by Teri Terry
He waits until everyone is silent.
“Hi. I’m Alex. I met some of you the day you arrived. I’m a professor of physics, and I’ve been brought here to study Aberdeen flu survivors.”
“Why a physicist?” somebody asks.
“The flu isn’t really a flu,” Alex says. “It’s caused by antimatter.” There is a mixture of gasps and puzzled glances around the room.
Not many knew, did they?
“Antimatter? What even is that?” Ami asks—one of the puzzled.
“Antimatter is made up of particles that have the same mass as matter, but opposite magnetic or electrical properties,” he answers. “In simple terms, matter and antimatter can’t coexist. If they come into contact, they annihilate each other.”
“And that is what is killing everyone?” Elena asks. “And changed us?”
“Yes on both counts,” he answers. “And as part of our studies on you here, we have worked out how to test for survivors—using a scan that detects antimatter. So even though you’re not sick anymore, and you survived, there is still some antimatter in some form or another inside each of you. We’re trying to work out what effect it has and how to extract it.”
“What happened to Fred and Carmen?” Ali asks.
“They volunteered. They both have families that weren’t in the quarantine zones; they wanted to have the antimatter extracted so they could leave and go home to their families. It didn’t work out—unfortunately they both died in surgery.”
“You killed them!” Elena says, fury in her eyes and her aura.
“No. We tried experimental surgery with full consents from patients who wanted to be cured. We learned a lot from them; next time it may work. But we’re still analyzing the results.”
“Where is Spike?” I demand, unable to keep quiet any longer. “He would never have agreed to that!”
Alex turns to me, and there is regret all through his aura. “I’m sorry. You’re right; he didn’t. But Spike broke the one rule we can’t overlook. He’s back in isolation.”
“What did he do?”
“At his appointment this afternoon, he…ah…controlled the doctor’s mind. She was about to give him full access to all of our research files and door codes, which triggered a remote alarm she didn’t know about—one that is set off if an attempt is made to access files globally in this way. It was set up as a precaution against just such a security breach.”
No; no, Spike. Why take such a risk? Tears are pricking in the back of my eyes.
“Are there any more questions?”
There are none. We’re all shocked into silence.
“You can cooperate and help us, or not, as you choose. No one will be made to do anything they don’t want to do, but you’ll never be able to leave this place with an antimatter time bomb still ticking away inside of you. Understood? So you have to decide; each of you has this decision to make.
“And finally—the drugs we were using were to help you deal with everything. Again, you’re quite right: we should have asked. If anybody is having trouble sleeping or coping, let us know and one of the doctors will prescribe some pills the old-fashioned way.
“Now I think you need to talk among yourselves.”
He leaves.
Conversation breaks out all around, but I stay silent.
“Yes, Carmen’s family was in Portsmouth…”
“What was Spike trying to find out? Is there more they haven’t told us?”
“Fred’s was in London…”
“They warned us. Why’d Spike do it?”
“Carmen would have done anything to get back to them. That must be right…”
“Poor Spike…”
I block it all out and focus on Spike: on calling him again and again with my mind, but there is no answer.
Elena comes and sits next to me.
Well. We thought we wanted honesty, she says.
Yeah. I’m sure Alex was telling the truth with everything he said—but I felt he was holding things back too.
So did I.
Beatriz? I bring her into our conversation. What did you think—was Alex telling the truth the whole time?
She’s puzzled. There’s something about him I don’t understand. I tried to get into his thoughts, but I couldn’t. That’s never happened before. And then she’s scared. They’re not going to extract me, are they? I don’t want to be extracted!
She comes over to me, and I give her a hug, pull her onto my knee, and put my arms around her.
No way. It’ll never happen. Will it, Elena?
She puts her bony arm around my shoulders and gives Beatriz a pat on the arm. No. We won’t let them; we promise.
But Beatriz knows we don’t know if we can keep this promise, and she’s still scared.
CHAPTER 13
KAI IS HERE, LIKE HE OFTEN IS IN MY DREAMS…and nightmares. Which one will this be?
He strokes my hair. Lies down beside me. His body curves against mine, and he kisses me.
Then he pulls away.
“You tricked me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you? Not as sorry as you’re going to be.”
Not as sorry as you’re going to be…
Not as sorry as you’re going to be…
I force myself awake and open my eyes, Kai’s accusing words still ringing in my ears. There’s noise—a crash, shouts.
I sit up in a hurry, struggling to throw off my dream. What’s going on?
Our door is thrown open—it’s Alex.
He’s rousing Beatriz, dragging her out from under the covers.
Half-asleep and whimpering protests, she’s more like the child she should be. He lifts her in his arms.
Shay? The facility is being attacked. He’s in my head, and the shock makes me wake completely. Only survivors can talk like this, fully in my mind. Does this mean…how can this be?
Are you a survivor? I ask him silently.
I’ll explain later. We’ve got to get out of here. He answers the same way; I didn’t imagine it.
And now he’s at our door, peeking out first, then pushing it open. Follow me if you want to live.
I get up. We’re being attacked? Who’s attacking? There are distant screams, shouts. Smoke. I’m coughing, following Alex and Beatriz to our door, not sure at first if I’m doing it to follow Alex or because he is taking Beatriz.
We’re hurrying down the hallway before I remember.
Ami? I shout in her mind. Ami, you have to get out! There’s no answer, and I turn back.
Leave her, there’s no time! Alex says, and then I’m angry.
And then I’m scared.
CHAPTER 14
I STUMBLE AFTER ALEX AND BEATRIZ IN THE SMOKE.
What’s happening?
There are angry voices, shouting, getting closer. I reach out and can feel their thoughts—those who attack. Waves of hate and fear and death surround us. They’ve found us. They hunt survivors, burn them; they’ve found us, and they’re exultant.
The noose is tightening. The mob and their fire are getting closer. All survivors must die.
Why do they hate us?
We’re only a danger to them if they get too close. How did they find us when our location is such a secret that we weren’t even told where we are?
And they don’t just want to kill us—they want to use fire. Bodies of those who die from the epidemic are burned to stop the contagion from spreading; they must think burning us to death will do the same thing. But will that make us all like Callie—dark and silent but unable to really die?
The weight of fear and revulsion focused on us is so heavy, it is hard to move.
Hurry! Alex, still carrying a crying Beatriz, is running and pulling me and Elena along with him. Is she the only other one who answered
his mental call to follow? There are so few of us. What has happened to the others?
We come upon a door, a hidden door to a secret way out; he shows us where it leads in his mind. He opens the door, and he and the others go through, but I don’t.
What about Spike? I say.
There’s no time, Alex answers—the same thing he said about Ami, and I’m ashamed. I was so disoriented and scared that I didn’t insist we go back for her. I won’t do that again.
No! I won’t go without him. If he’s locked inside a hospital room, he can’t save himself. Where is he?
Alex curses and pushes Beatriz into Elena’s arms. He has a quick mental exchange with Elena that I can’t follow. He comes back through the doorway, and then shuts the door on them.
We may have to protect ourselves, he says. Are you up to it?
Yes. I show him how I attacked soldiers from SAR, but I hide the promise I’d made to myself that I’d never do it again.
Good girl. Now RUN. And do this. He shows me mentally how to filter the carbon monoxide and other poisons out of the smoky air we must breathe, and my head starts to clear as we run.
Despite the fear and urgency, part of me is still stunned—marveling that Alex is a survivor too. He must be to talk to me like this, fully inside my mind. It’s completely different when I talk to a non-survivor, like Kai—with Kai it was more like me receiving, finding Kai’s thoughts, rather than Kai projecting them out.
So Alex is one of us, and none of us knew.
How is that even possible?
We reach a security door with a keypad, but the power has gone off; it doesn’t work.
They’re getting closer: I can feel the waves of hate getting stronger with every step they take toward us.
We’re trapped.
I can override the door, but it’ll take me a while and I have to concentrate, Alex says. You’re on, warrior girl.
He’s ripping the unit off the wall, pulling out the wires. The smoke is thickening, but I can still see when five of them run around the corner at the end of the hall.
They’re wearing biohazard suits. And carrying flamethrowers and other weapons.
They whoop when they see us. Everything is in slow motion—they’re running toward us, but each foot seems to hang in the air before it crashes back down to the ground.
Their auras are muted with the smoke and the suits they wear, but their hate and fear rear up ugly and clear enough to locate and target.
Stop now! I project inside their heads.
They pause, shocked, then shake it off and start toward us again. I attack their auras, strike at the energy waves that surround their hearts. The first few fall to the ground, and the others run back the way they came.
I stare at the bodies on the ground: dead. Hearts stopped. I’d wanted to try to just, I don’t know, knock them out or something, but their hate was so strong that something in me reacted to it, and I couldn’t do anything else. I’m frozen in shock.
Come on! The door is open now. Alex pulls me through, then shuts and disables it behind us. You shouldn’t have let any of them get away—they’ll come back with reinforcements now. We’ll have to go back another way.
Alex runs down the hall, and I make myself follow. We run into a room that looks like the one I emerged into from my hospital room.
Again, the door controls won’t work without power. Alex is fiddling with wires and finally gets a door to open.
Through it lies Spike on a hospital bed.
Spike!
Hmmmm? He’s groggy. He half opens his eyes and then they close again.
Alex is lifting Spike over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes when the whole building rocks with an explosion.
This way! Alex yells in my head.
We run.
I follow him back through the door and down the hall to another door—does it lead to the courtyard?
One step closer…
Another…
Alex, ahead of me, is opening the door. He’s through, and I’m nearly at the threshold to the door when there is a roar, a rush of air—
I glance back.
It must be a split second only, but time seems to slow enough that I can experience each of my senses.
Dazzled by the red and gold colors, the ball of fire…
Deafened by the roar and rush…
Choked by air too hot, too poisonous…
And most of all—above all—
Pain.
My body is engulfed in flame.
PART 4
TOLERANCE
The company you choose to keep says far more about you than the family you were born with.
—Xander, Multiverse Manifesto
CHAPTER 1
CALLIE
SCISSORS AND ANGER: NOT A GOOD COMBINATION. Freja hacks at her hair with fury until she looks like some sort of demented pixie, short blonde tufts sticking up at odd angles.
“I heard that!”
Sorry.
“I can’t believe I’m cutting my hair. I really can’t.” And the anger is giving way to something else. Her back is trembling: is she crying?
“I am not. I don’t cry!” And with those words she straightens her shoulders and shakes it off.
The morning paper that made her do this still sits next to her on the table—her photo and emblazoned across it, “Wanted: for murder.” Just like we’d guessed, they’re saying Freja shot that policeman—a policeman with a wife and four children.
It says she ran away with an unidentified male accomplice: no photo or description. Maybe they don’t know it was Kai who was with her? It’s either that or they’re not releasing all that they know to the press. There are so many closed-circuit TV cameras in London, Freja said, that it was hard to believe they never caught a glimpse of Kai with her on any of them.
The door opens.
“Red?” she snaps before Kai has a chance to say anything. “Did you get copper red?”
“Yes,” he says, and puts a bag on the counter.
She turns and faces him, a look on her face like she is daring him to say anything.
He stands there, tilts his head a little to one side, then walks around her to see from all angles.
“Well?” Her voice is dangerous.
“Short hair suits you. But give me the scissors, I’ll just straighten it up a little.” She reluctantly hands them over. “Here. Sit.” He pushes her into a kitchen chair and snips a little here, a little there, carefully evening it out as best he can. It starts to look much better, but then Freja is one of those girls who could shave her head and wear a sack and still look good.
“Is the area clear, Callie?” Kai says, and I rush outside to look. The house I’d found for them to break into is set back from the street. Nobody’s home, and there’s no alarm. It’s got that dusty unlived-in look, like no one has been here for a while; the fridge is empty, and mail is piled up on the front mat under the mail slot. Kai said that probably means no one is coming in regularly to check the place, or they’d put it on a table or something. Of course that doesn’t mean that today isn’t the day that whoever lives here is coming back.
But when I check up the road, there is no one heading this way.
All clear, I say when I come back, and Freja gives the thumbs-up to Kai. She’s smearing dye into her hair now while Kai sweeps the floor, scooping up every single strand of blonde hair and putting it in a bag.
“Mr. Clean and Tidy,” Freja says.
“If someone comes home and finds blonde hair everywhere and an empty box of red hair dye, it won’t take long for somebody to put it together and amend your description,” he says.
“You’re right. I’m sorry.” She’s peering at the sheet of instructions. “Twenty minutes to wait now.”
“Are you hungry?” Kai asks
, and takes sandwiches out of the bag. “You pick—egg salad or ham?” She takes the ham and devours it in a way that says meals haven’t been often enough lately.
He picks up the morning newspaper. “Did you get beyond the front page?”
“Isn’t that enough?” She scowls. “Couldn’t they at least have used a decent photo? I hate that one.”
“Least of your worries,” he says, and turns the page. “You’re even bigger news than the epidemic: it’s on page two.” He folds the paper over and holds up page two: a full-color map of the UK with the latest quarantine zones marked. All of Scotland and northern England are in red now. No-go zones.
“It’s like southern England and Wales have just written off the rest of the country,” Kai says. “Can’t they see that if it keeps moving like this, their fences will never be high enough to stop it?”
Freja sighs, tracing the boundary on the map with her finger. “Does anything we want to do even matter when everywhere people are still dying?”
“Yes. It must,” Kai says. “The only hope we have is for the truth to be told, and the more of us there are to tell it, the better. So rinse off that dye, and we’ll hide all traces of it. And then we’ll get out of London. See if we can find that survivor group that contacted you, and any other survivors.”
“Like Shay.”
“Yes. And we can all work together; see what we can do to make things better. Right?” He holds up a hand.
“Right,” she says, and they high-five.
Freja heads for the sink, starts rinsing her hair. She mutters, her voice too low for Kai to hear over the water rushing from the tap, as if she is saying it to herself: “If this disease rampages across the world, it is only people like us—survivors, the immune—who’ll be left. It might make sense for them to recognize that.”
Maybe…someone has.
CHAPTER 2
KAI
THE MILES GO BY OUTSIDE THE WINDOW. The bus is half empty; no one wants to go even a little bit north when that means getting closer to the quarantine zones, not unless they have to.