Code Orange

This chapter switches back to Mitty’s point of view. After leaving Olivia in Central Park, he heads home to delete the letter on his computer, since he doesn’t want his parents to find it. A woman claiming to be from the CDC stops him on the street and tells him that they need to test him because there is a remote possibility he has smallpox. Mitty runs away from her, suddenly afraid of being trapped on a hospital bed, alone, with smallpox. But then he stops running. He remembers his desire to protect society from this threat and realizes that “[t]his is how the disease will be spread. Me. Running and breathing. Mitty Blake, hot agent. A threat to his country” (144). He realizes that he needs to turn around and face his fate. He must go with them; he doesn’t want to infect anyone. But when he goes back, he realizes something is wrong, but it’s too late because he’s knocked unconscious.

Mitty wakes up in a basement, where he discovers that he has been restrained by duct tape. He worries not only about where he is and who his kidnappers are, but also about whether he will develop smallpox symptoms; it has been ten days since he held the scabs.