The Last Human (a novel)

familiar. And he was thinking about it when her heard someone outside the cell calling to him in a very careful and quiet whisper.

"Pssssst. Hey." It startled him and he stood up. "What..."

He hurried to the bars of the cell. Outside them, in cult garb, the woman who had seemed strangely familiar held a finger to her mouth for silence.

"Shhhh!" she cautioned in a quiet whisper. "You don't remember me, do you? Juliet.

Berkeley. Remember Telegraph Avenue? Sushi? History of Tokugawa Japan?"

Lionel was astounded. He studied her for some seconds. She had grown much older way before her time. He had last seen her with Adrian on the Berkeley campus.

"Juliet!" he whispered. "How did you get mixed up with this crackpot?"

"Got into his cult. Couldn't get out. My kids are hostages. If I leave, he'll kill them."

She showed him a key. "Anyway, I came to get you out."

She inserted the key and quietly unlocked the cell door. Lionel slowly and quietly pushed it open and quickly slipped out.

"Can we get your kids and you out of here?" he asked her.

"No. They're in a guarded nursery. I'll handle it. Thing is, you got to get the hell out of here. Fast. Now, they're guarding the roads so I got this."

She took a step toward the stairway and picked up a large sporting-goods store package. Quickly and with no time to waste, she handed Lionel a diver's wet suit still in manufacturer's shrink-wrap. She saw Lionel looking at it puzzled and explained.

"I found a wet suit in a store. It was the third one back on the rack. Probably never touched. Clearly never worn. So probably no viruses. Same with the air supply. But you'll have to take your chances. The alternative's worse. Okay, let's go."

They began running as quietly as possible down a corridor that led from the stairway toward the outside of the cellar. Juliet carefully and quietly opened the latch of a large iron door and then the door itself. When it squeaked she stopped and pushed it more slowly and carefully. When it was open enough, they both slipped outside.

An overgrown stone stairway led down to a beach on the Mediterranean, and both of them hurried down it. On the way down Lionel tore the wet suit out of its shrink wrap.