by Sarah Gray
Chapter 18
ADRIAN IS ALREADY waiting for me, with his arms crossed and shoulder against the wall. He pushes off when he sees me and nods down the hallway. “Right on time.”
“Always am,” I say in a low voice. “You sure this is ok?”
Adrian glances over as we walk. “You’re not scared now, are you?”
I shoot him my best unimpressed look. “No, I just don’t want to get in trouble with your dad.”
Adrian nods. “He can be an real… iron fist sometimes.”
“You don’t get to manage a place like this by being soft, I guess.”
We reach a glass door and I glance over when Adrian taps in the code. I don’t catch any more numbers but I know they’re somewhere down the bottom.
The door hisses open and I follow him through into the restricted area.
“You know,” he says. “When you walk I can’t even hear your footsteps.”
I shrug. “How do you think I survived outside?” I pass him the paper bag and he takes it, saying nothing.
The concrete walls give way to glass. I stop and press my fingertips against the window. Beyond is the decontamination room, and I can see the man lying in a hospital gown, wires and tubes extending from his arms, connecting to machines.
“Can we go in?” I ask, dropping my hands.
Adrian pulls his sleeve over his palm, rubs my invisible fingerprints from the glass and shrugs. He punches in the code with his thumb and because I’m standing on his right now, I manage to work out the next number: eight, but miss the last three. So far all I’ve got is four-two-six-eight.
A dull thrumming sound comes from the machines. Graphs continually flash up on the computer monitors, rewriting themselves every twenty seconds or so. I walk over to the end unit, where the man is unconscious on a bed. “What’s his name?” I ask, peering through the thick glass.
Adrian steps up right behind me, so close that when he speaks I feel his breath on my ear. “Three six two.”
I can’t move away because Adrian’s blocking me with his body. Electric panic sends the hairs on the back of my neck straight up, and I find myself staring at his reflection in the glass. If I’ve learnt one thing since the outbreak, it’s to trust my gut instinct. Trusting it got me this far and right now it says, be calm, stay dormant. Be the unsuspecting predator just lying in wait. I swallow back my discomfort. “That’s a number,” I say. “Not a name.”
“We’re all numbers here. Even me.” Adrian steps to the side, releasing me from his invisible grip. He rolls up his uniform cuff and shows me his number: zero-zero-two.
“Number two?” Something in me finds that kind of funny and maybe a bit sad, but I don’t let it show.
He nods, looking down at his tag. “And when dad gets too old to run this place, I’ll become number one.”
“You’ll be in charge?”
He grins. “Cool, hey.”
It takes every ounce of my being to not betray my horror at this moment. I clear my throat. “What’s next on the tour?”
“Right this way,” he says. Adrian opens the coded door and I follow him further down the corridor. There are a few doors on the left that must be offices; they all have nameplates mounted at eye level. We pass Doctor Hope’s office and make a final turn. Adrian stops at a plain looking door and whips his thumb over the number pad. He puts his index finger to his lips and pushes the door open, just enough to peek in.
This corridor is slightly different. Instead of having transparent windows, it’s full of dark mirrors that display our reflections. Gee, that’s not suspicious at all. I mean, whatever’s on the other side of the wall must be pretty important if they don’t even want it on display to their own staff.
Adrian beckons for me and holds the door open.
I go through first. It’s a rather small room, plain, with desks around the outer walls and computer monitors flashing and humming. The corridor mirrors turns out to be one-way glass. You can’t see in from the hall, but you can see out of the lab. Great for spying.
The opposite wall of the lab is half wood, half normal glass. Beyond it stretches a seemingly endless line of similar rooms. It reminds me of a house of mirrors, where your reflection is creepily multiplied thousands of times.
“Whoa,” I say, sounding overly enthused.
“You like that?” Adrian stands next to me.
“How far back does it go?”
“Sixteen labs, not including this one, because this is just where they do random paper work and stuff. It’s more like an office.”
“Huh.” I glance around. “How far in can we go?”
Adrian looks unsure.
“Can we at least go into the next room since this isn’t even a lab?”
He looks at me sternly. “Just one and that’s it.”
I follow him through the next coded door.
“All those codes must be annoying,” I say. “What is this, like a nuclear weapons facility or something?”
“Not exactly.” Adrian pauses and looks at me for a while, then he smiles. “But probably just as volatile.” Adrian sits on a swivel seat at a corner desk and watches me wander around.
In the very centre of the room is a bench with stacked cages of live rats; big and fat, their white bodies make eerie shuffling and squeaking noises. It’s really horrible to look at actually. I’ve never really had a pet before but I know it feels wrong keeping them all crowded in a tiny space. “What are they for?”
“Tests.”
I almost don’t want to ask but I do. “What kind of tests?”
“Antidote tests.”
I tip my head to one side. “They’re kind of cute.”
Adrian snorts a laugh. “They’re ugly.”
I move away and pass a desk full of paper work. Along the wall is a bench with three sinks and cupboard space underneath. All the cupboard doors have metal grilles built in, maybe to keep the air flow going, and I wonder if they keep more animals in there. “Why is it so cold in here? It’s like a fridge.”
“Air conditioning and filtration system.” Adrian points to the ceiling. Above me is a plastic grate, big enough to climb through. I shiver.
“Dad likes it cold.”
“I’m sure he does,” I say.
Suddenly Adrian goes rigid in his chair. “Get down,” he commands in a low sharp tone. I drop to the ground and stare at him from my hands and knees position. He’s looking through the glass, into the first room. Adrian drops down below the window line and scuttles to me. “Get in the cupboard,” he whispers, pulling it open. It’s empty and he shoves me with urgency. I twist around, pull in my legs and he shuts the door.
“Don’t move, don’t make a sound. Don’t try and leave.” Adrian runs, half bent over, back to the chair and begins going through the papers on the desk just as the lab door hisses open.
I sit frozen, hugging my knees to my chest. I can just see out the grille. A pair of bare ankles in black heels rush in. The feet stop in front of me, pointing away.
“Adrian,” A confused female voice says. “What are you doing here?”
The woman walks over to him. She’s wearing a lab coat, a white skirt and the same jacket uniform as the rest of us.
“Oh, hey, Sammy,” Adrian says. He actually manages to sound pretty casual. “Do you know where the X-gen research is? Dad sent me to get it.”
“Forget that,” she says, rolling onto the balls of her feet. “Go get your father. I have something to show him.”
Adrian swivels around in his chair. “What is it?”
“Just get him. We’re on the verge of a break through.”
Adrian gives her a bored look. “At half past midnight?”
“Would it kill you to help, Adrian?”
Adrian shrugs. “Maybe. Why chance it, I say.”
“If you take him the news he might think you had something to do with it.”
“True.” Adrian stands up. “I’ll be back in a second.” He glances toward my c
upboard and his eyes go wide for a second. It’s not like I could move even if I wanted to, I’m jammed so tightly in here.
The door closes and suddenly I’m alone in the lab with the female scientist. Without the constant dialogue between her and Adrian, it gets deathly silent. I focus on breathing as quietly as I can and try not to move an inch.
The woman stands with her back to me, leaning over a computer, rapidly typing. I wonder what would happen if she found me hiding in the cupboard. Would it warrant punishment or would she just laugh it off?
Sammy’s pretty absorbed with the computer monitor at the moment and I could probably slip out of my hiding place unnoticed. But then I remember Adrian’s last words to me: don’t try to leave. Even if I got to the door unnoticed, I don’t have the code. And to get back to my room I need to use it three times.
The door opens a few minutes later and Doctor Harding marches in, his beady grey eyes converging on the woman. Adrian wanders in after him.
“Sammy?” Doctor Harding stands next to her and crosses his arms.
“I was going over the patient notes in my quarters and came across this…” she points to a sheet of paper and pushes it across the desk to him.
Adrian lingers, leaning against one of the benches while I sit cramped in the dark cupboard watching.
“Subject C appears to be regressing. Not quickly by any standard means, but look at the blood work from the last twenty-four hours. Compare it to now.”
Doctor Harding holds the papers up to his nose and then looks over them at Sammy. “Any visible change?”
Sammy shakes her head. “I haven’t checked yet.”
Doctor Harding blinks. “Do it. I’ll need a full work up immediately and round the clock observation. If she gets better or worse, I want to know.”
Doctor Harding spins suddenly and walks to the cage of rats. He tips his head to one side and peers at them. “We’ll need to broaden the subject scope. Male, female… youths too. Find out if there are any discrepancies.”
“Of course, Doctor Harding. At once.” Sammy gathers her paper work and strides to the door that leads further into the line of labs. Doctor Harding is about to follow her when he turns back. “Adrian, get Hope, Sanders, and Roth.”
“Sure thing, dad.”
Finally Doctor Harding lets the door close behind him and Adrian pauses, watching them disappear. He glances over his shoulder too. “Ok, lets get out of here.”
I fall out of the cupboard. “Ow, that was so painful.”
“That was close,” Adrian says, still looking behind. He grabs my elbow and drags me out into the office, back out into the hallway.
We hustle over to the civilian side of the facility.
“That’s good right?” I say wrestling my elbow back from his pincer grip. “Regressing is good. That means the infection might be curable.”
“Quiet,” Adrian says.
When we reach the door he’s so tense that he looks over his shoulder as he punches the code in, and that’s all I need to catch the last digits.
Suddenly I have the full code.
I step through and thankfully he doesn’t follow. He doesn’t belong on this side of the facility.
“Adrian,” I say.
Finally he looks up at me, his hand still on the code box.
“That was amazing.” I force a smile and make it sickly sweet, like I’m really appreciative.
He straightens. “It was?”
“Yeah, totally cool.” I nod. “Thanks.”
Adrian smiles suddenly and starts nodding. “Sure, no problem. I’ll see you tomorrow then?”
“Uh, sure.” I step away and give him a tiny wave. “Night.”
“Night—” The door closes behind me and cuts off his last word. I race back to my room, finally able to use all that adrenaline that’s been pumping since I was shoved in a tiny cupboard.
I almost trip over Kean as I reach the door. He’s sitting on the floor outside and jumps when I come racing around the corner.
“What is it?” He launches up.
I take his hand and drag him into the empty female bathroom, right into a shower cubicle. When I stop he looks totally worried. I lean my head back against the wall. “You really have to get the next mission,” I say. “I feel like my lucky streak is almost up.”
“What happened?”
I take a slow breath and tell him everything.
“Are you alright?” he says.
I nod quickly and pull him into a hug.
“Also are you high?” Kean laughs gently and wraps his arms around me. “Just what kind of labs are they?”
I sit my head just beneath his chin, still trying to catch my breath. “I got the code.”
“What are you going to do with it?” Kean’s voice vibrates through his chest. “You want to make a break for it?”
I pull back so I can see his face. “Do you want to?”
Kean drops his eyes for a moment and shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s like that seatbelt catch twenty-two thing you said. We stay here and we can’t get away quick enough, but outside we always run the risk of dying.”
“They have the virus in here. Inside the facility. No wonder every door is coded. They’re experimenting on rats.”
“God, it’s like we can’t get away from this disease, no matter what we do.” Kean glances at my forehead. “You can’t really go anywhere with your stitches and broken fingers.”
I nod. “We should stay then. For a little while.”
“Just until you’re healed. I don’t know how much more rubbish I can sort.” He puts his lips against my forehead. “What’s the code?”
I tap it out on his chest with my finger. “Four-two-six-eight-four-two-six.”
“Is that a circle?”
I nod. “Pretty easy to remember, hey.”
“Wow. Sometimes you’re such a genius.”
“You mean all the time.”
He groans a little. “I really like you, Florence.”
He must feel the tension run through my body because he pulls back and studies my face.
“Don’t give me that look,” he says. “The one that says it’s not safe, we can’t. One kiss isn’t going to kill anyone, especially not Liss.”
“I know. I just…” I shake my head because I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Maybe all these crazy feelings can’t be categorised into words. Maybe they’re just there to be felt and never understood. “I just…”
He waits, still studying my face as if it has all the secret answers.
“I like you… I just don’t know how to, with all this other stuff going on. It’s hard to focus on anything.”
“Is that all? That’s the only reason?”
I tip my head back and glare at the ceiling but my lips curl into a smile. “Yes. Whatever. Lets go to bed, you’ve got work tomorrow.”
“Hey, whoa, that’s moving a bit fast, don’t you think? I’m not sure I’m ready for that,” he says. A grin brightens his face.
I shove him back against the wall, pretty hard too. “Ha, ha. Aren’t you funny.” I step back into the bathroom.
“I like to think so,” Kean says, following.
