by Pam Jernigan
The doctor walked closer to the cage, and Leo tried to look unconscious. It wasn’t much of a stretch from his normal state.
“Standard tranquilizers I assume?”
“Yep.They’ll be out for hours.”
“That one might take longer,” the doctor observed. “Or it might die. Give it until tomorrow to see if it’s moving. I want the formula to have time to circulate.” He started to walk away, then stopped. “Is the cage securely fastened?”
“Oh, yeah, doc. You think we want them busting out?”
The doctor frowned. “Very well. You’re dismissed.”
The soldiers walked away, their footsteps fading, but the doctor remained, moving into his lab and muttering something, forcing Leo to stay in a heap on the floor.
It was eerie, how little he could feel. He’d gotten used to the muddled traces of feelings coming from the others, but they were silent now. The doctor didn’t seem to exhibit any emotions either although he was still awake. It was as if Leo was the only one alive.
He reminded himself of Karen; she existed. That thought alone comforted him. And she might come back. He just had to wait. Waiting used to be how he spent most of his time.
Leo opened his eyes cautiously. The doctor was at the far end of the room and wouldn’t notice, and he needed to reassure himself that he wasn’t alone. From where he was lying, he could see several of the motionless Mindless. Plus Red Tie. He looked the same as always.
As the afternoon passed, Leo resolved to keep an eye on him. Karen didn’t want the doctor knowing that Leo could talk. She probably wouldn’t want him knowing if Red Tie could talk, either.
#
After lunch, Karen was recruited to assist in chores. Her injuries precluded anything too active, so instead, she was shelling peas with two older women. “So how did you guys get here?”
“My husband Chris helped put this place together,” Ashley said. “We had a farm, before.”
“Here since the beginning, huh. How about you, Lauren?”
“My husband… he was killed, pretty early. Only I thought maybe he’d just been turned Mindless, and that I could maybe find him… I don’t know, bring him back somehow. Stupid idea.” She shook her head, sighing. “I went looking anyways, though. Just about got killed, of course. The soldiers here came to my rescue on one of my expeditions. I figured I could help out around here, and I had nowhere else to be, so I stayed.”
“Okay.” Karen nodded, struggling to split the pod she was working on. “So… you think Borsa’s gonna find a cure?”
Lauren kept her eyes on her work. “Nope.”
Well, that was unexpected. “Why not?”
“Don’t think he’s looking for one.”
That certainly seemed plausible to Karen. “But then… what…?”
“He won’t say so, but I think he’s looking for a good way to kill them all.”
“They’re evil,” Ashley added softly. “No way to cure evil except kill it.”
“Oh.” That was unequivocal. She probably ought to shut up now. “You don’t think there’s any possibility for… redemption?”
“Takes a mind to ask for forgiveness. That leaves them out, don’t it?”
The topic was reminding Karen of the church services she’d gone to, back before her dad had died. Their God was big on second chances, they’d said. “Yeah… but it takes a mind to choose to do evil, too, right? I mean, wild animals kill, but they’re not evil.” She glanced around, thinking of Leo asking if she was okay. “And then there’s the whole insanity defense. What’s the phrase, not mentally capable of being morally culpable?”
Lauren looked at her sideways. “Say what?”
“They can’t be held morally responsible if they didn’t know what they were doing.”
Ashley pursed her lips. “Well, alright, wild animals maybe aren’t evil, but we still kill ‘em.”
Karen deflated. “Self-defense, yeah. But only if they’re an active threat, right?”
“You trying to say the Mindless ain’t an active threat?” Lauren barked a laugh. “Wake up, girl.”
Yeah, she probably ought to do that. She stopped talking and focused on her chores, but shelling peas was mind-numbing, tiring, and her fingers were starting to hurt. A nap sounded like a very good idea.
She felt herself slip sideways and jerked herself back to wakefulness. If she was going to spend her nights skulking around, she had to find a way to get sleep during the day. If she had a good excuse… Maybe that syringe of medicine might be useful, after all. She swept the peas out of the pod she’d just cracked open, tossed the pod, and then let her hands drop into her lap. “I can’t do any more.”
“We aren’t done,” Lauren said sternly.
Normally, that would have made her feel bad. “Well, I am. I’m injured remember? But the medic gave me this shot, for healing.”
Ashley nodded, “I’ve used that once. It works.”
Good to know. “Well, I need to go take it.” She stood, fighting the impulse to ask for permission. She’d only been helping out to be polite. And pass the time. “Sorry.”
“Dinner’s at eight,” was the final comment from Ashley. Lauren didn’t even look up.
She walked away, apparently forgotten already. Just as well.
#
Leo wasn’t really able to keep an eye on the doctor, considering he was supposed to be unconscious, but he listened. The doctor liked to pace, and mutter to himself. Leo couldn’t make out many of the words though, so that wasn’t useful.
Would Karen come back? What had she been doing last night, anyway? She’d made a few comments, but he’d been too distracted by her presence to try to figure out her actions. She’d been wearing different clothing, he thought, although it was hard to tell in the red light. Her hair had been different, though, pulled back from her face. He liked it.
Another person was approaching, down the long hallway. None of the others in the cage were stirring yet, so he couldn’t look.
“Paulo?” Definitely a female voice.
“Hmm? Oh, Suzette.”
There was a pause, but the doctor didn’t continue, so the female voice came back with, “Have you had lunch?”
“What?”
“Thought not. Come on.”
“I can’t go now, I’m in the middle of…”
“You’re in the middle of the same thing you’ve been in the middle of for several years,” Suzette answered patiently. “It’ll keep for half an hour.”
“But my experiment…”
“Has hours left to run,” Suzette said, a little less patiently. “I asked. Come on, you have to eat.”
The doctor sighed loudly, a tinge of anger seeping out, and slapped down some papers. “Fine. Have you been in here without me?”
“What? No, of course not.”
“Hmm. I was looking for an older file and they were out of order.”
“Are you sure?”
“I know how I file things, Suzette,” he snapped.
“Yes, I know how you file things, too, Paulo. Haphazardly. Come on, let’s go.”
The doctor was reluctantly amused. “Perhaps a break would do me good.”
“If you like, it could be even longer than half an hour,” she suggested.
The doctor was suddenly very intent. “Yes.”
“Lunch first, though. You must keep up your strength. Then we… relax.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Suzette.”
“Putter around in your lab until you died,” she informed him, as they walked away. “At least the Mindless have the sense to go looking for what they need.”
“They haven’t got anything more important to do,” the doctor told her.
Her voice came back, amused, but Leo could no longer make out the words.
How much longer before he saw Karen? If he saw her at all. He might not. She had talked to him, and protected him, but wou
ld she want to see him again? He would do whatever he could for her, however little that was. Whether or not she ever spoke to him again. But maybe she would come back. And maybe she’d feel that not-fear again. His memory of it was fading as the energy leached away. He needed more. He needed her.
#
Karen limped towards her temporary quarters. The halls were quiet this afternoon. No need to be polite, so it was time to think about the healing potion. Four or five hours of unconsciousness? Yeah, she wasn’t a big fan of that. Again, the thought popped up that it might be okay if Leo was standing guard, and that was crazy. He was a monster. They were not friends.
Although… they could be allies. Temporarily. They kind of already were. They might have a common enemy, after all, although Karen wasn’t convinced of that yet.
Once in her room, she locked her door, aware that it wasn’t that much protection. She wasn’t in hostile territory though. Not exactly. Sleeping for a few hours ought to be safe enough. She brought out the capped syringe, regarding it warily. She’d tried some of the salve earlier, and it seemed to have helped. The little jar was now packed safely into her knapsack for future use. She wondered if anyone in the city would have the equipment or know-how to analyze or reverse-engineer it. They did still have a decent university, and Jake had a pretty good lab, so maybe. Especially if she added some of the doctor’s notes. If this thing worked as well as advertised, it would be insanely valuable. Just another reason to dislike Dr. Borsa, if he’d created a miracle cure-all and refused to share it. She had to take at least some of this stuff with her.
Karen nodded. Okay, first we test drive, then we take a souvenir. She carefully injected about two thirds of the serum into her thigh, feeling it burn, then extracted the syringe and capped it again. There wasn’t that much left, but it could be enough. She hoped. She wrapped it in her extra shirt, then tucked it into one of the pockets in her bag. She hoped that would keep it from breaking. That done, she lay down, exhausted. Sleep, eat, wait a few more hours… then go see Leo. No, she was going to poke through the doctor’s files, not visit monsters. Maybe tonight she’d find something she could actually use. She was starting to wonder if she ever would.
Leo was definitely on her side; that much was obvious. She still hadn’t figured out the hug thing, but the other monster, the one with the red tie, had gone away uninterested. On the other hand, he had kidnapped her. That seemed like it would be important to remember. She had passed out, while he was sitting next to her, and then they were outside and he was carrying her. Where had he been going, and why had he taken her along?
She frowned, thinking back to that brief period on the road. Leo had said that the others would kill her. “No fear,” he’d said. She’d assumed it to be his attempt to tell her she didn’t need to be afraid of him. Which she was apparently starting to believe.
What else had he said? She hadn’t entirely been lying to Borsa; the day was not clear in her memories. Something about the others… “Sense fear”. That’s what he’d told her. She frowned. Was that some kind of instinct? Dogs were supposed to be able to sense fear in humans. Weren’t they? Maybe she’d ask him. It could be useful information after all. If it were true. I mean, consider the source.
Then they’d been shot at. And the first thing Leo had done… was knock her to the ground and shield her from gunfire. That hadn’t really clicked before now. He’d put himself between her and bullets. On purpose. Wow.
Okay, maybe not entirely a monster.
CHAPTER NINE
The worst problem with that healing potion, it turned out, was that it made her really hungry. She ate as much as she could at dinner time, then claimed a need to sleep again, and no one argued. Waking up at midnight wasn’t difficult. She felt refreshed and ready to go. Eager, even. She played music while she dressed and got into her boots, then silenced the player before slipping it into her knapsack. She eased the door open and peeked out. No one in sight.
She walked down the hall, still kind of limping as a precaution, but her arm and ankle felt a lot better. That shot really did work. She had to get some back to the city, not to mention any info she could find in the doctor’s files.
They had a few guards outdoors, but so far she hadn’t seen any sign of internal patrols. Good thing, too. Rounding the last corner before entering the corridor that led to the lab and the cage, she faltered. Borsa had wanted a research subject. She thought she’d talked him out of picking Leo, but what if…? Anxiety quickened her steps; she had to know.
In the relative dimness it was hard to distinguish between the shapes and shadows in the pen. At least until one of them moved towards her and said, “Hi.”
She smiled. “Leo, hi! I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Glad,” he repeated, as if testing it, and not quite sure what to do with it. He was looking… well, as good as he ever did, she guessed. He was holding onto one of the cage bars, leaning against another one.
“You know, happy. Pleased. The opposite of sad?” She prompted.
He thought about it for a second, then nodded. “Me, too.”
“I was worried what Borsa might do,” she explained. She tried to look behind him at the others. “Did he kill the one with the red tie?”
“N..no,” Leo replied. “Gave him… a shot.”
She hoped that wouldn’t end up being more awful than being killed. It wasn’t that she was opposed to the idea of killing the Mindless, in general. In defense of herself or her loved ones, she’d shoot without hesitation. But to coldly kill something that looked (mostly) human? Not really the same thing.
Plus, she had been the one to point him out. She was a little surprised to realize that it would bother her if the guy died. She’d get over it; it had been necessary to keep the doc away from Leo. Not that she really cared, of course. He was not her friend. That would be crazy. He was just… someone she’d talked to. Someone who had protected her.
The Mindless would be in this cage whether she’d been there or not. Whatever Borsa did to them was on him. Not her. She needed to remember that. As her eyes adjusted, she found the one she was looking for. He was lying on the floor, his suit crumpled around his middle. “Is he sleeping?”
“Don’t sleep, much.”
“Lucky you.”
Leo’s head tilted and his face scrunched up, and she smiled. He was actually kind of cute like that. “Sorry, that was sarcasm - when I say something that I don’t mean.” She should know better; her preschoolers got confused by it, too. “I’ll try not to do it around you.”
“Okay,” he said, accepting that. “You… okay?”
She smiled. “Yeah, I am. That wonder potion works.”
“I’m… glad.”
“Right. Well, I have files to read, so…” she said, waving a hand at him as she passed, heading for the file cabinets. “It would help if I knew what I was looking for… I don’t know, Leo, I just think he’s hiding something.”
“He has secret?”
She glanced at him; she hadn’t really expected him to continue the conversation. “Yeah, maybe. He says he wants to cure you guys, but his notes… he wants more than that. I think. He’s chasing something pretty hard, anyway.”
“Be careful,” Leo said, a note of urgency in his voice.
She turned to look at him.
“Doctor…. noticed… files today.”
She frowned, trying to parse that. “You mean he knew they’d been searched?”
Leo shrugged. “Not sure. Something.”
“Huh. Well, if he’s got some sort of filing system, it’s totally lost on me, but I’ll try to put everything back where I found it. Um.. thanks for the tip.”
Leo had watched, and figured that out, and remembered to tell her? So very not Mindless.
#
As she worked, Leo tried to stay aware of guards, just in case, but none were close enough to matter. Leaving him mental energy to process what had happened. She had talked
to him again. She was… glad. The word hadn’t been familiar but the gentle emotion had been clear enough. Better still, it had only started after she’d entered the room. After she’d seen him. Before, she had been worried. About him? The suggestion that she cared… made him glad.
He watched her flip through folders for a while, not wanting to disturb her. He didn’t try to figure out what she was doing. Her emotional output was a mere trickle, for the most part, but somehow it seemed to be more than enough. As time passed, though, her mood began sliding towards a dirty red, tiredness and anger mingling. The gold glow he’d seen at the library had been so much better. He wished he knew how to ask for it back. Even without it, he wanted to know more about her.
Across the room, Karen closed the file, rolling her head to work her neck muscles. “This is not going well,” she muttered. “Too disorganized and undocumented.”
He searched for some way to make her feel better. Distract her. “Who is… Ka-trina?”
Karen stopped, the file folder halfway back into the drawer, then turned around. “How do you know that name?”
Leo shrugged. “You said… Katrina is okay.”
She relaxed. “Yeah, I guess I did. She’s my little sister.” There it was, tiny sparks of gold. He sighed in contentment.
“She was at the library with me, yesterday,” Karen added, accompanied by a few pulses of muted fear. “I was trying to hold you guys off long enough for her to get away.”
He looked down, an unfamiliar regret encroaching on him. “She was upstairs?” he asked, meeting her eyes again.
“Yeah…” She moved a little nearer, watching him intently.
“She wasn’t killed,” Leo said. The death bursts - the deaths - had been right near the entrance. He looked down before adding, “I… would know.”
Karen wasn’t convinced, but her concern eased. “Thanks. I figured I was dead, but if Katrina got away, then it didn’t matter.”
“Protect,” Leo said, fully understanding that concept now.
“Exactly. You know, it’s funny, Jake always tries to argue with me about it.” She cocked her head, like he was a mystery she was trying to solve. “Gotta admit it feels good to talk to someone who gets it.” After a long moment, she shrugged, looking away. “Anyway. I’ve always tried to protect her. She was sick when she was younger, and then after dad died…” she paused, swallowing. “Mom didn’t do so well, there for a while. So it was just me taking care of KitKat. She’s really old enough to do it herself, now, though, so… She’ll be alright, whether I live through this or not. So that’s my mantra, this week. Katrina is okay, so it doesn’t matter what happens to Karen.” She shrugged again, offering up a ghost of a smile. “Kind of dark, maybe, but that’s the bottom line. I’m not important enough to worry over.”
