“What the hell is going on out here?” Claudia asked, annoyed.
We weren’t far from the apartment hives I’d run past the day before. As we inched through an intersection, I looked down the cross street and saw that it was closed off a couple of blocks away, clogged with yellow tape, a cluster of workers in hazmat suits and a handful of health department vehicles with their lights flashing.
“Pretty sure it’s the flu,” I said.
Claudia turned and looked at me. “Do you think this is all from that one chicken?”
“I have no idea,” I said, thinking that if it was, we might be doomed even if we succeeded in stopping the broader release.
“I…I think it is,” Ogden said. “I’d been reading the alerts…coming over the Wellplant. Last time I checked, right before you all arrived, there’d been no indication of any intentional releases.”
The car in front of us turned, and Claudia hit the accelerator a little bit harder.
I felt the urge again, stronger, to call my mom.
The clock on the dash now showed 3:30. We had half an hour. I guess I’d call her when we were done, if I was still alive.
We had outrun the bridge traffic, but we still had plenty of police cordons and detours to navigate, and plenty of other cars trying to make their way around them, too. Traffic seemed to be thickening and slowing again.
Eventually, we got stuck at a light a block away from Wells Tower. The light was green but we were going nowhere because the idiots on the cross street had blocked the grid.
“Okay, that’s it,” Claudia said, pulling over into an illegal spot, a loading zone. She turned to Ogden. “Can you walk from here?”
He sat up and looked around, getting his bearings. “Yeah, no problem.”
She turned to Rex and me. “At this point, I think it’ll be quicker on foot.”
We both nodded.
“It’s an illegal spot,” Rex said.
Claudia snorted. “Whatever way this ends, I imagine parking tickets will be the least of my worries.”
FIFTY
Ogden winced as he got out of the car, but once we were walking, he seemed okay. Claudia found one of her dad’s windbreakers in the trunk and draped it over Ogden to cover his bloody shirt.
As we turned the corner, one side of the Wells Tower appeared ahead of us. It was such a prominent part of the skyline, I saw it all the time, but rarely up close. The curves that from a distance made it look like a cluster of smaller cylindrical towers appeared from the ground more like an undulating wall of reflective glass, distorting everything, like a massive funhouse mirror.
As we walked down 8th Street toward Arch, one of the entrances came into view, cordoned off with caution tape and patrolled by three heavily armed guards in biohazard gear with the Wellplant Corporation logo on it. Outside the tape, police and health department types stood next to a cluster of city vehicles, half with flashing orange lights, the other half flashing red and blue. A small crowd had gathered across the street, pointing and staring.
“Whoa,” Claudia said under her breath.
We snuck glances as we walked past, trying not look too interested or suspicions. We were close to the Levline hub, several bus terminals, and countless hotels, so our duffel bags and backpacks shouldn’t have raised any suspicions, but the fact that inside them was a small arsenal and all the electronic equipment needed to crash the global Wellplant network made us a little jumpy.
“That could complicate things,” Rex said, nodding back at the commotion we’d just passed.
“A lockdown could make getting inside a bit trickier,” Ogden said, “But if the building has been cleared, that’ll make it easier to do what we came to do without thousands of office workers getting in the way.”
He pointed ahead, at a shadowy rectangular hole cut into the curved glass. “That’s where we’re going. Cuthbert Street.”
To our left, Cuthbert was a narrow street lined with dumpsters and service entrances, but as it plunged through the base of the tower to our right, it turned into a dank, gloomy tunnel—a stark contrast to the elegant exterior of the building. And a more honest portrayal of the true nature of Wells Corporation, I thought.
As we got closer to the tunnel, we saw a single strip of yellow police tape stretched across it.
“It’s taped off,” I said.
“I see it,” Ogden said. “Doesn’t seem to be anyone guarding it, though.”
As he said it, a pair of cops turned off of Market Street, coming toward us on foot.
“Crap,” Ogden said.
“Slow down,” I said. “Let them pass us before we reach the tunnel.”
We all slowed down, trying to be subtle about it. I bent down and pretended to tie my shoelaces and the others stood around waiting for me. I kept my head down and took long enough that the cops should have passed us, but they didn’t. When I looked up, I saw that they had paused in front of us.
“You kids lost?” one of them said with a friendly smile. He was an older guy with ruddy skin, a big gut, and a walrus mustache. The other cop was expressionless. He had light-brown skin and was taller, thinner, and younger than his partner. Nestled between his shades and the brim of his police hat was a Wellplant. He seemed to be staring at me, so I put my hand above my eyes, shading them from the sun, and hopefully hiding my face from whatever facial recognition the Wellplant might provide.
“No sir, officer,” I said.
I felt a moment of relief as Officer Wellplant looked away from me, then I realized he was staring at Ogden, who was pale and sweaty and out of it.
“You feeling okay, son?” he asked in a tone that sounded more suspicious than concerned.
They both took a step back, and I realized they were afraid he might have the flu. I liked the idea of them keeping their distance, but worried about them putting Ogden in quarantine.
Ogden smiled and shook his head. “Yeah, I’m fine. Drank a little too much last night is all.”
Officer Wellplant continued to stare at him. “You did, huh? And how old are you?”
Ogden grinned. “Twenty-one, as of yesterday.”
Officer Walrus chuckled. “Happy birthday, then.”
Officer Wellplant said, “Do you have any ID?”
Ogden shook his head. “Nope. But now that I’m twenty-one, I’ll be getting some.”
Officer Wellplant turned his attention back to me, and I lowered my head, squinting and shielding my eyes again.
“What’s with all the police and everything?” Claudia asked, hooking her thumb back the way we had just come.
“Quarantine,” said Officer Walrus, his face grim. “Looks like we might have another flu outbreak on our hands.” He pointed up at the tower. “They’ve sealed off the building and turned the fifth floor into a makeshift infectious-disease ward.”
I was shocked that Wellplant Corporation would be so hard hit, but then I remembered that Wells’s immunity wasn’t contagious, so it didn’t spread to those who didn’t have Wellplants. And with Wells’s stance on chimeras, I doubt many of his employees had much interaction with them.
“What’s with all the guns?” she asked.
“People don’t like to be quarantined,” Officer Walrus said with a shrug. “Anyway, be careful out here, okay? And keep your distance from this place, until things settle down.”