Musílkova 27, Prague, Czech Republic
November 30
Eva landed on the floor next to Pyotr as Dmitri paced in behind them, cracking his knuckles. He stood in front of the door, feet apart, ready to keep the peace inside the small, white-tiled room. A simple metal desk and two chairs sat along one wall, three drops of red beneath them, stark against the overwhelming white.
“Now then,” Dmitri said, twitching his mask side to side. “Let’s get you two sorted. Eva, I know. Hi, Eva.”
She said nothing, pulled herself into a ball and watched him.
“But this joker, all I know about him is that he was pointin’ a gun when I first saw him. Which, at least in my books, isn’t the proper way to treat a lady.”
Dmitri winked at Eva, but she ignored it.
“I’m her b-b-boyfriend…” Pytor said, and Eva just laughed.
“I can think of at least two people who’d say otherwise,” chuckled Dmitri.
Eva’s mouth dropped open and she remembered…
“Where’s Rhodri?” she demanded, getting to her knees now. “What’s going on?”
Dmitri shrugged at her, scratched his cheek.
“You tell me,” he said. “I haven’t seen Rhodri in… well, longer than you, I think. You passed along my message that time?”
“Not exactly.”
“Figures. Well whatever happened, he ain’t here.”
“But I saw him! Back at the building! He was chasing me!”
Dmitri cocked an eyebrow at her, glanced to Pyotr for confirmation, but Pyotr seemed just as confused. Eva was running her hands through her hair, trembling.
“Eva, kid, if he’d been there, I would’ve seen him, believe me.”
She shook her head anxiously.
“I saw him. I know I did. He’s here, in Prague. He’s looking for me.”
Just then, there was a quick knock at the door, and it opened, slow and creaking. The light from the hallway was musty and almost grey, but the silhouette there was unmistakable. Eva screamed, backed behind Pytor, pointing madly.
“Liar! Liar! He’s here!”
Rhodri stood in the doorway, arms crossed, head shaking sadly. He was wearing a black suit, no tie, but his hair was a mess as always, his beard looking sickly and crusted.
“Eva,” he said solemnly. “You shouldn’t have run…”
She wailed, backed into the corner, covering her head with her arms. She felt strong hands pulling at her, and she fought and kicked, trying to keep them off, keep the smell of him away…
Suddenly, she was thrown onto the ground, on her back, hands holding her arms at her sides, someone else pinning her legs down. She heard them talking, but she refused to open her eyes for them, weaving her head from side to side, as if she could escape by sheer force of thought.
“Eva, look at me,” said Rhodri.
“Eva, look at me,” said Dmitri.
“She’s… too… strong…” grunted Pyotr.
She pushed with all her strength, kicked Pyotr off her legs, and he slammed into the wall. She twisted and fought, wrestling against impossible odds… but then she felt a tight, strong hand around her neck, squeezing slightly, and she lay still, refusing to open her eyes.
“Kill her, Dmitri,” Rhodri said. “She betrayed me.”
She cried, tried to swat him away, but he tightened his hold.
“I’m sorry, Rhodri…” she stammered. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean it…”
The hand on her neck eased up slightly, and she took a ragged breath.
“What the hell is she…?” Dmitri said, his voice distant.
“Shit…” gasped Pytor. “She’s infected. She must be infected!”
“With what?” growled Dmitri.
“I… I don’t know. It drives you insane, whatever it is, and—”
“Eva,” whispered Rhodri in her ear. “Eva, why won’t you kiss me anymore?”
She felt a cold hand run down her neck, her chest, and slip against her bare waist, sending a chill up her spine. She kicked out, missing him, and he ran his fingers up along her side, gentle, probing.
“Stop it!” she screamed. “Stop touching me! I hate you!”
“Did you give her a Pathenex stopper?” Dmitri said, fading into the distance, while his hand was still on her neck.
“H-h-half of it,” Pyotr admitted. “I used Tezocet for the second pill.”
“Are you a fucking moron? That’s a hallucinogen on its own, not to mention the immuno-suppression she must have going on!”
“I… I needed her asleep… I didn’t mean to…”
“Oh Eva,” whispered Rhodri in her ear. “What did you do? Did you fuck him? Did you betray me?”
“No,” Eva gasped. “No, I’d never…”
“I saw you,” he breathed. “I saw it all. And I think you liked it.”
The hand around her neck loosened again, and she flailed her arms around, hitting Dmitri, his stubbled cheek, but missing Rhodri every time. Dmitri knelt on her hurt wrist, and she cried in pain, pushing her other hand against her forehead, weeping uncontrollably.
She heard the sounds of the door opening, quick footsteps, the clink of plastic on the ground. A light prick on her arm, just about the elastic brace, and then a cold, metallic sensation flooding her veins.
“You’ll like this,” Rhodri whispered to her, his hand brushing the side of her breast. “I made it specially for you.”
“Murderer!” she screamed, and had her head pushed back against the floor, smelled onions, cologne.
“Eva,” said Dmitri, loud and clear. “Eva, it’s all in your head. I know you know that, and I need you to focus. It’s all in your head. Rhodri isn’t here. It’s just me and the fucktard. Nobody else is here, I promise you.”
Eva slowed her breathing, felt the depth come back to the room, the sounds less threatening, and her heart rate slow. She didn’t open her eyes, but stopped crying.
“Y-y-you promise?” she whimpered.
“I do, Eva. Open your eyes. It’ll be okay.”
“I can’t…” she pleaded. “I can’t, I can’t…”
“You can,” Dmitri told her.
“I can’t. He’ll be there. I can’t see him. Please.”
“He’s not here, Eva. You know that. You know this disease. You know how it works. Think past it, kid. It makes sense if you think past it.”
Eva stopped breathing, listened. She heard two sets of breaths, two sets of clothes moving, two souls around her. She exhaled slowly, cautiously.
And she opened her eyes.
“All good?” Dmitri asked her gently.
It was him, and only him. No one else. No Rhodri.
She nodded, faintly, and he let her go. She sat herself up, rubbing her neck, taking stuttering breaths. Pyotr lay against the far wall, white as a ghost, and the rest of the room was empty. There was no Rhodri.
Dmitri patted her knee, got to his feet.
“That shot should keep you stable for an hour or two,” he said, dusting off his trousers. “But if you start to see anything else odd in the room, let me know, okay?”
“Okay,” Eva nodded, catching her breath. “What did you give me?”
“A little cocktail we made that seems to suppress the symptoms,” Dmitri replied. “Temporarily. And never as far as we’d like.”
“What do you—”
“I’m at a loss about what to do with your boy toy here,” Dmitri interrupted, darting a mean glare at Pyotr. “Cause as I see it, he’s lied to you, he’s denied you vital drugs at a critical time, he’s given you what might charitably be called a date rape drug—”
“It was for her head! She was in pain!”
“Yeah, and my gun’s primarily for pistol-whipping. Shut your hole. It’s not your turn to talk.”
He turned back to Eva, then pulled his gun from within his jacket, dropped the safety, and pointed it at Pyotr.
“Eva,” Dmitri said, business-like. “I don’t know what happened after he gave you that pill, and I don’t wanna know. But since you and Rhodri were like family, I’m gonna give you this choice. How’s he going to leave the room? Cause I’m fine with either way.”
Eva saw Pyotr, cowering in the corner, looking at her with pleading, desperate eyes. She rubbed her bandaged hand across her head, tried to think through the pain, the confusion. Pyotr said nothing, but mouthed words to her that she couldn’t understand. Things she didn’t care to understand.
She shook her head, turned away.
“No more killing,” she sighed. “Just get him out of here.”
Dmitri looked to Eva, paused. Pyotr was trembling. Dmitri put his gun away, paced to Pyotr and yanked him to his feet, dragged him to the door.
“Eva, wait!” Pyotr cried as he was forced against the wall as the door opened and two large men in black suits came in. “Please! They’ll put me back in! Please don’t do this! We can still get away! It wasn’t all an act! It wasn’t all fake—”
The door closed and Dmitri turned to Eva, his hands in his pockets, sighed.
“‘Wasn’t all fake’, he says,” Dmitri mused. “’s what my ex wife used to say.”
He smirked at his own joke, coughed and pulled a chair from the table, offering it to Eva. She sat, tentative, and he hopped up on the table itself, lounging comfortably in the cold, sterile room.
“So you feeling okay?” he asked her. “Just you and me in here now?”
She nodded, checked around just to be sure.
“Good. Cause what I need you to do, I need you to focus on.”
Eva frowned.
“What do you need me to do?”
“What you’ve got, Eva, we know it. It’s called Nuremberg-6. It’s nastier than you know. And the kicker is, it’s infected some of our people. We didn’t see the signs until it was pretty far advanced, and we’ve been fighting to contain it ever since.”
Eva scowled at him.
“How’s this my problem?”
“It’s your problem because the same things that’re happening to them, they’re happening to you too. We don’t know what its end-stage is, but we’re not keen to find out. We want it fixed, and we want it fixed now.”
“So what, you want to test the cures on me? I’m your guinea pig?”
He laughed, patted her shoulder, but she swatted him away.
“Hell no, Eva. See, our regular programmer has gone missing. I think you know him.”
She scowled.
“Yeah,” Dmitri continued. “And without him, we’re kinda screwed. Or we were screwed, until you showed up.”
“I keep telling people: I don’t know how to make viruses. And even if I did, I wouldn’t help you.”
Dmitri gave her a dead look, scratched his chin under his mask.
“Even if it means you go bat shit crazy?”
Eva shuddered, remembering the sound of Rhodri in her ear. But she shook her head.
“I won’t lift a finger to help you. You’re all murderers.”
Dmitri sighed, slapped his knees and got up off the table, leaving Eva sitting there, alone.
“Fine,” he said. “I kinda thought you’d say that.”
He opened the door, leaned out and motioned, then looked back to Eva, shaking his head.
“I get that you don’t want to help me. You don’t know me. If I asked myself for this kind of help, I’d probably have trouble resolving to pitch in, too. But you don’t need to do it for me. Or for you. On the other hand, you may want to do it for somebody else.”
“You can all fucking die for all I care,” she spat.
“Even her?” Dmitri asked, as a stretcher wheeled in, carrying Eva’s mother.
