Containment (24 page)

For a moment Kraig was confused, but then he realized she was talking about the mouse used to bioassay her CSF for the presence of the pathogen.
"Everybody's mouse died." Kraig's lips compressed. "Cecily, I'm sorry."

"
For what? It's not your fault. This is our job. You don't accept the risks, you don't need to be in the business."

How, Kraig wondered, could she be so calm? Her voice didn
't even waver. Would
he
be that stoic? Or would he be more like Lisa?

Cecily asked,
"Has Lisa called you?"

"
You knew about that? She told you?"

"
No," said Cecily, "but I guessed she might."

The woman
's uncanny, thought Kraig.

"
Don't take it so hard," she went on. "Lisa's young."

"
Yeah, but—"
She probably won't be getting any older.

A moment of silence passed. Both of them were probably thinking the same thing, Kraig realized. Finally he asked,
"Have you seen her? Or talked to her?"

"
Not lately."

"
Do they let you move around in isolation?"

"
I'm not in isolation, Kraig."

Kraig
's compressed lips suddenly parted. "
What?
"

"
It's not like it would do me any good. There's no treatment yet."

"
But you can't just be wandering around! You might infect.... Cecily, where are you?"

"
Where I belong," she answered.

Medburg, Pennsylvania / 3:45 p.m.

Gordon found her meditating on the floor of a dirty basketball court in a gymnasium on Glaser Avenue.

He sat down beside her and said nothing. Cecily Sunday sat cross-legged, thin forearms resting on thighs, mouth and eyes closed. Over the murmuring of several other people in the gym Gordon heard her deep breaths. He watched her slender abdomen steadily swell and collapse. A few minutes passed. Then she said,
"Hello, Gordon."

"
Amazing."

"
Amazing?"

Gordon shook his head. Her eyes hadn
't opened—she couldn't have seen him unless she had peeked through barely cracked eyelids.

"
You have a distinctive gait," explained Cecily.

"
You heard me? My footsteps?" Gordon glanced around. There were about twenty other people in the building, and though no one was playing basketball there were several voluble conversations drifting through the enclosed gym.

"
No, I didn't hear them, but I felt them."

Suddenly Gordon understood. His footsteps had been transmitted into Cecily
's body as she sat on the floor. "Okay, maybe you're not amazing. Simply perceptive. Very, very perceptive."

Still with eyes closed, Cecily smiled.

It was the same smile that Gordon had found so disconcerting when he'd first met her back at the Vision Cell laboratories. But perhaps it wasn't the same. Now, as he stared at it, he noticed that Cecily's smile wasn't so disconcerting. In fact it was sort of comforting.

Cecily asked,
"What are you doing here?"

"
I could ask you the same question."

"
I'm here because this is where I should be." Cecily's eyes opened. "I'm infected. And now
you
are quite likely to be infected too, if you weren't before. So, why did you come into the containment zone, Gordon? You're not a stupid man. Surely you knew what you were doing, surely you had some reason for what you did."

Gordon couldn
't meet her gaze. He shrugged.

"
That's not a good answer," said Cecily.

Gordon looked up.
"I was searching for someone."

"
Who?"

After a short pause Gordon said,
"I found her."

Cecily watched him for a moment.
"You're pretty perceptive too, if you knew I'd be here."

"
I knew you'd be infected, after I realized how infectious this thing is. This thing that my company turned loose. I know it started at Vision Cell. I don't know how, but I know it got started there."

"
And you're here to atone for the mistake." Cecily frowned. "Quit punching yourself, Gordon. According to the people at Micro, nobody's at fault."

"
Everybody
is at fault," said Gordon savagely.

Cecily stared.
"You mean by not being prepared? How can you prepare for something like this?"

"
By considering all the possibilities."

Cecily frown
ed. "There are an infinite number of them, as my esteemed colleague Sherlock would point out. You can't be prepared for them all."

"But you have to know you're taking risks."

"
It seems to me that everybody
did
know that we were taking risks. The risks were deemed acceptable, considering the potential reward of that kind of research."

"
That's the whole problem, Cecily. We were arrogant. Everybody was. We deemed the risks acceptable, all right, but that's because we assumed that we knew everything that might happen. We thought we were in control, we thought...we assumed we knew what was going on. Behold,
Homo sapiens
: wise being, conqueror of nature."

Gordon paused to glance around, as if to take in the whole containment zone.
"And this is the result of that arrogance. We didn't know what we were doing and now we're paying for it."

"
What would you prefer? That people do nothing unless they fully understand what they're doing? Seems like we couldn't do anything but sit still if we had to live under that kind of restriction. Don't get me wrong, Gordon—I think you make a good point, but I don't believe there's anything reasonable we can do to prevent this kind of accident."

Gordon stared at her for a moment. She stared back, her expression neutral.

"Twenty thousand causalities," said Gordon. His mouth went dry. "Including...."

"
Including you and me?"

Gordon nodded.

"We're not dead yet," said Cecily.

"
This Sherlock fellow, he's going to save us. Is that it?"

"
I don't know. What do you want me to say? I just don't know. All I'm telling you is that we're not dead yet, so let's not act like it." Cecily looked at him. "But you know what? You were a fool to come here and do this contrition stunt. How did you sneak into the zone?"

"
I wrapped myself in plastic peanuts and jumped from a tree."

Cecily laughed.

"No, really."

"
And what were the soldiers doing while you climbed the tree and jumped over the fence?"

"
You'd be surprised how easy it is to sneak up on people when their full attention is focused on what's in front of them rather than what's behind them."

"
Good point. But I would have thought the tree limbs would be trimmed so they don't extend over the fence."

"
They were. I had to run along a branch and leap forward. Just barely cleared the fence."

Ceci
ly smiled her weird smile. "I think you're a fool. A clever one, but a fool nonetheless—a clever fool. How's that for an oxymoron? So now you're in the zone, and you're here to stay, my friend, because you won't be doing any more fence-jumping unless you want to eat a bullet. You've gone from spectator to spectacle. Does it make you feel any better?"

"
Yes."

Cecily gazed at him with a skeptical look on her face.
"Really?"

He returned her stare.
"Yeah, really. I'm where I belong. And it's been a long time since I could honestly say that."

* * *

An hour later Gordon and Cecily left the relative calm of the gymnasium. It had been designated as a "public center" and was guarded by two troops in hazard suits, both soldiers bearing M4s and giving the impression they were alert but not scared.

"
Where are you staying?" asked Gordon, as he followed Cecily down the sidewalk.

Cecily jerked her thumb at the gym.

"Really?" asked Gordon. "That's home?"

"
Yes," said Cecily. "Showers in the back, no waiting for the toilet, continental breakfast. Can't beat it."

She stopped. It was late afternoon in Medburg but there was no rush hour traffic in the zone. A drizzling rain came down, just enough to wet an uncovered face. The street was practically deserted
—and filthy.

"
It's getting dangerous," said Cecily. "And it'll only get worse. We should probably go back inside. But I hate being cooped up all the time. Makes me feel...." Her voice trailed off.

"
Is that why you came into the zone? To escape isolation, confined to a room?"

"
I already told you why I'm here." Cecily started walking again. An SUV sped by, and she watched it suspiciously.

"
Something wrong?" asked Gordon, staring at her.

Cecily turned and smiled.
"Was that a joke?"

"
No," said Gordon, frowning. "But I suppose it—"

Gordon
's mouth stayed open but he quit talking. Cecily followed his gaze. Her mouth set. "I don't know about you," she said, "but I'm not going to let this place slide all the way into barbarity." She walked forward.

Following a pace behind, Gordon went with Cecily toward the body that they
'd seen on the sidewalk a short distance away.

It was an old woman. As Gordon stared at her, he thought she looked a little like his grandmother
—a likeable, kindly woman who lived in Atlanta and sent him cleverly punned Christmas cards every December.

Gordon noticed Cecily looking around. He said,
"Where do we take her?"

"
Nowhere." Cecily walked over to an abandoned store front. It was a barber shop, jutting out from a row house. The windows were boarded up and sheets of blue plastic had been wrapped across the boards. She began stripping the plastic off.

"
What do you mean, 'nowhere'? Isn't there a burial place or something?"

"
They come around and pick them up in trucks." Cecily tore off a piece of the plastic and handed it to Gordon. Then she started on another.

"
Then why...." Gordon paused. Suddenly he got it. "Civilized people cover their dead."

"
You have to keep up your standards," said Cecily. "If you don't, there's no telling how far down you'll go. There's no limit to how low you can fall." She finished ripping the plastic. "If," she added darkly, "history is any judge."

They took the plastic and made a blue cocoon around the body. After they dragged the body onto the curb, Cecily brushed off her hands.
"Ready for delivery."

Gordon studied her face.
"I can't figure you out."

"
Don't try." Cecily straightened up. "I have to ask one question, though, while we're on the subject. I think I understand why you broke into the zone—sort of like a symbolic virgin, throwing yourself into the volcano—but what I want to know is, were you really looking for me?"

Gordon nodded.

"Mind telling me why?"

Gordon shrugged.
"What else is a volcanic virgin supposed to do? I don't know anybody else in the zone."

Cecily stared at him for so long that Gordon became uncomfortable.
"What?" he asked.

She shook a bony finger at him.
"You know what I think? I think you're a closet dysphoric."

"
A what?"

A wild scream diverted their attention.

A pickup truck careened down the road. Jammed in the back were five young people, four men and a woman. Most were holding up beer bottles. One of the men tilted back his head and gave another ear-splitting yell.

"
Look out," warned Cecily. With her hand on Gordon's shoulder she drove him backward, toward the flimsy shelter offered by the awning of the barber shop.

The truck was only going about ten miles per hour. The people in the back had plenty of time to notice Cecily and Gordon. And they did.

Most of them were sitting down, except the man who'd yelled. He was about twenty years old, tall with an athletic build, and obviously intoxicated.

One of the other men shouted something, pointing to Cecily.