The Extinction Trials(37)

What’s left? We’re told that the planet we’ve awoken to isn’t conducive to human life. Here’s the crazy part: that’s not even the worst news.

The worst news is that I’m part of the solution to this ruined world problem. It turns out ARC was able to save a small percentage of the human race. Those chosen few are waiting to re-inhabit this world—when we figure out how to do that. How do we figure that out? By running experiments. By modifying humans in different ways and releasing them into the world and seeing if they live.

That’s the grand plan. Trials. Tests to see if we survive.

Frankly, I was hoping the plan was more solid than that—safer than that.

It’s not.

Look, I’m all for trial and error, just not with my own life.

For all their big words and white coats and sophistication, it turns out the scientists running the world are just gamblers. Well-educated guessers. They use known science as a guide to make guesses about what might work. And then they test it, analyze what happened and make another guess. It’s a game of darts. Eventually, if they have enough time and funding—enough darts—they hit the bull’s eye. Well, it turns out, in this game of biological darts, I’m what they’re throwing at the board. And that board is waiting outside this station.





Day 2





It turns out the station (bunker) is just a glorified meat locker. We can’t stay here. There aren’t any bunks. Or a mess hall.

They designed it this way—so we’d have to leave. Want the rats to run the maze? Give them nowhere else to go. And no food.

After a night spent on blankets in the observation room, our robotic captor-saviors gave us each three pre-packaged meals and a GPS and coordinates of a dead drop. We’re told that the dead drop contains supplies and further instructions.

I can’t tell if the term dead drop is an inside joke for the higher-ups in The Extinction Trials. If so, it’s not funny. Why? Because there were seven people in my cohort yesterday. Today, when we ventured out into the world, we found a bombed-out city, strange animals, and by night, three of us had dropped dead.

It began with headaches. Then nose bleeds. Memory loss followed. Over the course of a few hours, those three unlucky individuals simply forgot who they were and where they’d been. It was deeply unsettling. As our group trekked through the city, I think all of us had the same thought: will I be next? Am I going to get sick?

The real question is: what is this sickness? I’m terrified of it. So far, I seem unaffected. Maybe the rest of us are the cure—maybe we were given some therapy that makes us immune. Or maybe that’s what’s waiting at the dead drop. Whatever it is, we’ll reach it tomorrow. Assuming we survive.





Owen held up a hand. Maya stopped reading and set the book on the table.

“Headaches. Nose bleeds. Memory loss.” He studied her. “What happened to them is happening to you.”

Maya took a deep breath. “Seems that way.”

Cara stood and paced the deck. “We don’t know that.”

“The symptoms are the same.”

Cara nodded. “That’s true. But these members of the cohort died on day one. We’re on day two.”

Owen considered that. “Good point. And good news.”

“The implication,” Cara said carefully, “is that whatever… interventions they applied to us may have been better than this previous cohort. We may have been cured.”

“But Maya still has the nose bleeds. And headaches,” Owen said.

“Maybe,” Maya said, “whatever they gave me only slowed down the disease.”

“There’s another point,” Alister said. “Maya, your memory loss started before The Extinction Trials.”

“True,” Maya said. “It’s possible I was among the first infected. Or maybe… somehow the virus started with me.”





Chapter Thirty-One





“Well,” Owen said. “I think we should find out what happened to the other cohort from the journal. Maybe there are clues about what we’re dealing with.”

“I agree,” Maya said. When no one objected, she opened the journal and began reading again.





Day 3





When we woke this morning, two things were gone-—the food and one of our team members.

It’s either quite a coincidence or a cause and effect. I’m jaded enough to quickly know the truth.

The other members of the team were unsure.

They proposed the innocent conclusion: the person left, then a scavenger came along and took our food. Or the inverse: a scavenger stole our food and then the person left—possibly even to search for more food—without telling anyone.

Yeah. Right.

I endured their debate about what had happened until they arrived at the inevitable conclusion: does it matter? We have no food.

Therefore, we pressed on toward our destination.

We slept under a bridge. Like the whole world around us, it was hard and gray and crumbling and worn away with time. It was a bad night of fitful sleep.

The last thought I had before the fatigue overtook me made me feel more guilty than I ever have in my life: why didn’t I think of it—taking the food and leaving? That person who got away with the supplies is sleeping right now with their belly full. They’ll have a meal in the morning. And at lunch. And dinner and at all the meals after. They saw the future and planned for it. They did to us what we might be forced to do to others. They just did it first.