Burn by Bill Ransom Read Free Book Online Page B

AVA package. There hasn’t been time to see whether there’s a stage two.”
    Harry shook his head.
    “It might take weeks or months for a secondary to show up,” Harry said. “And there’s that brain virus with a twenty-year incubation period. Are you planning on keeping us nice and safe here for twenty years?”
    “I keep telling you, this is only temporary. . . .”
    “Frankly, Major,” Harry snapped, “this setup you’ve got here is a kid’s tree-house next to the accommodations at Level Five of The ViraVax Palace. I don’t think you’ve isolated us from mice, let alone virions. It’s a joke. Admit it, and let us out.”
    “We’ve done our best—.”
    “Don’t scare me more than I already am, Major,” Harry interrupted. “You’re monitoring anything that Sonja, Marte Chang or I might say to each other, right? Do you have a camera in that toilet, too, Major?”
    Major Scholz’s face drained to a marble-white under her blonde buzz-cut.
    “Would you like to hit me, Harry? Would that make you feel better?”
    “You bet your ass it would, Major.”
    “Then I promise you, Harry, that you can take your best shot as soon as we can let you out of there.”
    “That’s another shuck, Major, and you know it. I might never get out of here. I want that shot now!”
    Harry fisted the glass and found that, even in his weakened state, the panel flexed with a satisfying whup.
    Major Scholz didn’t flinch, and Harry was almost sure she didn’t blink. In spite of his foul mood, he liked that about her. Then she really surprised him.
    “All right,” she said, and pressed herself hard against the glass. “Do it.”
    Her arms spread wide, and her thighs, pelvis, breasts and right cheek flattened under the pressure.
    Harry curled his left fist and cocked it into his armpit for a quick, snapping punch. Then he flashed on all the times that his father hit his mother, who could only cover her head with her arms and take it.
    “Do it, goddammit!” Scholz growled. “I can’t stay here all night.”
    Harry took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and uncocked the fist. He reached out his hand and patted the place where her cheek met the glass.
    “That’s okay, Major,” he said. “I don’t need to do that.”
    She stepped back, a flush in her own cheeks creeping into her short, blonde hair.
    “I’m on your side, Harry.”
    “I know, Scholz.”
    “And I do have some news. We’ve begun unraveling that data cube you lifted from ViraVax so that Chang can tell us what they were up to. She’s feeding it into her system right now, and you’re on the same linkup. Have a look.”
    “Sonja’s dad is the one who made that cube,” Harry said. “Can she see it, too?”
    “If she wants.”
    “Are you sure that’s smart? I mean, no telling what’s on there, and she’s already been through a lot. . . .”
    “Harry Toledo, I don’t believe what you’re saying! You just chewed my butt about limiting your access to the world, and now you want to limit Sonja’s?”
    Harry laughed for the first time in . . . a while. At least a couple of days. And it felt good.
    “You’re right,” he said. “Thanks, Major. I don’t want to become the enemy. We’ll take everything we can get.”
    “I’m being selfish,” she said. “Maybe there’s a clue in there that’ll let me let you out sooner. We just need to know what they made and what it’ll do, first.”
    “And whether any of these little beasts survived?”
    “Exactly.”
    Harry felt energized, suddenly, and the tremor was gone from his hands.
    “Okay, Major. You got my full attention. I’ll do everything I can.” Harry turned his palms up. “But you have to let us out to do that.”
    “Soon, Harry.” She patted the glass where his palm rested. “I’ll see about getting your access cleared to the networks. Good luck.”
    The console included a sound system, and as the structures of the Artificial Viral Agents scrolled down the viewer, he keyed up the