Cliff glanced around. He wouldn’t have been able to afford anything so ritzy before his transformation. His apartment rocked. But he had not been allowed to leave sublevel 5 once since his arrival. And no matter how nice the premises were, they hadn’t alleviated the difficulty of going two years without setting foot outside.
True to Seth’s words, researchers here at the network toiled pretty much night and day, searching for a cure for the virus or a way to keep humans infected with it from going mad. Alas, they had not yet succeeded. And Vince had not been able to hold on.
Sadness struck at the memory of the friend he’d lost the previous year.
At least Vince had chosen his own end, one far more honorable than embracing the madness and inflicting untold horrors upon random, unsuspecting victims.
Cliff was beginning to fear he and Joe would suffer the same fate.
Joe wasn’t doing well. Even though he hadn’t been infected with the virus as long as Cliff, Joe had had a number of psychotic breaks in recent months and had begun to rant maniacally in his apartment.
Kinda like he was doing now.
“Don’t let them take you! Get out while you can!” he bellowed in the apartment next door.
Cliff winced, his enhanced hearing allowing him to hear every word despite the heavy titanium-and-concrete-reinforced walls that separated them.
“Run! They’re lying! If you let them take you, they’ll steal your thoughts! They’ll steal your memories! Big fucking chunks of them! And they’ll plant new ones! They’ll brainwash you! They’ll brainwash you the way they have me! They’ll make you think it’s you! That you’re fucked up in the head! But it’s them! It’s always been them!”
Cliff’s stomach churned. Joe was getting worse. The madness that seeped into him bore a heavy dose of paranoia. In his lucid moments, Joe knew Melanie and Linda and the other doctors here at the network were trying to help him. He even felt great affection for the former. Neither woman had ever treated the vampires like monsters. Though they must have been nervous as hell—if not downright terrified—the first time they met Cliff and the others, Melanie and Linda had shown them only kindness… even while combating violent outbursts.
Could network headquarters sometimes feel like a prison? Yes. Cliff missed having the freedom to come and go whenever he liked. He missed fresh air. And moonlight. Feeling a breeze on his face. Hearing the crickets chirp. But he would willfully surrender all of that again and again to keep from harming men, women, and children whose only offense would be crossing his path. He didn’t want to brutalize and butcher people the way he’d seen vampires consumed by madness do. Or vampires who weren’t consumed by madness but simply got off on the strength vampirism gave them.
Joe felt the same way Cliff did. In his lucid moments.
But he wasn’t lucid now.
Cliff heard Melanie talking to Chris Reordon, the head honcho at the network, out in the hallway. Crossing to the coffee table, Cliff snagged a pen and a piece of paper, then scribbled a quick note.
YOU NEED TO SEDATE JOE. HE’S RANTING AGAIN. AND IF THE NEW VAMPIRE HEARS SOME OF THE THINGS JOE IS SAYING, I GUARANTEE YOU HE’LL BOLT.
As soon as he finished, he folded the paper and moved to stand beside the door to his apartment.
Though the network had done a nice job coating the door with a thin sheet of wood, it didn’t change the fact that the damn thing was as thick and heavy as the door on a bank vault. So were the walls. Chris Reordon left nothing to chance, so he’d made damned sure any vampires housed here couldn’t break or tunnel their way out.
Cliff listened to the conversations that filled the busy hallway beyond. Carefully timing the delivery of his message so it would miss Chris Reordon and attract the notice of Dr. Melanie and Dr. Linda, he slipped the piece of paper under the door.
A few seconds later, paper rattled.
“What is it?” Linda asked. A moment passed. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Thanks,” Melanie said.
If the two said anything else, they did so with sign language, having learned it shortly after the vampires’ arrival so they could converse without the vamps listening in.
Cliff paced his apartment. Joe might rant and have violent breaks on occasion, but even when the voices he heard were at their loudest, he didn’t direct his aggression toward the women.