People are complicated. That's what I always thought. They just acted weird, unpredictable, you never knew what they were going to do. Germs? Germs make sense. They breed, they spread, they make you sick, and they change. I love being in the lab, looking at sample plates and running algorithms on the mutations, trying to find the core of the germ, the essense of the germ. My bumper sticker says "My other car is a staphylococcus".

When I was recruited to the so-called "CDC heroes" team, it took a while before I found my role. As I said… people are complicated, and I don't know how to communicate well with them. Mac, and doctor Blume… they're great. I can see why they're hired, they do great work. They belong on a "heroes" team. But me? I felt useless. I didn't know what to do, I'm not used to traveling around the world, I can barely make it to my front yard without forgetting my car keys.

Then the bosses said "we're bringing in Miriam". Why didn't they just say that, then? That's all they had to do, bring her in. My old co-worker back from my first job straight out of epidemology school. Number one in my email contacts list. Miriam who conducted the 300 sample size botulism study of '08. She gave me her dropbox password and now we're off to the races. I've already helped cure a couple of strains. I'm back in the groove, feeling good. I'm not too worried about COdA-403b. It's already mutated once, but I think we'll find a cure soon enough. Looks like a normal enough disease to me.

I'm feeling good about my job again. The others? They're in the thick of it, cleaning up. Taking care of the humans. Me? I'm in the lab. I love all the new data we're getting. I look at the world map and see all we can learn about incubation time, spread distances, outbreak ratios. As the viruses travel around the world, they give us the knowledge we've been seeking to get to the heart of the germ.

Fly. Fly, my pretties.

OK. Seems like the bosses over at WHO don't trust us in the Nerd Squad anymore and have started bringing in the goons in green. Which… OK, I guess. But Karin? Really? My old rival from project leading camp back in '02. I just knew she stole my idea for my team exercise. And now the bosses are putting her in charge of fighting the faded. Guys, you don't fight patients, you search for cures! What's wrong with you? Grenade aren't medicine! But I'm gonna get her back. I'm gonna get her back good. I've made a copy of her office key. I can go through her trash basket and see all her ideas.