It's human nature to mess with stuff, I guess. Pretty much everybody learns that "fire is hot" the same way: we stick our finger in a flame. But once in a while mankind pulls a real wanker, like the atom bomb. Or shopping malls. Or the outbreak.

I should capitalize that. The Outbreak.

The virus ran wild, in the beginning. Be patient with me and I'll tell all. I was the first to catch it, after all. The "Delphia massacre" is only a tiny sliver of the story.

I'm Rik, by the way. I just turned nineteen and I'm writing this two months after the Outbreak. But let me rewind to the evening it started.

The place was the biosynthesis lab at Delphia University. Even if I could afford college (I very much couldn't, not after dad died) I could never get admitted to Delphia. You'd need straight As and probably six patents and to have started a worldwide charitable organization. It was that high-class. I wasn't enrolled, but I was there.

I was mopping Corridor C.

And I will be honest with you. I was content, mostly. I had flashes of the opposite. I wanted a car, I wanted a piano, I wanted attention. But I also tried hard to be philosophical.

Father Brent once said, "A person's viewpoint is key. Step into their shoes. Pluto neither knows nor cares if some evolved ape infesting rock number three labels it a planet, a dwarf planet, or belly button lint. Think about it. It doesn't even speak the language. And it sure ain't psychic." Father Brent had a way with words even if he was pale as a corpse and heavy as an ox. Or maybe I should say he had a big mouth. Dad told me he was defrocked shortly after he told me that. An ordained priest no longer. I didn't see him after that, until the Outbreak.

Custodial work paid the rent and kept Trixie my kid sister fed and clothed. It even paid for her eyeglasses and hearing aids. Sure, mopping floors wasn't what I dreamed of when I was in high school, but sometimes dads die and Fathers get defrocked and atom bombs get invented. Sometimes, you're just not in control.

Dusting and moppping was also easy on the brain. I had lots of time to hum tunes to myself and wrestle with the words that I wanted to fit in with the notes. I was just trying to conjure up a rhyme for "shiver" when four biologists burst out of one of the secure labs. They moved as a unit, like a civilized rugby scrum. One paused to lock the door, and they all paused. When the door was secure, they all moved down Corridor C toward the exit.

Maybe biologists always flocked together like that. I had never seen any, before now, because I worked the night shift. What the heck were they doing, working this late? Personally, I was miffed. How could I think of a rhyme for "shiver" with all these interruptions?

One of them I recognized, a woman with a helmet of straight black hair and tiny wire frame glasses. Dr. Iona Friel's picture was here and there in the building; she was the Ackerman-Castro-Hearst Distinguished Chair, according to the posters. They shuffled past me in a unit, huddled together as if for warmth. Mutters resolved into a few recognizable phrases. "Should be safe overnight." "Containment breach protocols." "Not too bad. Not too bad. Not bad at all, really."

They left.

In hindsight, if I had paused to contemplate the words "containment breach" or, perhaps, correctly assigned the clumping of the scientists to the emotion of fear rather than a desire for warmth, everything would be different.

But I didn't think at all, except that it occurred to me that "river" rhymed with "shiver." By the time my shift was over, I sang:

"One look from you? I shiver.

"Our love is like a river

"Rippling sweet and slow

"From mountain high to valley low."

I sighed and lamented, "Too many syllables in the last line." When I had it right, though, I could sell it. The perfect tune and the perfect words. I could be rich.

Like a good custodian I checked all the labs. Corridor C was all microscopes and centrifuges and things that looked like ovens. Pretty boring. No live animals like Corridor B. I let myself into the lab that had scared the four scared biologists.

The outer part looked pretty well in order. The door to the inner chamber was correctly sealed and locked, I noted with approval. There was a sign taped to the glass. Scribbled marker ink said, "Maintain negative pressure" with an even bolder scribble below, too messy to make out.

It was gobbledy-gook to me. I got a little lazy, then. Instead of letting myself in, I just peered through the glass door. This was one of the sparkly labs. Everything all clean and shiny inside. But not this time. I spied broken glass. The tiniest amount. A dropped test tube?

My heart swelled and my chin lifted. A spill had occurred. And I? I was a custodian!

Triumphantly, I fetched my cart and wheeled it into the lab. Yes, even into the inner part. There was a sucking sound as I broke seal on the door.

I guess the lesson is, if you hire an 18-year-old custodian, you should brief him about clean-room procedure, and somehow convince him he doesn't know everything (good luck with that). But I was happy as a lark as I swept up the broken test tube and spritzed the area with my bottle of Mediclean. Vigorously, I wiped. I snapped my towel upon completion of the task and strutted out. I made sure all doors were properly locked and sealed.

It had been a good night. I had cleaned up Corridor C diligently and I had dreamt up a couple of pretty decent stanzas of lyrics.

The morning alarm buzzed and dragged me unwilling to a semiconscious state. I flopped a hand over the clock and scored a hit. It quieted. At tree-sloth tempo I dragged myself out of bed and felt around for my robe. Too puffy-eyed to even yawn, I dragged into the kitchen. The jar of peanut butter felt light. Time to go grocery shopping again? So soon? Augh. We only had a quarter loaf of bread, too.

Well, no emergency, yet. It was enough for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. My head was stuck in the fridge when a clatter announced Trixie's arrival. I found the jelly jar and pivoted with a woozy smile. "Morning."

Trixie peered at me for second through her thick lenses, then stretched to reach for a bowl. "Hey, Rik. You look like a midnight owl at noon." I thought of her as my kid sister, but she was sixteen. Not really a kid any more. I smiled wistfully. We had a roof over our heads and we could eat. But she wasn't bound for college any more than I had been.

I found a knife for the jelly and handed Trixie a spoon.

"What?" she said.

I made sure I faced her and spoke toward her good ear. "I didn't say anything. But what did you learn in geometry class?"

She scrunched up her nose and dove into the fridge for some milk. "Areas of things. Squares. Rectangles. Actually, triangles are sort of twisted. One-half base times height, but for a leaning triangle the height line doesn't necessarily even touch the base. So you have to draw lines that aren't really there to solve it and it's all sort of imaginary. But it gives the right answer." She stopped talking and started shoving spoonfuls of milk-soaked raisin bran into her mouth.

I loved how she could actually remember math. I never could. She wanted to be an astronaut, and she had the brain for it. She just didn't have other necessary parts, like two working ears and legs that wouldn't lurch when she walked. Like I say, sometimes your dad dies. You just have to carry on. Sometimes, you don't get what you want.

In a small paper bag, I packed leftover popcorn, the PBJ, and some grapes. We were out of cookies again.

With a clatter, she dropped her bowl and spoon into the sink. I thrust the lunchbag at her. She grabbed it and grinned. "Thanks. See you later, bro."

I waved goodbye and made sure she made it down the apartment stairs all right. She wasn't great with stairs.

I latched the door, then gratefully shuffled back to bed.

Night shifts. Ugh.

Bangs on my door woke me. I glanced at the clock. Just about time to wake up anyway, but who the heck was at the front door being rude as a farty orangutan? I clicked the lock open and swung the door. My face went slack.

You know that feeling you get when you open the door and all you see are hazmat suits, and the hazmat suits have come to take you away? Well, that's how I felt.