Panther in the Hive (The Tasha Trilogy Book 1)

by Cole, Olivia

  As if she were reading Tasha’s mind—or at least a piece of it—Z murmurs,

  “Do you think New York is…like this?”

  Tasha is prepared to walk alongside Z as she wanders through the cycles of wondering that Tasha has already roamed through. In the nights since the Change, she has imagined the miles of city around her first as they once were and then as they are now. It had seemed impossible to believe at first, the magnitude of it. Living in Chicago these past few years, she could scarcely believe the way the city went on and on. She tended to wander in small circles, not trusting her knowledge of public transportation to get her home safely. She thinks of the miles of life she has passed on West Lawrence alone. Lawrence goes on forever, with no Volamu, no L; just a couple of the old-timey CTA buses trundling people up and down it. She can barely comprehend the size and length of Lawrence Avenue, let alone the entire span of the States. She imagines it as if flying like a bird, the miles disappearing underneath her, the landscape blurring as she zooms overhead, all the way to California, where there are no Chips. She imagines the miles to the Nation passing below, crowded with the faces of flesh-eaters. Thousands. Millions. How many people really have the Chip? She thinks of the inscription on the coveted gold cards—“the few.” How few? How many? The Driver, the doorman, the grocer, the groom, and so many more…they condense into a single drop of oil dripping slowly into an immense black bucket.

  “Yes,” she answers Z. “Yes.”

  Z sighs deeply, and Tasha thinks she might have already been preparing for this knowledge, despite her hopeful clinging to the idea of a military insurgency. It reminds Tasha of Ishmael, his yearning for his brother and mother. He’d wanted facts, but in a desperate way, desperate to be contradicted. Z wants to be wrong—she hides in the Web, waiting for good news. She wants Tasha to laugh in her face and say, “The whole country? What are you, crazy? No, it’s just this small thing, this small time. Take an aspirin and go to bed. They’ll be here with guns and a cure tomorrow. It will all be better in the morning.”

  Z finishes her sandwich and Tasha her salad. Tasha has opened a bag of barbeque chips today and eats those too. The damp ring has spread through the metaphorical paper, and it settles around the women like a noose. Tasha almost wishes a great lumbering Minker would come and pounce between them, overturn their table, spill their drinks. It would give them something to think about besides the dark scattered pieces of their lives.

  “What about you?” says Z. “I’ve been yammering about my people. What about you? Are you alone up here?”

  “Yeah. Kinda. My parents died three years ago. I only have one sister and she lives in the Nation with her guy and my niece.”

  “Oh. Did she…?”

  “No, none of them got the Chip. California wouldn’t let it in, so pretty much everyone is safe over there.” She pauses. “At least from that.”

  “How did your parents die?”

  “Some kind of lung infection. The doctors never really figured out what caused it.”

  “I’m sorry. There wasn’t a cure or anything?”

  Tasha swallows.

  “The only medicine they would give them wasn’t enough. If they’d had MINK they might have had more of a shot. Could’ve gotten more aggressive treatment or whatever.”

  Z nods.

  “Yeah, same thing happened to my grandmother. Not the lung stuff, but the MINK thing. She was at the same job for twenty years—they never gave her MINK. Dug up that she got an abortion when she was in college and said she wasn’t eligible. She petitioned and everything, especially when she got sick. They didn’t care. She died five years ago.”

  Tasha crushes the empty chip bag.

  “Man…”

  Z nods again.

  “I know, right?”

  They are silent. The chip bag makes quiet crinkling noises as it gradually uncurls itself. Tasha watches the ball come undone—it won’t stay put. Z brushes it onto the floor.

  “Let’s walk some more.”

  They walk up a few floors to one of the huge spherical windows that look out at the city. The glass has been crafted with large circular designs inside it, webs for the Web. The landscape outside is only slightly warped because of it. Outside, below, is Michigan Avenue, its promenade still and ghostly. Tasha looks north, looking for the pink Benz with its clawing inhabitant. She can’t see it from here.

  “I hated working here,” says Z, gazing out the window, “but what a view. It’s even better on the high floors, but there’s lotsa offices and some residences up there too. I have a feeling they’re probably pretty, you know…swarmed.”

  Tasha nods.

  “Yeah, probably the same thing at the Apiary.”

  “Ha! Wait, you worked at the Apiary?”

  “Mhmm. I hated my job too.”

  Tasha rubs her ring finger, thinking of Mrs. Kerry. And Cara, of course: she thinks of Cara. Dinah would have said something kind, some sensitive thing that Tasha needed to hear to override the sour feelings that arise when she thinks of Cara. Z watches her carefully—it’s a shrewd look, one that misses little. Tasha wonders how Z would’ve handled Cara. Maybe the way she handled her own supervisor, with a knife to the neck. Tasha wishes she’d had the same opportunity.

  “I’m surprised there weren’t more looters,” Z says. She’s turned to look at the stores now but Tasha gets the feeling that she’s still regarding Tasha closely. “You know, breaking in and stealing stuff. There’s supposed to be looters during this kind of thing, right?”

  “Hey, I’m a looter!” Tasha cries. “Give me some credit!”

  They laugh. Another sound, almost like laughter, joins them. Minkers. Tasha’s knife is already in her hand—lately she’s starting to wish she had a scabbard or something so she didn’t have to carry it around all the time. It would make pulling out the blade a lot cooler too.

  Z points.

  “There they are.”

  The two women ride the escalator up one floor, the three Minkers waiting almost patiently around the top. Tasha isn’t sure if the creatures spotted her and Z where they had been standing by the circular window, or if they’d just begun barking on their own for the hell of it. Either way, the Minkers see them now.

  “I’ll take the redhead,” Z says as they near the top. “He used to work in the building. I never liked him.”

  It’s business as usual. Tasha sidesteps the lunge of a woman in Versace—she’s gotten good at that move, even if she is still nervous—and then slashes at the neck. Blood surges down the green satin material—the emerald sheen reminds Tasha of a pair of shoes she used to have. Jimmy Choo? She can’t remember just now. Z has handled her former co-worker. Tasha takes a step toward the third one, an older man who looks like he might’ve walked with a cane before the Change but whose limp the Chip repaired. His shirt is embroidered Gucci, vintage like himself.

  “Oh, I was going to get him,” says Z, gesturing to the oldie.

  Tasha gives a half-bow.

  “Oh, by all means…”

  “No, after you.”

  “Paper rock scissors?”

  They shoot for it, keeping out of reach of the third Minker, who follows after them squalling. Tasha wins, and the straggler hits the floor a minute later. They use his pant leg as a rag for their blades.

  Finished, they look at each other.

  “Want to go try on clothes?” Z shrugs.

  There’s little to do besides eat sub sandwiches and walk around window-shopping, clearing the occasional encountered Minker. A few times they do go in and try on clothes, but the activity lacks meaning. In Betsey Johnson Tasha tries on a red flouncy dress, parading out in front of Z, who, wearing pink satin, claps and wolf-whistles. They look in the endless panels of mirrors at their reflections. At one time Tasha would have turned this way and that, admiring, assessing, adjusting. Now she just stares, arms limp. This is her body. This is a dress. This is her body in a dress. The red fabric burns the glass as she stares; she could
be on fire, but she feels cold. A cute dress is only as useful as a napkin when there are no clubs to go to wearing it. Tasha doesn’t miss clubs yet. She wonders if she eventually will.

  Later, they’re lying on benches by the fountain on the floor they had just finished clearing, half-dozing. Tasha has been at the Web for two days. Between them, they’ve cleared nine floors. Once a floor is cleared, they can hang out, nap, relax. There’s not much else to do, and the Minkers on the higher floors aren’t exactly calmly boarding escalators to come hunt them down. Tasha has seen them on the cameras in Z’s security room, yawning at the mannequins through the store windows, bumping against the glass like blind puppies. The creatures monitor their own floors but don’t attempt to get to other levels. Z stirs and asks,

  “Where were you going anyway? Like, where were you on your way to when you stopped here?”

  “The South Side,” Tasha answers, half-opening her eyes.

  “The South Side? Why?”

  “It’s safer there,” says Tasha slowly, wondering if she’ll tell Z everything.

  “Were you going to walk the whole way?”

  “I walked this far, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, but you could have, I don’t know…”

  “Taken the L? I’d have liked to if all the people who drove them weren’t dead. Would’ve saved me a couple blisters.”

  “Touché. Okay, what about a scooter? You could steal one. Well, take. Borrow. Whatever. It’s not really stealing anymore.”

  Tasha tilts her head toward Z.

  “That’s actually a good idea. I hadn’t thought about that. I didn’t even see any scooters until I got downtown. I’d just need one that’s charged.”

  Z waves her hand dismissively.

  “There’s tons. I’ll show you where some are if you still want to go. There’s a lot full of them behind the mall that they let employees use to make deliveries. Do you still want to go?”

  Something about the way she says it makes Tasha hesitate.

  “I mean, kinda. My arm is healing up—thanks to you—so I figured I’d get going soon.”

  A shifting silence stretches between them before Z responds.

  “Why the South Side though?”

  “Well…” Tasha pauses. She still hasn’t told anyone about the mysterious Dr. Rio, not since Dinah. She doesn’t fully know why. In one way it’s like the feeling of picking the restaurant for a group outing. If the food is good, the person who picked is a hero. But if the food sucks, if the silverware is dirty, if the waiter is rude, the person who picked is a leper, bearing the guilt of a false prophet. Only the prophecy that Tasha carries is more important than recommending a steakhouse; there’s more to lose than one’s appetite. People can die. Two people have died, two people that Tasha could have protected.

  She swallows. Then she opens her mouth and tells Z about Dr. Rio. She tells her about Leona’s dire letter and the warning of the bad thing that was coming, her urgency about Tasha getting to the South Side. Telling it, Tasha wishes she had divulged the story of Dr. Rio to Ishmael. He was more familiar with the area. He could’ve helped her. She had been too concerned about needing deodorant and a razor. Make-up. Stupid things. Stupid, dangerous things.

  When she has finished telling the story, including the part about Ishmael, she looks at Z, who is sitting up on her bench, looking excited.

  “See?” she says.

  Tasha is confused.

  “See what?”

  “This Dr. Rio guy! He’s a doctor! Your sister wouldn’t send you to him if it wasn’t important, right? He must know something.” She pauses. “Maybe even something to fix this.”

  Tasha sighs inwardly. Ishmael’s soccer team had said similar things: cures, rescues, off-switches. Dinah too, and Vette. Tasha supposes it’s human. But then what does that make her? Maybe they’re just naïve, but Tasha’s sister had always described Tasha as exactly that. How things change.

  “I don’t know, Z,” Tasha says evenly. “I mean, how do you cure an implant? This stuff is pretty much kill-tech, and the only way you turn that off is the way we’ve been doing it—by putting them down. It’s not like an infection, you know. And even if it was…the Minkers won’t exactly line up for a shot.”

  “I mean, maybe it’s like a ray gun—”

  Tasha snorts.

  “Seriously!” Z protests, waving her hands. “Like, a magnetic wave or something that can be put out city by city—or maybe even nationally: we’re in the Midwest, in the middle. Maybe it could reach the coast and stuff—to get everything back to normal. Maybe they hid it in the South Side somewhere, you know? Somewhere not obvious?”

  Tasha sits up and looks earnestly at her friend.

  “A ray gun, Z? A giant microwave strong enough to ‘turn off’ millions of Chips?”

  Z laughs, shrugging and blushing a little.

  “Okay, okay. Yeah. You’re right. That’s outrageous. Just throwing out some options here.”

  “Anyway,” Tasha laughs. “My sister isn’t some radical with secret doctor contacts. She’s a mom. And pretty much a conspiracy theorist. If anything, she wanted me to go find Dr. Rio because he’s, like, a guy with a bomb shelter and a basement full of canned goods. She’d call that safe. But given the circumstances, I figured I might as well check it out. Nothing to lose.”

  “I guess not. I wonder what he’s like.”

  “Who knows. My sister hung out with a bunch of political scholars when she still lived in the States. She probably knows him from college. He’s probably a big nerd.”

  “Big nerd or not, I hope he’s alive at least. Otherwise you’ll be going down there all by yourself. It’s dangerous down there.”

  “Dinah said it wasn’t as bad as they made it seem online,” says Tasha quickly.

  “Who’s Dinah?” asks Z, looking puzzled.

  “Dinah is….Dinah was my friend.”

  “Oh,” says Z, and nothing more. Tasha feels torn. Saying Dinah’s name out loud makes her eyes sting slightly, and the sting makes her want to get away from Z, and quickly. But she also—

  “I’m sorry, Tasha,” Z says, interrupting Tasha’s focus on her feelings. “I’m sorry you’ve lost so many friends. That’s all the more reason I kinda worry about you going down there alone. You’d be…well, alone.”

  Tasha looks at her, evaluating her feelings; balancing her chameleon armor against the softness in Z’s eyes. Is it worth it? Tasha takes a deep breath.

  “You could come with me,” she ventures.

  The tinkle of water striking water in the fountain fills the silence. Z says nothing. The quiet is heavy.

  “Or not,” Tasha says quickly.

  Z stirs.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to. I mean, I know Big Mama’s Subs aren’t going to last forever.”

  “No, they won’t.”

  “But they would last for awhile.”

  “Yes, they would.”

  This is a courting dance of a different kind—minus the plumage, a game between peahens: the feeling out of new friends, the risks and rewards. But—a familiar stirring on Tasha’s shoulder, a wooden something daring someone to knock it off—if Z doesn’t want to come, she doesn’t want to come. If she wants to stay in the Web hiding from the world, that’s her decision. Tasha won’t beg her. She saved your life, the lonely part of Tasha says, the part of her that knows she needs an ally. But, the fear whispers, she could die, and then what would you do?

  “What if there is no Dr. Rio?” Z asks and Tasha feels grim. It’s the thing she is afraid of; one of the things: what if, what if, what if.

  “I don’t know,” Tasha says slowly. “Something would be next. I’d do…something. Go to California,” she laughs wanly, “and cuss out my sister for making me come so far.”

  “You could just wait here with me,” Z says, and Tasha can tell she’s trying not to beg either. “There will be soldiers eventually, seriously. They’re probably just handling D.C. first, you know? Getting the Pre
sident safe.”

  The laugh in Tasha’s mouth is not right. She doesn’t want to be an asshole. She doesn’t want to crush the frail bird bones of Z’s hope. Tasha feels a little sick.

  “I’m going to head out in the morning,” she says finally, looking away from Z and back at the ceiling. As much as the idea of staying here with this new friend beckons to her, Tasha knows she needs to go south. She’s followed nothing but the letter and her gut so far, the only things she has to go on. Leona had said go to the South Side, so that’s where she’s going. She just hadn’t wanted to go alone.

  Z looks like she wants to speak, but doesn’t. Instead she just nods. Her hair, pulled from her ponytail, is a shining black fan around her head. They hadn’t talked much about the Change today until now—it’s easier just wandering through the Web, taking out the occasional Minker. Besides those encounters, the Change is easy to ignore in here, with the endlessly playing music and the constant thrumming of escalators. It’s a different sound than the Volamu outside, Tasha thinks. It’s a friendlier sound, absorbed by the stores and tables and mannequins. Outside, the hum of the Volamu dissolves into space. The sound climbs to the skyscrapers, with nothing to bind it to the earth. Tasha feels as if she’s on a merry-go-round, passing the world by on the back of some beautiful and artificial animal, the music replacing all other sound.

  She sits up on her bench and looks at the fountain. Its bottom is covered in coins—dimes and nickels and quarters like a long-stretching layer of aluminum foil. A bronze spot among it all catches her eye. A penny. Pennies have been out of circulation for a decade. Leona had collected them for awhile until she realized how pointless it was. Tasha stares at the penny.