Radclyffe - Oath of Honor

Evyn had left the headlights on, and the halos from the slanting beams seemed to be keeping the circle of darkness at bay. She’d never been afraid of the dark and didn’t get spooked by unknown terrain. She was a naval officer and an emergency physician—she was trained to handle imminent danger. The headlights dimmed and the darkness drew closer. Her breath came a little faster and a heaviness pervaded her chest.

She closed her eyes and she was upside down again, swirling in an endless void that sucked her down into cold, dark silence. Gasping, she shot up straight and opened her eyes. Outside her fogged window, the snow fell thicker, a white blanket screening the world from view. She couldn’t see the motel. She couldn’t see where Evyn had gone. Evyn. Evyn was solid and real and warm. She fought the urge to get out of the car and look for her.

“Okay,” Wes whispered aloud, “you know what this is. Fatigue, residual hypothermic confusion, delayed stress reaction. You’re entitled to all of it—for an hour or so.”

Cataloging her symptoms helped relieve the pressure in her chest some. She took a deep breath, heard the faint wheeze of constricted bronchioles. Evyn was right, she wasn’t fit to fly. She needed to replenish the fuel she’d burned off while struggling against the killer current. She needed to sleep. Evyn had to be in nearly the same shape—she’d been in the water almost as long. And she’d fought the current for both of them.

The car door opened and Wes jumped. Evyn dropped into the seat beside her.

“Okay,” Evyn said, wiping traces of melting snow from her cheeks with one hand. “I called over for pizza and they said it would be ready in fifteen. We can get settled and I’ll run over and get it.”

“Maybe we should forget that,” Wes said, her voice sounding hoarse and foreign.

Evyn backed the Jeep out of the slot and headed farther into the lot. The long, low motel came into view again as she coasted forward. “Why? I thought you were hungry?”

Wes swiped at her forehead. She wasn’t hot, but she was sweating. She wasn’t cold, but she was shivering. “Sorry. I—”

“What’s going on?” Evyn stopped in front of a green metal door just barely visible through the falling flakes. A cockeyed 12 made from white stick-on, glow-in-the-dark numbers identified the room. She downshifted into neutral and pulled the parking brake, leaving the lights on. “You okay?”

“Yes—sorry. Just jumpy. Sorry.”

Evyn rested her palm on the back of Wes’s neck. Her fingers were hot as banked coals. “Nothing unusual. You had a hell of a shock earlier.”

“So did you. You need to stay warm and eat and—”

“Hey,” Evyn said. “That’s all in the plan, Doc. You can relax. Really.”

“I know. You’re right. I’ll be fine.” Wes closed her eyes and let her head fall back into the secure cradle of Evyn’s hand. Evyn’s fingers glided up and down the muscles on either side of her spine, easing the tension, sending warmth through her. She sighed. “I don’t think the weather is going to get any better. We ought to make a run for it.”

“Let me get the door open and you get inside—keep dry,” Evyn murmured, continuing the gentle massage. “I’ll bring in our gear.”

“I appreciate it, but I can help carry our stuff.”

“This is the part where you practice letting me take care of you.”

A tingle of unease skittered down Wes’s spine—she’d been looking after her own needs most of her life, and her need for Evyn’s touch, her presence, made her feel exposed and vulnerable. She didn’t want Evyn’s attention just because Evyn felt guilty. “None of this is your fault.”

Evyn frowned. “I suck at connect-the-dots, and I’m missing this picture.”

“You don’t have to look after me because you feel responsible.”

“Wow. Okay.” Evyn’s hand fell away. “I’ll just let you fend for yourself, then—and when you finally do collapse—”

Beneath the edge of anger in Evyn’s voice, Wes heard hurt. She didn’t want to hurt her. She didn’t want the cold distance between them that had nothing to do with the storm or the dark either. “So maybe that came out a little wrong. I guess I suck at the being taken care of thing. I had two little sisters who couldn’t even remember our dad. Things were harder for them, and my mother had only so much energy to spread around between the four of us.”

“Okay.” Evyn’s shoulders relaxed and the tightness around her mouth softened. The red highlights in her hair gleamed against the glow of snow cocooning them, an ethereal image that imprinted on Wes’s brain. She was beautiful—not model perfect but strong and bold.

Wes wanted to erase the last vestiges of wariness in Evyn’s gaze. She wanted to trace the line of her jaw, but instead she grazed her fingertips over the back of Evyn’s hand where it rested on Evyn’s knee. “Can we try that again?”

A moment passed and Wes held her breath. Evyn’s hand turned over and their fingers entwined.

“How about we get you settled and I’ll go for pizza?” Evyn asked.

The heavy weight crushing Wes’s chest dissolved. Evyn’s hand was warm and solid. She tightened her hold. “I’d like that.”

*

The day shift had all left hours ago, and the corridor outside the Level 4 isolation lab was deserted. Her footsteps fell soundlessly on the white tile floor as she made her way to the airlock at the end of the hall. She pressed her palm on the identification plate and leaned down for the retinal scan. The light above the passage flashed from red to green, and the hydraulic door slid open with a faint whoosh. She stepped into the UV chamber, the outer door behind her closed, and she slipped on a pair of protective glasses. When she input her entry code on the wall panel, a hum accompanied the pulse of UV, and the next door in the chain opened. She deposited her protective glasses on the shelf and passed into the inner isolation room, where she methodically went through the routine of testing her positive pressure protective suit—sealing the cuffs at ankles and wrists, zipping the neck, and attaching the air hose to the one-way valve in the center of the back. She twisted the dial and compressed air flowed in. The pressure on the wall gauge held steady at 1 atm. No leaks. She closed the inflow valve and opened the vents along the neck. Air hissed out. She was ready to go to work.

Removing her shoes, she carefully stepped into the bright yellow suit and, after closing the seals, pulled on the calf-high impervious rubber boots. She wore no jewelry to work, not even a watch. She’d only have to remove it—she couldn’t risk any snag or tear that might violate the PPPS. Even a microscopic rent in the isolation suit could allow a contagion to enter, where it might be absorbed by her skin or inhaled into her respiratory system. The biological agents they worked with inside the BSL-4 lab were either highly transmissible or uniformly fatal or both. The suit was her only shield.

Once the suit was secure, she covered the fluid-resistant boots with disposable booties, fit the head shield into place, and pulled on her gloves. She wasn’t concerned for her safety. She was always prepared for any emergency. Caution was a way of life for her, and she’d been trained since birth to be composed under extreme circumstances.

With a bulky gloved finger, she pressed the entrance code, and the chamber pressurized. The inner door opened and she stepped into the lab. She nodded to a colleague working at a nearby station, sequencing a variant of Ebola. After connecting an overhead airline to the suit’s port, she made her way down the aisle, the line following behind her like a colorful yellow umbilicus. She’d volunteered for the night shift six months previously, establishing her routine, arriving a little early, leaving a little later. Her colleagues appreciated her diligence and her willingness to take the graveyard shift for longer than the usual mandatory rotations. At her station, she booted up her computer and retrieved the samples she planned to run on the gel plates that night, along with a second rack of tubes. Over the past six months she’d been carefully siphoning off micro-aliquots of avian flu stock, too tiny to be noticed by anyone else, until she had a single test tube half-full of one of the most virulent synthetic contagions ever produced.