Ruth and Karys fastened the restraints to the cell’s walls. With the possum secured, the three of them departed the cell. They hosed each other’s suits down with chlorine before changing back into their uniforms.
“How long do you think it’ll take?” said Karys, fastening her belt.
“We had a small sample from the turtle within twenty-four hours. This is a different creature, but we’ve blasted it with one hell of a dose. If all goes well, we should have a stack more powder ready to collect this time tomorrow. Let’s rendezvous here tomorrow evening to see what’s changed,” said Lucy.
“Can’t – they’re deploying me,” said Ruth. “I’ve been assigned to a new unit, and we’re on crowd control tomorrow. Apparently the president’s making some public address. It’s all to do with the riots. Anyone who says the army have it sweet is full of it. Are you guys coming?” she added, holding the door open impatiently.
Curfew was approaching, and they each had different residences to get back to.
“There’s something I need to do – you guys go on,” said Lucy.
“Can we help?” said Karys.
“It’s best you don’t get involved in this one. I’ll see you tomorrow,” said Lucy.
She waved the pair off into the elevator, then seized a lab coat from the rack by the wall and hurried into the adjacent stairwell. She climbed the zig-zagging staircase, taking the steps two at a time until she reached the sixth level. Panting, she peered through the window into the reception area for the Infectious Diseases department. The doors were closed, and she knew her keycard wouldn’t work. If anything, it might alert security that she was trying to gain access.
The lift chimed open and two technicians stepped out, each wheeling a trolley. One of the pair held their pass up to the scanner, which bleeped green. He propped one of the double-doors open with his foot, so that his colleague could go through. Lucy seized her chance and stepped out from the stairwell as casually as she could.
“Oh, let me get that for you,” she said, cheerfully, as she took the weight of the door from the remaining technician.
He regarded her with slight bewilderment. Her military uniform was conspicuous against the white lab coat, but the combination seemed to convey enough authority that he decided it best not to question her. Instead, he swung his trolley around gratefully and proceeded into the department.
Lucy passed by the receptionist’s empty desk, and wondered whether Harvey had collected Alexi’s body from the basement as he’d promised. The two technicians peeled off into the first laboratory they reached. Lucy walked past them confidently, without a second look back. The lab was immaculate as ever, but much quieter. It was eerie compared to her last visit. She remembered the woman in a hospital gown, trying desperately to escape, and to get answers for her detention. Lucy wondered what had happened to her – whether it was her blood she’d just transfused to the possum, or that of the guard who was infected during the woman’s attempted escape.
A series of porters’ trolleys lined the corridor. One held cleaning materials – mops, bleach, rags. The next was a bio-waste disposal cart. Biohazard emblems covered the bold red sides. The cart looked secure by design, such that anything deposited in there couldn’t be retrieved without deconstruction of the entire unit. Lucy peered inside the serrated depositary hole. It glistened with specks of Gen Water. The whole cart smelled strongly of salt and bleach. Inside, rags mixed with a grainy, pungent solution. She moved onto the final trolley – a laundry basket – which contained a bundled pile of damp lab coats and technicians’ uniforms.
She pressed on, reaching the first expansion ward. Harvey had previously been using it for the infecteds. Since then, the window had been blacked out. She reached out towards the handle, then glanced further down the corridor. She couldn’t risk getting embroiled in other people’s nightmares again. There was only one place she was trying to go.
She hurried onwards, passing more sealed doors. She pretended she hadn’t just heard a surgical drill being revved up, or someone crying for help. Her heartrate rose as she paced the length of the ward. Lopez’s cell was within spitting distance.
She stopped suddenly. The door was propped open. Someone was in there. She approached cautiously. A technician was wiping down the surfaces and depositing the sodden rags into another biohazard cart. Lopez’s cell was empty, save for a gurney and a bloodied rag on the floor. Lucy’s eyes flitted to the ceiling where he’d tried to hang himself. The knot in her stomach twisted.
She drifted inside, shaking her head, refusing to believe what she was seeing. The damp outline of his body was stained into the blue sheet of the hospital bed. The restraints hung idly by the sides of the metal rails; the tough fabric was frayed but intact.
The technician gasped, startled by Lucy’s arrival.
“Where’s the patient?” said Lucy, before the technician could question her presence.
The woman’s face was hard to read behind her mask, but her eyes suggested she was wary of Lucy. Perhaps they’d met before. Lucy didn’t care. She could feel an anger rising through her.
“Where is he?” she demanded, stepping closer towards the woman.
The door of the adjacent lab swung open for a brief second, just long enough for Lucy’s ears to register an infantile wailing, before it clicked shut again.
“Lucy?” came a familiar voice from the doorway.
Harvey stood in the threshold, pulling off a pair of gloves.
“In truth, I expected to find you here sooner. I trust the mission went well?”
She glared at him, seething with hurt. Harvey either didn’t notice, or didn’t care. He sauntered into the room and continued with his ruminations.
“If I recall, the last time you were here, things got somewhat out of hand, wouldn’t you agree?” he said, with an impish grin, as if the whole incident had been a hilarious misunderstanding.
“What have you done to him?” said Lucy, her fists trembling.
“When you left us, I reflected on your behavior a great deal, Lucy. From the outset I had urged you to separate your emotions from the rational enquiry we had been tasked with. To my delight, you succeeded in many cases. Your work with Adrian, for instance, came with a heavy emotional burden that not many people could handle. I’ve always been amazed at how primitive our default responses are to traumatic situations, yet you overcame them. Indeed, you undertook effective, detailed work – with one exception. Patient Zero. There was something about him that undermined your abilities at every turn, culminating in an impressive display of authoritarian behavior. At first, I couldn’t fathom it, until I realized: you had no care for the other work. It was all just a means to an end. Everything you did was designed to keep you close to him. Grief is a terrible thing,” said Harvey.
Lucy’s lips parted fractionally, as his last words throw her off-balance. Harvey noticed this, and continued, adopting a nonchalant lean against the lab wall, and folding his arms sympathetically.
“Adrian told me about his son – Dan, was it? Losing him must have been terribly hard for you. Had I known the full context, perhaps I would have thought twice about your position in the lab. But your work was competent, and your hypotheses were sound, so who was I to disagree? Of course, I should have known,” said Harvey.
He folded his latex gloves in on themselves, and slipped one hand into his white coat pocket.
Lucy glanced from Harvey to the open doorway beside him. Had he figured it out? Did he know she and Lopez had met before DC? Did he know she was infected? She might be able to get past him, but what if the technician intervened? She couldn’t fight them both.
“It all makes sense now. You’re exposed to a man of not entirely dissimilar age and disposition, with a further commonality through the military, and the grief takes over. You wanted to save Major Lopez, because he represented the partner you had lost. I see that now – and I realize it was a failure of rational scrutiny on my part for not considering this earlier. I kn
ow I have a duty of care over those on my team, and I’m sorry I failed you so dismally in this regard,” said Harvey, sincerely.
Lucy blinked, astonished. She felt violated by the enquiries Harvey had made into her private life, and dismayed by the conclusions he was projecting onto her. Her head spun as thoughts of Dan and Lopez collided. Harvey’s simpering look only enraged her further, as he gazed upon her with what appeared to be genuine pity. She shook her head and straightened her back, taking a controlling breath.
“You still haven’t answered my question. Where. Is. He?” she said, through gritted teeth.
Harvey sighed heavily. “I’m afraid Patient Zero didn’t make it.”
Lucy’s brain refused to acknowledge the information.
“Didn’t make–? In what way–? How?” she stammered, searching for an alternative explanation.
“We learned an incredible amount. His bravery throughout the process was noted, as was his descent into mania, as the disease took hold,” said Harvey, solemnly.
“You mean as your experiments broke him,” said Lucy.
Anger boiled through her disbelief.
“His sacrifice has enabled us to–” began Harvey.
“To what? Torture countless more infecteds? Was it blood bags – is that what you used him for? He was a human being,” cried Lucy, tears forming over her eyes.
“He was, once,” said Harvey, wistfully.
The director drew a bottle from his pocket and rested it conspicuously against his hip. Lucy recognized it as the butterfly bait solution, and halted her advance. She hadn’t even realized she’d been moving, but now she found herself several paces closer to him, with her knuckles turning white.
“Our job is to save lives – human lives, Lucy. Take some time to process your feelings, I won’t deny you your grief. But when you’re ready, come back to us. The city is in trouble, and we need all the help we can get,” said Harvey.
A squeaking sound came from Lopez’s cell. The technician had let herself in, and was wiping down the glass. Lucy’s eyes fell on the empty bed once again, and she felt dizzy.
She rushed from the room, through the corridor, and into the elevator. She slid down the silvery wall, overcome by grief, and surrendered to the world, as the elevator descended. Scientists, technicians, doctors, all came and went as she sat, broken, allowing herself to be uselessly ferried between levels, oblivious to the words of the concerned strangers passing through. She had no idea how long had passed, but eventually a familiar face appeared before her. The person knelt down and extended a hand.
“Lucy?” said Adrian, reaching out to help her.
She looked up at him and burst into tears. A hurricane of guilt and grief surged through her. She wept, overwhelmed by her emotions like a life raft caught in a storm.
Adrian gently steered her to a bench in the hospital lobby. For a minute, he held her as she cried. Then he drew away, and the pair sat in subdued silence for a while, their contemplation broken only by the passing of flashing blue lights.
“It will get better,” said Adrian. “That’s what I keep telling myself, anyway. I heard what you did on the farm. That was brave.”
“Something I learned from Dan,” said Lucy, feebly.
“I’m sorry for how things worked out last time. I should’ve recognized the pressure you were under. You’d barely arrived in the city and I put so much on your shoulders. In truth, I was just so relieved to see a friendly face,” said Adrian.
Lucy looked down at his feet, where a flip pad rested. It showed an itinerary of hospital zones.
“It’s for Harvey’s defenses against the butterflies – we’re installing them across the most vulnerable zones in the hospital. It’s tough – prioritizing. People don’t like hearing they’re on the wait list,” he said, glumly.
He fidgeted, adjusting a flak jacket beneath his trench coat. Lucy looked closer; it bore the two horizontal yellow lines of a blood jacket.
“You’re OK wearing that?” said Lucy.
“I’m fine with staying alive, if that’s what you mean,” said Adrian.
“It’s not,” said Lucy.
“These things could be a game-changer for us. In the past week we’ve lost swathes of the city to the creatures, and our intelligence is expecting – well – it’s not looking good, put it that way. But with these jackets, we stand a chance. We could even take the whole city back,” said Adrian.
“Why not just ask the infected people to help?” said Lucy.
“I don’t follow?”
“Right now you’re forcibly taking their blood and inflicting psychological torture. It’s crazy. You shouldn’t be detaining infecteds, you should be training them as soldiers,” said Lucy.
“One thing the White House is not keen on doing is arming a bunch of hallucinating, highly contagious citizens. Besides, even if they did psychologically stabilize – which is a big ‘if’ – training takes time. We need solutions now. I’m afraid the Government’s going in the opposite direction. They’re scaling up production,” said Adrian.
“Production?”
“It’s a necessary measure. If we don’t do something to reduce frontline fatalities, the army will mutiny. If that happens, we’re screwed,” said Adrian.
“Who’s ‘we’?” said Lucy.
Adrian looked puzzled.
“I can pull some strings and get you one of the prototypes, if you want?” said Adrian.
“I’ll pass,” said Lucy, grimacing.
“It’s the smart move, Lucy, you should take it. If you’re worried about the infecteds, Harvey assures me they’re being well cared for,” said Adrian.
“Don’t – please. If you know it’s not true, don’t say it.”
“I could use you back on the team, if you’re ready. There are more vulnerable sites we need to secure, and I can’t assess them all myself,” said Adrian.
“I’m already working on something. There’s a better way than these blood bags, and in three days’ time I’ll have more than enough proof to get this whole program cancelled,” said Lucy, staring at the floor distantly.
“Last shuttle going north folks, last shuttle,” called a security guard from the front desk.
Lucy looked through the glass façade of the hospital lobby. It was nearly dark outside. A bus was idling on the sidewalk. Several stragglers were hastening towards it.
“Crap. You getting that?” said Lucy.
“I’m working late, you go ahead. Be careful, the city’s not what it was when you left,” said Adrian.
She grabbed him in a tight embrace, then tore herself away and hurried through to the street. A nurse stood before her in the line, pleading with the driver.
“We’re not going to that part, ma’am. It’s Dead Zone now, y’all have been rehoused in the next neighborhood,” said the driver, waving the woman through.
“But my family,” said the nurse, stammering, processing the implications of his words.
“They’ll be relocated too, ma’am, I’m sure. Please move down the vehicle, night’s coming and I don’t wanna be out if I don’t have to,” said the driver.
The woman protested, unable to comprehend how her disjointed life had been relocated again in one fell swoop. A colleague tried to soothe her, while leading her into the carriage area, allowing Lucy and others to board. Lucy weaved past the full rows until she found a spare seat near the back.
The bus rumbled through the shadowy streets. Other late-running residents were rushing to metro stations and bus stops. Patrols were stationed at regular intersections, although the troops were staying firmly inside their trucks.
Chanting mingled with the sound of the engine. The bus slowed to a crawl as protestors surrounded the vehicle.
“Equal rights for all!” cried the group, as they banged their palms against the bus. The protestors all wore white armbands – the chosen uniform of the People’s Voice.
Lucy looked around. Half of her fellow passengers were startled; other
s seemed unsurprised.
“You people are crazy. Move out the way, it’s getting dark! You wanna die?” yelled the bus driver, thumping the horn.
The crowd parted to allow the bus to edge forward to the bus stop. They banged their palms on the sides, filling it with an intimidating din. The bus came to a stop and the doors slid open. The crowd’s angry chants filled the air. Over their voices came whistle blasts, as soldiers reluctantly left their armored vehicles to force the protestors back.
Regular citizens squeezed their way through the chanting crowd and leaped onto the bus with relief. They wormed their way as far inside as they could get, seeking shelter among the existing passengers. More whistle blasts rang out as soldiers shoved the protestors clear of the bus, allowing the last passengers to board, before the driver hastily pulled away.
“Thank God for that. Some people, honestly,” sighed a passenger, as the protestors’ chants faded behind them.
The accent was familiar.
Lucy glanced down the bus, to the middle set of doors, and her heart froze. There he was, in plain sight. The unmistakable half-shaven head and slicked back hair. The insidious smile, the nonchalant tone. Lucy’s mind raced. There had to be a mistake. He couldn’t be here – in the city. They’d escaped. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t supposed to go like this.
She had no idea how Maurice had made it to DC. But he knew her secret. Worse still, he’d betrayed her once before. Trusting him was a mistake she could never forget.
She’d forced Lopez and Jackson to risk their lives, rescuing him in the snow from the beasts. Jackson gave her life to save Maurice from the birds. Yet even as she had lain dying in the frozen trailer park, he had plotted against them – siding with a bunch of deserters to sell Lucy and Lopez into slavery. He’d watched on as his ‘queen’ had blackmailed Lucy into atrocious acts. The hospital raid. The blood assault on the police community. How many families had died that night?
It was his fault. All of it. And somehow he was here, now, on her bus, armed with the words that could get her arrested in seconds – and destroy her chances of saving the other infecteds. The scale of the threat he represented crashed over Lucy. Fear gripped her insides like a vice.
Convulsive Box Set Page 73