Extinction Age

-13-

Fitz wasn’t sure what time it was. Five in the morning? Six? His biological clock had ceased operating after two days of virtually no sleep. That’s all he wanted now—a few wonderful hours of shuteye. The bank of LEDs in his isolation room was far too bright for that. He tried closing his eyes, but the light penetrated his eyelids and every time he came close to sleep, he jerked alert.

“Is this really necessary?” Fitz shouted.

“Yes,” came the muffled voice of Dr. Hill through a speaker. “We have to keep you quarantined until we’re sure you aren’t infected.”

Fitz squirmed against his restraints to see if he could spy Beckham in the adjacent room. The blinding light of the LEDs made it impossible to see through the glass panels. He felt like a rat in a cage.

But that was fine. He knew the blood running through his veins wasn’t infected, and soon enough they’d let him out. It was Beckham he was worried about. The tough son of a bitch had been through the wringer, and it would be a tragedy to lose him now.

“How’s Beckham?” Fitz asked.

“He’s doing just fine,” Hill replied. “So are Jensen and Chow. This is just temporary. I’m sure you guys will be out of here in no time at all. In the meantime, you should try and get some sleep.”

“Maybe if you turn off the lights,” Fitz said.

“I’m sorry,” Hill replied. “The lights are for your protection.”

Fitz was wiggling to get comfortable when he heard the chatter of approaching voices from the hallway. A moment later, the speaker buzzed.

“Fitz, this is Kate. I just got your blood test back. You’re all clear. Hold on one minute and we’ll get you out of there.”

The door creaked open, and relief flooded over Fitz at the confirmation of what he had already known. He wasn’t going to turn into one of those things.

The doctors walked into the room and unclasped his restraints.

“Is Beckham clear, too?” Fitz asked, rubbing his left wrist while Kate worked on unstrapping the belts holding down his blades.

The appearance of her dimples answered his question.

“His tests came back negative. So did Jensen’s and Chow’s,” Kate replied. She offered him a hand as he worked his thighs and prosthetics over the side of the bed.

Fitz exhaled and grabbed her hand. Good news wasn’t something he was used to, but it still did little to relieve the overwhelming weight of the losses on the Truxtun. Timbo, Peters, and Rodriguez—Fitz added their names to the growing pile of dead that was stacked high with his fallen brothers. He hadn’t known Peters or Rodriguez well, but he’d fought with Timbo back at Fort Bragg. Now they were all gone, and there wasn’t even anything left to bury.

“You okay?” Kate whispered.

“Tired as all hell, but I’m fine,” Fitz said. He let out a sad sigh as Kate helped him off the table. He followed the doctors into the hallway, and they gathered outside of Beckham’s room.

“Reed,” Kate said into the comm. “I’m coming in.” She unlocked the door and walked over to his bedside.

Fitz held back and grabbed Hill’s arm when he went to follow Kate.

“Give ‘em a minute, Doc,” Fitz said.

Hill nodded and crossed his arms. Fitz turned to the side, trying to be somewhat discreet as he watched from the other side of the glass. Even in the darkest of moments, seeing them together reminded him of what he was fighting for.

Kate unbuckled Beckham’s straps and helped him sit up. He rubbed his forehead and then cracked his neck from side to side. The white shirt they had given them after decon was stained scarlet over his right collarbone, and his face still showed the yellowish tint of dying bruises and small red cuts. Like so many other warriors, Beckham hadn’t had a chance to heal since the outbreak started.

Fitz couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he didn’t need to. Their body language said it all. Kate brushed a strand of hair from Beckham’s eyes, and he reached out and wrapped his arms around her. Beckham locked eyes with Fitz over Kate’s shoulder.

Fitz smiled at Beckham and said, “Let’s give ‘em some privacy.” He continued down the hall with Hill to Chow’s room. The operator didn’t mutter a single word as they entered.

“You’re clear,” Hill said. “The test came back negative.”

Chow remained silent. He closed his eyes and jerked them open again like he had just woken from a nightmare.

Fitz stopped at Chow’s bedside and reached to unbuckle one of his restraints. “You okay, man?”

“Yeah,” Chow murmured. “I just want to get the hell out of here.” He sat up and ran a hand through his long black hair. “What time is it?”

“Almost 0600,” Hill said. “Just in time for breakfast.”

“Do me a favor, Doc,” Fitz said. “Go inform Jensen he’s okay.”

Hill nodded and left them alone. Chow scooted off the bed and stood. “I’m fine,” he repeated.

Fitz scratched an itch on his ear. “You shouldn’t be. I’m not. How many more of us have to die before it’s over?”

“However many it takes,” Chow said grimly. “You’ve done good. During the attack the other night, on the Truxtun, at Bragg. I’m glad you’re with us, man.”

“Thanks,” was all Fitz could manage to choke out.

“Let’s get out of here,” Chow said. He patted Fitz on the back and strode out into the hallway where Hill was waiting outside Jensen’s door.

“Hold up!” a voice shouted from the other end of the hall. Major Smith jogged down the passage with a pair of Medical Corps guards trailing him. Their footfalls echoed with urgency.

“Major, their tests came back negative,” Hill said.

Smith didn’t respond. He held up a hand, motioning for the guards to stop. Fitz took a step back, his heart racing. Something was about to go down, he could feel it.

“Give me the key,” Smith said. He glanced over at Fitz and gave him a quick up and down. Then he snatched the ring of keys from Hill and unlocked the door.

“About damn time,” Jensen snarled as Smith entered the room. “I need to get back to ops—”

Smith slammed the door shut and approached the lieutenant colonel slowly. Fitz could see the major’s lips moving but still couldn’t hear a damn word. Jensen struggled in his restraints before Smith was done. The major held up a hand to calm him.

“What’s going on?” Beckham asked when he and Kate joined Chow and Fitz outside. Hill had retreated to the other side of the hall, watching curiously.

“Not sure,” Chow said. “But doesn’t look good.”

They watched in silence as Smith finally unbuckled Jensen. Fitz could hear raised voices through the thick glass. A few minutes later, Smith opened the door and Jensen stormed into the hallway.

“Let’s go,” he snapped.

Fitz exchanged an unsure glance with Beckham and then followed. They rushed down the halls of Building 3 in tense silence.

When they got to the lobby, Jensen finally turned and said, “Beckham, Chow, Fitz, get some rest. Kate, I want you back in the lab. General Kennor has decided to take charge of the island. We’ll have a service for the dead at sunset.” With that he swung the doors open and staggered out onto the steps.

Fitz wasn’t sure what to think. Kennor was the four-star general behind Operation Liberty, the man who had ignored Kate’s advice and sacrificed thousands of his brothers and sisters. He trailed Kate and the others onto the stairs outside. They stood there in the quiet of the morning, all of them likely thinking the same thing: things were about to change drastically on Plum Island.

The chatter of voices sounded outside Kate’s room. The familiar sound of Riley and Horn with his daughters put Kate at ease. She relaxed her head on Beckham’s chest and closed her eyes.

Neither of them had said much since they returned to Building 1. They didn’t discuss Operation Liberty, the Truxtun, or General Kennor’s new orders. They simply lay there, taking solace in each other’s company.

The minutes passed by and Kate let them. She would join Ellis in the lab shortly, but for now all that mattered was this.

“I’m sorry, Kate,” Beckham finally whispered. “I was an asshole. You didn’t deserve that.”

Kate pulled her head away from his chest and rolled herself up onto her elbow.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said. Her hair fell over her face, and Beckham reached over and brushed it away.

Kate searched Beckham’s brown eyes. She touched his lips with a fingertip and leaned in to kiss him lightly. The kiss wasn’t an invitation but a reassurance that she was there, that they could just be.

“Is Apollo okay?” Beckham asked. Kate felt his chest muscles tense as he lifted his head off the pillow.

“He’s still undergoing tests. The Hemorrhage virus isn’t communicable across most species.” Kate said. “There have been some cases, however, where that isn’t the case—primates, for example—so we’re taking precautions. We should know more by tonight.”

Beckham nodded and relaxed his head. “You better get to the lab.”

“Will you be able to sleep?”

He let out a sigh. “Yeah, I think so.”

“I’ll be back around dinner time. We can go to the service together. Okay?”

Beckham nodded and pulled his arm away from Kate, using it to prop up his head. He gave her a meaningful look, letting his eyes do the talking.

Kate leaned in to kiss him one more time and then left him there. She clicked off the light on the way out but didn’t turn around, fearing she wouldn’t be able to leave if she did.

She walked to the lab in silence, her mind a mess of worry. Ellis was already busy at his station. She quickly suited up and hovered her keycard over the security panel. The door chirped at her and Ellis turned. A shit-eating grin broke across his face when he saw her.

“Kate, we did it!”

“Did what?”

“The results from the HTS system just came back. We discovered a protein only expressed by the Variants.”

“You’re certain?” She went to his station and stared incredulously at the protein’s tertiary structure on his monitor.

“I’m more than certain,” Ellis said. “I’ve run the results through a sequencing database and compared spectra results with the database of known human proteins. There isn’t a single match. Nothing even comes close.”

Kate took a seat at the station and went over the notes.

“I’ve already started mass spectrometry along with a peptide mass fingerprint to characterize and sequence the protein,” Ellis continued.

“Do we know the function?” Kate asked before he could finish.

Ellis shook his head. “I’m still working on it.”

“Good,” Kate said without taking her gaze from the screen. “But for now let’s focus on developing an antibody to target the protein.”

Ellis grinned even wider. “I’m already one step ahead of you.”

Raised voices pulled Beckham from the grips of a deep sleep. He reached for his sidearm, forgetting at first where he was. Moonlight streamed through the shades covering the window. In its glow, he saw a picture of Kate and her brother on the bedside table next to the sleek outline of his new Beretta M9.

He sat up and rubbed his shoulder with a fingertip. Crusted blood came off under his nails. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and then made his way to the small sink and mirror in the corner of the room. Four days’ worth of facial hair could almost be considered a beard. He snorted at the sight. Between the bags under his eyes, the jaundice circles of old bruises, and the cuts on his face, he looked worse than ever.

Beckham palmed the sink with both hands and leaned in to stare at his reflection. His gaze shifted to Kate’s grooming products, and without further thought he grabbed a small pair of scissors and went to work. He trimmed his overgrown mop of dark hair as best he could. A rap on the door came just as he finished shaving his chin. He’d had to use one of her razors and some pink shaving foam that smelled like strawberries, but it had gotten the job done. He turned to see Kate peeking inside.

“Reed, people are starting to gather outside. Are you…”

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Beckham said. He ran a hand over his shortly cropped hair and faced her.

“Wow, you look a little bit different. But I like…”

Beckham stopped her mid-sentence by striding over and pulling her to his chest.

“We’re going to get through this. And when it’s all over, there’s going to be a place for us,” he said.

She leaned her head back and found his eyes. “You have no idea how good it feels to hear you say that, Reed.”

Kate leaned in to kiss him and made a face. “Why do you smell like a daiquiri?”

Beckham felt a smile starting. He didn’t let it finish. Now was time to honor his brothers. He turned one more time to look at the mirror. The man staring back looked like he was ready to go to war, not stand in a ceremony.