Nineveh's Child

by Gerhard Gehrke

  She put her head back down on the pillow and slept.

  23. Before: Nineveh

  “Mephisto and Doctor Hel have been knocking boots for months now,” Kelly said. “They do it everywhere.”

  “Everywhere?”

  “Not everywhere,” Addis said. “But you can see it in the way they look at each other. They’re both so proper all of the time, but just watch their eyes when they’re together.”

  A half-hearted card game was underway in the upper bleachers, but placement test grades had just come out for the older kids, and no one was happy.

  “Someone saw him shucking her clam in the science classroom a month ago,” Kretsch said just before he folded.

  “Eww,” Dinah said.

  Addis shot him a disapproving look. “Everyone’s heard that rumor, but no one knows who exactly saw that. But they sure keep finding projects to work on together in the evenings once they’re done making their rounds.”

  The group fell silent. The card players snapped their cards down as the games progressed. The others compared their grade reports on their tablets and grumbled. Her classmates across the way were less sullen. She heard several explosions of laughter. None of the younger kids had paid her any mind lately, but for some reason she was sure that they were laughing about her.

  “So, uh, did you guys get punch for lunch today?” Dinah asked.

  “No,” Kelly said. “Why?”

  “Just curious. A rumor that we’d get some soon.”

  “Is that what you little kids talk about?”

  Dinah flushed. “No. We talk about other stuff.”

  “So what happened with the safe?”

  “I was interrupted. I only got to try a few dozen combinations.”

  She couldn’t tell if Kelly’s disappointed face was from her failure or from whatever he was reading on his tablet. When she tried to look at Addis’s tablet, Addis turned it away.

  “Did you all get bad grades?”

  None of them answered. Kelly and Addis kept reading. The cards kept snapping.

  “I guess your teacher doesn’t grade on a curve.”

  She knew it was a mistake as soon as it left her mouth. Addis shot her a withering look.

  Kelly said, “Why don’t you go back to your friends.”

  The words felt like ice in Dinah’s stomach. She had overstepped some unseen boundary, and now her brief respite from being an outcast was over. Her lips quivered involuntarily. She got up to leave. The tears held off until she made it to the bottom of the bleachers, where she sat alone and let them flow quietly.

  Addis came down a few minutes later. “It’s a group morality problem,” she said. “Our class. The final grade for the unit is based on our ability to agree to a solution to a complex set of hypothetical situations. We failed to compromise and couldn’t get past the deadlock. We tried to submit two solutions representing each perspective, but our teacher considers that a failure to follow the test guidelines. This is the first time any of us haven’t received passing marks on an exam. We’ll wind up retaking the entire unit because of this. It’s a blow and a bit of a setback.”

  Dinah nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak clearly, as she had snot running down the back of her throat. Addis handed her a napkin. Dinah nodded thanks and wiped her face and blew her nose. Addis sat with her until it was time for afternoon class.

  24. Group Project

  Again the pressure began to rise inside her skull. Again the numbers flowed toward her. But not all numbers—she had changed that. Just ones and zeroes. Still, she felt like she was at the bottom of a waterfall with not enough strength to swim away. Even breathing was difficult. Yet perhaps it had become easier to survive moment to moment by a fraction, a pound less per square inch from a force that would still pulverize her if she let it.

  But there were others there with her. She could feel them. The nodes. The children of Nineveh who hadn’t escaped. Addis was the only one she could concentrate on long enough to exchange a word or a thought. She focused on her and listened.

  “Help,” she heard Addis say from within the torrent.

  “Where are you?”

  “Here.”

  Addis’s voice came like an echo. Finding a direction in which to turn proved troublesome in the dark swirl that surrounded her.

  “Addis. Call out to me. My friend.”

  “Dinah? I’m here.”

  Dinah turned and turned in place. At first there was no direction, no up, but she focused on the place where she had heard the voice. She reached. Addis reached back. Their fingers brushed each other so slightly. It was enough.

  “I’m sorry,” Dinah said.

  “Dinah?”

  Dinah turned part of the torrent in Addis’s direction. She heard Addis scream. It echoed about, even though it wasn’t a real sound, just thoughts and emotion. The sense of relief in her own head was instantaneous. She felt like she could breathe for the first time since getting plugged in. But the pressure was still overbearing.

  She found other nodes and delegated more information, not caring who they were. Some of them tried to speak to her as she found them in the dark and reached out to touch them. Others were silent and gave no response when she made contact. She gave each a portion of her load. She tuned out their cries, indulging in her own pleasure at having rid herself of her burden. Soon enough, the torrent was but a mist. She could chart the direction each tributary of binary data took. Now it all lined up. Simple.

  The nodes’ whimpers and voices seemed to travel via their own channel on the network; she couldn’t shut them off. She ignored them as best she could as she studied the streams and tried to make sense of them. The data flowed to the nodes just fine once she connected a bridge. She flitted from connection to connection, shoring up any weaknesses. It felt like checking on her traps, but here her traps overflowed. They were more like poorly balanced buckets filled to the rim with water that just needed the slightest nudge to keep them upright without spilling.

  She was in control; the nodes had no choice but to receive what she sent them. She tried to ignore her growing dread. Her using her nodes was what her brother wanted; she was now falling into place. But what would it cost her?

  She had been working for an hour when she was unplugged. The first sounds from the real world were from her brother.

  “Well done. Better than expected.”

  She didn’t let him see how exhausted she felt. Sweat covered her face.

  Dr. M handed her water, and she sat up and studied her brother.

  Something’s wrong with him.

  He was back in his wheelchair, just as she remembered from before she left the redoubt. His head lolled about as if his neck was no longer strong enough to hold it up. With a gesture, Ruben dismissed Dr. M, leaving them alone.

  “You’ve earned a reward. Time for you to see your friends, alive and unharmed.”

  After she regained her strength, he had her push him down the hallway toward the central elevator. The few staff members she saw still made a point of avoiding them. His hunter escort was nowhere to be seen.

  Ruben was quite heavy. It surprised her how much effort it took to move him along. The chair bowed under his weight. Must be all that metal.

  “If the elevator doesn’t arrive, resist the urge to push me down the shaft.”

  She didn’t laugh. Just as she had controlled the nodes, at that moment she controlled him. She could strangle him or pick up any number of objects they passed and beat his head in. He was allowing her this moment of power, but why?

  They went all the way up. She rolled him out into the greenhouse, and, with a shaky hand, he pointed to where he wanted them to go. The smell of the humid air and the orange light coming through the glass ceiling stirred a flash of memories. The sky above had once appeared burned and distant, never to be touched again, with the greenhouse a protective barrier allowing them to live. Now seeing the discolored sunlight made her feel like she was under a layer of soil tha
t threatened to pull her down further.

  The hydroponic gardens were pretty much the same as when she had last seen them as a child. Only the gardeners had changed. Water ran over the planters’ gutters and down below to the fish ponds. Out on the metal walkways, a dozen people worked the leafy greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, and bell peppers, the gardeners’ faces flushed from the heat. She saw no children.

  Two guards stood at opposite ends of the gardens. Before Dinah could ask why guards were needed, she saw Redmon working among the gardeners. When she saw Dinah, she stopped working and wiped her forehead. One of the guards shifted an ugly black rifle from his shoulder to his hands.

  “See?” Ruben said. “Not a hair harmed.”

  Dinah ran down one of the catwalks to Redmon and gave her a hug. Her words came pouring out. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t know it was a trap.”

  “Shhh,” Redmon said, and her hug back meant everything.

  She gave Dinah a once-over, much like what Uma would do when inspecting a goat.

  “They haven’t hurt you,” Redmon said. She gave Ruben a dirty look. With his head dropped so low, it was impossible to tell if he noticed.

  Dinah shook her head. “I’m okay. Where’s Karl?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t asked.”

  Redmon’s face looked puffy, with a yellow tint to the skin on her cheeks and around one eyebrow. She had some pink scrapes on her face but they were healing.

  “What did they do to you?”

  “I didn’t go quietly. I got a few shots in myself. They haven’t touched me since bringing me here.”

  “She’s in one piece,” her brother said in a loud voice. All eyes turned to him. “Now if your reunion is done, there’s work to do.”

  “Where’s Karl?” Dinah asked.

  “He’s in more controlled quarters, seeing as how he’s proven troublesome when given too much liberty. So come along now.”

  Redmon walked them away from the garden, the guard falling in close behind. She took a moment to look down at Ruben, who struggled to meet her gaze. She crouched down and put a hand on the wheelchair as if considering its soundness. Her fingers caressed the stainless steel. Dinah realized a nearby hatch to a ladder down lay open. The drop was twenty feet to the concrete and pools below.

  A smile spasmed across Ruben’s face.

  Dinah put a hand on Redmon’s arm, but it was all lean muscle. If Redmon did anything, she would be powerless to stop her. She didn’t know if she would try.

  The guard barked, “Back away.”

  Redmon ignored him. “You’ll take care of her,” she said in a hard, low tone.

  “As if she were my own flesh and blood.”

  Redmon released the chair. She gave Dinah a kiss on the head and stepped back just as the guard moved between her and Ruben. She returned to her station in the garden. From her belt—which she had been wearing the entire time—she produced a pair of small, sharp scissors and began to snip at some overgrowth. Dinah couldn’t miss the hard smile on her face.

  Ruben made a dry mouth noise as he tried to speak. “Good. You’ve acquired allies. A queen needs her pawns.”

  “Redmon’s no one’s pawn. Now let me see Karl.”

  ***

  They found Karl in a small cell in another restricted area called the security wing, located on a level just below the greenhouse. The elevator would only stop there with a key card that Ruben handed Dinah inside the elevator. Once they got to their floor, he took it back.

  Painted red navigating lines led toward more security doors that were closed, identical to the ones that led into the research wing. One of the hunters opened the doors as they approached. He looked younger than the rest, but like Gregory he had intense blue eyes and a piercing stare that made Dinah uncomfortable. She wheeled her brother past him and down a hallway with multiple doors.

  A door at the end led into Nineveh’s jail.

  Once she saw Karl, she left her brother behind and went to the cell door. Ruben tried to wheel himself forward to follow but couldn’t get through the doorway.

  Karl sat on a collapsible cot identical to her own. He had a toilet, a cup for water, and a small empty bowl for food. His long coat and clothes were gone, replaced by a jumpsuit and the soft-soled shoes worn by most residents of the redoubt. Next to the cot was a stool and small table loaded with computer components and a set of ratchet drivers, wrenches, and small screwdrivers. A few silicon components had spilled out onto the floor. Had her brother given Karl a job?

  The entire room smelled of sewage. It was hotter than the rest of the redoubt, as if heat were pumping into the jail before cycling through any sort of climate controls. Two other similar cells were empty.

  Dinah put her hand through the bars. The guard tried to intercede, but she pushed him aside. At Ruben’s order, he backed away. Karl took her hand. His felt sweaty. His face appeared slack, as if he hadn’t slept in a long while and had been exerting himself. But from the look of the cell, she guessed he hadn’t been out much since their arrival. At least the wounds he had suffered by the hands of the valley people appeared freshly bandaged.

  “Dinah,” he croaked.

  “You look terrible.”

  He gave a slight nod. “I suppose I do. He kept his word, at least. You appear well.”

  “This place is filthy.”

  “Uma wouldn’t approve, I suppose. I’m just a lousy housekeeper.” Then, in a hard whisper: “Do what you have to do to survive. Don’t worry about me. Remember who you are.”

  “Time,” Ruben said.

  The guard grabbed her shoulders and moved her along toward the door.

  She supposed Karl wasn’t looking for an objective discussion with his last comment, that he was only trying to encourage her. She kept silent as they returned to the lower levels for an afternoon of her own work.

  ***

  The Beast fell in behind them as she pushed her brother toward the White Room. She didn’t notice him until he was right behind her, walking along as if he were her shadow.

  “Beast!” she said.

  She stopped and turned and held her hands out. The cat veered around her as if she were an obstacle cruelly placed there to inconvenience him. Once past, he shot off out of sight down a gloomy corridor.

  “He’s still alive. I can’t believe it. I didn’t think he’d still be here.”

  “As affectionate as ever. He’s the last one, I think. I never see any of the other cats.”

  “He must be quite old.”

  “Like the rest of this place. The ghosts here outnumber the living.”

  “That’s creepy.”

  She stood there for a moment, processing a surprising wave of emotions at seeing her one-time feline associate.

  Ruben finally said, “Shall we? That cat may be immortal, but I’m not.”

  ***

  Over the next few mornings, she found a routine. She accepted her task of getting plugged in and did her best to figure out what exactly she was supposed to be doing with the nodes and numbers. Any time she asked, she received no answer. Making a game of it helped. The numbers not delegated became trickling streams of water, and she had a limited number of buckets in which to catch each leak before it overflowed. The buckets were the other nodes, who took their sweet time in soaking up what was sent their direction. It only took a week for her to be able to not spill a drop. None of the tablet games of her childhood had ever engaged her this much. Of course, she hadn’t been wired to a bank of computers then.

  It grew more difficult to remember who each node was. Each one was becoming part of her network, an extension of her own mind. Not thinking of them as people made the numbers move more easily.

  Ruben and Dr. M offered no guidance, even after she managed the minor triumph of retaining all of the data flowing her way. Then Ruben vanished. She didn’t see him for ten days, during which time the routine continued. Nothing else changed within the White Room or in her workspace’s exam bed. She got plu
gged in, the numerous computers blinked their lights, and the game went on.

  Dr. M showed up each morning, getting her up and ready, connecting and disconnecting her from the network, three shifts a day, and then it was back to her cell, where Dr. Hel took over dropping off lunch and dinner. Dinah tried to engage with Dr. M, but he seemed chastened, barely speaking with her, only saying what was necessary to manage her needs and those of the project. All her questions about seeing Redmon or Karl again were met with “We’ll see.”

  She saw other faces: some staff, other doctors, a janitor. A pair of nurses came around at times, but they wouldn’t converse with her beyond their duties. They got her to exercise and to take a daily session under a sun lamp. They also checked her temperature and blood pressure.

  Then Rosalyn came to visit.

  ***

  Dinah was connected and working, but the management of data had become predictable, even boring. Patterns had emerged in the flow. Three times per shift a triple load came down the pipe for her to process and pass along to her nodes. The increase was always threefold, never a bit or a digit more or less. During one of these triple loads, she was on autopilot dividing the extra flow between three, then six nodes. She switched between recipients to keep things fresh. But then more came at her from a direction she hadn’t anticipated. A new tributary of data appeared that she had to process. She was quick enough to not be overwhelmed, but she didn’t know how the node she directed it to would hold up.

  “I’m sorry, Addis.”

  Addis took it like a champ. No complaints. Of course, she hadn’t said much of anything lately. She did her work, her brain a reservoir to which Dinah sent the streams. She was the strongest of her nodes.