The Boy on the Bridge

by M. R. Carey

  She is struggling furiously. He stabs the needle into her arm but misses the cubital vein by a fraction of an inch. The second time he’s not even close. The third time, with Rina’s teeth grinding against his shoulder, he gets a bullseye and sinks the plunger in.

  Cloth tears as he pulls himself free from her. A tiny shred of fabric stays between her clenched teeth, like the seat of the burglar’s trousers in the dog’s jaws in an ancient comic book he saw once at the orphanage. She spits it out and strains to get to him, to try for another bite. He is forced to retreat around the bench, out of her reach.

  He waits to see if she will recognise him. He’s crying again, wrenching sobs that shake and hurt him as they’re expelled. Every few seconds, he says her name aloud in the hope that she will answer.

  She doesn’t, but her breathing calms and gradually she closes her mouth. She sinks down onto her knees, her legs bending under her, and sags a little although her bound wrist keeps her more or less upright. The blank look goes out of her eyes. Now she just looks exhausted and confused, her brows furrowed with thought as she stares around the lab. She blinks slowly, screwing her eyes closed for several seconds before opening them again and taking a second look—as though she hopes a second throw of the dice might have a better outcome.

  “Rina?” Stephen says again.

  Again, she doesn’t speak. But when he holds out his hand to her she touches his palm with the tip of one finger. He gives a tearful laugh, returning the one-finger hug. Rina turns her head, her eyelids flickering a little as she stares at the strap around her wrist. She tugs against it to see if it will give. Fumbles at it with the fingers of her free hand.

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Stephen says thickly. “I had to. I’m sorry.” He steps forward quickly to untie her.

  But he doesn’t get there. Dr. Fournier steps out of the dark of the engine room, whose door has been open all this time, and blocks his way. It’s so sudden that Stephen jumps backwards and slams his elbow painfully on the corner of the freezer cabinet. He yelps and folds his arms around the pain.

  “Don’t touch her,” Dr. Fournier snaps. And then, “What did you do, Greaves? Tell me what you did. My God, she’s infected. She’s infected, and you found a way to control it. You found a cure.”

  “No!” Stephen says. It’s completely involuntary. Presented with the false statement, he has no choice but to correct it.

  “I know what I saw. Tell me. Tell me how you did this.”

  “I can’t,” Stephen yelps. “Please!”

  In the intensity of his feeling, Dr. Fournier grabs Stephen’s shoulders and pushes him back against the freezer cabinet. “Tell me!” he roars.

  The shock of physical contact freezes Stephen on the spot. He doesn’t even struggle. Words well up behind his teeth, start to spill out. “C … cerebrospinal fluid of the captured hungry. You take a b … base mass of between twenty and fifty cc and fix with—”

  There is a sound like the dull ringing of a gong. Dr. Fournier grunts, stiffens and falls headlong, unconscious before he hits the deck plates.

  Rina lets the steel clamp stand slide from between her fingers. It hits the doctor again when it falls, leaving a triangular gash on his cheek.

  Rina’s eyes roll, wide and wild. She blinks and shakes her head, makes a brrrrrrrr sound. “That’s better,” she growls through clenched teeth. “Hear myself think.”

  57

  “This is Carlisle to Brigadier Fry,” the colonel says. “Carlisle to Fry, or to the Beacon Muster, over.” He has turned the radio’s gain up as far as it will go, and most of the remaining members of Rosie’s military escort are crowded into the cockpit with him, Only Foss is missing, manning the turret again to warn him if the other vehicles out on the tarmac make a move.

  The response is a long time in coming, and the brigadier sounds very relaxed when she finally answers the colonel’s hail. “Isaac. Welcome to base Hotel Echo. Did you have any trouble finding us?”

  Carlisle isn’t tempted by the invitation to small talk. “Brigadier,” he says, “we identify hostiles in the immediate area. I request leave to pursue our original course and rendezvous at Beacon. This place isn’t safe.”

  “Request denied,” Fry says, in the same calm tone. “Those aren’t hostiles, they’re allies. Now, bearing in mind my explicit instructions to you yesterday, please open your doors and assemble on the tarmac. My troops will take Rosie from here, along with the specimen you mentioned—assuming it actually exists—and you’ll be transferred to Beacon.”

  And here they are, at the point where polite pretence has to break down.

  “Transferred how?” Carlisle says. “We see junker battle-trucks and junker cadres on the ground. I’m not convinced you can guarantee our safety.”

  “I can guarantee your safety if you come out immediately. Not if you continue to waste my time.” The brigadier sounds just a little testy now, as though she’s trying hard to avoid unpleasantness but is reluctantly acknowledging that it may become necessary after all. “We’ll drive back together, right now. Your orders stand, Isaac. Please come out.”

  At the brink of direct insubordination, Carlisle feels the familiar reluctance to press forward. Instead, he marches in place. “Geraldine, you’re making common cause with murderers and rapists who oppose everything we believe in. I refuse to endorse that decision. Let me take Rosie back to Beacon and we’ll perform the handover there in due course.”

  “That’s not possible,” Fry says bluntly. “Isaac, let me explain the situation to you. There is no room here for argument, or negotiation. The alliances I’ve made are absolutely necessary to ensure Beacon’s survival. I’m not offering you any kind of an explanation, or any apology. I’m your senior officer and you will obey me. I am requisitioning your vehicle for the Beacon Muster. Right here. Right now. If you fail to surrender it, you—along with all your crew—will be guilty of mutiny and treason and you will be treated accordingly. As enemies of the Muster and the polity.”

  “She’s bluffing,” McQueen says from behind him. “She wants Rosie intact, not in pieces.”

  “Is that Lieutenant McQueen?” Fry asks. “If so, please tell him to be quiet and observe the chain of command. And if you share his optimism, Isaac, bear in mind that having Rosie in pieces is preferable to having her—and you—take the field against us.”

  “Geraldine,” Carlisle says, making one last appeal to reason. “I haven’t lied to you. We have encountered a new type of hungry and we have obtained a specimen. It’s vitally important that we deliver it to Beacon intact.”

  “So you told me,” Fry snaps. “I have to say that it seems unlikely after seven months of zero findings. I’m inclined to think that you saw this moment coming and finessed accordingly. But if you’re telling the truth, that’s all the more reason for you to give up without a fight and let Beacon have the benefit of your success.”

  Carlisle grimaces. For a second he presses the radio against his chest while he formulates a response. “Yes,” he admits at last. “I can follow the logic of that argument. I’m prepared to hand over the specimen if we can agree a way to do it. But I can’t surrender Rosie. I need to think about the safety of my crew. And in that regard, you should know that we also have a baby in here. Samrina Khan gave birth two days ago.”

  There is the smallest perceptible pause. “Really?” Fry says. “That’s wonderful. Against mission regs, of course, but these things happen. I look forward to wetting the baby’s head. No more arguments, Isaac. You, your people, Rosie, the specimen. You will entrust them all to me, and you will do it right now. You have five minutes. Use them wisely. I’ll be training a scope on your mid-section door. The timer doesn’t stop until the door opens and I see you step out.”

  “Brigadier—” But she has broken contact.

  “Sir.” Foss, on the walkie-talkie, her voice quick and urgent. “The odds just got worse. Two more vehicles are rolling in behind us with their lights out. Definitely junker ordnance
—barbed-wire trim, welded-on bits of shit all over them. There are some more ground troops too, moving in on our three o’clock and our nine.”

  So they can’t retreat, and they can’t advance. If there is an unexcluded middle he’s not seeing it. They’re out of options and almost out of time.

  “Foss,” he says, “stay where you are and prime the field pounder. But don’t rotate the turret. That may prompt them to start firing.” He turns to Sixsmith. “Bring the remaining members of the science team to the crew quarters, Private,” he tells her.

  Sixsmith rips off a salute and goes astern to the lab. Carlisle goes to the crew quarters himself to await their arrival. He glances towards the bunks, with a poignant ache of nostalgia. He is wearied to death, and it seems unlikely he will sleep again on this side of the grave.

  Sixsmith brings Dr. Khan and Stephen Greaves. McQueen follows them in. Khan is very much the worse for wear, leaning against Sixsmith until she is able to sink down into a chair.

  “What about Dr. Fournier?” Carlisle demands.

  “Sir, he was unconscious.”

  “He was …?”

  “I smacked him in the head with a clamp stand,” Dr. Khan explains. “He was assaulting Stephen and I acted without thinking. Sorry.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Sixsmith says. “Seriously.”

  Carlisle has no time to tease out the story, and very little interest. He sums up what’s happening in as few words as he can manage, and explains his own decision.

  “Brigadier Fry has offered to take all of you back to Beacon,” he tells them, “as long as I hand Rosie over to her within the next few minutes. If I believed that offer was sincere, I would already have surrendered. But I don’t. I think she intends to kill all of us. Given that her troops seem to consist mainly of junkers, I can’t even guarantee that death will be a quick one.”

  “Fucking traitor,” Sixsmith says. “Filthy fucking traitor.” Nobody else says anything at all.

  “That being the case,” Carlisle goes on, “the choice seems to me to be a clear one. I don’t want to hand Rosie over to be used as the closing argument in a coup d’état. But the only alternative I can see is to make a run for it. The junker battle-trucks are civilian vehicles, much lighter than Rosie. It would be possible to ram one of them out of the way and push on past. But we’re heavily outnumbered, even just on the basis of the vehicles we can actually see. There could easily be more positioned behind the bunkers, and it’s almost certain that the footsoldiers who have moved in on our flanks are carrying RPGs.”

  “Affirmative, sir,” Foss says, via the squawk-box. “I’ve seen two already. Bazookas or grenade-launchers, heavy duty.”

  “So each of you has to decide,” Carlisle concludes, “whether you want to stay on board and make that attempt, or get out of here. I’m sorry I have no better options to offer you. If any of you want to leave, I’ll mount the airlock and open the mid-section door. My belief is that you’ll be giving yourself up to torturers and murderers that the brigadier will be unable to rein in even if she wishes to, but it’s possible that I’m wrong.”

  The slightly stunned silence persists. The soldiers know all this already, of course. It’s only Dr. Khan and Greaves who are hearing it for the first time.

  “I told them about your baby, Samrina,” he adds. “That may work in your favour, if you should decide—”

  “I’m not going out there,” Khan says. She wipes her eyes—which are red and swollen—with the heel of her hand. “I’ll take my chances with you.”

  “Me too,” Sixsmith agrees. And Foss, over the walkie-talkie, says the same.

  Finally McQueen shrugs and nods. “I don’t see what the hell else we can do,” he says. “Stand or run, they’re going to blow us to shit. We might as well take a few of the bastards with us.”

  “Some of them are Beacon soldiers,” Carlisle reminds him. “Like you. Part of their function is to obey even when they don’t entirely understand.”

  “That shouldn’t be part of anybody’s function.”

  Reluctantly, Carlisle nods. “Perhaps not,” he concedes. He feels as though he is throwing half his life onto the fire with those two words.

  Only Stephen Greaves has failed to give an answer. Carlisle knows now what the consequences were of not allowing him a voice the last time they spoke like this. He nods to the boy, then deliberately lowers his gaze to make it easier for Stephen to find the words.

  “I think going out might be a good idea,” Greaves says.

  “You heard what I said, Stephen? The likelihood is—”

  “No, I know, I know.” Greaves gestures with his hands in an accelerating rhythm, not illustrating anything but building up the momentum to speak. “A lot of people will die, but if we’re careful it won’t be us. Because we’ll know they’re coming.”

  “Know who is coming?” Sixsmith asks blankly.

  Stephen acknowledges the question by darting her a glance that lasts about a tenth of a second.

  “The children,” he says. “We can bring them.”

  58

  Lieutenant Foss extends and mounts the airlock, and they assemble on the mid-section platform.

  Five of them, not the full roster.

  One of the missing is Dr. Fournier, who is still unconscious. When Khan went back into the lab to check on his status, she took the precaution of propping him up against the workbench and fastening his wrists, both together, to one of the straps. He is breathing shallowly but evenly and she suspects it might be some time before he wakes, but when he does she wants to make sure he stays exactly where he is.

  Because the other two crew members who are staying on board are Stephen, who will close the airlock behind them, and her baby.

  “This could go horribly wrong,” she tells Stephen, just before they leave. “Even if it works. Even if they come, we could all end up dead. I’m leaving him with you because I trust you to … to make sure he’s okay.” She flails for a second on the frictionless slope of that concept. “Don’t let them take him, Stephen. Whatever happens, don’t let them take him.”

  “I won’t,” he promises her. “I’ll do what we said. Whatever happens.”

  She touches the back of his hand with her fingertip, presses hard. “Keep yourself safe too,” she says, her voice shaking. “I love you, Stephen.”

  All he can offer her in answer is a tremulous nod. “I—I—” he tries, and then “Rina.” He closes his eyes, folds himself in on the emotion to lock it down. Even ordinary social embarrassments are torture for him, so Khan can’t imagine what he’s feeling now. She wishes his condition would allow her to take him in her arms and stroke his head. She feels as though she’s leaving both her children behind. Her whole family. But they can’t embrace, they can only say goodbye, and drawing it out will hurt him more.

  So she leaves, without any more words and without breaching the cordon sanitaire around his frail body. She is full to the brim with pain. And the fact that she will soon be empty is the most painful thing of all.

  The soldiers are all in the airlock when they get there. Foss is talking to McQueen about bullets. “You might get to try out those home-mades after all. Just wait until I’m somewhere else, okay?”

  “Top notch, these are,” McQueen says. “You’ll be begging me for the recipe.”

  “Oh, I know the recipe. That’s what bloody worries me.”

  For all their talk of weaponry, their rifles remain strapped across their backs. Their hands are empty.

  “A word, Colonel,” Khan says. She beckons him close.

  “Of course.” Carlisle leans down towards her and she whispers in his ear—a few terse sentences. The only gift she can give him, but it’s not a small one. When she steps back and he straightens, he stares at her in solemn perplexity. “Are you sure?” he asks her.

  “Yes.” She’s sure.

  “But that changes—” He doesn’t finish the sentence, so Khan doesn’t have to disagree. Here, now, it c
hanges nothing. It’s just the punchline to a joke she won’t be alive to tell.

  Carlisle looks as though he wants to say more, but at that moment Stephen steps out of the crew quarters into the mid-section. He has brought the baby to see her off, and the baby’s presence somehow eclipses everything else.

  Stephen holds the tightly wrapped bundle out gingerly, uncertainly, his eyes flicking from side to side as he tries to avoid so many closely clustered gazes. Khan wraps the baby’s tiny hand in both of hers and leans down to kiss him on the crown of his head, which is covered in unbelievably fine downy hair. “Godspeed, buster,” she whispers.

  “Takes after his dad,” Foss says. “Poor little bastard.”

  There seems nothing else to say. The moment is suddenly on them. The colonel taps the keypad. The deck plates shake as the airlock’s hydraulics wake up.

  The doors slide back and the soldiers step out onto the broken concrete. Khan climbs down right behind them, wincing as her feet touch down on the parade ground. Her muscles feel wasted, recoilless. But she lines up with the rest as they stand, spotlit by the multiple rows of headlights, showing their empty hands.

  Showing their number, too. Brigadier Fry knows that Rosie’s full complement stands at seven. She has to be aware, as the airlock doors slide closed again at their backs, that two crew members have remained inside. This is an invitation to negotiate, not a full surrender.

  So the decision rests with her.

  A man steps into the focus of the headlight beams, where he turns at once into a two-dimensional silhouette. He’s not a soldier. He wears an ancient T-shirt with an indecipherable slogan, torn and mud-spattered jeans and orange snow boots. He waves to them to advance.

  Khan takes one last glance back at Rosie. Her home through the long months of the mission, and the last one she will ever know. No, almost the last. Her body is a house too, for something subtle and ineffable that answers to its name. She carries her last home with her, walks it forward across weeds and concrete into a light that is alive with drifting dust motes.