“You’re the one who said this was like a pre-Rising video game.”
I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. I didn’t really want to give Kelly any reason to doubt our infection status—not when I still needed her to guide us to safety. “Okay, Doc, the clear wall’s open now. There’s a door. What do you want us to do?”
“Listen closely: You’re in one of the secondary escape corridors. They’re designed to get essential staff out if at all possible, even during an outbreak. They aren’t public, and they’re never used for the transport of biological materials, just evacuations. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
My skin crawled. “They’re set to autosterilize if there’s any sign of contamination, aren’t they?”
“Yes, they are. My suggestion?” Kelly paused before finishing, grimly, “Go as fast as you possibly can. Follow the yellow lights. They’ll lead you to an exit. As long as your infection status hasn’t changed, it’ll let you out.”
“And if it has?”
“If anyone in the escape corridor goes into conversion, the autosterilize initiates.”
“Fuckin’ swell. Okay. Tell Alaric I’ll call back if we’re not dead.” I cut the connection over her protests, yanking the ear cuff off and shoving it into my pocket as I turned to Becks. “We’re pulling a last run. Once this door is open, you haul ass, and if the lava comes down while we’re inside, it was nice knowing you.”
“Got it,” said Becks, with a small, tight nod. It wouldn’t actually be lava. It would be a highly acidic chemical bath, followed by flash irradiation, followed by another chemical bath, until everything organic in the corridor had been reduced to so much inert slime. That sort of thing can’t really happen in places where humans are expected to be on a regular basis, since it tends to render the environment permanently toxic, but for a rarely used, last-ditch exit, it made perfect, if horrible, sense.
I hesitated, and then offered her my hand. “It was nice knowing you, Rebecca,” I said.
“The same, Shaun. Believe me, the same.” She laced her fingers into mine and smiled wistfully. “Maybe when we get out of this alive, you and me can go for coffee or something.”
“Sure,” I said. She didn’t let go of my hand, and I didn’t pull away. Leaving our fingers tangled together like computer cables, I reached for the second door and pulled it open. An amber light clicked on across from us. Becks and I exchanged one final look before stepping through the doorway, into the relative darkness on the other side.
e door swung shut as soon as we were through, hydraulics engaging with a loud hiss that was almost reassuring. It meant all systems were go; even if those systems got us dissolved, they’d be doing so while fully operational. Another amber light clicked on to the left of the first one, and another, and another, until a line of tiny glittering beacons led the way deeper into the dark.
There was no other way to go, and Kelly’s instructions said to follow the light. We’d trusted her this far. The worst that trusting her the rest of the way could get us was dead. “Come on,” I said. We started in the direction indicated by the lights, moving as fast as we dared.
Distances always seem longer in the dark. The greater the darkness, the longer the distance. The amber lights were meant to guide us, not show us where we were going, and even my flashlight wasn’t enough to beat back the shadows. We probably traveled no more than a few hundred yards, but it felt like ten or twelve times that. Our breath was impossibly loud in the confines of the tunnel, and my toes kept catching on the floor, which wasn’t completely level. After the third time I almost tripped, I realized we were running across the floor of an enormous shower, complete with drains every ten feet. They’d be essential if the CDC ever needed to sluice the place down—say, after melting a few unwanted guests. I sped up, pulling Becks along with me. She didn’t argue. She was smart enough to want out of there as badly as I did.
The amber lights winked out about thirty seconds after we passed them, winking on ahead of us at the same rate. After the second time I looked back into the encroaching darkness, I forced myself to stop looking. It wasn’t doing a damn bit of good, and it was doing damage to my nerves that I really couldn’t afford.
I’m here, said George.
I squeezed Becks’s hand and kept going.