Authors: Kat Ross
“It’s 11 o’clock at night.”
“So what? I doubt your hours are very regular. Not in your line of research.”
She looks away and I know I’m right. “Move,” I say, extending my arm until the gun barrel is inches from her left eye. “Touch nothing, and don’t try to voice-activate anything either, or I’ll shoot you.” She moves.
“Don’t you want to know what I want?” I ask as we climb the stairs.
She sighs. “What do you want?”
“Guess.”
“I really have no idea.”
“None at all? Think hard.”
She stops but doesn’t turn around. Her shoulders are hunched, and I notice pale lilac highlights in her bobbed hair. Her feet are bare. “Kidnapping a government scientist is a Class A felony. It doesn’t matter that you’re under eighteen. I’m talking a thirty-year sentence, hard labor in the mines. Minimum.”
“Only if I get caught.”
We reach her bedroom door and she looks over her shoulder. Smiles coldly. “You’ll get caught.”
She’s probably right. But something in her tone, the smug confidence, unleashes a sudden fury in me. This is the woman who has been conducting unspeakable experiments on fellow human beings. On Will.
“Let me explain something, Rebekah. I have nothing to lose at this point. Nothing. If I wanted to kill you right now with my bare hands, I could do it in a dozen different ways. Some fast, some slow. Some real slow. So if you attempt anything stupid when we go through lobby security, it will be the last thing you do. I might even let you live. Without a face.”
She stares at me, eyes a little wider now, then walks to the closet and pulls out some clothes. She’s somewhere in her mid-forties, but her body is still strong and fit. She turns her back on me to change once she realizes I’m not about to look away, not for a second.
“Why did they really close Substation 99?” I ask her.
She pauses for a moment, then zips up her slacks. Doesn’t answer. I remember her on the beach that night, regaling us with stories about her work on hypercanes. Toad research seems a radical departure. But what if she was doing both? And then they found something, something they didn’t want getting out, so they pretended to shut it down.
“There’s a land mass in the eye, isn’t there?” I say.
Rebekah studies me. “Why would you think that?”
“Just tell me.”
“OK. The answer is no. I spent years gathering data on Tisiphone. I had the same hope once. But we confirmed that she’s sitting over ocean, nothing more.”
Rebekah says this with perfect sincerity, but something in her body language, in the way she looks away almost immediately, tells me she’s lying,
“How did you confirm that? I thought the satellites were blind.”
“They are. So we built an experimental plane that can fly through the eyewall.”
Maybe the rumors around the Academy were true. “I want to see the data,” I say.
She smirks. “Fine. It’s about six thousand feet straight up and forty-five hundred miles northeast. In the substation computer banks.”
“How convenient,” I say, as she finishes dressing. I want to keep pushing her, but time is short. “Where’s your car?”
The kitchen opens straight into a garage that holds two vehicles, a green government-issue clunker and a fancy silver sports car. Rebekah starts walking toward the sports car but I shake my head.
“No deviations from the routine.”
She shrugs and swipes her Pii through a reader set into the driver’s side door of the clunker. “Good evening, Dr Carlsson,” a women’s voice purrs as we get in. I take the back seat.
“Work,” she barks and the electric motor hums to life.
Once we’re moving, I place the gun on the floor between my feet and take out the magic rocks. Then I balance my Pii on one leg and dump out the contents of the bag on top. The rocks immediately glom together with a soft click. I just hope they’re strong enough.
“What are you doing?” Rebekah asks, glancing over her shoulder.
“Demagnetizing my Pii. Bye-bye data. The guard won’t like it, but you’re going to talk us through. You’re a colonel, aren’t you? Pull rank.”
“That’s against protocol,” she says inanely.
“So is testing dangerous drugs on people. Speaking of which, I need to know everything about QPT, what it does, how long it lasts. Side effects. Everything.”
“What makes you think I know about. . . What did you call it?”
“QPT,” I repeat with exaggerated slowness. “You’re also testing it on toads. But it makes them worse, doesn’t it? I already read the latest report so don’t bother lying.”
She frowns at this. Not because I know. Because her experiment is a failure.
And as much as I’ve been dreading the answer, I have to find out. “So what does it do to humans?”
“That depends,” she says, gazing out the window. We’re passing the university, a complex of drab metal buildings that reminds me of the Academy, except without the barbed wire and electrified fencing.
“On what?”
“On how much is administered.”
“OK. How much are you giving to number eleven? Group B.”
“Did you say number eleven?”
“Yes.” I realize my hands are clenched into fists, fingernails almost breaking the skin, and make them relax a little.
“I assume you have a. . . personal interest?”
There’s something in her voice I don’t like. She’s stalling.
“You could say that. He’s coming with me when I go.”
Rebekah stiffens. The moment stretches out, and I have an awful feeling I will remember it as the threshold of
before
and
after
. I don’t want to step across, but there’s no stopping now. It’s as though the world has ruptured and jagged little fissures are running out in all directions. Just hairline cracks to start, but soon they’ll widen into chasms big enough to swallow me whole. Bile rises in my throat and I choke it down. Wait.
“That’s impossible,” she says finally.
“Tell me why not. Tell me, goddammit.”
“Because he’s infected now.”
Infected
.
“With what?” I whisper.
“We decided this morning to stop the QPT. Yes, it has side effects – elevated heart rate, muscle spasms, homicidal ideation, seizures. To list a few. We were hoping Group B could be used as a control, but it’s pointless. We’re too different from the toads. At least the human subjects didn’t try to tear each other limb from limb. . .”
She’s babbling now, and I can see she is genuinely frightened for the first time since she opened the door and I put a gun to her head. Which scares me to death.
“Anyway, number eleven was in line to be moved to Group C today.” She pauses. “What’s left of it.”
“What’s Group C?” I grab her shoulder. “Infected with
what
?”
The car pulls into a vast, mostly empty parking lot and the engine shuts off.
She locks eyes with me in the rearview and says, “Something that can never, ever leave the Helix.”
The lobby guard looks up as we push through the double glass doors. On the way there, I reminded Rebekah that I will gladly kill anyone who gets in my way, starting with her. The gun is in my coat pocket, where I can reach it in a heartbeat.
I refuse to believe what she told me, that I’m too late. But her words keep echoing in my head.
Weaponized hot agent. . . no treatment, no cure. . . ninety-five percent fatality rate. . . explosive chain of lethal transmission
. . .
I don’t care. I have to see him. And I’m not leaving him here, whatever the cost.
My heart is pounding hard as we approach the guard, but I keep my face composed. He’s in his fifties, with thinning grey hair cropped short and round, watery eyes. The lobby is smaller than I expected, and furnished with institutional indifference, not a place designed for lingering. Everything is bright white, inside and out.
Rebekah presents her Pii and the guard swipes it through a console on his desk.
“Thank you, Dr Carlsson.” He looks at me questioningly.
“This is my student, Jansin Nordqvist. She’ll be assisting me tonight.”
I nod and hand over my card. Just beyond the guard’s station is a metal detector, and then more glass doors that lead to a moving walkway. I can see a line of doors on the right before the corridor curves out of sight.
He swipes it, frowns. Swipes it again. Examines the black magstrip.
“Is something wrong?” I let a hint of my anxiety leak through, but not too much.
“Let’s try once more.” He runs it through, shakes his head. “Card malfunction.”
“Huh.” I stare at Rebekah, willing her to say something.
“All visitors have to be entered into the system.” The guard doesn’t look happy.
He’s carrying at least one visible weapon, a laser gun in a holster, and probably others. I know we’re on camera right now. Every inch of the Helix has video coverage, except for the innermost sanctum of Biosciences. So I keep my posture relaxed, unthreatening. A little bewildered.
“What should we do, Dr Carlsson?” I turn to her, put a hand on my hip, right over the pocket with the gun.
She stares at me for a moment, expression unreadable. It’s cold in here, but I can feel sweat forming on my palms. Then she looks away, smiles.
“I’m sure we can find a solution. You can still log her name manually, verify her photo. I’ll vouch for her. I’m afraid I really can’t do without Ms Nordqvist.”
He clears his throat apologetically. “I don’t think. . .”
“That’s an order,” Rebekah snaps. “I’ll assume full responsibility.”
The guard hesitates. He doesn’t want to get in trouble, but she’s one of the most senior scientists at the Helix. And it’s common knowledge that she’s in tight with the top military brass. I can see he wants to cave, but needs a way to salvage his pride.
“How about you hold onto the card and I’ll pick it up on the way out?” I chirp. “Wouldn’t get far without my Pii.”
He pretends to consider it. “That’ll work. Don’t forget now.”
He hands me a visitor’s badge, which I clip to my lapel. Rebekah passes through the metal detector and walks to the second set of glass doors. I take a deep breath and step into the plastic rectangle. I left the magnets and gold hidden under the back seat of Rebekah’s car. I’m not wearing any jewelry. All I have is the gun. And it’s a ceramic composite, with 20-millimeter caseless cartridges. Like I said, very illegal.
I step out the other side. The metal detector stays quiet.
Rebekah has her Pii poised over the proximity reader when the guard calls my name. I stop. Slowly turn around.
He’s half risen from his chair, brow furrowed. “Sorry, miss, but your name is so familiar. I know I’ve heard it somewhere.”
“Oh yeah?”
I widen my stance a little and get ready for all hell to break loose. I lied when I said I’d shoot Rebekah first. That would be the guard. Rebekah I need, for a while at least. She knows the access codes. I wonder how far we’ll get before the Helix goes into full lockdown mode.
Not very far, I’d guess.
Then he smiles. “Any relation to Dr Nordqvist? Agrosciences?”
I make myself smile back. “That’s my mother.”
The guard beams. “I can see the resemblance now. Such a kind woman. My wife has a bit of a green thumb. Dr Nordqvist gave me some tomato cuttings. . . or, ah, grafts, I think she called it. Anyhow, the wife’s been raving about ’em. Make for a mean marinara sauce.”
“Sounds like Mom.”
He waves as I back through the door. I’m really glad I didn’t have to shoot him.
The walkway is weight-activated and starts moving as soon as we step on. Most of the offices and labs are dark, but there are a few hard-working souls still at it.
“Tell me something, Rebekah,” I say as we drift through the Geophysics division, where they study things like plate tectonics, heat flow, and how to keep the planet’s internal structure from grinding us all into dust. “Because I’m having a hard time getting my brain around it. Why in the world would you deliberately infect someone with a virus that can’t be treated, can’t be vaccinated against? Just because you can? Why not put a bullet in his head. It’s a lot cleaner.”
She glances at me, and behind the mask of indifference, I see boundless contempt. She knows her value, knows I won’t harm her,
can’t
harm her, and feels free to say what she pleases.
“First of all, those people barely qualify as human. I’ve seen Toads with more intelligence. They’re the dregs of the species, and if I can put them to a higher use, I have absolutely no moral qualms about it. For God’s sake, you were there, Nordqvist. You saw what they did to the camp.” She pulls her hair aside and displays a pink scar that loops up under her chin and around one ear. “I nearly lost my head getting to the mole, so I’m afraid I’m a little short on mercy.”
Rebekah lets her hair fall. “Second, how do you think vaccines are developed? In the old days, they used primates. We don’t have that luxury. You’re a smart girl, Nordqvist. So you tell me something. What do you think will happen if one of the other prefectures unleashes an epidemic on us? How long will it take before every man, woman and child is dead or dying?”
“That would depend on what it is,” I say, choosing to ignore the first part.
“Right. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, it’s a hemorrhagic virus capable of airborne transmission. That means coughing, sneezing, touching.
Breathing
. I happen to know that Greenbrier is working on just such a virus.”
We reach the boundary with Climatology and the walkway stops. Rebekah flashes her card in front of the reader, punches in a six-digit number, and the doors swish open. The curvature of the walls is getting gradually more pronounced, and I can’t escape the feeling that we’re headed into a labyrinth. And that what’s waiting at the center is worse than any Minotaur.
“I doubt you’ve ever seen the effects of a hemorrhagic virus on the human body,” she says as we step onto the next walkway. “Unless you were wearing a Level Four space suit, you wouldn’t be here right now. Suffice to say, it’s spectacular. Like a bomb going off in your internal organs. And every corpse contains billions of virus particles.”