“I’m afraid that... Erm...” I cough a little. I’m not a good liar. “I’m afraid that with this dose, he’ll sleep through the whole night. Probably won’t wake up again till early morning.”
We talk a little more about his condition and then about Danny, and I even accept their invitation for lunch, but my mind races during all the small talk. I need to find Tigh and Roger. And I need to check Wikus’s office, even if only to confirm Artie was suffering from the effect of heavy medication. I need to do all of this quickly. If they’re lying about the serum, Danny is in danger.
When they finally leave, I wait an hour before leaving so as not to appear in too much of a hurry. As I make my way to the dormitories, I try hard to act like nothing’s wrong, especially under the watchful cameras at every corner and every hallway I pass. I don’t speed up my steps and I don’t stare too long at any of them.
Neither Roger nor Tigh answer even after I pound my fists against their doors multiple times. Tigh might still be on patrol but I have no idea where Roger is. The cafeteria, maybe?
It dawns on me that I don’t actually have anything to tell them. The ramblings of a drugged patient aren’t exactly proof of anything. I know Tigh and I know Roger. One is too logical to do anything but try to calm me down, and the other is far too invested in Danny not to act stupid and confront Wikus directly.
If Lily was here... but she isn’t. So it’s up to me.
I take a deep breath while pacing around my room, searching for a solution. I have access to the labs and I know where Wikus’s office is. Everyone else from my group would’ve stood out, but my presence in the labs isn’t that strange. If this is all a misunderstanding, I can simply laugh it off in case I get caught snooping around, right?
I almost draw blood from biting my lip too hard. Every time I consider forgetting the whole thing, the image of Artie’s desperate eyes hits me hard. My grievances with Wikus and Irons can all be logically explained, but at the same time, I can’t pretend I trust them completely either, especially after what happened to Mouse. If he wasn’t suffering from a head injury, nobody would’ve told me anything about it. Wikus exiled me to the infirmary and Irons made no effort to find Lily. This could all mean nothing and, in fact, it didn’t mean anything a few hours ago.
But I don’t have a choice. I’ve already made the decision.
After sticking a hopefully-not-too-obvious but urgent-enough-sounding note on Tigh’s door, I leave the dormitories and march toward the main labs. I figure if I do this while Wikus and Prudence are at lunch, I’ll look less suspicious than if I wait until everyone’s asleep. I pass by the anticontamination chamber without a hitch and cross the many different labs, all empty of staff, before stopping in front of Wikus’s office.
Taking a deep breath, I knock on his door. No answer.
“Dr. Ade? Do you want to have lunch? I’m starving,” I say while pushing open the thankfully unlocked door.
The place is empty. A small tabletop fountain produces the calming sound of water and the fake window bathes his office with manufactured sunlight. It would all be very peaceful if I wasn’t sweating buckets and my chest wasn’t about to burst from tension. I quickly scan his bookcase for any suspicious titles, like How to Cook Humans or My Secret Diary of Evil Experiments.
I do find Spencer’s notebook on his fancy desk, as well as a pile of notes on Mouse and Danny. Half of it is in French, but many medical terms are easily translated. Observed behaviors, daily blood counts, data on skin samples, and multiple head scans. Mouse’s body was thoroughly examined postmortem. What raises my eyebrows is Danny’s schedule: physical tests, but also conditioning sessions and surgery to implant microelectrodes in his brain, scheduled and completed a few hours after he was cured.
In fact, even before I saw Danny, Wikus had a neurostimulation session to calibrate a remote pulse generator and test its effects on his brain. The results were extremely positive, from Wikus’s comments.
This... I grip the paper tightly, throat clogging with fear. Brain stimulation is usually used to treat epilepsy or involuntary movements, and affective disorders such as Parkinson’s and obsessive-compulsive disorder. In Danny’s case, considering the virus alters human behavior, I fear Wikus’s intentions are far from therapeutic.
He wants to control Danny like a puppet. A dangerous, highly durable, and morally blind puppet, who can still spread the virus. And, if he succeeds, anyone infected can be controlled too. He never intended to cure anyone.
“Hey there, Dr. Paz.”
I jump, hurling the papers everywhere at the sound of Prudence’s voice. She laughs at my expense, then takes a step inside the office to help collect Wikus’s notes, now scattered all over the desk. Afraid she might get the wrong idea, I stop her with a hand on her arm.
“It’s okay, I got this,” I mutter as my hands fumble to arrange the files back in place. “You scared me there.”
“Yeah, I figured.”
Only after putting the pile back in its original state do I face her directly. She watches me with a raised eyebrow, but appears friendly enough. Good. I didn’t raise any suspicions—yet. Okay. Keep it together, Maria.
“I...” I clear my dry throat once more. “I was looking for Wikus. We... He asked if I wanted to have lunch with him. You know, to celebrate Danny’s... recovery.”
Prudence smirks. “Yeah. I was there when he did that.”
My laugh is incredibly weak. “That’s true... My bad.”
Silence. I feel the back of my neck before moving to leave the office and end this horribly awkward moment. Prudence blocks me. I gulp.
“Shouldn’t we go? He’s probably waiting for us.”
“Oh, for sure. I’m just wondering why you would look for him in here. After all, he did say to meet us in the cafeteria.” She raises her finger and shakes it playfully. “You don’t fool me. I never pegged you for a snoop, Dr. Paz, but I’m impressed. Found any dirt on him? Come on, I’m dying to know.”
I wave my hands in denial. “I wasn’t—Look, I went in looking for him, but then I saw the pile and... well, Danny’s my patient too. So yes, I read some of his notes. I tried, at least, but I don’t speak French. Sorry.”
Please fall for it. Please fall for it. Prudence seems to dislike Wikus, but if she talks about this to anyone, who knows what can happen. I doubt Irons will fall for my stupid story.
“Then why do you look so guilty, woman? It’s not like you stole the Nobel Prize from under his nose. Relax.” She snorts. “Come on, let’s go stuff ourselves with bread and soup.”
I sigh in relief as she moves to the side with an overly dramatic curtsy. I’m cold from head to toe, heart bouncing around my rib cage like a ping-pong ball, but I made it. Now I need to think of a way to free Danny and—
“Actually, you know what? I think eating before a major surgery isn’t a good idea.”
“What?”
Prudence grabs my neck and I feel a needle prickle my skin. I feel faint and close my eyes, my world dissolving into blackness.
THE SHERIFF I
January 26th, Tuesday, 2 pm
I watch on the screen Danny wander around his small room. He sits on the bed, stares at the ceiling for a few minutes, then stands again. Now bald, his face is bloated and his skin is scarred by black bulbs and tumors, but the way he moves is the same. Head and neck bent forward, shoulders down, and stomach popping out because of bad posture. He’s Danny again, but I can’t seem to muster enough courage to press the intercom button to talk to him. I don’t have it in me to tell him we infected him on purpose, or that Lily is…
I sigh. Dr. Ade Wikus stands behind me, furiously scribbling in his notepad at the slightest movement from Danny. I don’t like the man. He’s far too twitchy for my taste, especially since he’s the one taking care of Danny. It feels like he’s hiding something from me and, the situation being what it is, I can only guess it’s more bad news.
“Do you feel like he’s acting too strangely?”
I answer the scientist’s question with a raised eyebrow. “He’s stuck in this tiny room, away from everyone and looking like that. He’s not acting strangely. He’s scared.”
The guy nods absently, writing something in the notepad once again. I want to take a peek at his notes myself, but these CDC people act as if fulfilling any of my requests is as painful as pulling teeth. It’s probably a miracle they considered including me in these sessions.
When he asked me to come here, to see Danny again, I was surprised but also relieved. I’m tired of having my hands tied behind my back. At least doing this, I can be of some use. With Lily gone, Tigh working with Irons’s crew and Maria busy in the infirmary, I now spend most of my days alone with only my thoughts as company. It hasn’t been the healthiest way to pass the time. It reminds me too much of the past, of the time after my father died when my mother would disappear for days, drinking herself into oblivion. I would come back from school and stare at the walls or sulk in the backyard, shooting at bottles with the BB gun my dad bought me.
That BB gun is the reason Danny and I became friends. As usual, Hector and Billy had decided to pick on Danny after school. He was a chubby and awkward kid, easy prey for those two. That day, they had shoved him into the woods and tied him to a tree, taunting him to eat bugs. When I heard shouts and laughter, I decided to investigate the scene. Danny was covered in mud, sniffling, but calling the bigger boys names too.
“You guys are dumb,” he had yelled at them, trying to kick Billy, but the effort had only produced more laughter. “You’re the ones who should eat a bug, idiots!”
Back then, his insults weren’t the cleverest around. He had yet to watch hundreds of movies and collect the references he would later use all the time.
“You eat trash every day! What’s the difference?” After saying that, Hector had thrown a plastic spider at Danny’s chest, causing the younger boy to give a high-pitched yell while desperately trying to shake the toy off his face, his fat belly bouncing, to the delight of Hector and Billy.
Eager to play the part of a hero, I stepped in.
“Hands in the air!” I shouted with my BB gun pointed at the two tallest boys in our class.
Billy and Hector were always more bark, than bite and probably thinking I would’ve shot them, ran away after sticking their tongues out at me. I untied Danny from the tree, and he mumbled a thank you, rubbing his dripping nose while staring at the ground like he was half-expecting me to start bullying him too. Instead, I tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “Want to watch me shoot some bottles?”
“Can you shoot those guys instead?”
And that was the start of our friendship. We spent so much time together, he even asked Mrs. Terrence to adopt me—a joke I think we both secretly wanted to become reality. While I helped him with his anxiety and social awkwardness, he gave me confidence—for the first time in a long time, I mattered to someone. I was worth something and not just an orphan who didn’t even have his mother’s love when she was alive. When I confessed I thought I wasn’t good enough for Lily, Danny made a slide show listing my good qualities and all the reasons why Lily would be lucky to date me. He treated the whole thing as seriously as only Danny would—pie charts, plenty of data, photographic proof of my achievements, and an in-depth analysis of our personalities. Still took me a while to admit my feelings, but it helped me believe that I had a shot with her, a real one.
We mostly never talk about the heavy stuff, but we don’t need to. He knows I had a troubled mother; he saw me get hit more than once, so he always tried his best to make me feel better in his own weird Danny way—which sometimes meant twelve-hour Star Wars marathons. Without him, I would’ve never survived past twelve. And I know he needed me just as much.
Now look at us. Separated by thick walls. He’s back, but he’s not just Danny; he’s the first human being cured of the virus, the only hope we have of fixing this mess. After all these years taking care of him, I failed him when it mattered most and now he’s beyond any help I could offer. It’s my fault he’s in this cage, walking in circles and no longer in control of his life.
“He’s truly a scientific marvel, Mr. Gilmore.”
The doctor’s comment is probably meant to make me feel better about the shitty situation we’re in, but it doesn’t work.
“I bet he thinks he’s more like a guinea pig right now. He’s just a regular guy, Dr. Ade. He wants to go home and so do I.” Most of the time I try not to think of Redwood. I’m too far away to do anything, and worrying about it eats me from the inside out, but I’m counting each day I’m away from that town.
“And we want that too, don’t worry. Now, can you tell if he was prone to violence before the infection? How athletic was he?”
I snort. “Danny? The most violent he ever got was shouting at video games. And he hates exercising. Why are you asking me this?”
Again, he’s more concerned with his notes and only answers after finishing writing. “We’re evaluating his behaviors, how much the virus has changed his cognitive processes, et cetera. You can go now if you wish. We’re done for today.”
With a last look at the screen, I leave the room and step out into the hallway. For a few seconds, I stand there, taking a deep breath and letting out an equally deep sigh. What now? More wall-gazing? My usual haunts are the dormitories and the cafeteria. The latter I visit for the conversations, hoping to overhear any news of the outside or even of the weather. Yes, the weather. As soon as this damn blizzard stops, I’m going to find Lily. I trust Maria and Tigh to watch out for Danny, but Lily is all alone out there. I thought Jacob would be here by now, but it seems he really left us, so I’m her last chance of survival. They can’t keep me here against my will.
I arrive at the cafeteria in time to catch a few guards still eating. I sit not too close, but not too far from their table and slowly drink a cup of water to justify my presence. They seem to be celebrating something, but their conversation is all in French and I can’t understand a word of it. Disappointed, I leave.
It’s in one of the empty hallways, on my way to the dormitories, that I hear a loud thud and a woman shouting. The sheriff still in me is already running in the direction of the noise, and I almost reach for my gun before remembering I’m unarmed.
As I turn the corner, it takes me a second to fully comprehend what the hell I’m seeing. One of the guards carries a body bag in his arms as a stocky woman in a lab coat points at a door nearby. My brain shuts down for a second, frozen by the possibility that Danny is inside that bag. It couldn’t be him, right? I just saw him earlier.
Before they disappear into the nearest room, I stride forward and shout, “Hey, excuse me. What’s going on here?”
Their heads shoot up, eyes growing large at my presence. The scientist quickly scurries inside, but the guard stays put.
“Nothing for you to concern yourself with. Move along, Sheriff.”
His answer only raises more red flags. I take it down a notch, to show I’m not looking for a fight. “Did someone die? Can I help?”
“No. And no. Go on now.”
“I don’t like your tone.” I spread my legs to ground myself and then again automatically reach for a gun that is not there anymore, so instead I only rest my right hand on my belt. “Tell me what’s going on.”
We stare at each other. He adjusts himself to stand upright, and in the process the bag’s zipper opens a little. Familiar black curls spill out. My eyes widen and I rush to unzip it even more, revealing Maria’s face. I immediately place two fingers under her nose—she’s breathing. Why do this? If she’s only hurt, why hide her?
“What the hell are you doing to her?” I move to grab her away from him, but the guard steps back quickly. “She’s out cold!”
“She’s not your problem, Mr. Gilmore,” a voice comes from behind me. It’s Irons. “You should worry about yourself first.”
I feel the cold barrel of a gun pressed against my head. It’s not
Irons; her voice is too far away, so someone else is with her—another guard, no doubt. The first guard smirks at me while carrying Maria inside the room. Lily was right. From the start, she suspected something was wrong and I was too wrapped up in my own guilt to see it too.
Knowing this is my only shot to help Maria, I take a risk. I roll to the side of the guard’s shooting arm while wrapping my arm around his, locking it into my armpit so when the gun goes off, he misses my body completely. With a loud ringing hurting my ears, I drive his elbow joint upward with my free hand, forcing him to drop the weapon. Finally, I take him down with a leg sweep and dive in to catch his discarded gun.
Now facing Irons, I point my gun at her. “You best order your man to bring Maria here, or I’ll be forced to shoot you.”
She doesn’t even flinch. “And you best remember that I have your friend Danny. Consider that, Gilmore, before you do something stupid.”
I clench my jaw at her threat. “You wouldn’t dare hurt him. He’s too important. So, I’m going to ask one more time: order that guard to bring Maria here, or I’ll take extreme measures to get her back myself.”
Irons takes a step forward. I place my finger on the trigger. I may have to take her hostage so I have something to bargain with if she won’t order her men to do as I say, but it’ll be only me against a lot of guards. My chances of success aren’t great.
“I didn’t say anything about hurting him. Now put the gun down.”
Instead, I move back and toward the door where the first guard took Maria. Still looking at Irons, I test the door handle with my free hand. It’s locked. By now, the guard I knocked to the ground is standing again, feeling his arm. The situation will get out of hand if I don’t do something drastic, fast.
Aiming at the guard’s feet, I shoot at the ground and use their surprise to sprint in Irons’s direction, planning on locking her arm behind her back before she can react. Unfortunately, she reacts. She uses my own momentum against me, side-stepping and shoving my body to the wall. I spin around, gun raised, but she grabs my wrist, bending it unnaturally until the pain forces my fingers open and I let the gun drop. Shit! No way a security guard could do something like that. No, this woman is something else.
Those Who Remain (Book 3) Page 22