Whiteout

The old witch in the story had to bathe in the blood of a virgin to make herself young again. The bathtub scene was a hilarious combination of titillation and gross-out, and both Craig and Sophie giggled helplessly.

"I'm going to be sick," said Tom.

"Oh, no!" Craig sprang to his feet. He felt dizzy for a second, then recovered. "Bathroom, quick," he said. He took Tom's arm and led him there.

Tom started to throw up a fatal second before he reached the toilet.

Craig ignored the mess on the floor and guided him to the bowl. Tom puked some more. Craig held the boy's shoulders and tried not to breathe. There goes the romantic atmosphere, he thought.

Sophie came to the door. "Is he all right?"

"Yeah." Craig put on the air of a snooty schoolteacher. "An injudicious combination of chocolates, vodka, and virgin's blood."

Sophie laughed. Then, to Craig's surprise, she grabbed a length of toilet roll, got down on her knees, and began to clean the tiled floor.

Tom straightened up.

"All done?" Craig asked him.

Tom nodded. Sure? bure.

Craig flushed the toilet. "Now clean your teeth."

"Why?"

"So you won't smell so bad."

Tom brushed his teeth.

Sophie threw a wad of paper into the toilet and took some more. Craig led Tom out of the bathroom to his camp bed on the floor. "Get undressed," he said. He opened Tom's small suitcase and found a pair of Spider-Man pajamas. Tom put them on and climbed into bed. Craig folded his clothes.

"I'm sorry I heaved," Tom said.

"It happens to the best of us," Craig said. "Forget it." He pulled the blanket up to Tom's chin. "Sweet dreams."

He returned to the bathroom. Sophie had cleaned up with surprising efficiency, and she was pouring disinfectant into the bowl. Craig washed his hands, and she stood beside him at the sink and did the same. It felt comradely.

In a low, amused voice, Sophie said, "When you told him to brush his teeth, he asked why."

Craig gri

"Right."

She looked the most beautiful she had all day, Craig thought as she smiled at him in the mirror, her dark eyes sparkling with amusement. He took a towel and handed her one end. They both dried their hands. Craig pulled the towel, drawing her to him, and kissed her lips.

She kissed him back. He parted his lips a little, and let her feel the tip of his tongue. She seemed tentative, unsure how to respond. Could it be that, for all her talk, she had not done much kissing?

He murmured, "Shall we go back to the couch? I never like snogging in the bog."

She giggled and led the way out.

Craig thought, Fm not this witty when Fm sober.

He sat close to Sophie on the couch and put his arm around her. I hey watched the film for a minute, then he kissed her again.

12:55 AM

AN airtight submarine door led from the changing room into the biohazard zone. Kit turned the four-spoked wheel and opened the door. He had been inside the laboratory before it was commissioned, when there were no dangerous viruses present, but he had never entered a live BSL4 facility-he was not trained. Feeling that he was taking his life in his hands, he stepped through the doorway into the shower room. Nigel followed him, carrying Eltons burgundy briefcase. Elton and Daisy were waiting outside in the van.

Kit closed the door behind them. The doors were electronically linked so that the next would not open until the last was shut. His ears popped. Air pressure was reduced in stages as you entered BSL4, so that any air leaks were inward, preventing the escape of dangerous agents.

They passed through another doorway, into a room where blue plastic space suits hung from hooks. Kit took off his shoes. "Find one your size and get into it," he said to Nigel. "We've got to shortcut the safety precautions."

"I don't like the sound of that."

Kit did not either, but they had no choice. "The normal procedure is too long," he said. "You have to take off all your clothes, including underwear, even your jewelry, then put on surgical scrubs, before you suit up." He took a suit off a hook and began to climb into it. "Corning out takes even longer. You have to shower in your suit, first with a decontamination solution, then with water, on a predetermined cycle that takes five minutes. Then you take off the suit and your scrubs and shower naked for five minutes. You clean your nails, blow your nose, clear your throat and spit. Then you get dressed. If we do all that, half the Inverburn police could be here by the time we get out. We'll skip the showers, take off our suits, and run."

Nigel was appalled. "How dangerous is it?"

"Like driving your car at a hundred and thirty miles an hour-it might kill you, but it probably won't, so long as you don't make a habit of it. Hurry up, get a damn suit on." Kit closed his helmet. The plastic faceplate gave slightly distorted vision. He closed the diagonal zip across the front of the suit, then helped Nigel.

He decided they could do without the usual surgical gloves. He used a roll of duct tape to attach the suit gauntlets to the rigid circular wrists of Nigel's suit, then got Nigel to do the same for him.

From the suit room they stepped into the decontamination shower, a cubicle with spray faucets on all sides as well as above. They felt a further drop in air pressure-twenty-five or fifty pascals from one room to the next, Kit recalled. From the shower they entered the lab proper.

Kit suffered a moment of pure fear. There was something in the air here that could kill him. All his glib talk about shortcutting safety precautions and driving at a hundred and thirty now seemed foolhardy. I could die, he thought. I could catch a disease and suffer a hemorrhage so bad the blood would come out of my ears and eyes and my penis. What am I doing here? How could I be so stupid?

He breathed slowly and made himself calm. You're not exposed to the atmosphere here in the lab; you'll be breathing pure air from outside, he told himself. No virus can penetrate this suit. You're a lot safer from infection than you would be in economy class on a packed 747 to Orlando. Get a grip.

Curly yellow air hoses dangled from the ceiling. Kit grabbed one and co

A row of rubber boots stood by the door, but Kit ignored them. Their main purpose was to protect the feet of the suits and prevent them wearing out.

He surveyed the lab, getting his bearings, trying to forget the danger and concentrate on what he had to do. The place had a shiny look due to the epoxy paint used to make the walls airtight. Microscopes and computer workstations stood on stainless-steel benches. There was a fax machine for sending your notes out-paper could not be taken into the showers or passed through the autoclaves. Kit noted fridges for storing samples, biosafety cabinets for handling hazardous materials, and a rack of rabbit cages under a clear plastic cover. The red light over the door would flash when the phone rang, as it was difficult to hear inside the suits. The blue light would warn of an emergency. Closed-circuit television cameras covered every corner of the room.

Kit pointed to a door. "I think the vault is through there." He crossed the room, his air hose extending as he moved. He opened the door on a room no bigger than a closet, containing an upright refrigerator with a keypad combination lock. The LED keys were scrambled, so that the order of numbers in the squares was different every time. This made it impossible to figure out the code by watching someone's fingers. But Kit had installed the lock, so he knew the combination-unless it had been changed.