Page 198 of Immune

Fletcher’s voice comes low next to me. “Two exits in the hall behind us. One side corridor past the archive sign. Vents too small. Ceiling panels are screwed down.”

I don’t look at him. I just know that if I look over at him, he might see something on my face I’m not ready or willing to hand over. Instead, I ask, “Are you trying to soothe me with architecture?”

“Is it working?” he answers.

“Nope.”

A pause follows, then a very soft, “Liar.”

My teeth clamp together. I should snap at him or something, but I don’t, which I consider another thing I currently don’t have the mental fortitude to examine.

The doors open then, and the room behind them isn’t a lab. Not exactly. It’s half an office and half a command center, with long tables, filing cabinets, maps pinned to corkboards, and glass walls that overlook the actual labs beyond it. Several scientists look up when we enter, a few guards already standing inside. In the center of it all, a man with silver-streaked hair leans over a desk covered in files.

He looks older than Hale, but less hardened by rank. Late fifties, I want to guess. Brown skin, tired eyes behindsquare glasses, beard trimmed close. His lab coat is wrinkled, his sleeves have been rolled to his elbows, and there are ink stains on two of his fingers. He looks like someone who still does the work himself, not just someone who stands close by and claims the credit.

He looks up and his eyes go to Hale first. Then Valeria. Then the pilot’s drying blood on Xeon’s sleeve. Then the Alphas. Then me.

He stops. Not in the way men stop when they scent something they want, and not in a way scientists stop when they see something useful. This is worse. It’s like he’s just seen a ghost and knows better than to utter its name.

My body grows painfully still.

“Dr. Elias Mercer,” Hale says. “These are the survivors from the crash site.”

Mercer removes his glasses very slowly, but his gaze doesn’t leave me.

Crash site. Survivors. Not guests or patients. Just pieces on a board.

“What happened to the pilot?” Mercer asks with an English accent I can’t quite place the exact origins of.

“In surgery,” Valeria answers. “Ellis has him.”

“Did he speak?”

Hale’s jaw tightens. “A little.”

Mercer looks at Fletcher. “What did he say?”

Fletcher gives him nothing for free. “Vector. Cargo. O’Reilly. Marker.”

The room changes in an instant. It’s a tiny change. A breath catching from someone near the filing cabinet. A pen pausing over paper. Mercer’s hand tightening around his glasses. Tiny things, but I catch all of them.

O’Reilly hits this room like a bullet no one wants to admit was fired. My father’s name clearly lives within these walls, but not in memory. In their mouths. In their files. In their fear.

I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am anyway.

Mercer’s voice lowers. “You’re sure he said O’Reilly?”

My heartbeat fills my ears.

Thud.

Thud.

Thud.

Hale answers, “That’s what he needs to clarify.”

Mercer’s eyes return to me, and I tilt my head down. Small Beta boy. Small Beta boy who absolutely does not have the same surname sitting under his flesh like some fucked-up detonator.