Rxing in my chair, I pulled out my phone and fiddled with it, saying carelessly, “It’s cool that he’s going to share his research, huh?” as I texted Becks with He’s up to something. Watch yourself.
Becks didn’t look even slightly surprised when her phone started buzzing. Unclipping it from her belt, she read the screen and started to key in a reply as she said, “I told you the CDC was the place to go with this. They’re going to have files on anything and everything she could have found on her own, if she just hadn’t been so damn stubborn.” You think? That man couldn’t have rushed out of here faster if you’d been spurring him on with an electric prod. He’s not happy that we’re here, and he’s really not happy about this line of discussion.
“You know George. Stubborn to the end.” At least this confirms that it’s more than just Memphis. Did you keep track of escape routes on the way in?
“It was her best quality.” There really aren’t any, other than the way we came. These buildings are designed as giant kill chutes. If there’s an outbreak, staff is supposed to hole up and stay where they are until help shows up.
“You can say that again.” Isn’t that fucking awesome. While Becks keyed in her response, I dipped a hand into my pocket and withdrew one of our increasingly limited supply of Buffy-built bugs. You can buy listening devices from sources both legal and extralegal all over the world, and mail order makes it possible to make those purchases essentially untraceable. None of them hold a candle to Buffy’s work.
Hey, you’re the one who thought coming here was a good idea. I was following your lead. Do we want to scout while we wait for him to come back and get us?
I can’t imagine it would be a worse idea than coming here in the first place. I snapped the bug onto the bottom of the table, flattening its edges until they were flush to the frame. The CDC would need to be looking real hard to stand even a chance of finding it.
Got it. Becks glanced up from her phone, asking, “You think Director Swenson is going to be back soon? I need to tinkle, and he didn’t show us where the bathrooms were.”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing out loud. Everything gets funnier when you’re waiting to find out whether you’re in mortal danger, and Becks saying “tinkle” would have been hysterical under the best of conditions. This was, after all, a woman who once pissed off the side of a moving RV while fleeing from a mob of hungry zombies. On camera, no less. We got a lot of downloads that day, even with the modesty filters in place. “Well, last time we went to a CDC office, they were—hell with it, he won’t mind if I show you, and it’ll be faster this way.” I stood, sliding my phone back into my pocket.
“Thanks, Shaun.” Becks followed me. She was doing her best to look embarrassed, and she was doing a decent job. I would have believed it if I’d been watching the scene through a security feed, and if I hadn’t known her so well. “It’ll only take me a minute.”
“It’s cool. Keeps me from getting twitchy while we wait.” I hesitated, looking at the door. Something about it was wrong in a way that was so weird that I couldn’t figure out what it was. It was like waking up one morning to find that my hair had changed color—impossible, and hence invisible, at least for a little while.
Look at the light, advised George.
The light above the door—the light that should have been green, signaling that the standard security features were active, and that the door would open after a successful blood test had been run—was glowing a strong and steady yellow. I nodded toward it, watching as Becks followed the direction of the gesture. She went pale. A green light means everything is good, all systems go. A red light means a lockdown: Either there’s live viral material in the room with you or there’s live viral material right outside the room, where you don’t want to go. Either way, if you sit tight, the problem will resolve itself. A yellow light… I wasn’t sure what a yellow light could possibly mean, beyond the chilling “this door has not been properly locked.”
Ignoring the testing panel waiting for my palm, I reached out and gently grasped the doorknob. Nothing shocked or stung me. The light didn’t change. I gave a gentle tug. The door swung just as gently inward. There was no hydraulic hiss; the hydraulics were not engaged.
“I don’t think there’s a place anywhere on this planet where that’s a good thing,” said Becks, reaching under her jacket to rest her hand against the grip of her pistol. “Suggestions?”
“I suggest we go and find Director Swenson, let him know that he’s having some kind of security problem—and I don’t mean two reporters loose in his building. You’re going to have to wait for that tinkle.”
“I can hold it,” said Becks gravely.
“Good.”
We left the white-on-white confines of the conference room for the white-on-white of the hall we’d come in through. There was no one in sight in either direction, making it seem like we might be the last two people on Earth.
Something isn’t right here, said George.
“Got that right,” I muttered, drawing my own pistol and releasing the safety. Becks was looking at me intently, waiting for me to clarify whether I was talking to George or to her. I gestured down the hall in the direction we’d come from. “I think I can get us out if we go this way. But I’ll bet you a dollar our good director went the other way.”
“Then that’s the way we’re going,” said Becks, turning to scan the hall ahead of us. “Looks clear from here.”
“I think that’s the problem.” I started walking, keeping my pistol at a low, defensive angle. Technically, it’s legal for me to be armed anywhere I want to be, since I’ve passed my tests and I keep my licenses up-to-date at all times. Less technically, I’m not sure it’s a good idea for anyone, be he blogger, God, or the president of the United States, to go around waving a gun in a government building. It tends to give them the crazy idea that you might shoot, and things tend to get real unpleasant real fast after that happens.
The not-rightness of the situation became more and more apparent as we walked. We passed labs, break rooms, and more of the one-way windows into rooms intended for patient care. We passed bulletin boards, signs, and even the bathrooms. What we didn’t pass was anyone who demanded to see our IDs and asked what we were doing wandering around the building unescorted. Near as I could tell, the Portland CDC had been quietly and effectively deserted. All we needed was a creepy minor-key soundtrack to reinforce the idea that this was a bad situation. George waited silently inside my head, not making any comments that might distract me. That was good. I was already jumpy enough.
“We should be catching up to the director soon, assuming he hasn’t taken a turn we missed,” I said. “If he has, we better hope there’s an emergency exit somewhere in this place.”
“Pessimism doesn’t become you.”
“But I’m so good at it.” We kept walking, Becks trailing about three feet behind me and turning every few steps to sweep the corridor. If anything came lunging after us, she’d have time to gun it down before it caught up. “Hey, did you ever see those fucked-up first-person shooter games that were so big before the Rising? The ones with the zombies chasing you through government buildings and creepy old houses and shit?”
“Shut up, Shaun.”
“That’s what this feels like. One big maze, and we’re the rats unlucky enough to be in it.” A reassuring exit sign marked one of the doors ahead, and the light above it was a steady, reassuring green. I started to think that maybe there was an innocent explanation for all this, like a broken circuit somewhere that had required a quick, quiet evacuation of the unsecured areas. The director might have been intending to come back for us.
Yeah, and pigs might fly. I slapped my hand down on the test panel as soon as it came into reach. The metal was cool and nonresponsive. No needles appeared to sample my blood, no anesthetics sprayed to numb the nonexistent sting. The light over the door stayed green. “Fuck.”
“What?” Becks stepped closer, still scanning the halls ar
ound us for signs of movement. “What’s it doing?”
“Nothing.” I took my hand off the panel. The light over the door went out. A moment later, so did the lights in the hall, plunging us into total darkness.
Fuck, said George.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” I muttered, trying the door handle. It was unsurprisingly locked. It didn’t deliver an electric shock or shoot a sedative needle into my palm—both standard defensive measures for a sealed door in a government compound—but that was all I could say in the positive. I pulled my hand away and started rummaging through my pockets for a flashlight. “We could really use your eyes about now. Done being dead yet?”
Sorry, no.
“Shaun?” An amber light clicked on to my left as Becks produced the field light from her backpack and held it up between us. She still had her pistol in her other hand. That was probably a good idea. “I hate to interrupt, but can you maybe focus on the living for a little bit? I’d like to keep bathing long enough to get mad at you for this shitty idea.”
“You went along with it.” My fingertips grazed the hard metal base of my portable flashlight. I pulled it out and clicked it on, aiming it for the floor. The amber field light was night-vision friendly, but we’d need the extra illumination at floor level if we didn’t want to risk tripping over something in the dark.
“I never said I was the smart one. Thoughts?”
“These places are designed as kill chutes—they’re supposed to herd you deeper, so the infected can be picked off easily and the uninfected will stand a chance in hell at getting themselves to safety.” I gestured back toward the conference room with my pistol, keeping my flashlight pointed down. “We walk this way and hope we trip over a maintenance guy.”
“And if we don’t?”
“Then we hope we trip over an exit.”
“This plan sucks.”
“I know.”
We started back down the hall, me leading, Becks so close behind that her shoulders brushed mine every time she turned to do another sweep behind us. George had gone silent again. That was good; that let me narrow my focus until there was nothing that mattered but the sound of our slow progress. Field training involves learning how to step lightly and breathe slowly, so as to reduce your auditory impact on the environment. Viral amplification doesn’t give zombies superpowers, but it makes them really focused. Consequentially, they’re occasionally capable of feats of tracking that seem to border on the unnatural. They’re not. They’re just incredibly good at homing in on the little things. The little things are what get people killed.
We hit the first corner. I spun around it, raising my flashlight to light up the entire hallway ahead. What it cost us in night vision was more than balanced by its effectiveness as a defensive weapon: The retinal condition that kept George behind prescription sunglasses for most of her life is universal among the infected. They can adjust to going out during the day, but they always prefer to stay in the dark when possible, and having a flashlight shine directly into their eyes is never fun.
An empty hall greeted my sweep. I lowered the flashlight. “Clear,” I said, and we walked on, following the gently herding design of the CDC building. We were walking into a kill chute. Sadly, it was the smartest thing we could do. Going the other way would just take us farther from any help that might be waiting for us—assuming there was any help to be had.
We repeated the same procedure at the next three corners we reached. Each time, I spun around to blind any lurking infected with my flashlight, while Becks watched my back and got ready to start shooting. Each time, the light revealed nothing but featureless, utterly empty hallway. The white walls glimmered like ghosts through the dimness as we walked. My skin crawled, claustrophobia and paranoia beginning to speed my heart rate. Not enough to put me in danger of panic, but enough that I could feel it rising. From the way Becks’s breath was starting to hitch—just a little, every third inhale—she was in a similar state. It’s not the action that kills you. It’s the waiting.
At the very next corner, the waiting ended.
It started out like the turns before it: Becks braced to shoot, while I stepped around the corner and swept my flashlight over the hall. Only this time, the hall in front of us extended for only about five feet before splitting into a T-junction… and this time, something up ahead and to the left responded to the light with a moan. It was still out of sight around the turn, but that didn’t matter; once you’ve heard the moaning of the infected, you never forget it. It’s the sort of sound that hardwires itself into your primitive monkey brain, and the message it sends is simple: run.
I took a hasty step backward, keeping my flashlight pointed in the direction of the moan. It wouldn’t ward off the infected—nothing stops a hungry zombie once it has an idea of where a free lunch can be found—but the pain would slow them down. “Becks?”
“Yeah?”
“Is the other direction clear?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Becks?”
“Yeah?”
“Run.”
There was no grace or artistry in our flight. Becks was running almost before the word was out of my mouth, waiting only for the confirmation that I didn’t have a better idea, and I was only half a heartbeat behind. We ran as fast as we could, our footfalls echoing off the walls around us and making it impossible to tell whether we were running for safety or into the arms of another mob. The moaning started behind us, distant at first, but growing louder with bone-chilling speed. That’s one thing the old movies got wrong. Real zombies—especially the freshly infected kind—can run.
Call for help!
“What?” I gasped, still running. Becks shot me a look. I shook my head, and she returned her attention to the serious business of running for her goddamn life.
You have a phone! Think, Shaun!
It was hard to focus on running and think about what George was trying to tell me at the same time. She was always the smart one, and that’s held true even now that she’s nothing but a ghost in my machine. I struggled to make sense of her words, and nearly stumbled as it hit me.
“Oh, motherfuck,” I said, causing Becks to shoot me another sharp look. “Becks, I need you to buy us some time. Don’t worry about the interest rates.”
“Got it,” she said, obedience winning out over confusion. She turned to face the direction of the moaning, still pacing me down the hall. If she tripped, it was all over, but that didn’t seem to bother her. Her hands were steady as she pulled a ball-shaped object from her belt. The motion was followed by the distinctive sound of a pin being pulled, and then she flung the grenade in the direction of the moaning. She whipped around as soon as she let go, grabbing me by the arm. It was her turn to haul me down the hall, and she did it wne-chillindmirable force. “Run!”
I ran.
The grenade Becks had thrown exploded about six seconds later. It wasn’t a big enough boom to come with a back draft but it was big enough to fill the hall briefly with light. I risked a glance back over my shoulder. The walls were burning. That should be enough to slow the infected for at least a little while. “Cover me,” I said.
Becks nodded, slowing enough to let me pull a few feet in front of her before speeding up again, holding a position about a foot and a half behind me. I felt like a total shit putting her between me and the danger we knew, but I needed the breathing space. It might be the one thing that could save us.
Fumbling an ear cuff from my jacket pocket without dropping my flashlight wasn’t easy, especially not at a dead run. Somehow, I managed. I slammed the ear cuff into place, pressing the Call button as I snapped, “Secure connection, command line ‘Hi, honey, I’m home,’ open channel to Alaric Kwong.”
The ear cuff beeped. For a long, undying moment, the only sounds were footsteps, harsh, exhausted breathing, the distant moans of the infected, and the overstrained beating of my heart. We couldn’t run forever. Eventually, the kill chute was going to close, and if we were in the
wrong place when that happened…
The ear cuff beeped again as Alaric came on the line: “Secure connection confirmed, please verify your identity before I hang up on you.”
“Fuck you, Alaric, I don’t have the time to remember some stupid code word.” That was a lie: “some stupid code word” was the current call sign. If the CDC was recording, which they probably were, this might make them think our security wasn’t as good as it really was. I could hope, anyway. “We’re in a little bit of trouble here. Is the Doc there?”
“Shaun? Why are you breathing like that? What’s—”
“I need you to put the Doc on the line right fucking now, Alaric, or you’re getting a goddamn field promotion! Am I making myself clear, here, or do I need to get footage of the zombies trying to eat our asses?”
“I’ll get her,” said Alaric. The line beeped again, going silent.
Becks pulled up almost even with me. Sweat was adding that new-penny shine to her cheeks. “What are you doing?”
“CDC installs are all built on the same basic floor plan, right?” Another T-junction came into view ahead of us, my flashlight barely illuminating it enough to give us warning before we hit the wall.
“Right, but—”
“Doc gets us out or we’re dead, Becks.” The moaning from behind us was still getting louder, and that wall was getting closer. “Keep running!”
The ear cuff beeped, and Kelly’s hesitant voice took the place of the silence, asking, “Shaun? Is that really you?”
“In a pickle, Doc! Zombies are chasing hrough the Portland CDC, and we need out before we’re on the menu! There’s a T ahead of us—which way do we go?”
I had to give Kelly this: She recovered damn fast to what must have seemed like a totally random question. “Have you already passed a T-junction?”
“Yes! We went right!”
“You went—damn. Okay. At the T ahead, take the left, and try the third door you pass. Is the place in lockdown yet?”
“Do you mean ‘Are the lights all fucking out, and did half the doors go amber before the power failed’? Because then yeah, we’re in lockdown!” I grabbed Becks by the wrist, hauling her along as I veered left. “What kind of door?”