Paying no attention to the appreciative glances of the men around her, she left her clothes folded neatly on a chair next to the entrance to the U.V. chamber, then stepped inside. The tunnel itself stretched in front of her like one of the sewer tunnels of a previous century—it was long and dark, and there was no way she could judge its length. The technician had told her to walk, but he hadn’t actually said she’d be
moving
while she did. The darkness gave her a feeling of vertigo and her balance was odd; for all she knew, she might be stepping along on the surface of a treadmill, one of the moving walkways that are so common in the airports. That was doubtful, but there was no way to be sure.
After a few moments a light appeared on either side of her, tracking her as though she were a piece of paper on a flatbed scanner. It did nothing to illuminate her feet, but that didn’t matter anyway. She thought she felt the thin beam of light as heat against her skin, but again, there was no way to be sure. It was vaguely purple and it bounced off her naked body, outlining it in an attractive glow. She could see her legs and arms as she walked, head automatically looking down at the darkness where her feet were—yes, now that her eyes had grown accustomed to the dimness she could finally glimpse them, stepping along in perfect time to the slow and steady beat of her heart. The bright lines of purple light emanated from translucent walls that went completely over her head; she could just make out vague circuitry and the dull gleam of metal parts beyond, see an occasional blink of red electrical indicator lights following the wiring. She kept her eyes downcast and her concentration focused, and it became almost a game to ensure that her stride was perfectly spaced and she never made the scanning light hitch or pause. This was just one more step in getting the job done.
Without warning the light beams shut down, leaving her in utter blackness. For a long moment everything was still, lightless, and heavy, and she felt like she shouldn’t even try to breathe. Then the area in front of her was washed in muted gray light and she realized she was standing only inches away from the front of a heavy steel security door. She knew to identify herself without waiting to be told—after all, this was the way the world was now.
“XPD-154 Clearance Classified Courier,” she said flatly, directing her voice into a mini-speaker at mouth height. Maybe there was a person on the other side of the door, and maybe not; that she might be addressing no one bothered her not a bit. “Here on retrieval for transfer to the C.P.M.”
Data displays suddenly lit up on either side of the door as her voice was analyzed for stress, the graph lines etching irregular patterns across the LCD screens. She had no way of knowing whether or not she was passing these tests, but she’d certainly know soon enough. Her nerves screamed for a second as all the displays paused, the lines suddenly freezing, then the screens blacked out and the door slid open, making a sound that was a strange cross between the old hydraulic message tubes and a sucking vacuum cleaner. The chamber beyond was another study in darkness, but there was enough illumination for her to see that it was shaped like an octagon. What there was of light came from the glass cages lining the walls, where she could see the softly lit shapes of strangely sedate monkeys. She could feel them watching her but all their eyes were black and flat, like stones barely seen through a layer of dark river water.
“Your clothing and personal items have been sterilized, XPD-154. You will find them on the tray to your left.”
She looked automatically toward the voice and saw a man standing off to the side. Instead of the white outfit that had been so prevalent elsewhere in the complex, this gentleman was clad in black—shirt, slacks, and shoes, even his lab coat. His white face seemed to float between the collar of his black shirt and his dark hair. She knew who he was from the photos she’d seen of him, although the photographs had clearly been “made nice” for promotional purposes. This guy was the Chief of Research here at the L.L.D.D., and he was pretty pallid and spooky-looking. In any case, if he was conscious of her nakedness, he gave no sign; she waited for him to turn away but he didn’t. Her lips tightened with irritation, but she finally redressed while he stood there with an impassive expression. It was more than creepy—he almost seemed blind to the fact that a naked beautiful woman was only a few feet away.
When she was done, he finally turned his back and said, “Follow me, please.”
He didn’t bother to check if she’d done what he ordered, assuming she would. Obediently, she fell in step behind him as he led the way out of the octagon room and down a long corridor that echoed with every footstep. Embedded into the tile floor at three-foot intervals was the international black and yellow symbol for hazardous materials. The triple broken black circle on the screamingly yellow background played odd tricks with her eyes as she walked, bringing back a slightly different version of the sensation of vertigo she’d had a little while ago in the scanning chamber.
The man in front of her suddenly spoke, but he didn’t turn around to look at her. “May I ask you a question?”
One eyebrow raised but she didn’t miss a beat in her answer. “Feel free,” she said. She kept her voice carefully bland.
“Do you know what this is about?”
“Should I?” she countered. Parents throughout the ages had told children not to answer a question with a question, but in the adult world and the era of avoidance methods, that tactic was always good for buying time.
“No.” She could almost hear the sneer that crept into his voice, an
I’m so much better than you
attitude that he could barely conceal. “It’s highly classified. But I’ve been cleared to debrief you because your consciousness of the gravity of this situation may increase your motivation to complete.”
“I’ve
never
failed to complete.” This time she made sure the irritation was clear in her voice. They needed to know that even the implication of her failing was an insult.
“And that is no doubt a significant factor in why you were chosen,” he said in an almost soothing tone of voice. Apparently he had decided it was worth it not to piss her off. “However, it’s of critical importance to every uninfected human on earth that you not fail
this
time, either.” He slowed his pace so that he fell into step at her side; she risked a glance in his direction, but so far he was impossible to read. He was just a white face, as emotionless as a marble statue, floating on the air above a moving black suit.
“The Hemophages are a dying species, on the verge of nonexistence,” he told her. There might have been the faintest trace of triumph in his tone. “Under the supervision of Vice-Cardinal Daxus at the ArchMinistry, we’ve developed a weapon that will push them past that verge . . . and into extinction.”
This was finally interesting, and she raised one eyebrow as she kept up the pace alongside him. “If this weapon’s so important, why not have it delivered by armored convoy?”
“The armored convoy to which you refer is leaving the facility as we speak,” he said. A self-satisfied smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. Still, despite his lecture about the importance of this mission, the Chief of Research sounded about as excited over this as a bored computer science teacher in front of a roomful of sleepy students. “The Hemophages will do everything in their power to stop and immobilize it.” For the first time, she saw his smile widen to where it was actually noticeable. “It is, of course, a decoy. Our statisticians have calculated that our best chance of delivery lies in reliance on a single person . . . such as yourself.”
She nodded but said nothing. The corridor, with its row after row of biohazard tiles, was beginning to seem endless.
“May I ask you another question?” the Chief asked again, Without waiting for her to answer, he threw out the next query. “What is your opinion of the Hemophages?”
“I’m apolitical,” she said flatly.
“Recoiling at the sight of a cockroach is also apolitical.”
Now she did turn her head in his direction. Her brow furrowed as she tried to understand what he meant. “I’m sorry?”
“A cock—” He paused. “Never mind.” When she still looked bewildered, he shrugged. “Extinct insect,” he explained. “We wiped them out, too. Severely damaged the ecosystem, but . . .” He waved off the rest of his words and finally paused at a door on his right. Without bothering to finish his tale, he pulled a keycard from his pocket and swiped it through the scan box on the wall. The door opened with the same odd
swoosh
that the one back at the scanner had made, but he made no move to step forward. “My clearance ends here,” he told her instead, and extended his arm in a go-ahead gesture.
She didn’t bother to say good-bye as she started to step over the threshold, but before she could do so, the Chief of Research had snapped on a latex glove and grabbed her by the arm. “XPD-154.” Something in the way he said it made her pause and look back at him. “You’ll be receiving a case containing the weapon. I don’t have to tell you that under no circumstances should you open it.”
She looked at him blankly for a moment. “You’re right,” she said in a voice just as emotionless as his. A vaguely pleased smile slipped across his lips—she knew he could guess what she was going to say. “You
don’t
have to tell me.” She brushed off his hand and walked through the doorway.
At last, there was a splash of color in the midst of the white, gray, and black expanse that was the Laboratories for Latter Day Defense.
The room into which she’d stepped was tiny, but at least it was red, a gloriously deep scarlet that seared the eyes, tickled the adrenal glands, and made her heart pump with excitement. Really, there was way too little in the world today that had color to it—the ArchMinistry had made sure of that. For an organization that claimed to have come into existence specifically to care for and protect the people, it had effectively sucked the life out of nearly everything in its path and left a trail of dust and death as its aftermath. This tiny room—really, not much more than a hallway entrance into something else she had yet to see—was a reminder of how it felt to be alive, of the vibrancy that had once been the right of every living person on this planet.
She crossed the small expanse of space to where another door waited, marveling that even the floor, a smooth expanse of easily sterilized tile and dark-colored grout, was crimson. Next to the door on the opposite wall was another card reader, and she wasn’t pleased to see that when she raised her ID to insert it into the slot, the flesh on the back of her hand was shiny, the skin covered in a thin sheet of perspiration. Even worse, her fingers were visibly shaking—not good.
Stopping her hand from shaking took an iron act of will and the grim mental reminder that somewhere, certainly, she was being watched and videotaped. She concentrated for the barest of moments and watched her hand steady itself, then pushed her identification card into the slot and spoke. “XPD-154 Clearance Classified Courier.” She’d said it so often it felt like her name. One thing was good, at least: this was the last door.
The response over the digital speaker was immediate.
“Copy, XPD-154. We’ve been expecting you.”
Now this final door slid open, and finally she was walking into the inner vault of the L.L.D.D.
By the time she was taking her third step, she had a massive, heavily armored Medical Commando on each side of her, the kind who’d once populated the rings of the now banned blood sports like boxing and wrestling. These two fell into sync like impeccably programmed robots, matching her footsteps right down to length and timing, never missing a beat. She couldn’t help wondering: if she were taking mincing little steps, would they be forced to do the same? There were at least a dozen more of the Commandos stationed evenly around the room, and while the glare of the overhead lights on their visors made it impossible for her to see their eyes, she could feel each one of them tracking her movement, automatically analyzing her, preplanning how to kill her if the need arose.
But she forgot all that when she saw the briefcase.
The white alloy container waited on a tall, simple white podium in the center of the vault. The case was about the size of a medium pizza box and no more than an inch thick, and it looked like nothing more than a briefcase a businessman might use to take his papers to work. She walked up to it without asking anyone’s permission and the Commandos broke off and stepped back about three feet; for a moment she couldn’t believe that she had finally,
finally
, been able to come this far. Then without warning she staggered slightly.
On one side of the podium was a Combat Reserve Doctor, and he looked at her curiously. With her heart pounding, she made a show of glancing down at the floor and frowning, as if she’d tripped over her own feet. A nice effort, but it didn’t stop him from asking about the stumble. “Everything in order, XPD-154?”
She glanced once more at the floor to hide it when she swallowed, but she managed to keep her voice flat and clear. “One hundred percent, Comrade Doctor.”
He stared at her critically for a moment, then turned his attention to a trio of keypads on the front of the podium. Until she’d gotten right up in front of it, she hadn’t realized the briefcase was actually set into a locking station. Working from memory, the doctor began rapidly keying in the series of complex codes that would release it.
It felt like he was taking forever. The room seemed to throb around her, another damnable white box that wanted to mess with her sense of equilibrium. Her fingers wanted desperately to flex, and she finally nonchalantly slid her hands inside the pocket of her overcoat so she could clench her fists. The coat itself—a stupid,
stupid
choice of outer attire for this mission because of its damnable mood fabric—was beginning to shift its color. Had they noticed? Probably not—the men in this room had never seen it while it had radiated that ridiculous aura of sunshine, the visible evidence of how positive she’d been when she’d started on her way this morning. Now, however, it was a sort of muddy gold, steadily working its way down the color scale to brown. If she was lucky they wouldn’t pay attention to such stupid things as the latest available fashion fabric; then again, they
were
trained to monitor people and every indication of a threat, no matter how minute. Beneath her hair, at the junction where her hairline met the skin beneath her temple, a bead of sweat broke free of her increasingly too-hot skin and suddenly slid down and into her ear.