Thank you, she mouthed. Book looked away without replying, swallowing hard.
“Well, Dr. O’Meara,” Robbins said, “I guess you’ve got yourself a new job—Top Psycho.” To her surprise, he reached out to shake her hand. “Good luck.”
“I’m gonna need it.”
The six psychos were lined up in front of her, decked out in their orange jumpsuits and chains. All they needed were blindfolds and cigarettes, and they’d be ready for the firing squad. An option they might prefer to the one Fallon was about to give them.
There was no place in the Prison Block where she could address them all at once, so she’d asked for them to be brought to the same building where Warga had fought the Infecteds. No one had bothered to clean up the blood yet, so the soldiers guarding the prisoners were all wearing biohazard gear. The silent, gun-toting astronauts standing behind each psycho just made the scene that much more surreal, and Fallon had to fight the urge to laugh at the absurdity of it all—a space-borne virus that turned people into violent, brain-eating, not-dead zombies, being essentially kidnapped by the government and hustled off to a secret lab, relying on these six people to save the world.
Well, seven.
“Eyes front, Randy,” Fallon said sharply to Warga, who’d been trying surreptitiously to catch glimpses of Lilith. Fallon had had the girl placed at one end of the lineup and Warga at the other, precisely for this reason. Light was next to her, cutting her off from the others. Fallon figured he was a safe bet—Lilith wasn’t currently at death’s door, so the patient-smothering EMT would have little interest in her.
Warga did as he was told—he’d been in prison long enough that his first instinct was to obey an order, and only afterward to check to see who’d given it.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering why you were brought here. What you’re about to hear will seem unbelievable to some of you, like something out a science fiction or horror movie, but I assure you, it’s all very true, unfortunately.”
Fallon looked at Light, whom she’d been told had enjoyed his ultra-rare steak immensely.
“Hank, you want to tell them what you experienced in the emergency room?”
Though the psychos had no reason to trust each other, they had even less to trust her—she was the only one in the room who didn’t have a guy in a hazmat suit pointing a gun at her head, after all. The “us vs. them” arrangement—which Fallon had specifically asked for—would make them more inclined to believe one of their own. At least, she hoped so. Because, while she didn’t technically need any of them to agree to the mission, things would go so much more smoothly if they all did.
Light—who, as she’d expected, couldn’t help but preen a little at being singled out like her second—replied with a confident smile. “Sure thing, Doctor.”
He looked at the men to his left, ignoring Lilith. Interesting.
“I’m an EMT when I’m not in shackles and a jumpsuit. Long story short—a meteor broke up over Phoenix a week ago, parts falling all over the city. Some kind of insanity virus hit a few days later—people going crazy, attacking each other, breaking skulls open and scooping out their brains, just like in some lame B horror movie. Except it’s real, and the government has quarantined the whole valley.”
“Bullshit,” Lilith said, her voice shading into pouting petulance. She did not like being ignored, especially by a fairly good-looking man. “There’s no way the government could do that. And who are you to her, anyway? The rest of us are killers—you’re a do-gooder.”
Light laughed, finally deigning to glance to his right.
“Not exactly, sweetheart. See, I’m what you call an angel of death—I kill my patients with love.” He drew the last word out lasciviously, earning chuckles from some of the male psychos.
“That’s enough, Light,” Fallon broke in. She looked at the others. “Technically, you’re all psychopaths, whether you’ve killed anyone or not—you all have an abnormal brain structure. That’s why you’re here. Because Light’s telling you the truth. Not only has the entire Phoenix metro area been completely cut off from the rest of civilization, but if the largest remaining piece of the meteor can’t be found in time, they’re going to nuke the entire Valley.”
“Told you,” Light muttered.
“Pray tell. Dr. O’Meara—what do our brain structures have to do with the meteor?” Pybus asked, diffident and courteous. Fallon found herself feeling grateful for the man. It was so hard to remember that of all her team of misfits, his crimes were the most inhuman and grotesque. “Since I assume you wouldn’t be talking about them in the same breath if they weren’t related.”
“You’re exactly right, Caspar. They are related. The virus caused by the meteor targets the brain. People with psychopathic brain structures are immune to it. They’re the only ones who can go into the quarantined area to retrieve what’s left of the meteor, so the scientists back here can come up with a cure and hopefully prevent the annihilation of 4 million people, give or take.”
“By which you mean we’re the only ones who can do it.”
“That’s correct, Caspar.”
“And if we should choose to be . . . less than altruistic?”
Light snorted.
“Then they’ll stick us back in our cells here and forget we exist when the time comes to evacuate. Isn’t that right, Doc?”
Fallon ignored the EMT, still talking to Caspar, and through him, to the others.
“That virus has caused thousands of deaths so far, and it’s going to cause millions more if you—if we—don’t stop it.”
“We?” Caspar asked. “You’re coming with us?”
“Yes.”
“But aren’t you going to get infected right away? What’s the use of that?”
“I won’t be infected.”
“So what?” Warga asked, “You’ll be all gussied up in one of those hazmat suits? What a waste, hiding that body in one of those things.”
“I won’t be infected,” she said, ignoring Warga, “because I have the same brain structure that you do.”
There was silence for a moment as that sank in, until finally Pybus put it together. “You mean all this time you’ve been studying us, Doctor, it’s been to learn more about yourself?”
“Bullshit,” Lilith repeated at the same time, her voice angry where Pybus’s had been only intensely curious. “No way you’ve ever killed anyone!”
“Volunteering to be my first?”
That shut her up and cut off any arguments the others might have made.
“Yes, I share your same brain structure, though I’ve never actually acted on the impulses you seem to delight in. So I’ll be going in with you. Risking the same things you are. More, because I actually have a life not behind bars to come back to.”
“We can still refuse,” Lilith said. She was definitely pouting.
Fallon nodded.
“Of course you can. But if you don’t—if you agree to help me—you’ll be helping yourselves, as well.”
“How?”
“Whoever makes it back with the part of the meteor we need—and some of us, realistically, might not—will naturally be granted some concessions for their role in saving humanity. That’s kind of how the hero thing works.”
She could see the word worming itself into their thoughts. No matter how evil their actions, no one ever really thought of themselves as the villain in a story, and these six were no exception. Whether striking back at abusers, helping the heaven-bound along, or acting out some other twisted mission that only made sense in their own warped brains, each one of the people in front of her already thought they were heroes. They wouldn’t be able to resist letting the rest of the world know it, too.
“Kinda like the sound of that,” Gino said softly. There was a chorus of agreement, t
hen Pybus looked at each of the other five psychos, then at Fallon, the seventh.
“All right, Doctor,” he said. “It looks like you’ve got your team.”
Once they’d all agreed, Book, a medic, and another soldier who’d been waiting in the observation area entered the room. They were wearing the same astronaut getups as the soldiers, and both Book and the medic carried a case. The medic’s bore a white circle with a red cross inside it, but Book’s was a metal briefcase with a biometric lock.
“What’s this?” Light asked. It was Book who answered.
“We’re going to outfit you all with GPS implants that will allow us to follow your progress.”
“You mean so you can keep track of your assets,” Pybus said.
Book shrugged.
“However you want to look at it. You’re not going in without them.” His voice was hard, and he was looking back at Pybus, returning the other man’s stare, measure for measure. Still, Fallon was pretty sure his words were aimed at her.
“I’ll go first,” she announced, walking over to the medic. “Show you how easy it is; that you don’t have any reason to be scared.”
“I ain’t scared,” Sansome bristled, and there were similar mutters from the others.
Fallon flashed a conciliatory smile, which she knew would come across as patronizing. “Okay. Nervous, then. Nothing to be ashamed of. Lots of people have issues with being cut into.”
Like your victims, she thought, but didn’t say. No point in antagonizing them any more than she had to in order to get them to do what she wanted.
Fallon stood in front of the medic, but her eyes were on Book. He hadn’t mentioned this to her—had barely spoken to her since she’d revealed the truth about her own psychopathic brain to the Powers That Be. She was sure it had been his idea, though. He’d have sold it easily enough—the Army would, as Caspar had said, want to keep track of its assets.
The medic handed his case to the soldier, who held his arms out like a chest-high human desk. Opening it, he pulled out a syringe.
“A little lidocaine and some epinephrine, to keep it from bleeding,” he said, using one hand to pinch some skin together at her left temple while he injected her with the other. “Might sting.”
In point of fact, it burned like hell, but she schooled her features to show no pain or emotion. Nothing the others could view as a weakness.
I’ve been doing the same thing with Mark for a long time. Feeling one thing, showing another.
He pulled out a small red sharps container and deposited the used syringe in it, then grabbed a scalpel out of a small leather case. She steeled herself not to flinch when he sliced into the side of her face. Then it was Book’s turn.
The analyst—who was obviously quite a bit more than that—pulled out a tiny electronic device that looked a little like a metal spider and moved forward. She felt some pressure at her temple, then Book was stepping back, and the medic moved in again, this time with a needle and thread. A couple of stitches and she was done, a little bloody, but no worse for wear.
“See?” she said, turning toward the others. “What’d I tell you? Nothing to it.” She nodded at Light. “You’re up next.”
As the medic was working on Light, she turned to Book.
“What the hell are these things?” she asked in a low voice. “How can they act as a camera or a radio without tapping into the optic or auditory nerves?”
Book shrugged.
“I honestly couldn’t tell you—it’s above my clearance level. I only found out about them a few days ago. Apparently, there had been discussion about implanting them in the soldiers who took the Strykers in, but the brass ultimately decided against it. I probably would have wound up monitoring the feeds, so I’m glad they did.”
He moved over to implant another of his impossible bugs into Light’s head, then came back to stand by her side. In the brief time she’d been here, she had started to think he took a special interest in her. They were both smart, data-driven, and out of place here among the military and law enforcement types. There were other scientists on the premises, she knew, but so far, she hadn’t had any interactions with them.
Maybe he was drawn to her. She couldn’t say that she felt the same way—but she couldn’t honestly say that she didn’t. She’d been impressed with him thus far, but that could just as easily be the simple respect due a fellow professional as it could be anything more. Employees at the lab sometimes gave her a hard time for coming off as emotionally clueless, and she had to admit that was often accurate. Trying to puzzle it out now would serve no purpose, though; instead, she quizzed him on the device in her temple, which was starting to throb now that the lidocaine was wearing off.
“Yours is special,” Book said. “It has a camera and two-way communications capability.”
“So you’ll be able to see what I see, hear what I hear?”
He nodded. “That’s right. I’ll be in what they call the tactical operations center, the TOC, where I can follow your route via GPS. And talk to you, but only you. You’re the only one here who’s not expendable.”
“But . . . all the time?”
He chuckled.
“It’s not like a cop with a bodycam. You can turn it off when you want to, like if you’re using the bathroom. And, of course, if you close your eyes, nothing will be transmitted. Same if you were to plug your ears. Just assume that it’s on unless you signal to turn it off.”
“How do we turn them off?”
“Click your heels together three times, and—”
“I’m serious,” she said, trying not to smile.
“Blink in Morse code. O-F-F when you want to turn it off and O-N when you want to turn it back on. I can override it if I see that you’re in trouble, but I’d only do that in an emergency. I’m not some kind of perv.”
“Of course you’re not. But . . . Morse code? Seriously?”
“Long, long, long. Pause. Short, short, long, short. Pause. Then repeat the last one. To turn it back on, it’s long, long, long. Pause. Long, short. Pause.”
“Great. I hope I can remember that.”
“You can always ask me.”
He’d been taking care of the other psychos intermittently during their conversation, and now he moved away to give Lilith her implant. She was the last one.
When he came back, Fallon looked at him.
“You didn’t have to do this, you know.”
“I didn’t—” he began, but she shook her head.
“I work with psychopaths, remember? I’m trained to spot a lie a mile off. I know it was your idea. I just wanted to say thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me. Just come back in one piece. Jason’s counting on it, whether you believe that or not.” His face was so serious, so earnest, Fallon had to wonder if he’d lost his own mother as a child.
“I’ll do my best,” she promised, and meant it.
Then she turned back to the psychos, all metaphorically locked and loaded.
“You’ll be taken back to your cells, where I’ve been told you’ll have a change of clothes waiting, and some food. Get changed, cleaned up, eat, sleep a little. We’re leaving before daybreak.”
None of them replied. The implants made it all real, and no one had the heart for wisecracks.
As she watched them file out—orange, white, orange, white—she wondered how many of them were actually going to make it back to enjoy that hero status, and how many were going to be honored posthumously, if at all.
She said as much to Book, who gave her a look she couldn’t read.
“One,” he said. “At least one.
“You promised.”
PART II
THE ZONE
CHAPTER 19
48 hours
The sun would be up in less than an ho
ur. Forty-eight hours left on the clock. A little less.
Although the area around the gate appeared clear of Infecteds, heading into the quarantine zone—“the zone,” as they’d started calling it during their abbreviated planning sessions—under cover of darkness seemed like the best idea. Fallon drove the camo-painted passenger van they’d been given, on the theory that it would attract less attention than the tactical vehicles had. Lilith had called shotgun, and nobody challenged her for it. Sansome sat behind Fallon, with Light beside him. Pybus, Warga, and Antonetti rode in the back. They all wore camouflage uniforms, sans rank insignia, provided by the Army. Fallon’s was a little too big, Sansome’s way too small, and Lilith absolutely swam in hers. Antonetti had insisted on wearing his cousin’s dog tags, and Fallon had finally relented, but otherwise none of them carried identification of any kind.
Once Fallon’s presence on the mission had been agreed to, preparations had been so brisk, she’d hardly had time to get nervous. She had managed to squeeze in a twenty-minute catnap, and although she didn’t like the idea of setting off on a task like this with so little sleep, she knew the nuclear clock was ticking.
Now, though, driving through Avondale toward the interstate, reality was sinking in. Her gut churned, and her arms and legs trembled. She gripped the wheel tightly, hoping no one would pick up on her terror. Psychopaths were like wild animals that way; when they sensed fear, it spurred them to attack.
“Pretty empty here,” Light observed.
“People were told to stay inside if they could,” Fallon said, fighting to keep her voice neutral. She sniffed the air, redolent of manure and smoke from distant fires. “This is a rural area anyway, so chances of infection are less than in more congested neighborhoods. These people are probably hunkered down, waiting for some kind of solution.”
“Or they’re already dead,” Lilith added. “Brain-meat for the mob.” She sounded almost gleeful at the idea.
“Wonder when we’ll see some,” Sansome said. His voice was unexpectedly high-pitched for such a big man, and he spoke so softly he was often hard to hear.
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