“Mercy, you don’t know how long I’ve been wanting to do that.”
“I can imagine.” Rhys surprised himself by smiling. He would have thought his first unobscured view of Zach would bring back all the instinctive panic and distrust he’d felt when he’d first seen Jacob’s likeness looking back at him. But three weeks had been enough time to convince him of Zach’s sincerity. Rhys was even beginning to develop a hesitant respect for the quiet but heartfelt faith he made no attempt to hide, which was an entirely different animal from the terrifying dogma Father Maurice and Jacob had bludgeoned Rhys with. Wryly, Rhys stuck out his hand. “Hi, I’m Rhys. Good to meet you.”
Zach grinned, revealing a dimple in his right cheek, and shook Rhys’s hand without hesitation, their bare palms connecting. “I’m Zach, and I’m beyond happy to finally get to shake your hand properly.”
Rhys hadn’t realized what a burden it had been, living over two years thinking that even the most casual, passing encounter with him might kill another person. He was damn near giddy with relief. “So, tell me what this means. What next?”
Zach hitched one hip on the edge of the table where the animals’ cages sat. “Well, I’ve sent my report on to the DPRP lab, but I don’t have the results yet. I’m waiting for instructions on how to proceed, though I know what the initial plan was if it got to this point.”
“Lab?” Rhys frowned. “They have a lab in the Clean Zone?”
Zach shook his head. “No, it’s off-site. As I understand it, they resurrected an old military research facility somewhere west of here, in anticipation of the day that they might get close enough to a vaccine to need to work with the live virus. Thanks to you, that day has come a lot sooner than anticipated.”
A knot began to twist in Rhys’s gut. “How?”
“Well, I have to wait for confirmation from the lab to say anything definite, but from what I can see with the equipment I have next door—and our scientists made sure I knew what to look for when I was handling the samples, so that I could report accurately and not risk corrupting the data—you have antibodies against Bane, but none of the strains of Bane itself. Which, given the fact that you’ve been verifiably exposed to all three strains multiple times—” Rhys had to laugh at Zach’s wording. Yeah, he was pretty sure being drenched with rev blood, fucked by dozens of Jugs, and having even been bitten by a rev would count as verifiably exposed. “—leaves no doubt that you’re the real thing. You’re immune.”
“So, what now?” Rhys hopped up onto the hospital bed he’d exiled himself to the first week of their stay here, swinging his legs nervously.
“Now comes a slightly more dangerous phase of testing, assuming I get the go-ahead, because we’ll be dealing with the Bane virus itself. We need to get a blood sample from one of the Jugs, expose your blood directly to Bane, and watch your immune response go to work.” Zach hummed thoughtfully, flipping through his papers. “After we study that, we need to take a sample from an unexposed person, infect it with Bane, and then add an antiserum made from your immunoglobulins to see if we can cobble together a sort of crude postexposure prophylaxis. We can determine if it’s possible to counteract Bane exposure that way, and if so, figure out what the window of opportunity is. Then, if it happens that we get survivors who are just recently exposed, like you were when the Jugs found you, we might be able to save their lives without, um, resorting to the measures they had to take with you.”
Rhys squirmed uncomfortably, and not just at the reminder of what he’d submitted to in order to survive—unnecessarily, as it now turned out. He didn’t even want to begin picking apart how he felt about that. Better to focus on the fact that this was starting to sound dangerously similar to what Xolani had predicted.
“They’re not going to . . . expect me to produce enough antiserum to protect the whole population, right?”
“No, of course not.” Zach frowned, as if that thought had never even occurred to him. “That would be absurd. Even if they gave you sufficient stimulating agents to make you stroke out, you couldn’t manufacture enough blood to accomplish that. Not on a long-term basis, at least.”
Rhys ducked his head, wishing he was reassured. He didn’t doubt that Zach meant what he’d said, but he still had Xolani’s worries echoing in his ears, in addition to the fact that no one from the DPRP had yet come to introduce themselves to him, leaving everything in Zach’s hands. Zach had assured them several times that he’d been rigorously trained to handle these preliminary rounds of testing during the months between Rhys being summoned and his arrival. He’d even spent several afternoons with Xolani, discussing the methodology he’d been taught and what the DPRP researchers were looking for. But the continued silence from the DPRP felt . . . shady. Like they were lying in wait to spring something unpleasant on him.
“So,” he asked, casting around for a change of subject as Zach took his vital signs, “is this the work you did before the plague?”
“No.” Zach smiled sadly. “I was my father’s campaign adviser.”
“Father Maurice was a politician?”
“He . . . lost his way. He used to be a much better man than the one you knew. Or maybe I only saw him through the lens of a child’s idolization. I don’t know anymore. But I learned to love God from him.” He fell silent, listening to Rhys’s pulse before he removed the blood pressure cuff and spoke again. “I planned to go into ministry myself, but then he got the idea to run for office, to stop calling people to God through his ministry and start trying to force them by law to live by his own morals.” Zach bowed his head. “I felt I had a duty to obey, so I abandoned my plans to attend seminary to help him.”
“Then how did you become a med tech?” Rhys asked while Zach jotted down his vitals, then laid out his supplies to do another blood draw.
“When I got out of quarantine, the Clean Zone was desperately short on medical personnel. I volunteered to assist one of the few doctors we had as best I could, and I realized I had a passion for helping the sick and injured.”
Rhys winced and gritted his teeth as Zach slid the needle into his vein. “It’s a long way from doing field triage to doing the DPRP’s busywork.”
Zach kept his eyes fixed on the vials filling with blood, avoiding Rhys’s gaze. “Is there a better way to help people than trying to stop the disease that destroyed humanity?”
“No, I guess not,” Rhys murmured and fell silent as Zach turned away to store the vials in his case. Now he was absolutely certain that Zach had been honest with him about everything up to that point. Because now he knew what Zach looked like when he lied.
Unlike his younger brother, he wasn’t very good at it.
“I’ll kill him,” Xolani muttered, pacing the common room.
“No.” Rhys shook his head quickly, eager to remove any suspicion from Zach. He’d spent the whole afternoon trying to figure out how to bring up the subject while making sure such a thing didn’t happen. “He isn’t trying to hurt me. I’m sure of that.”
Darius cupped the back of Rhys’s neck, grounding him. “But you think he’s lying about the work he’s doing for the DPRP?”
“Definitely.”
“I don’t like this,” Toby said, perched on the edge of the dining table, his legs swinging with restless energy. “Sure, we have liberty to mingle with the guards and go outside the perimeter, but we’re still sitting in a cage. We’ve had Schuyler and her squad cooling their heels down by the lake for weeks now. I don’t know about you people, but I’m about to climb the fuckin’ walls. We did what they wanted us to do. We brought Cooper and confirmed that he was immune—which, by the way, Little Brother? Fuckin’ awesome, congratulations—now let’s get the hell out of here.”
“Xolani?” Darius’s fingers squeezed the muscles along his cervical spine lightly, the only concession to his own tension that Rhys could detect. “Got an ETA on addressing the Science Committee?”
“Well, logistics are the big holdup. When I met with the scheduling se
cretary earlier today, he was wearing a hermetic suit and standing on the other side of a glass wall at the intake center, with only microphones to carry our voices.” She made a disgusted sound, taking a break from pacing to cross her arms over her chest. “At this rate, they’re going to have to build a special containment facility from the ground up before they allow me in the same building with anyone from congress.”
Darius grunted unhappily, and Rhys closed his eyes. There was no way they could ask Xolani to abandon her attempt to have the GDM repealed.
Titus drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “Well, we have Cooper saying Houtman 2.0 doesn’t mean to hurt him. Okay, so sure, he’s hiding something. Who isn’t? Taking off seems a little premature if we’ve still got business here.”
“I don’t like what we’ve been hearing from the guards about these missing citizens.” They all turned to Joe, who had kept his usual characteristic silence until that point. Rhys smiled fondly. That was the thing about Joe: he spoke so rarely that when he bothered to do so, everyone shut up and listened. “Don’t buy that people are spending months in quarantine, building up their homes inside the Clean Zone, and then running off once they’ve finally made a life for themselves.”
“I’m more concerned that the guards don’t recall them leaving,” Toby added, leaning forward. “Anyone who steps outside the perimeter either has to have a permit or they have to go through quarantine again. Which means the guards keep stringent records of who’s leaving and whether they’re allowed to return. So it doesn’t sound like the people who disappeared were documented.”
“I don’t like this.” Xolani began to pace again. “I swear, something isn’t right here. The Genetic Diversity Mandate is one thing—inseminating unwilling people? Honestly?—but the level of management of everyone’s comings and goings is every bit as fucking sinister. What’s with these intake interviews and questionnaires? What are they screening the civvies we bring to them for?”
“You don’t buy that they’re trying to make sure no one who has been exposed to Alpha gets in?” Darius asked.
“Oh, please.” She flapped her hand dismissively. “Forget the ethical questions surrounding whether we should be spreading the Alpha strain. 1st Juggernaut Battalion’s aging. We’ve had casualties. If any of our companies are screwing their civvies, they’re damn well keeping the Jugs they’re making.”
“Think they keep the questionnaires and interview records at the intake center?” Toby gripped Joe’s shoulder. “Whatever is going on, I don’t believe Perimeter Security has anything to do with it. They’re stand-up people. If we asked to see the records, said we were curious about, I don’t know, how survivors are getting along in other parts of the country or what recovery protocols the other companies are using, or whatever excuse we want to use, maybe they’d let us read the charts.”
“They said they only started the intake processing after we took down Charlie Company. That was . . . what, six years ago?” Joe frowned thoughtfully. “Couple hundred survivors a year, we’re looking at about maybe twelve hundred records.”
Toby shrugged. “Better than sitting around with nothing to do but play cards with the guards.”
“All right, we’ll do that for now,” Darius said with a nod, the firm one that said he’d listened to all the input and come to a decision. “Titus, tomorrow I want you and Toby on the records. Xolani and Joe, you and I are going to take Rhys to join Schuyler and her people out by the lake. There’s no reason they need to quarter him here in the quarantine ring any longer now that they know he’s not shedding virus. Then, once this business with the GDM is done, we’re leaving, no matter what testing they think they still need to do.”
“What are you doing out here?”
That hard, inflectionless voice made Rhys’s shoulders tighten, and he swallowed hard before he turned away from staring across the lake. Schuyler’s arms were folded across her chest, her face set in the same bitter lines she always wore whenever she and Rhys came face-to-face.
“Nothing,” he murmured. “Just looking for somewhere quiet to think.”
Her jaw flexed. “With as much fuss as Darius and Xolani are making, you’d think armed commandos were going to come charging out of the Clean Zone to kidnap you. I really don’t want to listen to the worry and moaning if that happens, so how about you do them all a favor and keep your ass in camp?”
Rhys’s jaw dropped as he grappled to find the words to protest the petty complaint—he was close enough to camp that he could see his bedroll from the lakeshore—but she spun on her heel to stalk away before he could manage to come up with an argument.
“I miss him too, you know!” he shouted after her instead.
Schuyler went rigid. She turned slowly back around, her face flushed and her eyes promising violence. “Don’t you dare—”
“Don’t I dare what? Kaleo was my friend. He didn’t have to be, but he was nice to me when I was scared and didn’t really have anyone, and I miss him. And yeah, I should have told someone a lot sooner just what a monster Jacob could turn out to be, and maybe if I had, Kaleo would still be alive, but I was afraid, all right?” He balled his shaking hands into fists at his sides. “I was surrounded by a bunch of strangers who didn’t really seem to care what I wanted or how I felt. The guy who’d made my life hell for seven years was telling them I was a troublemaker and then promising to kill me if I got in his way. As far as I was concerned, whenever it came down to his word against mine, he always won.” He scowled at her, his eyes burning as the memory of his loneliness and quiet despair washed over him. “Was I supposed to take the chance that no one would believe me?”
One white corner of her mouth lifted in a bitter sneer. “So you were covering your own ass. Maybe someone should have filled you in that that’s not how we do things in Delta Company.”
“Oh, come off it!” For once, anger flushed away the guilt that inevitably accompanied thoughts of Jacob and Kaleo. “How was I supposed to know he could be a danger to one of you? You were Jugs. If I’d ever thought he could hurt anyone but me, I would have said something.”
She shook her head. “Well, that’s a nice story to make yourself feel better about it all, now that he’s gone, isn’t it?”
She turned to walk away again, and Rhys closed his eyes, futility and grief hanging heavy in his chest. But his mouth apparently hadn’t gotten the message that it was useless, and he called after her, “So what story do you tell yourself to feel better about the fact that Kaleo shouldn’t have been there with us in the first place? You’re the one who refused to let him patrol with your squad. Yeah, he told me all about that. How your sense of authority couldn’t handle his teasing, so you wouldn’t have him under your command.”
“One more word, Cooper,” she hissed, her entire body quivering and her fists clenched as she kept her back to him. “Just one more.”
He planted his feet before he could take a flinching step back. His days of being pushed around and blamed for things that weren’t his fault had ended when Father Maurice and Jacob had died, and it was time he proved it.
“I’m not afraid of you. If you’re grasping for someone to blame, take a look at yourself. Look at Xolani for insisting on saving me and Jacob. Look at Darius for giving it the okay.” His throat tightened, and he swallowed against the knot there. “Kaleo was my friend, and I miss him. And it’s not my fault he’s dead.”
He turned back to the lake, his body braced, waiting for her attack, but it never came. When he glanced behind him, Schuyler was gone. He slumped, leaning against a tree trunk to stare out across the reservoir for another moment before following her back to camp. Once there, he stood on the outskirts, watching as, on the far side of the clearing, Emmy spoke with Schuyler. Emmy stood closer than Rhys could remember Schuyler ever letting someone get, her mouth almost brushing Schuyler’s bowed head. Whatever she said was inaudible, but then she squeezed Schuyler’s shoulder and guided her away from camp. Schuyler didn’t look back, but Emmy
did. Her eyes found Rhys’s, and she gave him a kind smile, then disappeared with Schuyler into the trees.
Something rustled in the brush behind him, and Rhys half turned, trying to smile when he saw Darius standing there. “Hi. Did I wander too far?”
Darius shook his head. “Nah.” He took Rhys’s hand and tugged, leading him into the clearing. “Gather up our bedrolls and packs while I have a word with Xolani. I’ll be right there.”
Xolani was practicing with her knives on the far side of camp when Darius leaned down to murmur something in her ear. Her eyebrows came up in surprise, but she nodded, then turned back to throwing knives into the bull’s-eye of a roughly carved target in the bark of a tree.
“Come on.” Darius shouldered his pack and gave Rhys’s elbow a gentle tug, and he fell into step with Darius. He didn’t turn back, even as the sun began to descend, the shadows growing taller as Darius led him along hilly, disused roads around the outskirts of the city.
Something about the heavy quality of Darius’s silence got to him, leaving him with the need to fill it. “So I guess you heard what I said to Schuyler.”
“Yup.” Darius turned his head just enough to give a quick nod.
“You were the one who said I should forgive myself for Kaleo dying.”
“Yeah, I did.”
“But I was out of line, turning it back on her like that.”
Darius looked sideways at him, then shrugged. “Schuyler’s a damn fine soldier, but Kaleo dying was one hit too many. And maybe you weren’t far off target.”
“No. It wasn’t her fault. I was grasping—”
“That’s not what I’m sayin’. It wasn’t anyone’s fault except Houtman’s. But you can be damn sure she’s already wondered if Kaleo would still be alive if she’d kept him with her.”
“I’m sorry.” Rhys let his head fall back, drawing in several deep breaths. “Not that you’re the person I should be saying that to. I should go back to apologize.”
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