Sick (28 page)

“Let’s go,” he said. “There’s no reason to stay here.”

But as he took a step toward the exit, she didn’t move.

“Chloe?”

Without looking at him, she said, “Matt’s…Matt’s inside person…is the same one who helped me.” The words were obviously causing her a great deal of distress, but Ash couldn’t understand why. “He would…leave me…messages. You know…so I’d know I wasn’t…alone. That helped me to survive.”

“You don’t need to torture yourself like this,” Ash said. “Come on.”

“Matt told him I was coming with you,” she went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “If something…changed, he…might have left me…a note.”

Ash took a step toward her, suddenly hopeful. “A note?”

She continued to stare at the door. “We don’t even know if…he got Matt’s initial message…but if…if…if he did…”

“If he did, what, Chloe?”

She took a couple of deep breaths. “He would probably leave it somewhere only I would know.”

“Where?”

The silence stretched out for a dozen seconds, then she said in a barely audible voice, “In my room.”

“It’s okay,” Ash said, trying to calm her down. “Just tell me where it is, and I’ll check.”

Her head began shaking left and right. “No. I have to do it. It’s my spot. My place only.”

Her breath shuttered in and out one more time, then she took a step toward the door, then another step and another, each coming quicker than the last. When she reached the room, she went inside without hesitating.

Ash wasn’t sure what to do. Should he let her look on her own or should he help? When half a minute passed and she hadn’t reappeared, he decided he needed to see what was going on.

As he opened the door, he could hear her sobbing.

“Chloe?” he said, rushing in.

She wasn’t there.

“Chloe?”

Another sob, this one from his left through the doorway to the bathroom. He found her inside on her knees in the middle of the tiled floor.

He dropped down beside her. “Are you hurt?”

She jumped when he touched her, surprised that he was there. “I can do this. I’ll be okay.”

“Just let me help.”

“I can do this,” she repeated, but didn’t move.

Her put his arm around her shoulders. She tried to pull away again, but then she took another breath, this one longer and slower, and she let him leave his arm where it was.

“What did they do to you?”

She said nothing for several seconds, then finally turned and looked up at him. “I don’t remember.”

“Well…that’s probably…good, right?” he said, realizing he shouldn’t have asked in the first place. “Maybe it’s best that way.”

“No,” she said quickly. “You don’t understand. I
don’t
remember.
Anything
.”

“What do you mean, anything? From when you were here?”

Again, her head shook. “From before. I remember waking up here. I remember being strapped to the bed. I remember the needles and the pills and the tests. I remember all that. But anything that came before in my life? I don’t remember.” She looked around the room. “This place took my past from me.”

Good God,
Ash thought. “You don’t…know anything about your past?”

“I
know
about it. My name used to be Lauren Scott. Matt and Rachel showed me family pictures, articles in the local paper where I apparently grew up, my college diploma. I even sat in a car down the street from my…my parents’ house, and watched them walk along the sidewalk. If I hadn’t been shown a photo of them, I would have never recognized them. They were just two people I didn’t know. I had no feelings for them whatsoever.” Her eyes narrowed. “These people took that from me. They took
me
from me. That’s who I can’t get back.”

Ash wasn’t sure what to say. Was it better to remember that his wife was dead, and that he had two children who were in need of his help, or to be conscious of the fact you could remember nothing at all?

She wiped a hand across her cheeks. “I’m sorry. This isn’t helping. We’re here to find your kids, not watch me break down.”

“Don’t worry about it. You have every right to be upset.”

She tried to smile, but failed, then said, “Help me up.”

Once they were back on their feet, Ash asked, “Was there a note?”

“I…I haven’t checked yet.” She stepped toward the shower. “It’s over here.”

“I can get it.”

“No. I’m okay now.”

Whether she was or not, she was at least more in control of herself as she stepped into the shower stall. Water for the shower was controlled by a handle that could be moved left or right. Behind the handle was a concave metal plate that curved into the wall. Chloe pressed her fingertips around the edge of the plate, then twisted it to the left. It moved about two inches, then slipped out of whatever clamp was holding it in place. She moved it as far out as the still-attached handle would allow, then reached into the gap behind it. When she pulled her hand back, there was a piece of paper between her fingers.

Ash tried to temper his anticipation. The paper could still be nothing. A note from when she’d been here before, perhaps, or…or…

She unfolded it, read what was there, then showed it to him.

There was a date at the top, that day’s date, and a time, ten a.m., with the word “gone” after it. That meant as few as six hours before, Josie and Brandon had still been there. The next part read:

Kids still alive. Taking to NB7.

Alive. They’re alive.
But what did he mean by “still”? Did that mean their time was almost up?

“What does NB7 mean?” Ash asked.

“It’s the way the others refer to their different facilities. They each have alpha-numeric designations.”

“Do you know where this place is?”

She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of it.”

Ash felt his world start to crumble. He’d been so close. He put a hand over his eyes, and could feel the pressure in his head building. He had to do something, but he didn’t know what.

Chloe touched his back. “Hey. We’re not done yet. There’s someone who might know.”

He looked at her. “There is?”

She hesitated. “Yes. A woman named Olivia.”

“Can we call her?”

Chloe shook her head. “We can’t call. We need to go see her.”

“Where is she?”

“Not too far, I think. Maybe an hour, hour and a half away. Matt’s the one who knows exactly where she is.”

Without even hesitating, Ash pulled out his phone and called the emergency number Pax had given him.

36

Rachel entered Matt’s office as he was finishing up his call with Ash.

“Did they find the children?” she asked when her brother hung up.

“The place had already been cleared out.”

“Oh, no.”

“It’s not as bad as it could have been. Winger was able to leave a message. They’ve taken the kids to someplace called NB7.”

“Is that on our list?”

“No. I checked while we were talking.” He paused for a moment, then looked at his sister. “Chloe suggested Olivia might know where it is.”

“Olivia?” Rachel frowned. “Even if she does, she might not tell them.”

“You don’t think it’s worth trying?”

Rachel looked out the window. Her history with Olivia was not a particularly pleasant one. “Does it matter? You’ve already sent them to the Bluff, haven’t you?”

He adjusted himself uncomfortably in his chair. “If you can think of any other way to find out in a hurry, I’m more than open to it. But, yes, I’ve already sent them there.”

Rachel stared at the distant hills, knowing her brother had done the right thing, but also not sure if she would have done the same if it had been up to her. Of course, truth be told, if it
had
been up to her, Olivia would have been dead a long time ago.

Finally, she turned back to him and set the paper she’d been carrying on the desk. “We have another situation.”

Matt read the message. “Damn.”

“I think there’s a better than fifty-percent chance we’re going to have to perform an extraction,” she said.

He glanced through the message again, then nodded. “Keep a close eye on it, and get everything in place.”

“I have a truck already on its way.”

He eyed her suspiciously.

“It’s going in with a CDC pass,” she said. “There won’t be any problems.”

“Still, an extraction’s going to be tricky, given the location.”

“But not impossible.”

“No. Not impossible.”

• • •

At Bluebird, a similar high-level conference was being held. The Director of Preparation—who, among other things, oversaw Dr. Karp’s work and the operation Mr. Shell was heading up to keep a lid on things—and two of his counterparts were meeting in a small room specifically designed for these kinds of quick, private meetings.

“It’s getting out of hand,” the Director of Recovery said. “We are dangerously close to exposure.”

“I don’t think we’re even near that point yet,” the DOP said.

“Don’t you? What about that video that the networks are blasting all over the place today? Those weren’t military troops doing the shooting. Those were
our
people.”

“Yes, they were. And even if they weren’t covered in bio-suits, there would be no possible way for the connection to be made back to us.”

“What were they doing out there anyway?”

“Their job.”

The DOR didn’t look as if he liked the answer.

“Is there a problem?” The DOP asked.

“Given the safeguards of KV-27a, it just seemed…unnecessary.”

The DOP looked at his colleague for a moment. “Are you worried about the deaths of two people?”

“Of course not,” the other man said quickly. “There just seems to be a lot of…glitches with this particular operation.”

“You’re right. There have been several
glitches
.”

“Starting with KV-27a reaching the public in the first place!”

“True, but I think that has actually been a benefit to us. As have these glitches. They’ve exposed areas of concern that are much better for us to know about now than later, don’t you think? If we had to do it all over again, I think I would have pushed for something like this to occur by design as opposed to by accident.”

“You’ve got to be…” The DOR fell silent.

“What? Kidding? Is that what you were going to say?” The DOP’s eyes cooled to hard steel, his voice cutting the air as he spoke. “The stakes we’re playing with are enormous. I can’t worry about two kids being killed in the desert. They’re not even a drop in the bucket of what’s to come if we’re to achieve what we’ve set out to do. The future of humanity is in our hands alone. That’s the oath we’ve all taken, or have you forgotten? Perhaps you think we need to change the parameters of the entire project. Perhaps you think we need to go easy.” He paused. “Tell me, how are you going to react when implementation day comes? Are you going to raise your concerns then, too?”

The DOR tensed. “Of course not.” He stood up. “Perhaps I was…hasty.”

The DOP immediately became calm and conciliatory. It was one of the abilities that made him an excellent leader within Project Eden. “We’re all under a lot of pressure. Don’t worry about it.” He offered his hand.

The DOR shook it, nodded at the silent third man in the room, then left.

As soon as the door closed, the DOP said, “He needs to be replaced.”

The third man, the Director of Survival, rose to his feet. He was smaller than the others by a foot, and one of the most dedicated members of the project. “Yes, he does. But he also has a point about the mistakes.”

“I know.” The mistakes
were
good learning tools, but the ones who had made them would need to be dealt with.

“What about the KV-27a safeguards? Any word?” the DOS asked.

“I’m told everything is on schedule.”

“Excellent.” Changing the subject, the DOS said, “Where are we on the vaccine?”

“Almost there. We should have a working batch within a few weeks.”

“Then we’re on to the next phase.”

The Director of Preparation smiled. “Yes, we are.”

• • •

By late afternoon it was clear to Martina and the others in the segregated group at Cryer’s Corner that Paul Unger was not just suffering from his wounds, but was also ill.

Coach Delger had said that if he only had the increased fever, then it could have been explained by his injuries. But there was the cough, too, and the growing congestion, all symptoms that had been previously reported in connection with the Sage Flu.