Outbreak (16 page)

She throws me an awkward shrug and gestures at the door. “Maybe I should . . .”

“Yeah. Just give us a minute.”

Eli’s going to be upset enough that
I’m
seeing him like this. I don’t know what he would do if he woke up with Sawyer staring down at him.

Once she’s gone, I lower myself carefully onto the mattress and reach for him. My left hand skims over the warm, soft skin of his taut stomach, causing his abs to tighten reflexively. That sends a little jolt of electricity through me, and I continue my trail up his chest. He stiffens at my touch but doesn’t wake up.

A tiny, selfish part of me just wants to sit here and look at him for a few more minutes; it’s less intimidating than doing it when he’s awake.

But then his jaw stiffens in pain, and I reach out with my other hand to touch his cheek. I stroke my finger gently down his face, feeling his smooth skin disappear under a fine layer of stubble.

“Eli . . .”

He jerks awake, and I tighten my hold on him.

“Eli.”

On instinct, his arm flies up to snatch my hand off his face, and a jolt of fear shoots through me. He’s in full attack mode, and I’m in a very bad spot.

Luckily, his eyes snap open, and his harsh gaze softens at once.

“Harper?”

“Hey,” I murmur, not sure what I originally planned on saying.

He loosens his death grip on my wrist but doesn’t let go.

“What’s going on?”

“What were you dreaming about?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.

He closes his eyes for a brief second, as though he’s suppressing a shudder. “Nothing.”

I tilt my head in disbelief and caress his smooth stomach absently with my free hand. He glances down, distracted, and I tighten my grip on him a little. As though my touch has magical powers, he begins to talk.

“It was just a nightmare . . . about the Fringe . . . you and Owen. I could only save one of you.”

That tugs at my heart. Without thinking, I reach out and run my fingers through his dark hair. He relaxes into my touch but still doesn’t let go of my other wrist. 

“It was just a dream.”

“Yeah, I know.”

We’re startled by a soft rap on the door, and Eli shoots into a seated position.

“It’s okay. It’s Sawyer.”

He looks puzzled, but I don’t have time to explain. A moment later, the door opens halfway, and Sawyer slips inside.

Eli clears his throat and straightens up, trying to look all tough and imposing even though he’s still sitting shirtless in bed. I smile to myself and have to fight a full-on grin when he shifts his grip from my wrist and threads his fingers through mine.

“Hey,” says Sawyer, looking painfully awkward. She has the good sense not to stare at our interlaced fingers, but Eli’s move wasn’t lost on her.

“Hey,” says Eli. His voice is the deep one he uses in training, but his gaze is attentive rather than harsh.

“Sorry to do this in the middle of the night,” she begins. “But I needed to talk to both of you, and I didn’t see another way. The attending physician is discharging you tomorrow, but there’s something you should know . . .”

Eli and I glance at each other, both of us wondering what news could possibly top everything we’ve discovered in the past few weeks.

“You know we’ve been taking lots of blood samples to check for signs of radiation poisoning . . .”

Dread settles in the pit of my stomach. This is it. This is when Sawyer tells me my life is about to be cut short. It just doesn’t make sense. 

“I
feel
fine,” I murmur.

Sawyer nods. “Your latest test results came back, and neither of you is showing signs that the radiation affected you at all.”

Eli’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “That’s good, right?”

Sawyer opens her mouth, closes it, and opens it again. “It
is
. . . except it’s weird because it should have. I pulled your dosimeters right after you were admitted. Both of you were exposed to extremely high levels of radiation, and Eli went without his mask for a good part of the time. Anyone else definitely would have suffered some adverse effects.”

“Just got lucky, I guess,” says Eli.

The crease under the bridge of Sawyer’s glasses deepens, and she bites down on the inside of her cheek.

I can tell she’s caught in a struggle between what she
wants
to tell us and what she’s
allowed
to tell us. A few months ago, I think rule-following Sawyer would have won that battle, but tonight, she’s in full badass-Sawyer mode.

“Look. There’s a branch of Health and Rehab that spends a lot of time looking at patient data . . . especially
unusual
patient data. It’s called Progressive Research.” She looks at Eli. “You’ve been on their radar for a while. You’ve been exposed to as much radiation as anyone, yet you’ve never gotten sick. Not many Recon operatives your age can say that.”

Eli shrugs. “I grew up out there. Maybe I’m just immune.”

“That’s the thing. You aren’t the first person brought in from the Fringe Program who doesn’t seem to be affected by this. I looked into it. Progressive Research has, too.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, my nervousness manifesting as impatience.

I don’t like the sound of this research branch Sawyer is talking about. They sound an awful lot like Constance, and I don’t think we’ll survive being on yet
another
shady organization’s radar.

“Your results prompted them to reexamine your VocAps health data — all the genetic markers and risk factors that go into your viability score,” explains Sawyer. “Your risk factors for things like cancer were elevated, which is why you scored so low and ended up in Recon.”

“But the radiation isn’t giving us cancer?”

Sawyer shakes her head. “It’s not affecting you at all. See, the data they use to determine those risks dates back to before Death Storm. And your viability results go straight from the DNA sequencing machine to Systems so their supercomputer can pull in your aptitude scores and rank you for each section. 

“When they process all the higher-ed kids’ genome data, they don’t have time to go through the results by hand. No human even looks at it. But when Progressive Research took a closer look at yours, they found some gene mutations that we haven’t seen in humans before.”

“Mutations?”

“What mutations?” pipes in Eli.

“They’re still looking into it, but they think the mutations are helping your bodies repair DNA damage after exposure to radiation.”

As soon as her words sink in, it triggers a storm of questions.

“What do you mean they haven’t seen it in
humans
before?”

Sawyer’s eyes light up the way mine do in a room full of computers. “Scientists have mutated bacteria and smaller organisms to develop radiation resistance, but they’ve never tried it on humans.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” says Eli. “Are you saying this is something they can
control
?”

“Not right now. We don’t know all the mutations that cause it. But if they figured out exactly how your bodies were doing it, it’s possible they could try to edit other people’s DNA.”

Eli looks a little sick, but I’m still too intrigued to be truly spooked by the idea of compound scientists tinkering with people’s genes.

“But why us?” I ask. “Why Fringe babies? Is it because our parents were exposed to high levels of radiation?”

Sawyer shakes her head. “That’s not why you’re resistant. Evolution doesn’t work that fast. This is the sort of thing that would take
generations
to develop. But this gene is probably the reason your parents survived after Death Storm and why you were both perfectly healthy when you were admitted.”

Now that we’ve got her talking, I can tell Sawyer is more fascinated than creeped out by this mutation stuff. I’m equal parts intrigued and nervous.

“Back when they first started experimenting with this, they bombarded bacteria with radiation,” she continues. “They used the survivors to breed a hardier generation and repeated the process a bunch of times.”

“But when would our ancestors have been bombarded by radiation?” interrupts Eli.

“People were exposed to radiation all the time before Death Storm,” says Sawyer. “Radon seeping up from the ground . . . cosmic radiation . . . X-rays. There’s no way to tell where it came from — only that your ancestors survived and passed their resistance on to you.”

My brain is running on overdrive as I struggle to wrap my head around this information. “So you think my parents had these mutations?”

“They must have.”

“But that’s impossible. My parents died of radiation poisoning a few weeks after coming to the compound.”

Sawyer shrugs. “I mean, radiation resistance doesn’t make you one hundred percent
immune
. I suppose extremely high levels could have caused too much damage for their bodies to repair.”

I shake my head. “It just doesn’t fit.”

“I know. I tried to pull your parents’ file to look at their medical records. Only . . .”

“Only what?”

Sawyer sighs. “Only there
was
no file. There’s no record of your parents ever being admitted to the medical ward, which makes no sense. Anyone brought in from the Fringe is required to undergo extensive testing before they’re integrated with the general population. We used to keep Fringe babies under observation here for
weeks
.”

I shake my head. “They told me my parents got really sick right after we came here. There
has
to be some record of them being admitted.”

“That’s what’s so strange. There should be. But don’t worry — I’m looking into it.”

“Don’t worry?” snaps Eli, rejoining the conversation after several minutes of tense silence. “You just told us that we have some radiation-repelling superpower. Do you realize we’re going to have to spend the rest of our fucking lives on the Fringe when Jayden finds out?”

“Jayden isn’t going to find out,” says Sawyer. “Progressive Research doesn’t share their findings outside of Health and Rehab. Their research could have too many ethical ramifications.”

“Never?”

“Well . . . I guess if there were extenuating circumstances. But they would need a unanimous vote to release any of their research.”

“And are there any circumstances that would make them vote to share this information with the board?” Eli prompts.

Sawyer shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s too early to tell. And we don’t have a large enough sample to perform any kind of conclusive study anyway. You guys are kind of a scientific anomaly.”

Eli doesn’t look convinced, and in truth, neither am I. I’ve seen too much corruption within the compound to believe any ethical agreement is ironclad. For all we know, Constance could have people planted in the Progressive Research Unit. 

But my fear and uncertainty are quickly being overtaken by suspicion. It doesn’t make sense that Health and Rehab wouldn’t have any record of my parents being admitted, and the fact that they probably shared these genetic mutations just makes the situation even more questionable.

“Are you
sure
I have what he has?” I ask Sawyer.

“I’m sure. I pulled your records, and your file is huge. They’ve been studying you since you took the VocAps test, which means something in your genome raised a red flag. And all your blood tests look like Eli’s. You’ve been exposed to high levels of radiation, but your body isn’t reacting the way it should. I’m going to see if I can get ahold of the raw data.”

 Suddenly, a new thought occurs to me. “You said lots of people brought in from the Fringe have this. Does that mean Celdon has the mutations?”

“I don’t know. He hasn’t been exposed to radiation, so there’s no way to tell other than pulling his raw viability data. When I go in to retrieve yours, I’ll pull his, too.”

“You shouldn’t be poking around in this. If you get caught —”

“It’s okay!” says Sawyer, clearly excited by the prospect of solving a medical mystery. “If I play my cards right, I’ll get into Progressive Research anyway. I’m not breaking any rules by digging into this — not really.”

I shoot her a look of disbelief. I love the bold new Sawyer, but I don’t want her jeopardizing her future in Health and Rehab or putting herself in danger.

“I’m not breaking
many
rules by digging into this,” she concedes. “And anyway . . . don’t you want to know why your body can heal its own DNA? Don’t you want to know if your parents were super mutants?”

She grins, and I feel myself wavering. I can’t deny that I’m curious, but it’s driven by a morbid fascination with the Fringe Program more than hope. 

I refuse to feel relief that my time on the Fringe hasn’t affected me physically. Being immune to radiation can’t undo the things I’ve done or help me unsee the horrors I’ve witnessed. It doesn’t mean Eli and I won’t be shot or blown up. And if Jayden finds out that the two of us have some special immunity, she’s going to send us out even more frequently.

But I desperately want to see my parents’ missing file. Something just doesn’t fit.

Eli is quiet, and the faraway look of concern in his eyes tells me he’s deep in thought. Sawyer has fallen silent, too, but her eager expression is awakening the Harper who loved breaking the rules and wreaking havoc in the Institute.

I
really
want Sawyer to stay out of this, but we can’t do it without her.

I nod slowly and take a deep breath. “Where do we start?”

fourteen

Eli

The next day, the attending physician comes by to discharge me from the medical ward. He tells me I’m showing no signs of radiation sickness, but nothing about his demeanor indicates that he knows about my unusual test results.

I can’t wait to escape the nauseating stench of disinfectant mixed with sick people, but I’m also dreading getting back to training. As soon as Harper and I return to Recon, Jayden will be itching to deploy us again — indefinitely this time.

I’ve been racking my brain to come up with a plan, and the one I have isn’t great. There’s a pretty high chance I’m going to fail, and Harper’s going to hate me. But right now, it’s the only thing I can think of to protect her
and
Owen.