"Sulfa-tetradine," she replied. "One of a series Peterson was testing. There is no physiological data on it yet. All he knows is that it inhibited the virus in culture. So they tried it on the monkeys."
Murt raised the beaker to his lips. It was against every sensible tenet of scientific procedure. He was amazed that Phyllis was silent as he swallowed the bland, chalky fluid. He heard a clink. Turning, he saw her raising the graduate to her lips. In it was a like quantity of sulfa-tetradine.
"What are you doing?" he half-shouted. "We don't need a test-control!"
"I'm not a control," she said softly, touching her lips with a scrap of gauze. "I've had the virus for months."
He stared at her unbelievingly. "How do you know?"
"One of the first test samples was my own blood," she said. "You saw it. It was one of the twelve positive."
"But the symptoms—you don't show a sign of—"
"Thanks," she said. "I started to break down yesterday, but you didn't notice. You see, you are my fixation and when you told me that you had it, too, I—"
"Your fixation!" The beaker slipped from his fingers and smashed to the tile. "You're in love with me?"
Her arms hung loosely at her sides and tears rimmed her eyes. "Pathologically or otherwise, I've been a case since before I started the blood tests."