by Jessica King
Ivy was fairly certain he would hear her wheeze out in relief. “Thank you,” she said. She turned to Vince, who looked relieved as well. They’d need the protection because they couldn’t go hide in their homes.
They had a King to catch.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Received: Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 12:00 p.m.
LabTech fans,
We’d like to thank you for your continued support of our work by subscribing to our emails and giving your input on our projects! As you know, with the RAUVI crisis taking hold of our country, we at LabTech are doing our best to ensure the safety of our scientists—both residential and on-grant alike—as well as stay on top of the latest scientific news in relation to its movements and updates.
As we continue to strive toward that goal, we have decided to suspend all of our current projects, as all our scientists have agreed that it is paramount that we put our best foot forward in the goal of creating a vaccine against both the RAUVI-1 and RAUVI-2 strains.
This will obviously require a large number of man hours, as well as a large portion of our regular funding. For those who are able, we would appreciate any donations as we hope to spare no expense in the war against this virus. The link at the bottom of this email will take you to our donor page. All donations to that page will go toward our pursuit of a vaccine, effective immediately (this includes our monthly donors, who will be informed when their donations go back to their original chosen projects).
We appreciate your time and attention to this issue and thank you in advance for those of you who are able to provide us with the gift of funding during this time that we believe will lead to more knowledge, discoveries, and understanding in the world of epidemiology here at LabTech.
Best,
Carol Byrd | LabTech Funding and Volunteer Program Head
+++
Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 1:30 p.m.
The scientist liked the name. RAUVI. RAUVI-1 must have been in the can. The barely lethal version of the virus. RAUVI-2 had apparently escaped out of his kitchen window. And now he was certain he’d found the perfect lab rats for RAUVI-3. A confined space made not to allow dangerous compounds out was the perfect way to test his harshest creation while ensuring it didn’t get out of control and take revenge for LabTech never recognizing his genius. It seemed so ironic to him that the entirety of LabTech’s forces was combining to simply try to stop the exact thing he had modified into such a dangerous virus. It gave him a sense of satisfaction that blossomed into a grin as he buried the mice who had died from the soon-to-be-called RAUVI-3 strain. His house was finally clean, and it was night now. He’d waited until he knew it would be too late for any little neighbors to peek through his fence.
After the mice were buried and the live ones had been corralled back into their larger enclosure, he prepared the human-size package equivalent of the virus concentration that had killed all the mice in the first cage. He wore the hazmat suit while he worked, stirring the milky liquid far from his face until he was satisfied with it. A drop under the microscope showed an inescapable collection of viruses that squirmed and vibrated beneath the bright beam of light.
Too anxious to sleep, he waited until daylight and drove to LabTech, wearing the cheap white lab coat he’d been wearing for years. A man in a long white lab coat—clearly new enough it had no stains or burns—was near the door when he arrived. His nametag read, “Dr. Pierce.” The doctor clearly sized him up, noting the lack of intricate LabTech stitching on his coat.
“I’m here for an interview,” he said to the man, giving his best smile. “Any advice?’
Dr. Pierce pulled a fob away from his jacket, the attachment on his jacket making a bit of a whirring sound. He smiled. “Just let them know why you want to work here,” he said. “Are you interviewing for one of the RAUVI interns?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve tried so many times to work here. I want to be seen here, you know?”
Dr. Pierce smiled. “It’s a competitive place, for sure. Most of us didn’t make it on the first few tries but keep working for it. We’d love to have you here.”
The words almost caught him off-guard as Dr. Pierce held open the door for him. He’d expected all LabTech doctors and scientists to be haughty about their positions, to be some “holier than thou” sort. But one doctor’s kind words didn’t erase the stain of their multiple rejections, their refusal to acknowledge him. It did make him feel a bit guilty that the man wouldn’t be leaving the LabTech compound. He walked straight until he heard Dr. Pierce peel off into a different hallway. The lab was already in full swing, and he could see through the windows in each room a series of scientists in coats and scrubs moving around carefully, resetting their workspace to work with the RAUVI viruses.
He found an air vent close to the ground and set the canister next to it, checking over his shoulder to ensure he wasn’t being watched. There had been cameras over each of the entrances, but down this hallway, there hadn’t been any of the black, bulbous eyes. He turned on a heel and walked back to the door, the exit unhindered by any sort of fob or card-swipe, and nearly ran to his car. It had worked on the rats but now was the real test. Humans.
He grabbed the remote to the canister inside and pressed the button to release the chemical agent. It was a simple magnetic rig, but it would do the trick. He couldn’t see inside, but he wouldn’t be risking trying to look through a window. He put his car in reverse and drove down the smooth pavement of LabTech back onto the highway. He knew it had to be going against some sort of scientific code to let someone else gather the data of his own experiment, but the media would have to do the collection of the results. Just this once.
+++
Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 2:13 p.m.
Lawrence had worked as security in plenty of college bars. LabTech security was definitely a step up. It wasn’t for the normal reasons people thought. He missed throwing out too-drunk under-agers and watching girls stumble around on too-high heels and betting with his coworkers which ones would wipe out before they made it to the crosswalk. He missed the free drinks and the extra tips he got for looking the other way at an obviously fake-ID. He liked going to bed right before the sun came up.
At LabTech, he did get to be in a state of constant air-conditioning, and he got to play solitaire. He scanned the screens every few moves, the cards making hushed sounds through his computer’s speakers.
“There you are,” Lawrence mumbled, moving the ace of spades into its resting place in the corner of the screen. He looked back through the screens again.
In every room, the scientists were coughing, even though the picture was clear. There was nothing in the air. Had one of them tried some sort of reaction without the right gear?
One of the scientists’ knees failed, and she dropped, her head hitting the table before she collapsed the ground. Her team members ran toward her, despite their own coughing racking their bodies. In another room, one of the oldest grant winners had a hand braced against the wall, his body shaking with coughing. His fingertips slid along the wall as he tried to sit himself on the floor, but his body gave out, and he was laid on his back in a matter of seconds. The others seemed to be faring better. What is going on?
Lawrence started coughing himself. Horrible, deep racking coughs that only came after days of being sick, not minutes. Like an invading army was filling his head, his breaths closed up, his sinuses clogged, and his lungs screaming that there was only half the space left.
He pressed the emergency button. Immediate evacuation. He reached for the phone.
“9-1-1,” a calm voice on the other end of the line said.
“This is security at LabTech. I think some sort of chemical agent has been released. I have two scientists down and…” he coughed, feeling as though the inside of his lungs were turning to cement. “We’re all coughing. I don’t know what it is, but it came on fast.”
“Okay, sir?” the woman said. Her voice was slow, careful. “Anyone who is well
enough to evacuate cannot go home, do you understand?” she said.
“Yes,” Lawrence said, his throat now tight and aching with grief. We’re all dying here, aren’t we?
“Help is coming, but I need everyone to stay at the entrance of the building and wait until help gets there, okay?”
“Okay,” Lawrence said.
He hung up and swallowed, walking toward the exit. The scientists were leaning on one another, stumbling against their own hacking and sneezing. They had already conversed. No one had set anything like this off. Lawrence thought it might be something other than RAUVI, a fluke chemical, but hearing the word skip through the group of geniuses like a rock across water left him with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
When the police arrived, hazmat suits on the way, there were two bodies inside the compound and a pile of bodies in front of the door waiting for help that hadn’t come in time.
+++
Wednesday, April 5, 2017, 3:38 p.m.
Cameron thought they would have a bit more time before they had to face off with the Angels again. He’d hardly managed to get by the last time, and now he didn’t have an aerosol can filled with some sort of super-powered wasp spray. He had a knife. He’d never used it for anything other than taking tags off of new clothes or opening boxes. He couldn’t imagine how it would feel to use it across skin, even if he wasn’t going for a kill.
Cameron didn’t think he could do it. Every time he imagined warm blood seeping out around his hand, having to pull the blade back and feel the squish of a person beneath it… He wasn’t sure if he had the guts to be an Underworlder.
But the Angels had found them in their territory, which had Broadway puffing his chest and Antony cracking his knuckles.
“What you give our families, man?” one of the Angels yelled. He looked horrible. Tired, weak. He coughed. “What you spray at me?”
Cameron blinked. The guy was yelling at him. He squinted against the sunlight, recognizing the face. It was the guy who had been about to kill Broadway. The guy he’d sprayed with his father’s non-lethal agent. Cameron took a shuffling step backward. He held his hands up. “Don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” he yelled across the street.
“Don’t go backing out of it now!”
Cameron dropped his hands at his sides and shook his head.
“What you spray at me, man?” he yelled, louder now. A group of girls in the parking lot of a corner store slid into their car and pulled away.
“I didn’t do anything to you!” Cameron said.
It was a straight-up lie. And everyone knew it. The Underworlders knew he was the one who had the aerosol, and the Angel had identified him in seconds after seeing him. Panic rose in his chest, and he tried to relax his shoulders, but they remained stiff, drifting up toward his ears.
“My grandma died from it, man!” he said. “My little sister was so sick; she’s still recovering. I think I deserve to know what’s in that stuff.” He coughed. “I think you deserve a bit of your own medicine, yeah?”
Cameron swallowed. What was he going to do, cough on him? Did it really spread that fast? He noticed the other Angels around him had given him a wide girth; the angry Angel had turned into a bioweapon himself. The idea of it made him turn cold all the way to his core despite the heat of sunshine at his back.
“You got that RAUVI thing, Rubio!” Broadway yelled from Cameron’s side. “Bug spray got you with some wasp spray, calm down!”
“No,” the Angel, Rubio, said. “No, that wasn’t wasp spray. It didn’t sting like that. You tried to kill me!”
“No, I didn’t!” Cameron yelled.
Rubio growled and ran toward Cameron. Two cars on either side of the crosswalk honked, the Angels paying them no attention as they sprinted toward the Underworlders. Cameron reached into his pocket, but his shaking hands caught the blade on the inside stitching of his shorts. Before he could pull it free, Rubio was on him. Cameron looked to his sides, but the other Underworlders were occupied with their own Angel to fight off. Cameron tried to hold his breath, but when Rubio pinned him and kneed him in the ribs, he took involuntary breaths, sucking in. Rubio had a horrible, bloodthirsty look in his eyes. Cameron kicked out, flipping Rubio, who grunted, swinging blindly and glancing off Cameron’s jaw.
“Buggy!” Broadway yelled, his favorite of Cameron’s latest nicknames. He had knocked out his Angel and was aiming a gun at Rubio.
Sirens wailed as three cop cars pulled into the patch of grass that was the recess area of Lehigh Elementary. Broadway dropped the gun and sprinted. Rubio pushed Cameron off of him and scrambled away. Yells to stop filled the air, and even as Cameron tried to orient himself, to run away, he felt stunned. His lungs started to burn, and he felt a pair of strong arms catch him.
Two Angels were caught with him. Words like “armed felons” and “several warrants” and “narcotics” were thrown around. His wrists were itching from the cuffs, which he thought was strange since they were metal. An officer walked up to him. The name “Houghs” was on his nameplate.
“Haven’t seen you before, son,” he said.
“Haven’t been arrested before,” Cameron said.
“It looks like you have a clean record, yeah?” he said. Cameron nodded. “Whose gun is this?”
Broadway wasn’t allowed to have a gun. Most of the Underworlders weren’t allowed to have guns with their previous charges.
“It’s mine, sir,” Cameron said.
“Is it now?” Officer Houghs said.
“Yes, sir.”
“All right,” he said, typing at his screen. “Do you know what kind of gun it is?”
Cameron swallowed, his mind searching for words that sounded right. “A handgun,” he said, trying to stop the question mark that wanted to follow his words.
The officer huffed a laugh. “Okay, well, I guess that’s technically right,” he said. He asked Cameron for his license, and he pulled the flimsy plastic from his wallet. “You’re not from around here,” the man said, checking the photo.
“Not anymore,” Cameron said.
Officer Houghs quirked a brow. “Anymore?”
“Yeah,” Cameron said. “Grew up here;, we moved right before I started high school.”
“I see,” he said. “And you wanted to come back here because…?” The officer looked around him as if to emphasize the point. Patchy, dry grass. Barred windows. Chain link fences topped with barbed wire. Overflowing trash cans. Dirty bus stops. “Not that I don’t see the appeal…” Officer Houghs smiled at him.
Cameron shrugged.
“Hmm,” Officer Houghs said, handing him back his license. “Look, I can’t tell you what to do, kid,” he said. He shook his head. “Clearly, the gun isn’t yours, but you ended up with it. I’m going to take it.” He pointed to the gun. “I’m not going to put it on your record.”
Cameron looked at him with wide eyes.
“You have a clean record, and I want you to keep it clean,” he said, his eyes turning serious. “Do you understand what I’m saying?” The officer unlocked the handcuffs, and Cameron resisted the urge to shake out his wrists. “Get out of here,” Officer Houghs said. “If those guys are your real friends, they’re going to understand if you bail.” He shook his head. “If you got a golden ticket out of these neighborhoods, don’t waste it.”
Cameron swallowed. He knew he was lucky to live in the fancy cookie-cutter neighborhood in Sherman Oaks. He just felt so restless all the time. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“Good,” Officer Houghs said. “I can’t let you off again, yeah? Don’t let me see you around here.” His eyes shifted away. “Do those guys know where you live? Your, uh, friends?” Cameron shook his head. “Good,” he said. “Let’s keep it that way.”
He wasn’t dumb. Cameron knew leaving a gang, even if he was only a week in, could be a dangerous endeavor. But he’d get killed if he stayed. After he felt the weight of the gun, after he’d considered pulling the trigger… He’d never be able
to do it. He felt like a coward as he headed back for his car, but as he drove farther away, the restriction around his chest unfurled.
There was no escaping his mother when he walked in the door. He must have looked like a nightmare, considering the bruises he could feel pulsing on his face and stomach.
“Cameron!” she yelled, rushing over to him. She prodded his skin, pulling and tugging. “Cameron.” This time she hissed his name. He wasn’t sure if she was upset or angry. “This is enough,” she said. Definitely angry. “Enough of this,” she said again. “I’ve had enough of this.”
“I’m not…” Cameron said, and his mother tugged at his lips, checking for blood. “Not doing it anymore,” he said when she released him. “Not going back there.”
His father had been watching the ordeal quietly from the kitchen table, still as a statue. “Did you get in trouble?” His voice was deadly quiet, the kind of quiet that made all the energy in Cameron’s body migrate to his stomach. He considered a desperate escape to the bathroom.
“Almost,” Cameron mumbled. “I got lucky.”
His father’s eyes were hard and angry. When his father got angry, he didn’t squint. He did the exact opposite. When his father got angry, Cameron could almost see the white all the way around his eyes. Like he was about to take a big breath and start yelling.
“I’m glad you’re okay.” His voice was tight, sharp.
When Cameron dipped his head, his father nodded. Cameron felt the beginning of tears but bit them back down as best he could.
“Did you hurt anyone?” his father asked. He wasn’t looking at him quite yet. Cameron had seen his father hurt people. A guy in the old neighborhood had grabbed Trinity once, pulled her toward him, even as she struggled. His father had left a man half his age pummeled into the ground, bloody and unconscious. They’d moved a month later.
