Quarantine

the coughing,' he said in a rush. 'She hit me on the back, and I jumped and knocked over some test tubes.' He yanked

his arm away from Maris and walked quickly to the other side of a lab table. 'It was harmless,' he repeated.

'No, it wasn't,' Maris told him.

His mouth dropped open in surprise. 'Sure it was.'

'That's not what we're going to tell the CDC,' Maris said. 'We're going to say the spill caused a mutation in Liz when she cleaned it up. We're going to let them believe that's what started this whole epidemic.'

Alan was hyperventilating. 'But then they'll think it was my fault. I'll be discredited. I'll be completely ruined!'

'You'll be rich,' Maris countered. 'You help me hide all the evidence of the Healer from the CDC and I'll give you enough money to buy your own island. You'll never need to work again.'

'It's unethical,' he whispered. 'I can't lie to the CDC.'

'Oh, Alan,' Maris said in a baby-talk voice, 'of course you can. After all, you certainly can't tell them the truth. That would ruin you even more.'

He stared at her, wild-eyed. She was right, and he knew it.

'They're coming in a few minutes to empty out your lab,' she told him. 'They want to figure out exactly what spilled. So you need to make sure they don't find out that it was a harmless substance. And you need to make sure they don't find the serum, the cells you took from Liz Parker, or the cells we have from the Healer. Understood?'

Dr. Sosa sat down heavily on a lab stool. He looked devastated.

'Good,' Maris said with a smile.

Maria flipped over to her stomach and pretended to keep reading her book. Who am I kidding? she wondered. No

one else was even watching her. She closed the book and put her head down on the bed. Voices floated in from the kitchen, where her father was cooking dinner for Sadie.

Part of Maria hated the idea of him in there, puttering around, using her mom's pots and pans. And part of her wanted to run out to the kitchen and throw her arms around him.

A tear ran down Maria's cheek. It had been hard enough getting over the fact that he left her. All her life she'd felt like a failure, like she must have done something so horrible that even her own father didn't love her. For years, she'd blamed herself for him leaving, even though Amy had always told her it wasn't her fault. She'd never gotten over it, really. But she'd sort of gotten used to it.

And now here he was again. Maria used to fantasize about reuniting with her father. In her daydreams, of course, he always came back with a good excuse, like he'd been deep-sea diving and he hit his head and had amnesia all these years. In none of her daydreams did he show up and announce that he'd been happily living one state over with his wife and his two real kids.

Anger surged up inside her. How dare he come to her house and refuse to leave?

I should call the cops and make them kick him out, she thought. But of course she couldn't do that. For one thing, the cops were busy trying to quarantine a bizarre disease. And for another, the cops would have to kick Sadie out too. And Maria didn't want Sadie to get hurt. It was bad enough that the kid had a liar for a father.

'Your mother said to tell you that you're grounded for a month,' Richard's voice caught Maria's attention.

Sadie groaned expressively, and Maria smiled.

'None of that,' Richard said. 'You ran away to another state, young lady. You deserve to be grounded.'

'You didn't tell me I had a sister,' Sadie retorted. 'You deserve to be grounded too.'

You tell him, pipsqueak! Maria thought.

'I agree,' Richard said. 'I'll be grounded for as long as you are. I definitely should have told you about Maria, and I'm sorry I didn't. But I wasn't in touch with her myself, and I didn't know how to explain that to you.'

'So explain it now,' Sadie said.

Maria bolted upright. She wanted to hear this too. But her father just sighed. 'I don't think you'll understand it, sweet pea,' he said. 'Maybe when you're older.'

Maria felt as if he'd stabbed her. 'Sweet pea' had been his pet name for her. It was one of the only things she remembered about him. He just replaced me with another sweet pea, she thought.

'Are you going to leave me and Junior and Mom the way you left Maria and her mother?' Sadie asked.

'No,' Richard said firmly. 'No, I am not. I would never leave you.'

That's because he loves you, Sadie, Maria thought as tears spilled down her face. He just didn't love me that much.

'You still feel spacey?' Kyle asked.

Liz shook her head. She didn't trust herself to talk, because what she actually felt was nauseated. This was the first time she'd tried to walk since she'd gotten sick at the bowling alley. She kept getting so distracted by the feeling of her muscles working… pulling against one another to

propel her forward… that she forgot to actually put one foot in front of the other. And the ground looked really far away. It was hard to balance. I wonder if this is how I felt when I was first learning to walk, she thought.

Kyle slipped his arm around her waist. 'Just hang on to me. I'll get us there.'

'Aren't you sick too?' she whispered.

'Not like you,' he replied. 'I still have the thing where noises are loud and lights hurt my eyes. But I'm not hearing my heartbeat or anything like you are.'

'I feel my muscles working,' she whispered. 'I feel the oxygen being pumped into my blood.' Even in her hypersensitive state, Liz recognized the fear in Kyle's eyes. 'Don't worry about me. I can still think clearly. I just have to concentrate.'

'Okay, but I'm getting scared,' he said. 'I don't know if I want such an intimate knowledge of my body's workings.'

Liz smiled and focused on walking. They were almost to Dr. Sosa's lab. Getting out of the quarantine room had been easy; there weren't even guards at the doors. Clearly they weren't expecting anyone to get up and leave. Most of the other people were way too sick. And with the acute hearing she and Kyle now had, they were able to avoid being found. They heard people coming a good minute before they saw them.

In fact, Liz heard something now… the sound of metal scraping against the floor. She glanced at Kyle. He heard it too. 'There's a janitor's closet across from Dr. Sosa's lab,' he whispered.

Liz nodded. The door to the lab was about ten feet away on the left, and the janitor's closet was maybe six feet

away on the right. 'Let's go fast,' she whispered back. Kyle pulled her forward, and soon they were safely hidden in the closet. Kyle kept the door open a tiny bit, and through the sliver of space, they had a good view of the door to the lab.

It was opening.

'Looks like we got here just in time,' Kyle whispered. Liz nodded silently. She had no idea what would happen if they were found wandering around Meta-chem, and she didn't particularly want to find out.

Two big guys were dragging a large metal dram out into the hallway from the lab.

'Wait! One more thing.' To Liz's surprise, Dr. Sosa walked out of the lab. He was carrying a small plastic box. One of the guys opened the top of the metal dram, and Dr. Sosa placed the box inside. 'That's everything.'

The guys loaded the metal dram onto a hand track that stood in the hallway, and as they pushed it away down the hall, Liz noticed that they wore jackets with CDC printed on the back. Dr. Sosa watched them go. Liz could hear his heavy breathing from here.

Maris Wheeler appeared in the doorway behind him. 'I trust the CDC will find exactly what they should find, Alan?'

Dr. Sosa didn't answer. He turned and stormed down the hall in the other direction.

Maris Wheeler shook her head. Then she followed the CDC guys, leaving the lab door wide open.

'These people are weird,' Kyle whispered after all the footsteps had died away. He pushed open the closet door and helped Liz across the hall and into Dr. Sosa's lab.

Liz glanced around. The lab was empty. 'Everything is gone,' she told Kyle.

'That's for sure.' He pointed to the back of the room. The door to Dr. Sosa's locked closet hung open, and the