“Step away from the testing center,” intoned a pleasant female voice.

Becks and I exchanged a look as we took a long step backward. “Doc, the room’s talking,” I reported.

“That’s normal,” she said. Somehow I didn’t find that particularly reassuring.

The lights next to the two units we’d used began to flash through the familiar red-green pattern as the units themselves filtered our blood looking for live viral bodies. There was still no sound from the hall outside, which wasn’t helping. Sure, we knew that we weren’t going to be eaten in the next thirty seconds, but the entire infected staff of the Portland CDC could be out there, and we’d have no idea. Not the sort of thing I really wanted to be thinking about.

Breathe, said George.

I took a deep breath as the lights nexr red-g testing units turned a uniform, steady shade of green. “Thank you,” said the female voice. “You may proceed.” The glass slid to one side, vanishing into a groove in the far wall.

“This is your fucking fault, Mason,” growled Becks, starting for the now-accessible door.

“How are you coming to that conclusion?”

“You’re the one who said this was like a pre-Rising video game.”

I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing. I didn’t really want to give Kelly any reason to doubt our infection status—not when I still needed her to guide us to safety. “Okay, Doc, the clear wall’s open now. There’s a door. What do you want us to do?”

“Listen closely: You’re in one of the secondary escape corridors. They’re designed to get essential staff out if at all possible, even during an outbreak. They aren’t public, and they’re never used for the transport of biological materials, just evacuations. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”

My skin crawled. “They’re set to autosterilize if there’s any sign of contamination, aren’t they?”

“Yes, they are. My suggestion?” Kelly paused before finishing, grimly, “Go as fast as you possibly can. Follow the yellow lights. They’ll lead you to an exit. As long as your infection status hasn’t changed, it’ll let you out.”

“And if it has?”

“If anyone in the escape corridor goes into conversion, the autosterilize initiates.”

“Fuckin’ swell. Okay. Tell Alaric I’ll call back if we’re not dead.” I cut the connection over her protests, yanking the ear cuff off and shoving it into my pocket as I turned to Becks. “We’re pulling a last run. Once this door is open, you haul ass, and if the lava comes down while we’re inside, it was nice knowing you.”

“Got it,” said Becks, with a small, tight nod. It wouldn’t actually be lava. It would be a highly acidic chemical bath, followed by flash irradiation, followed by another chemical bath, until everything organic in the corridor had been reduced to so much inert slime. That sort of thing can’t really happen in places where humans are expected to be on a regular basis, since it tends to render the environment permanently toxic, but for a rarely used, last-ditch exit, it made perfect, if horrible, sense.