Deadline

“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” The spiky-haired woman lowered her gun, suddenly smiling with genuine sincerity. “I’m Dr. Abbey—you can call me Shannon—and it’s a pleasure to have guests. Especially guests with such interesting connections.” Her smile dimmed as her gaze fell on Kelly, who was too busy staring at me to notice. “How about you all come inside, and we’ll sort this out.”

Alaric managed to find his voice, swallowing hard before he asked, “Will—will the dog be coming?”

“Of course he will. Joe’s my lab manager, aren’t you, Joe?” The enormous canine responded with a bark loud enough to make my ears hurt, tail beating against the ground. Maggie looked like she was physically restraining herself from running over and throwing her arms around his neck. Catching the look, Dr. Abbey laughed. “He doesn’t bite. Joe, guest passes for all these folks. Got it?” The dog stood, tail still wagging.

“Does that mean I can pet him?” asked Maggie eagerly.

“Can you pet the moving legal violation after we get inside?” I asked.

“Come on.” Dr. Abbey stepped aside, waving a hand at the open door. “Ladies first.”

“That means us, princess.” Becks looped her arm through Kelly’s, tugging the reluctant doctor along with her as she went striding through the door to the lab. Maggie followed, still casting longing looks at the dog. Alaric gave me an uneasy glance and went after her, presumably unwilling to leave her alone in the company of a bona-fide mad scientist.

Dr. Abbey crooked an eyebrow, studying me. “Will you be joining us?”

“Yeah. Thanks.” I did my best to swagger as I walked toward the door, even going so far as to give her enormous pet a pat on the head as I passed him. “Good doggie.”

Joe made a deep buffing sound in the back of his throat. I hoped that meant he was happy, rather than planning to bite my hand off at the shoulder. The law forbidding urban ownership of any domestic animal large enough to undergo Kellis-Amberlee amplification was named after my family. That means I never got much experience with dogs beyond Maggie’s epileptic teacup bulldogs.

Dr. Abbey snorted with amusement and followed me inside. Joe padded after her, killing any lingering hope that I might have had about the big dog staying outside to, I don’t know, guard the sidewalk or something.

I was so busy watching what the dog did that I walked right into Becks, bumping her forward a half step. “Hey, watch it,” I began.

Shaun, hissed Georgia. Look.

I looked. And promptly understood why the rest of the team was standing frozen in their tracks at the end of the short entrance hall, staring into the gutted warehouselike depths of the former IT building. I’d been expecting a dingy little basement operation, something barely more technically advanced than a buh of kids running their own pirate news site out of their parents’ house. This was a functional lab, operating totally outside all sane safety precautions, but still equipped way beyond anything I might have anticipated.

All the interior walls not essential for structural support had been knocked out at some point, replaced with a maze of cubicles, portable isolation tents, and live animal cages. Racked computer servers stood side-by-side with rabbit hutches. Hydroponic beds studded the floor, growing healthy-looking crops of things I vaguely recognized from Maggie’s garden. The light was an even, brilliant white, and about half the people I could see moving around the computers were wearing either sunglasses or the clear plastic bands hospitals sometimes used to protect the eyes of individuals with reservoir conditions.

Kelly was staring at the scene with her lip curled upward, looking utterly disgusted. “This is… horrific,” she breathed, turning toward me. “We have to get out of here. This is an abomination. It’s a violation of so many medical and ethical regulations that I can’t even start to count them, and—”

“And it’s not under CDC control, which means it’s not okay to break the rules, is that it?” asked Maggie. Her tone was icy.

Kelly stopped midtirade, taking a shaky breath. “You don’t understand,” she said, slowly. “This is… the things they could do here, with this sort of equipment, are practically unthinkable. That’s a genetic sequencer.” She indicated a machine I didn’t recognize. “They could build a whole new version of the virus, if they wanted to.”

“Let’s not antagonize the nice people, okay?” I asked. “You can be offended by their ethics later. When we aren’t outnumbered.” A lab this size would make body disposal distressingly easy. The last thing I wanted to do was give Dr. Abbey a reason.

The massive dog—Joe—ambled up and stopped beside me, panting amiably. Maggie promptly knelt down and offered her hand, knuckles first, like she was trying to attract the attention of one of her own, much less scary-looking, canines. Joe deigned to sniff it. A moment later, he was slobbering all over her palm, tail wagging with delight as she used her other hand to start scratching behind his ears.

“Most people are a lot less relaxed about Joe,” said Dr. Abbey, rejoining the rest of us. She’d shed her rifle somewhere between the door and the lab floor, but she was still wearing the lab coat. At least some of the overhead lights must have been using George’s beloved blacklight frequencies, because the fabric fluoresced slightly in the glare.

“Most people don’t like risking infection when they don’t have to,” said Kelly.