The Girl at the End of the World (20 page)

As I’d thought, the door marked “4” was on our left now, and the doctor stopped in front of it, turning to face me. “You could have just left him there,” I said.

“He thought of you as his possessions. We had to weigh the risk that he would try following you to our facility,” she said. “We haven’t the time or the resources for dealing with such people now. And, frankly, we don’t have the patience. Mr. Donovan took a risk, an exploitative and self-serving one.” She punched her code into the keypad on the door. This time I couldn’t see the numbers at all because of the way we were standing. I heard the same click I’d heard before. “It didn’t pay off for him. For you, though, and your friends…for us here trying to understand what happened with F2, it may well have turned out to be something of a gift Mr. Donovan gave us. Will you step through, please?”

I didn’t say anything, didn’t even nod,
just stepped through like she’d asked, wondering if this was the beginning of blind obedience. It wouldn’t do to be a loose cannon, not when they had all the guns and all the codes for the locks.

The room was dark, but fluorescent lights clicked on the moment I passed the threshold.
Motion detector
, I thought as the door shut behind me. I turned at the sound, but it was too late. Sharma hadn’t said another word, just locked the door once she’d gotten me inside.

I let out a big breath, telling myself to relax.

“Please enter,” said a computerized voice. It sounded slightly female.

I ignored the invitation, my feet planted right beside the door as I took everything in. The room was maybe twenty feet long by ten wide, all painted and tiled the same gray as the corridor outside. Directly across from me was a row of vertical window shades, all closed, that started about four feet up from the floor. A small table and a single chair were in the middle of the room, and there was a small bed along one wall. Toward the back of the room, not far from the entrance I was peeking out of, there was a partition about six feet high, and behind it a toilet, sink and shower stall.

“Home sweet home,” I said.

“Please enter,” the computer repeated in the same almost friendly tone. I wondered if it would change if I made it repeat a third time, but didn’t wonder that much. I entered.

“Please shower and deposit your soiled clothes in the bin marked
Waste
,” the computer immediately said. “You will find fresh clothes in the supply closet.”

Again I looked around the room, trying to see a motion detector or camera. There was nothing, at least not anything obvious to me. Still, the computer had needed some confirmation that I was now in the room, or else it wouldn’t have given the new command. That was what it was doing, I told myself,
commanding
even if the commands came in the politest tones.

Not ready to rock the boat yet, I followed orders—if a bit tentatively. The supply closet was at the far left end of the back wall, and inside were plastic cups and plates, toilet paper and several other things for hygiene, and a change of clothes sealed in a plastic bag. These I examined quickly—stiff camouflage pants, a khaki t-shirt, socks, underwear, and a sports bra. Everything looked a little big for me, but probably close enough to fit reasonably well.

I felt uncomfortable taking my clothes off, even behind the shower partition, and kept looking at the corners where the walls met the ceiling to try and spot a hidden camera. I couldn’t shake the thought that someone was watching me undress—maybe Dr. Sharma, maybe someone else. I finally decided the best thing would be to get it over with as fast as possible, and so finished getting out of my clothes. I found two towels on a shelf and wrapped one around myself as I gathered my clothes.

A drawer built into the wall had a handle with the word “Waste” on it. It hinged open to reveal a trash chute. I checked the pockets of the jeans I’d worn since being taken from the observatory and then dumped them into the chute, not exactly sorry to see them go. Then I showered as quickly as I could—the first time since the solar house in Hollywood—before drying off and getting dressed.

Patting my hair dry with one of the towels, I thought about cutting it short. That would have been the practical thing days ago, but I hadn’t thought about it—just kept tying it into a bun or fixing a ponytail. It would be good to be done with it. Curious, I went to the supply cabinet again to see if they’d given my scissors or even a sharp knife, but there was nothing. I thought of prison movies I’d seen; just like in those scenarios, my keepers didn’t want any suicides, so they’d left me nothing sharp. Not only were there no shoelaces for me to strangle myself with, but there weren’t even shoes. It was a good thing I didn’t want to kill myself, just my hair.

On the opposite wall was the row of windows, still hidden behind vertical blinds. A control panel was to my left, and at intervals along the windowed wall I saw three boxes built into the wall. Investigating, I saw they were metal and had hinged tops, but they were tightly sealed and didn’t even have an edge I could grip to try and pull one open.

The wall panel controlled the blinds and lights, and these I could manipulate, dimming the lights for sleeping, opening and closing the blinds. When I punched the “Open” button, the slats shifted sideways, giving me a look out the windows.

I looked out into another corridor, this one painted and tiled in bright white, almost blinding. Across from me was another set of windows and closed blinds, and above them was a red number 1.
Who’s in there?
I wondered.
Someone else they caught?

Diagonally across from my chamber, the blinds slid open below a red number 2, and Chad looked out at me. We smiled at each other and waved feebly. I felt so glad to see him there. It would have been awful to be completely alone. This wasn’t much better, but seeing him was a huge help. He touched a button on his panel, and I was afraid he was closing his blinds again, but his command sent the slats sliding down their rails to reveal a full view of his quarters, not one divided by all the slats. I looked again at my control panel and decided hitting “Open” a second time was my best option. It worked, the slats sliding away from me with a
whish
.

The way the cells were arranged, I couldn’t see Dolores’ cell but when Chad shifted his gaze to look straight across the hall, I assumed the blinds in the third chamber had opened as well. Catching what must have been a questioning look from me, he mimicked rocking a baby and then gave the thumbs up sign.

Now what?
I wondered.

Chad and Dolores may have been thinking the same thing, but none of us had an answer. Chad and I just stood at our windows, waiting, and I assumed Dolores was doing the same. It was late, sometime after midnight I was sure, but I had no thought of sleep. Too much had gone on, was still going on in my mind.

It was maybe five minutes later that I caught sight of movement to my left, and then Dr. Sharma came into view. She didn’t wear her hazard suit anymore but was in clothes similar to what had been left for me—camo pants and a khaki shirt. She got to wear shoes, though, with laces. No worries about the doctor killing herself, I thought. She looked to be about 35 and had her black hair tied in a tight bun, probably all very regulation. Like before, she held a clipboard.

Behind her came a thin man, mid-twenties, pushing a cart. He was dressed the same way as the doctor but had a gun holstered around his waist.
Another soldier, not medical staff, but here to help the doctor, or at least be her back up if we gave her trouble. It was hard to imagine the kind of trouble we could give on the other side of this glass, though; it looked pretty thick.

From the top of the cart, the doctor picked up what looked like a remote control. After pressing a button, she began to speak, and her voice came to me through the speakers hidden inside my cell the same way I’d heard the computerized voice giving me instructions earlier.

“I see you’ve all had a chance to freshen up,” she began. “Thank you for cooperating so nicely. You’ll find we just want what’s best for you and are going to do our best to keep you comfortable.” She repeated this in Spanish, turning toward Dolores’ cell as she spoke. Then she continued in English, stopping every few sentences to repeat for Dolores. “Of course, you are still in a hospital and military environment in the middle of the greatest threat human beings have ever faced, so your comfort will likely be minimal. I’m sorry for that, but I’m sure you understand. We have to have some higher priorities.

“My job is to determine what genetic or environmental factors have allowed you to be immune to the F2 outbreak. To do that, we will need blood and tissue samples and will also need to do some extensive interviews regarding your background, medical history, and your family’s medical history. I trust you will be cooperative?”

She looked from Chad to me, and we both nodded. “Good.” Then she repeated the last bit for Dolores and probably got another nod. “Without your cooperation, those of us not lucky enough to be immune would be doomed. This facility can house us only for so long, and resources are finite, so the day will come when we have to go out into the contaminated zone and face it so we may begin rebuilding our society.”

“Are there many other survivors?” I asked automatically, forgetting she wouldn’t be able to hear me through the glass. Those closed blinds across the corridor still had me curious.

The doctor cocked her head and then said, “Use the intercom button.”

I went to the panel, saw the button, and pressed it before repeating my question.

She hesitated a second before answering. “We know of some, but all quite far from here, too far for us to have access. No doubt there are others nearby, but without the resources to contact us. We are searching, but resources are limited, as I said.”

“What about Australia?”

She raised an eyebrow. “There may be survivors in other parts of the world, yes. Isolated pockets spared by wind patterns from being exposed to F2. I don’t know anything specific about Australia.” She paused, giving me a sterner look than she had before. “Don’t plan on booking any flights, though.”

I didn’t need that, but let it go.

“If you will each pull a chair up to the metal box in the center of your chamber, we will begin.”

She began with Chad, then moved on to Dolores and Kayla. Room 2, then 3.
Going by the numbers
, I thought.
How military
. I sat before the box and watched as Dr. Sharma pulled a wheeled stool up to each of the cells, opening a door in the wall below the windows and doing things I couldn’t see with her back to me. When she had finished with Chad, I made eye contact with him. He smiled and gave me another thumbs up; I nodded, not knowing what else to do.

Finally, Dr. Sharma came to me.

I watched as the metal box on my side of the windows popped open with a hiss and a click. Two red rubber gloves, long enough to reach past someone’s elbows, lay inert at the bottom of the box, their ends connected to the wall. The doctor leaned forward, and the gloves came to life as she snaked her hands into them. At the bottom of the box was a chrome handle; Sharma pulled it up to reveal a drawer full of medical supplies.

She used the gloves deftly, opening the supply drawer and taking out packages that contained a syringe, alcohol swabs, a rubber tube, and bandages.

“Make a fist,” she said.

I complied, and in seconds she had the tube tied around my arm and the swab spreading alcohol over my skin. She tapped the veins in the bend of my elbow and then popped the needle into my arm. There was another drawer in the side of the box; this one had its own keypad, and the doctor entered her code to pop the door open with another hiss. The full syringe went inside before she was back in the lower drawer for more supplies. She bandaged my arm and then swabbed inside my cheek, popped the sample into a test tube, and placed it in the same drawer as the syringe full of blood.

“Any health problems before the outbreak?” she asked.

“No.”

“Are you on any medications?”

“No.”

“Pregnant?”

“No!”

“All right. Keep the bandage on until morning. There’s food in the cabinet beside your bed. Try to get some sleep. We’re going to do our best to keep you comfortable here, but there are going to be some unavoidable inconveniences. I’m sure you’ll understand.”

I nodded. “I’ll do my best.”

She didn’t like that response, just gave me a cold smile. Then she closed the drawer where she’d put the samples, hit more buttons on the key pad, and pulled her hands back out of the gloves.

“Close the lid, please.”

I did, and then she was doing something else with the keypad on her side. I heard a
whirring
sound and felt the wall vibrate. When it stopped, Dr. Sharma hit more keys, and then I saw that she had a small, sealed box in her hand. It was the same gray as the walls inside my cell and had a bright yellow hexagon on each side with the word “Biohazard” printed in black in the center.

It had my blood and saliva inside. The air in the chamber it had come out of must have been removed before the box could be taken out on the doctor’s side of the glass; otherwise she wouldn’t have exposed herself to it without a hazard suit, contaminated as it must be by everything on my side of the wall.