Relief washed over me, strong enough to make my shoulders unlock. “Thank you,” I said. I flashed Becks one last smile, aware that it was strained, and not really that concerned about it. I wasn’t going to hurt anyone. That was all I needed to know.
Becks smiled back. She was crying. I was sorry about that, but there was nothing I could do about it. So I steped forward to take the testing unit from Dr. Abbey’s hand and walked past her into the darkened isolation room.
The door swung shut behind me, the locks sealing with a hydraulic hiss that went on long enough to make it clear that this wasn’t casual security. This was the real thing. The hissing stopped and the overhead lights clicked on, illuminating a room about the size of my bedroom back when George and I still lived with the Masons. The walls were painted a shiny, neutral beige, and there were three pieces of furniture: a narrow cot against one wall, a metal table bolted to the floor, and a folding chair. There was a blanket and a small pillow on the cot. Make the condemned as comfortable as possible, I guess.
I wasn’t interested in comfort. I walked to the chair and sat down, placing the testing unit on the table in front of me. It seemed to stare back accusingly, like it didn’t understand why I wasn’t getting on with it already.
“It’s not like this is important or anything,” I said sourly, and unfastened my gloves, dropping them on the table. Blood had run down my left arm and onto the hand, crusting under my nails. I looked at it and shuddered, wishing there were some way to wash it off. After I amplified, I probably wouldn’t care, but until then, I’d know it was there. I flexed my fingers, checking my joints for stiffness, and turned my attention to the testing unit.
It wasn’t a model I’d seen before—if anything, it looked like the pictures of Dr. Patel’s original design, the one that just measured your viral levels but didn’t give you real-time results, and definitely didn’t upload anything. I picked it up, checking it for lights, and didn’t find any. Apparently, once I was in the isolation room, I didn’t need to know whether I was infected or not. I scowled. “Isn’t this just dandy?”
“Get it over with,” said George, beside me.
I jerked my head up, looking for her. She was nowhere to be seen. I scowled more. “I don’t exactly feel like rushing right now.”
“The results won’t change if you wait.” Her voice came from the other side this time. I somehow managed not to look. I just sighed.
“Can you just appear already?”
“No. I’m sorry, but that’s your choice, not mine.”
“Okay. Right. Well… if you won’t appear, will you at least stay?”
I felt the ghost of her hand brush the back of my neck, there and gone in an instant. “Until the end. I promise.”
“Okay,” I said, and popped open the lid on the unit. “One…”
“Two…”
I slammed my hand flat on the metal pressure pad, triggering the needles to start their business. They bit deep, and I hissed, biting my tongue against the pain. I thought amplification was supposed to make this sort of thing easier. I didn’t feel any difference at all. Blood tests always hurt, but this one was worse than most, maybe because the unit was so primitive.
When the last of the needles disengaged, I pulled my hand away. The test unit beeped once and was silent. No lights, no alarms, nothing to indicate whether I’d passed or failed. Not that I really needed the confirmation that I was infected—“Get a bite, say good-night,” as they said when I was in training—but it still would have been nice. You were supposed to see your results. That was how the testing worked.
“Hey.” George put her hand on my shoulder. “Why don’t you go lie down? You’re exhausted.”
I shrugged her hand off. “No, I don’t want to sleep through this. If this is the end of me being me, I don’t want to miss it.” A thought struck me, and I chuckled bitterly. “I can’t be too far gone if I’m still hallucinating you, can I? You’re a pretty complicated delusion. Zombies probably can’t manage this quality of crazy.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome.”
She fell silent, and so did I. I was too tense to carry on a conversation, even with a dead person who lived only in my head. I’d just keep trying to pick a fight, and she’d keep trying to stop me, until we wound up screaming at each other and I spent the last minutes of my conscious life arguing with the one person I least wanted to argue with. I just wanted to know that she was there, and that I wasn’t going through this alone.
So I stared at the test unit instead of talking to her, willing it to develop lights and tell me what I needed to know. All I needed was for it to confirm that my life was over. Nothing difficult. Nothing any fucking toaster couldn’t manage these days.
I don’t know how long I sat there staring at the test unit, feeling my throat getting dryer and waiting for the other symptoms to set in. The difficulty breathing, the sensitivity to light, the murkiness of thought—all the little dividing lines that separated human from zombie. Dryness of the throat was only the beginning, and my training was extensive enough to tell me exactly what the progression would be. Every little step along the way.
The door opened.
My head snapped up, tensing as I waited for the gunmen to enter. I wondered whether they’d send Becks to shoot me; I wondered whether she’d insist. We’d been colleagues for a long time, and Irwins tend to view shooting infected comrades as part of the job. It’s a sign of respect.
Dr. Abbey stepped into the room.
I stopped breathing for a second, eyes going wide. They went even wider as Joe pushed past her, his tail wagging wildly from side to side. “You’re going to let him be in here while you put me down?” I asked. “That’s cold. I mean, not that I’m one to judge, but that’s
Dr. Abbey smiled. “Hello, Shaun.” She shut the door behind herself, waiting until the locks finished hissing before she walked over to the other side of the table. She was carrying a folding chair, which she set up and sank into, watching me the whole time. “How are you feeling?”
“You shouldn’t be in here,” I said. Joe walked around the table and shoved his enormous head into my crotch in canine greeting. I barely remembered the blood on my hand in time to stop myself from pushing him away. “This isn’t safe.”
“Oh, right. You’re contagious.” She reached into the pocket of her lab coat, pulling out a can of Coke and putting it down on the table between us. “You must be thirsty. You’ve been sitting in here for a while.” I stared at her. “No, really, open the can. I want to see how good your manual dexterity is.”
Still staring, I reached out and picked up the can. Its cold heaviness was soothing, even before I popped the tab, closed my eyes, and took a long, freezing drink. It was the best thing I’d ever tasted, sugary syrupy sweetness and all.
Dr. Abbey was watching me intently when I opened my eyes. “How’s the throat feeling, Shaun?” she asked.
“A little dry. I don’t understand what you’re doing—” I stopped. The dryness in my throat was gone, replaced by the residual carbonated tingle that always came after I drank one of George’s Candyland hookers. “—here,” I finished, more slowly. “Dr. Abbey?”
“I’m here because I wanted to talk to you about your test results, Shaun.” She reached into her pocket again, this time producing a standard, run-of-the-mill field testing unit. Catching my surprise, she said, “Don’t worry. It’s been modified so it won’t upload—it’ll think it has, but it won’t. This won’t give our position away to the CDC, or to anybody else.”
“I don’t understand. Did something go wrong with my first test?”
“No, nothing went wrong with your first test. Now please.” She gestured toward the unit. “Humor the woman who’s willing to risk her life by offering sanctuary to your team, and take the goddamn test.”
“Right.” At least this one had lights. I popped off the lid, whispering, “One,” and waiting for George’s answering
All five of them settled on green.
I frowned, looking up at Dr. Abbey. Joe shoved his nose into my hand. I ignored him, focusing on her instead.
