Until then, she and Dr. Rivera had time for a little experimentation. It was important to know exactly how strong the immune systems of these special survivors had grown.
“How about him?” Dr. Rivera said, pointing at one of the twenty-three photographs laid out on the table.
She studied the image, then shrugged. Really, what was the difference? “Works for me,” she said.
Dr. Rivera picked up the photo and handed it to the guard who had been waiting patiently to the side. “This one. As quickly as you can.”
__________
WHILE MARTINA’S FRIENDS were all in favor of trying to get out, most of the others being held with them did not seem as open to the idea. Ben had been careful about what he said as he spoke to them, trying to gauge their thoughts on the situation without going into any details. The only people he shared more information with were a man named Preston Campbell from Barstow, who was in his mid-thirties, and a woman named Ivy Morse, who was probably closer to sixty and from Sage Springs.
As Ben had pointed out from the beginning, getting out of their detention area would be the easy part. All they would have to do was scrap enough grass and topsoil away to slip under the gate. It wouldn’t be easy but very doable, especially if they waited until night. The trick was getting the center-field wall open.
Ben was huddled with Jilly, Ruby, and Preston, going over ideas on how to do just that, when the compound gate opened and five guards entered. All conversation ceased as the guard in front looked at a piece of paper in his hand and then scanned the survivors.
When his gaze landed on Ben’s group, he pointed. “You. Come here.”
No one moved.
“Blue shirt, let’s go,” the guard said.
Ruby was the one in blue. “Go where?” she asked.
“The doctors want to see you.”
“What for?”
“You’ll have to ask them. Come on.”
Ruby glanced nervously back at the others. “What do I do?” she whispered.
“Let’s move it!” the guard yelled.
“It’ll be okay,” Jilly said.
None of them believed that.
The guards started walking toward them. Ruby said to her friends, “Don’t leave me,” then turned and walked toward the gate.
“How long will she be gone?” Ben asked.
Without answering, the guards formed a circle around Ruby and led her out of the detention area.
As soon as the gate was closed, Jilly said, “What the hell?”
“The sooner we get out of here, the better,” Preston said.
“But not without Ruby.” Jilly looked at Ben. “We can’t leave her.”
“We won’t,” he said, with no idea how he’d keep that promise.
__________
THE DOOR TO the lab opened and the test subject was escorted in.
“Have a seat…” Dr. Rivera looked down at the file. “Ruby.”
With a wary glance back at her guards, the girl sat down. The subject’s apparent agitation surprised Dr. Lawrence.
She looked at the lead guard. “Was there a problem?”
“No. Why?” the guard asked.
Instead of answering him, she switched her attention to the survivor. “You appear upset. Is something wrong?”
“I just…I want to know why I’m here.”
For a brief second, she thought maybe the girl had realized what they were going to do, but that wasn’t possible. Her nerves must have been on edge from being locked up for so many days.
She gave the survivor a disarming smile and said, “We realize this has been an ordeal for you and the others. Know that we’re only doing what’s necessary to keep people alive.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rivera preparing the syringe.
She looked over at the lead guard again. “Thank you. That will be all.” After the guards retreated and shut the door, she said, “Due to the nature of the…emergency, we haven’t always been able to get the best help. The men on sentry duty are good men, just a little rough around the edges at times, so I apologize if their behavior’s disturbed you.”
When the test subject relaxed a little, she knew she had guessed right, that the guards had somehow spooked her. Lawrence made a mental note to have a discussion with their boss later. Things would go much more smoothly, especially when the exploratory group went out in the field, if everyone projected an aura of understanding and sympathy. Flies to honey and all that.
Rivera stepped next to the girl and said, “Please roll up your sleeve.”
The survivor looked at the syringe. “What’s that?”
Rivera looked a bit confused, so Lawrence jumped in. “The vaccine. You’ve passed the incubation period, so it’s time.”
Rivera gave her an admiring nod.
“Vaccine?” The girl looked surprised.
“Yes. It’s why you came here in the first place, isn’t it?”
The subject looked as if she were having some kind of internal debate. Finally, she started to roll up her sleeve. When her bicep was clear, Rivera stuck her with the needle and pushed down on the plunger, sending a mega dose of active KV-27a virus into the girl’s arm.
As soon as the needle was removed and a small bandage applied, the survivor reached over to roll her sleeve back down. “Hold on,” the doctor said. “One more.”
“One more?”
“Yes. As you can imagine, this is a very special virus,” Lawrence said, improvising again. “We’ve developed a, um, two-injection method to combat it.”
“I’ve never heard of anything like that before.”
“We had to work in a hurry,” she told the girl, her confidence building with every word. “Two separate teams have come up with different variations. Both methods work, but some people react better to one than the other. So by injecting both, we’re giving you a much better chance at survival.”
The survivor considered her explanation, and then nodded. Rivera, on the other hand, was staring at Lawrence with what appeared to be a new level of respect.
“You may give her the second vaccine now, Doctor,” she said to nudge Rivera out of his trance.
Rivera blinked, then, somewhat embarrassed, grabbed the syringe containing the sedative. After he had given the injection and applied another bandage, he said, “You can pull your sleeve down now.”
“It will be a full day before the vaccine is truly effective,” Lawrence said, enjoying playing the part of the kind doctor. “So we’re going to put you someplace where you can rest and wait. It’s only a few doors down. After twenty-four hours have passed, you will be free to leave.”
The girl blinked a few times. “Or…or…go to the safe…zone.”
“I’m sorry?” Lawrence said, momentarily confused. Then she realized what the girl had meant. “Right. Of course. If you so choose, you can join the next group heading for the safe zone. It’s definitely the choice we recommend.”
The survivor blinked again, her lids closing for a second before popping back open. Lawrence could tell she was confused by the response, but the drug was hindering her thought process.
“How…long…does…does…”
Her head drooped forward before she could finish the question, the sedative knocking her out even faster than the doctor had hoped.
Together, Lawrence and Rivera moved their test subject into the small office just off the lab. They had earlier removed all the furniture and replaced it with a single metal cot. They had covered the walls and ceiling with plastic and made sure the seams were sealed tight. Next up had been replacing the door with one from down the hall. It had a window taking up the top half and a square vent on the bottom. It had taken a little work, but they had created a space in the vent through which they could pump in whatever they wanted.
A tidy and safe observation room.
Once they had the girl on the cot, they closed the door and sealed off the joints along the frame with more plastic. Rivera walked over to the set of valves they
’d mounted to the wall and activated the oxygen tank. He then skipped the middle two valves, neither of which was connected to a tank, and turned on number four, sending a fine mist of concentrated Sage Flu virus into Ruby’s room.
Perhaps it was overkill to inject KV-27a into the subject and the air she would breathe, but the first thing they wanted to know was if the acquired immunity was a hundred percent or not. If the girl caught the disease, they could then use the other subjects to find the borderline of where the immunity stopped working. If the girl didn’t, well, then, that would be something else, wouldn’t it?
Dr. Lawrence tingled with anticipation of the outcome, wondering which would prevail. She didn’t have a preference, of course. She never did.
It’s what made her such a good researcher.
26
WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA
4:43 PM EST
SINCE LEAVING TEXAS, Curtis Wicks slept only when he absolutely had to. Otherwise he kept heading northeast.
The route was nowhere near as straight as he would have liked. Avoiding permanent Project facilities and locations where survival stations had been set up was a priority, so that meant detouring onto smaller highways that were often littered with accidents and abandoned vehicles.
And then there were the blockages like he encountered on the Kentucky side of a bridge over the Ohio River. He was on one of his detours at the time, avoiding the survival station in Cincinnati. The accident was in Maysville at the mouth of the two-lane suspension bridge that he’d planned on using to enter Ohio.
Even on his motorcycle he couldn’t get around the problem. Several cars had been deliberately jammed between two concrete columns to bar any vehicles from passing.
Deciding to walk across and find another motorbike on the Ohio side, he climbed over the cars and hopped down on the other side. More cars were strung out on the bridge, sitting sideways to the lane markers. It looked like there had also been a car fire or someone had tried to burn down the bridge near the center; the metal railings and concrete sidewalk were scorched black. Why someone thought they could burn down the bridge, he didn’t know. What he did know was that with all the obstacles, it would take him forever to get to the other side. There had to be a better way.
He decided to see if there was another bridge close by he could try. When he turned to climb back over the main roadblock, he stopped in his tracks.
Painted on each concrete pillar was a message that clued him in to what had happened here.
STAY OUT. GO BACK. VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT.
A last stand. The police or desperate locals trying to keep the outbreak from crossing the river. And perhaps they had succeeded, but unfortunately for them, the Sage Flu had been coming from all directions, not only the north.
He located another bridge a few miles north, but it too turned out to be a bust. While the side railings were still there, someone had blown a twenty-foot hole in it near the center. Perhaps that explained the burn marks on the other bridge. Maybe someone had tried to blow it, too, but failed.
Wicks did finally find his way across, one that allowed him to keep his ride, but it was only after traveling more than fifty miles east to South Portsmouth. That had been the previous evening, and since it was already dark by the time he crossed and he was bone tired, he stopped not far north of the border and slept dreamlessly until that morning.
When he sat down to plan that day’s route, he realized he needed to take several factors into consideration. The first was NB191, the Project Eden facility right outside Columbus, Ohio. Like the majority of other facilities, its main function was that of a warehouse and would have only a small staff. Still, he wanted to keep away from it. The second issue would be the survival station in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Again, avoiding the city altogether would be the best course.
If not for the third item, he would have passed Pittsburgh to the south and cut north through the center of the state into New York and then on to his final destination. But the third item necessitated turning north prior to Pittsburgh, then heading east through the middle of the state. Unlike the others, it was a stop he had to make.
Heading out, he saw patches of snow here and there that spoke of severe weather sometime in the not too distant past. Though it had warmed at bit since then, Wicks was freezing, even with his jacket zipped all the way up and his scarf wrapped tight around his neck.
He couldn’t help but smile when he reached the I-80 north of Pittsburgh. It had been years since he was last in this part of the country. When he was a kid, he used to visit often. It had been a magical place of trees and farms and streams and secret paths through the woods. The people who had lived there were all gone now, many dying naturally as they grew older, but the majority taken by the flu.
That thought forced him to the side of the road, the bike skidding a bit on a patch of ice as he stopped. He pushed out the stand and was barely able to get off before the tears flooded his cheeks.
Safe inside Project Eden’s facilities, he’d been able to distance himself from what was happening to the world around him. He’d even told himself, because he passed on information to Matt and the Resistance, that he was on the side of good.
But for the last few days, he had driven through the silent towns, passed over the deserted roads, smelled the rotting corpses. And now here he was, a few miles away from a town where he’d known people.
He could distance himself no longer, nor could he disavow his part in the horror.
He fell to his knees, his hand covering his face, and sobbed.
There was nothing he could do to make up for what had happened.
Nothing.
He had killed them.
Killed them all.
Even after his tears ran out, he knelt there, staring at the ground.
His soul was not lost. He knew exactly where it was—in the lowest pit of hell, irredeemable.
When he rose to his feet, he was no longer shaking. Since leaving Texas, he had feared what might happen to him on the mission he was undertaking, but no more.
The damned have nothing to fear, he realized.
He took the Allegheny Boulevard exit in Brookville ten minutes later, and soon was turning off Jenks Street onto Cemetery Road. He slowed as he passed between the two columns that had flanked the entrance since long before he was born. Carved in relief in the capstone on the left was BROOKVILLE and the one on the right CEMETERY. No fancy names here, just telling it like it was.
He had no problem finding the headstone he was looking for. It wasn’t ornate or as high as many of the others, but even if a hundred years had passed, he would have found it just the same. It was his grandfather’s, a humble monument Wicks had helped his mother pick out.
The gravestone was a five-inch-thick slab of granite that rose a foot into the air from a wide base flush to the ground. He squatted next to it and brushed away a crusty chunk of snow from the bottom.
He’d always loved his family’s trips here to visit his grandfather, had loved playing in the sweet old man’s barn, and walking with him through the fields. Wicks had been fourteen when his grandfather died, and—until he’d come back seven years earlier for a short, purposeful visit—the man’s funeral had been the last time Wicks was there.
He ran his palm across the front of the stone, outlining his grandfather’s name before moving his hand to the very top of the monument. As much as he would have liked to spend hours cloaked in the good memories, that was time he did not have.
He gripped the stone with the other hand and yanked it forward. The first jerk barely moved it, but with each back and forth motion, the marker tilted more and more until finally it tipped over onto the grass and snow.
Moving around behind it, he reached into the hole where the base had been. After clearing away some clumps of dirt, he found the box and pulled it up. The container was made from a hard, durable polymer that was guaranteed to last a hundred years. It probably did not gain the favor of the ecologically minded but
was exactly what Wicks had wanted. With the exception of being a little dirty, the box looked like new.
He twisted the top counterclockwise and looked inside. It was still there, like he knew it would be. He closed the top, set the box to the side, and tilted the marker back into place.
“Thank you,” he said, looking down at the grave.
His grandfather would be shocked at what Wicks had been a part of, but he hoped the old man would at least be supportive of what he was trying to do now.
He picked up the box as he stood. The container felt so light for something so important.
Please still work, he thought. Dear God. Please.
27
WARD MOUNTAIN NORTH, NEVADA
1:44 PM PST
“HERE,” CRYSTAL SAID, handing a headset to Ash. She then donned the second set and clicked CONNECT.
The line rang only once before it was answered. “Nyla.”
“It’s Crystal. I have Captain Ash here.”
“Afternoon, Nyla.” Ash had met her in passing, but had never really talked to her.
“Hello, Captain,” she said. “We have a situation here we need some guidance on.”
On the way to the communications room, Crystal had briefed Ash on Nyla’s assignment in Los Angeles, but had no details on why the woman wanted to talk to him.
“All right. I’ll do what I can,” he said.
“I think it’s probable we have a unique group of survivors here.”
“Unique in what way?”
“Sir, we believe they are immune.”
“You mean they’ve been vaccinated?” It had happened in India, so it wouldn’t be completely surprising if the same situation had occurred here.
“No. Not vaccinated. Immune.”
Ash knew a few people with a natural immunity were to be expected. He and his kids were examples of that. “How many are we talking? Two? Three?”
“At least twenty. And, if I’m right, there’s probably many times more than that.”
“Start at the beginning,” he said.
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