Spoken plainly, Scott bristled. He frowned and tapped his hand against the metal bedframe. Then he lifted his head and nodded. “Yes. We did.”
“You’re very honest,” Grant replied.
“When discussing science, I appreciate the truth. Other things? Not so much. I appreciate the good white lies, the social niceties. By nature I’m inclined to lie…but honesty is a precept of our new world. I’m getting used to it.” Scott clapped his hands and then put them in front of him. His forehead glistened.
Grant tried to force a smile: honest murders, such a relief. “Okay…what happens to me? Since we’re being so truthful.”
The question took Scott off guard and he leaned back in his chair. He glanced to the door and then to a small camera in the corner of the room. For a few seconds, he was gone in some faraway place, and then he looked right at Grant and shook his head.
“We planned on survivors. Those who escaped, somehow, exposure to the virus. Pockets of indigenous people untouchable for a time. However, within populated areas, those who witnessed the fall and the chaos and didn’t die? We couldn’t have that. So, if there is a group of people who are immune? It’s a problem. You are, to be blunt, an overlooked and missing piece in my plan. If I figure out how you survived, then I can prepare.”
“For?” Grant raised his eyebrows.
“How to…go forward.”
Grant understood. He just wanted to hear Scott say it. It meant something to be told firsthand and not treated like an imbecile. “Spell it out for me, Mr. King,” Grant said. “I’ve been through a lot in my life. I can handle whatever you say.”
“If we know how you lived…we can figure out what could possibly help you…expire. You in the collective sense. You, as in, people like you. Assuming I discover that there’s an explanation. Maybe you really are some singular miracle. Either way…if there are others like you, it would be our intention to…”
“Kill us.”
Scott nodded once.
“Right,” Grant picked at the threads on his pants. “I see.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’ll run tests and experiments…and ultimately, one of them will kill me.”
Scott exhaled through his nose in a short burst and looked at Grant. “You are just one person. It would help if I had a room of people like you…only then would my data mean anything. For now, I will settle with seeing if I can find any markers or indicators that would appear to give you immunity. After that…I honestly don’t know.”
Grant handled his sentence thoughtfully. “Do I have to stay like this?” he motioned to the shackles.
“I can see about getting you permanently settled in a room.”
“Honest and humane. I like your style,” Grant tried to muster a smile, but couldn’t bring himself to do it. “So,” he said after a moment, “no zombies from the virus…but maybe zombies sometime.”
“What’s your fascination with zombies, kid?” Scott asked as he stood up and moved his chair back to the corner of the room.
“No reason,” he replied. “Just a childhood fascination, I guess.” But as Scott unearthed the vial of his blood from his coat and placed it in a tray and began making a list of experiments to run on Grant, he knew why he was drawn to the creatures. They were tenacious and unrelenting. Even after claimed by death, they didn’t stay dead. He’d been drawn to zombies before the virus—their gruesome affect, his confidence in surviving them. Grant knew that if zombies attacked, he could help save the world from destruction. Only, the world had fallen into destruction anyway and he hadn’t been able to do anything about it.
No, Grant realized. Zombies found a way to keep living.
And he hadn’t given up hope yet that he would too.
Scott left Grant in the lab for about an hour. Or two hours or fifteen minutes; time melded together in the empty room. Alone with his thoughts, Grant replayed the events of the last few weeks in his head. Starting with the fight with his dad the morning of the Release, where he had yelled the most unoriginal and painful insult he could think of at his father: “I wish you had died instead of her.”
To which his father had said in a calm, even voice, “Right back atcha, son.”
That was it: The last conversation he had with his dad. He’d been counting down the days to college; a beacon of hope just within reach—an opportunity to escape his father’s expectation that he’d continue helping with their land and keep up the farm. Or just a chance to forget that he would never be enough to fill the hole his mother left when she died. Grant knew his father loved him. It was just that he didn’t really enjoy parenting, and he wasn’t good at knowing what Grant wanted or needed. The man didn’t have help, didn’t ask for it—never wanted anything except peace and quiet and blind allegiance.
Somewhere down the line, indifference turned into full-blown aggravation. The whole scenario reeked of some old-fashioned drama, but Grant was just an urban teen with a dream of a menial career that didn’t require effort outside the workday, like grocery store manager or office supply rep. He wanted to go to college to prove he could. And for the parties, maybe for a chance to join a club, or play keyboards for a garage band, do some charity work. Meet a girl.
He wasn’t saddled with ambition or a lack of self-awareness. Grant just wanted to live a basic existence—achieve the minimal amount of happiness, go through life without ruffling a single feather. Drink beers on weeknights and watch movies. It all sounded like the perfect future until someone had to go and ruin it for him.
But what he told Lucy back in Oregon wasn’t untrue. He wasn’t afraid of death. Not then and not now. Losing someone didn’t make him want to fight; it just paved the way to welcome whatever fate tossed his way. Not many teenagers would ever see it his way. All his friends had an unhealthy attachment to the world they lived in—a general expectation that they were destined for great and beautiful happily ever afters. Grant figured he was the most realistic and grounded teen he’d ever met and part of that was embracing the futility of fighting.
His anger toward his dad was the only thing he wanted to keep.
Like a wound he couldn’t stop picking, whenever Grant felt too complacent about his lot in life, he’d think of those final words and wish privately he’d handled that last conversation better.
When Scott reappeared with a set of keys, Grant greeted him with a wave, even though his shackled wrists kept him from moving much on the slab: only a few inches in every direction.
“I have good news,” he said as he unlocked Grant and let him sit up; Grant’s muscles were sore and he stretched upward, letting his hands plop back on the bed.
“A room for Virus Boy,” Scott continued and he motioned toward the door.
“For real?” Grant slid off the metal frame and his feet hit the floor. “It’s not like a trick or something? Not that I don’t trust you…it’s just…Virus Boy shouldn’t believe his captors have his best interests at heart, right? If I were a comic book, this would be a trap.”
Scott shook his head. “You are not in a comic book,” he said as Grant moved toward to the door. “You’re in the EUS Two. Elektos Underground System Two. We’re bad at naming things, I suppose.”
“No. Elektos? Underground System? Two? Crazy. Where’s EUS One?”
“Brazil.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, he’d probably be in EUS One or here,” Scott winked.
Grant didn’t even know what that meant, but raised his eyebrows, the magnitude of this enterprise dawning on him slowly. “There are more of these places?”
“Six.”
Grant waited and let out a sigh. It took a prolonged second, then Scott obliged. “Brazil, here in Nebraska, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Australia, and Botswana.”
“Woah,” Grant said. “That’s nuts.”