Epilogue
Three months later
Fifty miles from Vostok Research Station, Antarctica
One of six research assistants hurries down the old hall, clutching her parka tighter around her shoulders in a vain attempt to keep the cold out.
This station, unnamed because technically it does not exist anymore, was constructed over sixty years ago and abandoned ten years later, making proper insulation less of a priority.
Her bosses spoke of this place as the pinnacle of fringe science, an isolated, almost undetectable station at the bottom of the world. A place where knowledge is pushed to its boundaries and beyond. One day, all of their names would go down in history.
To her, though, it is cold, dark, and depressing. But she is in too deep, and the only people who leave this company do so in body bags. Perhaps not immediately, but inevitably.
She recently heard chatter of the longest holdout.
A man with the last name Holden, who stole the chemical compound of one of the experimental formulas and escaped, spending nearly twenty years testing and tweaking it.
He slid under the radar until his exposure.
Mere days before his trial, he was found dead in his cell.
She punches in her code for the main laboratory door. Since they took on this latest venture, the code changes every day.
The research assistant has spent time in many labs, but none like this.
There is an ever-present oppressive chill in the air, and the walls are as white as the ice and snow outside.
The central lab is lined with six steel workbenches, covered in equipment that toggles between arcane and updated.
The newest machinery—the MRI scanners and biosensors and incubators—create a constant hum that never ceases.
Near the far end lies another door, this one reinforced with another code that changes daily.
She heads for it, not speaking to the four other assistants at the workbenches, heads bent over samples and data.
The reinforced door lets her in with a shrill buzz, and she steps into the patient containment area.
Of the six rooms lining the far wall, only one holds a patient.
If patient is the word to use. The girl inside, behind a one-way mirror in a room with only a bed, toilet, and chair, is certainly not here voluntarily.
The assistant steps up to the room—the cell. The last research assistant, a man a few years older than her, stands rod straight, staring at the girl beyond the glass.
She reaches out for the clipboard and the man hands it to her. This silent exchange signifies the changing of the shifts. He exits the patient sector without a word.
She scans the notes.
Subject 1 has been infected with a novel pathogen, currently referred to under the name Letalis. Pathogen first detected at the Vostok Station, during routine ice core drilling. All occupants of station contracted pathogen within twelve hours of exposure.
Subject 1 presents with osteosarcoma, diagnosed at age four. While much of her previous treatment remains unknown, it is believed the use of the Dyebucetin experimental medication was used to slow the spread of the disease and prolong the subject’s life.
Subject 1 was infected with the Letalis pathogen upon entrance to facility, and upon full contraction, will be injected with Dyebucetin with the intention of slowing or stopping the spread of the pathogen.
She looks to the clipboard again. The man on the last watch neglected to mention his inaction.
The subject was meant to be given a dose of the experimental treatment that man Holden worked on before his demise.
It held off this girl’s terminal cancer for twenty years.
If anything could combat this new pathogen, it would be that.
But he’d messed up the timing. Who knew if the drug would do anything if injected this late.
The woman sighs and heads for the door to the left of the cells. The narrow hallway behind the cells is full of flickering lights, the bulbs overdue for a change. She punches in the code for the girl’s cell, grabbing the waiting vial of Dyebucetin before slipping through the door.
The girl in the bed barely moves. If not for the fluttering of her lashes, she could be dead.
An overbearing silence fills the cell. It takes the woman a moment to realize the noise from the monitors is gone. They’re still hooked up to the girl but report nothing. No heartbeat.
And yet the girl twitches, blinks, in the bed.
The woman approaches the bed, tucking the syringe into her pocket. She kneels over the girl and lays two fingers over her wrist.
No pulse.
The woman stands, a breath away from hitting the call button, when the girl’s eyes snap open.
The woman’s hand flies to her chest. She must have misread the machine’s display, or somehow the sensors were off. The girl is alive.
“You scared the hell out of me, Cecily,” the woman says. They’re not supposed to use the subject’s names, but she can’t help it.
Before the woman can move, Cecily lunges and sinks her teeth into the woman’s throat.