by Kyla Stone
“Four hours,” Amelia murmured, staring down at her arm and remembering the two weeks they’d spent isolated at the naval base in Florida.
The technician slapped a smartbrochure into her hand. “Report to Suite 113 in City Hall in the morning and they’ll walk you through setting up financial accounts, ID records, smart programming for your home, work, and transport.”
“Thank you,” she said, even though she had none of those things. Not anymore.
“It’s a good thing, the Vitalichip.” He paused at the door, not bothering to turn around. “You know how many people out there would kill for this? You should be grateful.”
She opened her mouth, at a loss as to how to respond, but he was already gone, the med-bot chirping behind him. In his wake, four other people crowded into the room, all wearing lab coats and clutching holopads. One of them was her father.
Declan gestured behind him at the three doctors. “This is Dr. Hobbs, Biomedical Research and Development, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Dr. Weinstein, infectious disease specialist. And Dr. Ponniah, a leader in research for live attenuated vaccines from John Hopkins.”
“Formerly,” Dr. Weinstein said with a pained expression. He was in his mid-sixties and balding, with a trim mustache and spectacles sliding halfway down his nose. He wore pressed chinos and Italian loafers beneath his pristine lab coat.
“Nice to meet you. What, ah—” she cleared her throat and wiped her damp palms on her hospital gown. “What exactly is going to happen to me?”
“We do our best to keep invasive harvesting procedures to a minimum,” Dr. Ponniah said crisply. She was a short, plump Indian woman somewhere in her forties.
Amelia paled. Invasive? Harvesting? But what had she expected? She knew it wouldn’t be easy or simple. Or painless. She kept her back straight and her chin up. She wouldn’t show them her fear.
“We’ll do our best to take care of you.” Dr. Hobbs gave her a reassuring smile as he moved next to her hospital bed. He was a friendly-looking black man in his late fifties.
Declan glanced down at his holopad, flicking through reports and charts, frowning slightly. Beneath his lab coat, he wore an impeccably tailored suit, with a crimson handkerchief tucked neatly in the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “We’ve been analyzing the clinical data for months. Every avenue is a dead end. Until now.”
“Holoscreen on,” Dr. Hobbs said.
The wallscreen over the right wall lit up with a display of graphs, blips, numbers, and words she didn’t recognize. “Cardiac monitor is steady. Blood oxygen levels good.” Dr. Hobbs smiled at her like she’d succeeded at some marvelous achievement.
“This is the initial bloodwork from her intake exam.” Dr. Weinstein tapped his holopad and flicked the data to the wallscreen. Her father examined the DNA sequences rotating slowly in front of him. He swiped his hand and brought up a datapack of research studies and patient files. He enlarged a segment of DNA, highlighting a series of amino acids. He spoke softly to the other doctors. Amelia caught only a few words: gene sequencing, white blood cell counts, pH levels.
“How long will it take?” Amelia asked Dr. Hobbs, who stood the closest to her.
“Unfortunately, we are unable to field test potential vaccines on rats or primates in any rigorous fashion,” he said. “There simply isn’t time. But since every single infected patient dies, there is no adverse risk we need to take into consideration. It shouldn’t take too long to develop an antigen from your blood, in combination with the ideal adjuvant, stabilizers, and preservatives we have been exhaustively testing over the last several months.”
“We hope to begin the first patient tests within twenty-four hours,” Dr. Ponniah interjected.
Amelia raised her brows. “That quickly?”
Her father beamed at her. “We have virologists analyzing the data from your blood samples as we speak. The protective antibody levels are simply astounding.”
A med-bot zoomed into the room with a mechanical chirp. Declan gestured at it. “We need to keep her vitals in tiptop shape.”
The med-bot was about three feet tall and bullet-shaped. A compartment in the med-bot’s side slid open and dispensed several pills in tiny paper cups on a small silver tray. Another hatch opened, and a mechanical arm with a needle appeared. It dispensed pain-relievers, non-inflammatories, immune-boosters, vitamin supplements, and who knew what else. Amelia swallowed the pills and gritted her teeth against the injections. This was only the beginning.
“If you don’t mind, time is of the essence,” Dr. Ponniah said. “We’d prefer to begin immediately.”
Amelia nodded as the med-bot jetted away.
Dr. Ponniah prepped a large twenty-gauge biopsy needle. “Dr. Weinstein will start with the blood samples. I’ll take liver and lung tissue samples, as well as extract a biopsy of your lymph nodes.”
“We’ve prepared local anesthetics and a mild sedative to keep you as comfortable as possible,” Dr. Hobbs said, squeezing her hand and giving her a warm smile. He had a gentle bedside manner, like someone’s favorite grandfather.
“Thank you.”
“I took the liberty of piping in some of your favorite music,” Declan said as Dr. Weinstein inserted a sedative into her IV drip. Classical music filled the room.
Amelia’s heartbeat slowed. Her hands unclenched. She rested her head against the backrest and closed her eyes.
She’d injected herself dozens of times with her emergency auto-injector. Somehow, this was different.
Maybe there were some things it was better not to see.
23
Micah
“Congratulations,” the guard said, gazing at his holopad with a scowl. “You don’t have the Hydra virus. Though you do appear to have some important friends in high places. Guess we have to let you inside after all.”
Micah elbowed Silas in the ribs before he could make some smart retort. They had spent the last three days stuck in those cramped isolation cells devoid of sound, touch, or interaction. Three times a day, a metalhead slid a plate of slop through a narrow slot that immediately sealed shut again—beef stew or lentil soup or chicken something, but it all tasted like overcooked cardboard.
Micah had spent the time sitting on the uncomfortable cot, watching the figures in hazmat suits hurry by, not even pausing to glance at him. He’d gone over the plots of his favorite books in his head, trying to recall subplots and minor character names. That and praying constantly for Amelia and Gabriel. It had been harder than he’d imagined to go seventy-two hours without speaking to a living soul.
But if it had been rough on Micah, Silas looked absolutely wrecked. Judging by his sweat-stained shirt and the stench of him, he’d spent the time training.
“I thought you’d like it in there, seeing as you hate people,” Micah murmured as they were led out of the containment center, a guard flanking either side of them.
Silas just gave him a sullen stare. “No one likes prison, not even a misanthrope.”
“Can’t you smile? At least look a little more pleasant?”
“If I did,” Silas retorted, “you wouldn’t recognize me.”
They passed through the massive gates into the Sanctuary. Everything was pristine, new and functional, beautiful. Gleaming white cylindrical buildings, newly planted trees somehow still green, clean streets. A sani-bot on the corner suctioned up dead leaves and a stray bit of trash.
Moving sidewalks hurried pedestrians to their destinations. A mother gripped a toddler’s hand, a stroller hovering beside her. Three teenagers crowded a bench, giggling at something on one of their SmartFlexes.
In the distance, tall buildings spiraled with circular terraces, many of them bursting with greenery and colorful gardens. Even the sky seemed bluer here.
“Get your head out of the clouds.” Silas pinched Micah’s arm, pulling him from his awestruck gawping, and pointed with his chin.
The armored military drones—nighthawks—patrolled the
inside of the Sanctuary as well. Smaller surveillance drones flitted here and there. Soldiers in dark gray uniforms were everywhere, marching with purpose in twos and threes, guns slung over their shoulders. Two Humvees blocked the street ahead of them, turret-mounted machine guns pointed toward the gates.
Micah nodded silently. This place wasn’t safe. Not for them. Not for anyone here. He couldn’t forget that, not even for a moment.
He turned to the guard closest to him, a bald, burly black man in his forties. “Where are you taking us? We need to see Amelia Black. They would have taken her to—”
“You don’t give the orders here,” the burly guard said. “First you get the Vitalichip, then we’ll see about the rest.”
“We’d prefer to abstain,” Silas said.
The second guard sneered. He was a young white guy, short and stout, the buttons of his uniform straining against his gut. “You Outerlanders are all the same. No one gets in without the chip. Coalition law.”
“Coalition law?” Micah asked.
“They run things now,” the burly guard said. “If you ask me, if they’d taken over years ago, none of this would have happened. Our country would still be ruling the world.”
He kept talking, but Micah was no longer listening.
Across the street, a heavy-set boy leaned against a lamppost, arms crossed over his chest. He wore a cap low on his forehead, baggy cargo pants, and a fitted leather jacket. An apple-red scarf fringed with gold was wound around his neck. He was staring straight at them. When he caught Micah’s gaze, he nodded slightly.
Their New Patriot contact. It must be the brother, Theo. Just as Cleo had said.
He and Silas exchanged looks. Silas had seen him, too. Time to get out of here. They couldn’t get the chip-implants. They couldn’t be tracked. They needed to move freely inside the Sanctuary.
Slowly, Silas lowered his hand to his thigh, counting with his fingers. One, two, three.
Micah nodded, adrenaline and apprehension spiking through him. Gabriel would be a hundred times better at this.
But Gabriel wasn’t here. This was up to Micah. Too many people were counting on him to fail now.
On three, Micah raised his arm and jackhammered his elbow into the burly guard’s throat with all his strength. Simultaneously, Silas turned and aimed a savage kick at the other guard’s kneecap. There was a sickening crunch as the man collapsed. He let out an agonized scream. The burly guard staggered, clutching his throat, gasping for oxygen that wouldn’t come.
It would take too long to steal their weapons, precious seconds Micah and Silas didn’t have. They had to trust that Cleo’s inside guys would help them.
They ran.
Micah searched across the street for their contact in the red scarf—but he’d disappeared. Maybe they were on their own, after all.
The mother with the toddler and stroller yelped as they pushed past her. “Sorry!” Micah called over his shoulder.
“Officer down!” came the shout from behind them. The guard with the shattered kneecap. “Two male hostiles on foot, armed and extremely dangerous, approximate GPS location is—”
“There!” Micah cried, pointing at a cluster of circular residential buildings. Maybe they could lose their pursuers in the side streets. They were in a strange city, with no idea where they were, where to go, or how to get there. They were vastly outnumbered, about to be hunted by dozens, maybe hundreds, of armed soldiers and drones. Would the soldiers shoot to kill? Micah didn’t intend to find out.
They turned sharply between two round buildings and raced down a side street, searching frantically for an escape. There were rows of tall—and very green—bushes between each apartment. In the back alley of one, he glimpsed a large blue container, some kind of communal recycling bin. Maybe they should try to hide—
“Over here!” Abruptly, someone reached out and seized Micah’s arm, nearly wrenching it from its socket. Micah was jerked into the shadows between two apartment buildings.
A second figure grabbed Silas. Micah glimpsed a girl with a mass of russet hair. She shoved Silas against the exterior wall and placed her hand on either side of Silas’s shocked face.
Micah gaped, too stunned to react when a second figure plucked the glasses off his face and yanked a huge, pumpkin-orange trench coat over his shoulders. The white-furred fringe tickled his cheeks.
“What in the world?” was all he could manage.
“Go with it,” the guy said, shoving Micah’s folded glasses into the pocket of his lime-green peacoat. He pulled Micah against the wall and thrust an unfurled Smartflex into his hands. A holofilm was already playing, a tiny holo fighter jet shooting at a larger ship in outer space. The guy leaned over him, ostensibly to get a better look at the movie, but it also partially shielded Micah’s face.
A dozen guards rounded the corner, stun rods and pulse guns in their hands, a squadron of nighthawks gliding silent and deadly over their heads.
“Don’t enjoy this too much,” the girl said to Silas with a wink. Then she leaned in and kissed him.
24
Amelia
Amelia was desperate for a break.
The last few days had passed in a haze of swirling voices and gently rolling music, mixed with stinging pricks and the repeated sensations of intense pressure and discomfort. The sedative helped. The pain would be much worse without it.
“May I use the restroom?” she asked.
“Of course.” Dr. Hobbs leaned back in his wheeled office chair. He rolled across the room to a counter with an integrated computer. He was the only one left in the room besides the med-bot and the guards at the door. She hadn’t noticed her father leaving. Or the other two doctors, for that matter. “When you return, we’ll get started on the next round of bone marrow samples and organ biopsies.”
She stood, steadying herself against the bed for a moment as a wave of dizziness washed through her. Her brain felt thick and fuzzy. It must be a side effect of the strain all this was taking on her body.
The female guard stepped forward and held out her arm. “I’ll escort you.”
Amelia managed to wave her hand. “No, thank you. I can manage the bathroom by myself.”
The guard smiled tightly. “I’m sorry, but I must insist. Orders from President Sloane.”
Amelia sighed. “Why am I not surprised?”
She allowed the guard to take her arm as she tried not to wince. Her inner forearm burned and stung. Yellowish-green bruises marred her skin. The bone marrow and organ biopsies would be far from pleasant. But this pain was nothing compared to what she’d already endured.
She was willing to go through far worse if it meant a cure.
The female guard escorted her through a series of blank white corridors. All the doors they passed were closed. As they rounded a corner, two doctors in hazmat suits brushed past them, their suits crinkling. The doctors hurried into a door emblazoned with a red biohazard sign and the words “Authorized personnel only.”
A Biosafety Level 4 lab. This was where the virologists would examine her blood and tissue samples. This was where they would expose her samples to the Hydra virus, where the cure would be discovered—or not.
The pressurized door closed behind the doctors. As it sealed, air was sucked out of the chamber, leveling the pressure. Along the edges of the door, a long, thin rubber bladder inflated to seal the seams. Through the narrow glass partition, she could make out the decontamination chamber with banks of nozzles, and beyond that, a lab teeming with figures in hazmat suits peering through microscopes and bent over thermocyclers, DNA sequencers, centrifuges. The bright light fixtures overhead were encased in airtight boxes and sealed with epoxy to prevent pathogens from escaping.
The guard tugged her arm and led her away. “Here.” She pushed the bathroom door open and followed Amelia inside.
The counter was white quartz, the floor and walls long rectangles of gray tiles. Amelia chose one of the three stalls and did her business while the guard l
eaned against the bathroom counter, waiting.
Amelia came out and washed her hands. When she pulled her hands from beneath the faucet, the guard leaned in close, shaking her head. “Keep it on,” she said in a low voice.
Amelia obeyed.
This close, the guard’s skin was a field of pink, her blunt nose spanned by a network of faint freckles. A spray of pimples dotted her forehead. “My name is Harper Atkins.” Her voice was as soft and inconsequential as her appearance. “I’m here to help you.”
“To wash my hands?”
Harper frowned, her forehead wrinkling. “They told me you were smart.”
The realization struck her. “You’re with the Patriots.”
Harper smiled. She was pretty when she smiled. “They’ll keep a close eye on you. But I can get messages in and out. As soon as you have information, or even better, the cure, let me know and I’ll smuggle it to them.”
The hissing water drowned out their voices, but Harper still spoke in a whisper. So did Amelia. “Who’s them?”
“The resistance here in the Sanctuary. I answer to Theo Reaver. I think you know of him?”
“Cleo Reaver’s brother.”
“Right. Whatever you do, don’t trust the other guard. His name is Sam Logan. Everyone just calls him Logan. He’s one of President Sloane’s personal security guards. She assigned him to you to keep an eye on things, if you know what I mean.”
She nodded, relieved to not feel so alone. But could she trust this girl? She didn’t know her at all. She could be anyone, say anything. “Are you going to help the people I came with? They’re still stuck in quarantine—”
“Micah Rivera and Silas Black. We know. We are helping them as we speak, I promise. I’ll give you an update as soon as I can.”
“Thank you,” Amelia said.
Harper leaned over and switched off the water. When she spoke again, her voice was curt, her demeanor detached and professional. “Ready to go, ma’am?”