Robison Wells - Blackout

“Dr. Eastman. I have to say, you put on quite a show.”

“Where am I?”

For the first time, she noticed that her wrists were bound to the sides of the hospital bed with heavy Velcro straps. Even if she could disappear, she’d be stuck here. An IV was in her left arm, connected to a bag of yellowish liquid. Electrodes dotted her fingers, arms, chest, and head.

The door was metal, and thick, with a small, square window indented and bolted into the steel.

“You’re not far from where you were apprehended. I’d ask how you managed to get past the testing center, but I think that’s fairly obvious.”

Her eyes began to focus on the far wall. Despite the soft lighting and comfortable furniture, the walls were bare white cinder block. And there were cameras—as she craned her neck to look around the room she saw at least six.

“Yes,” he said. “You’re being watched. Does that bother you?”

She’d failed. She was captured, being interrogated, and she hadn’t been able to do anything to help Jack. Dr. Eastman glanced down at his clipboard.

“Why did you run?”

“I didn’t know what was going to happen to me,” she said, her voice hoarse.

He nodded. “You realize that it doesn’t look good for you.”

“What doesn’t look good?”

“You ran from the army when they entered your town—”

“They shot my homecoming date,” she snapped.

He ignored her. “And when you were detained, you faked your test results. Then once you were in the quarantine area—spreading the virus in a clean zone, mind you—you escaped and tried to infiltrate an army facility.”

She stared at the ceiling. This wasn’t how any of this was supposed to happen. She was supposed to sneak in and sneak out. She was supposed to find Jack.

She was supposed to be back in Mount Pleasant enjoying high school, in a world that wasn’t collapsing around her.

She was supposed to be with Jack.

“Did you do tests on me?” she asked, fighting to hold back tears.

“Yes,” he answered. “Extensively.”

She let out a long slow breath. She didn’t like Dr. Eastman.

“Do I have a brain tumor?”

He laughed—he actually laughed. She wanted to slap him.

“No,” he said. “You don’t have a brain tumor. You have the Erebus virus. Interestingly, there’s quite a pocket of infected people in your area. Well, that’s not interesting—there’re infected people everywhere—but your town seems to have produced some of the more potent presentations of the virus.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means you can do incredible things,” he said, with genuine wonder in his voice. “It means that you just escaped a quarantine zone that was designed specifically to look for people like you, and then you snuck into a highly confidential military research facility. You evaded capture for hours. You made highly trained soldiers look like fools.”

She snorted. “Someone propped open the door with a rock.”

“I’m told,” he said, “that corporal is now a private.”

Aubrey didn’t care about that. She’d done all the things that he’d said, and yet she’d been caught. She hadn’t found Jack, let alone freed him.

“What was Nate Butler?” she asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Nate Butler. What was he?”

He flipped through the papers on his clipboard while she continued to stare at the cement ceiling.

“Nate Butler was killed trying to escape.”

“He was my date.”

“Were you aware—”

“No,” she snapped. “I wasn’t aware of any of this. I wasn’t aware of a virus or that there were any others or that the army was allowed to tie teenage girls down just because they’re sick. Have I been arrested?”

Dr. Eastman sighed, but she refused to look at him.

“Aubrey,” he said. “You don’t get it. You’re a medical miracle.”

She tried to disappear again, but something seemed to be stopping her. Not that it would do any good. “I’m a medical miracle that you don’t trust. I’m a medical miracle that you’re going to lock up.”

“Not necessarily.”

“What was Nate?”

“We don’t know,” he said. “It’s next to impossible to identify a patient’s symptoms postmortem. He was killed at the scene, and all we have are witness reports.”

“Then how do you know he was so ‘potent’?” She finally glanced over at him, convinced that her anger would elicit some response. But he was completely calm.

“Aside from the fact that he killed three soldiers and injured a fourth?”

She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She’d seen Nate do it, of course—she’d seen him tackle those men—but it had never sunk in what he’d really done.

“I wasn’t referring specifically to Nate, though,” Dr. Eastman continued. “I believe you are friends with a boy named Jack Cooper?”

“He’s Negative,” she said quickly.

“Wrong again. He thought he was Negative, but he was carrying the virus. While his symptoms are perhaps not as showy as yours, he’s really quite amazing.”

“Where is he?” she asked, her voice softer.

“He’s in a room that looks identical to this one. He’s just fine.”

“What are his . . . symptoms?”

“You can ask him yourself, soon enough, if all goes well.”

“What does that mean?”

Dr. Eastman changed the subject. “Tell me about your relationship with Nicole Samuelson.”

“What do you mean? We were friends.”

“I understand you had an arrangement with her?”

Aubrey’s stomach sank. Nicole had ratted her out. If Aubrey hadn’t been caught down here, they would have come to get her at the tent.

“I was her spy,” Aubrey said.

“Just around the school?”

“Why are you interrogating me?”

“It’s for your own good.”

“Yes, it was just around the school. Parties, too. Just normal stuff.”

“And what did you get in return?”

This was so stupid. “Nicole was popular,” Aubrey said. “She invited me to things. She helped me get friends.”

Dr. Eastman leaned forward. “Let me tell you something. And I can tell you this because either you’ll one day end up with a confidential clearance or you won’t leave this building until none of this matters. Yes, Nicole helped you get friends, and she did an amazing job of it.”

“I know she did.”

“Nicole has the virus,” he said. “It gives her kidney problems.”

“What?” That couldn’t be true. “She must not have known.”

“Oh, she knew,” the doctor said. “In fact, according to her statements, she’s known she’s had the virus longer than any patient we’ve examined. Nicole has the unique ability to control the pheromones of the people around her. When Nicole made you popular, what she was doing was, very literally, making people attracted to you. When she shunned a student, when she kicked them out of the popular clique, she literally—chemically—made people feel disgusted by them.”

It couldn’t be true. Nicole wasn’t a freak, not like Aubrey. Nicole was so . . . perfect. Even with her sickness.

But it had to be true. Boys were paying attention to Aubrey back at school. They were fighting over her. That had never happened before this year. Aubrey had once joked to Nicole that it was like a switch had been flipped and—bam—she was suddenly pretty and popular and desirable.

And that’s exactly what had happened. A switch had been flipped. Nicole had flipped it.

Which meant that it was all a lie. Aubrey wasn’t pretty or popular or desirable. She was just regular old Aubrey. Plain, trailer-trash Aubrey.

Dr. Eastman was watching her, studying her.

“Tell me about what you can do,” he finally said.