Deadline

“Portlad was also open when you went there,” Kelly said. “Trust me. It only gets worse from here.”

Somehow, I didn’t want to argue with her about that.

I parked as close to the building as I dared, maneuvering the van into a space tucked mostly behind a large steel generator cage. Becks was out before I’d even turned off the engine. She turned in a slow circle, pistol out and held low in front of her, where she wouldn’t be slowed by the process of trying to draw. Mahir followed her out, looking less immediately aggressive as he took up his position next to the van. I glanced to Kelly.

“You ready for this?”

“No,” she said, and got out of the van.

I sighed. “Am I ready for this?”

No, said George. But it’s too late to turn back now.

“I guess that’s fair.” I opened the ashtray and dropped the keys inside. If I didn’t make it out of the building, the others wouldn’t need to worry about trying to hotwire the van before they could escape. “Check this out.”

I opened the door and got out.

We must have made an odd sight as we made our way across the parking lot. Kelly took the lead for once, her white lab coat glowing like a banner in the dimness of the early-morning light. Becks walked close behind, covering her. She was wearing camouflage-print cargo pants, running shoes, and an olive-drab jacket with Kevlar panels sewn into the lining. She actually had her hair up, pulled back in a tight bun that would look lousy on camera but was less likely to get in her eyes than her usual waves. Mahir walked almost alongside Becks, his white running shoes the only thing keeping him from looking like a visiting professor from Oxford, and I brought up the rear in my usual steel-reinforced jeans, cotton shirt, and tweed jacket. Not exactly the sort of group that normally goes parading into the Memphis CDC before the sun is all the way up.

The first door was locked with an actual, manual lock, the sort that requires a key to open. “No blood test to get in?” asked Becks, incredulous.

“Not at this stage,” said Kelly, digging in her purse. “If you’re going to amplify on the property, we’d much rather you did it in the clear zone between the parking lot and the labs. That way we can catch or kill you at our leisure, and you don’t eat the staff.” She produced a key.

“Practical,” said Mahir.

Kelly unlocked the door and we entered the CDC, Becks now taking point while I stayed at the rear. Our effective noncombatants would walk between the two of us for as much of the trip as possible. Our little formation wouldn’t stop a sniper, but it might give us a chance to react before they both went down.

Taking civilians into a fire zone, said George. What would your mother say?

“That I should keep the cameras rolling,” I muttered, and kept following Kelly.

That first door led to a narrow hallway, which opened after about ten feet into a wide concrete corridor that looked like it had been sliced from a pre-Rising bomb shelter. Turbines hummed in the distance. There were no windows and no natural light; instead, huge fluorescents glowed steadily overhead, protected by grids of steel mesh. Kelly kept walking, forcing the rest of us, even Becks, to hurry if we wanted to keep up.

“What is this?” asked Mahir, looking warily around.

“Isolation zone. If we lock down, this area goes airtight, and the negative-pressure venting system kicks in. It can be flooded with formalin from the central control center, or manually from any of the booths along the walls. In case of an outbreak, the doors to the main building open and the security system starts trying to herd the infected here, where they can be kept until we decide what to do with them.”

“Ever hear of just shooting the damn things?” asked Becks.

“We have to get our test subjects somewhere.” The statement was matter-of-fact; this was, for Kelly, another part of what it meant to work for the CDC. “We all sign body release waivers when we accept our employment offers. As soon as you amplify, you become company property.”

“Because that’s not creepy.” I scanned the walls. “I don’t see any cameras.” What I did see was a series of sniper slits in the walls, probably leading to a second airtight corridor where the gunmen could be locked until their job was done and their blood tests were clean. This was a storage room. It was also a kill chute, and we needed to remember that. “Is there one of those nifty escape tunnels here, too?”

“Underground. It lets out on the other side of the property.” Kelly stopped at a door with a keypad and retinal scanner next to it. She started hitting buttons, narrating her actions, probably to keep one of us from getting trigger-happy and putting a bullet through her head. “I’m giving the system the visiting technician security code, along with the security code for Dr. Wynne’s lab, and telling it I have three guests with me. This level of security doesn’t distinguish between entry points. It’s a known hole, but we keep it open in case we need to bring people in the back way.”

“To avoid the media?” asked Mahir mildly.

Kelly reddened but kept tapping for several more seconds before she pulled her hand away. A panel opened in the wall, exposing four blood test units. “We all need to test clean before we can proceed.” She slapped her hand down on the first panel, starting her retinal scan at the same time. It was a good maneuver: It cut off any further questioning, and we had plenty of questions. Starting, at least for me, with “How the fuck are we planning on getting out of here?”

“Too late to back out now,” muttered Becks, and initiated her own blood test. Mahir and I shrugged and did the same. Becks was right; too late now.

The tests came back clean—no surprise, given that we’d only just arrived—and the door swung open, revealing a long white corridor that looked a lot more like what I expected from the CDC. Only about half the lights were on, filling the corners with shadows. A sign on the nearest door read “All the comforts of home,” I said, following Mahir into the hall. I was the last one through; the door closed behind me, locks engaging with a hydraulic hiss that reminded me chillingly of Portland. The hairs along my arms and the back of my neck stood on end as I realized that we were well and truly locked in now.

“The lab is this way,” said Kelly, turning to the left and starting to walk with a confidence I’d never seen from her before. We were on her home ground. Only the best and brightest actually go from medical school into careers with the CDC; she must have worked for years for the right to call these hallways hers.

This has to be killing her, said George quietly.

I nodded, not wanting to say anything out loud. George and I grew up not trusting anything anyone said to us. We always knew there were things people didn’t say when the cameras were running. For Kelly, the CDC’s betrayal had to feel like the end of the world. I was incredibly sorry for her… and at the same time, I was privately glad to know that she had to be hurting like hell. The CDC was her life, and the CDC was part of the reason my sister died. I could feel bad for Kelly. I couldn’t forgive her for being naive enough to believe the things she’d been willing to believe for the sake of her career.

At least she’d judged the janitorial schedules correctly. We walked the length of one hall and then another before we reached Dr. Wynne’s lab, and we didn’t see a single soul. I didn’t see any cameras, either, and I was watching for them. Their security was incredibly well-concealed. That was a little worrisome. They’d been nowhere near this good in Portland, and in my experience, when the security cameras go invisible, that means they have something they really need to hide.

“Here,” whispered Kelly, stopping at an unlabeled door with a blood test panel next to it. She started to raise her hand, and then hesitated, expression turning unsure. “We’re going to have to go through one at a time,” she said, slowly.

I winced. Becks scowled. Going one at a time meant that either one of us walked in ahead of Kelly—which would mean walking blind into unfamiliar territory—or we sent her through alone, which could split the party permanently. I didn’t want us on opposite sides of a door when the CDC shock troops swept in and gunned us all down.

And I didn’t have a choice. We’d followed Kelly’s research across the world, and we’d followed her directions into the guts of the Memphis CDC. If we called it off now, a lot of people had died for nothing. “Go ahead, Doc,” I said. She shot me a surprised look. “We’ll be right behind you. Don’t worry. We’re not going anywhere.”

Kelly nodded and slapped her hand down on the panel. A moment later, the light over the door flashed green and she stepped through, vanishing.

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” said Becks, stepping up to start her own test.

“I never have before,” I said. “I figure, why start now? I wouldn’t want to ruin a good thing.”