Exit 9 (21 page)

Though the room was packed, few were talking. It seemed as if the only energy anyone could muster was used to move food from plate to mouth.

Once Sanjay was done, he made his way up to the dorm. He was assigned to a room that held ten people total. He shared it with others who had been given supervisory roles, including Ayush. Only Ayush wasn’t there, either.

That was unusual, but not enough for Sanjay to think anything was wrong. Within five minutes, he was deeply asleep, unaware that Ayush and all the others who had been in contact with the contaminated container had been moved to the basement of a building three miles away, out of sight of anyone who might raise an alarm.

23

I.D. MINUS 72 HOURS

GILSTRAP HALL

HAWKINS UNIVERSITY

ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

C
OREY FELT FINE
when they arrived back in St. Louis just before dawn, but by the time he and Jeannie went out for breakfast at the Perch Café, he’d developed a case of the sniffles.

A cold, he thought, probably brought on by his lack of sleep and exposure to the freezing night air in Chicago. A couple cold tablets plus a few hours in bed and he should be fine.

At eleven a.m. he woke with a jolt, overcome by a coughing fit. He tried to get out of bed to get some water, but the room began spinning the moment he rose to his feet, causing him to drop back to the mattress. He closed his eyes, willing the dizziness to go away. It didn’t work.

Maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe this wasn’t a common cold after all. After three tries, he was able to grab his phone off the nightstand. He stared at it for a moment, not remembering who he’d wanted to call.

Jeannie. Right.

He spent longer than usual looking for her name at the top of his favorites list before calling.

“Hey,” she said. “Thought you were sleeping.”

“I…I…”

“Corey?”

“Not…I think…doctor…”

“Corey, are you all right?”

Her words faded away as the phone slipped from his ear, and he fell back on the bed.

__________

J
EANNIE POUNDED ON
the door. “Corey?”

She gave it five seconds, then tried again. When there was still no response from inside, she went in search of Corey’s resident advisor, Barry Kellerman. Barry wasn’t in his room, so she ran downstairs to the lounge.

The RA was on the couch with two other guys, watching SportsCenter on TV.

“Corey’s sick,” she said, running up to him. “He’s not answering his door.”

Barry pushed himself up. He was a good RA, and knew when to take things seriously and when not to. “Come on.”

They ran up the stairs side by side, with Barry’s buddies tagging along behind them. When they reached Corey’s door, Barry knocked.

“I already did that,” Jeannie said. “Just open it.”

He hesitated a second before shoving the master key into the lock.

Corey was lying across the bed on top of the covers, his phone next to him.

Jeannie rushed over. “Corey? Hey, Corey. Can you hear me?”

She put her hand on his shoulder to wake him, but immediately pulled it back in surprise. He was burning up. She grabbed him again and shook him.

“Corey. Wake up. Corey!”

It was no use. He was completely out.

She looked back at Barry. “Call an ambulance!”

__________

I
T TOOK TWELVE
minutes for the EMTs to arrive. In that time, over half a dozen other residents of Gilstrap Hall poked their heads into Corey’s room to see what was wrong.

At the hospital, he was put on fluids and anti-viral medication within two minutes of arrival. One of the upshots of the Sage Flu outbreak earlier that year was improved isolation protocol across the nation. Because of this, Corey was placed in a quarantined room. In addition, one of the nurses gathered all the names of people who might have come in contact with him.

Another improvement was the development of the Sage Test, a blood test that had an 85% accuracy at diagnosing Sage Flu. Several in the medical community thought this was overkill, their opinions gaining strength as months went by without any new Sage cases springing up, but after the outbreak, the public demanded its enforced use. That was the only reason the test was run on Corey.

Marcie Hayward was the doctor on duty. While Corey was in obvious distress, the doctor assumed it was just a particularly severe case of the flu. That in itself was disturbing, of course. The last thing they needed was a flu bug spreading through the school, but if there was one case now, there were bound to be others later. He told Nancy Batista, the senior RN on duty, that they should be sure they had enough supplies for a sudden influx of patients. He hoped it wouldn’t be necessary, but knew the hospital couldn’t afford to be caught off guard.

He then moved on to a broken arm suffered during an intramural game of flag football.

It was over an hour before Corey’s preliminary lab results came in. Dr. Hayward was in the middle of a nasty case of road rash on the thigh of a girl who’d fallen from her bike when Nurse Batista rushed over.

“Sorry to disturb you, Doctor, but I need to see you for a moment.”

Dr. Hayward smiled at his patient, and unintentionally lied. “I’ll be right back.”

Once they were outside the exam room, Nurse Batista showed the doctor the lab results. He read them twice, and looked at her in surprise.

“Are we sure?”

“I’ve drawn a new sample, so they can run it again.”

That was also protocol if a positive result for Sage Flu was ever returned.

“Okay,” he said. “But until we learn different, we need to assume this is correct. I want everyone who’s been in contact with him isolated, including everyone on this floor. I’ll inform the administration and the state health department.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

There was fear in her eyes as she ran off, the same fear that was probably in his. Both he and the nurse knew that the Sage Flu in its most virulent form meant one thing.

Death.

__________

M
ATT HAMILTON WAS
in the Bunker cafeteria watching the video Tamara and Bobby had just emailed him. It wasn’t the full WC report, just what they’d already completed over the previous months.

Tamara’s voiceover—for the first time unfiltered so that it would be recognizable—had been done in an even, sure tone. There were no hysterics, just facts of the story. Even then, he couldn’t help but frown. It played more like an over-the-top Hollywood thriller than something that could actually happen. But it was what it was. Besides, if they ever did need to play this video, it would mean the pandemic had started, and chances were people would be more keen on listening and believing.

Jordan was watching alongside him. With Pax gone, the younger man had assumed the role of Matt’s top assistant. It was a job that would have normally fallen to Michael, but he was still watching over Janice, whose illness had turned into pneumonia after spending too much time on the freezing roof of the Bluff.

As Matt jotted down a few notes, he heard someone running through the hall toward the cafeteria.

“Matt!” Rachel’s voice.

Forewarned by her tone, both he and Jordan jumped up and rushed into the hallway.

“What’s going on?” Matt asked.

“Come! Come! I think it might have started.”

With a feeling of dread, the three of them raced to the communications room. Nearly a dozen people were already there, including Billy. The TVs on the table were still tuned to the different networks, but only the volume on the PCN broadcast was turned up.

The image was a night shot of a multistory building. The graphic at the bottom identified it as Hawkins Medical Center, Hawkins University, St. Louis, Missouri. The voice speaking belonged to Catherine Minor, one of the PCN anchors.

“…this time. We don’t have the name of the patient yet, but we’ve been told he’s a student at Hawkins University. The dormitory where he lived, and the emergency services area of the hospital have all been quarantined. Right now we need to go to a break. We’ll have more when we return.”

The image stayed on the screen for a second longer, then cut out and was replaced by a commercial for deodorant.

“What happened?” Matt asked.

“Apparently a student was brought into the hospital with flu symptoms,” Billy told him. “When they ran the Sage Test, it came back positive.”

“Just one case?”

“So far. According to the news idiots, they’ve isolated everyone he’s come in contact with.”

“Any reports from other locations?” If the Project had initiated Implementation Day, there should have been hundreds sick already, not just a single student in St. Louis.

“Nothing yet.”

Matt nodded tensely.

An hour passed, then two. Through it all, the only words spoken were by those using the phone to see if there were outbreaks elsewhere.

As the end of the third hour approached, it was becoming clear that this was an isolated event. How? Sage Flu was not a naturally occurring disease. The student had been exposed to it somewhere. They needed to know where that was. It could provide crucial information.

He glanced over at Billy. “I want you in St. Louis as soon as possible. Jordan, you go with him. Find out how this happened.”

__________

“H
OW DID THEY
get in?” the DOP asked.

“Through the roof, sir,” Ross said.

He stared at his aide for a moment. “The roof?”

“Yes, sir.”

The DOP knew it wasn’t worth getting upset over. Even this minor outbreak couldn’t stop anything. It was annoying, though. It meant some people would be more cautious in the weeks to come, potentially skewing the survival rates in the wrong direction. Initially, anyway. At some point they would become exposed to the virus. This just meant that deaths might continue for months longer after the main event than he’d hoped. Statistically, the number would be infinitesimal, but it could still mean dealing with millions of sick people when they should already be moving on to the new reality.

“The factory needs to be destroyed,” he said, forcing himself not to be distracted.

“Yes, sir.”

“Immediately.”

“Consider it done.”

24

I.D. MINUS 54 HOURS

S
ANJAY KNOCKED ON
the door of the managers’ office.

“Come in,” a voice from inside said.

Reluctantly, he opened the door and walked in. In truth, he wasn’t sure if he should be there at all. The last thing he wanted to do was anything that might upset his bosses. The money he’d already saved from the work they’d given him was more than he’d ever had at one time, and there was no sign this was going to end.

Though there were four desks in the room, the gray-haired senior manager was the only one there. The rumor was that he was German. Sanjay had never asked him, of course.

“Yes?” the man said.

“I am sorry to disturb you.”

“What do you want?”

Sanjay hesitated for just a second, as he once more recalled the words he’d rehearsed. “I’m wondering if you might know where my cousin has gone.”

“Your cousin?”

“Yes. His name is Ayush. He’s a coordinating officer. He was here yesterday, but last night he did not return to the dorm.”

“Ayush? How do you spell that?”

As Sanjay told him, the man typed his cousin’s name into the computer. When he was through, he read the screen, and seemed to soften a bit. “Ah, yes. He’s your cousin, is he?”

“Yes.”

The man smiled. “Nothing to worry about. Ayush and one of the work squads have been assigned to a task outside the city. They should be back in a few days.”

“Thank you,” Sanjay said, relieved. Then, feeling it necessary to explain himself, he added, “Usually we tell each other if we’ll be gone, but he must have forgotten.”

“You’re probably right. It did come up quickly, so perhaps he looked for you but couldn’t find you before he had to go.”

“Thank you again.”

__________

S
ANJAY WOULD HAVE
left it at that—in fact, had intended to leave it at that—if it were not for one thing. When he got back to the dorm that evening, someone else was using Ayush’s bunk.

Why would someone else be given his bed if he was coming back in a few days? Sanjay asked around to find out who else had been assigned with his cousin, then discovered that their beds had also been filled.

So far, he had enjoyed working for Pishon Chem. Mainly it was the money, of course, but they had been fair in their other dealings, too. This seemed out of character, and he didn’t like what it might mean about things to come.

A job is a job
, a voice in his head reminded him. Ironically, it was Ayush’s. And it was right. A job
was
a job, and questioning it after having spent so much time without a real one was not advised.

He headed out into the dark, warm night, thinking he just needed to take a walk and clear his mind. As he neared the building the managers used, he saw the youngest of the bunch, a man named Mr. Dettling, smoking a cigarette outside the main door.

Dettling had always been nice to Sanjay, and had been the person who delivered the news of his promotion. Maybe, if Sanjay worded things carefully, he could find out if there was anything going on he should be concerned about. He changed his course and headed toward the European.

“Good evening, sir.”

Dettling jumped. “Sanjay. Jesus. I didn’t…see you.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“What are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

“I was just out for a walk.”

“Well, don’t walk too long. Tomorrow’s going to be really busy. We’re just a couple days from starting.”

“A couple days?” Sanjay said, surprised. “I did not know the official date had been set yet.”