When I open my eyes again, it's raining. Isaac stands beside me, watching me. He doesn't say anything to me, which is probably smart, because I feel like a bomb. My hands shake; my face burns.

"Let's go," I say, taking off at a jog.

I realize half way through our run that it is past Hartley's curfew. That's why we haven't run into anyone. There's no busybodies sitting around on the sidewalk, no kids running around on break. The entire compound sleeps, blanketed in ignorance of what's to come.

In the distance, I hear shouting. The voices sound familiar; one of them is Farrah. I turn into an alley between buildings, hoping Isaac is behind me. The stitch in my side burns as I push on, gritting my teeth.

Finally, the Research Facility comes into view.

The building looms over its surroundings, brightly lit windows casting light down on the tents between us and it. It's the only place in the compound that receives electricity at all hours. Dad's excuse is that the medicine needs refrigeration. I've never been inside.

"Have you ever been in there?" Isaac asks, as if reading my mind.

"No," I whisper back, running a hand through my hair, "We aren't allowed."

Isaac nods, poking his head out of the alley and looking both ways. Giving me a thumbs up, he moves onward, tiptoeing through the tents. I follow close behind, glad to be out of the open when we step under the awning.

Isaac pushes Dad's ID card through the scanner, and the automatic doors slide open, a strong wind blowing down from above. We walk in, guns ready in our hands.

Yet, there's no one around.

The entire room before us is empty. There's a desk, but no one sits behind it. All I can hear is the ticking of a clock, the sound of a machine running in the distance, and the door shutting behind us.

"Where is everyone?" Isaac asks, walking forward.

"In bed, maybe?"

After checking the rest of the floor, we discover it's nothing but offices and empty rooms. So, we head up the stairs, to the second floor. The directory posted on the wall outside the door says the second floor is the psych ward, where they keep the severe Mentally Unstable. I scan the directory with a finger. Third floor is medicinal storage and manufacturing. Fourth is research and development.

"We need to go to the fourth floor," I say. Isaac nods, taking off up the stairs quickly. Where he gets his energy I'll never know, because already I'm breathing heavy, struggling to get up the flights.

By the third landing, I have to stop and take a break, clutching my stomach. Isaac stands at the top, holding his gun, looking down at me concerned. Taking a deep breath, I jog up to join him, sucking in air like a vacuum.

As we push open the 4th floor door, cold air hits us like a wall. What looks like fog rolls out of the door onto our feet, pouring down the stairs.

"What in the world?" Isaac mutters, going ahead of me into the hallway.

On either side of the hall are rooms. We can see into the rooms through floor to ceiling windows. Isaac looks at the left rooms; I check out the right. Mainly, it's a bunch of machinery that I don't understand, pipes and wires connected together with electrical interfaces blinking numbers, words and symbols. None of it makes any sense to me.

"Um, Jay?"

I turn to look at Isaac, who has both hands pressed up against a window. The glass is fogging up around his hands. The door to this room stands open, the same white fog pouring out. I shiver. Following Isaac's line of sight, I see what caught his attention.

The room is filled with giant tubes filled with red liquid that bubbles occasionally.

"The virus," I say, remembering how my mother stressed that her injections were always red. Even I vividly remember red in those syringes. "Let's go; we have to shut it down."

Going into the room, I walk through the tubes to the back. There's a computer system there, where all the wires meet.

"I have no idea where to even start," I whisper, stepping back. Isaac shakes his head.

"Me either," he says, sitting down in the black rolling chair, "I'll see if I can do something with this. You see if those tubes have any weaknesses."

Leaving Isaac to it, I go back to the tube forest, touching the thick glass. There's enough liquid here to do some serious damage to our water supply. I knock on a few of the tubes, checking the thickness of the glass. It would be impossible to break. At the bottom of every tube is a faucet like mechanism with a keypad attached to the top.

"Isaac, I think we could empty these if we knew the code," I yell back to him, not glancing up.

"Try your birthday."

"What?"

"If your dad made the virus, maybe he used your birthday as a passcode."

Shaking my head, I type in the eight digits of my birthday.

12022043

The red light on the keypad blinks a few times, emitting a loud noise..

"Nope," I say, relieved.

"Maybe Mandy's?"

"There's no way."

"Try it."

Shrugging, I type it in, hoping I remember it right.

07142023

The light doesn't blink. It turns yellow, then green, and I hear a click.

I shout out, jumping back. I did not think this through.

The red liquid begins to pour out onto the tile. The substance is thicker than I would have expected, and it runs like honey on a hot afternoon. The pool gradually grows, until it touches my boots.

If any of this touches Isaac, he will be infected. I might not be immune to this strand. Maybe I shouldn't let it touch me either.

"Isaac, do me a favor and start typing the code in from that end. But be careful not to touch the liquid. I don't know how dangerous this stuff is."

I tell him the code, and he jumps up, going to and from machines typing it in. I continue on to, until every tube in the room is spilling out onto the tile. Carefully, Isaac tiptoes around the puddles, meeting me back at the door to the room.

"It can't have been that easy," he says, as we watch the liquid pour. He has a point. The code was easy to crack; the door was wide open. Something isn't right.

"Oh, it wasn't," a cold voice says behind us, amusement filling it.

I spin around, seeing Hartley standing at the door to the stairs, arms crossed. He is alone, but behind him, on the other side of the door, are several guards.

"You see, you didn't read the label on the wall before you barged right in," Hartley says, walking towards us, "Your father was right. You are too impulsive."

I squint at him, clenching my fists at my side.

"See? There's a label on each room telling you what's inside," Hartley continues, passing us up to point at the sign that was mounted on the wall. I read it, my hand coming up to cover my mouth.

Room 403: Cure Research.

Hartley laughs, bending over double.

"You were trying so hard to be a hero," he roars, between breaths, "And you destroyed the only known cure we had!"

"I thought there was no cure," I say, body shaking.

"You can thank your father for this," Hartley says, straightening up, "It's brilliant really, undoing the effects of the first virus on the human genes. Now, though, it's all gone to waste. Destroyed by everyone's stupidest hero."

Anger fills my chest, and I swing out at Hartley, shoving him to the ground. The door behind us opens, and chaos erupts. Guards swarm in, pinning me to the ground with my arms behind my back. I struggle to pull my head up, seeing Isaac fighting against two other guards. I can feel my gun pressing into my shoulder blades, but it's useless to try and pull away.

"Man, this is perfect," Hartley says, stepping into the red liquid that has began to spill out into the hallway. "You fell right into the trap. Guards, take them down to the cells."

Isaac is being held in the air, but he's kicking as much as he can. The guard holding me down picks me up and sets me on my feet. We are led out, and I watch Hartley disappear down the long hallway, humming pleasantly to himself.