“Nothing. I’m pretty healthy.”

“Hold on,” Eastman said, holding up a finger as he left the room. The medic was still there, standing at attention in the corner.

Images of testing moved through Jack’s head—needles, electrodes, scalpels. He wished he could get out, wished he could run. The doctor insisted that he had the virus, and at that moment Jack wished that he did. If only he could vanish like Aubrey. Or if he had strength like Laura’s he could break the leather restraints.

Eastman returned with a short wheeled cart. He opened a lower drawer and pulled out a scope for looking in Jack’s eyes.

“Do you know why it’s called the Erebus virus?” Eastman said casually as he peered down at Jack’s eye.

“Why?”

“It’s Greek,” Eastman answered. “Erebus was the son of Chaos. You probably know about Chaos. Darkness. ‘The earth was without form and void’ and all of that kind of thing.” He set down the scope and made a note on his paper.

“What about sicknesses?” Eastman continued. “The flu? Chicken pox? Bronchitis?”

“Nothing,” Jack said. He wanted to be brave, to stare confidently into the face of danger, but he knew that he must look terrified.

Dr. Eastman clipped something on Jack’s fingertip, and then inserted a thermometer into his ear. “Anyway, Erebus was the son of Chaos, and most people think of him as the god of shadow. But, the reason that his name was chosen for the virus is because Erebus represents the place between earth and Hades.”

Jack forced himself to smile. “That’s supposed to be comforting?”

“Not comforting, really,” Dr. Eastman said, taking the clip off Jack’s finger. “It’s just interesting. People with the Erebus virus are really on the border of humanity—they have strange side effects that make them almost inhuman.”

Jack stared at the ceiling. The army doctors thought of the prisoners as inhuman. That explained a lot.

“Of course, it’s not all flashy,” Dr. Eastman said. He was looking at his papers again. “I’ll bet you a dollar that when your symptoms manifest they’re not going to be anything ostentatious. Everyone talks about the big ones—the boy who can run incredibly fast or the girl who can yell at a very high decibel range. But ninety-five percent of people can only do useless things. We had a boy in here just the other day that had hot breath. Imagine that. We measured it and he got up to four hundred degrees Celsius.”

Jack nodded. He wanted to ask a question, but his throat suddenly felt very dry and his chest was tight with anxiety.

“On the other hand, we had one of the most amazing young ladies come through this week, too. Simply marvelous. And she’d manifested years ago.”

Dr. Eastman was quiet for a moment, fiddling with his paperwork.

“What are the bad symptoms?” Jack finally said. “How serious is this?”

“That’s another strange thing,” Eastman said. “The negative symptoms are as varied as the so-called good ones. And sometimes the combination is just terrible. I read the case of a boy who had amazing strength—they estimated he could lift ten to twelve times his weight—but he also had brittle bones. Ever since he manifested he’d been in a wheelchair. Imagine that—being able to do something amazing, but knowing that doing it could kill you.”

“Is this going to kill me?”

“I’m not going to lie,” Eastman said, looking down at Jack. “We don’t know. The nation’s top scientists are working on it right now. But we have very little data, and certainly not enough to determine a life expectancy.”

He bent down to one of the drawers and came back up with a handful of brightly colored wires.

“Now,” he said. “We’re going to see if we can’t get you to manifest.”

“Will it hurt?” Jack tugged against the restraints, but his arms felt heavy and sluggish.

“Oh,” Eastman said, attaching the first wire to Jack’s forehead. “It’ll hurt terribly. That’s why I asked about recent injuries. Erebus manifests during periods of intense trauma.”

Jack fought against the leather straps, kicking his legs and rattling the gurney.

“It’s no use,” Eastman said. He tapped the IV bag, which was now three-quarters empty. “You’ve been given a mild sedative so you won’t hurt yourself. Or us.”

He attached a second and third wire to Jack’s temples, and a fourth to the side of his neck.

Another two medics came in from the hallway. One began removing Jack’s shoes and the other used a pair of shears to cut away Jack’s shirt.

“Don’t I have to consent to this?” Jack said, panicked. “You can’t just do this to me.”

Eastman looked down into Jack’s eyes. “In the event that you actually have already manifested a symptom, but have been hiding it from me, now would be the time to say it.”

“I swear I haven’t,” Jack said. The medics were applying the wires all over Jack’s body now. “But there has to be some other way. This is crazy.”

Dr. Eastman tapped himself on the head. “I almost forgot something.” He gestured around at the room and then pointed at the ceiling. “This room is specially designed for this kind of testing, by which I mean that the room is designed to kill you if you should decide to attack someone. Above the acoustical tiles are high pressure valves that will drown you in seconds, and at any time we can use any one of these wires to deliver a strong enough shock to stop your heart.” He smiled. “So, let’s not have any trouble, okay?”

User: SusieMusie

Mood: Mellow

Holy hell, get ready for a landmark piece of information: Sara doesn’t think I’m pretty. She even repeated it about a hundred times today. Erica seems to agree (duh). I often wonder why I even hang out with them. I often wonder about a lot of the stupid things I do.

TWENTY-SEVEN

THERE WERE MEN IN THE storage room. They were trying to be quiet, but Aubrey could hear the rattle of gear, the light squeak of a boot on linoleum.

She couldn’t see anything besides a sliver of light. Every muscle in her body felt heavy, like she was wearing one of those lead blankets at the dentist’s office. She tried to disappear and was immediately overcome with a panic attack—she felt like she couldn’t breathe, like her chest was sinking in on itself.

What was she thinking coming here? How was she supposed to save Jack? She couldn’t smuggle him out with her—she could barely hide herself.

She heard a box being pushed away, scraping against the floor. She heard a cupboard open, then another.

She concentrated on staying invisible. It took all her effort.

Her cupboard flew open and she was staring down the muzzle of a rifle. She let out a yelp and closed her eyes to stop herself from crying. This was so stupid.

But the soldier didn’t see her. He closed her cupboard and moved on.

She reappeared, and a small wave of relaxation moved over her.

Tears came, but she didn’t let herself make a sound.

She would go back—sneak into her tent the way that she’d come. With any luck, she hadn’t slept through evening roll call. She had no idea how long she’d been in the cupboard, but with the pain in her back it felt like days.