Deception

by Teri Terry

  CHAPTER 13

  KAI

  THE BUS is THERE LIKE SHE SAID IT WOULD BE. It’s a minibus, actually, about half full when I get on. We wait and wait, parked in the sun, until more people come through the gates and get on, and then finally it pulls up the road and into the city.

  I’ve been to Glasgow before, and once we’re away from the fences, everything looks so ordinary.

  We rattle along down streets I don’t know, heading to a scruffy part of town. The bus stops a few times before the driver calls out the name of my hostel.

  I get off the bus in front of a three-story building of crumbling concrete, overflowing trashcans at the front.

  The door is propped open.

  Inside is an open office of sorts with a desk. A woman sits there. There is a lounge area past her with sprawling sofas that have seen better days.

  “Hello,” she says, and smiles—a proper, friendly, welcoming smile. “Are you moving in?”

  I smile back, relieved someone seems happy to see me. “I think so,” I say, and give her my papers.

  She has a look. “All right then, John. You’re in room five, second floor, bed four. Here’s a towel and”—she turns around and digs in a cupboard—“a blanket. Sheets. Information about the place is in this leaflet.” She hands me everything. “What have they got you doing?” She looks at my papers again and makes a sympathetic face. “Crew thirteen: that’s barriers.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Hard labor, shoring up sections of the quarantine zone barrier. But you don’t have to report until the day after tomorrow.”

  So one free day and then a work assignment. I’ve got other ideas about what I’m here for, but this is a place to start.

  I head up the stairs. There are rooms with six beds each. I find mine and glance at the leaflet. There are meal times, a Wi-Fi code, and a phone we can use.

  What now?

  The place seems to be empty; everyone must be at work—hard labor or whatever else. I need to get online with the tablet Bobby gave me; I could use the Wi-Fi here, but after being locked up the last few days, I’m restless and don’t want to stay where I’ve been told.

  As I head back down the stairs, my hand itches. The fresh I tattooed in my skin marks me forever as immune: no pass required. Unless I lose my hand, it will always be there.

  I walk around the streets until I find a café with Wi-Fi and use some of Bobby’s cash for coffee and sandwiches.

  News sites first. The zones are still holding; there is optimism that the epidemic will be contained with the new measures in place. Do those cozy people outside the zones have any idea what is happening on the other side of the fences?

  They will soon.

  There is nothing I can find on the cause of the epidemic—nothing. Studies are continuing and there is hope of progress. There are all the empty sorts of promises with no meaning that politicians always make.

  There’s fear swirling in my gut that the reason they don’t know is because Shay never got through to anyone important enough to tell them; that despite what I was told at the air force base, she never even made it off Shetland.

  She could be captured. Shot. Burned on a pyre. All the possibilities are in my mind—her screams in my ears, the rising smoke making me sick…

  And then what? Would she become like Callie, unheard and unseen, maybe forever?

  I push it away with a force of will. I don’t know this to be true and until I do…NO.

  Anyhow, the government must know at least part of it, right? Those scans they were doing prove it. They couldn’t somehow scan for survivors unless they know what it is they’re dealing with. So they must know at least something about the cause, but they’re staying silent.

  If this is some huge cover-up, what will they do to people who know the truth?

  This knowledge I have—that Shay has—could be dangerous. The word needs to get out, but we’ve got to be careful how we do it.

  Once enough of us know the truth, what can they really do about it? That is the best way to make Shay safe—spread the news around.

  Iona next. I log on to her website, JIT, with the passwords I memorized from Shay’s note. It’s evening; I hope she’s there now.

  I start a new post as a draft so it won’t be visible online. For the title, I type in: “Glasgow is nice this time of year.”

  She answers right away.

  Iona: You’re okay?

  Kai: Yes. Long story for another time, but I’m in Glasgow. All okay with you?

  Iona: We’re still clear. Feeling cut off from civilization and bored as hell. Power is out, but we’ve got generators. Thank God the broadband still works or I’d really go crazy.

  Kai: I’ve got a story for you.

  I outline the conditions of the reception center by the quarantine zone boundaries.

  Iona: Seriously? Hundreds of kids are just being left out there indefinitely?

  Kai: Yes. Hang on, I’ll attach photos.

  I load them up and zap them across.

  Iona: I’ll get that out everywhere I can.

  Kai: Thanks. Next up: I’ve been searching but couldn’t find anything re the cause of the epidemic online just now. Is there any news on that that you know of?

  Iona: Survivors are known to be carriers. Nothing else. I’ve been trying to look into it and tell people about it, but many of my networks have been shut down; either people have lost power, or…well. I don’t like to think about it.

  Kai: Do you have any idea where Shay may have been taken?

  Iona: I’ve been researching air force bases or places they are said to be, but I haven’t found anything definite. There are rumors that there’s a secret location where survivors are being studied. I’m trying to trace the location but keep hitting walls. And also it’s said there’s some kind of test now so they can detect survivors.

  Kai: There was a scan as part of the screening to get out of the QZ. We figured out it must be a scan for survivors somehow, so that confirms what we thought. Someone failed it and was dragged off.

  Iona: Interesting.

  Kai: Especially for him and his two children.

  Iona: Sorry. Some other news…

  Kai: Yes?

  Iona: I contacted your mother like you asked. Set up a separate email address that bounces around so it shouldn’t be traceable. So I couldn’t really tell her who I was, but I said what you told me to: about the cause, that we needed help to get the word out.

  Kai: And?

  Iona: She must have thought I was some kind of nutcase. She didn’t believe me; at least, I don’t think she did.

  Kai: Unless she’s being monitored, and so she’s being careful.

  Iona: Maybe, but I don’t think so. She doesn’t know who I am, after all. Why would she believe a random weird emailer?

  Kai: I’ll have to call her.

  Iona: If she really is being monitored, calling her could be dangerous. Be careful.

  * * *

  There’s a phone downstairs in the hostel. Another extension upstairs. Downstairs is the TV room, pool table, a desk, and an office and dining room. It’s busy now; people are back from whatever fun they’ve been assigned to.

  Upstairs is quieter and looks like a better bet for not being overheard. There’s a small communal area with couches. With bedrooms leading off of it, people come and go. Iona said to be careful, and she’s right. If the authorities are looking for me in connection with that false murder accusation against Shay, it’s reasonable to assume they’ll be keeping an eye on Mum in case I contact her, and they may be monitoring her phone. It’s hard to believe they’d go to those lengths, but just in case my call is traced back to here, I don’t want to be seen on the phone. I wait, impatient, until the room is finally empty and dial.

  It rings too many times, but then, ju
st before the message should kick in, there is a click and a breathless “Hello?” A voice I’d know anywhere.

  “Hi, Mum, it’s me.”

  “You’re all right, thank God! Where are you?”

  “Best not to say. Listen, you know Shay was a survivor. She surrendered at an air force base in Shetland. Where would they have taken her?”

  “She did?” Surprise in her voice. “I haven’t heard this.”

  “But you’ve been studying survivors, haven’t you? Because it is known that they are carriers?”

  “No. Well, it has been established that they’re carriers, but not scientifically—just anecdotally.”

  “So there’s no actual proof?”

  “Well, not in a rigorous way. They still haven’t identified the agent that causes the illness.”

  “Listen to me; I can’t talk for long. There was an underground lab on Shetland doing shady research with a particle accelerator, and what they were making got out. It might have been secret weapons research masquerading as finding a cure for cancer, or maybe they really were trying to cure cancer. Either way, the agent they were using got out, it’s killing people, and—”

  “Kai, I’ve heard this theory before. It’s nonsense to think that would work, and, even if it could, that it would be covered up like this. I don’t believe it. The best brains in the world are doing what they can to work this out; leave it to them.”

  “They’re wrong. You’re wrong. Question things, damn it!”

  “Even if Shay was taken somewhere, what good would finding out where she was taken do, Kai? You can’t be together; she’s a carrier. Come home.”

  There is a brief silence; things both of us aren’t saying.

  “I’ll try to get back in touch when I can,” I finally say.

  “Please come home. I’ll get a good lawyer; you’ll be fine. They want me to continue this work. They’ll take care of you too.”

  I rub my hand where it itches. “Have you got an immune tattoo?” I ask.

  Hesitation. “Yes.”

  My mother’s clever hands, one marred like mine.

  There are footsteps on the stairs. I hang up the phone and jump into a chair with Bobby’s tablet in my hands. A guy and a girl come in, nod at me, and walk through, then go into a room.

  I don’t think they saw me move from the phone; they didn’t react if they did. That was close.

  So. Mum doesn’t believe what she’s been told, by both Iona and me. This must mean that the cause of the epidemic hasn’t been passed on through government channels; this is bad.

  She wouldn’t lie to me; she might evade, but not out-and-out lie.

  So it isn’t just the general public being kept in the dark—it is the scientists and doctors who are trying to deal with the epidemic too. But how can they if they aren’t given all the facts?

  Or maybe they’re like Mum: she wouldn’t believe the facts, not even when I was the one telling her.

  The dinner bell rings downstairs, but after eating at the café earlier, I’m not hungry. I wander up the next flight of stairs. Past the landing is a door that leads out to a balcony. I sit on a metal chair under the stars, find the code I noted earlier, and check to see if the Wi-Fi will work out here. It does.

  If Iona hasn’t been able to find out where survivors are being taken, then I have no chance, do I? But I have to try.

  I open a search engine, enter air force bases, and go to the official government website. A huge list comes up. They’re literally everywhere. But a secret place wouldn’t be listed here, would it? Not unless they’re hiding something inside of something else.

  Next I search for secret air force bases. Pages of nonsense scroll past on the screen—paranoid ramblings of strange people. This is Iona’s hunting ground; if she hasn’t found anything, I’m not likely to.

  Finally I do one more search—the one I’ve been leaving for last, afraid of what I might find: Aberdeen flu survivors.

  Nothing comes up that I want to see.

  There’s a government website where you can report anyone suspected of being a survivor. You’re told not to approach them; they’re dangerous.

  Shay, dangerous? Her eyes, the way they, I don’t know, tilt when she is interested in something. That way she has of laughing, low, in the back of her throat—so sexy. I don’t think she even knows. She’s fine and delicate and strong at the same time—and infuriating. How can she be dangerous?

  Yet I know some of the things she’s done. To that soldier who was going to shoot her—she did something to him with her mind, and he fell over as if his heart had stopped. So she is dangerous—to someone who is trying to kill her, at least.

  But that isn’t the way they mean—they mean that survivors carry the epidemic, don’t they? Or maybe that isn’t all there is to it. Maybe it’s the other stuff she can do as well that they’re afraid of.

  I sigh. Mum was right about one thing, though: even if I find Shay, what can I do? She can’t be let out. People would die.

  But I still have to find her.

  I have to know that she is all right—the other options I can’t contemplate, can’t deal with. Even though she tricked me, and there is a well of hurt and fury inside about how she did it, by taking me up to bed. And now I’m thinking of her kisses on my skin, her hands in my hair, and my blood is rushing…

  Stop this. Focus.

  I make my way through the links from my search. There’s a website where sightings of survivors can be reported; another one listing known survivors on the run. There’s one particularly organized-looking group called Vigil asking for leads. It looks like anybody can say somebody is a survivor, and then that person is hated, hunted. There’s a report on a news website that makes my gut twist—a suspected survivor was chased into a barn, and the barn was locked and then set ablaze.

  There’s so much hysteria around survivors, and it’s the tone of it all that is really disturbing. As if people who survive horrible illness then deliberately set out to make others sick. As if they’re evil—like demons. Or witches.

  I make myself keep going through the links—despite the ever-increasing sick feeling rising inside—just in case there might be something, anything, that could be a clue to where Shay has been taken.

  In the middle of a page is a link to a video streaming site. It’s a channel called “It’s all lies.”

  I hesitate, then click on the link.

  The view wobbles and blurs; a hand reaches toward me, and it steadies.

  “You have to listen to me.”

  It’s a voice of steel and desperation that somehow doesn’t match the speaker—blonde, pale blonde, almost white hair, fair skin. She looks Scandinavian—Danish, maybe, with that impossibly healthy look they can have—but her accent is from London.

  “Survivors aren’t carriers. They’re lying; everyone is lying. Stop believing the lies. I’m a survivor. I got sick in northern England but didn’t die. I’ve been back in London for weeks, close to countless people who can’t possibly all be immune, and none of them have caught it—not one.

  “It’s all lies. Don’t believe the lies.”

  CHAPTER 14

  CALLIE

  I’M SOON BORED WATCHING KAI read stuff on the internet, and I wander around the building and then head down to the street.

  It’s early evening now, and it’s quiet. Most things are closed, except an old and worn-looking pub and a corner shop. Drinkers sit in the pub, people buy trinkets in the shop, and everywhere I look there are no biohazard suits.

  I try to remember to not get too close to anyone.

  Two black vans pull in a few doors down from the hostel where Kai is staying. They’re full of people in uniforms of some sort—they’re wearing dark, nondescript clothes, but you can tell what they are by the look of them and how they move. They get out.

  And t
hen they walk toward the hostel.

  Why are they here?

  Worried, I follow them to listen.

  They go in the front door. One of them flashes ID at the woman at the desk.

  “Where is the telephone residents use?” he asks her.

  “Just here,” she says, and points at a telephone on the wall. “And there is another extension upstairs.”

  “There was a call made from here”—he glances at his watch—“twenty-three minutes ago. I want to know who made it.”

  Is that when Kai called Mum?

  She shrugs. “I haven’t been keeping track.”

  Are they after Kai? Not being able to speak is making me crazy. I can’t warn him; I can’t do anything.

  They spread out and start to check out everyone on this floor—basically they just look at them. That means they know who they are looking for, doesn’t it?

  A few of them stay here by the door, and the rest go up the stairs to the next level.

  They go into all the rooms one by one, first just checking faces like they did downstairs. Then they start to ask if anyone has been seen using the phone half an hour ago. Everyone says the same thing: none of them saw it being used. The uniforms are impatient, annoyed; they think someone is lying.

  They start to walk up the next flight of stairs, then toward the door that leads to the balcony where Kai is. I have to do something, anything, to stop them and warn him.

  There is only one thing I can do.

  Who is in charge of the uniforms? It’s easy to tell. He hangs back, gestures at the others where to go.

  Today isn’t his day.

  I fill myself with hot fury, rage: it’s always there, just simmering underneath, so it only takes seconds to find it and ignite.

  I throw myself at him.

  He screams as he erupts into fire from inside out. His companions—including the ones heading for Kai’s balcony—run toward him, then back away.

  No one is looking up the stairs when Kai peeks through a doorway and then shuts the door.