The death toll in the Twin Cities reaches 1000, Ryan reads.

He casts his eyes aside in disgust. Unknown emotions burn in him like the light of the sun.

Twenty million died last time; how many now?

The room in which Ryan sits is modest—big enough for a bed, a dresser, a tiny bathroom, and a small desk he now hunches over. The walls are concrete, and the door looks reinforced. All of the comforts of home, except it isn’t home, far from it. He was trying to get home. Now all he tries to do is get through the day.

The soldiers told him his quarantine will be over tomorrow. Then he gets to see what fresh hell awaits him next.

The quarantine was for fourteen days, that means he’s been in here for thirteen.

The smile that others had often told him illuminated his face refuses to light.

On the bright side, Ryan has caught up on sleep in here. The bed’s not half bad.

Gotta think positively; even if there’s nothing positive to think about…

The food tray hatch at the bottom of the door rattles open—a tray slides through.

“Twenty hours left, then they have to decide what to do with you,” the soldier says.

Ryan’s words stick in his throat as the soldier stomps away. His voice feels different—as if all control of it has been lost to disuse.

Suddenly the thought of being outside of this room doesn’t seem so appealing. At least in here there’s consistency. There’s no telling what the city’ll look like once I get out of here.

The screen of the phone in Ryan’s lap peers up at him as if to pull him back in.

He checks Abby’s message again, no reply. It’s been almost two weeks, what if ….

A directionless rage wells up inside, forcing his fist into contact with the cement wall, again and again.

Pain overtakes rage as he slumps back onto the floor. There’s blood on the wall, on his clothes, and his hand.

The pain gives him something to focus on—a distraction, purpose.

The emptiness of the last thirteen days has been immeasurable.

As his thoughts sour from the solitude, he tries to recall Abby’s eyes.

They were brown--no, green, if only because the salvation of colour: or the promise of it, was all Ryan had left in him now, the colour of trees and emeralds, of parakeet wings and fresh kai lan. Far from the dreary brown-grime-concrete palette that had been the set dressing for his life the past few days. Not that Abby's eyes were any murky shade of brown, no, they were this beautiful chestnut russet colour, like squirrels in the park and the mushrooms that had made her famous at last month's Lunar New Year's banquet--he was becoming delirious, or maybe just hungry.

He slumped back down to the floor and nursed his busted knuckles with the sterile cotton of his gown. Dinner's mush of grey mashed potatoes and rubbery mystery meat churned in his stomach as he peeled the fabric away from his weeping fingers, threads catching in the wet, crusted red. He fell asleep like that, or at least, he tried to, and when the watery light of morning clawed its way through the ventilation shaft, he found himself still scratching rhythms into the wall with a slow finger, trying to lull himself into bored exhaustion.

At 07.55, the reinforced door hissed open.

The soldier from yesterday stood in the frame, a woman with steel-grey eyes that Ryan vaguely remembers once identifying herself as Smyth.

"Ryan Tsang?"

He couldn't remember the last time someone had said his name aloud. He nodded, stood too quickly, steadied himself against the bedframe.

"Medical clearance came through. You're negative." She didn't sound relieved. "Command wants to see you."

"Command?" Ryan's voice cracked. "I thought the quarantine was supposed to--"

"Quarantine's done. You're cleared." Her eyes stayed trained on him beneath the darkened visor and above the black medical mask. "But they need to debrief you."

His hand had stopped bleeding, but infection would set in soon. He should have mentioned it. He didn't, hiding it beneath his sweat-soaked gown as he fumbled for the doorway.

"Is there any information about Abigail Chen. I need to know if--"

"That's not my department." Smyth turned. "Follow me."

The hallway was exactly as clinical and white as he'd imagined, his bare feet cold against tile. Fluorescent strips hummed overhead, casting everything in a sickeningly bright white. Other doors identical reinforced doors lined the walls, all closed. How many were occupied? How many were empty?

They passed a window. Ryan stopped.

The view was higher than he'd realized: maybe the third or fourth floor. The city sprawled below in a state somewhere between functioning and ruin, with cars on the streets, moving slow as if they were all piloting vessels through deep water. Some intersections had stopped entirely, traffic lights blinking amber while abandoned vehicles rusted in place. A building to the north had collapsed, its skeleton of steel visible against the grey sky. But beyond it, smoke from other fires had already grown cold and thin.

"Don't stare," the soldier said, but not unkindly.

They took an elevator down further than Ryan had gone up during intake. The basement levels were warmer, and the walls were no longer white but a muted green. Medical green. This was a hospital. The command center occupied a converted operating theatre, with banks of monitors showing the same aerial footage of the city, maps with red zones and amber zones, graphs that climbed and fell like EKGs. A man in civilian clothes looked up from a tablet.

"Tsang. You work in the distribution center on Van Buren?"

"Yes. Logistics coordinator." He found his throat loosening with the prospect of an actual conversational partner. "I was running inventory when the lockdown order came."

"And that morning?"

Ryan's skin prickled. "I felt fine when I left for work," he said, a sudden pang of guilt flowing through him as he remembered the morning--Abby had made him lunch. He had been running late and left it by the door. He was going to grab a sandwich from Starbucks that afternoon, but the lockdown order held them in the office for five days until the military escort came. He had been hungry.

The man carried on. "Three of your coworkers died in the first wave. Two on day three, one on day five. You were the only asymptomatic contact who made it to quarantine alive."

"I got lucky."

"Perhaps." The man didn't look convinced. He set down his tablet. "The virus has been evolving faster than our predictions." He paused, studied Ryan with interest. "We're running a program. Volunteers who show resilience to the strain. Medical observers, testing protocols, potential--"

"No." The word came out before Ryan could stop it.

The man's head snapped up in bewilderment. "You haven't heard the full--"

"I want to go home. That was the deal. Fourteen days."

"There is no home." The man's voice didn't soften. "Check your phone when it's charged. The eastern districts have been cordoned. Your address is in Zone Red. Unless you have somewhere else--"

Ryan thought of Abby. Thought of her brown eyes and a life that seemed to have occurred in someone else's body.

"How many?" he asked. "In the city?"

The man looked back at his monitors. The graphs were still climbing. "As of this morning? Four thousand two hundred and thirty-seven. Double yesterday's count." He turned to face Ryan again. "So when I ask if you'll volunteer, understand what I'm really asking."

Ryan's busted hand throbbed. "And what if I say no?"