 

A brick wall that was about to be holding his daughter hostage. 

“You very well may not live to see your new world, Eric. In fact, the odds are stacked against you.”

“Then I’ll go out the easy way,” Eric shrugged. “Either way, it’ll be a new world of my making. Of our making, doctor. How incredible will that be?”

Dev leaned his head back against the pillar, steeling himself. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath before he spoke.

“Alright. Let’s do this. Before Anika gets here. Let’s go to the lab.”

He opened his eyes to see a smile had broken out across Eric’s face, a sadistic grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.