I hesitated. Chave worked for SymboGen. I didn’t. And when Chave wouldn’t calm down, they’d zapped her until she stopped moving. Chave was probably dead. Did I believe the biohazard suit when it said I’d be sedated if I didn’t cooperate? Yes, I did. I glared at the suit’s mask as I removed my clothes, piling them on the floor. I started to reach for the scrubs.
“Stop where you are, Ms. Mitchell.” The biohazard suit’s air filter allowed no inflection in the voice, but the feeling of menace still managed to come through in the way the words were bitten off. “I will need to examine you.”
“What?” I crossed my arms over my chest, covering myself. “What are you talking about?”
“The risk of infection is high enough to require a visual examination. Please lower your arms.”
“I want to talk to Dr. Banks.”
“Dr. Banks is being examined. He will be happy to speak with you once you are both finished.”
That stopped me cold, because somehow, I didn’t doubt what I was being told. Dr. Banks—the owner of the company, the richest man in North America, and one of the most powerful people in the developed world—was being strip-searched and examined for signs of an undisclosed “infection.” Maybe he was getting examined in his office rather than in one of these generic little isolation rooms, but that didn’t change the fact that he was getting the same treatment I was. And that terrified me.
Dropping my arms to my sides, I turned to face the biohazard suit. It nodded. “Thank you,” it said. “Now please stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and raise your arms to shoulder level. This will be a visual examination only. I will not touch you. Do you understand?”
“What’s your name?” I countered.
The biohazard suit sighed. I wouldn’t have thought the filters would let the sound escape, but they did, and it carried a level of human frustration that all the words hadn’t been able to convey. “It’s Dr. Lo, Sally. Now please, will you do as I am asking?”
“You could have said that before, you know.” I moved as I spoke, getting into the position she had requested. It felt less strange now that I knew she was someone familiar and not just a faceless automaton from the depths of SymboGen. At the same time, the fact that Dr. Lo was treating me as a threat—not just furniture, but something dangerous—worried me. “Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”
“Because I was more concerned with your health than with observing social pleasantries. Hold still.” Dr. Lo reached into a pocket on the leg of her biohazard suit, producing a long tube that looked like it had been detached from the overhead lights. She flicked a switch at its base, and it came on, glowing a deep shade of purple. Dr. Lo began running it through the air a few inches away from me, watching the way the purple light reflected off my skin.
“What is that?” I asked.
“Don’t move, Sally,” she said, crouching to run the light along my stomach and legs. She was quick, and thorough: not an inch of me was left unexamined. True to her word, she didn’t touch me. That didn’t stop me from feeling like there was something deeply inappropriate about having her looking at me that closely, especially with the protective suit between us. Whatever she was looking for, it wasn’t anything good.
Finally, she straightened, clicking off her wand. “You can put the scrubs on now,” she said, as she returned it to her pocket. “You’re clean.”
“Clean of what?” I asked, dropping my arms back to my sides before turning to reach for the scrubs.
“That’s a discussion for you to have with Dr. Banks, not with me. I’m just here to make sure you don’t present a danger to yourself or others.” Dr. Lo turned away from me and knocked twice on the door. After a moment, one of the security officers opened it. This one hadn’t been present in the cafeteria. I was starting to think that SymboGen had its own private police force, and that wasn’t a comforting thought. The line between “police force” and “army” is narrow under the best of circumstances, and we were no longer operating under the best of circumstances.
“Yes?” asked the officer.
“She’s clean,” replied Dr. Lo. “I need to go to decontamination.” Even clean, I was apparently enough of a risk to require cleaning a biohazard safety suit. I shrank back from the door, suddenly terrified of my own skin. What kind of contagion had we been exposed to? Was I going to go like Chave, normal one minute, empty-eyed and absent the next?
My motion must have caught Dr. Lo’s eye, somehow; I had no idea what the peripheral vision was like in a biohazard suit, but she turned back toward me, and asked, “Now you’re afraid? After the worst parts are over, now you’re afraid? I know we’ve given you a clean bill of health, Sally, but you may want to consider therapy.”
I glared at her. She left the room, and the officer stepped into the doorway, preventing me from following her out. At least he wasn’t wearing a mask. I felt less like a risk to the health of everyone around me when I looked at another face without a piece of plastic in the way.
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Ms. Mitchell,” he said politely.
“I want to speak to Dr. Banks,” I said, and stepped into the slippers.
“He’s still undergoing examination, but I’m sure he’ll be happy to speak with you once he’s free,” said the officer.
Still undergoing… I stiffened. “Sherman.” What was his last name? Shit. “Sherman Lewis. He’s one of Dr. Banks’s assistants. He was brought down here with the rest of us. Is he all right? Have they finished examining him?”
“I can’t discuss the health of other patients, Ms. Mitchell,” said the officer.
“We’re not patients, we’re people who didn’t get to finish having lunch,” I shot back.
Laughter came from the hall behind him. Weary laughter, but laughter, and that was better than anyone was going to get out of me. “It’s all right, Floyd, you can stand down,” said Dr. Banks, moving into view behind the officer. “Once Sally gets an idea in her head, there’s not room for too much else in there.”
“Yes, sir,” said the officer, and stepped aside.
Dr. Banks was wearing the same blue scrubs I was. Somehow, he managed not to look ridiculous in them—a feat I was sure I wasn’t matching. He stepped into the officer’s place, looking at me with a small, paternal smile. “I’m sorry if our security drill frightened you, Sally. It wasn’t the intention.”
“Where’s Sherman? What happened to Chave?”
“That’s one of the things I like about you. You care about people. That’s a rare quality, and it’s one I think we should be focusing on more.”
“And you’re deflecting,” I said. “Where is Sherman Lewis? What happened to Chave?”
Dr. Banks sighed. For a moment, he didn’t look like the owner of a massive multinational corporation: he looked like a man who hadn’t slept in weeks, and was covering it up with foundation, hair dye, and stimulants. “I’m afraid Ms. Seaborne did not recover from her unfortunate incident in the cafeteria.”
“ ‘Unfortunate’—do you mean whatever went wrong with her, or do you mean the officers with the shock batons?” I crossed my arms and glared at him. For some reason, I was no longer afraid of SymboGen refusing to let me leave the building. I was more concerned that I would never leave this basement. Not alive, anyway. “She’s dead, isn’t she? That’s what you mean when you say she ‘didn’t recover’ from being electrocuted.”
“Sally…” Dr. Banks hesitated. Then he sighed again, and said, “There’s a great deal you don’t understand. I’m so sorry you had to see that, and please believe me, no one is sorrier about what happened with Chave than I am. She’s been with me almost since the beginning. Neither of us ever expected things to end this way.”
“I’m pretty sure she didn’t expect to be electrocuted when she got out of bed this morning, no.” I kept glaring at him. “Sherman Lewis. Where is he?”
“Sally—”
“I come here every time you call me. I let your staff take all the blood they want. I answer your questions, I listen to your lectures, I do whatever I’m told to do, and I don’t fight you. That could change. Sherman is the only person here who always treats me like I’m a person, too. Not lab equipment, not an experiment, a person. Now where is he?”
“Sally, I’m sorry.”
The words were spoken softly, but they might as well have been screamed. They seemed to echo through the room, getting louder with every iteration. “Why are you sorry?” I asked. I could barely hear my own voice over the echoes of Dr. Banks’s statement.
“You have to understand, he had prolonged physical contact with Chave. He was exposed.”
His first words were still echoing, and now they were backed by a heavy pounding, like the sound of distant drums. “Exposed to what?”
“Sally, I really don’t feel this is a conversation that we should be having while you’re upset.” Dr. Banks looked even more uncomfortable, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.
The drums were getting stronger, drowning out the echo of his words. “Exposed to what?”
“I’ve called Dr. Kim to come and collect you,” said Dr. Banks. “I’m afraid your clothes won’t be ready for several hours. They will be delivered to your home. You can keep the scrubs. I’m sorry we didn’t get to have lunch together; I was very much looking forward to spending that time with you. I’ll see you soon, Sally.”
“Wait, what are you talking about? What were we exposed to? Dr. Banks—”
It was too late: Dr. Banks was already turning and stepping out of the room. The security officer reappeared as soon as Dr. Banks was through the door, making it clear that I would not be allowed to rush after him. I dropped my hands to my sides and just stared, open-mouthed. The drums were as loud as they had ever been, and for the first time while I was fully awake and aware of my surroundings, I was absolutely certain of what they were: I was hearing the pounding of my heart.