Blackout

Page 39

 

  She tried to disappear again, but something seemed to be stopping her. Not that it would do any good. “I’m a medical miracle that you don’t trust. I’m a medical miracle that you’re going to lock up. ”

  “Not necessarily. ”

  “What was Nate?”

  “We don’t know,” he said. “It’s next to impossible to identify a patient’s symptoms postmortem. He was killed at the scene, and all we have are witness reports. ”

  “Then how do you know he was so ‘potent’?” She finally glanced over at him, convinced that her anger would elicit some response. But he was completely calm.

  “Aside from the fact that he killed three soldiers and injured a fourth?”

  She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She’d seen Nate do it, of course—she’d seen him tackle those men—but it had never sunk in what he’d really done.

  “I wasn’t referring specifically to Nate, though,” Dr. Eastman continued. “I believe you are friends with a boy named Jack Cooper?”

  “He’s Negative,” she said quickly.

  “Wrong again. He thought he was Negative, but he was carrying the virus. While his symptoms are perhaps not as showy as yours, he’s really quite amazing. ”

  “Where is he?” she asked, her voice softer.

  “He’s in a room that looks identical to this one. He’s just fine. ”

  “What are his . . . symptoms?”

  “You can ask him yourself, soon enough, if all goes well. ”

  “What does that mean?”

  Dr. Eastman changed the subject. “Tell me about your relationship with Nicole Samuelson. ”

  “What do you mean? We were friends. ”

  “I understand you had an arrangement with her?”

  Aubrey’s stomach sank. Nicole had ratted her out. If Aubrey hadn’t been caught down here, they would have come to get her at the tent.

  “I was her spy,” Aubrey said.

  “Just around the school?”

  “Why are you interrogating me?”

  “It’s for your own good. ”

  “Yes, it was just around the school. Parties, too. Just normal stuff. ”

  “And what did you get in return?”

  This was so stupid. “Nicole was popular,” Aubrey said. “She invited me to things. She helped me get friends. ”

  Dr. Eastman leaned forward. “Let me tell you something. And I can tell you this because either you’ll one day end up with a confidential clearance or you won’t leave this building until none of this matters. Yes, Nicole helped you get friends, and she did an amazing job of it. ”

  “I know she did. ”

  “Nicole has the virus,” he said. “It gives her kidney problems. ”

  “What?” That couldn’t be true. “She must not have known. ”

  “Oh, she knew,” the doctor said. “In fact, according to her statements, she’s known she’s had the virus longer than any patient we’ve examined. Nicole has the unique ability to control the pheromones of the people around her. When Nicole made you popular, what she was doing was, very literally, making people attracted to you. When she shunned a student, when she kicked them out of the popular clique, she literally—chemically—made people feel disgusted by them. ”

  It couldn’t be true. Nicole wasn’t a freak, not like Aubrey. Nicole was so . . . perfect. Even with her sickness.

  But it had to be true. Boys were paying attention to Aubrey back at school. They were fighting over her. That had never happened before this year. Aubrey had once joked to Nicole that it was like a switch had been flipped and—bam—she was suddenly pretty and popular and desirable.

  And that’s exactly what had happened. A switch had been flipped. Nicole had flipped it.

  Which meant that it was all a lie. Aubrey wasn’t pretty or popular or desirable. She was just regular old Aubrey. Plain, trailer-trash Aubrey.

  Dr. Eastman was watching her, studying her.

  “Tell me about what you can do,” he finally said.

  There was no point in hiding it now. Nicole had obviously explained part of it, and Aubrey had no chance of escaping anyway. So she laid it all out.

  Dr. Eastman listened carefully. He took the occasional note, but mostly he just watched her.

  “Can I ask you a question?” Aubrey said after she’d explained everything she knew.

  “Sure,” he said. “I don’t know if I can answer it. ”

  “How did you find me? The soldiers in the hall couldn’t see me—only the person on the radio. ”

  He smiled, and leaned back in his chair. “You were right about one thing when you described your invisibility. It’s not a physical power: you don’t bend light or turn transparent. Your brain tells my brain that you’re not here. In a way, it’s a form of mind control. ”

  “That’s what I assumed. But I still don’t see how you found me. ”

  “Because your brain only projects that message to people nearby. We’ll need to do tests to see how far it projects, and what kind of barriers it can go through, but suffice it to say: the team watching security monitors was too far away, and to them it looked like you were right there. Same thing with the helicopters outside—they kept thinking they saw you, but as soon as they’d get close your brain would erase you from them. ”

  It took a minute to sink in. That wasn’t something she and Nicole had ever tested.

  “You’re a lucky girl,” Dr. Eastman said. “We were getting a sniper into position to take you down before you entered the building. You got out of his line of sight before he could take the shot. ”

  “I could have been dead. ”

  “Many times over,” he said, his voice lighter than the subject should require. “But think of it this way: you should have been shot a hundred times during the last fifteen hours. Any normal person would have been. They wouldn’t have even escaped the quarantine zone, let alone gotten all the way down in this building and then evaded capture for hours. ”

  He smiled a cold, curious grin. “Aubrey Parsons, you are remarkable. ”

  She didn’t know what to say. If she was remarkable she would have achieved something. “So,” he said, “the big question—the final question—is this: Why did you do it?”

  Aubrey paused, not because she thought lying would do her any good, but because she didn’t want to get anyone else involved in her problems.

  “This is very important,” Dr. Eastman urged.

  “I promised Jack I’d get him out,” she finally said. “I didn’t know he was Positive. ”

  “Why was it important to get him out?”

  “I thought that was the last question. ”

  “One more. ”

  She sighed. “Because we all thought you’d be dissecting the Positives in here. That’s why I faked my test result. You know—military testing, dissection, like in the movies. I thought he was a Negative, and I wanted to save him. ”

  Dr. Eastman nodded, and stood up.

  “So?” she asked.

  “Good answers,” he said. “We’ll be in touch. ”

  THIRTY-ONE