Day Five:

Abigail McGee sits in the conference room in her white lab coat; around her are other members of the World Health Organization (W.H.O) of the Pan American Center.

She'd spent the last year working in the research lab, one of ten dressed in white lab coats in a white laboratory with white walls and black counters, exactly the way they are portrayed in the movies. She is an etiologist and she has been spending the last two months with her team attempting to figure out the origins of yet another strain of the flu virus.

Today, Abigail and three other scientist gather in the conference room. Their eyes staring at the PowerPoint displayed on the overhead, it is a small desolate city.

"Where is that?" Juana Rubio asks.

"This is a small city in Oman called Sur." Beau replies.

"Population?" James inquires

"120,000 as of 2017" Beau answer

The city is forsaken with carnage along the streets. The coastal city is empty, what looks like a college in shambles. Bodies, bloated with heat are scattered on the streets.

"This looks like a scene from The Walking Dead" Abigail mutters.

Beau and the rest of the room look at her as if she is a child.

Technically speaking in their eyes she probably is. She had graduated from Harvard when she was 18 and receiving her Ph.D. at only 23. She took the job with W.H.O because after her sister had HIV positive, Abigail wanted to find a cure for her sister. The fact that she naturally has a young looking face to begin with, consistently mistaken for a student of 18, certainly did not help her case either.

"All science fiction jokes aside, the city has been evacuated. Fifty were taken aboard the USS Salvation. Within ten days the crew was forced to evacuate and the ship sunk." Beau explains.

The room exchanges glances.

"What information does Omen provide?" James Cassidy asks. He is 35 years old and in Abigail's opinion a complete asshole. He is cocky and believes that the entire world revolves around him. He's just more important when it comes to everything, she remembers a quote that her sister had once said to her.

"There is no way to tell where or how this disease could have spread. The Gulf of Oman is an integral shipping route, an average of fourteen tankers pass through per day; people from all over the world, the country of Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and the United States. The only information that we received from Oman and the Salvation was that the disease spreads rapidly. However, it is the incubation period…the incubation period has lasted for days without much consistency," Beau replies switching slides. The next slide is a line graph, "The center in Pakistan has a diagram showing the incubation period. A few test subjects were brought in for research…but that is also how the members of W.H.O in the Middle East were killed."

The line graph is all over the place, looking more like a scribble of mountain ranges than a graph. Abigail squints her mix matched brown and green eyes trying to make heads or tails of the graph. The numbers don't make sense. The purple line ended at 5, the red line ended at 7, the yellow at 2, the blue line at 10 and the green at 8. She exchanges a glance with Juana; the older woman is the head of the department that works with diseases in Costa Rica.

"What do you need us to do?" Abigail asks.

Henry Suber has been sitting silently at the table his friendly blue eyes unusually hard. Dr. Suber is the veteran. He has been with W.H.O. for over 30 years now. Rumor has it that he was supposed to be in Doctor Beau Kennedy's position, but he turned down the position."All y'all have chosen us to figure out the origins of this virus" Dr. Suber says, his chin resting atop his woven fingers. He speaks with a heavy Mississippi accent, words such as y'all and all y'all prominent in his day to day language. His words still end without a proper 'ing' sound and he is always fixin to or might could do a task though out the day. Abigail figures that is why patients and coworkers are so calm and relaxed in his presence, he just sounds like a Good Ole Boy. Although on occasion there are the 'Damn Yankees' as Henry likes to call them, who draw the conclusion an the Ole Miss graduate with a backwoods accent could never have a D.O.-Ph.D from Duke University.

"Yes. The four of you will be working with some of the top researchers to figure out where this disease comes from and what causes it" Beau answers.

"The four of you will be transported to a research base in an undisclosed location. There you will meet with a new team." He is sweating from standing in the light of the projector, a small gleam forming on his forehead. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and swipes it over his forehead. "If you choose to do this, you must be ready to leave tonight by midnight, only you."

Abigail looks around the room. "You mean to tell me that you will have the four of us leave in…" she pauses, looking at her watch "Ten hours, without our families, and without telling them where we are going?" her question comes out as more of a demand.

"Not to mention, we do not know if we are going to ever see them again" Dr. Suber adds.

"What do you mean?" she asks.

"It's like Beau said… this disease is spreading rapidly. At this rate; looking at the direction of global trade, and the fact that our military personal is on its way home, this disease will reach the port cities first. From there it will head either east or west depending on which port a ship left from." Dr. Suber explains

"How would you not notice a person with zombie like qualities on a ship?" Abigail demands.

She hears James snort next to her at the idea of zombie.

"That's what it sounds like" she whispers to him bitterly.

"This is why Beau shouldn't hire kids" he mutters back. Abigail fights the urge to stab the older man with the pen she is twirling between her fingers.

Juana gives her a slight smile. The Guatemalan woman is kind, having children Abigail's own age. "One of those incubations periods on the line graph lasts about ten days. It could be possible that this disease is mistaken for another illness and that people didn't find out until it was too late".

Abigail nods suddenly feeling like an idiot for not putting two and two together, she knew that, it was in front of her on the damn screen. She looks around the room. Juana has a husband and three children, James has a long term girlfriend, Henry is a husband, father, and grandfather…and she has parents and a nineteen year old younger sister. Granted she and her parents weren't exactly too close, but Abigail is overly protective of her sister.

Dr. Suber sighs and removes his wire rimmed glasses from his face. "How long do we have to make the decision?" he inquires.

All eyes land on Beau, this was like the draft during the Vietnam War. Although the choice to refuse was implied, there were many ways to avoid the draft, it's not true. Refusing to assist to save the human population is selfish and she knows it. But how selfish was it to want to keep your family safe with this impending epidemic? If she refuses she is reducing the probability to literally save the human race. They need the best chance available.

The question hangs heavily in the air.

"You have until four."

Juanna sits at the table staring at her hands; finally she asks the question that is on everyone's mind. "What do we tell them?"

"You tell them the truth. Tell them that there is an epidemic coming, to go to the grocery store and stock up for a long period of time." Kennedy explains

"Get your milk and eggs" James attempts at a joke.

No one laughs.

For what feels like the thousandth time, Abigial looks around at the others in the room. None of our families would not know where we would be and what we were doing she thinks.

"Will we be able to keep in contact with them?" Juana asks.

"Yes."

Abigail releases a sigh of relief. At least we would be able to stay in contact.

"I will leave you all to make your decision, once it is made come tell me individually in my office. I know that this is a lot of ask, but you four are the best shot we at the American W.H.O. have."

Abigail links her fingers and rests her forehead on them. She'd built a life for herself in D.C.; She has friends, she has a life. Her family is up in Boston, living on the Bay and her sister is training to be a ballet dancer at Julliard.

Juana is across from her looking pale.

James stars blankly ahead.

Dr. Suber sits motionless with his eyes closed.

Finally, Abigail stands up and walks towards the door. I can't stand by and let this plague wipe out humanity; I joined W.H.O to save people, to save my sister. If locking myself away and making a sacrifice to save the world was what it took then it was worth it she thinks as she shuts the door behind her.

Beau's office is down the hall, as she walks towards the office, she yanks her curly blonde hair back from her face and pushes the thick rimmed black "hipster glasses" as her sister liked to call them further up her nose.

She knocks on the door and waits.

"Come in."

She steps through the door.

Beau is looking out the window that takes up an entire wall of his office. His desk is organized with folders of different colors, Abigail knows that each paper within a folder had a tab with the corresponding color on it. One of those annoying desk ornaments, the Newton's Cradle, knocks back and forth.

It bothers the hell out of her.

"Did you know that scientifically speaking a major extinction happens every few million years?" He asks not turning to look at Abigail.

"Yes" she replies.

"It's about time for a new one…scientifically speaking that is. Do you think this is it?" he turns towards her.

"I-I don't know." the severity of this virus drops on her shoulders.

Beau regards her with his gray eyes. "It is safe to assume that you have decided what your answer will be?"

"I'm in."

He walks around the desk and shakes her hand roughly "Thank you".

Abigail is at a loss for words. She had never been chosen to do something important, the most important things that she had ever done was be the team captain of her competitive swim team at the YMCA.

"You will meet with the rest of us on top of the landing pad at midnight, get your things together, pack lightly…Go home now and make the necessary arrangements" Beau urges as he drops her hand.

"Yes sir, I will see you later tonight".

As Abigail closes the door behind her, she sees Juana approach. She gives the other woman a questioning look to which Juana replies with a small shake of her head.

Juana is not joining.

∆∆∆

Riley Walker sighs as the initial ascent from the London airport ends and the plane finally stops gaining altitude. He is not one for flying; in fact he is terrified of heights.

"Bloody hell. I'm glad that's over" he mutters to himself as he leans back in his chair and releases the arm rest.

Next to him sits Dr. Benjamin Norwich, his colleague at Oxford.

"You know lad, if you ever want your name to be in the books, you have to get over this fear of flying. You can't take a train across the ocean" the older man states in his proud Irish accent.

Riley glances at the older man and sighs. "Human beings were never met to fly."

"Yet they are able to invent, create, think, drink, and destroy. Do you really believe that we would not think of a way to do something that man has always dreamed of doing?" Benjamin muses.

Riley rolls his eyes. He hated it when the old man was right. Benjamin had been one of Riley's professors when he had been a medical student at Oxford. Riley had become a research assistant under Benjamin, and the rest was history. Benjamin had taken Riley under his wing and taught him just about everything he knows.

"Now, where is that bloody flight attendant with the beverages?"

Riley smiles slightly, if it was one thing that Benjamin hated it was missing his whiskey at 5 o clock.

The flight left at 5 o clock.

Riley knows that the man did not have his evening whiskey yet today; he also knows that Benjamin also hates inconsistency. Apparently he had been having his whiskey at that exact same time for the past forty five years.

Riley removes his iPad and rereads the e-mail sent to him as well as other medical researchers around the world. An epidemic is spreading; some of the top minds are requested to gather in different research laboratories around the world in an attempt to figure out the cure. There would be seven different teams, one for each continent. Riley and Benjamin had originally been placed on the Islamabad team, but before they could reach the laboratory, the disease had spread and the entire staff had become infected.

Dropping the number from seven down to six.

Riley and Benjamin are being brought in to work on an actual cure; they are two of the top virologists in the world. Once the origins of the disease had been determined, the data would be given to them to work on the cure.

The flight attendant finally comes around with her tray of beverages. She is a nice enough looking woman, a name tag said Myrtle. Myrtle could do with a little less purple eye shadow.

"Whiskey" Benjamin demands.

"Yes sir, we have Jack Daniels and Canadian Club" Myrtle answers.

Benjamin sighs and gives Riley a disgusted look. "Jack is fine. Riley anything for you?"

"A gin and tonic please" he says the first drink that comes to his head.

"That'll be fourteen please." Myrtle says flashing them a smile.

Benjamin holds out his Visa without much regard for the woman, who is apparently interested in older men.

Myrtle returns the card to him and Benjamin takes it from between her long red fingernails.

Tonic water, two mini bottles of gin, a can of ginger ale, and two mini bottles of Jack Daniels are placed on the tray tables.

"Thank you very much." Riley manages to squeeze out before the flight attendant continues her rounds.

Benjamin stirs his beverage with his finger and casts his gaze over at Riley. "What do you think about this plague, lad?"

"This is a load of bullocks and rubbish. Zombies? This whole thing sounds like something a school boy would write about"

"It is interesting you say that. There is a man in America by the name of Max Brooks, his books are entertaining at best. But they speak about a disease that is surprisingly similar to this one. Some type of disease that causes humans to suddenly lose all their senses and attack one another, spreading the disease through bites and the like," Benjamin mutters taking a sip of his beverage and wincing slightly. "Bloody hell, you would think that they would serve something better on a plane, you're trapped on the damn thing for eight hours."

"But that is fiction and horror, sounds more like rabies than a new plague…there is no way that this is true. Not to mention zombies are a form of reanimated dead. It's the type of voodoo that originated in Haiti." Riley explains.

"Do you think that these people are dead?' .

"I wouldn't know. I haven't seen anything yet."

Benjamin leans back in his seat "Safe answer, lad." He says as he cradles his whiskey, despite not really enjoying the beverage, he does seem to be rather protective of it.

Riley thinks of a joke that his father used to tell him when he was younger, especially during a football or rugby match. His father would take him up in his lap and say- 'Riley, you know the reason why God invented whiskey…it was to keep the Irish from conquering the world.'

Riley turns his attention back to his iPad. Saying goodbye to his mother and older brother had been hard.

His mother looked up at him with her big brown heartbroken eyes, her husband had died five years ago, and now she was about to loose one of her sons. 'Do what you must' she whispered. His brother gave him a tight embrace and held him back by his shoulders; he looked into his eyes and answered the unasked question. Don't worry. I'll take care of mom.

Riley gave his mother and brother every bit of information that he had about the disease. Telling them to stock up on food, water, and as much as he hated to add weapons. But regardless, it was better safe than sorry. He wasn't too worried about his brother, his brother worked in the shipyards. University had never been Cameron's calling, the other boy was better with his hands. A kinesthetic learner as they liked to call it. Cameron got an apprenticeship and became a welder. His mother on the other hand was a kind soul. She is a passive woman who had always been rather frail. Even if it was this zombie nonsense- she avoided conflict and violence like the plague. He wasn't sure if she could handle a 28 Days Later scenario.

Riley rests his head against the window of the airplane and stares down at the endless ocean below. Benjamin had called it a simple jump across the pond. The idiot he thought to himself, it is at least an 8 hour plane ride to New York. Then they would fly to Washington, DC. Riley has to admit he doesn't even know where that is on a map.

But he assumes it is far.

Benjamin nudges him.

"Yes?"

"Whatever happened to you and that Evangeline lass?"

Riley can't help but laugh. "We are flying a quarter of the way around the world in an attempt to find a cure for a virus that has the potential to wipe out the entire human race and you are seriously asking me about a girl?"

"Aye. But I am assuming by your tone that the young lady is no more?"

Riley nods.

"What a shame. Riley you are twenty years old and very intelligent."

"I also went to university at fourteen." Riley reminds the older man.

"Exactly, most women would want a man like yourself, lad. Intelligent, in a good position at one of the most prestigious universities-"

"A nerd."

"Yes a nerd. No wait" Benjamin stutters.

"I will meet the right girl eventually. Just not yet."

A silence falls between the two men as they sip their beverages. The ice in Riley's gin and tonic had melted slightly, making his drink a bit too watered down for his liking.

"Well, we have a long day ahead. Get some rest, boy." Benjamin gulps down the remainder of his whiskey and places the empty glass on Riley's tray table. After raising his own, the older man a wriggles into the most comfortable position he can before closing his eyes.

Too antsy to sleep, Riley decides to check out the movie selection on the airline. He takes the complimentary earphones and plugs them into the armrest before pressing the necessary buttons to find out which movies were playing.

He sighs and eventually settles for a pointless movie by the name of Resident Evil. From what he had read about it in the synopsis, it was ironically enough a zombie movie. He needs a distraction and something to just keep his mind occupied, not to mention if this was a possibility for a disease then he might as well learn something about the plague.

"I can't believe I'm watching this" he mutters to himself as he yanks the thin airline blanket up over himself and lowers the shade over the window.

∆∆∆

Abigail had just hung up on her sister and is now standing in the bedroom of her small studio apartment trying to figure out what to pack. She walks into her closet and yanks the suitcase down from the top shelf.

I don't even know where the hell I am going. How am I supposed to pack? she mutters to herself as she glares at the clothes hanging in her closet. She grabs a little bit of everything. Sweaters, tank tops, dresses, jeans, t-shirts, workout clothes, even something that could be worn in a semi-formal event, just in case. Shoes and undergarments are shoved in to the empty spaces in the suitcase, while her toiletries and accessories are crammed wherever there was room. Thank God I don't pack like my sister.

She finishes at 5:00 p.m. still plenty of time before she has to return to W.H.O. She wanders to her bookshelf loaded with books, movies, and the occasional miniature animal statue. Her fingers with chipped green nail polish trail along the spines of books before she lands on World War Z. She flips through the pages of the book, there are highlights and notes within the pages. She rereads the notes and highlighted sections focusing on the zombie epidemic as a disease and what could have caused it. There isn't a whole lot mentioned in Brooks's novel, the book was actually a commentary about the ethics of war, using zombies as the enemy instead of other human beings. The cause of the disease was never found, mankind just persevered.

Maybe Beau was right. Maybe this epidemic was like the Bubonic Plague and the world was up for another major extinction, after all the Black Plague killed one third of the world's population, could this pandemic kill that many people? Man might just have to persevere.

When she arrives at the W.H.O Headquarters later that night she is met by James, Henry and Beau. As she predicted, Juana did not join them.

"Where is Juana?" James asks.

"She decided to stay with her family" Beau answers as he leads them down the hallway and towards the stairwell.

Abigail risks a glance at Henry- did he wish he had stayed behind with his family?

As if reading her mind, Henry meets her glance with a sad smile.

Beau pauses at the top of the stairs. "This helicopter is going to take us to a private airport before we will board a plane to Rochester, Minnesota."

"Rochester, Minnesota, as in the MAYO clinic?" Abigail asks.

"What about the patients?" Beau asks.

"They have been moved to separate hospitals around the country. We need all of the resources we can get." Henry replies.

"There was a report on the news about a woman mauling her husband to death in Portland, Maine. We can't take any chances of being somewhere where this epidemic strikes first. That includes any type of coastal city" Beau explains.

"It could just be a freak of nature coincidence too" James adds.

"Or an outlier" Abigail chirps, remembering the incident in Florida where a man bit off another man's face after allegedly snorting bath salts.

"There has not been any type of disease reported in the midwest" Beau counters.

"Yet." James mutters

"There could be an outbreak by the time we arrive" Henry argues.

"Or Rochester could be overrun tonight" Beau shoots back.

"Does whoever is going to meet us know?" Henry asks.

"There is someone waiting at J.F.K now. When Doctors Norwich and Walker arrive, they will be placed on the first flight to Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport." Beau says

The door behind Beau is yanked open and Abigail jumps. "The helicopter is waiting" a soldier with the name KINGSTON printed on his uniform reports.

"Right, follow me" Beau says simply.

Abigail picks up her luggage and follows the four men out the door into the cold D.C. night. She hands her luggage to the soldier aboard the helicopter and takes the hand offered to her as she climbs in. She sits down on the closest seat, next to the soldier, Kingston. A silence fills the helicopter as the machine rises into the sky. The soldier or should she say boy looks over at her with a slight smile. He appears to be about seventeen, a boy who signed up right after high school and was going to turn eighteen that year. "So tell me about yourself" she removes the from her ears as she turns to the solider sitting next to her.

He is surprised. "My name is Peter Kingston, ma'am. He introduces himself.

Abigail makes a face. "Please don't call me ma'am. I am not much older than you are"

"How old are you?"

"Twenty three" she chuckles.

Kingston releases out a surprised laugh "And you are supposed to solve the cure to a disease?" he asks.

"You're what… seventeen? Age can certainly be deceiving. You are willing to die for your country" Abigail challenges.