by Hugh Howey
Dalton holds up a hand. “This is my laboratory—”
“You mean Infinitek’s laboratory,” Monroe interrupts. “And they sent me here, per the new Protected rights regulations.”
Dalton shakes his head. “You and I both know that vote was just a PR stunt. But fine. You have two minutes. We have a lot to do today.”
Farrow and Dalton retreat, and I’m left alone with Monroe. My heart beats faster as he stares down at me through the glass. The way he looks at me is… different from the way the others look at me.
“How do you feel?” he asks.
I forget how to talk. He’s looking at me in the way that all real humans used to look at me. Like I exist.
“Can you talk?”
“Yes.” My voice is rusty with disuse.
His eyes soften, and I detect emotion there, but my brain’s scrambling to understand the meaning behind it.
“What’s your name?”
“318.”
His brow creases. “Do you like being called 318?”
“It’s my name,” I say.
“Were you ever called something else?”
“I’ve always been 318.”
His eyes grow cold, and somehow I know the look isn’t for me, but for what I just said.
“How do you feel?” he asks again.
I pause. “I don’t feel.”
The door slides open. “That’s enough, Monroe,” Dalton says. “We have half a dozen others to dose, and I don’t have all day.”
Farrow sets up an IV drip in my arm while Dalton goes to the counter and opens the cabinet where they keep the vials.
He comes back with a syringe.
“Record,” Dalton says. “June 26th, 2073, 8:43 a.m. 318 receives triple-dose Ebola. Single- and double-dose vials had no effect. Strain origin: 2044 pandemic.”
He pushes his hands through the slot and grabs my arm, holding it steady to line up the needle. The cold metal slides into my skin, and I wince at the pain, at the pressure of the liquid entering me. Will I feel the effects of this one? Most have no effect until they give me triple doses or higher. And even then, it’s a twelve-hour fever or cold. And no matter how much I wish for it, none of the vials ever kill me.
“Farrow,” Dalton says, “adjust the machine to run a scan every twenty minutes. I want every fluctuation recorded. If it doesn’t take in eight hours, we’ll move 318 back to its cell and try a quad dose tomorrow.”
Monroe meets my gaze again, but this time I’m the one to avert my eyes.
“How long does 318 have before autoimmunity sets in?” Monroe asks.
“It varies,” Dalton says dismissively. “Twelve to eighteen months if we dose them regularly. We’ve had 318 for two years. This one’s been resilient, but I don’t expect it to live much longer.”
Another stabbing pain shoots through my leg as the machine takes more blood. The rainbow light of the scanner floods my eyes, and I close them.
When the cycle stops, the room is dark and empty. I try to sleep, but every twenty minutes the needles and light wake me. When the fever takes me, I almost welcome it, until a sharp ache begins to radiate through me—tearing through my nerves, settling in my bones. It’s pain like nothing I’ve ever felt before. I’m on fire, and I can’t breathe as I struggle against my restraints, soaking the bed with sweat. At some point I lose control of my bowels, but I have no shame. A tiny part of me relishes the disgust I’ll see on their faces when they have to sanitize my body.
Hours pass, and no one comes for me. They leave me alone with beeping machines that track the damage this virus does to my body.
I’m like Snow White in my glass coffin, dead but still alive. But Snow didn’t shake with fever and lie in her own shit, did she? Tears stream down my cheeks as another cycle of light washes over me. My mind tries to fly away, but it doesn’t get far.
My hand is wrapped in my mother’s warmer one as the trucks bring us into the Protected camps. The skies are gray, and a light rain that never stops churns the dirt beneath our feet to mud. The little ones play in it, kicking a half-deflated, neon green ball between them.
We stand in long lines for the quin sludge they feed us, and men and women with guns peer down on us from high platforms.
Sometimes they speak. “We’re keeping you here to protect you. Mobs kill your kind out there, but inside these walls you’re safe.”
One day I fetch our rations, and when I get back, my mother’s bleeding in our tent, her skull caved in. I cry out for help, and the guards come, uncaring, to haul her body away.
317. Blunt trauma to skull. Status: Deceased.
Then the humans who said they’d keep us safe bring me to my bright, warm cell. They give me better food, and I think I’m lucky. Until the doses begin.
Another wave of pain shoots through me, and I swear I can smell the scent of wet earth again as I slide into darkness. Maybe I’m being buried.
But I’ve never been that lucky. The pain goes on forever, and the rainbow light and stabbing needle keep me awake for days.
The Hazmats take me out of the glass case once to clean me up. I’m too tired to enjoy the disgust on their faces as they cut my stinking gown off with scissors and dunk me in ice cold water.
I gasp, but settle in, too fevered to complain. Darkness and exhaustion threaten to take me, but they won’t let me sleep. They talk off to the side, too loud.
I make out Dalton’s voice. “Triple dose broke the threshold. None of the other subjects responded like this. The antibodies 318 is producing are exactly what we need. We’ll dose it again if we don’t get enough.”
“Why wouldn’t it be enough?” A tight voice. A name floats through my fevered mind. Monroe.
“It’s fighting the exact strain that’s resurfaced in the European epidemic,” Dalton says. “318 might provide the cure… before the virus resurfaces here.”
“Is it worth losing a test subject?”
Dalton lets out an abrupt laugh. “Don’t you realize how many of us we’ll save through the loss of just one subject?”
They lift me from the bath, dry me with stiff towels, and don’t bother to dress me again. I’m strapped naked to a fresh pad, and they slide me back into my coffin.
Monroe asks to speak to me alone again. As I gaze up at him through the glass, his masked face blurs before me, and for a second he looks like others I’ve known. Others who betrayed me.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“318.” My voice is weak, my mouth parched, lips cracked.
“Do you like being called 318?”
“It’s my name,” I say.
“Were you ever called something else?”
“I’ve always been 318.”
“And how are you feeling?” he asks again.
My body is dying, but the rest of me is numb. “I don’t feel.”
Then it all begins again.
Darkness mixes with rainbow light. The heat is unbearable, and the taste of blood on my lips is bitter—salt and metal. As the fog over my mind lifts, my stomach heaves at the stench of my own piss and shit.
Dalton’s voice raises me from yet another twenty-minute slumber. “We have what we need.”
I open my eyes, and I see them in my peripheral vision, standing off to the side of my glass prison. Farrow’s talking, but I can barely make out her words. “Autoimmunity… immune system failing.”
“More days… pathogen-free,” Dalton replies. “Euthanize.”
My stomach clenches at the words. Euthanize. Autoimmunity means death. Mine. Why doesn’t the thought bring relief? Haven’t I wished for this nightmare to end?
Soon the machine says I’m pathogen-free, and the Hazmats clean me up. This time I’m able to fully enjoy their obvious revulsion.
Monroe requests a private visit with me again, and I don’t know why I care, but I’m suddenly grateful to the Hazmats for remembering to dress me in a fresh gown. When Monroe’s green eyes meet mine through the glass barrier, my hea
rt speeds up a little, and I feel warmth spread in my cheeks.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“318.” My voice is strong. Confident.
“Do you like being called 318?”
“It’s my name.”
He looks away for a moment, and when he turns back, my stomach drops. His eyes are distant now, empty. Like Farrow’s and Dalton’s.
“Were you ever called something else?” he asks, his voice flat.
I want to give him the answer he wants, so he’ll look at me like he did before, but I don’t know how. “I’ve always been 318.”
“And how are you feeling?” The words are abrupt, clipped short.
I’m feeling more than I’ve felt in a long time. Much more. I hesitate, swallowing, then I meet his eyes. “I feel like I want out of this damn box… Monroe.”
His eyes widen, and he blinks fast and glances toward the door. When he looks back at me, there’s a shine to his eyes.
What would it feel like if he removed his glove and reached his bare hand into the box to grasp mine? My hand warms at the imagined touch, but I can’t remember what someone’s skin on mine actually feels like.
“Monroe,” Farrow calls from the front of the lab. “Dalton wants you in lab C.”
The Hazmats take me back to my cell before the next rainbow-light cycle, and my chest expands at the sight of my familiar cot and the steaming tray of food on the small table. I sleep and wake several times without being sedated before the light comes on and a Hazmat brings me another tray of food.
It’s Monroe.
I jump to my feet and back up a step. He stands still, holding the tray out before him, not dropping it on my table like he’s supposed to. It’s against the rules for me to go near him. I wait for a minute, breathing fast, and when it’s clear he expects me to come get the tray, I carefully step closer, my pulse a dull roar in my ears.
As my hand wraps around one edge of the tray, he speaks. “318.”
I freeze, then risk looking up at him. “Yes?”
My heart’s pumping so hard, I think it might explode.
“I’m sorry,” he says, his voice soft.
“Sorry?” The concept of that word—in this place—is foreign, and my mind can’t make sense of it.
“You’re not an ‘it,’” he says. “You’re a person, and—”
“I’m not. I’m not… human.” I try to step back, but he grabs my wrist, wrapping his rubbery glove around the spot where my silicone disc is embedded.
“You are human.”
Confusion tears through me, and I shake my head.
“You’re a genetically modified human—but still human. The Protected gene therapy had some side effects they didn’t like, so… You aren’t perfect, but none of the people who did this to you are, either.”
I want him to be a liar, but his words trigger something in my mind, and all I want for him to do is keep talking. My eyes burn, and I raise my free hand to rub them. I stare down at a teardrop on my finger. A voice whispers in my mind. The truth. You’re not Protected. You’re Defective.
“You’re wrong. I’m defective,” I say, my voice breaking.
“No. They’re defective.” His voice is hard, angry. “They’d have died a million times over from the diseases they’ve given you. Your superimmunity is a gift. You’re special, not defective.”
I shake my head back and forth and try to pull my wrist from his grasp, but he holds it tight. Panic fills me, and the room seems to tilt.
“I’m 318 and—”
“Your name is Alexia Drago.”
I go still, and he lets my hand drop. I slowly turn, my eyes seeking the letters carved into the wall behind my cot.
LEX.
Alexia.
I stumble back to my bed to trace the letters with my fingertips as I’ve done so many times before.
LEX.
I’m Lex.
I suck in a breath as I remember the day they came for me. An image of a woman, calling my name in class—a teacher at my school. “Alexia Drago, please report to the main office.”
Anders, blond hair, blue eyes, standing beside his cop father. The stinging realization that Anders betrayed me—gave away my secret.
The Corporate Coalition men bringing me back to my house where they interrogate my mother and give her drugs to make her talk.
My mother, confessing, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Yes. I did it. I took an illegal dose of the Protected gene therapy. I lost a younger sister in the pandemics—I just wanted my baby to survive.”
They charged her for conspiring to hide a Protected child. Then they brought us both to the camp.
I hear Monroe drop my tray on the table, and I feel his presence at my back. Emotions run through me, a chaotic mix of shock and grief—of fear… and rage. I clench my hands into fists, and heat spreads through me as I turn back to him.
“I remember.”
He angles his body in front of me, blocking my view of the camera affixed to the top corner of my cell.
“I’m like you, Lex,” he says. “I’m a Protected, too.”
My breath catches, and I can’t answer. I can’t even comprehend someone like me—working with the humans. “But—”
“I’m not one of them—I’m working against them. From the inside,” he says, his voice low. “Would you leave here if I helped you get out?
Leave here. The thought of leaving here makes my lungs seize, and I clutch my blanket tight in my fist, struggling to find the breath to respond. “Go back to the camp?”
“No,” he says quickly. “Somewhere else. Somewhere safer.”
“I’m going to die here.”
“Yes. You will. Unless you come with me.” He bends forward, just a little, to slide something beneath my pillow. “I’m going to try to make sure no one else visits you tonight. But that’s a syringe. A sedative. If a medic comes to give you a sedative tonight, inject him instead.”
I nod, but can’t speak.
“Lex,” he says, and my eyes return to his. “I’ll handle the rest. Just wait for me in your cell. I’ll come get you.”
I lie awake, my heart pounding too fast for sleep, the syringe clutched in one sweaty palm beneath my blanket.
More memories are coming back. The feel of warm wind on my cheek, the scent of summer and sun. My mother, baking in the kitchen, the scent of chocolate chip cookies wafting through our house. My brain shrinks away from it all, and I choke back a sob. It’s too painful. And now that I can feel again—I feel everything.
Everything they did to me.
I’m human, yet they treated me like an alien; like some animal. They used me up, and now they want to throw me away.
I hate them. I hate them so much.
Monroe is right. I’m superior to them, not defective. They fear me, yet they need me to help save themselves.
I’m breathing too fast when the door to my cell slides open, and I have to try to calm myself, slow my breath so they don’t know I’m awake. Is it Monroe, come to free me—or a Hazmat with a sedative?
I ready the syringe just in case and peek through my lashes as the light comes on. I can tell right away by the man’s stance and his stooped shoulders that it’s not Monroe.
The Hazmat comes closer, and I see his watery, lined eyes.
It’s Dalton.
I lurch up on my cot, and he steps back, surprised that I’m awake. Adrenaline races through me, and I ready the syringe in my grip. Something must have happened to Monroe. Why else would Dalton be here? He’s never come in here before.
“You’ve served your purpose, 318,” Dalton says, his voice calm. “I need a fresh host, and I can’t get one unless I have an available cell.”
As he approaches, I see his eyes have the same look I’ve seen in Farrow’s. He relishes the power he has over me. He enjoys my fear.
He opens his gloved fist, revealing the syringe he holds there, and I jerk away, pressing my back to the wall, keeping the sedative I h
old hidden. I can feel the jagged edges of my real name against my back.
LEX.
He grabs my arm roughly, expecting no resistance. I let out a scream and jab my syringe into his arm, hard, to push through layers of plastic. Then I empty it into him.
His eyes widen with shock, then his eyelids begin to flutter. The syringe he holds clatters to the floor as he sinks to his knees. He wavers there for a moment, then falls face down on the tile. He’s passed out.
I’m breathing fast, and my pulse buzzes loudly in my skull as I stand on shaking legs. I glance toward the door, then back at Dalton.
Monroe said to wait here. But the small fire in my belly burns brighter, and rage replaces my fear.
I have the power, and Dalton is at my mercy.
I strip off his suit and see his whole face for the first time. He’s so old and frail.
I want him dead.
I break out in a sweat as I drag his heavy, limp body across the small space. His access card is still attached to his suit, so I grab it and scan it. The door slides open to reveal an empty hall beyond.
Fear tries to paralyze me, but I fight it off by calling up my anger again. I drag Dalton out into the empty hallway and lift my sweat-soaked face to the ceiling to count the lights. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
We’re here.
A little thrill shoots through me, and I know I need to hurry if I want to do this before Monroe gets here. Something tells me he won’t approve.
It takes every ounce of strength I have to drag Dalton into the lab and strap him into my glass coffin. I grab a single-dose vial of Ebola, strain origin: 2044 pandemic and twist it onto the syringe.
As I plunge the needle into his arm, his eyes open wide.
“318,” he croaks out.
He struggles against his restraints, but I did a good job strapping him down. I’ve had hundreds of chances to learn how to do it right. The virus is moving through him, and the pain will soon be unbearable. I know exactly what he’s about to experience.
Dalton shouts, but his screams are muffled by the glass. I don’t blink. I just watch, and I wait.
