“Since fourth grade?” Alec responded. “Yeah.”

The players got close to them, kicking and tripping to get at the ball before someone finally passed it tumbling through the dirt toward his own goalie.

Alec reinforced more memories, all positive. Playing together at lunch time, going to birthday parties, even giving each other Christmas presents.

Childhood memories were easy, because he didn’t need to focus on the specifics. He’d just insert a tiny fact, add a little emotion to it, and her brain would fill in the gaps. No one was expected to remember fourth grade in any detail, so none of these girls was bothered that they could only remember snippets of Alec Moore.

“So where have you been since elementary school?”

“All over,” he said. “Mostly Colorado.”

I’m going to go for it, he thought. He’d been playing other girls slowly, building trust over more time. But he was tired of waiting.

“How long have you been in here?” he asked.

“Four days,” she said, rolling her eyes and then laughing. “I’m ready to go home.”

He lowered his voice. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.” She met his eyes.

“I’ve seen people here with things, things we aren’t supposed to have—like the soccer ball. And someone had a radio.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know of anyone who has snuck in a cell phone? I just really need to call my parents.”

Emily looked out at the soccer players and was silent for a minute.

She’s shutting down. I pushed it too fast.

Her voice was barely a whisper. “There’s a girl in our tent. I don’t know how she got it past the guards, but she’s been using it to keep track of the news. The battery’s running low, though.”

Alec grinned.

TWENTY-SIX

JACK AWOKE TO THE SOUND of screeching metal as his cell was opened. It was the first time it had opened since he’d been put inside, and he was overcome with a feeling of freedom. As he stood and stepped into the corridor he felt as if he could breathe easier.

Laura smiled at him as he left. “Good luck, Jack.”

“You too,” he answered.

Matt wished him well, followed by a couple of other mumbled good-byes.

As the soldiers led him down the corridor, he looked at the faces of the other prisoners. He was amazed at how terrible they all looked—their clothes were wrinkled, stained with sweat and grime, and their eyes sunken and weary. He had to assume that he looked the same.

His joints ached from sitting too long on the cement, and his clothes—which had spent days wet and unchanged—chafed his legs and arms.

At the door the guard placed him in handcuffs, and then attached a thick, heavy bracelet around Jack’s right ankle. Jack didn’t protest; he was exhausted.

They led him down a short hallway, which didn’t look all that different from the cell block. The floors were still cement and the walls cinder block. There were a few doors, but all of them were closed and unmarked. After about fifty feet they turned right and came to another steel door. The guards opened it and sunlight poured in on him.

He raised his bound hands to shield his eyes from the bright light and stepped outside. He was in another chain-link walkway, except this one was short. Ahead of him was another cinder-block structure, and a sign on the door said “Assessment Facility.”

As he crossed, Jack tried to look around and get his bearings, but couldn’t see anything recognizable. The chain-link seemed to stretch on forever, as though there was fence after fence repeating for miles. He wondered where Aubrey was. She was probably home now, safe with the other Negatives. Would that be better, if there were still terrorists on the loose?

The guards were met at the door by two more men, one dressed as a medic and the other wearing a rumpled suit and a loose tie.

“Jack Cooper,” his guard said. “One-one-seven-B-G-R.”

The medic verified the number on both Jack’s wrist and ankle bracelets and then motioned for the guards to bring Jack inside. He resisted for a moment, not because he hadn’t resigned himself to whatever fate awaited him inside the Assessment Facility, but because the sun felt so good on his skin and the cool air smelled clean.

“Get in there,” the guard snapped, pushing Jack forward. His foot caught on the lip of the door and he stumbled inside.

“Thanks, Jack,” the man in the suit said. “Sorry about all of this. Hopefully we’ll have you in and out real quick.”

The guards led Jack into a small square room. The walls and floor were cement, except for one wall which bore a large mirror. In the center was a gurney. Jack felt his heart thump heavily in his chest; this was what everyone told him would happen—dissection and testing.

“What’s that for?” he said, knowing that he couldn’t fight back against the four men. He eyed the mirror, wondering who was watching.

“Oh, don’t worry,” the man in the suit said. “We’re going to flush all those benzodiazepines out of your system. Nasty stuff. Sorry about it.”

Jack nodded and the two guards helped him up onto the gurney. They removed his handcuffs as he lay down, and then wrapped his wrists and ankles with tight leather straps.

His head was spinning. He didn’t realize just how tired the medicine had made him until he’d had to walk, and even that short distance had winded him.

The man in the suit appeared at Jack’s side with an IV pump and proceeded to insert a needle into Jack’s arm. With the line set and the machine whirring, he turned to the guards and told them they could go.

“Sorry about all the trouble,” the man said. “I know how awful this has to seem.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Do you?”

The man got a metal folding chair from the side of the room and set it next to the gurney. He sat down. “My name is Dr. Benjamin Eastman. Pleased to meet you.”

Jack didn’t answer.

“You’ve got the Erebus virus,” Eastman said. “Sorry about that, too.”

“I don’t have it,” Jack said. The medicine coursing through his body seemed to take the edge off of his exhaustion, but he still felt weak. Even if the restraints had been taken off his arms he doubted he’d have been able to stand up straight.

“You have it,” Eastman replied, holding up a sheet of paper with a list of abbreviations and numbers. “The tests are accurate.”

“I’m not like the other people in there,” Jack said. “They can do strange things. I can’t.”

“Just because you haven’t manifested any symptoms yet doesn’t mean that you don’t have it.” He set the papers down and then pulled out a stethoscope. He listened to Jack’s chest for a few moments. “Tell me: Have you recently had any traumatic medical problem?”

“What do you mean?”

“It could be anything,” Eastman said, tucking the stethoscope back into his jacket pocket. “Severe headaches, chest pain, memory loss. Sound familiar?”

Jack shook his head.

“High fever? Deafness? Stroke? High blood pressure?”

“No.”

“No accidents in the recent past? Car? Bike? Fall on your head? Break your arm?”