by Ike Hamill
“We would have to take it to a real sequencer,” Amelia said.
“And find someone qualified to run it,” Brook said.
Caleb looked at the patient and then back to the women. “You two go. I’ll stay here with him.”
Brook nodded. Amelia looked down to Niren.
“You have to go,” Caleb said. “What if the machine needs repairs or something? You’re way more qualified than I am.”
Amelia nodded and locked eyes with Brook.
“Okay,” she said.
# # # # #
After the women left, Caleb watched over Niren. An hour passed and the young man hadn’t moved or said another word. The rise and fall of his chest was hypnotic. Sitting there, Caleb was going to accomplish nothing more than falling asleep.
He stood and walked back to the big room.
Now that their monster was safely tucked inside its nest of coils, he could pull out a console and review the data from their last experiment. It was a long shot, but he figured that he might be able to correlate the information from the different sensors and find some sort of pattern there. There had to be some explanation for how Niren was attacked.
After a few minutes, Caleb felt guilty. He knew he should be watching Niren. He couldn’t even see him from the console. As a compromise, he set his alarm for ten minutes. He would check on Niren every ten. That had to be as good as watching him.
When his alarm went off the first time, Caleb was so engrossed that he shut it off without getting up to check. It went off again.
He blushed when he realized how negligent he had been. Caleb rushed to the doorway.
In the smaller room that they had set up for sleeping, Niren was in the same position that Caleb had left him. Caleb watched until he was sure that the young man’s breathing was steady and regular.
Soon enough, his mind drifted back to the data. There was no discernible pattern, but that itself might be a clue. They had bounded their artificial Hunter with a triangle of stations and a square wave. There had to be a pattern unless the thing itself had been working to make the readings appear random. Caleb found himself back in front of the console when his alarm went off again.
He looked at his watch and started to shut the beeping off. Caleb realized that he didn’t know how many times his alarm had gone off. He pushed away from the console and walked quickly towards the sleeping area.
He stopped in the doorway.
Niren’s hand was up under his face wrap.
“Niren?” Caleb asked. He approached slowly. “Niren? Are you okay?”
He didn’t answer.
Caleb put his hand on Niren’s elbow. “Niren, you shouldn’t be touching your face. You’ll only inhibit the repairs.”
The hand came out from under the wrap. Caleb stared at it, fascinated. Niren’s fingertips seemed to be sparkling. Before he could react, Niren’s hand shot down and grabbed Caleb by the wrist.
“Are you okay?” Caleb asked. “Niren, let go. You’re hurting me.”
His grip was strong, but that wasn’t all. It felt like Niren’s fingers were burning his skin. Caleb wanted to peel Niren’s fingers from around his wrist, but didn’t want to deny the young man the comfort of another person’s touch.
Niren’s mouth opened.
“Please let go, Niren,” Caleb said.
Niren whispered.
“What’s that?” Caleb asked. He leaned in closer.
“Caleb,” Niren said. The rest was too quiet to hear. Caleb brought his ear right next to Niren’s mouth.
Chapter 21
{Visitor}
“MADELYN?” ELIJAH CALLED AS they descended. “I brought you company.”
Ryan entered just behind Elijah. They were followed by Jacob. The five of them filled the living room.
Madelyn and Harper stood up.
“This is Ryan,” Elijah said. “He works for Cleo.”
They introduced themselves.
“We met,” Ryan said to Harper.
“Through my grandfather,” Harper said. “I remember.” They smiled politely.
“I’ll grab a chair from the kitchen,” Elijah said.
“Is there any chance I could speak to you alone for a minute?” Ryan asked Madelyn.
Her eyes didn’t leave him as she considered the request.
“Of course,” she said.
The room fell silent.
“We can just…” Elijah started. He glanced to the kitchen. It wasn’t much of a separation from the living room and wouldn’t grant Ryan any privacy, if that was what he was looking for.
“Come with me,” Madelyn said. She headed for the bedroom.
# # # # #
Madelyn showed Ryan into the bedroom and closed the door behind him. She gestured towards the bed. It was still rumpled from her nap. She glanced at the closet, where parts of the disassembled doll still sat on the floor. Madelyn kicked a leg into the darkness and then shut that door too.
Ryan was over near the bed, still standing.
“Please, have a seat,” she said.
He did.
She leaned against the wall and looked down at him. Ryan arranged his legs and managed to look like he was sitting at a desk instead of on the rumpled bed that Madelyn and Elijah shared.
“You’ve heard of Kappa Three?” Ryan asked.
“The safe harbor? Of course. We were at the ceremony,” Madelyn said.
Ryan nodded. “I’d like you to take one of the apartments.”
Madelyn blinked and clasped her hands behind her back.
“I thought those were set aside for the construction folks.”
“Not one of those—one of the apartments we’re renovating for the lottery.”
“That hardly seems fair. My nephew and his girlfriend signed up for that lottery. How is it going to look to people like them if I just swoop in and take one of the units? Besides, I have a perfectly nice home right here with Elijah.”
Ryan crossed his legs and put his hands on top of a knee.
“Well, that’s the thing,” he said. “Right now the lottery is not going to be much of a lottery. We have more potential space than we do applicants. People don’t trust the idea of living aboveground.”
Madelyn exhaled and nodded. “So you’re filling them by invitation?”
“No,” Ryan said. “We’re trying to get people to sign up by inviting a celebrity to take a place. People trust you, and you’re the one who told them that they needed to live underground. You told them that a mysterious cloud was going to come to town and that living underground was the only way to stay safe.”
“I never said that,” Madelyn said with a cold tone. “It was a memoir.”
“I watched every second of your stream, and you did say it. You told us that it was coming and we had to hide underground. And then when you returned, you moved in here, underground.”
“I was living here before I left.”
“But people don’t know that. They know what you’re doing right now, and that’s hiding here instead of moving to Kappa Three.”
“Why do you care? Move your people in and forget about the rest of us.”
“We need to stay together as a community. Do you know how many people we lost in the past twelve months? We lost thirty-two people. Our best estimate is that half of those were wanderers and the other half were taken in the night within ten meters of their homes. That means that we could reduce by half the number of people we lose in the coming year if we get everyone to move to the safe harbor.”
“You don’t have enough room in the safe harbor.”
“Exactly. We need to get everyone excited so we can muster the resources to expand our area. People don’t want to move there, so they don’t want to commit the effort we need.”
“Maybe that’s because you lost twelve people getting two-hundred meters. At that rate, if you expand the safe harbor any more, you’re going to run out of people to inhabit it.”
Ryan uncrossed his legs.
He stood up.
“Will you think about it? Talk to Elijah and really consider it? We’ll have a place ready for the two of you. If you’d like, you’ll be right across the hall from Jacob and Harper.”
“There’s something else you should know,” Madelyn said.
Ryan raised his eyebrows and waited.
“I was out in the hills two nights ago—north and west of the city—and I saw something. You can dismiss it if you want, but I doubt you have any assurance that The Wisdom is going to respect your safe harbor.”
“We tracked that system, Madelyn. It came down from the hills and missed us to the east. It went south. There’s nothing over the city except maybe some pollution from the fires.”
Madelyn nodded. She gestured towards the door and Ryan led the way out.
# # # # #
Madelyn’s eyes bounced between Elijah, Jacob, and Harper as she came back to the living room. While she had been talking with Ryan, those three had clearly been having their own discussion. They were terrible at hiding it.
Madelyn gestured towards the stairs. She wanted to be rid of the man.
Elijah stepped up to smooth the awkward moment. “Thank you for coming by, Ryan. It was good to meet you formally.”
Ryan smiled and nodded. “Thank you. Madelyn, thank you for your time.”
She nodded.
Harper took the man upstairs. They waited while they listened to her wish the man well and then shut the door behind him. Harper rushed back down the stairs.
“What was all that about?” Harper asked.
“He wants me to go live in the safe harbor. He thinks that if I choose to live aboveground, other people will too.”
“That’s odd,” Jacob said. “Plenty of people live aboveground. What’s he talking about?”
“Maybe not as many as you think,” Elijah said. “A lot of the houses have basements like this one. You see someone go in through their front door, but then they disappear down into a bunker.”
Harper nodded. “I’ve seen it.”
“We should have gotten his opinion on that video clip. I bet he would have known what that device was,” Jacob said.
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Elijah said. “But I’m not sure he would have shared his knowledge with us. It wasn’t an accident that he showed up when we were tracking down Caleb’s crew. Ryan knows where they are and he didn’t want us to find them.”
“Why?” Harper asked.
Elijah shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe the same reason he had his people set up that device in that apartment before they sent Liam to the slaughter. I don’t trust that guy. I think there is some shady stuff going on.”
Madelyn folded her arms and shook her head. “Get more than ten people together in a community and one of them is going to cause trouble.”
“So we’ll go track down Caleb and make him tell us what’s going on,” Jacob said.
“Caleb who’s dealing with that Dave guy, who tried to kill me,” Madelyn said.
“And who works for Ryan,” Elijah said.
“We should go right to Cleo,” Harper said. “My grandfather trusted her.”
“That’s a good idea,” Elijah said. “If she doesn’t give us a straight answer, then we’ll know that this whole group is rotten.”
Chapter 22
{Tests}
WHEN THEY PUSHED THROUGH the heavy door, Amelia was so surprised by the sunlight that she stopped in her tracks. She couldn’t remember the last time she had been outdoors.
Brook dropped the spent wrap in a sample bag and twisted the end into a knot.
“What are you doing, birdwatching? Let’s go,” Brook said.
“Where? Where do we find someone who can run one of those advanced sequencers?”
“I don’t know, but we’re not going to find them standing here.”
Amelia fell in behind Brook.
“I know there were a few of the machines down at the morgue,” Amelia said. “We cabbaged the smaller one, but I think the big one was still intact. We don’t even know what we’re looking for though. Even if I get the machine running, I’m not sure what we would do with it.”
Brook pointed at Amelia. “See? You’re already solving the problem. That woman, Addison, used to work at the morgue a million years ago.”
Amelia shook her head. “The crazy one?”
“Everyone’s crazy. Come on, I think I know where she lives.”
They ran down tight trails, switching paths whenever they came to an intersection. Their indirect course was a force of habit—they had grown up randomizing their travels so they wouldn’t fall into patterns. Eventually, they came to a panting stop between a house and a stockade fence that had nearly finished its collapse.
“That’s where she lives,” Brook said.
The front of the house was painted with a thousand vibrant eyeballs. The mural kept close watch on the deserted street.
“We shouldn’t waste time with this,” Amelia said. “We should go down to Flower Street and see if one of the healers there knows how to work the machine.”
“Those people don’t use those old machines and you know it,” Brook said. “What have we got to lose?”
She ran across the way and forged a path through the overgrown yard. Brook reached through the broken screen and knocked right in the iris of one of the painted eyes.
“Shhh!” Amelia said. She glanced around.
Brook tried the door and found it locked. She leaned in closer and pointed to several nails that had pierced through the doorjamb. Someone had nailed the front door shut from the inside.
“Around back,” Brook said.
Amelia followed her. They hopped a chain-link fence and found a stone path that led to the back. Brook slowed down when they saw the giant eye painted on the back of the house.
“Maybe she’s not home,” Brook said.
Amelia laughed at her.
“That’s the sound,” a voice said.
Brook and Amelia froze.
An old woman popped up from behind a row of corn stalks.
“I like a pretty sound,” the woman said. “Laughter is a pretty sound.”
Brook and Amelia looked at each other.
“Addison?” Brook asked.
“I might be,” the old woman smiled. “Come on in and we’ll see.” She brushed some of the dirt from her overalls and zipped up the stairs to the back door. While Brook and Amelia watched from the yard, the woman disappeared into the white part of the giant eye that was painted over her door.
“After you,” Brook said.
“This was your idea.”
They walked up the stairs together.
# # # # #
The door didn’t shut all the way. There was a trail of dirt leading into the kitchen. The door scraped through it as Amelia tried to swing it closed.
“You want tea?” the woman asked.
“No, thanks,” Brook said. “So you’re Addison?”
“Won’t know until I check. Tea first.”
“I’m afraid we’re in a hurry, and we have to find Addison. We have a sample that we need to test right away,” Brook said. She gestured with the sample bag.
“Thank you, but I have my own tea,” the woman said. She reached in a cabinet and pulled out a handful of dried leaves. Amelia’s eyes went wide at what she saw in that cabinet. As the door closed, she caught a glimpse of roots, beehives, and ribcages.
The woman crumbled the leaves into a mug and then filled it with water from a jug.
“Can you check?” Brook asked. “If you’re not Addison then we have to get going.”
Amelia tugged at Brook’s sleeve. She gestured towards the door.
When Brook held her ground, Amelia leaned close and whispered. “Let’s go.”
Brook held up a hand to quiet her. “We need someone to run the advanced sequencer down at the morgue. We have to check a sample for consistency. Can you do that or not?”
The woman took a sip of her tea and stud
ied Brook.
“What will you trade me for it?”
“We could get you medicine. Everyone needs wraps, especially as they get older.”
The woman laughed. “Wraps? I’ve got wraps since before anyone cared about them.” She leaned back in her chair and tugged at a cabinet door. After what she had seen the last time, Amelia flinched and didn’t want to look. The expression on Brook’s face—stunned wonder—made her turn. A pile of wraps was stacked down there.
“What then? Vegetables?”
The woman laughed again. “You just saw my garden.”
“Why don’t you tell us what you need,” Brook said.
Amelia whispered again. “We don’t even know if she’s the right person.”
Brook whispered back. “She got all those wraps somewhere, didn’t she?”
“The morgue?” Amelia asked.
The woman watched the exchange while she sipped her tea. She spat out one of the leaves, caught on her tongue.
“I want one of those scanner things. The things that show an orange light when the Zumbidos are around.”
Amelia shook her head. “They only give those to scouts and sentries. Even then, you only get one for the day. They have to go back into inventory after that.”
“Then I’m not Addison,” the woman said. She smiled at them.
“I can get one,” Brook said. “You’ll have to find your own way to get portable batteries for it though. I can’t help you there.”
The woman sucked air through her teeth as she thought about the offer.
“Done,” she said. She flicked her wrist, tossing her tea on the floor as she stood.
Amelia backed towards the door.
# # # # #
“Morgue is this way,” Amelia said. She pointed at the trail that split off to the right. The other two trails wouldn’t take them anywhere near the hospital morgue.
