Inhuman (9 page)

“Why not?” It was okay for my father to risk infection and arrest, but not him?

“Titan pays for all of this” — he swept a shaky hand at the room and the corridor beyond — “in the hopes that I’ll find a way to immunize the line guards. They don’t care about those who are already infected. The CEO, Ilsa Prejean, has made it quite clear that if I ever cross the river to collect data, she’ll cut my funding. You see, the corporation that gets paid to enforce the quarantine can’t afford to employ a quarantine breaker. That’s why I’m so grateful to your father. I couldn’t have gotten this far without him.”

“Do you know where he is now?”

“Mack cut through camp last night. Stopped by just long enough to tell me that biohaz agents were right behind him. They weren’t. Not that I saw anyway.” Dr. Solis began patting down his lab coat until he found a blue inhaler in a pocket.

“Where did he go?”

Dr. Solis shook the inhaler, frowned, and tossed it aside. “To Moline, the quarantine compound I mentioned. Mack has friends there.”

My mouth went dry. He’d gone back into the Feral Zone where mutants with claws and horns went around mauling people? Inhibitor or not, that sounded suicidal. “What if one of them bites him?”

“I don’t believe any have progressed to stage three of the disease.”

“What?”

“I’m sorry. You’re worried about your father and I’m talking like a virologist.”

“No, it’s okay. I want to know.”

With a nod, Dr. Solis leaned forward, bracing his forearms on the desk. “There are three stages to Ferae. The first presents with a high fever within one to ten hours after infection. Once the virus is established, the fever ends and the patient regains his faculties. After that, the virus begins a slow takeover of the body and the patient starts to manifest physical signs of infection.” He gestured toward the file of photographs. “Anatomical deformities. Stage two can last anywhere from weeks to years. It all depends on the patient’s health, genetics, access to antiviral medication…. Many factors.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “The third and final stage of Ferae is insanity. The virus invades the brain, at which point the patient becomes animalistic and highly aggressive.”

“Oh.” And I’d thought his photos were gruesome. What was playing in my mind now, however, combined those images with sounds and actions to terrifying effect.

“Incubation, mutation, psychosis — those are the stages.” Dr. Solis rose and moved unsteadily toward the bookcase. “We used to compare Ferae to rabies. Now we know the better model is syphilis, which has a symptomatic stage that can last decades before dementia finally sets in.”

After a moment of scrounging through boxes on the shelves, he found an inhaler and gave it a dreamy smile. “Anyway, Mack tells me that in the past year, no one in Moline has progressed to the final stage. I’d like to think it’s because of the inhibitor he’s been taking them, but who knows?” Squeezing the inhaler, the doctor sucked in the Lull and, surprisingly, he seemed to straighten up. Guess the drug didn’t work very well on him. “You needn’t worry, Delaney. Your father will lie low for a while and then come back to check that the coast is clear, which it is.”

“It isn’t,” I said, feeling a throb in my temples. “The biohazard agents
are
after him. They recorded him breaking quarantine.”

Dr. Solis’s gaze sharpened despite the Lull in his system.

“Have you seen the recording?” he asked. “You know for a fact that it exists?”

I nodded. “Where is Moline?” What I really wanted to know was just how far my father had ventured into the Feral Zone. Stuffing the cap into my back pocket, I took out my dad’s map and spread it across the desk. “Show me?”

Why was I bothering with this? Spurling’s orders were to come right back if I couldn’t find my dad. Still, I watched as Dr. Solis pointed to a spot on the map — a city, which had been circled in dark ink.

“It’s directly across the river,” he said. “Just off the northeastern tip of the island. There used to be a bridge there, back in the day, but not now.”

I touched the tiny line that was the last and only bridge across the Mississippi. Like the bridge that I’d crossed to get from the west bank onto Arsenal, the last bridge to the Feral Zone was on the south end of the island. “How big is Arsenal?”

“A thousand acres.”

“I mean from end to end.”

“A little over three miles.” He sank into the chair behind his desk. “Are they threatening execution?”

“Yes,” I said softly.

The doctor dragged his hand down his face. “Mack knew that it might come to this — that something could happen, making it impossible for him to return west.”

“Why didn’t he warn me about that possibility or tell me that he’s a fetch or mention anything about any of this
ever
?” It came out harsher than I’d intended.

“If it helps, Mack goes around that issue all the time. It always comes down to the lie detector test.”

“What?”

“The one they’ll give you if he’s caught. They’re very good now, those tests. Accurate ninety-nine percent of the time. A person’s body gives him away with the tiniest release of chemicals. If that test revealed that you knew your father was crossing the quarantine line, you’d be condemned as a traitor and executed alongside him.”

“Oh.” The vision I had of my dad being shot by a firing squad … He must have had a similar one of me — one that had played in his mind for years. For the first time since the jumpsuits had hauled me out of Orlando’s party, I felt my guts unknot a bit. Now my father’s silence made sense. If I only could talk to him and tell him about Director Spurling’s offer, then he could put aside that worry.

“How can I get a message to him?” I asked Dr. Solis.

“You can’t. All we can do is wait for Mack to come out of hiding.”

“Wait?” I didn’t have time for that. Correction, my dad didn’t.

“You’re welcome to stay, like Everson, like me,” the doctor murmured. “Stay because of a parent.”

What was he talking about?

“Like you, I’m here for my father.”

Dr. Solis looked old enough to be my grandfather. Could his father even be alive? “Is he living in the Feral Zone?”

“No, no, he died many years ago. He was a doctor too.” Dr. Solis sank lower in his chair. “He left Cuba the year he finished medical school. He had to go; to stay meant death. But for the rest of his life, my father thought about his countrymen — the
cubanos
who hadn’t gotten out. They didn’t fare so well. So when the exodus came, I couldn’t cut and run. I’d taken on the burden of his guilt.”

“What did your father have to feel guilty about? You said he would have died if he’d stayed in Cuba.”

“Yes, he
had
to go, just like those who left during the exodus. Fleeing death is perfectly reasonable.” He gave me a wry smile. “Reason has its advantages. Unfortunately, it doesn’t do much for insomnia. Or heartbreak …” His voice faded as his chin sank onto his chest. The Lull had finally kicked in. I hoped that sleep would bring him some relief from his exhaustion and sadness, even if only temporarily.

I picked up the map and traced the circle around Moline. If I were to cross the last bridge — a very big if — I would then have to walk three miles up the riverbank to reach Moline. Three miles in the Feral Zone …

I folded up the map and returned it to my dad’s bag. What was three miles? Nothing. If the road was flat, I could jog it in under an hour.

Suddenly a howl, long and pained, cut through the corridor. I swung around to stare at the closed door, heart jumping in my chest. Did I want to know what that was? No, I did not. But if I planned to cross the river — and I realized I did — I should know what I was in for. I snatched up the messenger bag, pulled the cap over my hair, and slipped out of Dr. Solis’s office.

I followed the keening sound down the hall to a door, open just a crack. Inside, the infected guard, Bangor — red faced and sweating — struggled against the leather straps that bound him to a bed. In the far corner, a guard hunkered in a chair, his hands over his ears, his body turned toward the window like he wanted to dive through it. I didn’t blame him. Bangor seemed to be having a seizure, with his throat muscles bulging and eyes rolling. What if he bit off his tongue? They should have left the muzzle on. He let out another savage howl, followed by a jumble of sounds — almost words — that sent me backing down the hall.

Voices around the next corner were heading my way. I darted into a dark room marked “Supplies.” I made a quick scan of the rows of metal shelves and then returned to the door. But as I peeked into the hall, hands grabbed me from behind and twisted my arm up my back.

“Crappy reflexes for a guard,” a harsh voice whispered in my ear.

Contorting, I tried to see my attacker, but he forced me to face the wall. I swallowed my scream. Better to contend with one man than bring a whole slew of guards down on my head. I stopped struggling as well. Whoever this guy was, he wasn’t going to let me go until he wanted to. Begging wouldn’t help — that much I remembered from self-defense class.

“I’m not going to report you,” I said in the calmest voice I could muster.

He
tsk
ed. “That was too easy. Most guards don’t promise that until after I’ve tied them up.”

The scornful way he said “guards” meant that he wasn’t one. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I said, “I’m not a guard.”

“Right,” he scoffed. “You just dress like one?” His breath warmed the side of my neck as he leaned closer. “And smell like — Hey, how come you smell like a meadow?”

“Get off me!” I shoved my elbow back, hitting what felt like ribs.

Spinning me around, he pulled the cap from my head. “You’re
not
a guard.” He smacked the wall beside me and the lights snapped on, bright and blinding.

As my eyes adjusted, the first thing that struck me was his lack of a shirt. Since line guards did not waltz around showing off an acre of sun-kissed skin, he clearly didn’t belong here any more than I did. I raised my gaze and lost my breath.

Hopefully he’d put my open-mouthed silence down to having startled me. Then again, with that face, he had to be used to gawkers. Sculpted lips, aquamarine eyes — an artist could put a sword in his hand and paint him as the archangel Michael. Fierce and beautiful.

“Feral got your tongue?” he asked.

Yes — if being from the Feral Zone meant that he was a feral. Wait,
was
he? He didn’t seem to have any claws or stripes or hooves or —

“Breathe, rabbit. I’ll only hurt you if you do something stupid.”

I cleared my throat. “Define
stupid
.”

When his lips pulled back, I flinched, only to realize that I’d amused him. “Have you been locked in a tower your whole life?” he asked. “There’s not a mark on you.”

Was he making fun of me? Probably, since he had to be around my age and yet was showing some serious wear and tear: Scars crosshatched his ribs and arms. Another edged his left eye. A few were the results of crude stitches, but the rest … claw marks? Scratches? Who cared?! I snatched my cap from his fingers.

“You know it’s illegal to impersonate a guard,” he said.

“Like you’re going to report me.” I didn’t know where to look. I wasn’t used to talking to half-naked boys.

“That goes both ways.” His mouth held the hint of a smile, but then he strolled away, lithe and unself-conscious, his pants riding dangerously low on his hips. They’d been slashed off below the knees — probably by the same knife that had done the hack job on his light brown hair. He crouched by a dirty green knapsack on the floor, stuffed to overflowing. After trying several times to zip it up, he resorted to dumping out some of the contents. I angled closer and saw pill packs, syringes, moldable casts, and sterilized packets of silica gel.

My anger flared. Having worked in a rescue shelter I knew just how valuable those supplies were. “You can’t steal from an infirmary!”

“Maybe
you
can’t.” He zipped up his knapsack and rose. “I’ve got it down to an art.”

He stood within a foot of me — close enough that I could smell the river on him — and looked me over, slow and deliberate. As much as I wanted to retreat, I smothered the impulse. Running from a stray dog just triggered it to give chase. And this guy was all street dog — definitely stray. “How did you get across the bridge?” I asked.

“Trade secret.” He swung the knapsack onto his back and headed for the door.

“Wait, are you going back to the Feral Zone?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Can I follow you?”

He swung around, surprised. “No, you can’t follow me.”

“I won’t get in your way.”

“Looking at you gets in my way.”

I wrinkled my nose. He was making no sense at all. But I had a feeling I knew how to speak his language. “I’ll pay you to take me to Moline.”

His eyes narrowed with interest. “Pay me how?”

“How much do you want?”

“How much of
what
?”

Was he being dense on purpose or along with those scars had he taken a few too many blows to the head? “How much money do you want for escorting me to Moline?”