Page 37 of Juniper Unraveling

Another question has been burning a hole in my thoughts for weeks now. “What … what is … the Alpha project?”

He pauses to glance back at me, then returns to his slicing. “Where did you hear that?”

“One of the boys in the commissary. I overheard it. They said some of the boys had been taken and placed in the Alpha project.”

“The pheromones I described are very powerful. There is one strain, quite rare, though, that doesn’t require Third Stage infection to keep them away. It’s produced in second generation males, thought to be ancestors of the indigenous people in whom the organism was originally harvested.”

“They don’t get sick?”

“They can. The disease remains dormant in your generation, but it can be induced. Reactivated. We’ve not determined what activates it, though. Bites from Ragers, of course. But in the absence of that, it seems to be random.”

“Is that why we’re here? Why you only take boys?”

“Yes.”

“The boys … they said they mess with their heads in S block. What does that mean?”

“As I said, we’ve not found what activates the disease in these special subjects. The physicians in S block have incorporated a number of mental and physical stimulants.” He clears his throat, and I catch the shift of his shoulders beneath the suit. “No more questions.”

We’ve dipped into his discomfort, the part of this place that unsettles him—the same part that keeps him from wheeling the bodies down to the morgue. “Yes, sir.”

When we’re finally finished, he drapes a sheet over the patient to send him off to the incinerator.

“Before you take him down, come with me.”

On Doctor F’s heels, I wait for him to doff his suit, then shed my gloves and washing my hands, before I follow him through the door to the anteroom. From there, he leads me to his office, which is nothing impressive. There are no pictures, or plants, nothing personal in his small space. Books line the wall on shelves behind him. Most are medical references, but I catch sight of three bibles stacked beside each other.

He passes an object to me that I recognize as my book, the one I nabbed from the coffee table back home, and I instinctively clutch it to my chest.

“I hope you don’t mind, I borrowed it.”

“You read it?”

“I did. I found it to be … diverting.”

Pulling away the book just enough to see the cover, I stare down at the last vestiges of my home, trapped in my arms. “My mother used to read it to me.”

“Your mother. What was she like? You?”

The thought makes me chuckle, and I shake my head. “No. My mother was calm and soft spoken. My sister, Sarai, was more like her.”

“Younger sister?” He never usually asks about my family, which almost makes his questions seem intrusive.

“Yes. My brother’s twin. Both of them are like my mother. They have her eyes, too.”

“And you are more like your father?”

Considering his question for a moment, I shrug. “In some ways, yes. In others, no.”

“How so?”

I drop my gaze from his, rubbing my thumb back and forth over the cover of the book. “He’s smarter. Braver. He would’ve fought back when the soldiers came for us.”

“And he would’ve surely been killed for it.”

He’s probably right. My father undoubtedly would’ve sacrificed himself to protect us.

“How did your father die?” he asks.