By the time I hiked off the last switchback in the cliff face and tumbled onto level ground, my calves ached, my thighs screamed, and the sun was nothing but a seam of fuchsia at the horizon. Alex and Patrick were up top already beside the stalled aerial tram perched at the cliff’s edge. They sat side by side next to their packs, enjoying the sunset. Patrick was wearing his black cowboy hat again.
It looked like I’d interrupted them on a picnic.
After cresting the first hill past the freeway, we’d shed our armor. It was too heavy for the terrain. We’d followed the path of the aerial tramway overhead, hiking beneath the steel cables to the base of the cliff. We didn’t come across a single Drone or Hatchling the entire way. The Harvesters seemed to be concentrated in the city, remaking it to their liking.
More and more the university seemed like a haven.
At the top of the cliff, Patrick and Alex gave me a moment to recover, and then we readied our weapons and walked toward the grouping of buildings. The closest, a three-story rise that housed the departments of history and literature, was empty. We stepped inside, the click of the glass door sending an echo through the abandoned halls and up the stairwells. We walked through the lobby, across the atrium, and out the other side.
The chemistry building was deserted. As were physics and biology. From a central quad, we peered down at the law and business schools below. Dark windows. No signs of movement.
A ghost campus.
We were losing light fast, and the winding paths were confusing. After a few more detours, we found ourselves back at the central quad. A big fountain sat stagnant. Dead leaves clustered around picnic tables. A mountain bike lay on its side in the middle of a wide lawn, the front wheel spinning lazily in the breeze.
“This place is confusing,” Alex said. “We keep walking in circles.”
“Maybe we’re too young to be at college,” I said, and she laughed.
“I don’t see any Department of Virology,” Patrick said. “What if we came all the way here for nothing?”
I turned in a circle, my eyes settling on a sign at the edge of the quad. It said STARK PEAK MEDICAL SCHOOL and had an arrow pointing to the far edge of the cliffs, around the bend where we’d climbed up. I walked over to the sign and peered up the dirt path.
The sunset backlit the big white building of the medical school. Next to it was a low-lying concrete structure, almost a bunker, with slits for windows.
Lining the edge of the roof like gutters were what appeared to be pipes. They pumped mist into the air all around the building. The surrounding parking lot had no cars, just a row of golf carts near the door. Odd.
I signaled to Patrick and Alex, and we crept closer. We hid behind a groundskeeper shack and peered out at the building.
Sure enough, a metal plaque bolted to the concrete read DEPARTMENT OF VIROLOGY AND IMMUNOLOGY. The pipes pushed out slow, steady bursts of mist.
“What is that stuff?” Alex asked.
The mist reached us now, flecking our cheeks.
I stepped out from around the groundskeeper shack. Opened my mouth.
Smiled.
“Salt water,” I said.
My pulse quickened with excitement. We ran across the parking lot to the door of the bunker.
It was locked.
But beside it was a keypad with an inset security camera. My trembling thumb jabbed at the red button.
Nothing happened.
I jabbed at it again.
A moment later the front door clicked open.
It slowly swung wide.
As we stepped inside into a glass-walled box of a room, air blasted down at us, making our hair flutter. The door sealed behind us, trapping us in. In the ceiling, the noise of hidden fans revved to life. We spun around, staring up at various vents. A UV light came on, glaring through the Lucite walls, bleaching everything to A-bomb white. The air tingled around us.
After a while the lights dimmed. The fans quieted. A second door clicked open ahead of us. We squinted at it, trying to blink our eyesight back to life.
Patrick stepped through the doorway first.
A man’s form emerged slowly from the glare. A heavy guy with a bushy beard—the guy from the TV transmission. Several other scientists were arrayed in the background, wearing scrubs or sweats and white coats. The room looked like some kind of control center, with monitors and servers and consoles. A few slender windows provided scant light. Pipes twisted from giant tanks of water and disappeared into the concrete walls. I guessed they fed the outdoor misters.
The door whistled shut behind us.
The man with the beard spread his arms. “Welcome! I’m Dr. Brewer.”
Patrick said, “Are you in charge?”
“No.” A skinny woman with horn-rimmed glasses stepped out from behind him. “I am.”
Alex smacked Patrick on the arm with the back of her hand. “Sexist!”
Patrick shrugged. “She was hidden.”
The scientists eyed us with delight, whispering in wonderment, as if they were laying eyes on some never-before-discovered Amazonian tribe.
I caught only snatches of what they were saying.
“—can’t believe anyone actually made it—”
“—older one looks eighteen already—”
“—reach of the television signal—”
“Uh,” I said, “we’re right here.”
“I’m sorry,” the skinny woman said. “Our social skills have atrophied. I’m Dr. Messing. But please call me Laura.” She offered a slender hand.
We stared at it.
The bearded man said, “I think it’s safe for you to lower your weapons now.”
We hadn’t even noticed that we were in fighting posture. Alex relaxed first, her hockey stick clanking to the floor. Patrick let the shotgun swing down by his side. I released the baling hooks so they dangled from their nylon loops.
Alex shook Laura’s hand.
“You’re safe now,” Laura said.
One of the scientists in the back started crying but stopped when everyone looked at him.
Laura gestured to a steel staircase at the rear of the lab. We stepped through another sealed Lucite door to see that it twisted down to a huge underground facility.
“I’m sure your journey’s been trying,” she said. “What do you say we get you cleaned up?”