it more than you can imagine.” He watched smiles rise on to several of the new volunteers’ faces and continued. “I’m not going to go over why Greg and I founded SSL, or what we’re trying to do here, because I’m going to assume you wouldn’t be here unless you already knew what we’re about. What I am going to tell you is that what we do here is really, really important. The existence of the supernatural is the biggest social issue to hit this country in many decades, quite possibly the biggest there has ever been, and everybody’s struggling to keep up with the pace of change. Including us.
“As you know, the second S in our name stands for Survivors. It’s a big word, and to us it means anyone who has been adversely affected by an experience with the supernatural. We’re not just talking about people who have been attacked, or whose family or friends have been killed. We’re also talking about vampires themselves, the majority of whom never wanted to be turned and are simply trying to get through each day without doing any harm. They are survivors too, of a monstrous violation. At SSL, we view everyone equally, we don’t prioritise humans over vampires, and we don’t judge anyone for the things they might have done. Ever. Is that clear?”
The volunteers nodded as one.
“Good,” he said. “Those of you who work the phones are going to hear things that will upset you, that will probably make you angry. You need to be prepared for that. And those of you who work in our outreach teams are going to come face to face with things that are frightening, possibly even terrifying. It’s hard work, and it’s not always popular, I warn you now. There are plenty of people out there who think that there should be no help or sympathy for any vampire, so be careful who you tell that you work here. ‘Vamp sympathiser’ can be a dangerous label to be stuck with. So if you decide that SSL isn’t for you, we won’t think any less of you, I promise. But if you stay, you’ll have not only our gratitude, but the gratitude of everyone who wants the world to be a better place than it is.”
Pete stopped, and surveyed the group. He had given the same speech at least a dozen times in the last fortnight, and was pleased to see it have the same effect it always did; the nervousness on the faces of the volunteers was gone, replaced by clear-eyed determination.
“Any questions?” he asked.
Silence.
“All right then,” said Greg, casting a smile in Pete’s direction. “There’s a six-week probationary period, but I’ve got a good feeling about you all. You’re on the side of the future.”
Matt Browning looked up from his screen and squeezed his eyes shut. Dots of light whirled and spun across his field of vision as a dull ache pulsed down the back of his head and across his shoulders; he had been in the Lazarus Project labs for almost seventeen hours and he was absolutely spent.
He sat back in his chair, stretched his arms above his head in an attempt to lessen the knots in his neck and upper arms, and checked the time. It was just after 10pm, but the lab was almost full; the Lazarus staff were prone to working until they could no longer keep their eyes open. There were perhaps half a dozen desks unoccupied, but Matt knew they would not remain so for long; they belonged to those men and women who had drifted into nocturnal cycles of working and sleeping, and who would likely arrive any minute to start shifts that would go through the night.
Matt glanced to his right and saw Natalia looking at him; she grinned, before turning her attention back to her screen. He stared at her, marvelling, as he always did, at both her very existence and the impact she had had on his life. The talk had happened almost five months ago now, and there was no longer any doubt: she was his girlfriend.
His first girlfriend.
The first girl he had ever kissed. Or done … anything else with.
Matt blushed at memories that were never far from his mind, feeling heat rise into his face. He doubted he would ever understand why the brilliant, beautiful Russian girl was interested in him, but, for one of the very first times in his life, his prodigiously powerful brain had steered him through the ever-present clouds of self-doubt. Its message had been simple: don’t question this, don’t overthink it, just hold tight with both hands and refuse to let go. Because relationships tended not to end well for those who had given their lives over to Blacklight, including those he considered his closest friends, and nothing, absolutely nothing about the future was certain.
Kate and Shaun.
Jamie and Larissa.
In a display of resilience that Matt could still scarcely comprehend, Kate had managed to move on from the terrible sight of her boyfriend lying dead in front of her, his neck broken, his eyes wide and staring up at nothing. But although she had found the strength to keep getting out of bed each morning, Matt didn’t believe for a second that she was really, truly over what had happened to Shaun; he doubted, in all honesty, that she ever would be.
He had similar doubts about his best friend. It was painfully clear to everyone that Jamie still missed Larissa so much that it hurt, despite his protestations to the contrary. Matt had been furious when Kate told him that Larissa was gone, had disappeared into the night without so much as a goodbye, so he could not imagine the depths of anger and misery Jamie must be feeling. In truth, Matt had worried for a while that it might prove the final straw; his friend had been beset by a trio of revelations that would have been hard for anyone to deal with – the truth about his dad, and Frankenstein, and the sudden disappearance of the girl he had relied on far more than he wanted people to know – and it had taken Matt a number of long weeks to truly believe that Jamie was going to be able to carry on.
Be grateful, he told himself. For Natalia, and Jamie, and Kate, and for the simple fact that you’re still breathing in and out. Because the world could literally end at any moment.
Matt looked around the long rectangular space that comprised the Lazarus Project’s central laboratory. There were three more large labs, sealed behind airlocks and disinfectant showers, along with a twenty-four-hour canteen and two corridors of quarters for those men and women who chose to eat and work and sleep without ever setting foot beyond the project’s borders. He briefly considered trying to persuade Natalia to call it a day as well, but saw the lines of data scrolling down her screen and decided not to disturb her. He would send her a message later. With that settled, he reached for his mouse, intending to log out of the Lazarus network, and paused as a window popped open at the bottom of his screen.
He groaned inwardly. The window was an automated notification, informing him that the results of his most recent set of data runs were now available, and for a brief moment he considered pretending he hadn’t seen it and leaving as he’d intended. But he knew he couldn’t; he knew that wondering about the results would prevent him sleeping, regardless of how tired he was. Instead, he clicked the window open, and double-clicked on the secure link that would load the results. While the computer worked, Matt lowered himself back into his chair and waited.
The data he had brought back from San Francisco had allowed Lazarus to take giant leaps forward; it was no exaggeration to claim that it had saved years of research and development. To best handle the huge amount of new data, the project had subsequently been separated into eight smaller teams, each working independently, each focused entirely on one aspect of the search for the cure. Matt’s team had been tasked with analysing the protein coat and envelope of lipids that enclosed the genetic material of the vampire virus itself, and had made rapid progress, to the point that it was widely believed they had learnt all there was to learn.
It was clear that the genetic material inside the virus was responsible for the DNA rewriting that took place in the early stages of the turn, and contained the trigger which began the physical alteration, but Matt had retained a nagging suspicion that the key to undoing the transformation lay in the protein coat rather than what it surrounded, and he had designed structure after structure