Chapters It was another late shift.
Many of Elliot's coworkers loathed the overnight, with its long stretches of nothing broken only rarely by the occasional trucker or weirdo. Far from avoiding it, Elliot often volunteered.
There was something honest about only a few tables at a time, delivering bizarre orders to those customers who rolled in when honest folk were asleep. Overnights were the shift for long conversations, for wild tangents and getting on a first-name basis with the regulars.
Ruby wasn't as fond of Elliot's choice of shifts, since it meant they spent less time together. But his girlfriend needed more time to study, anyway. Finals were coming up, and he was determined to see her graduate. At least one of them would amount to something.
Even for an overnight, that Thursday at the diner was a slow day. Elliot spent half the night refilling milkshakes at a booth full of 'tabletop gamers' fresh from a session of their latest--whatever it was that tabletop gamers did. Then hours more reading a trashy romance novel on his phone.
No, he didn't understand why Ruby wasted her time with these things. But she wanted to talk about it, so he had to catch up on the story. Sacrifices had to be made.
It was 2 AM when the entry bell rang, and someone shuffled through the door, making Elliot look up from his phone.
The figure was even more of a 'night customer' than the usual fare--wearing an oversized trenchcoat buttoned up all the way to the collar, despite the comfortable spring weather outside. He even wore dark sunglasses.
Elliot stood, tucking the phone away into a pocket, and slipped past the counter. "Just one?" He took one menu under his arm, not even waiting for the reply.
"I want to sit by a window. Please?" The customer's voice was a little higher than Elliot might expect for his vaguely masculine features. Whatever, he wasn't paid to judge.
He sat the customer near the window, then came back after a few minutes to take his order.
He still had the coat on, the collar all the way up over his neck. With glasses that dark, how could he even see what he was doing?
Maybe he couldn't. The menu remained folded flat in front of him, untouched. "I want the biggest plate you have. Vegetarian, please."
The biggest... plate? This wasn't the first time he had to do a little interpreting to get an order out of someone. He ran the customer through the options, and eventually settled on an oversized breakfast platter, substituting the bacon and sausage for vegetable soup.
When he returned with the soup a little while later, he found the mysterious customer now pressed up against the window, with a pad of paper in front of him covered in various scribbles.
Only when he set the soup down did Elliot see what was written there. Not the schizophrenic ramblings he expected--but neat rows of text, chemical formulas and equations. The customer pulled his hand back into the jacket as Elliot approached. Not fast enough to keep him from seeing something strange there.
He didn't see the pale tone of this man's skin, but something green instead. An infection, or maybe gangrene? "Can I get you anything else?" he asked, keeping his voice neutral. "Could call you an ambulance if you need it."
"No!" the customer snapped, a little too quickly. "No. Please. Something to eat is fine." He fumbled in his jacket for a few more seconds, knocking something out onto the table in front of him.
It spilled out--a dense roll of bills wrapped with a rubber-band. "Listen. You take that, pay for my meal. Bring out the rest. Change is your tip, if you don't come back until I'm gone. Don't seat anyone over here. Can we do that?"
Elliot's eyes widened. He watched the roll cross the table, then come to rest by the edge.
It wasn't the first time someone had asked for privacy--but the last customer to do it hadn't offered him several hundred or even more.
It wasn't a bribe, technically. Elliot wasn't being asked to do anything he wouldn't already. "Alright, sir." He took the cash, palming it away. "I'll take care of your bill right now. I'll be back when the kitchen is ready. Want a few refills of your drink while I'm at it?"
"Please. And nothing else. I won't stay long, promise."
Elliot did as he was told. He paid the bill, brought some refills, and the meal when it was ready. Then he kept his distance, and didn't return to the customer's table. He took his seat by the front, angled just far enough that he could see if the visitor did anything suspicious. If this turned gross, he would still call the police.
His money was real, albeit slightly damp. The hundred showed as not counterfeit, and went into the register without issue.
Nothing strange happened. The man switched sides in the booth so he had his back to Elliot's seat, and ate by hunching down over his plate in a way Elliot had never seen in a year of waiting tables. Weird, but not the weirdest customer he'd ever served during the night shift.
Elliot checked out the gamers a few minutes later. They lingered near the register to catch a glimpse at the mysterious man.
"What's his story?" one asked--from his shirt, he went to the same school as Ruby. He was also the one paying.
Elliot swiped his card, then handed it back. "No idea. Everyone's got one." He handed them the receipt, and watched them go. The night was winding down, and soon he would get to hand things off to the day shift.
What happened next was so fast, Elliot had no chance to react. A black suburban pulled in front of the diner, parking directly in front of the doors. Elliot stared, bewildered, as all four doors banged open.
They rushed the restaurant in an instant--four men. Three of them had heavy police gear, covering all but their eyes.
Elliot only had enough time to tuck his phone into his pocket when they rushed through the door, weapons drawn. "Military police! No one move!"
The lone customer either didn't hear them, or he didn't care. He stumbled out of his seat, rushing for the restrooms. It wouldn't help him--there were no exits that way.
Elliot lifted both hands over his head, staring forward in absolute bewilderment.
He wasn't watching when the three uniformed men reached the customer. He still heard the struggle, heard chairs knocked over and several plates shattering. Elliot's eyes were locked on the fourth man, wearing a dress uniform and carrying a thin leather folio.
He approached the desk, gesturing at Elliot's hands. "Sorry, kid. We don't mean to cause trouble for this restaurant. But my friend here wasn't quite so considerate."
He set the folio on the counter, flipping it open to reveal a badge inside, and a stack of cards. He slipped one card onto the counter.
Behind him, three soldiers carried a single struggling figure behind them, his outline obscured in the jacket. Strange, they'd chosen to wrap him tighter in it, rather than tossing the coat away.
"I don't want any trouble," Elliot said. "I just work here, man."
"And we won't give you any. I'd just like to take a statement."
He set a recorder on the counter between them. While the men loaded their prisoner into the truck, Elliot explained what had happened that night--with one exception. They weren't taking his tip into evidence, that was damn sure.
"You're sure he didn't speak with anyone else? No one made physical contact with him?"
As the officer spoke, two soldiers returned--one with bags, the other with a pressurized sprayer. They worked over the customer's booth, grabbing everything he'd touched, and spraying anything too large to toss into their yellow and black bags. Meanwhile, the chef watched from the window, her face frozen somewhere between laughter and curiosity.
"There was only one other group here," Elliot answered. "They were in that booth in the corner. Never got close. Your, uh--your friend wanted me to make sure no one went over to him. I didn't touch him. Didn't even see his hands."
These people worked fast. The soldiers retreated, taking their sprayers and bags with them. They left a thin foam of sanitizer on several booths, and a whole section of the floor. "Thank you for your cooperation. You can tell your manager to call that number, the base will cover any incidental damage we caused. As for you... I just need your number in case we have any follow-up questions, and we'll be out of your hair."
Elliot gave it, feeling dread growing in his chest with every second. Of course it was too good to be true. He couldn't just have a fat tip to round out the night, so he could get something special for his girlfriend. It always had to be difficult. "Guess I shouldn't ask you what this is about."
"No, sir." The officer tucked his recorder away. "Be glad you don't know. A lot more paperwork that way. But if you think of anything else, call the number on that card. Even small details might be vital."
Elliot waited for the black SUV to drive away before going around the back for the cleaning supplies. He should probably count himself lucky that the police hadn't shattered windows and locked down the whole restaurant. Things could always be worse.
Morning shift wasn't for another hour--which meant it was his job to clean things up, mop up the disinfectant, and take replacement ketchup and spices out of storage. He did so, wiping down the strange customer's booth.
His hand bumped into something tucked under the table. It came free a second later with a little white notebook, covered in dense writing.
It wasn't the same page as before. Instead, it contained a photograph stapled to the page--a horse, though not quite the body shape of any he'd ever seen. This was smoother, cuter, with huge terrified eyes. It was also wearing shorts .
Text scribbled underneath read "Subject shows remarkable evidence of continuity with human identity. Recommend comprehensive personality screening before evaluation of--"
Elliot snapped the notebook closed, then tucked it away into his pocket.
The notebook boiled in the back of his mind while he worked, and was still there a few hours later. He rode home on his bike--he and Ruby shared a car, and she needed it to get to her morning classes. Better her be the one who could make a trip in safety, he would be fine.
Today he wished he had it, feeling the weight of cash in one pocket, and the flat notebook in the other.
He rode for a while, until he reached where the highway passed over a stretch of dry riverbed. It was a long way down--and more importantly, there were no cameras looking this way.
VOTE: What should Elliot do?
Author's Note
Vote in this chapter's survey here: https://take.supersurvey.com/poll5359716xaF734906-160 https://take.supersurvey.com/results5359716xaF734906-160#tab-2
With Strawpoll RIP, I may end up switching the site I use a few times if one gives trouble. We'll just have to see what ends up working the best.
The chapter art was KlaraPL! (and if you're seeing this little note, the piece is still WIP. I'll replace it with the finished one once I get it)
Elliot glanced nervously in both directions, just to be sure there was no one watching. There were a handful of small cars on the road now, and there would be more with every minute. As Aurora woke, so too did its residents. Within the hour, there would be dozens of people moving in either direction, making anything even remotely like stealth completely impossible.
The best place to read would be home, obviously. But if he didn't know what was inside, he couldn't bring it back to Ruby's apartment! His girlfriend didn't deserve to be implicated in any of this.
He leaned over the bridge, holding the notebook cautiously with one hand. That way, he could keep it entirely out of view from the street. Only another pedestrian would be able to see what he was doing, which he should hear coming.
"Property of Dr. Randolph Zelenka. If found, please return to..."
Elliot skimmed past the contact info, though filed it away in the back of his mind for future use. Something told him that trying to call or contact the man who owned this would not be in his legal best interest at this moment.
He skimmed the next few pages, and instantly had a better idea of what he was looking at. This was a lab notebook, with detailed notes taken from observational experiments of some kind. Most of it went right over his head, but maybe his girlfriend would be able to make more sense of it. Ruby was in her senior year of premed biology, with a semester before her graduation. She must've had to fill out notebooks like this. Elliot had a few vague memories charting reactions in high school chemistry, none of them particularly pleasant.
They grabbed Dr. Zelenka for a reason. It has to be in here somewhere.
Granted, he didn't know whether the doctor had intended to leave this notebook behind when those MPs came for him, or whether the drop was happenstance. But his instincts told him the latter. He wanted Elliot to stay as far away from him as possible, to the tune of several hundred dollars in cash. If he wanted to keep the notebook safe, he could've asked for that instead.
The last few pages of the notebook were those that had last caught his attention, and that was where his eyes went now, under a heading of "Spontaneous Causality Violations Along Closed Timelike Curves".
That was what he thought it said, anyway. Despite not appearing to be a medical doctor, that trope apparently held true here.
The doctor had helpfully written a few lines in bold, circling and underlining them several times next to a few simple number tables.
"Subject Zeta" was the heading, with "mass" charged along with "time".
Elliot didn't need any kind of advanced degree to see the 'subject' had begun this trial at 101 kilograms, and ended it somewhere near fifteen. In a vacuum, that could mean almost anything—an evaporating liquid, the funds in Elliot's bank account as the month's bills all hit one after another, or maybe a chunk of limestone getting eaten by acid.
All those might be possible, except for the photograph stapled to the page, a vaguely equine shape with a bright yellow coat and positively enormous eyes. At that size, the photo allowed the animal's terror in vivid detail. It was sitting inside something metal, with air holes along the side and a ceiling low enough that it couldn't stand up all the way.
"Subject shows remarkable evidence of continuity with human identity. Recommend comprehensive personality screening before evaluation of intelligence. Objects of significance to subject's life could be used to gauge the degree of connection, preferably with many lookalike duplicates that might be easily confused. Details of the intelligence profile difficult to extract without autopsy, though subject size suggests normal IQ unlikely. Bony protrusion appears unlikely to be sufficient for any practical defensive purpose.
Propose increase in bioscience funding to grey board, 45B. Require specific talents in protein folding to identify reverse chirality in identified analogues. "
It went on and on like that for the rest of the page, saying very smart-sounding things that would probably make sense to someone who wasn't a waiter at a diner. He prepared to shut the book and tuck it away, except for the bolded portion on the reverse side. That text was the last Dr. Zelenka had written before losing the notebook. Judging by the number of times he'd circled that little block of text, it must be important.
"Phosphorescence of subject correlates to cascading causality violations. Effects are undetectable, except as a curious numbing sensation detectable only to sapient subjects. Animal models appear unaffected."
Then below the block, in much messier yet somehow easier-to-read words: "IT'S ALREADY TOO LATE"
Elliot briefly considered tossing the whole notebook into the river a second time. Even if the exact meaning of all those science-sounding terms was lost on him, he felt their ominous implications on a level beyond literal meaning. It was already too late for what?
Elliot tucked the notebook away again, and resumed his ride. He had been working all night, right up to the most bizarre encounter of his entire employed life. By the time he woke up, Ruby should be back from her morning classes, and maybe she would have some time to make sense of what he'd found.
While he rode, Elliot expected to see the flashing blue and red of the police, or maybe worse. Those soldiers might roll up with their hazmat suits and drag him off to join the doctor in who knew what unknown fate. Yet there were no police, no soldiers, no sign that anything was different from an ordinary morning in Aurora.
He didn't ride all the way to the school, just the close blocks of apartments a mile or so away where many of its seniors or recent graduates lived. He headed up the steps, tapped his magnetic key, and the apartment clicked open.
The apartment was always a relief from the heat and stress of the world outside—Ruby made sure of that. His girlfriend wasn't just brilliant, she was also a natural with every green thing she touched, filling the space with flowers and herbs. The little outdoor balcony was almost entirely overrun with them, aside for the narrow gap just wide enough for his bike.
"Morning, Elliot," said a young woman, passing him as he shut the glass door to the balcony. "How's the traffic?
That was Samantha, Ruby's roommate from before the two had moved in together. Sam was everything Ruby wasn't—short and solid, with more muscle on those arms than most young women her age. Her grease-stained overalls got a little less blue with every passing day.
"Slow," he said. "Ruby already gone?"
"Yep." She spun slowly around, holding out her arm until it pointed back into the kitchen. "Left breakfast for you in the kitchen. I stole some of the bacon, sorry not sorry." Samantha grinned up at him, entirely unabashed by the admission.
Elliot settled into a kitchen chair, shrugged out of his jacket, and removed the plate covering the food his girlfriend had made for him. She'd already put just the right amount of butter and syrup on the pancakes for him. He took one bite, then grinned. Much better than anything they served at work.
"I get enough bacon on the job anyway!" he called back into the living room, gently nudging the few remaining slices away with his fork. "I can't even smell it anymore without thinking of work."
"In that case..." she hurried back over, snatched a fork off the cupboard, and stabbed all three slices right off his plate. She took all three into her fingers, then tossed the fork back into the sink. "If she asks, I'll tell her you told me it was okay."
He shrugged, and went back to eating. Elliot ate some of the eggs and one of the pancakes—not so much because he was hungry, but because Ruby had put in the work to make extra.
Sam shut the door a few minutes later, thumping down the steps to the ground floor. A few seconds later, he heard her swearing from the parking lot, along with a groan of metal as her old pickup finally banged to life.
Now the sun was properly up, filling the windows with blinding orange light. With it came the true weight of Elliot's exhaustion. He hadn't just been working all night, but he'd also seen something incredible, and maybe dangerous.
Would the military look him up, and search his property just to be sure? It wouldn't be hard to get any of his contact information they wanted—he even got mail at that apartment.
Maybe there was a smart-person way to scan the notebook, then destroy the original, storing away the text in some form that wouldn't be easy to extract. But if Elliot knew how to do things like that, he would probably be earning a living wage by now.
It's probably fine. If it was that serious, they wouldn't have just let us go.
Even so, Elliot spent almost an hour in the shower after that, scrubbing every inch of himself, until the soap made his skin itch and the water had long since run cold. By the time he was finished, he barely had the energy left to pull on a pair of boxers before crashing face-first into the bed he shared with Ruby. He was unconscious in seconds.
Elliot had always been a light sleeper, light enough that even minor changes in his bedrooms could jostle him back to reality. His mind still felt groggy, as though his resting time had been far less than it ought to be.
But maybe he was wrong—that sure looked like the high sun of afternoon peering through the blinds.
Ruby shuffled through the doorway, weighed down by a backpack much heavier than she should have to lift. She was trying to move quietly, though of course it wouldn't make a difference. By the time she reached her desk, he was already sitting up, watching her from across the room. "How goes midterm prep?"
Ruby turned to look back at him. She was everything that Samantha wasn't—tall, athletic, with bright red orange hair and a splattering of freckles. Most days she wore contacts, though evidently she hadn't found the time to put them in that morning, because she had the glasses instead.
That was fine by Elliot—she looked even smarter that way.
"Not great. Campus got locked down right after lunch. Not... exactly sure why. But now the study group is going to meet over zoom, and you just know how shit that's gonna be. This is not the day for a drill."
He rolled out of bed, making his slow way over to join her. But from the slouch in her shoulders and the sharpness in those eyes. Affection wasn't what Ruby wanted right now. "Guess you want your room back?"
"Nah, I can zoom from the living room. Sam's out until six, and I know you need to keep sleeping. Just got to get my laptop in this mess..."
She stopped, holding up the paper notebook from on top of it. "This yours?"
Elliot had to decide...
1. Ruby's studying can wait, this is more important. Tell her everything and ask her to look over the notebook. 2. If she doesn't pass her exams, Ruby will be stuck here another semester. You can talk about it over the weekend. 3. Knowing any of this might make her liable—snatch the notebook quickly, and pretend it's nothing. It's probably time to get it out of the apartment.
Author's Note
Trying a different site as recommended by equestrian.sen in the comments. This is probably plenty powerful for what we're doing here. But we'll see how it holds up in the coming days, and maybe switch as required.
My goal would be to do about one of these chapters per week, depending on length. Though at the beginning some of the poll options may not be as life or death as what's coming when the events on the cover are fully set in motion.
Vote in this week's poll:https://poll.horse/NC9B9YXe
Tell Her Everything (56%)
Elliot shook his head once. "Listen, I know you've got important studying to do. But I have something here I think you should see. Got a minute?"
"A minute," she repeated, holding the notebook up in one hand. She squinted down at the writing on the front page. "Dr. Zalenka, huh? Didn't know you by that name."
Elliot snatched the notebook out of her fingers, twisting around her to lean against the wall. "Before you look, you need to know how I got it. Then maybe you can make more sense of what's in there than I can."
He would have to contain his guilt about disrupting her studying--but there would always be more time for that later. For all they knew, he'd just witnessed some world-redefining horror, and would soon be at the center of it. She would thank him later, hopefully.
He told her everything--the strange visitor, their odd conversation, the roll of cash he'd tried to pay with. Then the officers, and the team with their strange uniforms who showed up to round up the visitor.
He didn't get one word further before Ruby reacted, jerking alert from the seat and staring at the notebook he was holding. It wasn't the mention of the military that seemed to bother her, but the way they were dressed.
"They cleared you to walk away though, right? You were honest about how much you touched him?"
Elliot nodded. "Told them the truth. Weirdo didn't shake my hand, and it wasn't like I cleaned his table or anything. I did touch the notebook, obviously. But I washed my hands after. Showered real good after I got back here too."
Ruby winced, rubbing her temples with both fingers. "You're lucky you're so cute, Elliot. Because you are an idiot." She glanced nervously over the bedroom. "I've got gloves and masks in a box down the hall. You're going to put them on with me, while we figure out everything you've touched since then."
Elliot nodded. "I guess... whatever you think we should do, Ruby. You think there was something that dangerous? Could there be, like... smallpox on his notebook?"
She backed away, digging a brown box out of the nearby closet and dumping it onto the floor. She dug out a large container of hand sanitizer, and went about squeezing some all over both of them. Gloves came next, then the masks. "Probably not," she said, as soon as they were both ready. "But if they thought it was a big enough deal that they needed to wear PPE, it's enough to have me worried . Not enough to run away and firebomb the apartment, but... we can still be smart about it."
The next few minutes involved the rather unpleasant task of finding everything in the apartment that Elliot had touched since coming inside, and tossing it into a garbage bag, then layering that inside another one. Anything too big to bag, like furniture, got an ample spray of disinfectant, enough that the whole apartment soon stank of it.
That meant the sheets on their bed, several plates and forks and shampoo bottles and towels and several items of clothing.
They showered when they finished, even more intense than what Elliot had done when he first got back. There was nothing the least bit stimulating about that particular shower with his girlfriend. By the end, his skin was red and irritated, albeit not actually bleeding.
The notebook and cash hadn't been trash-bagged, though they'd tossed both in a set of gallon-sized ziplock bags.
It took about an hour after Ruby came in before they were finally sitting back in front of the notebook again, no longer wearing masks or gloves. Though with all the disinfectant in the air, Elliot could barely even breathe , so hopefully anything unsafe in the air would have an even harder time.
"Now that you didn't lead with the most important part," Ruby said, tapping the notebook against the table in front of her. "You're going to tell me what that thing is."
"Wish I could." He stood just behind her, where he could look over her shoulder at whatever she was doing to the object inside the bag. They'd stuck a few pencils in too, to give them something to hold through the plastic to manipulate the notebook within. "Flip through to the last few pages. There's a... photograph. Or maybe it's AI? Maybe I was just on one of those candid camera shows, and I didn't realize it."
Flipping through the notebook was now much more difficult, for obvious reasons. Ruby eventually managed, relying on him to hold one half of the book down while she read over the same pages he had.
She squinted down at the plastic, then pressed it flat so she could take a picture with her phone. She looked at that instead, zooming it up and peering at different parts of the image.
"I think you'd know a fake picture better than I would. You were the one who wanted to go into computers."
Wanted to. Those two words cut as deeply as any physical blow. It didn't even matter that Ruby didn't mean it that way. It was almost worse . Just wanting to master something did not mean it was actually possible. Elliot just hadn't been smart enough.
"It doesn't seem fake to me," Elliot said. "I would need the file to be sure. But that doesn't mean it isn't a prop, or a costume, or a model or whatever. But the real question would be why ? Why go to all this trouble to freak out a bored nightshift waiter? It's not like they got a lot of publicity, there weren't even any other diners in the restaurant when the military guys came in."
Ruby raised one hand. "Stop talking for a second and let me read. If I don't get to study, I will figure out what the hell is going on here. Let's see if this Dr. Zalenka wrote anything else interesting."
Apparently he had, because Ruby spent at least an hour going through the last sections of the notebook. She grabbed a little notebook of her own, and started scribbling down information onto a few scraps of printer paper next to her. She filled one page with random disconnected sentences, all obviously very important to her judging on the face she made when she wrote them.
Mostly Elliot stayed out of her way until she finished. Occasionally he glanced out the window, in case there might be flashing blue and red lights closing in on the apartment. But he saw none, or any sign that they'd been found.
"The shit you got us into, Elliot," Ruby called, sliding her wooden chair away from the notebook. "Absolutely mental."
He hesitated in the kitchen long enough to bring her a fresh bottle of her favorite green tea, and a can of Diet Coke for himself. He brought over the stool, then sat down next to her, pushing the drink over.
Ruby watched him come, settling her glasses back onto the table between them.
"For what it's worth, I'm the one who's caught up in this, not you." He cracked the can open, then took a weak sip. "You weren't in that restaurant. I can take all this stuff, burn it, and you had nothing to do with it."
Ruby shook her head once. "Good news is, they didn't think that anything dry could be a vector. There's no secret military nanobots in that bag, or mega-ebola, or something even worse. I don't see any cuts on your hands..." She gestured, making him hold them out in front of her. Elliot obeyed, letting her inspect both sides.
She nodded a second later, pushing them back over the table. "I'm not seeing anything. Assuming you cleaned up really well, you should be safe. Hopefully." She pushed her chair back, leaning it up against the wall. "You think there's any way those military guys might find their way back here? Maybe... poking around for it?"
"If they think something went missing, they could find their way back here for sure. But it doesn't feel like giving us this thing could be a... mistake." He nudged the plastic bag with his knuckles, as though that might somehow keep whatever was inside from escaping and poisoning him.
"Maybe more... disgruntled employee? What was in there, anyway?"
Ruby shuddered, then cracked open the plastic bottle of sweet tea. She spun it through her fingers, without taking a sip. "Most of it is beyond me. Like--way beyond me, and probably most of my professors too. You probably need to be in your fifties to have enough degrees to understand everything in there." She took another long sip, draining half the bottle this time.
"What about the... part at the end? You think they were experimenting on a human subject?"
She shook her head. "Their subjects were all researchers on... whatever they were doing. Doesn't say how they got exposed, but apparently those who worked most closely with their apparatus started showing symptoms. That was what Dr. Zalenka was recording."
"If it's real," Elliot said. "Could be... fake? You think maybe it might not be real? Some kind of joke, or prank, or something? Please say yes."
Ruby pushed the notebook away. "Almost certainly not. It would probably cost like--more than your car, to get a fake like this made. You would need to consult real scientists for the whole thing. A whole team of fake soldiers to plant it, actors..." she slid her chair closer to him.
Elliot wrapped his arm around her shoulder, and held on. He said nothing, just holding her firmly. As strange as the whole nightmare situation appeared, they wouldn't be facing it alone.
"I could still throw it away," Elliot said. "Pretend we never saw anything. Delete that photo you took, and play dumb. We don't owe Dr. Zalenka anything for dumping this on us."
Ruby looked up at him. She reached over the table, then held up the little bundle of cash, in its own plastic bag. "Maybe he did. That's, what?"
"1k, ish," he answered. "Guess we would have to ditch that too. No trace that we had anything to do with it."
Ruby sat silent for a long time, one hand tracing idly over his chest. Eventually she stood, glaring down at the evidence now sitting on her desk. "I think you have to decide. You chose not to get those military guys involved. What happens next is up to you."
Elliot could hear the message under her words loud and clear. Ruby didn't deserve to get dragged down into whatever legal mess happened as a result. That seemed fine by Elliot--they were his choices, and he would have to live with them. "How will we know I got infected?"
His girlfriend glanced briefly down at the notebook again. "Should be pretty dramatic when it happens. Subject Zeta went from human sized to that... thing... in a week. Was already down 10 kilos in the first day. I imagine that's quite an unpleasant process. So if you're screaming in agony by this time tomorrow, we'll know."
He already knew what had to happen next. "Can't ditch the cash. Traceable or not, we might need it if something terrible starts happening to me. Is there anything we can do to make sure it's not contaminated before we deposit it? I'm thinking... buy some gold around town, pawn shops. Then pawn the gold at a few different shops to turn it back into cash. Lossy, but harder to follow."
Ruby grinned weakly at him. "Sneaky. But... kinda? We can spray it with antiseptic, wash it out with something that won't ruin the ink. Baking would be ideal, but I don't want to put something potentially contaminated into the oven we eat from. Maybe we could use the toaster oven? A tragic sacrifice in the line of duty. What about the notebook?"
Elliot didn't need very long to consider his answer. He had already been thinking it over.
Lose it, carefully. If the army needs this thing to reverse-engineer a cure to some deadly plague, you'll still know where it's hidden. Otherwise, it can be gone from your lives. Remove any trace it was ever in the apartment.
Information Must be Free . You've got a friend with a chip on his shoulder you met while in school for CS. Let him find a way to get the notebook uploaded, without tracing it back to you.
Hide it carefully, but keep it close. You have a bad feeling you might need what it contains. Maybe Sam can help you stash it inside a part of your car people don't usually open.
Author's Note
Vote in this week's poll here: https://poll.horse/aSFmq4Z7
Well I say this week, but I haven't settled on an update schedule for the story yet. Got to strike the balance between enough that it can move at a reasonable pace, but not so fast that no one has time to vote. I'll list a formal update schedule when I come up with one.
The next few hours passed about how Elliot expected. After heat-treatment in the sacrificial toaster-oven, he went out to make purchases of supplies around town, always getting the maximum possible change for each transaction. If he had to spend some of the money anyway, he went shopping as though he was about to go on a long camping trip. Plenty of cans and non-perishables, a new camp stove, some fuel.
Incidentally, many of the same things he might need if they were about to disappear into the Rockies for a few weeks.
By the time Elliot returned, the weight of exhaustion hung heavy on him, no doubt the product of that long night and not enough sleep. He had to last a little longer, until Sam got off work and could help with the final stage of the plan.
"Don't you think this is a little paranoid?" she asked, under the amber lights of a parking lot. He'd bribed her with a meal and a beer for her help, including the willingness to drive out to a church parking lot he knew wasn't watched by any cameras.
"Feels like you've wrapped a book in this thing. Just throw it out if you don't want it. Don't have to keep it in your car."
She had one of the body panels opened, wedged wide enough to squeeze the plastic-wrapped notebook inside.
"Just pretend it never happened," Ruby said, from the passenger seat. There was no one nearby--no lights on in the building, and nothing but the occasional rumble of tires as cars passed along the road. "Hopefully it doesn't matter, and we can all just forget we ever had anything to do with it."
Sam shrugged, wedging the little notebook inside, then took up her little can of spray-foam from the ground. "If that's what you want, whatever. If it felt like there was powder in there, I'd tell you no. But if you wanna get silly about a book, fine."
She did some other things--scratched up several other parts of the car, so her work in one place wasn't quite so obvious. But Elliot tried not to watch as much as possible. The less she knew about the process, the easier it would be to plead ignorance without needing to act.
He cracked open another energy drink and powered it down while Sam finished. By the end, he felt functional, enough that he could probably make it through a shift without collapsing on his feet.
"I'd be happier if you called out," Ruby said from the driver's seat about half an hour later, as they finally pulled up to the diner. "You look terrible, Elliot. Not the charming kind."
He buttoned his black shirt, then lifted a crumpled apron out from the corner. "Kinda feel it too," he admitted. He could start to feel it in his voice--raw, from all that planning and shopping and careful strategy. "But I can't. If there's a sickness going around, don't want to make it look like I've come down with it, you know?"
He drained the last few sips of chemical slurry from a colorful energy can, then held still as Ruby kissed him on the cheek.
"I'll pick you up in the morning," she said. "Don't even think about walking."
He wouldn't. He might've thought about riding back, though of course since they had driven him to work, that wouldn't be possible. Sam got out and took his seat, giving him a greasy two-fingered salute as she shut the door.
"Fight on, paranoid schizophrenic. May the aliens never abduct you to wherever Elvis is hiding. Or... whatever sleep deprivation did to you."
Elliot was too tired for an appropriately sharp reply. He stumbled in through the door, fixing his uniform as he went.
His diner looked different than the night before in one critical way: it was spotless. Gone was the thin layer of grime on every surface, the discoloration on the wallpaper, the old grease stains on every booth. Instead, the smell of harsh chemical cleaners dominated the air. Someone had moved most of the booths, spreading them out in a way he'd never seen before, leaving not-so-subtle discoloration on the floor between them from where the setup had been altered.
There are two missing. Someone who wasn't a regular might not even realize that things had changed, or at least not how. But after spending so many restless hours staring at the diner, Elliot saw it instantly.
The night manager was even there, rather than failing to show up for his shift without so much as a text message. He had a few words with Elliot before he began, complimenting him for the way he handled the "uncomfortable events" of the night before. Though he did have one difficult question that Elliot couldn't explain.
"More representatives from the base were here earlier today, with a crew to make sure everything was clean. Wanted to grab all our camera footage, except..."
Oh no. Horror washed over him, as he realized what this was about to mean. The diner's cameras must've captured that notebook, or maybe the enormous 'tip' that the fleeing Dr. Zalenka gave him. It wouldn't matter how well he hid it if CCTV showed the whole thing. I'm going to jail for life, aren't I? There are undercover cops eating in that booth near the office right now.
He folded his hands together on the old desk, fixing Elliot with a sudden, intense stare. "Turns out the system stopped recording, right after that guy walked in. You're handing him his menu one second, then... black. Tell me how that happened."
Elliot relaxed visibly. Maybe if he was a little more awake, he might have managed to keep his expression a little more neutral. But he was too exhausted for any real deception. "No idea, boss. I don't even have a key to the security closet, you know that."
Only the managers did, which included his boss, the night manager. Who hadn't sent a single message about why he wasn't there. If he had falsified his timecard again, that would even put him as on duty when the whole thing happened, yet unseen by the visiting soldiers.
"Yes, I do. But there are other ways to..." Mr Moon ran one nervous hand through his own hair, sweeping back the thinning black mass. "There has to be an explanation. Cameras never failed on us before. Whole system goes down all at once like that..."
Elliot shrugged. "You said I was on camera giving the guy a menu when they malfunctioned, right? So clearly I had nothing to do with it." He stood up, pushing back the chair. "Sorry boss. Nothing I can tell you there."
This strange new salvation left Elliot with something new to contemplate during the shift. An unusually busy night, giving him very little time to rest. Many were students, wanting somewhere late to eat while they studied for the upcoming finals. Many even brought books or flashcards in, and sat with their friends to study.
He must look particularly bad if even the customers started noticing he was struggling. He did his best not to mix up any orders, fighting to stay on his feet until it was finally time to change over to the day shift.
Ruby was waiting near the back in his old car, engine running and looking far better than he felt. At least one of them got sleep. "Not feeling any smaller, are you?"
He fixed her with a flat glare, then slumped into the seat. "Don't think so. Uniform still fits. Can we sleep now?"
He must've been particularly exhausted, because Elliot slept at least ten hours after work that day. It was already almost dark by the time he stumbled from the bedroom, feeling like he'd barely just lain down. He found Ruby at a folding desk against the wall, surrounded by textbooks and several colored highlighters.
She waved at him with a few, though she didn't get up. Voices muttered to each other from the laptop balanced on a nearby bookshelf, probably her fellow students. Good, she's getting to study after all. Elliot smiled back at her, then continued into the kitchen to find something to eat.
But the idea of going through the effort to actually make anything felt overwhelming--far beyond whatever energy he had. He settled for half a glass of apple juice, carrying it to the kitchen table and sitting down across from Sam. "Hey."
Sam lifted her head from the tools in front of her--bits of leather, fasteners, punches, and other things he had no names for. A few scraps clung to her damp skin, wedging in around her face. "Hey Elliot. Hope I didn't... get you sick." Her voice was low and gravelly, even for Samantha. "Looks like I might."
He set his glass down in front of him, without taking a sip yet. "I'm not sick. Just... catching up from some sleep debt."
She shrugged. "Hope so. Client a few days ago had six little nightmares in her stupid minivan. Had to bring them all in for a stupid oil change, coughing and sneezing and dripping all over everything. Thought maybe I got the bandanna over my mouth in time, but..." she shrugged. "Guess not."
Elliot took a few sips from his glass. The flavor was wrong , the usual sweetness and rich flavor of the fresh apple juice replaced with only a faint undercurrent of sugar. "I can't get sick right now," he said, as though he could declare it so by will alone. "Finals are always the most important nights of the year. I can't call out!"
She shrugged. "If it makes you feel any better, seemed like it was just a cold. I've got some... pills and stuff in my bathroom cupboard. Go ahead and steal 'em if you need. Since it's... my fault."
She lowered her head back to the table, resting up against the sheets of uncut leather. "Sorry. Would've kept my distance if I thought... and it's probably too late for Ruby too. Maybe she can take her finals before she gets hit."
From her obvious energy, his girlfriend didn't seem like she'd been affected. She talked animatedly about some cellular process or another, using words he couldn't pronounce. Smart, pretty, and loyal. I don't deserve her.
"That why she's over there?" he guessed. "Doesn't want the mange?"
Sam nodded without lifting her head, more twitching against the table. "Doubt it will help, unless you start sleeping on the couch."
"I will," he decided, without hesitation. Even if it was just a cold, he would've kept his distance from Ruby, if that meant a better shot she could take her finals with all her faculties intact. But this might not be a cold.
"Suit yourself," she said. "Ruby was gonna run for chicken soup after she finished. I'll tell her to bring some for you too."
That sounded wonderful about then, about as wonderful as climbing back into bed and sleeping another 10 hours. But work would be expecting him in four, so there was no time for that.
Elliot took another energy drink, then shuffled his way to the bathroom to clean up. He did so, checking the scale twice to confirm. He weighed a little more than the last measurement, not less. I'm normal. Nothing's happening. I'm not gonna end up like Dr. Zalenka.
He felt much better after a hot shower, and long enough for the energy drink to finally take effect. Not 100%, he still had a fever and a steady flow of slime trickling down his nose. But a cold had never slowed him down before.
He dressed, then crossed the hall to Samantha's bathroom, which he almost never used. The inside was much too messy for him to use normally, with empty bottles and makeup containers covering every inch of counter space. But the mirror on the cupboard was clean, enough to show his reflection staring back as he tugged it open.
He looked worn out, though that was to be expected. Yet with the gel still drying in his hair, it did look a little... different. Was that his imagination, or was it longer? Not only that, but Sam's choice of mismatched light bulbs made his hair look almost bluish near the roots.
I'm not infected, he thought. It's all in my head. It's just the lights.
Another twenty minutes and the cold medication later, and Elliot felt much closer to human. The worst-timed cold in the history of the human race would not be enough to stop him now.
But something else might be. He found a message waiting on his phone, apparently arrived a little before he woke up.
It was from his boss. "Elliot, there's gonna be a few people from the base to talk to you when you get here. Not sure what it's about. Please think long and hard about everything you remember from two nights ago. They're threatening to call the health inspector. You better say everything they want to hear."
Elliot slumped against the wall, sliding all the way down to the floor. Shit .
Elliot had a decision to make.
Call in Sick. You caught a cold from a roommate, that was all. They'll recognize the need for caution.
Go anyway. You've got nothing to hide. Down some DayQuil and show how healthy you are.
Run! Even a small chance that this little cold could be connected might mean vanishing into an unmarked van. Time to go camping!
Author's Note
Vote in this chapter's poll here: https://poll.horse/4xyyZQRp
Elliot drove to the diner.
He felt a lot better with a heroic dose of cold medicine in his system, reducing his temperature and banishing the sniffles and occasional coughs. He left a brief note to Ruby, explaining that she might have to wait until the end of his shift if she wanted the car.
He felt better, but not so much better that he could endure the significant physical strain of a bike across town.
Driving through Aurora felt... different, somehow. A strange dread followed him, like knowing he had left something at home while already on the plane for his vacation. Or that awful knowledge that he hadn't studied for an upcoming test, and was doomed to fail it no matter how hard he tried.
Maybe it was his imagination, maybe it was the cold. He spent the drive wondering exactly what he was missing. Was there some easy way to discover the journal he had missed? Could there be a tracking device somehow concealed in the pages, small enough that he hadn't noticed?
He had more cold medicine in the glovebox, enough to get him through the rest of the shift. He would ask for fewer hours next week, maybe even some overtime at the end of the week, to give him time to recover from this little cold.
It wasn't just Elliot that wasn't in top form today. His car spluttered a little going up the hill, and the overhead lights switched on at least twice during the drive. Maybe Sam had rustled some of the wiring around when they pulled off a piece of body panels.
"I don't have time for this right now..." Elliot ran his free hand through his hair as he pulled into the parking lot, feeling his heart beating faster in his chest. It was a busy night, even for this early into the shift. But before he could get to that, he would need to survive whatever waited in the black Suburban parked near the edge of the lot, with tinted windows and exempt plates.
"I can do this. They just need to think everything is normal. Because it is. I just have a cold, that's all. I don't know anything, I'm not a threat. I just want to work my stupid job and make my crappy paycheck. "
He drove through the lot as usual, all the way around to the back with the other employees. He pulled into the spot, and the light came on again. "Stop!" He reached up for it, and a little bolt of static connected him to the fabric ceiling, sharp enough to briefly turn his fingers numb, sending little tendrils of pain into his scalp.
"I thought you were a mechanic, Sam. What wires did you cross?" He switched off the car, tucked the keys into a pocket, and made his way into work.
As expected, there was someone waiting for him in the diner. Mr. Moon waved him into the back, where the banquet room was still decorated with pink streamers and balloons from a child's birthday party. Must've been a few days back, judging by the sad state of some of those balloons.
That only made the scene more absurd: a woman a little older than he was sat at one end of the long table, with a plain white notebook in front of her and a plastic recorder. Her partner shut the door behind him as he walked in, also not the same person as Elliot saw the day before.
This man was bigger, broader of shoulder, with a military haircut and muscles that his black suit could barely contain.
The woman waved him into the seat beside her. "Elliot, I think. You were the waiter on duty when that fugitive was here, correct? I'm Agent Butler. My partner is Agent Lance. We won't take too much of your time."
He obeyed, settling into the offered seat without objection. "Already told the last guy everything. Not that there was very much to tell."
He sat as still as he could, making polite eye contact without staring. Just have to make it through the same story as last time. Then they leave, and I can go to my stupid shift.
She nodded. "I've been over the audio recording several times, along with the account of the other staff at the time. This is... something else."
She clicked the plastic button on her audio recorder, turning it towards him.
But it was Agent Lance who spoke, walking slowly back and forth by the door. "Officer Prahlow is dead, along with the rest of his containment team."
His voice was everything Elliot expected, deep and confident. His words, though--
Shock overwhelmed him, washing away whatever he'd been planning to say. Elliot had barely even known the man's name, and probably wouldn't have remembered it at all if it wasn't on the card. How could he be dead ?
"We need to know if you saw anything strange from Prahlow, or any of the people in his cleanup detail," Agent Butler continued, too fast for him to recover.
She nudged the recorder a little closer to him then, apparently ready for him to answer.
That didn't mean he actually knew what to say. "Officer Prahlow... asked me some questions. About the guy in the jacket. I told him what I saw, and his guys cleaned up the place he sat. Everything about that night was strange. Was there something specific?"
She tilted her head to one side. As she did, the suit jacket slipped off a short distance, exposing the handgun tucked against her chest. So long as it stayed in there. "Unusual behavior, lights or sounds you couldn't explain, nausea or lack of coordination. Anything you saw might help us isolate what happened here. No detail is too small to be potentially significant."
Dead . That didn't fit into what he'd read of the notebook, though in other ways it made perfect sense. If someone wanted to reduce his mass by that much, they'd have to slice his head off and just keep that. I have no idea what's really happening here. Find one stupid notebook and suddenly I understand this?
"You saw something," Lance brushed the glitter off another chair, then slid it next to him and sat down, facing Elliot instead of the table. "We need to know what it was."
Not the notebook. He knew without even looking at Lance what would happen if he shared that piece of information. They'll lock me up for a few months, or maybe drive out into the desert and shoot me.
"Not about... Prahlow, you said his name was? Nothing about him. I could tell that the guy in the jacket didn't want me to see him. Had this way oversized jacket--all his clothes were kinda big, actually. Sounded weird when he talked. And I think maybe he had colored contacts on? But I didn't see any of the soldiers in those suits, and Prahlow... nothing. You said you heard the interview already."
Lance folded both arms across his chest. Butler scribbled several notes down on her pad, more than anything he'd said. "Don't remember you mentioning contacts in the recording."
He shrugged, using the gesture to wipe a little slime away from his nose. Good thing he'd taken all those medications--but they weren't enough to keep him feeling totally normal. The longer he sat here, the more unpleasant he felt. "Lights in this place aren't the best, especially in that corner. But thinking about it... I'm pretty sure there were."
Lance smacked the table next to him, loud enough to startle him into sitting up. "No aggression? No signs of illness? They should've barely been able to walk . Whoever--" he stopped, silencing whatever he'd been about to say. "The fugitive couldn't have done it. Someone else..."
"Someone else was spreading a potentially deadly contaminant," Agent Butler continued helpfully. "It can kill rapidly, Elliot. Worse than radiation, worse than any poison you can imagine."
She leaned closer to him, then tapped the single button atop the recorder. "Clearly you're still standing, but there was at least one other case from that night. There are four fatalities at this moment. If this thing gets loose in Denver, it could be a million in a month."
Elliot gaped. "You're just... telling me?" They're gonna shot me in the desert. "No NDA, no security clearance, or..."
"You've been watching too much TV," Agent Lance said, rising from his chair. He stalked across the room to the other side, kicking aside a few of the balloons as he went. "You live here, Elliot. Your family are in Colorado, your girlfriend. If what was in here gets out there, they're fucked. We all are."
"Did you see the fugitive do anything to any of the men? Any unexplainable flashes of light, sounds, senses of sudden disorientation or nausea?" Agent Butler spun her pen around between her fingers, never looking away from his face. "Anything you saw, please. We need to know."
Elliot thought back, straining his memory for anything that would satisfy these agents. But unless he wanted to try and lie...
"Nothing like that. Dude fought, tried to get away, but they got him pretty quick. Didn't see any... flashes of light, you said? Didn't feel anything, other than terrified I was about to get shot." Kinda like I feel right now.
They didn't shoot him, or drag him into the back of a van. They didn't even take his temperature. Instead, Agent Butler gave him a little white plastic rectangle, about the size of a phone.
"You're going to keep this with you at all times," Agent Lance said, glowering down at him from the door. "All times. It's next to you when you take a shit, when you go out for a jog, when you're getting groceries. You keep it charged. If you don't, some people show up who make things far more unpleasant for you than it already is."
He took the rectangle, running his fingers over it. There was a USB-C port on the bottom, a single pinhole near the top, and not a lot else, besides a black barcode printed onto the plastic. "Okay. What is it?"
"Contact tracing," Agent Butler explained, far calmer. "We're giving them to anyone who had any contact with the fugitive. Hopefully, we'll be in touch in a few weeks' time to get this back. Then you'll never need to see us again."
Evidently he was the last one for an interview, because they left shortly after, sending him back in to finally begin his shift. Elliot spent that time with the addition of a new plastic rectangle in his pocket, wondering how much it was doing.
His cold medicine started fading about halfway through the shift. He topped it up as best he could, but the second dose just didn't have the same effect as the first time. He could keep the customers from noticing, if only by taking frequent trips to the restroom to clear his nose and wash his hands again.
If there was one mercy, it was that Mr. Moon was still upset with him, and his schedule for the next week contained few hours. Normally that was a punishment, holding back the part-time hours of someone who had screwed up. But when Elliot saw the schedule, he almost cheered.
Even so, there was nothing magic in suppressing symptoms. As morning approached, the weight on Elliot grew so heavy he barely made it to his car. Just a little further. It's almost over.
Elliot settled into his seat, then eased it back. He would just take a few moments to get his bearings, that was it. Just a few minutes...
The next thing Elliot knew was the ring of his phone, loud enough to jostle him awake. Bright light blinded him, bright enough that he had to shield his eyes with his arm, searching blindly for the phone with the other. He nearly ran out of rings before he finally got it in front of him, and tapped the button to answer.
"H-hello?" He sounded worse than last time, with slime dripping freely down his face and his sinuses filled with goop. His muscles had started aching too, stealing his coordination. Judging by the sun, it must be at least noon--how had he slept that long?
"Elliot? Are you alive?" Ruby asked. "And... not locked up."
"Yeah." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, forcing it into an upright position. Now that he was awake, he couldn't possibly get comfortable here anymore--the car was baking hot in the sun, and the sun blinded through every opening. He twisted the keys, and found it started without an issue. "Technically. Sam got me sick."
"I can hear," she answered. "Why didn't you come back? Ignored all my texts..."
"Fell asleep after the shift," he muttered. Every word hurt, like he'd swallowed a piece of glass and got it stuck somewhere down his throat. "I'll head over."
"You should. I was gonna tell you when you got there, but... I'm staying with a friend until finals are over on Friday. She's staying on campus, but I'd rather use an air mattress than get sick and miss an exam."
Those words were somehow both painful and a relief--he would never ask Ruby to give up her bed so he could recover without making her sick. But if she was going to do it on her own...
"But I can't wait any longer. There's another study group meeting soon, and my ride is heading back. I want to be on campus if they lock it down again."
I might know why they did that now. Or at least, he knew something connected to the reason. The "toxin" that had apparently killed every member of the team who showed up at the diner. Either they were lying to me, or we understand this so much worse than we thought.
But even sleep-deprived and ill, he knew better than to share that information over the phone. "Okay, Ruby. Love you."
"Love you too. And call me if you or Sam need anything. We both know she'll never ask." The line clicked.
He drove himself back to the apartment about twenty minutes later, after taking what was left of the cold medicine. It sort of helped--helped him enough not to go off the road. He was still a zombie when he shuffled up the steps and shut the apartment door behind him.
He made it as far as the couch before he collapsed into merciful unconsciousness again. He wasn't even awake to notice the rest of his brown hair falling out.
Author's Note
I'm loathe to do this, but I have to post a chapter without a vote this week. I hate to do this in a vote-driven story. I did think about making the chapter much shorter, with choices about how to deal with the investigators and what to say. But wrong choices on those options would take the story in a direction that wouldn't be very fun to read, so I took this route instead. I promise to do as few chapters without votes as possible!
When Elliot was a small child, he once contracted the stomach flu. Nothing quite equaled the misery he experienced in those weeks, living on the bathroom floor and ejecting his stomach every few hours, while his body ached and shook with constant pain. When it finally ended, he never imagined he would experience anything so horrible again.
And he was right, until that 'cold.'
Elliot couldn't say exactly what happened the next few days; sometimes he was awake, other times he slept. When he did wake, it was rarely to do more than toss and turn in Ruby's bed, drenched in sweat and shivering with cold he knew wasn't real. Sometimes he made it to the bathroom and drank something from the sink. Other times, he took whatever liquid was within reach and drained it, hoping it would help.
He thought about calling Ruby and asking for a trip to urgent care, since he couldn't trust himself to drive. But with a flu, was there anything she could do? Other than getting her sick too, and disrupting her final exams.
He sent a few texts whenever he was awake, simple things. "Still sick, hope your tests are going good!" Just enough so she knew he was thinking of her. Then he would curl back up, and go back to being miserable for another few hours.
Then came the first morning in a long time where Elliot didn't hurt. He saw sunlight streaming in through the window, and knew it must be early. But after how many days?
He stretched, sitting up without aches or shivers. Beneath him, Ruby's sheets were completely destroyed; covered with dry liquid, some of which had the brown look of blood. Yet the pain was gone now, except for a desperate hunger in his gut, days of appetite all crashing down on him at once.
Wonder what's left in the kitchen. He shifted atop the bed, ignoring the brief sense of disorientation that came with the motion. Was Ruby's room bigger than he remembered? No, obviously. He was just being paranoid. Who wouldn't feel a little on-edge after reading that notebook?
He reached the edge, then swung his legs out under him, and stood.
There was a brief drop before his feet found the ground, one that definitely shouldn't have happened. Sure, Ruby had to hop up, thanks to the storage blocks she had to give her room under the mattress. But he was too tall!
I'm just disoriented, that's all. I'll feel better once I get some food.
Sam wouldn't want to see him in a slime-covered t-shirt and boxers, and he wasn't particularly excited to smell himself this way any longer than he had to. So he shed it onto the floor, searching for where he'd hung his robe.
There, in a pile near the door! He must've put it on to use the bathroom at some point during his delirious fugue, and not remembered. It would work for right now.
Elliot brushed at his face, pushing something light away from his eyes. Apparently his bangs had decided to grow out just a little too far while he was out, too. More money for a haircut he didn't need to spend.
The robe was a little stiff and a little dirty, but better than the alternative. He shrugged it on with all the attention he had used to get undressed, and tied it off over his chest.
As best he could, anyway. The robe didn't fit as well as he remembered, trailing almost to the floor and requiring him to tuck it under itself almost all the way around to get it closed. Even then, it shifted when he moved, threatening to slip off his shoulders.
Doesn't have to last. Just long enough to make some eggs and get some oatmeal.
He shuffled out into the hall and found the lights on in the apartment beyond. The shower was running on Sam's side, with steam seeping out the hole in the bottom of the door. Good, he could be in and out before she noticed.
He reached the kitchen in a few moments, and found it more or less how he remembered. No fresh meals were in the sink, or bags of trash. Evidently he wasn't the only one who hadn't felt like eating. I should make something for Sam too. She's gonna feel as shitty as I do.
He made it to the fridge, and tugged the door open. There wasn't much, beyond the staples. Scrambled eggs it is.
He went to work with that simple task, draining what was left of the milk while he worked.
Everything felt subtly off while he worked, though he couldn't say exactly how. The floor was too slippery, the ceiling a little too high, the counters longer than he remembered. His arms smacked into things. He almost fell over at one point, knocking over his bowl of eggs and milk.
But he muddled through, focused on the tantalizing reward of hot food waiting at the end. He'd never be Ruby's equal in a kitchen, or skilled enough to take kitchen shifts at the diner. But he wasn't going to go hungry, either.
So it was he was finally eating when Sam came through the door, and slumped into the table opposite him, with far greater weight than Elliot might've expected. "You make any... extra?"
Sam had sounded bad before, but now; she didn't just sound raspy. More like a teenage boy, who had just dropped an octave but wasn't very confident in the sound of his own voice. How was she making it that deep?
Elliot nodded, looking up from his plate to pass the large tray of scrambled eggs towards the other side. Then he saw Sam, and his mouth hung open.
His roommate wore an oversized hoodie in nondescript grey, covered with various splotches of oil and other stains. She had the hood pulled all the way over her head, but that didn't cover the feathery strands of vivid yellow and black hair, somehow both emerging from the roots.
Violet eyes looked back from the hood, from a face that was sharper and more angular than it had any right to be. "Not a damn word, Elliot. Don't think I don't see you too."
Whatever he'd been about to say died in his throat. He swallowed nervously, then pushed the tray closer to Sam. He tried, anyway; his arms didn't reach quite as far as he would've liked.
"Hungry?" He might've said more, except--his voice was wrong too.
Not raspy or hoarse or aching, his throat felt fine . The problem was that he too was completely off, a register higher than he remembered. He flushed, running one nervous hand through his hair.
He brushed the hood of his robe away from his hair, following the strands with his fingers. It wasn't just his bangs, his hair now went all the way to his shoulders.
"Pass the ketchup, blue. And check the freezer, I should have some frozen breakfast sausages. Nuke those while you're up there."
Elliot stood to obey, retrieving the ketchup from the fridge. He set it down next to Samantha, eyes lingering on the yellow and black hair emerging from within. "What happened?"
No mistaking that voice this time; higher than Sam's used to be. A lot like his little sister's, though there was still something of the familiar left in that. "You think I'm supposed to know? I fix cars, Elliot. Maybe your girlfriend can tell us."
Elliot did what Sam asked, tossing the remaining sausages onto a paper towel to heat in the microwave. Then he smelled them, and he took a few steps towards the table. Good thing he had already eaten, because he suddenly didn't feel very hungry anymore.
"What about the news?" Elliot asked. Something moved behind him, another strange sensation against the fabric of the robe. More he would try not to think about. "Is there anything--"
Sam waved her fork vaguely in his direction. "I dunno about you, but I spent the last few days not sure if I was gonna wake up. I wasn't watching the news . If you were, I'd love for you to fill me in."
Elliot took another few steps back, towards the bathroom. "Guess that's fair, I didn't either. Maybe Ruby messaged me. I'll check."
Sam shrugged, shoving a forkful of eggs into her mouth. That didn't stop her from talking anyway. "Whatever, blue. Or... guess it's more of a cerulean. You know what I mean."
He didn't go to the phone first; no matter how crazy things might be outside this apartment, he needed to get himself taken care of first. He clicked the bathroom door closed behind him, then let the robe slip off his shoulders.
It was not a reflection Elliot had ever seen before, or ever wanted to see. Bright blue eyes stared back at him instead of hazel, and a body that looked nothing like he remembered.
His shoulders were narrow, lean muscle on his chest replaced with swelling that he'd never seen on himself before. The same story was repeated elsewhere, with muscles now hidden by smooth skin.
It could've been worse; he was still male technically, though even that seemed out of place compared to everything else.
He had a tail too, growing in the same blue-green as his long hair, falling from just above his legs in strands tangled and matted with sweat.
There was a similar story on his forehead, where something about as long as his thumb protruded from his forehead--a twisted, spiraling bone, easy to miss with messy bangs. But it was still there, ready to stab into his hand if he smacked it too hard.
There was nothing like this in the notebook. He told himself, while hot water blasted him from the showerhead. It wasn't like this. They were so small!
Once cleaned and fed, Elliot felt much better; almost healthy. All that remained was the subtle buzzing in his body that came of illness. But just because he could breathe clearly and didn't feel like collapsing didn't mean things were good . "This has to be connected," he told his blurry reflection, twenty minutes later. "Somehow."
Had the investigators lied to him? Someone died so fast it happened during a car ride? But if they weren't thinking about others, how had they missed his illness?
Elliot had a million questions, and no easy answers. Maybe I should just go to a hospital, see if they can help me.
He went straight into his and Ruby's room. His phone was on the ground next to the bed, long run out of battery. He plugged it in, and dressed while it powered on, tugging on some sweatpants and a hoodie. He had to roll the feet up a little so they wouldn't drag, and tie the waist extra tight, but at least they stayed on.
His underwear were a lost cause, and he wasn't going to do anything about the irritation on his chest. He had more important problems now.
Like the blaring his phone made as soon as it switched on, loud enough that his ears rang. There were no words of course, but a message waited for him as soon as he got the phone in his fingers.
THIS IS NOT A TEST EMERGENCY ALERT CDC/COLORADO DEPT OF PUBLIC HEALTH
CIVIL AUTHORITY HAS ISSUED SHELTER-IN-PLACE WARNING FOR AURORA CO AND SURROUNDING AREAS EFFECTIVE UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE
HAZARDOUS DISEASE OUTBREAK REPORTED IN YOUR AREA
REMAIN INDOORS AND AVOID ALL CONTACT WITH OTHERS
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO LEAVE THE AFFECTED AREA
CHECKPOINTS ESTABLISHED ON ALL MAJOR ROADS
EMERGENCY PERSONNEL ARE RESPONDING
MAINTAIN ACCESS TO COMMUNICATIONS
MONITOR LOCAL MEDIA AND OFFICIAL CHANNELS
TEXT "AURORA" to ###### FOR UPDATES
STANDBY FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS
The phone's typical service logo was missing, replaced with SOS on the top of his screen.
But that didn't stop the messages he had already received.
There was a long string from Ruby, expressing frustration and worry over his lack of response. According to the timestamp, the last message he had received was from the night before, at a little before midnight.
"This is awful. Please... help. Don't want to be here. Come get me."
He tried to send a reply, but the message refused to send. Though with service down, that made perfect sense. Of course it wouldn't go through!
He glanced out at the window, peering through the blinds. There were no cars on the road past the apartment, when he would've expected the typical morning traffic into town. The apartment's parking lot had most spots empty, though that was also typical for a work day.
He picked up the little tracking device he'd been given, removing it from the floor. At some point in his fugue state, he'd managed to get it plugged in, so at least he had that going for him. He tucked it into his pocket, then went back to his phone.
Elliot had to decide what to do.
Risk a trip to campus to rescue Ruby. If I'm infected, she is too. I have to get her out now!
Wait for dark, then try to make the trip then. If I'm going to risk getting arrested, better to do it when I can avoid getting caught. And I would have some more time to figure out what's happening.
Obey the order and try to make contact some other way. If the internet is working, I could try to reach her or her friends online.
Author's Note
And that's another chapter done! This one's poll: https://poll.horse/VNYRmPRm
I wanted to put this chapter up last week, but unfortunately my family got evacuated in the California wildfires, cutting into my writing time significantly. But everyone is back home safe, so things are back to normal. Just a scare, everything's fine for us. So the words go on!
Wait for Night for Rescue (58% )
Elliot couldn't go right away, no matter how desperate his girlfriend's situation seemed. If he rushed right to campus in defiance of the order, he would only get himself caught, possibly imprisoned. He wasn't sure whether or not he would abandon the contract-tracing device. If the outbreak was related to his present experience, there wasn't a whole lot knowing where he went would benefit the CDC, or FEMA, or whoever else might be responsible for tracking such things.
He had several hours to figure out what might really be happening, with whatever resources his bedroom could provide. Unfortunately, those were hours he would spend with a constant reminder of just how uncomfortable and unnatural his body had become—never able to find a comfortable place to sit without crushing the tail, never able to move without irritating his sensitive chest. Worse, nowhere he could look would spare his view of just how small he had become.
And if he tried to speak, there was another painful dagger in his mind. What will Ruby think?
Elliot focused on distracting himself with the most intense research and preparation he could. He dug up his old camping radio and found the emergency station. This provided little more than the text message, repeating a constant notice that no one was to leave the area, the national guard were blockading all roads and all flights in or out had been cancelled. It promised a federal response, if only they could sit tight.
Most of the Colorado stations were down, though there were a few still broadcasting.
Strangely, the radio broadcast also came with an ominous warning at the end of each repeating message. "Remain in your homes, cover windows and doors at night. Do not leave except for emergencies."
Elliot's mind spun with possible explanations--some way for the feds to keep mutating people from getting photographed with weird-colored hair and other mutations? But if the same disease he had was spreading, there was no possible chance of containing information about it anymore. There wasn't a soul in the modern world who wouldn't have a phone camera to share their secret with the world! If one person got internet access...
Plenty of wifi networks were still up, including theirs. But not one of those had actual internet access. What kind of effort would it take to prevent every single ISP from servicing their customers?
He kept the windows open, watching for any signs of life in the city outside. There were some; an occasional lone figure, often with a backpack or suitcase, always moving the same direction. One or two had bikes, but most didn't.
They're trying to get out of town.
After the third or fourth person to pass, he finally braved opening the window. "Hey! Are you coming from downtown?"
The stranger looked up at him, slowing along the sidewalk. Finally, they gave him a nervous thumbs-up. He looked young, maybe a freshman, wearing a hoodie despite the heat.
"Are lots of people sick?" he yelled, louder. "On campus?"
Another thumbs-up. The kid took a few steps off the sidewalk, to the parking lot. "You should run, miss! Before the army gets here! That's what everyone is saying. Get out before we're trapped!"
Miss . Nowhere near the worst of his problems right now. That problem could wait until Ruby woke up. "Running would spread the disease! If you have it, you should stay!"
"I feel fine!" he yelled back, turning to get back onto the sidewalk. He hurried away without looking back.
Someone tapped on his bedroom door, then swung it open. Sam strode confidently inside, not waiting for permission. It was so strange that Elliot jumped in his seat, heartbeat accelerating in his chest. "You could've waited for--"
Sam crossed to the window after a few seconds, resting her arm on the sill. She eased it down an inch. "Don't you think we should be laying low? Not screaming out into the world how messed up we are?"
Elliot got out of her way, retreating to the bed. That alien organ behind him swished back and forth, putting a little more uncomfortable pressure against his rear. Because of course, nothing could be simple or comfortable.
He dropped onto the bed, narrow shoulders slumping forward. "I don't know how you're coping so well with this. You're mutating too."
Sam snapped the blinds closed, then spun. "Guess so. Figured I would wait until it finished so I could judge how horrified I should be all at once. Rain check on the panic, get me?"
She turned, then nudged his foot. "Hey, your toes are doing it too."
"My--" he looked down, then squealed, even higher and shriller than his voice. "It" was fusing slowly together, with a web of skin creeping between them so gradually he hadn't noticed over hours. "Shit. I wanted to go on foot--maybe I'll have to drive."
"Drive where?" Sam kicked the computer chair over with her knee, then sat backwards on it, resting her arms on the rear. "You hear the messages. No leaving, no going anywhere. We keep our asses planted until help arrives."
Elliot squirmed, before reaching past him to the desk. He held it out so she could see the messages Ruby had sent. "I'm going as soon as it gets dark. I don't care what the alert says."
Sam slid back up the messages, then handed it back. "You think she has what we do?"
"100%. She must've got it from the same source that infected us. Then she went to campus for her finals, and it kicked the shit out of her. I hope she got to take her tests first."
Samantha whistled, then rested one hand on his shoulder. That made him tense all over again--Sam had always been petite, despite her atypical strength. Now her fingers could go all the way around, gripping with uncharacteristic strength.
"Elliot, don't take this the wrong way, but... I think your eyes must be busted. Ruby has more to worry about than her exams. If she's as screwed as we are..." she released her grip, holding out her hand and squeezing into a fist, then releasing it. "God knows where this stops. Or what the army plans to do. Maybe they hit us with a tactical nuke to stop it from spreading."
Elliot whimpered. But the sound revolted him, tiny and pathetic in his own ears. He wasn't going to roll over and die, or give up on helping Ruby. Whatever weakness the disease instilled, he could fight through it. "I'm still getting her out of there."
He stood up, shuffling towards the closet. Now that Samantha pointed it out, he couldn't not feel the unusual pressure in his feet, making every step slightly awkward and off-balance. Toes weren't supposed to work quite that way.
Maybe I should tell Ruby what we found. We'll have to get Zalenka's notebook back out too, there's no way this is anything else. Maybe someone at the CDC can use it.
"It's three miles to campus and back. I'll dress in black, get to her friend's place, then carry her back."
Samantha laughed, low and sharp. "Maybe before you would. What if she looks like me? You're not carrying me down the hall, let alone across miles."
"So we take my car." He lifted a dark jacket from inside. His hoodie hung past his waist, a little way down his calves. "I drive right up onto the grass next to her place, then run in and get her."
"No. You drive up to her place, then I run in and get her." Sam stood over him, close enough to show just how stark their difference in height had become. "Also, my truck, not that little sedan of yours. If we need to go up over curbs or through the weeds, yours will bottom out and die. Might need to get out in a hurry, so..."
Elliot sniffed. The weight of thinking he was alone, going in without help or anyone who cared, lifted from his shoulders. Samantha was there to save them a second time. Besides, she sounded so sure of her ideas, she must know they would work!
He would not cry in front of her though. Elliot hadn't done that since his dad's funeral, and he wasn't starting today. "Y-yeah. Okay. We'll... do it your way."
"Good." He turned for the door. "Dark, you said? Guess that makes as much sense as anything. Did you find out anything about what's going on? Past what you were yelling through the window."
"No, unfortunately." He took a single deep breath. "Internet and phone service is down, seems deliberate. But there are ways around it. I have a friend with Starlink, that might still be up. But without the phones, I'd have to go to his house."
"Is it close?" Sam asked. "Maybe we stop on our way back, if it's safe."
Elliot nodded. "That might be a good idea, yeah."
A few hours later, and the sun had finally gone down. They were about as prepared as they could be--flashlights, dark clothing, pepper spray. Neither had a gun, since the school-contracted apartment complex didn't allow them. But as Sam pointed out, they were probably better off without a weapon even if they had one.
"Technically speaking, we're violating a lawful order. Better to do that without anything dangerous on us to make it worse."
The streetlights still worked as they made their way out, so they couldn't move in complete secret. If anyone was watching from their windows, they would see the two of them moving to the truck. They both clambered in, then sat while Sam went through her ritual to get the truck moving. Jiggling the key just so, kicking the hood from the side, pressing the accelerator just a tiny bit while he turned the key...
And they were moving. Elliot slid the chair all the way forward, and even that had him feeling a little small. "Guess they didn't use to care much about who could drive stuff. If this keeps up, I won't be able to drive it tomorrow."
Sam grunted. "Eh, so long as you can drive it now." She slid closer along the bucket seat, pointing down. "Careful riding the clutch too much when you shift. Got a belt that's on the outs, don't want to break it now."
Elliot rolled his eyes. "I had no idea this thing was in such bad shape." He flicked the headlights, and only one on the right came on, a pathetic yellow glow that looked like it came from the wrong type of bulb. "Don't you fix cars for a living?"
"And flip them! This is my latest project. Another six months, and it would be worth like 5k, easy! Now drive!"
He did, hands gripping hard on the steering wheel. No matter how strange his toes felt, at least the fingers hadn't started doing the same. Maybe he would get to keep his hands when this was over. Or they'll reverse it. If a disease can change me, it can change me back.
They drove in relative silence down the quiet streets. There was no other traffic--no wave of people leaving work or school, or the occasional delivery truck. There was only silence, extending painfully as the drive continued.
Yet there were other signs, as they approached the campus. There had been a police barricade here, facing the other way. Several cruisers blocked the road, a few red and blue lights still flashing uselessly. Only something had shoved them aside from within, smashing one against the front of a 7-Eleven and shattering the windows. Another was on its side, leaking fuel onto the pavement in a puddle.
Through the line was the street that led directly to campus, turning through a dark security booth towards the buildings.
"I don't like this," Sam muttered, nudging his arm. "5-0 didn't come back. We should find another way."
He felt it too, a quiet wrongness twisting in his gut. Something awful had happened here. Maybe it was still close!
Elliot was driving, so the choice was his:
No reason to go around, floor it! You can see the dorms from here!
Take another ten minutes to drive around to the delivery entrance in back, maybe that one will be clear.
Find somewhere to park and walk in through the pedestrian tunnel instead. A longer trip, but fewer eyes.
Author's Note
This chapter's poll: https://poll.horse/xmKznDwM
