by Kathryn Hoff
Reyna cried in her room.
Traitor: betrayer, turncoat, double-crosser.
At the end of the second day, Paula came to my room, asking, “How’s it going?” like nothing was wrong.
I turned away from her.
She sighed and sat on my bed. “Jackie, talk to me.”
“How can you let them experiment on babies?”
She bit her lip but didn’t look away. “We’re not testing treatments on the children, we’re simply harvesting the phages they naturally produce.”
I sniffed. “How is that different? Being honest is more than not telling a lie. You knew about this all along. You weren’t honest.”
“The things I hid from you were things I wasn’t allowed to tell. This research is secret for a reason. The science we’re doing here is hard for the public to understand. Like that poor soldier who thought we were hiding something that could cure his baby. Or those church people who think we’re doing something ungodly.”
“Maybe it is ungodly. Maybe it’s just plain wrong.”
“Jackie, sometimes there is no right answer, and you have to choose the one that’s least wrong. Is it wrong to hurt Molly and keep her in a cage? Yes. Do I wish we didn’t have to take a chance with the babies? Yes. But we’re at war, and we’re losing that war every day. Thousands of people are dying every day. What we’re doing here with the phages is what we need to do to win the war. This path of research is not one I would have chosen, but given where we are at this point, I know we have to keep moving forward to produce a phage that will stop Eclipse.”
“It’s just…they’re so little. So helpless.”
She put an arm around my shoulder. “Being young is good. They won’t remember any of it. The sooner we do this, the better. We’re lucky here—it’s still winter and the cold is slowing the advance of strain seven. Once spring comes, if we don’t have the phage ready, strain seven will overwhelm this part of the world and many, many people will die. I’m sorry you’re angry with me. But I have to do what I think is right. Just like you.”
CHAPTER 22
Where there’s smoke
Long after I’d gone to bed that night, Barney, in the primate lab two floors below my bedroom, started barking loud enough to wake the dead. He certainly woke me.
It was nearly two a.m. Grumbling, I pulled a sweatshirt on over my pajamas, grabbed my badge, slipped on my sneaks, and shuffled down the southwest stairs.
Even in the stairwell, I could hear Barney’s ceaseless woofs. On the ground-floor hall in front of the old gymnasium, I heard more—Molly shrieking in the iso lab.
I started running.
Private Mary Koh stood outside the iso lab. “Hey, you! Kennedy! Does your badge open this place? I got to go in—there’s somebody screaming in there!”
“It’s a chimp, not a person. You’d have to call Westerly or Quinn or Bardo, their badges open it.”
Beep. Beep. Beep. A shrill alarm made me jump.
“Oh, shit. The smoke alarm.” Koh spoke staccato sentences into her radio.
I peered into the iso lab window. No flames or smoke, nothing but the empty prep room, the white suits hanging ready.
Eek! Eeeek! Molly screeched. From down the hall, Barney answered with frantic barks.
“I don’t see anything wrong in there,” I said. “I’ll check the primate lab.”
Koh’s radio emitted scratchy orders.
Quinn came pounding down the stairway behind me. “Call the fire department, idiot! I’ll check the iso lab. Everyone else stay out!” He turned to me. “You! What are you doing here?”
“I heard the dog barking.”
“Well, take care of it. That’s your job, isn’t it?” He used his badge to open the iso lab and went into the prep area. “No fire in here!” he yelled.
Sergeant Stonehouse’s drawl boomed over the loudspeakers: “All personnel evacuate immediately. Laboratory staff assemble on the north side, away from the street.”
Soldiers, still pulling on their coats, came in the front and spread out. Koh went charging up the staircase. I ran to the primate lab. There, the smell of smoke was bad enough to make me cough. It must have been ferocious to Barney’s sensitive nose. He plunged around the cage, barking hoarsely as the smoke alarm blared.
I shoved some biscuits in my pocket and gave him one to quiet him long enough for me to clip the leash on his collar. “Good boy. Thanks for warning us, Barney.”
When I led Barney to the door to the back hall to take him out to the dog run, he whined and held back.
I put my hand on the door—it was warm.
“Very good dog!”
Keep your head, call for help, use your knowledge of behavior.
I pulled Barney to the north hall. Three soldiers circled Quinn, who blocked them from the door to the iso lab.
“Over here!” I shouted. “I think the fire’s in the back hall. You can get to it from the courtyard or the kitchen.” Soldiers peeled away to deal with the fire.
Rico appeared behind me. “What did you do this time, Kennedy?”
“Shut up. Did you see Reyna and Chubb? Are the kids all right?”
“You’re supposed to be evacuating. Why are you still here?”
Witless. “I’m evacuating Barney.”
“I’m guarding the phage lab,” he said importantly. “Making sure no stupid soldier breaks in and screws up the cultures.”
“Better guard the door to the back hall, then. That’s where the fire is.”
Molly had settled into a plaintive hoo hoo hoo. Barney whined and barked, anxious to get to his old friend. Molly responded with frustrated screeches.
I called, “Don’t worry, Molly! I’ve got Barney. He’s fine.”
Molly. There was no way to evacuate her without releasing the strain seven bacteria. My eyes misted up—I hoped like hell the fire would be doused quickly.
Barney pulled and balked and tried to get back to Molly while I dragged him to the main entrance. Even the little whiff of smoke I’d gotten hurt my lungs. Why in the world would anyone want to smoke a cigarette and deliberately breathe in smoke? It was awful.
The cold fresh air stung, making me cough some more.
In front, it was chaos. A fire truck had pulled up to the schoolhouse steps. Its red and white lights circled like beacons, reflecting through light snow. A police car partially blocked the open gate. Raincoated and helmeted firefighters strode purposefully, carrying axes and thick hoses.
There were people too, spilling into the compound despite the police. Neighborhood ghouls, drawn to lights and sirens like moths to a flame, and those religious nuts who always seemed to be on hand when things were happening in the lab—they surged past the school’s empty flagpole.
One woman shouted, “Let it burn! They got Eclipse in there!” Others took up the call, “Let it burn! Let it burn!”
A man jumped onto the school steps, to be better seen by the crowd. “Eclipse is God’s judgment on us for our sins. Will you trust science to save you? Eight years we’ve suffered and died, and science is no closer to a cure than at the beginning. Repent!”—and more crap like that.
“Move along,” ordered a young cop. Plainly scared, she looked barely as old as me. Still, she stood her ground, holding a baton at the ready. “Outside the fence, everybody. You, girl, you have to move outside the fence.”
“I work here. This is a lab dog I’m taking to safety.” With just my sweatshirt over pajama bottoms, I was already shivering. My sockless toes were freezing.
“I don’t care what kind of dog it is—you have to move outside the fence.”
Witless. I held up my badge. “Lab like lab-or-a-tory. Research animals. I work here, it’s my job to take care of him.”
“Well, get out of the way, then.”
I turned toward the north side of the building, but on the bottom step a woman grabbed me. “Have you repented your sins?”
“Let me go!” I pulled away and tried to shove my way t
hrough the crowd.
Let it burn!
Get back! Get that hose in there!
God’s judgment! Repent!
A thin hand grasped my shoulder. “Don’t you have a coat?” Tilly asked. “You’ll catch your death.” She took off her own coat, a long wool one, and put it over my shoulders.
The ghouls pulled back, like vampires shrinking from the first rays of dawn.
“Thanks,” I said, “but what about you? Come with me and we’ll share the coat.”
Tilly rubbed her arms, gazing at the dark old school. “Don’t worry about me, child. I got to go back. Confess my sin.”
“Confess?” I knew she was religious but it didn’t seem the right time. “Maybe later. Everyone’s busy now.”
She bent to speak into my ear. “I’ve done my best to look out for you, but my time is short. You beware, child, and tell that other girl too. That Dr. Quinn is an evil man. He’s brought other girls here, orphan girls, and made them pregnant.”
Cold as I was, her words chilled my blood. “What do you mean, brought girls here? Westerly would never let him do that.”
She leaned closer. “She knows. She’s part of it. Do you know your letters? Ask yourself—what happened to alpha and beta?” She crossed herself. “I’ve done what I can, it’s in God’s hands now.”
She turned and disappeared into the night. Barney gazed after her, a puzzled furrow on his brow.
“Come on, Barney. There’s been enough nuttiness tonight. Let’s go find Chubb and Reyna.”
Behind the buildings, it was dark as hell, but Barney led the way, pulling me toward a barracks doorway where Chubb and Reyna sheltered.
“Hey, Kennedy!” Chubb called.
The babies were crying, cold and sleepy and confused about why they’d been dragged from their comfy cribs in the middle of the night. Chubb and Reyna held them inside their coats to keep them—and themselves—warm. Reyna had her pretty quilt draped around her.
“Where were you?” Chubb asked. “Don’t tell me—you went to rescue the dog but didn’t wake us?”
“Did you see Paula?”
“Don’t worry,” Reyna answered. “Westerly got everybody off the floor. She’s pissed at you not being in your room.”
“I just had a run-in with Tilly. She gave me her coat, but she’s acting strange.”
“That’s not new,” Reyna grumped. Suddenly she looked past me, her eyes lighting up. “Mary! Are you all right?”
Private Mary Koh gathered Reyna into a hug, and they murmured reassurances to one another.
Oh, so that’s why Koh always seemed to be hanging around the courtyard in the mornings. I raised my eyebrows at Chubb. Had he known?
He winked at me. Of course. Chubb knew everybody’s secrets.
“You can all go inside now,” Koh said, still holding onto Reyna. “It was just a trash fire. Some paper in a bin, left in the back hallway. Dr. Westerly said no one was injured and you should get the babies back to bed.”
“Have you seen Dr. Bardo?” I hadn’t seen Paula since the commotion started.
“The doctors are having some sort of meeting in Westerly’s office. You might try there.”
As the others stumbled away, I took Barney to the dog run, figuring the smell of smoke inside would still be too strong for him. I fondled his ears. “Good boy. Thanks for the help.” I handed over the biscuits left in my pocket.
Tilly had said some wild things, but one of them had clicked, and I urgently wanted to ask Paula about it. The babies were named for Greek letters: alpha, beta, gamma, delta.
So, what had happened to baby Alpha and baby Beta?
Any answer I came up with was something bad. Very bad.
Firefighters were still milling around the back hall, so I used the courtyard passage to enter the building and climbed the northeast staircase to the second floor.
Westerly’s office didn’t have a handy eavesdropping hole like Mendez’s office, so I lingered in the hallway, holding Tilly’s coat as an excuse to be there. I didn’t have to get too close—the voices were loud enough to come through clearly, including Tilly softly moaning, “Oh lord, oh lord.” If it was a prayer, it was from the heart.
“It was an honest mistake,” Bert said, desperation in his tone. “A little carelessness with the trash, right, Tilly? No harm done and she’s confessed—can’t you just do the compassionate thing and forgive?”
Westerly rumbled, “We forgave the graffiti incident, but we warned you then, Tilly. These disruptions cannot continue.”
“You should have fired her then,” Quinn said. “I told you—the woman’s unstable.”
So it was Tilly who’d painted End-Timer messages on the wall. One mystery solved. Maybe two, if she’d caused the trashcan fire too.
“Perhaps some additional counseling,” Paula suggested.
“No.” Tilly’s voice wavered. “I won’t work here anymore. I didn’t mean to be careless with the incinerator, and that’s God’s truth. But this place is evil, and that’s God’s truth too. Please, Bert, we have to leave this terrible place. You promised—you swore you’d leave after you switched…” She ended with a little gasp.
Dead silence.
“After you switched what, Bert?” Quinn asked, his voice dripping with venom. “What did you do?”
“I did what I had to do,” Bert said. “I did what my conscience told me was right. I know what’s going on here. Do you want to know why I’m still here? To keep an eye on you. Tilly’s right—the devil’s here and his name is Avery Quinn. What you’ve done is pure evil. You want to fire me? Go ahead. I substituted the embryos for Alpha and Beta. I’m just sorry I couldn’t do the same for the other two little monsters.”
“Oh, Bert,” Paula said softly.
Quinn sounded ready to explode. “You sabotaged my work? You damn fool!”
“As for Tilly,” Bert said, “she’s my wife, and I’m standing by her. When the world finds out what you’ve been up to…”
“You’re finished,” Quinn snarled. “You’ll never set foot in a lab again. And in case you forgot, the work here is classified. One word and you’ll spend the rest of your life in a federal prison. Stonehouse, put them both under arrest.”
“Let’s go, Bert, Miss Tilly,” Stonehouse drawled.
I ducked around the corner, hoping to get out of sight—and ran smack into Chubb. I pulled his arm to get him to the stairway, but Chubb didn’t move.
“What’s this?” Stonehouse rounded the corner, Bert’s arm in his grip.
“That’s what I want to know,” Chubb said, standing tall, arms crossed. “What’s going on in this place?”
Bert brayed a harsh laugh. “Classified, huh? Looks like you have a couple of spies in your midst.”
CHAPTER 23
Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta
Chubb and I agreed to go to bed only after Westerly swore that all our questions would be answered in the morning.
As promised, Paula came to the nursery after breakfast. All of us teens were there, including Rico. The babies napped in their cribs, still tired after the eventful night.
Paula perched on a beanbag, her eyes shadowed. “All right, who has questions?”
Chubb went first. “Did Tilly set the fire?”
“Inadvertently, I think. Some rags with combustible chemicals had been mixed with the other trash and left too close to a heat source. I’m sure she didn’t mean to harm anyone, although it could have been very serious.”
“Maybe she set the fire in the men’s room a few months ago too,” Rico said. “Once a firebug, always a firebug.”
“I don’t know about that, but I believe some of you are aware the word ‘Repent’ was painted on the outside wall in November? I’m afraid that was done by Tilly. She admitted it at the time, and Dr. Westerly required her to receive counseling. We all thought it was an isolated incident of a grieving mother. In the last year, Bert and Tilly have joined the End-Timer church, convinced God is punishing our world fo
r—well, I don’t exactly know what. All the talk about hell and the devil seems to have overwhelmed them. Tilly’s become more and more distracted, more convinced that we’re all somehow in league with Satan. Dr. Westerly decided last night to let her go and Bert…well, Bert admitted that he, too, is uncomfortable here and that he deliberately interfered with Dr. Quinn’s research.”
“So he’s the saboteur,” Rico said. “He must have let the chimp out too.”
Surprised, I gave Rico a grateful smile—finally, an explanation that kept the blame off me.
Paula nodded. “That seems likely. Although ‘saboteur’ is a little strong. Dr. Quinn’s research involves gene editing—a lot of people find that disturbing.”
Disturbing was right. “Was he editing genes in human babies?” I asked. “Tilly told me girls were brought here and Quinn made them pregnant.”
Reyna muttered, “I knew Quinn was a creep.”
Paula smiled. “It was nothing scandalous. The young women had volunteered to be surrogate mothers. Each of them was implanted with a tiny embryo—a fertilized egg that has barely grown beyond a few cells. Each embryo had been specially selected for certain genetic characteristics that would help our research.”
“They have chimp genes?” I asked.
Chubb looked disgusted. “Shit. Mutant babies?”
“Gamma and Delta are not mutants. They are completely human. Dr. Mendez and Dr. Quinn found a way to suppress certain genes that differentiate the digestive system of modern humans from those of our ancestors. Modern humans depend on processed food—grain that’s been ground and cooked, cooked vegetables and meat—rather than eating raw food the way early humans did or wild primates do. By turning off some of the modern genes, Gamma and Delta can digest a diet more like our ancestors or like chimps—especially plant material.”
Reyna shook her head, making her earrings jangle. “So what? How can that protect them from Eclipse?”
“It doesn’t affect the Eclipse bacteria, but it does provide a better environment for the phage viruses. We inoculated Gamma and Delta with the Eclipse-destroying phages that Molly produced, and their systems provided a bridge to allow the chimp phages to evolve to a form compatible with the normal human digestive system. Humanized them, so to speak. Those humanized phages for the first six strains of Eclipse are the ones now protecting all of you. Once Gamma and Delta enter the isolation lab, we’ll do the same with strain seven. I’m not exaggerating when I say that Gamma and Delta may hold the key to defeating Eclipse. Obviously, we have every interest in making sure they are happy and healthy and well-cared for.”