“How did you know . . .” I stared at my loose fists, trying hard to gather my thoughts. Put up my defenses. Did I give anything away in my feverish ravings? “That I didn’t have family here?” I would have sounded defensive if my voice weren’t so weak.

“You said your mom was in California, and that you had no cousins left here,” she said. “I guess I assumed.”

“You need to leave. I think I caught something highly contagious—”

“It’s all over the news,” she said, her expression grim beneath her glass helmet. “At least a dozen people in the city have been infected with this new avian flu.”

The flu that your father released, I wanted to say.

She leaned closer, probably scanning my temperature and pulse with her suit. “You kept saying, ‘I couldn’t save him,’ over and over again.”

Panic in my aching throat. Gods. Did I say more than that?

“You tried to save that man who collapsed in Liberty Square,” she said. “After my father’s big announcement.”

Jin. He had planted that man in Liberty Square the day he announced the sale of more affordable suits. What better way to spur sales—through panic and illness from a virulent flu strain.

“He died,” I replied in a hoarse whisper and shifted away, trying to put distance between us. “And if I somehow passed this on to you—”

“I was in suit the entire time I was here, Jason,” she said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“I was in suit too, when I tried to help that man.”

“My suits are better.” She paused. I glanced at her, but she had drawn back, her features obscured. The effect, her rich voice—so familiar to me already—juxtaposed with her alien suit was disconcerting. “And I’m wearing gloves,” she added.

I was angry with her. Angry that she’d come into my apartment, uninvited, as if she owned the place. Angry that she’d seen me so weak. But most of all, furious that she’d taken such a wild risk. For someone she barely even knew. “You shouldn’t have come,” I said, my words hard and clipped. “Even if you do own the best suits on the market.”

“I’m fine. We have a decon pod at home anyway. It kills everything.”

I let out a half-crazed laugh, despite myself. She was so secure in her wealth. I bet no one she cared about had ever died. Hell, even her grandparents were still alive.

“What?” she asked. Her tone was sharp.

“Like a specimen kept in a jar,” I said. “Is this how we’re supposed to live?”

She didn’t reply. I suddenly realized I was naked beneath the thin sheet, so I couldn’t even get up if I wanted to.

Finally, she said, “Why did you do it? Try to save that man?”