Mercy 6

With her fingertips, Covey brushed Julia Doe’s hairline, fitted a wisp behind her ear. Julia gazed back at her, eyes glistening above the oxygen mask.

“We give her air, fluids, glucose. We allow her organs to function as best they can. If the shock has already cut off oxygen to the vital organs, then we’re giving her the best chance possible. Sleep will shift blood flow in the hippocampus. The limbic system will operate on a structure of reality, shifting from a structure of defense and delay.”

“How do you know she has it?”

Mendenhall gave Covey a hard stare.

Covey corrected herself. “How do you know she’s been … struck?”

“In a little, we get someone here who can verify. With me.”

She decided to face Claiborne alone. Covey stayed with the patient. Covey’s sympathy for Julia Doe remained suspicious. She had to be fascinated by the path, the trajectory and velocity of the Jude particles and all the effects of being stricken by one. The involvement of cells, of specialized cells. And Mendenhall couldn’t know whether Covey was risking her health because she believed what Mendenhall had shown her or because she was simply fascinated. If she had betrayed Mendenhall and brought the guards to her, had she acted in goodwill, belief in the virus, or only that same scientific fascination? Mendenhall couldn’t read Covey — not the way she could read incoming patients. She was looking into a mirror, trying to see herself, staring and waiting for objectivity, that objectivity staring back.

But now she was moving from this to Claiborne. She was guessing he knew.

He didn’t know. When she entered his lab, he nodded a greeting.

His tie was loose, his lab coat off, his sleeves rolled above his elbows.

“Thanks for the last text. I haven’t had the chance to reply.” He wiped his eye with his shoulder, his hands remaining above the keyboard. The overhead screens showed six scans: three occlusions and three incipient kidney hemorrhages. The laptop showed an MRI of a hippocampus. “Good to see you’ve changed clothes. At least.”

She looked down at herself, dusted the hem of her skirt. “A little dirty. But different.” Her feet appeared not hers, the Mary Janes surprising.

“Thorpe forwarded the new cases to us.”

“‘Us’?”

“Five not far from County. All outside the same office building.

The building’s under quarantine. Three from inside the Marriot by the park, packed with conventions. Also quarantined.”

“The five?” she asked. “Were from the building?”

He nodded. “All five collapsed within the same hour. Close together.”

“No.” Mendenhall felt for the necklace that was no longer there.

“All together. They all fell together. They weren’t necessarily from the same building. They were just walking. In the crowd.”

Claiborne was distracted by something on the laptop. He double-tapped a key. “You got the same message. Unless there’s a new one.” He motioned to the overhead screens. She didn’t know what she was supposed to see.

Fatigue had her nauseated. She steadied herself, fingertips to desktop.

“You don’t look like you just took a nap. You look like you need one.”

She pushed her hair back, felt how dirty it was.

He nodded to a far door. “You’re welcome to the shower in the chem lab. It’s pretty good, but you have to keep the chain pulled down. It’ll wake you, at least.”

Claiborne returned to his task, not shutting her out but, rather, comfortable in her presence. She thought about keeping it like this, living under whatever Silva had constructed between them, operating under Thorpe’s construction as well, forgetting what she had seen, what Covey seemed to know. But she knew she had eliminated all those possibilities when she had touched Julia Doe, taken her, injected her. In those few minutes she had committed herself to a split world of truth and lie.

“You’re not as happy as you appear,” she said.

Claiborne went still, fingers hovering above the keyboard. After a moment he turned his head to face her, looked at her shoes.

“I mean,” she curled one foot, “you’re still trying to convince yourself.”

“I’m trying to get back to my wife. As soon as possible. I thought you were down with this.”

“You should go to her. Right now.”

He scowled, did not look away, let his expression soften a bit, brow still furrowed, chin lowered to a more thoughtful angle.

“You’re different.”

“It’s not contagious, Claiborne. For now, anyone could fall. For those two reasons, you should go. You probably could find your own way out, you down here in your domain.” She began a step toward him, one foot, one Mary Jane, then held it. “There are probably a lot of others like Cabral out there. Right now.”

“What kind of nap did you take?”

She opened her hands, held them near her hips. “I brought one to you.”

“One what?”

“Just go.” She closed her eyes and pictured him on the trail, that way he passed her, shoulders angry, waist thin and balanced. “I can do the scans. From here, I can do everything.”

59

Claiborne tapped his keyboard twice, vaguely looked at the overheads.

“You’ve changed. Why?”

“I went out.”