by Kyla Stone
Willow rolled her eyes, fighting to keep a matching grin off her face. “We’ll see about that.”
22
Amelia
“Please remove your clothing and put on your custom temp-adjusted medical gown, Amelia,” the room AI instructed in a brisk male voice. “I am increasing the room temperature now for your comfort. I do not detect a Vitalichip. I will request a technician to remedy this issue immediately. In the meantime, when you’ve reached your ideal comfort level, please let me know with a verbal command.”
“Thank you,” Amelia said politely, her years of decorum training kicking in automatically. “I’m fine.”
After a light breakfast of muffins and yogurt, two soldiers had escorted her a few blocks from the capitol to the sixth floor of the BioGen research facility. From what she could see, the place was a series of long white corridors branching off into equally white research labs filled with rows of stainless-steel counters and scurrying figures in lab coats or hazmat suits. Machines beeped and hummed in every room, multi-armed bots of all sizes working with sterile efficiency.
Her own small room was white and empty but for her bed, two swivel office chairs, a couple of beeping machines, and a counter against the far wall. The wall was a sleek white polymer, with various charts and scans and anatomical diagrams projected over the width of it.
“Please make yourself comfortable on our luxurious patient lounge seating,” the AI said.
She breathed in the sharp smell of antiseptic and bleach. Careful not to disturb the rolling IV rack attached to her arm via a clear tube, she lay gingerly on the hospital bed, an elongated pod-shape without a lid. It was filled with a spongy cushion that conformed to the contours of her body, but it was still chilly. The smooth coldness leeched the warmth from the bare skin of her arms, legs, and the back of her neck. She felt vulnerable, exposed.
Especially with the two soldiers standing guard just inside the doorway. They stood like sentries, pulse guns holstered at their sides, wicked-looking rifles cradled in their arms. They wore charcoal-gray uniforms with the Coalition’s emblem stitched on the right shoulder.
The female guard on the left looked to be in her mid-twenties, with mouse-brown hair yanked back in a tight ponytail. She was medium height, medium build, medium everything. Easily missed, easily forgotten. She didn’t seem like much of a soldier, but maybe that was her advantage. Maybe she would surprise you, just like Willow.
In contrast, the second guard looked every inch a soldier. Broad, straight shoulders, a clean-shaven, angular face, with faint lines creasing his startlingly green eyes. His skin was a deep olive tone, his hair so dark brown it was nearly black, and shorn close to his skull. His jaw was set, his gaze alert and stoic, aimed somewhere over Amelia’s head.
“Hello,” she said politely.
“Hello,” the woman on the left said. The guard on the right barely nodded, still not meeting her gaze. A soldier through and through.
“Oh, you’re here!” gushed a familiar voice. Vera stepped into the room, clapping her hands together and grinning from ear to ear. She wore three-inch suede heels and a lavender, knee-length dress embroidered with tiny gold buttons. Pearl earrings glinted at her earlobes. “Look at you! Not a drop of makeup, and you look like you belong in a holo-ad! Except for that hair, of course.”
She ignored Vera’s subtle jab and smiled graciously. “Thank you,” she said, because it was expected of her. “Where is my father?”
Vera looked at something on her Smartflex, swiped it away with the flick of her finger, and glanced at Amelia with another blinding-white smile. “Any moment now. Don’t you worry about a thing! We’re going to get you your Vitalichip—you’ll love it! I adore mine. It does just about everything but brush your teeth—and then we’ll get started. Are you excited? I just can’t even describe how I’m feeling right now…” her voice trailed off as another ping sounded and her gaze darted back to her Smartflex.
“Why do I have guards?” Amelia asked.
“They’re not guarding you, hon. They’re protecting you. You’re a precious asset, you know. Very important.”
“I see.” Though she wasn’t sure she did. She changed the subject. “When can I see my friend and my brother? It’s been two days.”
“I have instructions to bring them to you as soon as they’re released. Don’t you worry about a thing!” Vera clapped her hands again. “Ah, here’s the technician.”
The technician swept into the room with an air of impatience, a med-bot zooming behind him. Not even remotely humanoid, the med-bot gleamed with chrome and steel, its multi-jointed arms like an insect’s—bristling with scalpels, clamps, syringes, and other medical instruments.
The technician, a slight, balding man in his forties, plunked down on a swivel chair beside Amelia. “Right arm, please,” he instructed in a bland, disinterested voice.
Amelia sat up and held out her arm as he picked up several objects from the stainless-steel medical tray that slid out of a slot in the med-bot’s belly. He swiped a disinfectant swab over the inside of her forearm. He unsealed a small rectangular object and fitted it inside a metallic instrument that looked like some kind of spring-loaded gadget. He pressed it against her skin.
Something sharp pierced her. A thin wafer sharp as a razor blade slid deep into her flesh.
The technician swabbed the wound with an antiseptic wipe. He gestured to the med-bot, who slid the scanner over her arm. It beeped softly. She could almost make out something tiny, reddish, and rice-shaped glowing faintly beneath her skin.
“It reads your vitals, monitors activity, sleep, breathing, heart rate, blood cell count, and most importantly—viral load. It can detect the virus within four hours of exposure.” His words were brisk and clipped, as if he were in a rush to get to more important projects.
“Four hours,” Amelia murmured, staring down at her arm and remembering the two weeks they’d spent isolated at the naval base in Florida.
The technician slapped a smartbrochure into her hand. “Report to Suite 113 in City Hall in the morning and they’ll walk you through setting up financial accounts, ID records, smart programming for your home, work, and transport.”
“Thank you,” she said, even though she had none of those things. Not anymore.
“It’s a good thing, the Vitalichip.” He paused at the door, not bothering to turn around. “You know how many people out there would kill for this? You should be grateful.”
She opened her mouth, at a loss as to how to respond, but he was already gone, the med-bot chirping behind him. In his wake, four other people crowded into the room, all wearing lab coats and clutching holopads. One of them was her father.
Declan gestured behind him at the three doctors. “This is Dr. Hobbs, Biomedical Research and Development, U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. Dr. Weinstein, infectious disease specialist. And Dr. Ponniah, a leader in research for live attenuated vaccines from John Hopkins.”
“Formerly,” Dr. Weinstein said with a pained expression. He was in his mid-sixties and balding, with a trim mustache and spectacles sliding halfway down his nose. He wore pressed chinos and Italian loafers beneath his pristine lab coat.
“Nice to meet you. What, ah—” she cleared her throat and wiped her damp palms on her hospital gown. “What exactly is going to happen to me?”
“We do our best to keep invasive harvesting procedures to a minimum,” Dr. Ponniah said crisply. She was a short, plump Indian woman somewhere in her forties.
Amelia paled. Invasive? Harvesting? But what had she expected? She knew it wouldn’t be easy or simple. Or painless. She kept her back straight and her chin up. She wouldn’t show them her fear.
“We’ll do our best to take care of you.” Dr. Hobbs gave her a reassuring smile as he moved next to her hospital bed. He was a friendly-looking black man in his late fifties.
Declan glanced down at his holopad, flicking through reports and charts, frowning slightly. Beneath hi
s lab coat, he wore an impeccably tailored suit, with a crimson handkerchief tucked neatly in the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “We’ve been analyzing the clinical data for months. Every avenue is a dead end. Until now.”
“Holoscreen on,” Dr. Hobbs said.
The wallscreen over the right wall lit up with a display of graphs, blips, numbers, and words she didn’t recognize. “Cardiac monitor is steady. Blood oxygen levels good.” Dr. Hobbs smiled at her like she’d succeeded at some marvelous achievement.
“This is the initial bloodwork from her intake exam.” Dr. Weinstein tapped his holopad and flicked the data to the wallscreen. Her father examined the DNA sequences rotating slowly in front of him. He swiped his hand and brought up a datapack of research studies and patient files. He enlarged a segment of DNA, highlighting a series of amino acids. He spoke softly to the other doctors. Amelia caught only a few words: gene sequencing, white blood cell counts, pH levels.
“How long will it take?” Amelia asked Dr. Hobbs, who stood the closest to her.
“Unfortunately, we are unable to field test potential vaccines on rats or primates in any rigorous fashion,” he said. “There simply isn’t time. But since every single infected patient dies, there is no adverse risk we need to take into consideration. It shouldn’t take too long to develop an antigen from your blood, in combination with the ideal adjuvant, stabilizers, and preservatives we have been exhaustively testing over the last several months.”
“We hope to begin the first patient tests within twenty-four hours,” Dr. Ponniah interjected.
Amelia raised her brows. “That quickly?”
Her father beamed at her. “We have virologists analyzing the data from your blood samples as we speak. The protective antibody levels are simply astounding.”
A med-bot zoomed into the room with a mechanical chirp. Declan gestured at it. “We need to keep her vitals in tiptop shape.”
The med-bot was about three feet tall and bullet-shaped. A compartment in the med-bot’s side slid open and dispensed several pills in tiny paper cups on a small silver tray. Another hatch opened, and a mechanical arm with a needle appeared. It dispensed pain-relievers, non-inflammatories, immune-boosters, vitamin supplements, and who knew what else. Amelia swallowed the pills and gritted her teeth against the injections. This was only the beginning.
“If you don’t mind, time is of the essence,” Dr. Ponniah said. “We’d prefer to begin immediately.”
Amelia nodded as the med-bot jetted away.
Dr. Ponniah prepped a large twenty-gauge biopsy needle. “Dr. Weinstein will start with the blood samples. I’ll take liver and lung tissue samples, as well as extract a biopsy of your lymph nodes.”
“We’ve prepared local anesthetics and a mild sedative to keep you as comfortable as possible,” Dr. Hobbs said, squeezing her hand and giving her a warm smile. He had a gentle bedside manner, like someone’s favorite grandfather.
“Thank you.”
“I took the liberty of piping in some of your favorite music,” Declan said as Dr. Weinstein inserted a sedative into her IV drip. Classical music filled the room.
Amelia’s heartbeat slowed. Her hands unclenched. She rested her head against the backrest and closed her eyes.
She’d injected herself dozens of times with her emergency auto-injector. Somehow, this was different.
Maybe there were some things it was better not to see.
23
Micah
“Congratulations,” the guard said, gazing at his holopad with a scowl. “You don’t have the Hydra virus. Though you do appear to have some important friends in high places. Guess we have to let you inside after all.”
Micah elbowed Silas in the ribs before he could make some smart retort. They had spent the last three days stuck in those cramped isolation cells devoid of sound, touch, or interaction. Three times a day, a metalhead slid a plate of slop through a narrow slot that immediately sealed shut again—beef stew or lentil soup or chicken something, but it all tasted like overcooked cardboard.
Micah had spent the time sitting on the uncomfortable cot, watching the figures in hazmat suits hurry by, not even pausing to glance at him. He’d gone over the plots of his favorite books in his head, trying to recall subplots and minor character names. That and praying constantly for Amelia and Gabriel. It had been harder than he’d imagined to go seventy-two hours without speaking to a living soul.
But if it had been rough on Micah, Silas looked absolutely wrecked. Judging by his sweat-stained shirt and the stench of him, he’d spent the time training.
“I thought you’d like it in there, seeing as you hate people,” Micah murmured as they were led out of the containment center, a guard flanking either side of them.
Silas just gave him a sullen stare. “No one likes prison, not even a misanthrope.”
“Can’t you smile? At least look a little more pleasant?”
“If I did,” Silas retorted, “you wouldn’t recognize me.”
They passed through the massive gates into the Sanctuary. Everything was pristine, new and functional, beautiful. Gleaming white cylindrical buildings, newly planted trees somehow still green, clean streets. A sani-bot on the corner suctioned up dead leaves and a stray bit of trash.
Moving sidewalks hurried pedestrians to their destinations. A mother gripped a toddler’s hand, a stroller hovering beside her. Three teenagers crowded a bench, giggling at something on one of their SmartFlexes.
In the distance, tall buildings spiraled with circular terraces, many of them bursting with greenery and colorful gardens. Even the sky seemed bluer here.
“Get your head out of the clouds.” Silas pinched Micah’s arm, pulling him from his awestruck gawping, and pointed with his chin.
The armored military drones—nighthawks—patrolled the inside of the Sanctuary as well. Smaller surveillance drones flitted here and there. Soldiers in dark gray uniforms were everywhere, marching with purpose in twos and threes, guns slung over their shoulders. Two Humvees blocked the street ahead of them, turret-mounted machine guns pointed toward the gates.
Micah nodded silently. This place wasn’t safe. Not for them. Not for anyone here. He couldn’t forget that, not even for a moment.
He turned to the guard closest to him, a bald, burly black man in his forties. “Where are you taking us? We need to see Amelia Black. They would have taken her to—”
“You don’t give the orders here,” the burly guard said. “First you get the Vitalichip, then we’ll see about the rest.”
“We’d prefer to abstain,” Silas said.
The second guard sneered. He was a young white guy, short and stout, the buttons of his uniform straining against his gut. “You Outerlanders are all the same. No one gets in without the chip. Coalition law.”
“Coalition law?” Micah asked.
“They run things now,” the burly guard said. “If you ask me, if they’d taken over years ago, none of this would have happened. Our country would still be ruling the world.”
He kept talking, but Micah was no longer listening.
Across the street, a heavy-set boy leaned against a lamppost, arms crossed over his chest. He wore a cap low on his forehead, baggy cargo pants, and a fitted leather jacket. An apple-red scarf fringed with gold was wound around his neck. He was staring straight at them. When he caught Micah’s gaze, he nodded slightly.
Their New Patriot contact. It must be the brother, Theo. Just as Cleo had said.
He and Silas exchanged looks. Silas had seen him, too. Time to get out of here. They couldn’t get the chip-implants. They couldn’t be tracked. They needed to move freely inside the Sanctuary.
Slowly, Silas lowered his hand to his thigh, counting with his fingers. One, two, three.
Micah nodded, adrenaline and apprehension spiking through him. Gabriel would be a hundred times better at this.
But Gabriel wasn’t here. This was up to Micah. Too many people were counting on him to fail now.
&nbs
p; On three, Micah raised his arm and jackhammered his elbow into the burly guard’s throat with all his strength. Simultaneously, Silas turned and aimed a savage kick at the other guard’s kneecap. There was a sickening crunch as the man collapsed. He let out an agonized scream. The burly guard staggered, clutching his throat, gasping for oxygen that wouldn’t come.
It would take too long to steal their weapons, precious seconds Micah and Silas didn’t have. They had to trust that Cleo’s inside guys would help them.
They ran.
Micah searched across the street for their contact in the red scarf—but he’d disappeared. Maybe they were on their own, after all.
The mother with the toddler and stroller yelped as they pushed past her. “Sorry!” Micah called over his shoulder.
“Officer down!” came the shout from behind them. The guard with the shattered kneecap. “Two male hostiles on foot, armed and extremely dangerous, approximate GPS location is—”
“There!” Micah cried, pointing at a cluster of circular residential buildings. Maybe they could lose their pursuers in the side streets. They were in a strange city, with no idea where they were, where to go, or how to get there. They were vastly outnumbered, about to be hunted by dozens, maybe hundreds, of armed soldiers and drones. Would the soldiers shoot to kill? Micah didn’t intend to find out.
They turned sharply between two round buildings and raced down a side street, searching frantically for an escape. There were rows of tall—and very green—bushes between each apartment. In the back alley of one, he glimpsed a large blue container, some kind of communal recycling bin. Maybe they should try to hide—
“Over here!” Abruptly, someone reached out and seized Micah’s arm, nearly wrenching it from its socket. Micah was jerked into the shadows between two apartment buildings.
A second figure grabbed Silas. Micah glimpsed a girl with a mass of russet hair. She shoved Silas against the exterior wall and placed her hand on either side of Silas’s shocked face.
