“It’s not the only reason,” said Dr. Cale defensively. “I wanted you to be safe. You’re my daughter and my future daughter-in-law all wrapped into one, and your health is important to me.”
“Didn’t SymboGen have a slogan that sounded a lot like that?” I straightened, pulling myself as taut as a bowstring. “You touched me.”
“I didn’t—”
“Your people work for you. You told them what to do. You gave the order. You touched me.” My voice came out so cold that it sounded alien to my own ears, like it was coming from someone else’s mouth. I turned to Nathan. “Did you know about this?”
“No,” he said. “Not until we made it back to the lab, and by that point, you were missing and I was out of my mind with worry.” He glared daggers at his mother as he spoke. “I wasn’t really involved in the operation, since that isn’t my field. I didn’t realize what they were doing, or I would have stopped them.”
And he wouldn’t have been watching for that sort of trickery: not on his mother’s part, and not with my life potentially on the line. My eyes narrowed as my attention swung back to Dr. Cale. “Was the operation necessary?”
“Yes,” she said, with what was clearly meant to be absolute sincerity. It was really too bad she’d spent so much time lying to me. I didn’t know what she sounded like when she told the truth. “The weakness in the arteries feeding your brain was real, as was the need to address it before one of them ruptured. We needed access to a functioning surgical theater. All that was completely true. As for the rest… I saw an opportunity, and I took it, for the greater good. You can’t blame me for that.”
“Oh, I think you’ll find that I can blame you for a lot,” I said, taking my hands away from the bandages on my skull and folding my arms across my chest. “What did you learn from taking me apart without my permission?”
Dr. Cale sighed. “It’s going to be like this now, is it?”
“Not forever,” I said. It pained me to admit it. This was enough of a violation that it should have been a deal breaker: it should have left me in the position of never letting myself trust her again. But I knew that she’d done what she’d done because she was trying to save us all. The fact that she hadn’t stopped to ask me for permission made me furious. But it wasn’t worth the end of the world. “We’re going to need some ground rules before I trust you again. But I still want to know what you learned.”
“I learned that Sally’s father was not exactly forthcoming about his medical history, probably because epilepsy is frowned upon when you’re working in Level 4 biosafety labs.” Dr. Cale’s expression was grim, but there was elation in her eyes, like she had finally cracked a complicated puzzle that had been bothering her for quite some time. “That’s why he paid to have top-grade implants tailored by SymboGen, instead of getting them through USAMRIID’s medical plan, which would have made more sense—and saved him quite a bit of money, I might add. But he couldn’t do that. Not if he was going to get the specific modifications he needed for himself and his eldest daughter. That also explains the holes in the records. He would have paid to have all his files expunged.”
I blinked. “Da—Colonel Mitchell isn’t epileptic, and neither am I,” I said. “The seizure Sally had right before her accident was the only one she’d ever had.”
“No, the seizure Sally had right before her accident was the only one she’d ever had on camera,” said Dr. Cale. “Colonel Mitchell couldn’t bury that one, since it was in the news, but it got mostly overlooked in the face of everything else that was unusual about your case. Sally was our canary in the coal mine, and you were our bellwether. You told us what was coming just by showing up. What’s more, you told us where we should be looking for more like you.”
I frowned. Nathan frowned. Adam, however, wasn’t so easily distracted by irrelevant points of science. “You took out part of Sal without her permission?” he asked, frowning deeply.
I glanced at him, surprised. He’d been quiet for long enough that I’d almost managed to forget that he was there.
Dr. Cale nodded, expression solemnly regretful. If there had been a competition for looking most sorry about something you weren’t actually sorry about, she would have won instantly. “I did, but sweetheart, I didn’t want to open up her skull twice, and we had to act quickly. There wasn’t time for a discussion.”
“Would you take part of me out without my permission?”
“No, of course not. But darling—”
“She couldn’t risk me saying no,” I said, in that cold, alien voice. “It would have ruined her plans, since then she couldn’t have used Nathan to help her work the samples. He would never have allowed her to do what she did, if he’d known.”
“That’s right,” said Nathan. “I wouldn’t.”
Dr. Cale turned to frown at both of us. “I told you, I needed—”
“No means no, Dr. Cale,” I said.
“Sal’s my sister,” said Adam fiercely. “You should be as good to her as you are to me, and that wasn’t very good to her at all. You shouldn’t have done that.”
“He’s right,” I said. “You shouldn’t have done it, and I’m never going to trust you like that again. But you learned what you needed to know?”
“Some of what I needed to know,” said Dr. Cale.
“Then I guess that makes it all better,” I said, putting a sarcastic twist on the last two words that actually made her mouth purse in something I didn’t recognize, but that I hoped was shame. I put a hand against my forehead, wishing I had some way to quiet the drums that were pounding in my ears. “I have a headache, and I miss my dogs. Can I go to wherever it is they are now, please? I just need to see them, and then you can tell me whatever else it is you’ve learned by taking pieces out of my head.”
“Come on, Sal,” said Nathan, slipping his hand back into mine. It fit perfectly. “This way.”
“Adam, I’ll come see you soon, okay?” I said. My brother nodded, still looking troubled by what his mother had done to me. Good. It was better if she didn’t start thinking this sort of thing was okay.
“It’s good to have you back, Sal,” said Dr. Cale.
“It’s good to be home,” I said, and let Nathan lead me away.
Nathan led me back to the elevator, this time pressing the button for the top floor. I leaned against him, feeling my entire body start to tremble. The events of the morning had been too much for me, especially after spending weeks in the mostly low-stimulus environment of Sherman’s mall. By the time the elevator stopped I was shaking so hard that I could barely walk. Nathan put his arm around me, holding me up as I half stumbled out of the elevator and into the hall.
“Do you need me to carry you?” he asked.
I thought about the question seriously before I nodded and said, without a trace of shame, “Yes, please.” The idea of taking another step made the drums pound even harder, a sure sign that I was stressed beyond my breaking point.
Nathan bent and scooped me into his arms. I’d lost weight and he’d gained muscle, our respective paths through the apocalypse leaving their marks on our bodies: he couldn’t have carried me like this before we were separated. “This used to be the research and development floor,” he said, carrying me past door after door. Each of them was painted in a different, clashing candy color. “I don’t know why they put the labs here on the top floor. It may have been a ventilation issue, or maybe they just wanted the place to burn from the top down if there was ever an accident.”