“I see,” Brandt murmured, sitting back in his chair and scanning the room. The redheaded woman was conspicuously absent. “How is she managing to cause shit already? As far as I understand, she’s only been here for two or three days.”
“We’re not sure yet,” Derek replied. “If you happen to hear anything, do let me know so we can put a stop to it, would you?” Brandt nodded, and Derek gestured toward the serving station behind him. “You should go get something to eat while you can. Today will be a busy day. We’re getting everyone prepped to start the testing, which officially begins tomorrow.”
Derek hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that the day would be busy. Brandt felt like he’d been poked and prodded even more than he had the day before during admissions, the seemingly never-ending process broken up only by mealtimes, and by the end of the day, he was exhausted. He stumbled back to his quarters immediately after dinner, having decided to skip the socializing going on in the rec room, fully intent on going to bed early and sleeping as late as he could. He yawned widely and pushed the door open, stretching and trying to work the kinks out of his back. He grasped the bottom of his t-shirt and stripped it off.
The door clicked shut behind him, and someone let out a soft, low whistle. He whirled around to find Alicia leaning against the inside of the door, her arms splayed out as if she were pinning it shut against a force outside. “You look even better than I thought you’d look under that shirt.”
“Can I help you with something?” Brandt asked, amazed at her audacity.
“You didn’t come talk to me after dinner yesterday like you said you would,” Alicia said, pushing away from the door and taking a step toward him.
“I never said for sure that I’d come talk to you,” Brandt pointed out, fighting to not take a step back from her as she moved forward.
“True, but you never said you wouldn’t, either,” she said. She plucked his shirt from him and tossed it onto the desk, then gave him a smile that resembled a cat’s after it got into the cream. “Come on, Michael. Testing starts tomorrow. The least we can do is have a little fun before we risk getting sick as dogs.”
“How do you know I don’t have a woman waiting for me out there?” Brandt asked, gesturing toward the wall, indicating the world at large. Despite the question, and despite Derek’s earlier warning to him that she was bad news, he found himself taking a step toward her, inching toward her like one would a wild animal. She stood still, letting him come to her, staring at him with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
“Do you?” she asked.
“I don’t, but how would you know if I did?” he asked. “You didn’t even bother to ask.”
“I don’t make it a habit to,” she said. She reached up and trailed a single fingertip down the center of his chest.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what? Hitting on you?”
“Yeah, something like that. Why?”
“I like handsome men, I like sex, and I really like sex with handsome men,” she said. “You definitely fall into that category.”
“Well, I’m pleased to find out that you think I’m good looking,” Brandt said. “That’s definitely a confidence booster.”
“So how about that bit of fun I proposed?” Alicia asked, and without waiting on him to respond, she hooked a hand behind his neck and tugged, stretching up to meet him in a hot, hungry kiss. Brandt closed his eyes and leaned into her, returning the kiss just as intensely, his hands tangling into her red hair and pulling her closer. Even as his brain screamed at him about new leaves and being a better person, he backed her up against the wall and pressed his body hard against hers, panting in her mouth, his hands drifting to her hips and then up her shirt. She jacked herself up against him, practically crawling up his body, and wrapped both of her legs around his waist.
“The bed, for the love of God,” Alicia hissed against his mouth. Brandt barely hesitated, spinning around and carrying her to it. He tried to drop her onto it, but she clung to him even tighter, so he turned and sat down on the bed himself. She shifted her knees to straddle his lap and stripped her t-shirt off in one smooth movement, tossing it back over her shoulder and pressing her now-bare chest against his. “You ready for me to rock your world?” she asked him breathlessly.
Brandt snorted and started working on the ties on her drawstring pants. “God, that’s so cliché,” he replied. “Come up with something more creative next time if you expect to keep getting laid.”
“Wait, there’s going to be a next time?” Alicia asked. “You strike me as the one-night stand type.”
Brandt nipped the side of her neck. “I’ve had a few repeats here and there, but only for the truly spectacular ones.”
Alicia grinned, slipping a hand down into the waistband of his pants, eliciting a moan from low in his throat. “I guess I’ll have to be really spectacular, now won’t I?”
“By all means, don’t let me stop you.”
Alicia laughed softly, seductively. “Shut up and lay back,” she crooned. “I believe some world-rocking was promised.”
Chapter 8
Brandt woke up the next morning to the soft beeping of his wristwatch. He lifted his head off the pillow and blinked rapidly, trying to get his bearings. He yawned and sat up, discovering that his wristwatch was the only thing he was wearing. He groaned and flopped back flat, covering his face with both hands.
“Oh God, why do you keep doing these things to yourself?” he asked out loud.
“What things?” a voice asked, and Brandt peeled a hand away from his face to see Derek lurking in the doorway, clipboard and file folder in hand.
“Nothing,” Brandt mumbled. “Just doing my usual piss-and-moan routine.”
“You do that often?”
Brandt snorted. “You have no idea,” he said. He scrubbed at his face, trying to wake himself up more thoroughly. “What time is it?”
“Just after nine,” Derek answered, and Brandt sat back up with a surprised gasp. “You missed breakfast.”
“Oh, you’re shitting me,” Brandt groaned. He looked at his watch and discovered that the alarm had been reset from seven to nine. He hadn’t done it, and there was only one person who could have.
Alicia, damn it, what did you do that for?
Thanks to her, it looked like he was going to have to go without food until lunchtime.
“You sure there’s nothing I need to know about?” Derek asked.
“Positive,” Brandt said. He grabbed the white pants off the floor by the bed and threw his covers back, then tugged the pants on, tying them snugly at his waist. “What’s the plan for today?”
“Since we did preliminary testing and preparation yesterday,” Derek said, “today we introduce the pathogen into your system. Then again, we may be giving you a placebo. I suppose we’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Brandt said, sliding to the edge of the bed. “How is this going to work?”
“It varies by group, but the group you’ve been assigned to calls for a gradual introduction, so we’re going to be giving you injections over the course of several days,” Derek explained. “Then we monitor you and test you to within an inch of your life.”
“Sounds exciting,” Brandt commented dryly.
“Oh, believe me, it will be,” Derek said. “Well, for us. Possibly not for you, depending on those unknown side effects we discussed.” He set the clipboard onto the edge of Brandt’s desk and pulled a prefilled syringe out of the pocket of his lab coat. “This is your first dose,” he said. “Are you absolutely sure you want to do this? You’re still at a point where you can easily back out.”
“I’m sure,” Brandt said.
“Are you absolutely sure?”
Brandt sighed. “Yes, I’m absolutely sure,” he said. He stuck his arm out, extending it so the doctor could get to the heparin lock. “Come on, Doc. Let’s get this over with, yeah?”
Derek studied him for a moment m
ore and then nodded slowly, moving to stand in front of him. He uncapped the syringe and, with one last look at Brandt, he screwed the syringe onto the end of the heparin lock and began to push the fluid from the syringe into the heparin lock. The plunger sank to the bottom of the syringe, and Brandt let out a breath while Derek disconnected the syringe and returned it to his pocket.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Brandt said.
Derek pulled the chair out from the desk and sat down in it. “How do you feel?” he asked, picking up his clipboard again. He drew a pen from the breast pocket of his lab coat and clicked the button on the top.
“Right now, I feel fine,” Brandt said. “Nothing feels different. Same as always.”
Brandt had barely gotten the words out when his body felt like it locked up.
“Michael?” he heard Derek say, but it sounded like his voice was coming from the end of a tunnel. It felt like all the muscles in his body were misfiring, and he could feel fine tremors running under his skin.
He pitched forward onto the tile floor, his awareness dimming as his body started to convulse. There were hands on his body, rolling him onto his side, and the last thing he heard clearly before he slipped into unawareness was Derek saying urgently into his cell phone, “I need valium in Evans’s room fast! He’s having a seizure!”
Chapter 9
When Brandt came to, it was three days later, and he was groggy and disoriented by the passage of time. He was feverish, exhausted like he’d been sick for a long time, and as weak as a newborn baby. Someone had dimmed the lights in his room, and he rolled his head to the side. A pretty nurse sat in his desk chair, thumbing idly through an issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. She looked engrossed in an article, and despite his exhaustion, Brandt said hoarsely, “You know, over half the stuff in that magazine is utter bullshit.”
The nurse started and nearly dropped her magazine. “Oh, you’re awake,” she said, closing the magazine and setting it on his desk. “How do you know that Cosmo is bullshit?”
Brandt had only just met her and he liked her already.
“My ex-wife used to read it all the time back when we were married,” he said. “She was always trying to get me to try stuff from it. It all struck me as uncomfortable and trying too hard.”
“Huh. Never looked at it that way,” the nurse commented. She rose from the chair and moved closer to his bedside. “I’m Jenna. I’m an RN that works directly for Dr. Rivers. How do you feel?”
“Like hammered shit,” Brandt said. “What happened? How long have I been asleep?”
“More like unconscious,” Jenna said. “You had a seizure after Dr. Rivers began testing. After that, you fell ill and have been for the past three days. We think it might have been the flu.”
Something about the way she said the words raised Brandt’s hackles. She was clearly lying to him about something, but he couldn’t put his finger on what.
“We halted your testing while we nursed you back to health.” She turned to a red plastic tackle box on the floor by the chair and started pulling supplies out of it. “You seem to be better now, at least compared to how you’ve been the past few days.”
“So will you guys be starting testing again?” he asked as she wrapped a blood pressure cuff around his bicep.
She didn’t answer his question right away, focusing on the tasks at hand. She finished taking his vitals and wrote them down on his chart.
“We’ll see,” she said. She flipped the chart closed and tucked it under her arm, then closed her tackle box and picked it up. “I’m going to go update Dr. Rivers on your condition. You lay here and relax, try to get some rest.”
She left the room, presumably to go speak with Derek, and left him alone in bed feeling like a weak, helpless child. His tongue felt like it was sticking to the roof of his mouth, which in turn felt furry in its dryness. He licked his lips, which didn’t help at all, and looked toward his desk, hoping to find water there. There wasn’t any. He grimaced and checked for some sort of call button for a nurse’s station, but he didn’t see one. A terrible oversight on the CDC’s part.
My kingdom for a glass of water.
There was no other option. He was going to have to get up if he expected to get something to drink. He braced his hands against the bed and pushed himself to a sitting position. The world spun, and nausea overtook him. He froze for a long moment, waiting for it to pass. When it did, he eased around and put his feet on the floor. His feet were bare, and the tile floor was ice cold. He tried to ignore the bite of it and pushed himself upright. His joints screamed with pain, and he felt like an old man as he hobbled, step by aching step, to the attached bathroom. The sink was an eternity away. Eventually he fell against it, sagging on the porcelain for support and cranking the cold water on. It gushed into the basin, and he plunged both hands under the stream, cupping them to gather water and drinking it out of his hands. He sucked down several mouthfuls and sloshed some onto his face, soaking the chest of his t-shirt in the process. Though he wanted a shower, badly, he wasn’t sure he had the strength to stay upright in the shower stall.
There were footsteps out in his bedroom, and Derek stuck his head into the bathroom, a look of concern on his face. “Michael, Jenna told me you were up. How are you feeling?” he asked, stepping into the bathroom more fully and looking him up and down with an assessing gleam in his eyes.
“Like crap,” Brandt said. “What happened to me?”
“Jenna didn’t tell you?”
“She told me some,” Brandt said, “but I’d rather hear the details from you.”
Derek took his arm, leading him toward the bedroom. “Come on, let’s sit down somewhere,” he said. “You look like you’re ready to fall over.”
“I would really like a shower first,” Brandt said. “Is there any chance…?”
“I’ll be happy to sit in here while you shower,” Derek said. “Just in case you pass out in the stall. It’s not unheard of.” He crossed the bathroom and turned the hot water on, letting it heat up while Brandt stripped off his t-shirt and kicked off his pants, leaving them on the floor and staggering to the shower.
“Is everybody else as sick as I’ve been?” Brandt asked curiously. “Or am I the only one who’s been wallowing in whatever has been wrong with me?” The water felt like needles against his skin, but it was a pleasant feeling, and he leaned against the wall under the showerhead and let the water cascade over him. It took everything in him to not groan with pleasure at the feeling.
“There’ve been a few…illnesses,” Derek said vaguely. He stepped out of the room for a moment and then returned, carrying the desk chair with him. He set it at a discreet distance from the shower stall, angled to give him some modicum of privacy. “You definitely weren’t the worst of it by far, but you were sick the longest. Most everybody else who got sick was feeling better within a day.” Brandt heard a beep and glanced the doctor’s way; he had his cell phone out and was keying something into it. He palmed his phone and looked at Brandt seriously through the semi-opaque glass of the shower stall’s door. “Just between you and me, we had a few deaths too.”
Brandt’s heart sank, and despite the heat of the water, his insides felt like they’d turned to ice. He swallowed hard and asked, just loud enough to be heard over the rush of water, “How many is a few?”
“Four, to be precise,” Derek said. “I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this. It risks compromising the testing.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
“Because I promised I’d be honest and upfront with you about this, and that includes informing you of the risks.”
“Even at the expense of your tests?” Brandt asked, grabbing the soap from the ledge in the shower and starting to wash.
“Even at the expense of my tests,” Derek stated. “There is no test that’s more important than the human lives that are involved in it. I’d shut the test down now if I thought I could get away with it, but the fools at DARPA won’t le
t me.” He sounded disgusted.
“Is the testing truly that unsafe?” he asked.
“I…” Derek trailed off, and Brandt glanced at him through the glass door that was rapidly fogging over between them. He got up and paced to the bathroom door, pushing it shut and then moving closer to the shower stall. “This isn’t to be repeated anywhere, okay?” he said, his voice so low that Brandt could barely hear it over the spray of water. “I’m trusting you with this information so long as you keep it to yourself.”
Brandt turned the water off and slid the door open, accepting the towel Derek handed him. “Not a word,” he promised.
“I’m not certain everything is on the up-and-up with this testing,” Derek confessed. “Particularly on DARPA’s end. The four that died? When they got sick, they got violent. DARPA made sure they died of acute lead poisoning.”
“Acute lead poisoning?” Brandt repeated. “You mean they were shot?”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Derek said. “They’re treating this like it’s all a contagion. Extreme quarantine-style measures, armed guards everywhere, it’s ridiculous. I caught one of them rifling through my notes yesterday. There’s clearly something going on here, and it’s obvious to me that us CDC people aren’t the ones holding the cards.”
“So what does this mean for me?” Brandt asked. “When will I have to worry about coming down with acute lead poisoning myself?”
“Hopefully never,” Derek said. “I requested that you be put in the control group when you entered testing, out of courtesy to Olivia, since she’d never forgive me if I let you die of some horrible disease.”
“If I’m in the control group, how come I got sick?” Brandt asked.
“The flu,” Derek said simply. “We gave all the people in the control group something to make them feel ill to mask who was in what group. Everyone who is left is fine now, but as a precaution against cross-contamination, you’ll only be able to socially interact with those in your group. The people in your group do not know they’re controls, and officially, you don’t either. Keep it that way and don’t mention it to anyone.” He abruptly changed directions. “How do you feel after your shower?”
Origins (The Becoming Book 6) Page 5