The doors opened on an empty car.
Max gestured Melissa in first.
The rest of us followed. Ingrid, me, four of the infected. The other six stayed in the corridor and nobody told them to.
The polished walls of the elevator held our reflections in warped panels—Max with the radio unit, Melissa in the long black dress, Ingrid's pale head, my own face, and the empty eyes of the four that had been selected to fit. The tallest of them stood with the crown of his head flat against the roof of the car. The contact didn't bother him.
The car started up.
Nobody said a word. The soft mechanical hum filled the silence. The indicator light climbed through floors that had spent a day and a half in lockdown and were about to discover what the open doors at ground level meant.
Do you have something with the bald girl?
Melissa's thought, arriving without her face moving.
No. Why?
