Virulent

Chapter 3: Missing

Sometimes past midnight, Ezra arrived home to darkness. Dad had most likely retired for the night hours ago, and Shaki was still out on the account that her favourite pair of shoes were missing from the small shoe rack.

Ezra hung her coat in the world's smallest coat rack by the door and kicked her shoes off, threw her handbag and keys on the sofa, and rushed to the fridge, starving. She could say there are mice running free in her stomach if only it didn't remind her of Mum, who often cracked the brightest smile after blurting something silly like that.

She opened the single-door fridge in a world where most in their 'position' upgraded to the luxury of a double-door fridge. After all, Ezra had a steady job and a good income. But she thought such luxury was a waste of money. Truly. Not when there was no way in this cruddy rationed world that anyone could buy, let alone afford a fridge-full of food.

With that thought thoroughly squashed, she stuck her head in the cool, and breathed in with relief. The day had been stifling on all accounts: sweltering Aussie summer day, a lab crammed full of hot bodies and paltry air conditioners that couldn't keep up, a specimen cold storage that was damaged from repeated height-of-the-day power grid outages—I'll have to look at that tomorrow, fix it if possible. If not, tell Dr Archer of another expenditure. Not to mention, she'd had to run, in the muggy night, to catch the last tram to Central Station in order to get home.

When she opened her eyes, she spotted the dinner her dad had left for her—a wrap with a note stuck to it. EAT UP!

"Don't mind if I do!" The starving, thankful woman in her eagerly grabbed the food and rushed to gobble it. The sooner she did, the sooner she could drag herself upstairs, throw her body down on her bed, and sleep. And this is exactly what she did once she had her last bite.

As soon as her head hit the pillow—still wearing her day clothes—and closed her eyes, the intercom downstairs buzzed.

"Are you serious, Shaki?" Ezra groaned, pushing herself up on her elbows.

The electronic buzz sounded again in their small, old apartment, and she rose on heavy limbs. "I thought you said you'll stay over if you're gonna be this late..." she grumbled, clomping downstairs, most unhappy.

As she reached for the screen mounted on the wall in the kitchen, the buzzer sounded yet again. She pressed the answer button, hiding her yawn with the back of her other hand. "Shay, what happened to your key?"

Instead of her baby sister, another familiar voice crackled through the intercom.

"Dr Mayur? Is that you?" Tehreem Malik, her lab assistant at GenDesign, sounded panicked.

"Tehreem?" Ezra finally looked at the image on the intercom screen. Tehreem not only sounded panicked, but she looked pale even in the dim streetlights.

"Ezzie?" Halfway down the narrow stairs, her dad stood in his shorts, rubbing his stubble and yawning. "Is that your sister?"

"It's not Shay, Daddy." Ezra stared at the frantic look on Tehreem's face. "It's someone from my lab... Dr Archer's lab..."

"Everything okay?" Dad stepped down a rung. Worried.

This was the first time in four years since Ezra had joined Dr Archer's team—on the back of a horrid essay that had caused her to throw up immediately after having handed it in—that someone from the lab had turned up at her door.

And what a time to turn up, Tehreem.

"I'm sure everything is fine, Daddy." Ezra nodded, though everything about her assistant's manner of presentation, this late at night, told her otherwise. Something else probably broke after I left, and poor Tehreem needs me to come back so we can salvage more specimens before Archer gets wind of it—our incompetence.