Free Quarantine by James Phelan

can lock us in and we can rest before trekking out.”
    â€œAre you sure it’s safe once you’re inside?”
    â€œOnly a handful of city workers know where the entrances are—hell, I may be the only living person who remembers the combination of the access hatches.”
    I looked at him, our faces up-lit as the flashlights bounced their glow from the floor.
    â€œAnd there’s no other access points?” I asked. “Nothing closer?”
    â€œThere’re shafts, yeah, at 10th and 30th—but I checked each of them three days ago, they’re impassable. They’re in basements of buildings and subway stations that are now piles of rubble. The relief valve hatches, like the one in Central Park, are designed to be bombproof, and it’s locked up as good as a bank vault to keep terrorists from getting at the city water supply. It’ll be good.”
    â€œChasers will be all around there,” I said, absently looking at the little diagram. “There’s no place else?”
    â€œMaybe we’d find another way,” Bob said, “if we had time to spend searching. I mean, we could try other tunnels—there’s some recent Con Edison transmission lines heading under the Harlem River, a substation up in Inwood, but I don’t know exact details. I mean, we could try looking up city records—”
    â€œThe less we have to move our group through this city, the better,” Daniel said, with finality. “And the sooner we leave, the better.”
    â€œThat’s what I think,” Bob said. “I’ll go scout up there at this point in the park, and if there’s access and it’s held, I’ll come back and we set out with the group.”
    They looked at each other and Bob nodded, as if the two of them had had this discussion already, worked through the pros and cons, and made their decision.
    â€œWhere’s it go?” I asked them. “Where’s this tunnel lead?”
    â€œWe got options,” Bob said. “The Van Cortlandt valve chamber complex in the Bronx—”
    â€œThat’s north?”
    â€œYeah,” he replied. “Could even follow it all the way up to Hillview Reservoir in Yonkers. Or we could even go across to Brooklyn, but I don’t like that idea.”
    â€œWe should decide before we get going,” Daniel said.
    â€œI’ll need to go look,” Bob said, standing.
    â€œWait—you’re going now ?” I asked.
    â€œNo time like the present.”
    â€œThis weather’s insane!”
    â€œSure—no one else will be out in the streets.”
    â€œAnd you’ll go all the way to the Central Park Reservoir?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œThere’s thousands of infected there.”
    â€œI’ll be careful,” he said, clapped my back and ran up the stairs. I turned to Daniel.
    â€œHe’ll be back by morning,” Daniel said. “He’ll make it up there, scout it out and spend the night, then come back.”
    â€œAnd then you leave?”
    â€œIf he gives it the all clear, yes.”
    â€œThe whole group?”
    Daniel adjusted the bandage around his eyes. “I’d prefer it that way, or it might be just whoever wants to come with us.”
    I swallowed hard. I knew I’d have to play a part in convincing the others, which meant I was stuck with this group for the rest of the day. Felicity and Rachel would worry, but what choice did I have—this was as good as it got right now. Maybe in our absence Paige would have a word in her dad’s ear; maybe Tom would come around to see the sense in leaving. He’d figure out that leaving en masse was the better choice here.
    â€œIf all’s good with this, I’ll need to leave earlier and get my friends from the zoo, meet up with you guys there.”
    â€œSure,” Daniel said and we walked upstairs. He walked over to the feet of Jesus on a cross, larger than