“But… it’s not them, it’s not anything. It’s a disease,” said Lucy, perplexed.
Lopez shook his head. Tears dripped onto the crib below as he squeezed his eyes, trying to compose himself.
“I had accepted my children’s deaths. I’ve worked hard, every day, to keep looking forwards, to make them proud. Then, out of nowhere, this miracle happened, and it’s like they were back in my arms. I know how crazy that sounds. I’m just telling you how it feels. Right now, knowing my child’s trapped somewhere in Harvey’s lab, probably enduring the same torture I did at the hands of that psychopath – it’s unbearable. I have to get him back. I have to get my child,” said Lopez, his voice cracking as he spoke. “You’ve never had kids, Lucy. I wouldn’t expect you to understand what it feels like to lose them, but I promise you, whatever you saw me experience in that cell – this is worse.”
Lucy stared at him, open mouthed. He was insane. It had to be some feature of the disease – a pathological attachment to the offspring which spawned out of the host’s flesh without consultation or warning. She could see the malaise affecting every part of his vision.
“Lucy’s baby died,” said Fliss, interrupting her moment of reflection.
The words pierced Lucy like a spear. Her baby? That thing was not ‘her baby’. She’d never had a baby. She and Dan had been trying, but it was taking time. Her hopes of becoming a mother died with Dan. What was Fliss doing, blurting out a thing like that?
“You had a baby?” said Lopez, staring at Lucy, his eyes wide with sorrow for her.
“It wasn’t a baby. It happened in Boston – it was a miscarriage of sorts, caused by the disease. The progeny wasn’t viable, it was stillborn. In that sense, I guess I was lucky. I’m not sure what I’d have done otherwise,” said Lucy.
“Lucy, I’m so sorry,” began Lopez.
“Sorry? For what? That we’ve all got the same disease and seem to be involuntarily hatching tiny offspring from our bodies? Don’t pity me, Ed, I got off lightly. My tumor kid was dead already. Bullet dodged,” said Lucy.
She clenched her fist, remembering the sticky, gelatinous feel of her own flesh as she’d scooped the fetus from the appendage that had grown over her abdominal wall.
“How can you speak like that?” said Lopez, aghast.
“I’m just stating the facts,” said Lucy, bluntly.
“These are children, Lucy. Children of people,” said Lopez, gesturing to the cribs around them.
“They’re the progeny of a disease that’s hijacked our species, Ed. Can’t you see, everything you’re feeling is the disease manipulating you? Think about it – it’s found another way to reproduce, and it’s playing on your paternal instincts to ensure it has the best chance of survival in its new form. The progeny probably release a hormone or something that triggers this response in you,” said Lucy.
“Please stop calling them that,” said Lopez.
“Ed, you’re not thinking clearly, be objective,” said Lucy.
“This is the clearest I’ve thought in eight months!” snapped Lopez, raising his voice.
The babies around them stirred at the noise, and a ripple of crying passed around the room.
“Can you two take this outside?” said Fliss, scooping up two of the crying infants and trying to soothe them back to sleep.
Lucy left the room without another word and paced the corridor. She slammed her palm against the wall in frustration, then slumped the ground. She sat there for several minutes, cooling off, as the enormity of the conversation sank in. After a moment, Lopez joined her, closing the door behind him delicately.
“I know it’s hard to understand, mainly because I can’t explain it, but… it feels like I’ve got my kids back. Yes, maybe it is some side effect of the disease, maybe my brain’s being manipulated, but that doesn’t change how it’s making me feel. It’s like I’ve been torn in two – like half of me is still in that laboratory, hidden away having God knows what done to it. I have to get my baby back, please, Lucy,” said Lopez.
She stared at the floor, struggling to believe how she could have gone from being so relieved he was alive, to so fearful of his mindset.
“I understand,” she said, vacantly.
“Will you help me?”
“You don’t need my help – you can use Kryz, can’t you?” said Lucy.
“Kryz only got me out because he knew where to look. Fliss and Jack knew enough about your work to give him my rough location in the hospital. We have no idea where the babies are being held,” said Lopez.
“You think I know?” said Lucy, with a single, cold laugh.
“I need you to find out. Use your access.”
“Do you have any idea what thin ice I’m on? I’m amazed they’ve even let me back into the lab after how things panned out last time. The only reason they’ve reinstated my clearance is because I’ve given them something new. I have to tread carefully. I can’t risk being thrown out again,” said Lucy.
“What have you given them?” said Lopez, concerned.
Lucy hesitated. She knew he wasn’t going to like it.
“The white powder. I’ve shown them how to cultivate it,” said Lucy.
“You did what?” said Lopez, aghast. “The very substance that infected all of us – you’re showing them how to make more? Do they even know what it is?”
“They know it’s lethal to D4 creatures and toxic to humans,” said Lucy.
“But you’ve not told them it causes the very disease they’re trying to contain? How could you be so reckless?” said Lopez.
“I’m doing it to save people like us, OK?”
“What do you mean?”
“Harvey’s realized that D4 creatures generally avoid infecteds. He’s harvesting blood from infected people to use in body armor for soldiers.”
“So the rumors are true?” said Lopez, grimacing.
“It’s worse than that – the blood is only effective for a matter of days, then it has to be replenished. That’s why I had to show them the powder,” said Lucy.
“And risk infecting the entire city?”
“What the hell else was I supposed to do?” snapped Lucy.
The pair sat for a moment in silence, each fuming with frustration and upset.
“I can’t jeopardize my current mission,” said Lucy, finally. “Until we can force the Government to decommission their blood strategy, all infecteds are at stake. The powder has to come first, Ed. But I will try to find your child, I promise.”
With a sniff, he placed his arms around her in gratitude and held her tightly. For a moment, she didn’t reciprocate. She felt his body warm hers, as her head swam. What lay ahead was risky. Harvey was capable of anything, and she didn’t want to go through what Lopez had endured. She placed her arm over his, and locked hands with him.
The door clicked open and Fliss stepped into the corridor. She gave them an awkward smile.
“They’re all back to sleep for now. We’re out of formula though – I’ll ask the kitchen to make some up. I think they said they had fresh leaves,” said Fliss.
She turned to leave but Lucy called her back.
“Fliss, wait up – I need your help. You too, Ed,” said Lucy, rising to her feet.
“What is it?” said Fliss.
Lucy turned her gaze to Lopez and fixed him with a solemn stare.
“Maurice is in DC,” she said.
“The Canadian? How? Are you sure?” said Lopez, appalled.
“He was on my bus. I tried to kill him, but it didn’t work out,” said Lucy.
It felt strange, hearing the words come from her mouth like it was a perfectly normal thing to do. Like a fact of life.
“Who is this Maurice guy?” said Fliss.
“He’s a treacherous piece of shit, is what he is,” snarled Lopez. The first flickers of his old self rekindled with the news.
“Does he know you’re infected?” said Fliss.
“It’s the whole reason he sold us out,” said Lucy. “I
f there’s the slightest way he can use it to his advantage, he’ll do it again right away. He knows my name and can give a good description. If he reports me, the Health Department will investigate anyone I’ve been in contact with. They’ll find out about you and Jack. It would only be a matter of time before they discovered this place. For as long as that man lives, this building and everyone in it is under threat.”
“I promised him, if I ever saw him again, I’d kill him,” said Lopez. “Fliss and Kryz will track him down and bring him here. Then I’ll do what I should’ve done the first time he crawled into our lives.”
SIX
An eye for an eye
________________________________________________
She hid as best she could, sinking low in her seat near the back of the bus. She kept her hood up and her glasses on, fearing that Maurice might climb aboard and unmask her at any moment.
Her bus had been diverted four times so far, each time circumventing a different D4 attack site from the night before. The soldiers guarding the sites all wore flak jackets with horizontal yellow strips across them. As her bus rounded the corner of the last site, she glimpsed Adrian’s team loading body bags into a van.
Across the city, the Government’s electrical billboards shone brilliantly, warning of a new ban on gatherings of more than five people. Beneath the infographic, the newsfeed scrolled by.
…Restoration work at Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant halted as troops recalled · President issues tough warning to protestors following blockade of military supplies overnight…
As they got closer to the hospital, the residential attack sites gave way to inner city protests. Outside the law courts, hundreds of protestors had gathered, demanding political transparency. Their white armbands shone brightly amidst the rag-tag assortment of scavenged clothes and uniforms the striking civilians wore. Amidst the protestors sat a subgroup with duct tape over their mouths. Each held a handmade sign, reading: where are they?
She slipped into the hospital and hurried to Level Three, where she donned her protective clothing. Entering her new lab, she prepared to confront the outcome of yesterday’s mission. Her hopes of stopping Harvey hung on the next few moments.
She stepped into the cell and took a long, deep breath, as she stared at the pitiful creature before her. The disease had taken hold rapidly overnight, on account of the strength of the dose they’d infected it with. Clumps of powder matted the possum’s purple and white fur together. It tried to bristle, but it was weak; its raised hairs wilted like dying grass. She’d thought the sight of fresh powder would bring relief, but instead felt nauseous.
Lucy zipped up her yellow-striped flak jacket as she approached. If someone in the lab caught her in close proximity to a creature, without the protection of the blood jackets, there would be all kinds of questions asked. It was a level of suspicion she couldn’t risk for a minute. She silenced her anxious speculations as to whose blood she was wearing, and forced herself to focus on the task at hand.
She picked up the scalpel. The creature moaned, feebly agitating against its restraints. Lucy winced as she recalled the turtle she’d butchered. Delicately, she placed the scalpel in between a mass of the possum’s hair, and scraped the powder out onto the operating table. She worked methodically, gently teasing the white substance out from its fur, until a perimeter of powder surrounded the outstretched creature.
As delicately as she could, Lucy slid three fingers under the creature’s belly, and raised it off the table to inspect its undercarriage. There were no great clumps of powder to be found, but the hairs themselves had turned white. She ditched the scalpel and investigated with her other hand, prizing a cluster of hairs apart for a closer look. The skin looked white, too. She grasped a bunch of hairs and pulled, expecting them to come out like cocktail sticks from a jar. Instead, a clump of fur and skin several inches across tore away from the creature’s belly, like a strip of turf.
The creature quivered in agony. Lucy stared in amazement at the powder-filled sample, and at the bare flesh she’d exposed on the possum’s belly itself. She deposited the cluster in a tub, and stepped back from the possum, wiping her brow. The creature fixed her with a wide-eyed stare, as it strained harder. It bore no resemblance to a human. It was a possum. A diseased, extra-terrestrial possum, she told herself. But it trembled, and resisted, and moaned just as Lopez had done when Harvey had tortured him. A pang of guilt clawed at her, and she threw the scalpel to the ground with a clatter. Lucy paced the cell, distraught. Tearing flesh from a conscious, living creature was anathema to the person she’d once been.
The possum made a choking sound, and vomited up a ball of sticky, white-and-pink flesh. Lucy winced, and scooped the substance into a separate tub. As she placed it down on the counter, the lump of flesh began to wriggle. A paw appeared from the middle, followed by a foot, and a tail. A tiny, juvenile possum clawed its way out of the flesh coating, which cracked down the middle like a meatball hatching. The sprog flopped against the side of the tub, exhausted. Its eyes were sealed shut, and powder coated its skin, where fur grew in sparse patches. It squeaked pathetically to its parent. The possum on the table moaned back, straining against its shackles.
Lucy looked at both creatures in disgust. She recited the mantra she’d told herself so many times before: their kind had destroyed her world. They’d taken her partner, her best friend, and the life she’d loved. No more.
She stepped up to the table and seized a clutch of fur on the possum’s underbelly. With a grim determination, she peeled it away, exposing the creature’s raw flesh beneath. She continued, becoming faster, and rougher, until within minutes the creature had been skinned completely. It lay, quivering, on the operating table, as Lucy dropped the last chunk of diseased, powdery flesh into the bucket behind.
“Impressive,” said Harvey, startling her.
Lucy jolted upright, still panting from her frenzy.
“How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to observe your commitment to your work,” said Harvey. “I see you’ve had a strong yield already. I must say, you’ve exceeded my expectations yet again, Lucy. I will confess, I dropped in at first light to observe our little friend here, and was quite taken by the transformation. So much so, I put in a request for additional subjects to be procured immediately. Ah, here they come now,” said Harvey.
The door clicked open, and a pair of technicians each wheeled in a crate. They deposited them in the empty cells, adjacent to Lucy’s. She peered out through the glass at Harvey. Discomfort crept over her as he beamed back. She swiftly exited the cell and joined him at the front, then watched as the technicians secured the new captives.
“I decided we should augment our enquiries,” said Harvey, with a twinkle.
The technicians rigged the first newcomer up to an intravenous blood drip.
“Goodness, don’t tell me you’re becoming squeamish now, after what you just did,” chuckled Harvey, reading Lucy’s bitter expression. “I’m intrigued to see at what pace the creatures deteriorate when they’re infected solely with blood, rather than the powder solution you devised for our beloved possum over there.”
Lucy looked on grimly at the two new captives. The creatures were both a little larger than the possum she’d captured. One resembled a house cat, but with a stretched torso like a sausage dog’s. The intravenous drip extended out from its midriff. The other creature resembled a bird-eating spider, though it had more legs – was it ten? Or fourteen? Lucy couldn’t quite tell, as the technician kept obscuring the view. For this one, they didn’t attempt an IV drip; instead they partially-filled a glass box with blood and deposited the spider inside it.
“I need access to your Gen Water reserves,” said Lucy, bluntly. “I know you’ve been collecting samples. I want to maximize the amount of powder we grow on these creatures before they die – which means keeping them fed.”
“Yet again, Lucy, I find our minds are aligned. However, might I remar
k that there is a degree of inefficiency in your model which we can ill afford in our present state of crisis,” said Harvey.
“What do you mean?”
“Collecting and delivering Gen Water to feed living creatures would be nightmarishly labor intensive – especially as we scale up. Today we have three creatures in our care. Next week, that number could be thirty. Happily, I think I’ve devised a rather elegant solution. Give me a moment,” said Harvey with a rosy smile. He strode excitedly from the laboratory.
Lucy took the opportunity to retrieve her tubs of white powder from the skinned possum’s cell. She peered into the beaker holding its fleshy offspring; the sprog had ceased squeaking, or moving at all for that matter. It lay perfectly still in a bed of powder and birthing fluids.
Lucy glanced around. The other technicians were distracted; the cat creature had broken free of its tethers in the adjoining cell, and it was their unhappy task to re-secure it. Lucy quickly filled a tiny flask with powder, and stowed it in her pocket. Resuming her primary task, she grabbed the main samples, sealed the tubs, and exited the cell before anyone questioned her.
The lab door swung open and Harvey returned, with raised eyebrows. He gave Lucy a wink, as he held the door open. She stepped back, reading his cue to clear the way. A barrage of insults emanated from a single voice in the corridor. Two guards dragged a lively woman into the lab, and waited for Harvey’s instructions.
“You’re pieces of shit, you know that? Wake up, people, the Government is brainwashing you! Our civil liberties are vanishing by the day, you’ve gotta take a–”
The woman broke off her tirade, as she saw the room around her. Lucy recognized the expression of someone who’d been taken to a hospital, and ended up in a ward that was not exclusively human. The woman wore jeans, a puffer jacket, and a white armband fashioned from a rag. As her eyes fell upon the captive creatures, her defiance vanished, and pure dread set in.
“No – no, please,” she began, kicking the ground away, and struggling against the guards.
Harvey gave them a nod. Both guards wore yellow-striped flak jackets. They dragged the woman to the cell containing Lucy’s possum. The woman kicked and screamed, desperately, begging them to let her out, promising to quit protesting, imploring them to give her another chance. But the guards did not relent. They forced her arm out, and thrust it before the possum’s mouth, agitating the creature until it bit her.
Convulsive Box Set Page 75
