“No, nothing went wrong with your first test. Now please.” She gestured toward the unit. “Humor the woman who’s willing to risk her life by offering sanctuary to your team, and take the goddamn test.”

“Right.” At least this one had lights. I popped off the lid, whispering, “One,” and waiting for George’s answering Two, before pressing my hand against the pressure pad. The needles bit in, quick and painful as always, and the lights began to flash through their complex analytic series of reds and greens. They flashed fast to begin with, then slowed as they settled on their final determination. It only took about thirty seconds for the last light to stop flashing.

All five of them settled on green.

I frowned, looking up at Dr. Abbey. Joe shoved his nose into my hand. I ignored him, focusing on her instead. “Is this a side effect of blocking the transmission? You change something internally so it registers negatives as positives?”

“No, Shaun. I didn’t.” Dr. Abbey calmly picked up the lid to the testing unit, snapping it back into place. She watched my face the entire time, moving with slow, methodical gestures, so that I wouldn’t be surprised. She didn’t really need to worry. I was somewhere past surprise by that point. “None of the adjustments we’ve made to our equipment would do something as suicidal or idiotic as showing a positive result as a negative one. We’d just disable the readouts, like we did with your first test. Those results came to my computer, and no one else’s. I was able to study your entire viral profile.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m not trying to say anything. What I am saying is that your test results—both times, the ones you didn’t see and the ones you just witnessed—came back clean.” Dr. Abbey looked at me gravely, a wild excitement barely contained in her expression. “You’re not sick, Shaun. You’re not going to amplify.

“I don’t know what your body did, but it encountered the live virus… and it fought it off. You’re going to live.”

I didn’t know what to say. So I just stared at her, the green lights on the testing unit glowing steadily, like an accusation of a crime I had never plotted to commit. I’d been right all along; amplification would have been too easy an exit, and when given the chance, my body somehow refused to do it. I was going to live.

So now what?

Coda: Living for You

I have no idea what’s going on anymore. When did the world stop making sense?

—SHAUN MASON

What the fuck is going on here?

—GEORGIA MASON