Infected

by Sophie Littlefield

  She knew that most high school romances ended. But she and Tanner weren’t most people, and what they had wasn’t what most people had. When Tanner got lost in his coding or she was deep into her computations, it was like they each took a part of the other with them. They could sit next to each other in a crowded café and still be alone … or they could be alone on a hike in the hills and feel like they had everything they needed, just the air and the sun and each other. Carina’s therapist suggested that she clung so hard to Tanner because she’d lost so much, but Tanner was no substitute for a missing dad or dead mother. He wasn’t an addiction or a dependency or a crutch. Tanner was just himself, and he fit with her perfectly, as though they were two halves of a whole.

  Carina had dated before. Given so much independence by her mother, she’d been free to spend time with boys since middle school, and had never had any trouble attracting their attention. Carina knew it was more about the way she looked than who she was—it wasn’t like great math skills were a particularly potent charm—but she didn’t care because, until Tanner, she hadn’t been looking for anything serious. Someone to hang out with, to impress her friends, to take to school dances.

  But Tanner’s touch was nothing like the touches of other boys, and he looked at her as if he really saw her. Tanner knew what she was thinking even before she said it; sometimes he seemed to know what she was thinking even before she knew.

  Last night Tanner had called after dinner, asking if she wanted to go out for ice cream. Sheila had agreed reluctantly after Carina convinced her that she needed the distraction, and promised that she would be home well before midnight. Tanner picked her up from Sheila’s house in the car he’d borrowed from his dad and announced that there had been a change of plans: they were going to go up on the school’s roof to gaze at the stars high in the sky over the valley.

  Carina didn’t bother to tell Sheila, figuring that since she was new to her role of guardian, she didn’t need to sweat the details. When they got to the top of the fire escape ladder and spread out a blanket that faced the long slope down the hill into town, Tanner spent the first few minutes staring at her instead of the stars.

  “What,” she’d finally said, blushing. “So I got a haircut.”

  It wasn’t just a haircut, of course, but Carina didn’t think Tanner would be interested in the detailed list of beauty treatments that ended up on Sheila’s bill, which totaled several hundred dollars by the time they were done.

  “I like the haircut, but that’s not what I’m looking at. You look … different, somehow. Sort of … lit up.”

  Carina was about to explain the complicated hair coloring process, the high- and low-lights and gloss treatment, when he’d kissed her. And gone on kissing her. For hours, it felt like, and then the kissing took them further, to the places she’d been wanting to go to for so long. Tanner had stopped several times to ask her if she was sure, until she told him to quit asking. There would never be a better time, a more perfect time, than under the bright moon, the valley dusted with the sparkle of lights below, in the arms of the boy who loved her, who could take away her pain with a smile, a touch, a promise.

  Now, as she tried to hold on to the feeling of safety that came from being in his arms, she felt the longing again instead, the heat inside her that Tanner alone could make her feel. But it was overshadowed by fear.

  And hunger. Raging, relentless hunger.

  She brushed her lips against Tanner’s and forced herself to get up. Taking the bills Tanner had peeled from the stack, she quickly tucked them into her pocket with the key.

  “You’ll freeze,” Tanner said. “It’s getting cold out there. Maybe you should buy a sweatshirt.”

  “I might do better than that, even.” Carina pretended she wasn’t holding her breath as she slowly turned the doorknob. She trusted Walter; whatever he’d done to this room, she knew it was meant to ensure safety. But still, it was hard not to imagine the place being blown to bits by some hidden trigger, and it was a relief when nothing happened after she pulled open the door.

  The hallway was as silent and dark as it had been earlier. Carina eased the door shut behind her; it slid the last few inches by itself, closing with the same solid mechanical click. She tried not to worry about whether the code would work for a second time when she returned with the food.

  She had the key; she had the code. Tanner would be waiting for her. It would be enough. It had to.

  The crowds had thinned. Some of the merchants’ doors were shuttered for the evening, but the restaurants were doing brisk business. Carina’s stomach went weak with hunger and she found herself salivating.

  But first she needed to do one other thing. They couldn’t stay hidden in Uncle Walter’s secret room forever; they would need to venture out to the BART station at the Civic Center as soon as possible. By now, Sheila would have given their description to more people, all searching for them. It was terrifying to think about, especially since Carina was still having trouble believing that her uncle had been working on something so sensitive that armed men were hunting her down for it. But the worst-case scenario was that a small army of trained agents knew that she and Tanner had boarded the inbound BART train and were looking for them in the city. If they had somehow figured out that Carina and Tanner had exited at the Montgomery stop, it greatly increased the chances that they were nearby.

  So Carina had to make sure that she and Tanner were invisible.

  Two blocks from the apartment, Carina found a brightly lit souvenir shop on Stockton. Racks of postcards and novelty key chains gave way to T-shirts and caps and inexpensive sportswear inside the crowded store. She shopped quickly, guessing at Tanner’s sizes. When she was finished, she had filled a big plastic shopping bag with purchases; the bored clerk barely glanced at Carina as he rang her up.

  Carina’s next stop was at a busy restaurant. The woman working the register merely grunted and pointed when Carina asked for a take-out menu. Carina didn’t recognize most of the dishes, which were described in Chinese and broken English, so she just pointed at items in each section. Finding a chair tucked between the kitchen door and a large plant, she sat down and waited. She kept her eye on the entrance, watching as pedestrians strolled by the tall windows.

  When she saw a man in a black track jacket with his hand at his ear, she shrank back against the wall.

  Was that the lab logo, stitched onto his jacket? She thought she saw a flash of red and silver, but maybe it was just the bright neon lights reflecting off the glass. It was possible that he’d just been running his hand through his close-cropped hair, not adjusting an earpiece—and that Carina was becoming way too paranoid.

  She thought about Baxter. He had the training and resources that could keep them safe. She was certain, if she called him, he’d do whatever he could to help. Maybe he could get them out of the area, to another city where Sheila would never think of searching.

  But if Sheila found out, there would be hell to pay. If she knew he’d betrayed her, then he would be in danger too. Maybe there was a way he could do something behind the scenes, perhaps direct the search away from Carina and Tanner.

  The taciturn woman placed two large white plastic bags on the counter, interrupting Carina’s spinning thoughts. Carina paid quickly and asked if there was a back entrance to the restaurant. If the woman found the request odd, she didn’t let on; she motioned down the hall and muttered something Carina didn’t understand.

  Threading her way through the crowded restaurant, she kept her head down, continuing past the restrooms and down a dank hall to a small door propped open into an alley. The smell of garbage and car exhaust assaulted her. Behind the buildings, workers emptied trash into the Dumpsters and carried boxes from loading docks. Carina was getting the feeling that Chinatown never slept, and she was glad for the commotion as she hurried down the street in the direction of the apartment.

  She missed her turn the first time but eventually found her way back to the tiny street,
breathing a sigh of relief when she was finally back inside the dim lobby. When she got to the apartment, the door opened by itself, startling her so much that she almost dropped her shopping bags. Tanner reached through the narrow opening and pulled her in.

  “How did you know I was back?” she asked as soon as she was safely inside.

  “Because your uncle’s a genius. Look at this.”

  He showed her a small square mirror mounted on the wall of the bathroom. Carina bent her face closer, as Tanner instructed, and found that she was somehow looking out into the hallway.

  “It’s all mechanical,” Tanner explained. “It’s not a camera; he did it with mirrors. I checked it out. There are tons of tiny mirrors mounted at angles. There are holes in the ceiling, so he had to have figured out how to get into the space above the ceiling. It’s a completely low-tech way to see what’s in the hall.”

  “He probably just did it to amuse himself,” Carina said, feeling a pang of sadness. Walter had been a tinkerer; he’d rebuilt old shortwave radios for fun. On the surface, it was a contradiction—a technology master devising alternate solutions to problems that could be easily solved with technology—but it just underscored her uncle’s curiosity and love of discovery.

  “Whatever.” Tanner shrugged. “I still think it’s genius.”

  “Yeah.” Carina wiped her eyes. “Uh, can we eat? I agree Walter’s the greatest, but I’m starving.”

  “I have more to show you, but if I don’t eat something soon I’m going to pass out.”

  It ended up taking less than half an hour to get through dinner. The dishes included soup and some sort of dumpling and pork and tofu dishes, enough to feed four hungry people, but Carina couldn’t stop eating until every bit was gone. Tanner too seemed ravenous.

  “Wow,” he said with wonder when there was nothing left but the white cardboard containers and a few packets of soy sauce. “I wonder if that was some sort of delayed stress reaction.”

  “In both of us?” Carina said dubiously, putting the trash back in the bags and tying them shut. “Unlikely. What did you find while I was gone, anyway?”

  Tanner tapped the laptop’s touch pad and the screen sprang to life, showing a list of files, most of them with numeric names.

  “I opened a few of the most recent,” Tanner said apologetically. “They’re video files. I didn’t want to watch without you, when I saw what they were. Carina … your uncle recorded himself talking, here in this room.”

  “ ‘Play me first, Carina,’ ” she read, squinting at the file list. “Seriously? That’s what the file’s called?”

  “I guess he didn’t want to leave anything up to chance.”

  “This was recorded three days before he died. Does that mean he was here then?”

  “Well, yeah, unless he hacked the internal clock or FTP’d the file onto the laptop.”

  “Uh … in English?”

  “Well, let’s just say he would have had to go to a lot of trouble. Besides, Carina, why would he modify the date on a file he wanted you to have?”

  The knot that Carina had been carrying in her gut all day, grief wrapped in layers of fear and adrenaline, pressed on her lungs and deprived her of breath. Uncle Walter had left her a message in the form of a file. How long had he suspected that he was going to be killed?

  “Play it,” she said, before she could change her mind.

  Tanner leaned against the headboard next to her and propped the computer on his knees. Wordlessly, he clicked on the file.

  There was Uncle Walter, wearing his favorite sweater, a heather-blue one made for hiking even though the closest he ever came to hiking was pacing the halls of the house when he was trying to solve some problem. She tried to remember if he had worn it that morning—it had been unexpectedly chilly that week, so he very well could have chosen this sweater.

  “Hey, Carrie,” he said into the camera with a wobbly smile. Tears popped into Carina’s eyes: he was the only person in the world who was allowed to call her Carrie.

  He cleared his throat. “Uh, this is kind of weird because if you’re seeing this, well …” He stared down at his lap. “I mean, it’s not good, right? But what’s important now, no matter what else has happened, is that you do exactly what I say. If you got this far, then you got my message to avoid Sheila. I’m so sorry about that. She fooled me, Carrie. She fooled us all.”

  Tanner squeezed Carina’s hand. “You okay watching this?”

  She nodded, not wanting to miss a word.

  “I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am to put you in this position. I never wanted … I can’t stand the thought of anything happening to you. So what I need you to do is to take care of yourself. Keep yourself safe, Carrie, I mean it. There are other files on this computer that will expose secrets that will get a lot of people in trouble. You need to get in touch with Major Nathan Wynnside with the Army Criminal Investigation Command. I’ve told him about my, uh … situation. He is expecting to hear from me when I return from Houston. If anything happens to me, I have told him that someone else will be in touch. This is the phone number you should call.” He slowly and clearly recited a string of numbers. “Do not call from this room. Take the phone that I have left for you on the desk and go somewhere safe. A public location is best, a busy park or a shopping center. Call using that phone—not your own phone, Carrie, that is very important—and tell Major Wynnside where to look. I know you’ll be able to figure that out from my note. Don’t worry about it being locked. For the major, this will not be a problem. The key is only a spare.”

  He paused and drew a breath, appearing to consider what to say next. “You should never need to go to that place yourself, Carrie. What is contained in that locker … I do not want you connected with it in any way. The other files on this computer describe what we have been working on, the project that has consumed us for the last few years. If you watch them, I think you’ll understand. Our work, the things we have created, they must never be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. And, Carrie, if you have access to them, then you automatically become a target. I—”

  Walter’s voice broke, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. Too much has been lost already. Anyway, after you call Major Wynnside, you must make sure you are safe, so return to this room and stay here. There’s enough food and water to last you many days. Watch the news and you’ll know when it’s safe to return home. I have a feeling things will move quickly once Major Wynnside is involved, but I don’t think we can be too careful in this case.”

  Walter paused, looking deeply into the camera. “Well, that’s it, then, I guess. Like I said at the beginning … Carrie, if you are watching this, then the worst has happened, and I won’t get another chance to say this. So I want you to know that you have been the greatest joy in my life. I love you.”

  He gave a last, weak smile and the clip ended.

  Tears spilled down Carina’s cheeks. Her uncle had been buried today, and she would never get to hug him again, never get to tell him how much she loved him in return. He’d never said it out loud when he was alive. She hadn’t doubted his love, but they weren’t the kind of family who said it with words.

  She wished they had been.

  Tanner hadn’t let go of her the whole time, holding her close against him. He gently brushed the tears from her face. “You okay?”

  “Yes, I think so,” Carina said. It was so tempting to sink into the comfort Tanner offered, to stay here where it seemed safe, but they had bigger problems now. “Let’s just figure out what to do next.”

  “Well, according to the video, Walter left you an untraceable disposable phone. You walk out there onto the streets like any other tourist and call this Major Wynnside and give him the locker number at the BART station, and he takes it from there.”

  “It would have to lead to Sheila getting arrested,” Carina mused. “I mean, whatever Uncle Walter left for the major must be enough to incrimina
te her and whoever she’s working with.”

  “And then you’d be clear too.”

  “Yeah, and I could go … home.” Carina hated the way her voice hitched on the last word. She didn’t have a home to go to. There was the house she’d shared with Walter, but did she still have a right to live there now? Walter had provided for her financially, but had he also left her a place to live? She’d inherited some money from her mother too, but Walter had taken care of all the details. Carina had no idea where to start to track it all down.

  “You know you can stay with us,” Tanner said. “My folks would love to have you. It’s only a month until graduation, and—”

  “Thanks,” Carina said quickly, cutting him off. “Seriously. We can figure all that out as soon as we get through this.”

  Staying with the Sloans sounded good. Better than good—they were a real family, the kind Carina had never had, with a mom and dad and annoying little brothers. They had a big, comfortable house with a white picket fence and a rose garden and an American flag flying over the front door. There was family movie night and football in the backyard and a chore chart. The worst thing that ever happened at the Sloans’ was arguing over whose turn it was to do the dishes, or enduring an embarrassing family nickname.

  But now Carina had dragged Tanner into a world of trouble. She couldn’t imagine involving his family too, not until the danger was past and there was no chance of it resurfacing.

  “Tanner.” She swallowed, overwhelmed by what she had to say. “Sheila knows who you are. If she thinks she could use you to get to me … I’m worried about your family.”

  “That’s ridiculous, Car, I don’t have any connection to the lab. She’s got to know I don’t have anything they can use.”

  “No, but … she knows I care about you. She might try to use you to get me to give her the information. Can’t you maybe just call your mom and tell them to be careful?” She looked down at her hands. “Or just go. Tanner, you should just go home. If you’re there, Sheila can be sure you aren’t helping me, and then—”