Something isn’t right here, said George.
“Got that right,” I muttered, drawing my own pistol and releasing the safety. Becks was looking at me intently, waiting for me to clarify whether I was talking to George or to her. I gestured down the hall in the direction we’d come from. “I think I can get us out if we go this way. But I’ll bet you a dollar our good director went the other way.”
“Then that’s the way we’re going,” said Becks, turning to scan the hall ahead of us. “Looks clear from here.”
“I think that’s the problem.” I started walking, keeping my pistol at a low, defensive angle. Technically, it’s legal for me to be armed anywhere I want to be, since I’ve passed my tests and I keep my licenses up-to-date at all times. Less technically, I’m not sure it’s a good idea for anyone, be he blogger, God, or the president of the United States, to go around waving a gun in a government building. It tends to give them the crazy idea that you might shoot, and things tend to get real unpleasant real fast after that happens.
The not-rightness of the situation became more and more apparent as we walked. We passed labs, break rooms, and more of the one-way windows into rooms intended for patient care. We passed bulletin boards, signs, and even the bathrooms. What we didn’t pass was anyone who demanded to see our IDs and asked what we were doing wandering around the building unescorted. Near as I could tell, the Portland CDC had been quietly and effectively deserted. All we needed was a creepy minor-key soundtrack to reinforce the idea that this was a bad situation. George waited silently inside my head, not making any comments that might distract me. That was good. I was already jumpy enough.
“We should be catching up to the director soon, assuming he hasn’t taken a turn we missed,” I said. “If he has, we better hope there’s an emergency exit somewhere in this place.”
“Pessimism doesn’t become you.”
“But I’m so good at it.” We kept walking, Becks trailing about three feet behind me and turning every few steps to sweep the corridor. If anything came lunging after us, she’d have time to gun it down before it caught up. “Hey, did you ever see those fucked-up first-person shooter games that were so big before the Rising? The ones with the zombies chasing you through government buildings and creepy old houses and shit?”
“Shut up, Shaun.”
“That’s what this feels like. One big maze, and we’re the rats unlucky enough to be in it.” A reassuring exit sign marked one of the doors ahead, and the light above it was a steady, reassuring green. I started to think that maybe there was an innocent explanation for all this, like a broken circuit somewhere that had required a quick, quiet evacuation of the unsecured areas. The director might have been intending to come back for us.
Yeah, and pigs might fly. I slapped my hand down on the test panel as soon as it came into reach. The metal was cool and nonresponsive. No needles appeared to sample my blood, no anesthetics sprayed to numb the nonexistent sting. The light over the door stayed green. “Fuck.”
“What?” Becks stepped closer, still scanning the halls around us for signs of movement. “What’s it doing?”
“Nothing.” I took my hand off the panel. The light over the door went out. A moment later, so did the lights in the hall, plunging us into total darkness.
Fuck, said George.
“Yeah, tell me about it,” I muttered, trying the door handle. It was unsurprisingly locked. It didn’t deliver an electric shock or shoot a sedative needle into my palm—both standard defensive measures for a sealed door in a government compound—but that was all I could say in the positive. I pulled my hand away and started rummaging through my pockets for a flashlight. “We could really use your eyes about now. Done being dead yet?”
Sorry, no.
“Shaun?” An amber light clicked on to my left as Becks produced the field light from her backpack and held it up between us. She still had her pistol in her other hand. That was probably a good idea. “I hate to interrupt, but can you maybe focus on the living for a little bit? I’d like to keep bathing long enough to get mad at you for this shitty idea.”
“You went along with it.” My fingertips grazed the hard metal base of my portable flashlight. I pulled it out and clicked it on, aiming it for the floor. The amber field light was night-vision friendly, but we’d need the extra illumination at floor level if we didn’t want to risk tripping over something in the dark.
“I never said I was the smart one. Thoughts?”
“These places are designed as kill chutes—they’re supposed to herd you deeper, so the infected can be picked off easily and the uninfected will stand a chance in hell at getting themselves to safety.” I gestured back toward the conference room with my pistol, keeping my flashlight pointed down. “We walk this way and hope we trip over a maintenance guy.”