I closed the bathroom door and crossed to the sink, where I emptied my pockets into one of the mesh baskets Maggie keeps for exactly that purpose. Once I was sure I wouldn’t accidentally sanitize my press pass orsomething, I stripped, tossing my clothes—shoes and all—into the bathroom hamper. As soon as I activated the shower, a chute in the bottom of the hamper would open and send my clothes for automatic sterilization. No human hands would touch them until they were certified infection-free. I glanced at my reflection and scowled. I looked exhausted, and I was starting to develop bags under my eyes. Good thing I wasn’t doing the Irwin circuit anymore. An Irwin who looks tired is an Irwin who’s losing merchandising points with every frame of footage he posts.
Pulling back the curtain revealed the hermetically sealed air lock door separating the shower from the rest of the bathroom. There was a testing panel to one side. I pressed my hand against it, feeling the needles bite into the base of my palm. The light over the shower began flashing between red and green. I cleared my throat, and said, “Shaun Mason, guest, requesting standard decontamination protocols.”
There was a pause as the shower’s computer ran my blood sample and checked my voice print against the house logs. The light stopped flashing, settling on a steady green. A chime rang, and a pleasant voice that sounded suspiciously like Maggie said, “Welcome, Shaun. Please enter.” The air lock hissed as the seal released and the door swung slowly open. I shuddered as I stepped through. The sound of hydraulics wasn’t going to sit easily with me for a while—not until something else horrible happened to make me forget about the events of the Portland CDC.
The door swung closed behind me, locking with a second, louder hiss. Once the decontamination cycle started, there was no way to cut it short.
“What sort of shower would you prefer?” The voice of the shower came from a speaker set high in the rear wall. Everything but the air lock door was tiled, the floor and ceiling in white, and the walls in a soothing shade of blue. There were four showerheads, set at levels ranging from shoulder height to almost ceiling level. A recessed nook in the left-hand wall held shampoo, conditioner, and a variety of shower gels.
“Hot, short, thorough,” I said. I hesitated before adding, “Please.” It never pays to insult computers that are smart enough to form sentences. Not when they’re in control of the locks, and especially not when they have the capacity to boil you in bleach.
“Absolutely,” said the shower. “Please close your eyes.” That was all the warning I got before the water turned on, cascading with a vengeance from all four showerheads. I closed my eyes half a second too late and sputtered as I tried to wipe them dry. At least this shower started with water. Some of them just go straight to bleach.
The initial blast of water lasted for thirty seconds, letting me get warmed up before the shower announced, still politely, “I will be commencing sterilization on the count of three. Please prepare yourself.”
“Got it,” I said, and screwed my eyes more tightly shut. The liquid raining over me cooled, taking on the sharp smell of industrial-strength bleach. I did my best not to breathe too much as I scrubbed myself down, working the bleach into my skin. It stung like a bitch, just like it always does, but it was a good sting; it was the sting of getting all the way clean and staying alive for another day.
The bleaching stuck to the absolute legminimum, lasting only a few seconds longer than the water. Finally, the shower said, “Normal bathing cycle is beginning. You have four minutes. Please speak if you want to extend this time.”
The bleach stopped immediately, replaced by rapidly warming water. I rinsed my face clean before saying, “Four minutes is fine, thanks.”
“You’re welcome, Shaun,” said the shower.
Creepy. I hate it when machines get chatty with me. I wiped my eyes before opening them and reaching for the shampoo. George and I used to have shower races. Who could get in and clean and out again in the shortest amount of time. All the guys we went to school with insisted that their girlfriends and sisters took forever in the bathroom, but George always beat me. She could scrub down in under three minutes if she was in a hurry and hadn’t been out in the field—bleaching added time to both our totals, so we started subtracting it when we compared times. It was the only way to keep the contest fair. Of course, once a month or so, she’d take over the bathroom for an afternoon to dye her hair back to its original color, which inevitably resulted in her shouting for me to come in and help her dye her roots. The sink on our old bathroom was stained a permanent shade of brown by the time we were sixteen, and we ruined so many towels—
The water cut off, leaving me with soap behind one ear and a goony expression on my face. I hadn’t realized four minutes could go so quickly. “Thank you for showering with me today, Shaun,” said the shower, as the air lock door unsealed and hissed open. “It’s been a pleasure serving you.”
“Uh, thanks,” I said, stepping out. “Same here.”