Lock In (Lock In, #1)(6)

“Any slang for him?” Davidson pointed to Bell, who was still sitting there, quietly.

“He’s a ‘mule,’” I said.

“Makes sense,” Davidson said.

“Yeah.”

“Ever use one?”

“An Integrator? Once,” I said. “I was twelve and my parents took me to Disney World. Thought it would be better to experience it in the flesh. So they scheduled me an Integrator for the day.”

“How was it?”

“I hated it,” I said. “It was hot, after an hour my feet hurt, and I nearly pissed myself because I had no idea how to do it like you guys do, right? That’s all taken care of for me, and I got Haden’s so young that I don’t remember doing it the other way. The Integrator had to surface to do it, and they’re not supposed to do that when they’re carrying someone. After a couple of hours I complained enough that we went back to the hotel room and swapped back out with the threep. And then I had a good time. They still had to pay the Integrator for the full day, though.”

“And you haven’t done it since.”

“No,” I said. “Why bother.”

“Huh,” Davidson said. The door to the interrogation room opened and Vann came through it, carrying two cups of coffee. He pointed to her. “She’s one, you know.”

“She’s one what?”

“An Integrator,” Davidson said. “Or was, anyway, before she joined the Bureau.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said. I looked over to where she was sitting down and getting comfortable.

“It’s why she’s got this beat,” Davidson said. “She gets you guys in a way the rest of us don’t. No offense, but it’s hard for the rest of us to wrap our brains around what’s going on with you.”

“I understand that,” I said.

“Yeah,” Davidson said. He was quiet for a second, and I waited for what I knew was coming next: the Personal Connection to Haden’s. I guessed an uncle or a cousin.

“I had a cousin who got Haden’s,” Davidson said, and internally I checked off the victory. “This was back with the first wave, when no one had any idea what the f*ck was going on. Before they called it Haden’s. She got the flu, and then seemed to get better, and then—” He shrugged.

“Lock in,” I said.

“Right,” Davidson said. “I remember going to the hospital to see her, and they had a whole wing of locked-in patients. Just lying there, doing nothing but breathing. Dozens of them. And a couple of days before, all of them were walking around, living a normal life.”

“What happened to your cousin?” I asked.

“She lost it,” Davidson said. “Being locked in made her have a psychotic break, or something like that.”

I nodded. “That wasn’t uncommon, unfortunately.”

“Right,” Davidson said again. “She hung in for a couple of years and then her body gave it up.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“It was bad,” Davidson said. “But it was bad for everyone. I mean, shit. The first lady got it. That’s why it’s called Haden’s.”

“It still sucks.”

“It does,” Davidson agreed, and pointed to Vann. “I mean, she got Haden’s too, right?” Davidson asked. “At some point. That’s why she’s like she is.”

“Sort of,” I said. “There was a tiny percentage of people who were infected who had their brain structure altered but didn’t get locked in. A tiny percentage of them had their brains altered enough to be able to be Integrators.” It was more complicated than that, but I didn’t think Davidson actually cared that much. “There’s maybe ten thousand Integrators on the entire planet.”

“Huh,” Davidson said. “Anyway. She’s an Integrator. Or was. So maybe she’ll get something out of this guy after all.” He turned up the volume on the speakers so we could hear what she was saying to Bell.

* * *

“I brought you some coffee,” Vann said, to Bell, sliding the coffee over to him. “Knowing nothing about you, I guessed you might want cream and sugar. Sorry if I got that wrong.”

Bell looked at the coffee, but otherwise did and said nothing.

“Bacon cheeseburgers,” Vann said.

“What?” Bell said. Vann’s apparent non sequitur had roused him out of complete silence.

“Bacon cheeseburgers,” Vann repeated. “When I worked as an Integrator I ate so many goddamned bacon cheeseburgers. You might know why.”

“Because the first thing anyone who’s been locked in wants when they integrate is a bacon cheeseburger,” Bell said.

Vann smiled. “So it’s not just me it happened to,” she said.

“It’s not,” Bell said.

“There was a Five Guys down the street from my apartment,” Vann said. “It got so that all I had to do was walk through the door, and they’d put the patties on the grill. They wouldn’t even wait to take my order. They knew.”

“That sounds about right,” Bell said.

“It took two and a half years after I stopped integrating before I could even look at a bacon cheeseburger again,” Vann said.