‘I did four jabs every two hours when I started my mods,’ Harry said, resting the tub on the edge of the wooden turret and rolling his sleeve.

Besides syringes and vials, Charlie had put five little alcohol wipes in the box. She tore one open, sterilised a patch of skin on Harry’s upper arm, then gave him a jab.

‘Nice one,’ Harry said, wishing his mask wasn’t blocking the expression on his face.

‘I phoned that attorney, like you suggested,’ Charlie said, as Harry buttoned his cuff. ‘She was helpful. She agreed with Mango’s assessment that I’m looking at three to five years, unless I can trade information on crimes they don’t already know about.’

‘Do you have any?’

‘Kinda,’ Charlie said. ‘But she’s my best friend, and the mother of my little godson.’

‘Awkward …’

‘The good news is, the attorney says there’s a decent chance law enforcement is too busy with quarantine to arrest me any time soon. But there’s a downside. Have you heard of SOPA?’

Harry nodded. ‘The Synthetic Organism Protection Act. Basically, the destruction of all human rights during a quarantine period.’

‘That’s the one,’ Charlie said warily. ‘SOPA laws give law-enforcement powers to arrest and hold people in detention, even on the barest suspicion that a suspect is involved in unregistered genetic modification. While quarantine is running, they can charge me under SOPA laws and lock me in a quarantine centre for months, without having to charge me, question me, or allow me to see an attorney.’

‘That’s messed up,’ Harry said.

‘The attorney recommends I make myself difficult to find until the quarantine ends and the Feds lose their emergency powers.’

‘You could stay with Matt and me,’ Harry suggested. ‘I can clear the junk out of the spare bedroom.’

‘That’s sweet,’ Charlie said. ‘But you’d be risking a charge of harbouring a fugitive.’

‘Sounds like a story for Vegas Local,’ Harry noted.

Charlie smiled behind her mask. ‘I haven’t laid eyes on Matt since he graduated junior high.’

Harry had been doing the handsome rich-kid thing, sleeping around, acting cocky and having a couple of short-term girlfriends. But none of them felt right like Charlie had. He wanted to pull down his mask and go for a kiss, but somehow he’d morphed back into the anxious fourteen-year-old who’d first met her.

‘I’ve got our route home memorised,’ Harry mumbled. ‘It’s longer, but I’m not covering the same ground twice, and I can drop two doses of vaccine at Kirsten’s boyfriend’s place.’

‘OK,’ Charlie said. ‘Just let me go in my house and pack a bag. And there’s a stop I have to make along the way.’

54 IGNITION

‘Grab this,’ Charlie whispered, her arm dangling a backpack out of her bedroom window.