Like I was still dead.
The ever-present guards were waiting outside the lab. They fell into position ahead and behind us. We walked the length of the familiar hall, passing the doors I was accustomed to stepping through. I was starting to get worried—maybe this whole thing had been a test; maybe Gregory was working for the CDC after all, and I’d failed by going along with his grand conspiracy theory—when Dr. Thomas finally stopped. The lead guard did the same.
“Here we are,” said Dr. Thomas. He touched the apparently featureless wall. A piece of paneling slid aside to reveal a blood test unit. “Georgia. You understand that this is a privilege, and that any inappropriate behavior on your part will result in your being sternly reprimanded.”
I didn’t want to think about what a reprimand might constitute, given that I already lived in a small, isolated box with no privacy. “I understand,” I said.
“Good. I told them we could trust you to be cooperative.” Dr. Thomas slapped his hand down on the blood testing unit. The light above the door clicked on, going from red to green, and the door swung open. Swung—not slid.
Light lanced into the hall, so bright it seemed almost like a physical attack. I automatically moved to shield my eyes, the part of my brain that handled reflexes kicking in before my conscious mind realized my retinas weren’t burning. I slowly forced my arm down, raising my head and squinting into the brightness.
Sunlight. It was sunlight. I could smell green things, the sharp bitterness of tomato plants, the sweet bland scent of grass. I started hesitantly forward, my feet carrying me almost without consulting the rest of my body. The guards followed me, but at a distance, giving me a few meters of space as I moved out of the antiseptic CDC hall, and into the green.
I’ve never been an outdoorsy person. Shaun used to say the only reason I ever left my room was to yell at him for doing dangerous shit. He wasn’t entirely right, but he wasn’t entirely wrong, either. And stepping through that door was still just shy of stepping into Heaven.
It wasn’t the actual outdoors; a quick glance upward was enough to confirm that I was actually in a moderately sized biodome, with a ceiling of steel and clear, bulletproof glass protecting me from any chance of feeling an actual breeze. I was standing in a lie. A big green lie, filled with flower beds and vegetable gardens and an expanse of grass even bigger than our yard in Berkeley. I didn’t care. In that moment, the lie was as good as the truth would have been, because I was standing in the green, and there were butterflies—butterflies—fluttering past like it was no big deal. Like there were green things and butterflies everywhere in the world.
“What is this?” I asked, turning back to Dr. Thomas. My eyes were burning; that weird tingling burn that I was learning to recognize as a sign of tears. I fought the urge to swipe my hand across them. I’d been capable of crying for a little under a month, and I already hated it.
“Those of us involved with your care thought you might benefit from a little fresh air.” Dr. Thomas was smiling that paternal smile again. I stopped fighting the urge to wipe my eyes, and started fighting the urge to punch him in the nose. “Welcome to Biodome six-eighteen.”
Something croaked in one of the apple trees to my left. I glanced over just in time to catch a flash of black wings as what could only have been a crow took off, presumably to find a tree that wasn’t next to unwanted humans. The distraction gave me the time I needed to get my breathing—and threatened tears—under control. My expression was one of wide-eyed amazement as I turned back to Dr. Thomas.
“You mean this has been here all along?” I asked.
His smile widened. Asshole. “This is one of the larger CDC establishments. This habitat allows us to grow some of our own food, and studies have shown that access to outdoor environments can assist in psychological recovery.”
“Wow. I had no idea.” I might have been laying it on a little thick with that last one, but I was too distracted to care. I was busy reviewing everything my damaged memory contained about the North American CDC facilities.
“I thought it would make a nice treat for you.”
Nice how he was willing to take credit for it, now that I’d stepped “outside” without losing my shit. “It’s amazing,” I said, trying to infuse my words with an air of wonder.