LZR-1143: Evolution Read Free Page A

looking over her shoulder again, “but it’s not the time, okay? For that matter, it’s best if you don’t mention … anything … until we’ve talked, okay? It’s not safe. Don’t say anything about bites, or wounds, or healing. When we got here, our wounds had already healed, so no one really knows about those effects. They just thought it was head trauma, and I told them we were both stunned from an explosion. We’ll talk later, all right?”
    I didn’t understand. If we had a winning drug, here, why not jack people full of it?
    I tried to persuade the judge.
    “But if that stuff has healing properties, why not pump it into Hartliss? We should be mass-producing it, getting it to CDC or the Army medical people, or … shit, I don’t know. Who makes Viagra? Let’s call those guys. They can do some commercials with us on a tub on a hill over the ocean … well, not us , us, but … people. Shit, I mean, this is it, right?”
    I was flustered, and apparently my mental pictures were escaping into speech, now. But her reluctance didn’t make sense. We were with the good guys now, right?
    Well, the good guys that worked for the same government that had me thrown away for life in a mental institution for a crime I didn’t commit against someone who was already dead, killed by a virus they had manufactured.
    But times were changing and we had to stay flexible, right?
    She looked around, moving me to the side of the hallway. Her voice got lower, her eyes serious. She pushed me gently until my back was against the steel wall. A metal pipe jabbed me softly in the back as she leaned close.
    “Not now, okay? Just pretend like nothing happened. You hit your head and knocked yourself out on the chopper ride, and that’s all you remember. You really need to trust me on this. I promise I’ll explain later. We don’t have time right now. We’re expected to be in the infirmary ASAP.”
    I trusted her implicitly, so I let it drop, despite the burning questions I had in my mind.
    Besides, anything that got her to push me against the wall like that again couldn’t be all that bad. She smelled like fruit.
    I never could understand how women could do that; find a fruity, girly smell in the midst of a shit storm.
    I realized suddenly that I was staring. She stared back, a small grin on her face. Self-consciously, I pushed off from the wall and we started walking again.
    Trying for a recovery, I asked “Okay, so then at least tell me why I was by myself in an empty room. I’ll take that.”
    She smiled, opening the door to the infirmary with one hand.
    “Honestly, we didn’t know how you’d react. It took you longer to recover. I woke up woozy and disoriented, and we didn’t want you hurting anyone … or yourself … out of confusion when you woke up. We were monitoring you on the security cameras. Hence my visit and witnessing of your little … show.”
    She waved her arm forward underhand, pointing into the small hospital in a greeting gesture. “After you.”
    It was a large room, with perhaps 30 beds, 15 to a side. Several crew were present, mostly nurses. We walked slowly down the aisle between beds, and I halfheartedly noted that for a country in the midst of a viral outbreak with mind-boggling death rates, this room seemed startlingly under utilized. Only one bunk had an occupant.
    It was Hartliss.
    His face was slack, his eyes closed. Tubes protruded from every conceivable part of his body, some pumping fluid in, some draining fluid out. He was a far cry from the vivacious, jolly chap we had known. This was a man clearly on the verge of death.
    Kate whispered to me, as we approached.
    “Sometimes he’s awake, sometimes not. Just try not to show too much pity. He notices. He’s in and out of the real world, so you might not need to worry about it; they’ve got him on a lot of meds.”
    From the corner of my eye, I noticed a short, middle-aged man with thick glasses move toward us. He carried a clipboard and a