"I'll go first," Michael said. "I'll find Liz and I'll stop at her bed. Then you follow me. We'll look more casual if we're not walking around together."

"Okay." Max watched Michael crawl out from under the cot and begin walking slowly up and down the rows of patients. Finally Michael stopped at the foot of one specific bed. He picked up the chart attached to the bed and began flipping through it.

Max shimmied out from under the cot and casually walked over to where Michael stood. In the bed lay Liz, her eyes shut, her body perfectly still.

"Kyle," Michael whispered, nodding to the next cot over.

Max looked. Kyle's eyes were open, but otherwise he lay as still as Liz. Michael made his way over to Kyle's bed. "How are you guys?" he asked in a low voice.

Kyle recoiled from him. "Quiet!" he whispered. "I can't stand loud noises."

Michael shot Max a confused look, but Max understood. "It's the same thing Liz has," he whispered. "Over-sensitivity to noise and light."

"And touch and smell and taste," Kyle whispered. "But Liz is worse than me. She's gotten really sensitive to feelings inside her body. She says that our metabolism is speeding up and that our bodies can't withstand it."

"Well, that's why I'm here," Max said. He sat down on Liz's bed, being careful not to jostle her too much… he knew every single movement could be painful to her.

"He's going to heal Liz, then you, then Marias mom," Michael told Kyle. "Then you and Liz can help us figure out what's going on."

"We did some snooping earlier," Kyle said. "They emptied out that lab where Liz worked. She thinks that Dr. Sosa guy was doing some rogue research. She found alien cells in the lab a few days ago."

"What?" Max cried. "Why didn't she tell me?"

"I didn't want to make a big thing out of it until I knew what was going on," Liz whispered.

Max looked down at her. Her brown eyes were open now, making her pale skin look even whiter. "I didn't think Dr. Sosa knew the cells were alien," she went on. "He thought they were cancer cells that mutated into something else."

"You think he's caused this epidemic somehow?" Max asked.

"I don't know, I can't understand it," Liz murmured. "Max, I feel awful."

His heart swelled with worry and love for her. "Never mind," he whispered. "We'll figure it out once you're better." He placed his hand gently against her cheek and concentrated on healing her.

Power built within him, heating up his hand against Liz's skin. He pictured her healing, becoming whole… but something was wrong. Usually when he healed, he got flashes of the person he was healing. Pieces of their thoughts, their memories, that sort of thing. And with Liz, he got flashes practically every time he touched her. But now there was nothing. Just emptiness.

Liz moaned.

Max concentrated harder, trying to get into Liz's body, trying to heal her from within.

She drew her breath in sharply, as if something had hurt her. Her muscles began to twitch, almost as if she was having a seizure.

"Max. Max, stop!" Kyle cried. "You're making it worse!"

Max pulled his hand away from Liz. He stared down at her. Her mouth was drawn as if in pain, and her eyes were brimming with tears. "It's too much," she whispered. "Whatever you were doing… it put more stress on my system…" Her voice faded, and her eyes fluttered closed.

"Liz?" Max whispered urgently. "Liz!" He felt her wrist, and was astonished at how fast her pulse was.

"Just leave her alone," Kyle said. "Let her calm down. She goes into a… a cocoon state, where she shuts out all the outside stimuli. We both have to do that every so often."

Max couldn't believe that Kyle was telling him this stuff about Liz. Why did Kyle know so much? Max was a healer… he should be able to figure out what was wrong with Liz just by touching her. He felt strangely jealous of Kyle.

"We can't stay here for long," Michael whispered. "Try to heal Kyle."

The blood drained from Kyle's face. "I don't know about that," he said. "I don't want you to make me worse too."

"No! No," Liz whispered frantically. "Don't touch him!"

Her eyes were still closed. Max couldn't tell if she was conscious or if she was just talking in a dream. "Why can't

I touch him?" Max asked her.

"He's like me, we're the same," Liz whispered. "Aliens…"

Her voice trailed off.

Max shot Michael a questioning look. Michael shrugged. "Maybe you can't heal this," he said.

"How can that be?" Max asked. "She's just sick. They're all just sick. And that's what I do, I heal sick people."

"I don't think we can risk you making anyone else worse," Kyle said.

Max was speechless. It seemed as if his healing power had reversed itself somehow. He looked at his hands… would they really make people sicker?

"We should go find Isabel. If the CDC has figured out what's causing it, maybe that will help you figure out how to heal it," Michael suggested.

Slowly Max nodded. It seemed like their only option.

"… Crashdown Cafe," Dr. Farrell's voice said.

Isabel jerked her head up. She'd almost fallen asleep, stretched out on the ceiling tiles. She had no idea how long she'd been up there, listening to the droning voice of the CDC lab technicians. They were compiling data, trying to find something, anything, that would help them figure out how so many different diseases could crop up at the same time.

But what was that about the Crashdown? Isabel thought. Did I dream that?

"You'd better call Maris Wheeler in here," Dr. Farrell said.

Isabel waited, holding her breath, until she heard the clicking of Maris's heels on the floor.

"Have you found anything useful, doctor?" Maris's cold voice asked.

"We believe we've isolated the identity of Patient Zero," Dr. Farrell said.

"Really?" Maris actually sounded interested now. "So it is a contagion after all?"

"We're not sure how it works once it infects people," Dr. Farrell said. "But yes, it's clearly been spread in a very clean line. A line that starts here in Meta-chem, by the way."

Isabel could hear Maris's little gasp. "Surely you're not suggesting that Meta-chem released some sort of virus," Maris cried.

"I don't know what to think yet," Dr. Farrell said. "But we've figured out that this… bug… is carried in water. It seems to have started with a small group of people who ate at a specific restaurant, the Crashdown Cafe. Our researchers turned up an anomaly in the soup there. Whoever ate the soup became infected, and they in turn infected others by sneezing near them, coughing… basically anything that would pass the bug along in a liquid form."

Great, Michael's cooking strikes again, Isabel thought.

"I don't see what that has to do with Meta-chem," Maris said.

"One of your employees is the daughter of the owner of this restaurant," Dr. Farrell said. "She was overheard talking about a chemical spill here in Alan Sosa's lab. And she herself is ill. Based on all of this, we're considering her Patient Zero."

Liz, thought Isabel.

"Liz Parker," Maris Wheeler said.

"Yes," Dr. Farrell answered. "We'll begin extensive tests on her right away."