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Reached

Reached

Titel: Reached Kostenlos Bücher Online Lesen
Autoren: Ally Condie
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enough to the mutant form that they’re not getting it. But the immunization you and I were given—it was just chopped-up pieces of the original virus. It won’t be close enough to this new mutant form to protect us.”
    I keep hold of him but nod to show that I’m listening.
    “We didn’t go down with the earlier version of the Plague,” he says. “But we were still exposed. Our initial immunity protected us from the worst symptoms, but we could still contract that earlier version of the Plague. That’s how an immunization works. It teaches your body how to react to a virus so your system recognizes the virus when it comes again. It’s not that you don’t get sick at all. But your body knows how to handle it.”
    “I know,” I say. I’ve figured out this much already.
    “
Listen to what I’m telling you
,” the virologist says. “If that happened, if we actually
contracted
the first version of the Plague, the one going around when the Pilot first spoke—then we have the red mark, too, and we’re safe. We didn’t go down, but we still had the virus. Our bodies just dealt with it. But if we
didn’t
catch the earlier virus during that window”—he spreads out his hands—“we can still get the mutation. And we may not have a cure that works for this version.”
    For a minute he sounds crazy, like he’s speaking gibberish, and then it all comes together and I think he might be right.
    He twists his arm free from my grasp and starts unbuttoning the top of his plainclothes. Then he pulls down the collar of his black uniform. “Look,” he says. “I don’t have the small mark. Do I?”
    He doesn’t.
    “No,” I say. I resist the urge to pull down my own collar and try to see if the mark is there. I’ve never thought to look for it on myself. “You’re needed here. And if you go out there, you could infect other people. You’ve been exposed to the mutation already, like the rest of us.”
    “I’ll go out into the woods. People in the Borders have always known how to survive. There are places I can go.”
    “Like where?” I ask.
    “Like the stone villages,” he says.
    I raise my eyebrows. Is he confused? I don’t know what those places are. I’ve never heard of them before. “And do they have fluid and nutrient bags there?” I ask. “Do they have what you need to stay alive until there’s a cure? And don’t you care about exposing them to illness?”
    He stares up at me with wild-eyed panic. “Didn’t you see him?” he asks. “That patient? He died. I can’t stay here.”
    “Was that the first time you’ve seen anyone die in real life?” I ask.
    “People didn’t die in the Society,” he says.
    “They did,” I say. “They were just better at hiding it.” And I understand why the virologist is afraid. I think about running away too, but only for a second.

    The head physic decides to relax the lockdown long enough to send us more patients and more personnel. He’s heard everything the virologist told me over the miniport, so he’ll decide how to report it all to the Pilot. I’m glad that’s not my job.
    But I do have one request for the head physic. “When you send in the new personnel,” I say, “make sure they know this new form of the virus hasn’t responded yet to the cure. We don’t need anyone else trying to run. We want them to know what they’re getting into.”
    It’s not long before several Rising officers, armed and wearing hazmat suits, escort the new personnel to our wing. The officers take the virologist away with them. I’m not sure where they’ll quarantine him—in an empty room on his own, perhaps—but he’s become a liability, and we can’t keep him here when he’s so volatile. I’m so focused on making sure he’s taken care of that it takes me a moment to realize that one of the new staff is Lei.
    As soon as I can, I find her in the courtyard. “You shouldn’t be here,” I tell her quietly. “We can’t guarantee that it’s safe.”
    “I know,” she says. “They told me. They’re not sure the cure works on the mutation.”
    “It’s more than that,” I say. “Remember when you and I were talking about the small red mark on the people who had the earlier virus?”
    “Yes.”
    “The virologist they took out had a theory about that.”
    “What was it?”
    “He thought that if someone had the red mark, it meant they’d had the virus, like we thought—and he also thought that it meant that they were protected from

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