Deadline

Twenty-seven

I woke up in a white bed in a white room, with the cloying white smell of bleach in my nose and the tangled white cobwebs of mdreams still gnawing, ratlike, at the inside of my brain. I sat up with a gasp, realizing as I did that I was wearing white cotton pajamas and covered by a white comforter with no buttons or snaps. I took a breath, then another, trying to force my heart rate down as I looked around the room, seeking some clue as to where I was.

The only furnishings were the bed I was in and a single bedside table with rounded edges. I reached out and gave it an experimental shake. It was bolted to the floor. The bed probably was, too. Nothing in the room could be used as a weapon, unless I wanted to try strangling myself with the sheets. Even hanging was out of the question, since there was nothing for me to hang myself from.

A huge, inset mirror that almost certainly doubled as an observation window took up one entire wall. That sort of fixture in this sort of room can mean only one thing: medical holding facility, probably owned by the CDC. That fit with the dreams I’d been having, horrible, tangled things about some sort of major outbreak. No, not a major outbreak—there weren’t that many people involved, at least not when we closed the doors. And we had to close the doors. We had to close the doors, because—

“I see you’re awake.”

The voice came from a speaker in the wall above the mirror and caught me entirely by surprise. I screamed a little, clutching the blanket against my chest before I realized I was being an idiot. Whoever had me in here could do a lot worse than talk to me, if they decided that was what they wanted. I eyed the speaker suspiciously, letting go of the blanket.

“I’m awake,” I confirmed.

“Good, good. Now, you may be a little shaky at first. I don’t recommend trying to walk before you’ve had a little time to get adjusted.”

I was out of the bed before the voice was finished with its warning, stalking across the floor toward the mirror. Then I stopped again, stunned by the sight of my own reflection in what should have been—for me—a completely transparent surface. My eyes make one-way glass a pretty fiction.

Or they’re supposed to, anyway. Only for some reason, things weren’t working that way this time, and instead of looking at the hallway beyond the glass, I was looking at myself.

The pajamas I was wearing were at least two sizes too big, or maybe it was just that I’d lost weight: I looked like I was recovering from a long illness, all pale skin and bird-boned limbs. The lines of my collarbone stood out like knives, making me seem downright frail. My hair was too long, falling to hit my shoulders in those annoying thick curls that always seemed to form when I let it grow out, and my eyes… There was something wrong with my eyes. Something very, very wrong.

I was still staring at my reflection when the speaker crackled on again. The voice from before came smoothly into the room, saying, “We’re very glad to see you up and about. Some disorientation is normal at first, and you shouldn’t let it bother you. Now, the speakers in your room are voice-activated; you don’t need to look for a button or anything like that. Just speak loudly and clearly, and we’ll understand you. Can you please tell us your name, and the last thing that you remember?”

I took a deep breath, holding it for a moment before letting it slowly out. Looking directly into my reflection—and hence, directly at anyone who happened to be standing in the hallway outside the one-way mirror, watching their little test subject, I answered.

“My name is Georgia Mason,” I said. “What the fuck is going on here?”