Viral

6 - Highschool Introductions

"Yes, we gathered," I rolled my eyes, earning a frown from Kai. "But who are you people?"

"We're the island of misfit toys," Kai introduced.

"What–" Allison began, but I cut her off with a gasp.

"You're not– you're immune, aren't you!"

Kai nodded.

"So that's why you weren't wearing suits!" Maddy gaped.

"What makes you immune?" I asked.

Kai and a few of the Others shrugged. 

"Hell if we know," he chuckled, "and none of us stuck around long enough to find out."

"Aren't you curious?"

"We've been over this," Kai muttered, "the doctors will do almost anything to find a Cure that works for everyone. They got close with you guys. You're safe, but what about everyone else? They want to find a universal cure. Had we stuck around, we'd be lab rats."

An uneasy silence settled over the group.

"So how did you know to... 'liberate' us?" Reed's hooded gaze was suspicious, but Kai seemed to know better than to call him out on it.

"Inside sources," he shrugged with a casual wink.

"How did you all find out you're immune?" Maddy asked, eyes wide with awe.

"We were all in quarantine together," one of the Others, a short, muscular girl with cropped red hair, spoke up. "Or so we thought." 

"Somehow the doctors found out and grouped us all together," another boy picked up. "After six months, when nobody was exhibiting any symptoms of the plague, people began asking to leave–"

"But they didn't let us," the girl finished. "Obviously, we started getting suspicious. We would have run away sooner, but none of us knew what was going on. Finally, one of the doctors told us we were immune and helped us escape. She didn't think we deserved to live our lives like inmates when we were some of the lucky few who had the chance to live decently."

"The plan was to smuggle us out of the country so we wouldn't be discovered," another boy piped up, "but then it was revealed that even if we couldn't get the virus ourselves, we could still be carriers of it. They didn't want us transmitting it across the ocean." 

"So here we are," Kai finished. "When our source informed us a group had potential to survive, we agreed to rescue them if they were Cured."

"She injected everyone with an extremely fast-acting strain of influenza–"

"You're telling me everyone was swaying and throwing up because they had the flu?" Reed growled.

"–except your group, which she injected with some virus she claimed would work given your gene sequences and badda bing badda boom, here you are." 

"The flu?" Reed repeated, "we feared for our lives because everyone had the flu?"

"About that," Kai blushed, "you were all in pretty close quarters with–"

"We're getting sick, too, aren't we?" Reed deadpanned.

"Pretty much," Kai smacked his lips and on cue, everyone took one large step back. "So," he clapped, "shall we introduce ourselves?"

***

The Others were amazing. Not only were they immune to the plague, but they were practically enhanced. Although, maybe next to us – who had lived in quarantine for the past four or five months, who had gotten little-to-no exercise, and whose blistered skin looked like burnt squash – anyone would look healthy.