Page 43 of Wild Tempest

“You should get out of those wet clothes,” she said with a slightly naughty glimmer in her eyes.

I peeled out of my shirt and hung it up to dry. She looked at me with hungry eyes. I didn’t mind.

"Do you mind if I bunk in here with you?" she asked with an adorable, vulnerable face. "I don't feel comfortable alone on the ship."

Who was I to let the lady sleep alone?

“As long as you promise to behave,” I teased.

“I never misbehave,” she said with a saucy eyebrow.

There were two bunks in this stateroom, and she took the top one.

I was worried about Jack. Feverish and agitated, he had all of the early-onset symptoms. What the hell was I going to do if he turned into a homicidal lunatic?

It was getting late, but I stayed up and kept reading through the logbooks, looking for some type of solution.

My eyes lit up with excitement when I found a reference to the antidote. The XR-17 Serum.

There was one slight problem.

The serum needed to be refrigerated and would degrade quickly at room temperature, according to the notes. Without refrigeration, it had a shelf life of a few days. After five years aboard this boat without power, it was unlikely any of it remained effective. Still, I decided to go looking for it.

“I’m going with you,” Tempest said.

She didn’t want to be left alone, and I didn’t blame her.

Tempest followed me down to the lab, and we rifled through the refrigerators until we found something.

A single vial of the XR-17 Serum.

In a functional state, this vial would likely be worth more than the gold in the cargo bay. A cure for such a devastating virus was priceless. This kind of bio weapon, unleashed on an unsuspecting population in a major metropolitan area, could spell disaster. Cities were dangerous enough as they were. Imagine a bio agent that turned everyone into a violent psychopath. Terrorists would love to get hold of this kind of thing.

It all started to make sense. The gold—payment for the bio weapon. Possibly sold to some terror group or other nonstate actor. Maybe this thing was already out in the wild, waiting for some bad actors to deploy it.

The thought filled me with dread.

Unfortunately, the serum vial was cracked, and any antidote had long since leaked out.

Tempest and I returned to Level 02, deflated. We checked on Jack, but he still wasn’t in his room. I looked for him on the side deck, but didn’t see him. Forward of the staterooms was an observation deck that doubled as a helipad. He wasn’t there either.

We looked in on Dale. He had fallen asleep.

“Stay here,” I said to Tempest. “Lock yourself int he stateroom. I’m going to look for Jack.”

“I’ll go with you.”

I shook my head. “We don’t know what condition he’s in.”

She frowned. “You think he could get violent?”

“The Jack I know would never get violent without cause. But we know this pathogen can make people act irrationally.”

Tempest slipped into the stateroom, and I set out to find Jack.

My flashlight beam swept the corridor as I moved through the ship, fighting the rolling swells. I checked all the compartments on Level 02, then climbed up to the bridge.

Wind whistled through the broken glass. Rain pelted the windows, and the angry sea tossed the ship. I checked the chart room and storage compartments, then moved down to Level 01.