Ai Takahashi
Compound, Block E
October 9, 11:17 PM
THE E BLOCK WAS NO DIFFERENT THAN THE
first four they’d encountered, as bland and industrial and stale as the rest of them, a study in concrete
efficiency. They moved quickly through the stuffy halls, turning on lights as they went, searching for the
room that held the final clue to Dr. Matsuura’s secret.
It didn’t take long; almost half of the structure was
taken up by an indoor shooting range, where Hitomi had found boxes of loaded M-16 mags—but no
rifles to go with them. Reina had asked if she should retrieve the Trisquad’s weapons, which Ai
promptly vetoed. The rifles were hot, probably crawling with virus.
Like Sayumi’s blood by now, streams of replicating
virions bursting from cells, searching for new cells to
attach to and use and destroy....“Here!” Koharu called from farther down the winding corridor, and Ai hurried toward her, Sayumi
and Reina not far behind.
Hitomi was already standing with Koharu by the closed door, the red, green, and
blue triangles a sign that they’d hit on the right room. Koharu’s gaze seemed to seek her out, but was blank
of all emotion except worry. She didn’t mind, noted it only absently. Sayumi’s infection, Reina’s insane run
at the Trisquad—there wasn’t room in her for anything but the need to find the lab, to find help for
Sayumi.
Koharu opened the door and they filed inside, Ai continuing to watch Sayumi closely for signs
that the virus had progressed—and wondering what she should do with the information she’d picked up
so far about the amplification time. She didn’t really have any doubts that Sayumi had been exposed, and
knew that no one else did, either—but what should she say?
Do I tell her that it might only take hours? Do I pull Hitomi aside? If there’s a cure, she has to get it
before the damage is too great, before it starts to fry her brain—before it dumps so much dopamine into
her that she stops being Sayumi Michishige and becomes. . . something else.Ai didn’t know how to handle it. They were already doing all that they could, as fast as they
could, and she didn’t know enough about the virus to assume anything. She also didn’t want to see
Sayumi any more terrified than she was already. The Musume was doing her best to control it, but it was
obvious that she was on the edge of a breakdown, from the desperation in her bloodred eyes to the
growing tremor of her hands.
And the Trisquads had almost certainly been injected with much larger
amounts than Sayumi had been exposed to; maybe she had days....
.. .first symptoms in less than an hour? Don’t kid yourself. You have to tell her, to warn her and everyone
else of what could happen. Soon.She pushed the thought aside almost frantically, looking around at the room they’d entered. It was
smaller than the test chambers they’d come across, and emptier.
There was a long meeting table pushed
to the back, a half dozen chairs behind it.
In the front of the room was a small shelf coming off the wall,
only a few feet long and a foot deep. There were three large buttons on the flat surface, red, green, and
blue. The wall behind the shelf was tiled in large, smooth gray tiles made from some kind of industrial
plastic.
“That’s it,” Koharu said. “Blue to access.” With barely a second’s hesitation, Hitomi walked to the
counter and pushed the blue button—
· and a woman’s voice spoke coolly from a hidden speaker above, startling them. It was a
recording, the bland tone eerily reminding Ai of the final moments of a popular hollywood action movie, a
triggering system tape.
“Blue series completed. Access reward.” One of the tiles behind the shelf slid away, revealing a dark
recess set into the concrete.
As Hitomi reached into the hidden space, Ai felt a surge of frustrated
anger and disgust for Japan, for what she realized they had done. It was despicable. All those tests, all
that work— set up to dole out treats to virus victims.
Get through the red series, good dog, here’s
your bone. . . and what was their reward, for making it through the tests? A piece of meat? Drugs, to
ease their hunger? Maybe a brand new weapon for them to train with? Jeez, did they even understand
what they’d been doing?She saw the same curled sneers of horror and disgust on the faces of the others—and saw the same
growing dismay as they watched Hitomi pull a single tiny item from the recess, what looked like a credit
card with a slip of paper stuck to one side.
They gathered around her as she held the item up, her dark
gaze heavy with an almost manic disappointment.
It was a light green key card, the kind used to open
electronic doors, blank except for a magnetic strip—and the scrawled words on the small square of
paper said only:
LIGHTHOUSE-ACCESS 135-SOUTHWEST/EAST.
“Handwriting’s the same as on Matsuura’s note,” Koharu said hopefully. “Maybe the lab is in the
lighthouse. . . .”
“One way to find out,” Reina said. “Let’s go.”
She seemed angry, the same look she wore since their
discovery of Sayumi’s exposure to the virus. After watching her charge the Trisquad outside, Ai
almost hoped that they’d come across Dr. Niita;
Reina would tear her apart.Hitomi nodded, slipping the card into her pocket. The fear and guilt that she felt were obvious, playing across
her features in a constant, twitching mask. “Right. Sayumi . . . ?”
She nodded, and Ai saw that her already pale skin had taken on a waxy tone, as if the top layers
were becoming translucent.
Even as she watched, Sayumi started to scratch absently at her arms.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she said quietly.
She has to know. She deserves to know.Ai knew it couldn’t wait any longer.
Choosing her words carefully, aware of their limited time, she
turned to Sayumi and spoke as calmly as she could.
“Look, I don’t know what they’ve done with the
virus here, but there’s a chance that you could start to experience more advanced symptoms in a
relatively short amount of time. It’s important that you tell me, tell all of us how you’re doing, physically
and psychologically. Any changes at all, we need to know, okay?”
Sayumi smiled weakly, still scratching at her arms.
“I’m really really really scared, how’s that? And I’m starting to itch all over. . . .”
She turned her red eyes to Hitomi, then to Koharu and Reina before looking back at Ai.
“If—if I start to act... irrationally, you’ll do something, won’t you? You won’t let me— hurt anyone?”
A single tear slid down one pale cheek, but she didn’t look away, her wet, crimson gaze as firm and
strong as it had ever been.
Ai swallowed, struggling to sound confident and reassuring, awed by the bravery she saw in
Sayumi’s eyes—and wondering how much longer that bravery would hold up beneath the roar of the
virus running through her veins.
“We’re going to find the cure before it comes to that,” she said, and hoped that she wasn’t telling Sayumi
a lie.
“Move out,” Hitomi said tightly.
They moved out.
Topic: Eri Kamei vs. Morning Musume (Read 101161 times)