by Jon McGoran
Then the world disappeared in a shower of sparks and pain.
* * *
—
When I came to, Rex was already conscious. Claudia was just waking up. Our wrists were bound with plastic cuffs threaded through steel loops attached to the metal bench we were sitting on.
“Are you okay?” Rex said, his face creased with concern.
I nodded, although I wasn’t too sure. My shoulder felt bruised and burned where I’d been shocked. I looked at Claudia. “You okay?”
She nodded, testing her cuffs against the steel loop.
“Don’t bother,” Rex said, lifting his wrists. They were red around the cuffs. He’d obviously tried pretty hard to get free already.
“Are we still in the hospital?” I asked.
Rex nodded. “I’m pretty sure.”
“What kind of hospital has a room like this in it?”
Before anyone could answer, the door opened. I was expecting one of the guards, or maybe Charlesford, but instead it was the kid with the mop. Daniel. He was still holding the mop as he came halfway through the door.
“Who are you people?” he said, his voice hushed. “Charlesford himself came down to see you. He never leaves the fourth floor.”
“Who are you?” Rex, said, defensively.
“We’re looking for information about a friend of ours,” I said. I could feel Rex staring at me, like he didn’t want me to give anything away, but I got a good feeling from Daniel. We needed a friend, and of all the people we’d encountered so far here, he seemed most likely.
Daniel looked at each one of us, then said, “Me, too. Was he a chimera? Your friend?”
I nodded.
Daniel thought for a moment, looking at his watch. Then he stuck his mop in the door to keep it open, and came over and started cutting through my plastic cuffs with a pen knife.
“The security cameras are on a twenty-minute cycle,” he said. “There’s a…hiccup when it resets. Be ready to go in five minutes.”
Rex looked dubious. “The security system glitches up every twenty minutes?”
Daniel glanced at him. “No. But if you know which way the cameras look, and when, there’s a few minutes when you can sneak past them.” He paused in his cutting and looked up at me. “You looked at the computer screen back there. What did it say?”
I looked at Claudia and Rex, leaning forward and listening. I hadn’t had a chance to tell them what I saw. “It said our friend was sent to the Chimeric Conversion Unit. Do you know what that is?”
He shook his head. “That’s what I’ve been trying to find out.” He finished cutting through my cuffs, and as I rubbed my wrists he moved to Claudia. “I know it’s in the basement. Or one of the basements. I can’t get down there. Not with a janitor’s card.”
He finished cutting as he said it, and as soon as he was done, Claudia said, “What about one from a security guard? Do you think that would work?”
“A security card?” He nodded. “Yeah, it should. But where would we get one?”
She smiled and pointed at Rex, kind of cocky. “He took one from one of the guards.”
“Seriously?”
Rex held up the card.
Daniel moved over to him and started cutting, ignoring or oblivious to the suspicious frown Rex was giving him.
“How do we know you’re not part of this, Daniel?” Rex said, making a point of looking at Daniel’s name tag. “After all, you do work here.”
He stopped cutting and looked up at Rex. “Look, do you want to stay in here or do you want to get out?”
They stared at each other for a moment, then Rex looked at his cuffs and said, “Keep cutting.”
“My name’s not Daniel,” he said as he did so. “It’s Kiet. My boyfriend Devon is a chimera, and he came here just to get a few stitches. He called me before he went in, all excited because they were going to treat him for free. But he never came out. He got sent to the conversion unit, too, and that’s all I know. I’ve been trying to find out what happened ever since. That’s why I took this job.”
I felt a tingle in my spine, a chill at the possibility that whatever had happened to Cornelius was more than a one-time medical error that they were trying to cover up. Rex and I shared a look that made me think he was wondering the same thing.
“The rest of the hospital seems to be more or less a normal hospital, but the CCU…I’ve seen other chimeras sent down there, and I’ve never seen any come back. I know a bit about computers, and I’ve been able to sneak onto their system a couple times, but there’s almost nothing about the CCU. Apparently Charlesford keeps his important files on paper, in his office. It’s up on the fourth floor, and even the security cards can’t access that. Only senior medical staff.”
He finished cutting, and as Rex rubbed his wrists, Kiet put his knife away and looked at his watch. “One minute,” he said, then he turned to Rex. “I’ll get you out of here, but then I need you to give me that card. Soon they’ll realize it’s missing, so it won’t be good for long anyway. If I have it, I can get down there and figure out what’s going on.”
Rex looked at Claudia and me.
“No,” I said. “We’re coming with you. Or at least I am. We need to find out what’s happening, too.”
“Or I could just go with him,” Rex said. “You and Claudia could get word to Doc and Jerry about what we know already.”
I shook my head. “We know next to nothing. And OmniCare will just deny it anyway.”
Claudia looked back and forth between Rex and me. Kiet glanced at his watch. “Thirty seconds.”
“Maybe you should get out of here,” I said to Claudia.
“Screw you,” she said, sounding half serious. “Doc’s my friend, too. And you’re right. We don’t have proof of anything. As far as anyone else is concerned, it would just be the same suspicions we had before, except crazier.”
Kiet looked us each in the face again. “You’re sure?”
Claudia and I nodded. Rex paused, frowning, then he nodded, too. “Yeah, okay.”
Kiet eased the door open and grabbed his mop, then peered out. He checked his watch, bobbing his head with each second, then silently counting down from five. When he got to one, he looked up and said, “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 22
We stepped into a hallway that looked exactly like the one we’d escaped down earlier. As we hustled along, I rubbed my shoulder, which still ached. This wasn’t the first time in my life that I’d been shocked, and it hurt as much as ever.
We followed Kiet to the end of the hall, where it made a ninety-degree turn. He held up a finger, and we froze. My skin crawled with the absolute certainty that we would be discovered. Then Kiet waved at us to continue.
We followed him into a small utility room filled with cleaning supplies. He held up one hand as he stared at the watch on his other wrist, once again bobbing his head, almost imperceptibly, as he counted the seconds. Then he lowered his hand and nodded, opened the door and started through it.
I was following close behind and almost crashed into him when he stopped short. As Rex bumped into me from behind, Kiet waved us back.
Suddenly, I heard voices out in the hallway and I caught a glimpse of two figures in white lab coats passing by. I pushed back at Rex, and as Kiet closed the door in front of us, I picked out a snippet of conversation: “…I don’t know what they’re so upset about. We can always use more…”
Then the door clicked shut and I heard nothing.
Claudia looked out from behind Rex, confused and annoyed. She mouthed the words What’s going on?
I mouthed the words Someone’s out there, and made walking motions with my fingers.
I could hear Rex breathing, each exhalation a miniature sigh of exasperation.
After a few more seconds, Kiet popped his head in the door and whispered, “Come on.”
We followed him out into the hallway, through a heavy swinging door marked EXIT, and into a dimly lit stairway, similar
to the one we had tried to escape through before. On the opposite wall was a heavy door with a security panel and card reader next to it. A sign said AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. UNAUTHORIZED USE WILL SOUND ALARM.
“This leads outside,” Kiet said. He pointed to the card in Rex’s hand. “If you want, you can swipe yourself out and leave right now.” Rex flashed me a doubtful look.
I looked down the stairway, which seemed to get darker as it descended. I had a very strong feeling that I was making an irreversible decision, and that the ramifications could be terrible.
Rex put his hand on my shoulder, looked into my eyes. “Go,” he whispered, barely audible but so emphatic I think I would have gotten the message if he hadn’t spoken at all. He turned to Claudia. “You, too.”
For an instant, she seemed to be thinking about it. I was too, but only for an instant.
“This is going to be dangerous,” Kiet said. “I don’t know what these people are doing. I don’t know what they did to Devon. I have no reason to think they won’t kill us to keep us from finding out. But I’m going to find out, no matter what it takes.”
I looked at Claudia and she nodded. I nodded back at her, then squeezed Rex’s hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go.”
We crept down the next flight of stairs. At the bottom of the stairwell, Kiet turned to Rex and whispered, “I need the card.”
He looked at me and at Claudia, then he handed it over.
Kiet pushed the door open, just a crack, revealing a hallway similar to the ones upstairs, but dimly lit and with a distinct “basement” vibe. He looked each way, then pointed across the hallway at a massive freight elevator, its doors extra wide and extra tall.
“You all wait here,” he said. “Keep the door open so you can see me. I’m going to press the button for the elevator. When it comes, I’ll give you a thumbs-up if the coast is clear.”
He slipped through the door and Rex held it open just enough so we could watch Kiet cross the hallway, press a button on the elevator, and swipe the card.
He stood there nonchalantly, looking alternately at his shoes and at the indicator light above the elevator, waiting. After a couple of seconds, he started humming, too, quietly at first, then louder, some vaguely familiar melody. The humming grew even louder still, and I was starting to wonder if Kiet was losing it when someone in a white smock walked by, just inches away from us, rubber-soled shoes padding silently on the tile floor. My heart jumped into my throat, and I tried to swallow it back into place as the humming faded.
Kiet glanced over at us, looking the way I felt. He bobbed his eyebrows and rolled his eyes, then went back to his studied nonchalance.
A few seconds later, a bell sounded. Kiet looked up at the indicator, then over at us. He held up a finger, telling us to wait.
Finally, the large doors started to open. When they were wide enough for Kiet to confirm no one was already on it, he looked up and down the hallway one more time and gave us a thumbs-up.
We slipped across the hallway and onto the elevator. It was huge, maybe twenty feet wide, with a ten-foot ceiling at least. The buttons were oversized, too, old-fashioned mechanical ones that you actually had to press. There were five floors, with BASEMENT at the top, then CCU-A, CCU-B, CCU-C, and IMPLEMENTATON. Below them were DOOR OPEN and DOOR CLOSE.
Kiet hit the button for CCU-A, the next floor down, and we flattened ourselves against the sides of the elevator until the doors closed.
None of us breathed until the elevator actually began to move.
Kiet scanned the ceiling. He had an elastic surgical cap in his hand, and I wondered why. Then he said, “No cameras,” and shrugged, stuffing it back into his pocket.
As we descended, I wondered what we were about to find, what was about to happen, and, in the back of my mind, whether this was going to turn into a Mom-kills-me-when-she-gets-home kind of thing or a too-late-I’m-already-dead kind of thing.
The elevator stopped and the light next to CCU-A went out. The four of us exchanged nervous glances, then the doors slid back, and we were looking out onto a short hallway or vestibule. There was a gray door with a security panel to our left, and an identical one across from us, next to a window looking onto a room with two long rows of hospital beds. I counted them: ten on one side, twelve on the other. Each bed was occupied. They seemed to be chimeras and they seemed to be unconscious, attached to monitors and IV bags. At the far end of the room were two other doors, both closed.
“Devon,” Kiet said, dashing out of the elevator and over to the window. His eyes scanned the row of beds and filled with disappointment.
Behind us, the elevator started to close. As Rex stepped back and stopped it with his arm, I noticed there was a second elevator next to the one we’d been riding.
“He’s not here,” Kiet said. He swiped the card through the slot between the door and the window. The display flashed red and said CCU MEDICAL STAFF ONLY.
He tried the door to our left, but got the same result.
“What now?” Rex asked, as the elevator gently closed on his arm and opened once more.
If we couldn’t get past either of the doors, there didn’t seem to be much point staying where we were. “We should check the next level down,” I said.
Kiet looked at me, his face stricken.
“Devon could be down there,” I said, gently. “And we’re not going to learn anything else here.”
“She’s right,” Claudia said, putting her hand on his arm, comforting him.
Kiet nodded and we got back onto the elevator.
He pressed the next button: CCU-B. Once again, the doors closed and we resumed our slow descent. When the elevator lurched to a stop and the doors opened, they revealed that CCU-B level looked a lot like CCU-A: the same setup with the doors and the window, the same rows of unconscious chimeras attached to IVs and monitors.
But there were differences, too. Little ones, like the floors and the walls were visibly dirty and the two rows of beds were the same length, twelve on each side. A bigger difference was that the chimeras seemed an odd grayish color.
The biggest and most pressing difference was the three medical staffers standing over the chimeras, going from bed to bed. They had on some sort of breathing apparatus, clear plastic masks over their noses and mouths, with hoses that trailed down under their lab coats. One of them, a woman with a fake tan and even faker-looking red hair who seemed to be in charge, was poking and prodding one of the chimeras, looking at his pupils and listening to his chest. Her manner was cold and detached, maybe even disgusted, more like a meat inspector than a medical professional.
There was also a smell, stale and vaguely chemical.
We flattened ourselves against the sides of the elevator, out of sight, but Kiet peered around the edge, scanning the figures in the beds. As he ducked back in, his shoulders sagged and he shook his head. Devon wasn’t here, either.
Rex and I reached out for the button panel at the same time. I got there first, pressing the button for CCU-C, the next level down. I was surprised to see his finger headed for the BASEMENT button, which would have taken us back up.
I looked at him questioningly as the doors closed, but before he could respond Claudia said, “What the hell was that about? What’s with the breathing masks?”
I wondered if it had anything to do with Cornelius’s breathing device.
“I don’t know,” Kiet said as the elevator descended. He seemed despondent.
“Maybe it was an infectious-disease ward,” Claudia said.
“Maybe,” Rex replied, unconvinced.
I turned to him. “You wanted to go all the way back up,” I said.
“Yes.” He pointed up. “That was dangerous.” Then he pointed at the floor. “Who knows how bad this next place will be?”
I stared into his eyes. I was about to remind him that Doc was depending on us, and that Kiet’s boyfriend Devon was still missing, and that obviously something strange was going on down here. But he knew all that. An
d I knew that Rex was the bravest person I’d ever met. He might have been as scared as I was about what we were headed into, but that wasn’t why he didn’t want to go. I felt a growing annoyance as I realized the reason he didn’t want to go was me. It wasn’t fear for himself, it was worry for me. I was touched, but also pissed off.
“I said I wanted to do this,” I told him, my voice tight but even. “It’s important.”
He looked hurt, and I felt bad about that, but I was angry. I wasn’t something he needed to save or protect.
He opened his mouth to respond, but then the elevator stopped, and the doors opened.
CHAPTER 23
The CCU-C layout was the same as the previous two levels, but once again, it was the differences that were most striking. The stale smell was stronger. All but two of the chimeras were sitting up, some even standing. And in addition to a doctor, there were two guards in exosuits, each armed with at least two guns and a shock baton. The guards and the doctor wore those clear plastic breathing masks. I could see the guards’ faces through them. One had a ridiculous mustache that hung down his face like a horseshoe, twisted in a sneer. The other had a pinched face and cold gray eyes.
The doctor was injecting a syringe into the arm of one of the two chimeras still lying down. Almost immediately, the chimera shot upright, his eyes wide open, looking around, confused. She did nothing to comfort or reassure him, just moved to the next bed, the last unconscious chimera.
“What the hell is going on in this place?” Rex asked in a terse whisper, his face twisted in disgust and distress.
Once again, we all ducked out of sight, except Kiet, who was peeking out with one eye, looking for Devon.
“Is he in there?” I whispered, across the open door. He started to shake his head, then his eyes widened and I took a peek myself.
The armed exoguards were lining up the chimeras, facing the door directly in front of us, as if they were getting ready to march them out—right toward us.
