Hosts

She pulls him inside, leaving the cart in the hall, and closes the door.

"The test!" she sobs. "Vicky and I—we're positive!"

Jack's heart drops. Gia's been obsessed with the virus, and rightly so, to the point where she's been testing the three of them every day. Jack's been buying kits by the gross, figuring if it gives her peace of mind, then fine, do it twice a day if you want.

But in the back of his mind he's always dreaded the possibility of this moment: the false positive.

"No." His tongue is an arid plain. "No, that can't be. There's got to be a mistake!"

She's shaking her head, fresh tears spilling onto her cheeks. "I just repeated it. Same result."

"Then it's a bad batch."

"Same batch as yesterday."

Jack can't accept this. He moved them here so he could protect them, keep them safe. They've been under his wing, rarely leaving the apartment.

The sick feeling in his stomach worsens as an appalling thought hits him like a runaway train: Is it my fault? Did I bring it home?

"Do it again," he says. "All three of us this time."

Gia nods and wipes her eyes. "Okay." She turns and calls, "Vicky!"

"What?" says a little girl's voice from one of the back rooms.

"Come in here for a minute, okay?"

"But I'm watching a movie!"

"You've seen that movie a hundred times already. Come here just for a second, okay?"

"The Parent Trap again?" Jack says, trying to look cheerful as Vicky mopes in.

"And I was just at the good part where they find out they're sisters!"

"That the nice thing about videos—you can stop them any time and pick up later right where you left off."

Gia has seated herself at Jack's rolltop. "Let me have your finger, Vickie."

A groan, an eye roll. "Not again!"

"Come on. One more time. Jack's doing it this time too."

"Oh, okay."

She walks over to Gia and presents her finger, flinches as her mother stabs the tip with a microlancet, and allows a drop of blood to be milked onto the circle of absorptive paper in the center of the test kit card.

"There," Gia says with a smile Jack knows is forced. "Was that so bad?"

"No. Can I see my movie now?"

"Sure."

As Vicky hurries off, sucking her tiny wound, Gia's trembling fingers squeeze a drop of reagent from its bottle onto the bloodied circle. She glances at her watch, puts the card aside, and looks up at Jack.

"Your turn."

Jack allows his finger to be subjected to the same ritual. Barely feels the prick. Soon his blood sample is doused in reagent and waiting for ten minutes to pass.

And Gia's makes three.

The wait feels interminable, with Gia pacing back and forth, rubbing her hands as if scrubbing them, a beautiful young blond Lady Macbeth working at a stubborn stain. Jack opens his mouth twice to say something, anything to soothe her raw nerves, but can't think of a damn thing that isn't lame or inane.

Finally she looks at her watch and says, "Time." But she doesn't move. "Jack… will you? I can't… I just…"

"Sure, Gi."

Jack steps to the desk, flips the three cards over and, carefully maintaining their sequence, lifts the rear panels. One by one, the flip side of the absorbent paper is revealed, and around the blood spots on the first and third cards… a blue halo. Around the second, only a ring of moisture.

Jack closes his eyes and feels the room rock around him.

Can't be. This isn't happening. Got to be a mistake. We've all been vaccinated, we all eat the same, drink the same, and I'm the one who's in and out, I'm the one with all the exposure. It should be me, not them.

He opens his eyes and looks again, begging for a different outcome. But nothing has changed: two positives flanking a negative.

Gia is staring at him. "Well?"

Jack swallows. "Positive." His voice is a hoarse rasp. He quickly gathers up the cards. "All three."

"Oh, Jack," Gia sobs, floating toward him. "Not you too!"

She flings herself against him and they stand there clinging to each other, Gia weeping, Jack's throat too tight to speak.

He crumples the test cards in his fist. Can't let Gia know. If she learns he's negative she'll blame Vicky's infection on the only other person the child could have caught it from: her. She'll never accept that she could have caught it from Vicky. Gia will assume all the guilt, and it will crush her.

And Jack's negative will open a gulf between them—she'll recede from him, fearing that a kiss, a caress, even a word spoken too close will infect him, and Jack couldn't bear that, not now, not when she needs him most.

"Christ, I'm so sorry, Gia," he manages. "I must have brought it home."

"But how can that be? We took every precaution. And the vaccine…"

"Doesn't work. That's been the word on the street lately. Now we know it's true."

She buries her face against his chest and sobs again. "Vicky… I can't bear the thought…"

"I know," he says, pulling her closer against him and feeling a sob building his own throat at the thought of Gia and Vicky becoming meat puppets controlled by the Hive. "I know."

What now? he asks himself, trying to corral his panicked, skittering thoughts. What can I do?

He hasn't heard of anyone beating this infection. But that doesn't mean no one ever will. There's always a chance for a breakthrough, for a wild card.

Look at me—I should be infected but I'm not. Maybe that means something. But how to find out?

Abe. Abe knows everything.

He releases Gia and looks her in the eye. "It's not over."

"What do you mean?"

"When I was talking to Abe yesterday he mentioned something about a new breakthrough."

"The days of breakthroughs are gone," she says dully.

"Gia, if there's anything in the pipeline, anything at all, Abe will have a line on it. I'll call him right now."

He grabs the cell phone and punches in Abe's number, something in the past he never would have considered doing, but a lot has changed in five months. He waits through a dozen rings—Abe doesn't believe in answering machines—then tries again. Still no answer. Abe's always in this time of day. Maybe he's in one of his black, ignore-the-phone moods. He's been having more of those lately.

"Looks like I'm going to have to go see him," Jack says. He doesn't want to leave Gia but time is critical. The fact that they've just turned positive means she and Vicky are in the early stages. If something can be done, the sooner the better. "I won't be gone long. You'll be okay?"

Gia nods wordlessly.

"Gia," he says, taking her by the shoulders, "we're going to beat this." And he knows he sounds like a hack actor in a bad soap opera but he can't stand seeing her like this. He's got to give her some hope. "Have I ever let you down?"

"Jack…" she says, and she sounds so tired. "This is different. This isn't something your methods can fix. The best scientific minds in the world have tackled this and they've all come up empty. Every time they think they have a solution, like the vaccine, the virus mutates. So what can you do?"

And when she puts it like that, what can he say? No reason to think he can offer Gia and Vicky a chance when the big brains can't. But still he's undeterred.

"Maybe I suffer from terminal hubris. And maybe I can't stand by and just let this happen. I've got to do something."

He doesn't say that guilt has pretty much taken him over. He brought Gia and Vicky here to protect them, but the bug got to them anyway. So even if it's not his fault, he feels responsible.

"Then do it," Gia says, without a hint of enthusiasm, "but don't expect me to hope, Jack, because as much as I want to, I can't. I'm looking at the end of everything I am and you are and whatever we might have been, and the strangulation of everything Vicky could be."

"We're not through yet."