Duel With the Devil, Chapter 20 of The Greatest Liar

If only I had written a better book that attracted a broader readership, or even inspired a streaming miniseries. If only I had opened more eyes and minds to the impossibility of living a full life without transitioning, and to the boundless possibilities of life beyond the torturous path through transition. I’d failed as an author and advocate, and as the pandemic of violence and hatred against transsexuals raged on, I acquiesced, protected by my passability, the relative tolerance of Swiss society, and my success as a pioneer of regenerative medicine.

Then, the Covid pandemic repurposed me as a scientist. As the case count and death toll spiked, the resources and grants for my research dried up and the clinics I where supervised tissue regeneration filled up, like clinics everywhere, with desperately ill Covid patients. One of them was my husband, a native of Bergamo, who was infected at a soccer match that marked the onset of the pandemic in Italy and was triaged to die alone in a hospital corridor.

The Swiss/Italian border was closed, so I said goodbye to Silvio over Facetime. Two months later I finally got the urn containing his ashes, and our daughters and I hiked his favorite glacier and sprinkled it with his ashes and our tears.

My father Eduardo Rios, who was already a pre-eminent virologist when the pandemic descended, recruited me to his team performing a global study of the spread of the disease for the World Health Organization. For the next two years I worked for his Institute, testing waste water samples from around the world, searching for and classifying new variants and subvariants. After the pandemic subsided, an American billionaire funded us to look for the next pandemic lying in wait to ambush an all to forgetful human race.

I got assigned to Thailand because I speak the language, know the culture, and even have survived and exposure to the bird flu that has been on WHO’s diseases of concern list for more than a decade.. The only impediment, the Thai arrest warrant outstanding from my last visit Thailand (chapter 14 of TGL), was handled discreetly and quickly with a donation from our billionaire sponsor to the Thai Prime Minister’s favorite charity.