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insist on compassion.
    Her room wasn’t much larger than a dorm room, with a small desk and computer, an armchair with a reading light, and the daybed. The space was half the size of her doctors’ quarters. At least she didn’t have to share a room like most of the other nurses. She slipped her shoes off and changed into a pair of flannel pants and a tee shirt.
    Sitting in her armchair, she pulled out her Blackberry and checked inner office e-mails. For someone who had been relegated to the second string, she was still on a lot of mailing lists. She deleted most of the messages, pausing a couple of times to rub her tired eyes.
    She had nearly dozed off when a swooshing sound startled her. Squinting, she checked the time on her PDA but it was rebooting.
    Once it flickered back on, she typed in her user ID three times and failed to gain access. Surely, Doctor Sherman wasn’t so cowardly that he would pull the plug on her in the middle of the night. Then again, at the staff meeting he had listened to her arguments without his usual insistence that she submit her comments in writing. At one point he even said he appreciated her concern. Now she understood why. He knew it was the last time he would have to put up with her.
    A feeling of doom weighed on her shoulders. The nerve endings in her fingers tingled. If her intranet access had been revoked, it must mean she was off the staff. She envisioned being ushered to the front door in the morning, along with the nurses. Her top lip puckered in a snarl as she thought of Rick DeAngelo hovering nearby, scoping out potential babes-in-distress.
    What a way for her career to end. Four years ago, during the Williamsport incident, she’d been selected over dozens of others by the World Health Organization, hand-picked by Randall Anderson to join his premier team. Later, when she was chosen by the CDC to head up their national surveillance division, she’d been the youngest woman to ever hold that position. It was only Sherman’s military background that put him in the top slot here at the Army Medical Center, not his ability.
    She jerked open the small refrigerator under her desk, and pulled out a bottle of wine. Usually she didn’t barter with the underground here, but when rumors circulated that some guy had a case of Pinot Grigio — was it that idiot Rick? — she’d traded a whole week’s credits for a single bottle. What had she been saving it for? Anger boiled in her veins as she drilled a corkscrew and yanked out the cork. The end of the world, evidently.
    She flipped the switch to a shortwave radio on her bookshelf and grabbed the mike. “This is W2TMS calling K6MAI. Are you there, Mai?”
    While she waited, she took a long drink from a plastic cup, and pondered her next move. If Walter Reed was reducing staff, she didn’t see much hope in getting on board, particularly if it meant taking another doctor’s position. The same probably held true for hospitals in Chicago, Denver and Atlanta. Supplies were severely limited. From now on, it would be every man for himself.
    Maybe it was time to change fields. Most of her medical career had been the pursuit and management of disease. Why not work with people who weren’t dying for a change? Monitor high blood-pressure, advise patients on lowering their cholesterol, take pap smears, prescribe Viagra. Some day, when the population recovered, and children were plentiful again, she’d tend to their sore throats and sniffles, advise mothers on the best way to ease the itching from chicken pox.
    The idea didn’t depress her as much as it used to. But she would surely miss the chase. It was like taking a homicide detective and giving him a ticket book for parking meters. Taeya swigged another long gulp of wine.
    One thing was certain. She wouldn’t be practicing at the Long Island colony in Brookhaven. Not with Sherman as liaison. Maybe the Cape Charles colony in Virginia?
    Fear soured the wine in her stomach and reflux brought