I’d barely taken two steps into the lobby when a pair of security guards appeared as if by magic, moving toward me with a tight economy of purpose that was all it took for them to be terrifying. I stopped where I was, trying to ignore the panic building in my gut as I raised my chin and waited for them to come to me. I had every right to be here. I was a patient of SymboGen’s. I was Dr. Banks’s pet project.
“Can we help you?” asked the first guard, once they were close enough that they wouldn’t need to do anything uncouth, like shouting.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call ahead, but I didn’t know where else to go,” I said, trying to make my eyes believably wide and glossy. To my surprise, tears actually started to form as I continued, “I can’t go home. I just can’t. Can —can you tell Dr. Banks that Sally Mitchell is here to see him?” Now that the tears had started, they simply refused to stop. The past few days had been even more traumatic than I realized.
The guards exchanged a glance, looking as disturbed by my tears as I was. “Do you have ID?” asked the second.
Nodding, I dug my ID card out of the front pocket of my backpack and held it out to them. My hand was shaking. I didn’t try to stop it. It would only help with the image I was trying to project… and I didn’t want to know how I would react if it turned out I was unable to make the shaking stop.
The guard took my card, turning it over in his fingers like he wanted to be certain that it was legitimate. It must have passed whatever unknown test he was putting it through, because he looked to his partner and said, “Wait here with her,” before turning and walking toward the reception counter.
The remaining security guard offered me an earnest smile and said, “It’s all right, Miss Mitchell. We’re just going to call up to Dr. Banks and see if he’s free to see you.” I looked at him blankly, and he continued, “We’ve met before. You probably don’t remember me, but I was in the cafeteria the last time you came to visit us. So I know this is just a formality.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t really been looking at the faces of the guards who came to save me that day in the cafeteria. Too much of my focus had been on Chave and her hopeless battle against the parasite that was in the process of consuming her thinking mind. Still, he looked so hopeful that I found I couldn’t tell him that. “Thank you. I really appreciate what you did that day. I’m sorry. I’m just… really shaken.”
Now concern washed his smile away. “What happened?”
I could either try to make myself an ally inside SymboGen, or I could avoid the need to tell my carefully crafted sob story twice. I decided to aim for something in the middle as I said, “I went to see where my father works, and there was… someone got sick. Again.” I sniffled. “I’m so tired of seeing people get sick all around me.”
“I’m sorry,” said the guard.
“Me, too.”
“Miss Mitchell?” We both turned to see the first guard returning. He held out my ID card. I took it, tucking it into my backpack as he said, “We’ve been instructed to stay here with you. Dr. Banks will be right down. Can we get you anything? A glass of water? A chair?”
“No, thank you,” I said, and wiped my nose with the side of my hand. “I just want to see Dr. Banks. Thank you for your help.”
“It’s our job, ma’am.”
The return of the first guard had popped the thin bubble of rapport the second guard and I had been starting to craft between us. We stood in awkward silence until a door opened in the bank of elevators and Dr. Banks came striding out, looking in all directions before his eyes settled on us. “Sally!” he called, and started toward us.
Dr. Banks didn’t look quite as perfect as he had on every other visit, although I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what had changed. His hair was just a bit less flawlessly combed; his skin was just slightly less ideal. He looked
“Sally,” he said again, once he was close enough that he didn’t need to shout. “How are you? I’ve been so worried…” He didn’t say anything about the bugs in my house, or the fact that they’d stopped working shortly after they were installed. I decided not to say anything either. My father was the local head of USAMRIID; if the bugs didn’t work, Dr. Banks would blame it on Dad, unless I gave him good reason to do otherwise.
“It’s been a hard few days,” I said. I forced myself to think about the scene at the lab, the intern bleeding out her life through the hole in her throat, and was rewarded with fresh tears. The first one slipped free and ran down my cheek as I said, “Joyce is sick.”
“Joyce—you mean your sister, don’t you?” I nodded mutely. Dr. Banks’s face dissolved into a mask of sympathy that might have seemed sincere, if I hadn’t spent so much time with him, observing his reactions through dozens of private interviews. He was surprised to hear that Joyce was sick. But he wasn’t sorry. “Sally, that’s terrible. How are your parents handling the news?”
This was where things were going to get dicey. I glanced toward the two security guards who were still standing patiently by, trying to project reluctance. “I don’t know if I really want to talk about that here in the lobby.”
Dr. Banks was rarely slow on the uptake. He nodded immediately, stepping close and putting his arm around my shoulders. I managed not to recoil away from him. “That’s easily enough fixed, Sally. Thank you, gentlemen, for making sure Miss Mitchell got to me as quickly as possible. You may go about your duties now.”
“Thank you, Dr. Banks,” said the first guard. The second guard didn’t say anything, just offered me a little wave before turning and following his partner back to their posts against the wall.
Dr. Banks tightened his hold on me as he turned back toward the elevators, pulling me unavoidably along. I swallowed and let myself be led, ducking my chin a little so that he would think I was overwhelmed with relief at finally being somewhere safe. In actuality, all I wanted to do was turn and run back outside, to where real safety could be found. And if I did that, hundreds of people would die.
Once we were in the elevator, Dr. Banks let me go, and said, “It’s very good to see you again. I’ve been worried about you. The last time you were here… that didn’t go very well.”
I stared at him. I couldn’t help it. “People
“Yes, and you could have been seriously hurt, I know. I am so, so sorry, Sally. This was supposed to be a place where you could always be safe, and instead, it nearly got you killed. I assure you, that won’t happen again. We’ve stepped up security, and we’ve initiated preemptive scanning of all employees on a twice-weekly basis, just to be safe.” He must have mistaken my slowly dawning anger for amazement, because he smiled, adding, “All measures are justified if they allow us to guarantee the safety of our guests.”
“You have a test that’s good enough to catch early infections, and you haven’t been sharing it with the local hospitals.” I didn’t realize that would be my answer until it was already out, hanging in the air between us like a shameful secret. There was no point in trying to take it back, and so I pressed on, demanding, “Why?”
The elevator dinged as it reached its destination. Dr. Banks stepped out, motioning for me to follow. “There are a lot of things to be considered in a situation like this one, Sally. Some of them are admittedly less noble than others.”
“How many of them justify letting people get sick because you’re not sharing the test?” I walked next to him as he led the way down the hall to his office.
“None,” he said, opening the office door. “But how many of them justify giving people a few more days of peace before they become ill? Don’t mistake an early detection system for treatment, Sally. We may have the one, but we’re a long way from the other.”
“So why did you develop a test in the first place?” I looked around as I stepped into the office. His computer was where it always was, displayed prominently on his desk. If he would just leave me alone for a few minutes, I would be able to plug in the thumb drive and accomplish what I’d come here to do. The real trick was going to be getting Dr. Banks to leave me alone.
He sighed as he closed the door and walked around to take a seat at that selfsame desk. “You’re smarter than that question, Sally. We developed a test because the sleepwalking sickness is parasitic in nature. You know that. You’ve known that since you went back to the hospital with your boyfriend.”
I stared at him as I sat down in one of the chairs across from his desk. I knew SymboGen had been
