“Polio,” Lincoln complained. “I got the polio vaccine as a kid.”

“We did, but they didn’t” Decker said.

“I see the antibodies,” Elder Stow said.  “I’m not sure, but I don’t believe you can even spread the disease.  I don’t see the same reaction in Sukki, Tony, or Nanette.  They are carriers.”

Nurse David took a step back.  “It can be transmitted through feces and sometimes saliva,” he said.  “Mishka went to Orange County because there is a polio outbreak there and it appears to be spreading to Los Angeles.”  He picked up the phone and made a call.  It took them an hour to locate Doctor Mishka.

“The Masters,” Doctor Mishka said, plainly.  “I got one in the 1930 outbreak and shut down their gain-of-function lab, but two of the doctors got away.”

“Doctor Malory?” Lockhart asked.  “It has been a week since our arrival in this time zone.”

“Yes, Malory and Doctor Stinson.  I tracked one to the other side of the Rockies, then flew back quickly to LA when I got a call. I thought they would be here where the outbreak started, but no such luck.  Get the three to Los Angeles General and get them into beds.  I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Los Angeles General?” Lockhart asked and David nodded.  “Meet you at the hospital.”

“Tell them they will be uncomfortable for a while but do not worry.  I can replicate the appropriate antibodies to kill the disease before complications set in.”

She hung up and Lockhart turned to Katie. “I hope we did not infect that nice couple.  Those movies are great.”

David took the phone and called the ambulance.

By nine o’clock that evening, Doctor Mishka had not yet arrived.  The nurse started saying things like the patients are resting comfortably and they should go home.  “There will not be much change before morning.”  Lockhart and Decker said they were staying.  Elder Stow and Katie agreed.  They sent Lincoln to fetch supper, so they were all fed and only needed to find a comfortable chair where they could get some sleep.

Mishka showed up at midnight and went straight to Elder Stow.  “Scanner.”  She stuck out her hand.  He gave it to her but squinted as he did.  “The lab must be in Los Angeles.  Doctors Stinson and Malory have to be here as well at this point.  Hopefully, we will catch them at the lab.”  She sat quietly and worked, quickly trading places with Martok the Bospori so he could work directly on the device.

“That is remarkable the way you do that,” Katie said.  “It is like you become a completely different person, even if you are the same person on the inside.”

“Still me,” Martok said in his deep alien voice.  “It is just me in a life that has not even been born yet.”  He grinned.

“You know,” Lockhart said.  “It used to bother me when he said things like that.  Now it just feels like old news.”

“There,” Martok said, and traded back to Doctor Mishka.  She turned on the scanner and frowned.  There were at least a hundred places in the city, any one of which might be the lab.  “Looks like we have our work cut out for us.”  She looked at Elder Stow.  He touched something on the scanner.

“Now they are recorded, and you can call them up anytime,” he said.

She nodded and turned to Katie and Decker.  “Let’s go see our patients before the disease worsens.”

“Shouldn’t they sleep?” Katie asked.  Mishka did not answer, and she did not stop walking.

When they got in the room where Tony slept, he woke right up and moaned a little before he sat up.  Doctor Mishka held out her hand and said the word, “Bag.”  A medical bag, such as doctors used to carry in the thirties appeared in her hand and she rummaged through it to find what she wanted.  The jar had any number of pills in it.  She got one and gave it to Tony with a glass of water and instructions.  “Stay here and rest tomorrow.  You can get back on your feet the following day.”

“Boring,” Tony complained.  Lockhart handed him the book he picked up in the lobby. It was Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man.

“I never read the book,” Lockhart admitted.  “Tell me if it is any good.”

Nanette and Sukki shared the room next door.  They claimed to be sisters, but the nurses put up a stink.  At first, the staff wanted to separate the black woman and put her in a completely different ward, but this was the only ward still set up for polio patients since the last outbreak four years earlier.  Fortunately, it was not presently full, so they let the sisters room together.  Unfortunately, the ward would be overflowing once the current outbreak took hold.

Nanette and Sukki got the same pills and instructions.  They did not complain.  Now that Sukki would be going with Katie and Lockhart and Nanette would be going to 1914, a hundred years earlier, the sisters wanted to spend some time together, even if Boston could not be with them.

When they returned to the waiting area, Doctor Mishka made the rest of them take a pill, except Elder Stow.  “I do not expect the immunization of the gods to diminish for as long as you live, but the influenza mutation we call polio is relatively new.  Some variants go back to fifteen hundred BC, but modern Polio is since about 1650-1700, about Elizabeth’s day and the founding of the modern Men in Black organization.”

“Is it alien?” Lincoln asked.

“No,” Doctor Mishka said.  “Pox is alien.  Chicken pox, smallpox, monkey pox.  But Earth is quite capable of developing hostile bacteria and viruses.  Polio is essentially an influenza mutation.  We had the Spanish Flu.  Polio is less deadly but more debilitating.  I believe there is covid in your future.  All viruses.”

“Why is Elder Stow exempt?” Katie asked.

“He had a more advanced vaccine.  I know.  You all had the polio vaccines, unlike our patients, but yours is not so strong.  It requires booster shots.  Consider this pill your booster.  Now, I want you all to go home and rest.  I would invite you all to my home to rest, but my son is getting into fights in school and my husband is due home.”

“What—”

“He is a long-haul truck driver, a far cry from being a retired army major in the war. You see, he was a German major.  Now, sadly, it is beginning to look like war again on the horizon and he is making noises about going home to Prussia.”  Doctor Mishka shook her head.  “We were enemies in the war.  He got wounded, and, well, sometimes things don’t work out like you expect.  Go get rooms near the studio.  I will meet you there first thing in the morning.”

###

First thing in studio land meant sunrise.  The lighting was often best at that time of day.  They met outside the gate so they could walk in together.  Doctor Mishka got Gabriella, the in-house LPN and part time medical secretary to type up the list of places and addresses with two carbon copies.  It took about an hour.  The list carried over to the second page, so she stapled them together.  Doctor Mishka went through the list and circled a third of the places, with addresses in red.  She circled another third in regular black pencil.  Lockhart and Katie got the ones circled in pencil, and Gabriella would drive, though Lockhart said he knew how to drive a stick shift.  Elder Stow and Lincoln went with her RN, David.  Decker came with Mishka, and she sounded like she had some things to discuss with the man before she let him go to 1914.

“Like no betting on sporting events where I already know the outcome.”

“Back to the Future,” Lockhart said with a smile.

“Something like that,” Mishka said, and added, “If you find Stinson or Malory, or the lab, call out on your watch communicators.  We should not be out of range from each other.”

“I keep forgetting we have these things,” Lincoln said.

“We all do,” Lockhart agreed.

After that, it did not take long to begin the search.

###

David, Lincoln, and Elder Stow crossed the first one off their list.  David did not imagine they would find a gain of function lab at the university, but Lincoln said you never know.  In his day, most of the true research departments in the country were university related.

Elder Stow did say, “They are making good progress on radiation and uranium testing.  I did not imagine it this early.  In ten years, they might split the atom.”

“1945,” Lincoln said, and then paused.  How could Elder Stow not know this?

###

“It was a longshot,” Doctor Mishka said as she returned to her car and banged on the car roof.  “Beverly Hills High School has some interesting equipment for a high school.”

“I got plenty of stares,” Decker said.  “Hard to concentrate when you have people looking over your shoulder.”

“Some of these kids have probably never seen a black person before in their whole lives, except maybe the servants,” Mishka said, and when she got in the driver’s side, she waited for Decker to get in before she continued.  “Good thing you went full military dress uniform, Colonel.  Otherwise, I doubt they would have let you passed the door.”

“It is what I wore on the train from Omaha.  Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I can accept the fact that these people are not really racist, they are just ignorant.  I am willing to accommodate some to avoid the hassles that come with ignorance.”

“Very well put,” Mishka said as she started out toward the next stop on the list.  “You know you will have to do a lot of accommodating in 1914.  That is just fifty years post-slavery.  People are just not that fast to learn.”

“I understand.”