by Louise Voss
‘I want to lick you,’ he said. ‘Come up here.’
Angelica looked at Heather, who was standing beside the bed, still staring at Angelica – staring at her breasts.
‘Why don’t you join us?’ Angelica said, and Heather crawled on to the bed. She reached out and cupped one of Angelica’s breasts.
Angelica took hold of Heather’s wrist and removed her hand, surprised by the flash of disappointment on Heather’s face. Before she could speak, Heather leaned forward and kissed her, sticking her tongue in Angelica’s mouth. She heard Patrick say, ‘Whoah,’ and for a moment Angelica let Heather kiss her, even kissed her back, as Heather’s hand returned to her breast. It felt exciting, even though the other woman was a clumsy kisser, her mouth too wet. Heather’s free hand was suddenly inside Angelica’s underwear, her middle finger probing and slipping inside her.
Angelica pulled away. ‘No.’
Heather looked shocked. ‘I’m sorry.’
She tried to kiss Angelica again, but the blonde woman turned her head so Heather’s lips connected with her chin.
‘Fuck him,’ Angelica commanded.
‘What?’
‘I said, fuck him. I want to see you do it.’
‘Hey,’ Patrick said. ‘I don’t want her to fuck me – I want you.’
‘Shut up,’ Angelica said, slapping his face hard. He looked stunned. She turned back to Heather. ‘Get on top of him.’
Heather hesitated, then manoeuvred herself so she was straddling Patrick. She took his cock in her hand, but it had wilted.
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Angelica said, pushing Heather aside and taking hold of the soft penis. To Patrick, she said, ‘Close your eyes and keep them shut. In fact …’ She whipped a pillowcase off one of the pillows and fashioned it into
a blindfold, tying it around his eyes.
She returned to his cock, which was recovering already. Good boy. She worked it gently with her hand, until it was fully hard, then facing the foot of the bed, in the reverse cowgirl position, pushed herself onto him, his cock filling her, the angle meaning he pressed against her G-spot. She fingered her own clitoris as she rocked slowly against him.
‘Don’t come,’ she ordered, as her own orgasm approached. She was dimly aware of Heather kneeling on the bed watching her, and she tried to push the memory of Heather grabbing her from her mind. She didn’t want to think about it. Had she been blind all these years? Yes, if she was honest with herself she had been deliberately blind. She had always known Heather had feelings for her, it was why she did everything Angelica asked, without question. And she had used that. But admitting to herself that Heather liked her in a sexual way was too uncomfortable. She loved Heather as a sister. That was all. Her presence now, staring at Angelica with sad eyes, was grating. But feeling sorry for her, and deciding to be charitable, she gestured for Heather to come closer.
As she rocked with increasing pace on Patrick’s cock, she pulled Heather towards her and put her hand between the other woman’s legs, stroking her with two fingers. Tears trickled from the corners of Heather’s eyes as Angelica brought her closer to orgasm, her fingers now deep inside her, her other hand pinching Heather’s nipple. Her own orgasm approached and she rocked faster and moved her fingers inside Heather at the same pace. Heather’s breathing got faster and faster, and Angelica felt the waves of bliss crash over her as – oh, here it was – she came hard, and Heather came too, at the same moment.
The two women were drenched in sweat, and Angelica shuddered as she moved off Patrick.
‘Don’t stop,’ he pleaded.
‘Don’t worry, I’m going to suck you again,’ she said.
Angelica pointed at his penis and gestured for Heather to take him in her mouth. Heather obeyed, and Angelica wondered if Heather enjoyed tasting her juices on the boy’s cock. She pulled on her discarded underwear and unzipped the holdall, the sounds of slurping and groaning from the bed making her feel nauseous.
She pulled out a Sig Sauer and found the bullets, loading it, then moved to the head of the bed, pointing it at Patrick’s face.
His breathing got faster and deeper as Heather’s head bobbed faster. He started saying, ‘Oh baby, oh baby,’ and Angelica positioned her free hand on the back of the blindfold.
As he came in Heather’s mouth, Angelica whipped off the blindfold, allowing him a moment to realize it had been Heather who was going down on him. Then she shot him in the face.
They drove home in near silence.
At one point, after looking like she had been desperate to speak for an hour, Heather said, ‘Have I displeased you?’
Angelica shook her head. ‘No, Sister. You did well. But … let’s not tell the other Sisters about this.’
‘OK.’
Angelica turned to look out the window. It was of no import, of course. It made no difference to their great plans. But right now she wanted Heather away from her. Miles away. Just until the memory had time to go cold.
14
‘Everyone in the lab in twenty minutes.’
Nobody was going to disobey the famous Glenn Kolosine. Kate and the rest of the team rose as one from their seats at the breakfast table, leaving their food half-eaten, taking a final gulp of their coffees. Annie led them all up to the first floor of the building, where Kolosine was waiting in front of a steel door.
He produced a swipe card, opened the door with it, and ushered them through into a changing room.
Kate was relieved to find individual cubicles. She stripped, stowed her civilian clothes in a locker and emerged into a small antechamber where a biosafety suit was waiting for her. The suit was state-of-the-art: lightweight, with a large, clear visor, and in-built radio so the scientists could communicate with each other, pressing a numbered button on a pad to control which other team member they wanted to talk to. By the time she had suited up and emerged into a short corridor that led to the lab, all the irritation that crawled beneath her skin had vanished, leaving behind a calm determination and a different kind of itch: the need to know, to solve the problem, that burning curiosity that all good scientists feel.
Junko emerged from her changing cubicle and smiled at Kate from behind the mask of her helmet, which was stamped with the number 6. Kate was number 3.
Junko’s voice emerged through a speaker beside Kate’s left ear. ‘Are you OK?’
Kate found number 6 on her communication pad and pressed it.
‘Yes, I’m—’ she began, but her words were drowned out by a roar of noise, the whomp-whomp of a helicopter descending on the building, so close by that it sounded as if it was going to land in the room with them. The others – Annie, Chip and the two lab technicians whose names Kate couldn’t remember – emerged from the cubicles and stood beside them, waiting for Kolosine. Kate recognised the light in their eyes, the suppressed excitement. The rush of noise from outside dropped away and before anyone could speak, Kolosine emerged, his hairy face inside the mask reminding Kate of a hamster in a ball, minus the cuteness. His voice blasted into the helmets of every team member.
‘OK – you three, come with me.’ He pointed at the men. ‘Ladies, you wait here.’
To get to the lab, they had to pass through an airlock. Kate and the other women stood back while the men entered the airlock and closed the door behind them, leaving them in silence.
Kate realised her mouth was hanging open. ‘Did he just call us “ladies”?’ she broadcasted to Junko and Annie simultaneously.
Junko pulled a face. ‘I think he is a brilliant man. But he is also – what is the English? – a sexist asshole.’
‘You got that right, sister,’ said Annie.
The next ten minutes crawled by, Kate and the other two remaining mostly silent while they waited to be let into the lab. It was sweltering in the suit and a bead of sweat rolled into Kate’s eye. She breathed deeply and thought about Paul, wondered what he was doing. Probably waking up in some nice comfortable hotel room, enjoying a full breakfast on gover
nment expenses. She hoped he was all right and not still fighting with Harley.
Finally, Kolosine re-emerged and gestured impatiently to them.
‘Never meet your heroes,’ Kate muttered to herself, but she felt another surge of adrenaline as they passed through the airlock and entered the dazzling white space of the lab. She looked around. It was the kind of lab every scientist dreamed of working in: spacious, state-of-the-art equipment, everything shining with the gleam of newness. The air pressure in the lab was kept low so that no stray virus particles could be sucked out of the room. And lining the walls were biological safety cabinets in which, Kate knew, the virus samples would be kept locked away. CCTV cameras recorded their every move from each corner of the lab. Kate knew that cameras would be set up all around the exterior of the building too. All category four labs had these, as well as alarms, to detect intruders. And, according to McCarthy, this place had extra security because of the bombing. It was more secure than any bank vault.
A Trexler isolator – a kind of plastic tent used to quarantine patients, larger than the VATI – had been set up in a small room behind another metal door, a window giving a good view of the patient beneath the plastic sheeting. This room had its own exit that led outside through another airlock. Kate approached the glass and peered in, standing shoulder to shoulder with the other scientists, only Junko holding back.
The patient lying on his back inside the isolator was in his mid-to-late twenties, dark hair, broad-shouldered and probably handsome, though his good looks were masked by a grey pallor and a layer of sweat. In the silence of the lab, Kate could sense that, like her, everyone was holding their breath. Then the patient turned his head and looked at them with pink eyes. His lips moved but his words were inaudible. Kate didn’t know if it was her imagination, but she thought he’d said, ‘Please. Please help.’
She moved away from the glass, catching her own reflection as she turned. But in her reflection she was a child, a child watching her own parents writhe and burn with fever, a nurse wringing water from a cloth on to her mother’s forehead. Kate could still feel the urge to comfort her mother, the need to hold her and make her better, even though she had been forbidden from going near either of them.
‘Kate?’ Junko’s voice came over the speaker in her helmet. ‘Are you OK? You bumped into me. I think you are shaking.’
Kate unthinkingly tried to touch her own face then shook her head. ‘Damn suit. I’m … I’m fine, Junko. I just … it took me back to my childhood.’
The Japanese woman looked at her with surprise.
‘Both my parents were killed by Watoto. I was told to stay away from them, but I ran up to my mother’s bed as she was dying and hugged her.’
‘Oh my God. What happened?’
‘I caught it. I was taken to a hospital in Nairobi where they kept me in an isolator very similar to that one. It took me back, that’s all.’
Before she could say anything else, Kolosine gestured for attention. ‘OK, people, listen. This is LAPD Officer Marshall Buckley. First started showing signs of Watoto-X2, which is now the official name of this new strain, or Indian flu as the fucking media insist on calling it, three days ago. That means he would have contracted it a day or two before that. It has a very short incubation period, as with the original strain. This man has volunteered to help us in this urgent situation. To donate his body to science.’
‘He’s not dead, Kolosine,’ Annie protested.
‘Not yet. Anyone else want to say anything smart? Anyone else want to get the fuck out of my lab?’ His eyes bulged. ‘Thought not. I need a volunteer, somebody to go in there and talk to him and get a blood sample.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Kate heard herself say.
Kolosine’s attention snapped to her. ‘Ah. Kate Maddox. The great Watoto expert. I guess this is a familiar scene to you, huh?’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’ She was aware that the other scientists and lab technicians were staring at her. ‘But I had Watoto as a child. I’m more likely to be immune than anyone else.’
‘Not necessarily – and you’re the only one who hasn’t had their own blood sampled yet, so some might say you’re the last person that ought to go in. But go ahead if you want, Miss Gung-Ho. The suit will protect you.’
A minute later, after Kolosine let her through the door, Kate sat down on a chair beside Officer Buckley. Shrouded by the isolator, he turned his head slowly, like a turtle, to look into her eyes. It reminded her so much of seeing her father with Watoto. His hair was stuck to his scalp with sweat and he breathed rasping, shallow breaths through his mouth. A microphone and speaker had been fed into the isolator so the scientists could communicate with the sufferer inside. It made it difficult to interact with the patient and that frustrated Kate, but even though the suit protected her from the virus they couldn’t risk particles being released into the lab and beyond.
‘Hi,’ she said softly, making sure to keep eye contact with him through the plastic. ‘My name’s Kate.’
‘I’m Marshall,’ he said. His voice was weak and muffled further by the plastic isolator.
‘How bad are you feeling?’ she asked.
‘Like I’m on fire,’ he said. ‘My whole body hurts. My skin … it’s like somebody scrubbed me with freaking sandpaper or something, then poured gasoline on me and lit it.’
He coughed, spasms that sent deadly sprays of spittle into the air inside the isolator.
‘Go on,’ she said.
‘And my head … It’s like I got the worst hangover
I ever … had.’ He tried to smile but it flickered and died on his lips.
‘How long have you felt like this?’ Kate asked.
‘I only felt this bad since yesterday. Two days ago I thought it was just a cold, you know. I went into work, took some cold medicine, sucked a freaking lozenge, like that helped any. Went to bed that night thinking I probably got flu, going to have to take a day off. Then I woke up feeling like this, called the station to tell them. Next thing I know there are guys in bio suits like you’re wearing asking me if I wanted to help out, would I sign some papers.’
He coughed again. ‘You a doctor?’
Kate replied, ‘Not that kind of doctor. I’m a scientist, a virologist. We’re trying to find a cure for what you’ve got.’
‘And what have I got?’
‘Hasn’t anyone told you?’
‘Nobody’s told me squat.’
Kate felt a prickle of anger beneath her skin. ‘It’s called Watoto,’ she said. ‘Or to be precise, Watoto-X2. It comes from Africa.’
‘Africa? What in hell is it doing in LA?’
‘That’s one of the things we’re trying to find out. But Watoto … I’ve had it.’
His eyes widened. ‘And you got better.’
‘Yes.’ She felt tears sting her eyes. Despite many years of research, Kate had seldom had an opportunity to become acquainted with the patients from whom her live tissue samples came. But what was wrong with giving him a little hope?
He was quiet for a minute, closing his eyes, and Kate thought he might have drifted off. She was about to start the process of taking the blood sample when Buckley’s eyes opened again.
‘I want to see my kids,’ he said.
Kate swallowed. She wanted to tell him he would see them soon, that everything would be fine. But she couldn’t go that far. Instead, she simply nodded. She wished she could reach inside and squeeze his hand.
‘Tell me about your children,’ she said.
He told her. He had two daughters, aged five and three. Millie and Harper. Millie was at elementary school and loved Barbie and argued about everything. She had a real strong personality, like her mom. Harper, the three-year-old, was into Sesame Street and looked like her dad, everyone said, and she shared his calm character too. On his second day of feeling sick, the girls had made him a get well soon card, with a smiling family of stick men and a shining sun.
Last time he saw them, when he said g
oodbye, they and their mother were all complaining of feeling a cold coming on.
Kate couldn’t stop thinking about Jack, and how she would feel if it was him lying there close to death – as no doubt many parents in Los Angeles were doing right at that moment, with their own precious children. Or worse, the children who were having to watch, helpless, as their parents writhed and gasped in agony, the way she had watched in that Tanzanian village … All her working life had been dedicated to eradicating Watoto so that nobody else would ever have to go through that anguish – and yet here they were, in the grip of a potentially unstoppable pandemic of this new, supercharged Watoto.
Except there was no point thinking like that. Anything could be stopped. It was almost certainly too late to save Officer Buckley, but there were many millions of parents and children out there who were, unwittingly, relying on her and Kolosine and the rest of them. Now, more than ever, it was time to face and beat her nemesis.
Kate stood up. Built into the side of the isolator were two glove units to allow samples to be taken without physical contact with the patient. She slipped her hands into the slots, so she could now touch him with her gloves, and picked up a syringe and tube. ‘Officer Buckley, you’re not afraid of needles, are you?’
He shook his head, wincing at the effort. ‘That’s one thing I ain’t afraid of.’ He rolled his head to one side and looked into Kate’s eyes. ‘I just want to see my daughters again,’ he said. ‘You will be able to help me, won’t you? My little girls …’ He fell silent.
Kate couldn’t respond, did not know what to say. How could she tell him that it was highly unlikely he would ever see his children again? That within a couple of days, his daughters would be as sick as he was now? There was nothing she could say that wasn’t a lie.
When she looked up from preparing the syringe, she saw that the big, tough LA police officer was crying.
15
‘We’re going to the pool today, right, Daddy?’
Jack hovered outside Vernon and Shirley’s bedroom, dressed only in his stripy trunks and un-inflated orange armbands, wearing swimming goggles. There was no answer from the other side of the closed door, only the swell of what sounded to Jack like some really boring music.