Code Orange

Mitty’s fears have suddenly ambushed him, and he finds it very hard to sleep as he is terrified of the possibility of having contracted smallpox. When he gets to English class, his teacher tells him that she is impressed with his Beowulf test and, for his paper, suggests that he make his essay cross-curricular by “compar[ing] Grendel and the other monsters in Beowulf to the monsters of infectious disease” (76). Mitty is not enthusiastic about this idea at all, but his teacher fails to notice.

At lunch, Derek talks about his project. He now thinks that a country, and not an individual, is responsible for the death of Ottilie Lundgren, a woman who received anthrax in her mail:

My theory is that a rogue country is endlessly surfing the Net, looking for opportunities… The terrorists don’t care if they find anthrax or smallpox—they just want to kill people. So, they get their anthrax or whatever, pick a place like Grand Central Station, send a million commuters into such a panic… (78).

Mitty listens to Derek’s theory and is paralyzed with fear.

In science class, they go to the library again, and this time Mitty focuses on bioterrorism. Because no one has immunity to smallpox, the whole world is at risk.