State of Nature: Book Three of The Park Service Trilogy (3 page)

At the bottom of the stairs, they open a steel door and drop me on the floor. I hit my elbow, and pain shoots up my arm. A few seconds later, Jimmy lands hard next to me, his head thudding on the concrete. Then the door slams shut and the room goes dark.

The last thing I expect to hear is Jimmy laughing in the dark.

“Jimmy? You alright, Jimmy?”

“Yeah,” he finally says, “I’m okay.”

“Well, what’s so funny?”

“Ever-thin’ is.”

“Everything’s funny?”

“I jus’ keep seein’ the professor’s face after he hit me. I ain’t never seen someone so afraid. It was like I bit him or somethin’, but he’s the one hit me. Ain’t this jus’ a kick?”

“Did you hit your head? You sound a little delirious.”

“I’m fine,” he says. “I’m jus’ gonna lie down and rest.”

“Jimmy, you know where we are, right?”

“I’m jus’ tired is all,” he says. “I’ll feel better after I get some sleep. Dun’ wake me up unless this has all been a dream.”

I listen as he curls up on the floor next to me.

After a while, I hear his breathing change its rhythm and I know he’s fallen asleep. I’m pretty sure I heard his head hit when they threw him in after me, and I’m worried that he might have a concussion, or worse. I reach out and find him in the dark and run my fingers over his head. I feel a few lumps on his scalp but no blood. Maybe he is just tired. I scoot closer to him and caress his hair, humming the song his mother used to hum to me. It’s a reassuring sound in the uncertain dark. I had an uneasy feeling returning to the Foundation, but I had no idea we’d end up like this. I can only assume that they’ll eventually come and either test the new and improved Eden with our brains, or, if we’re lucky, just drop us down the meat grinder and wash our remains out to sea. Oh, well. The truth is, I’m tired: tired of searching for answers; tired of struggling to do the right thing; tired of worrying that Jimmy, or me, or both of us will be killed. Maybe Jimmy has the right idea going to sleep. I stretch out beside him on the cold concrete and close my eyes. I open them again when I hear my name.

I sit upright and stare into the blackness, as if I might somehow see the ghost that called to me. Just when I’m sure that my mind is playing tricks in the dark, it comes again—feeble and frail and impossible to pinpoint in the black room.

“Aubrey?—”

“Hello ...,” I call, my own voice echoing back to me.

“Help me.”

“Who’s there? Hello ...”

I sit and listen, but the voice does not speak again. I crawl in the direction from which it had come, moving cautiously in the darkness. I can’t see a thing, but I begin to smell the reek of urine and human waste. Then my hand lands on something cold and clammy and I recoil from it in fear.

“Help me,” the voice says. I reach out again and feel the skin of a hand. An arm. A shoulder. When I feel the coarse hair and the size of the head, I know I’ve found Red.

“Red? Are you okay, Red? What’s happened to you?”

He’s lying on the floor in the fetal position. I grab his clammy hand and check his pulse. It’s weak and slow. I wonder how long he’s been here like this.

“Thirsty,” he moans.

“Is there anything in here to drink?”

He doesn’t reply.

It takes me a while to locate the door, and when I pound on it with my fist, the sound echoes loudly in the pitch-black room. I pound and pound, but nothing happens and nobody comes. My knuckles ache, and sweat rises on my brow.

“Open up!” I shout. “Open up, you cowards!”

I feel a hand on my shoulder and stop to catch my breath.

“They ain’t comin’, Aubrey,” Jimmy says.

“Red’s in bad shape.”

“Red?”

“Yeah, he’s over there.”

“Is he hurt?”

“I couldn’t tell, but he said he’s thirsty.”

“Well, how long’s it been since he’s had any water?”

“How the hell should I know, Jimmy?” Realizing how rude that sounds, I add, “I’m sorry. I’m just so tired of all this.”

But Jimmy’s already gone, and when he speaks next, his voice comes from across the room.

“Aubrey, give me a hand over here.”

Together, we drag Red to the far wall and lean him up against it. He’s much lighter than he should be, given his build. Jimmy has me hold him up while he feels him for any wounds or broken bones.

“He’s in one piece,” he says. “But he needs liquids.”

“Let’s search the room,” I suggest. “You follow the wall that way, I’ll follow it this way, and we’ll meet in the middle.”

I inch along the wall, feeling for any pipes or a sink, but there’s nothing but concrete. When I hit the corner, I turn and walk the other wall. Still nothing. Another corner. Nothing. I run into Jimmy midway around the room, near the door.

“I got zilch,” he says.

“Me either. It’s just a bare room. You got any ideas?”

“One,” he says, “but it ain’t pretty.”

“Well, what is it?”

“I gotta go.”

“Gotta go where? We’re trapped in here.”

“No, I gotta
go
go.”

“Ah, man. No way. I’d rather die of dehydration.”

“But you ain’t him. And he might die if we do nothin’.”

The idea turns my stomach, but I’m sure it wouldn’t hurt. “Do what you think’s best,” I say. “I’m going to try and get someone’s attention again.”

By the time I finish pounding on the metal door, my hand is numb, my voice is hoarse, and the effort has yielded nothing. I might as well be banging on the ceiling of my own coffin.

“Save your energy,” Jimmy calls. “You might need it.”

I walk to the far wall with my hands in front of me, like some sleepwalking zombie in the night. I find Jimmy sitting next to Red, propping him up, and I slide down the wall and sit on Red’s other side.

“Is he doing any better?”

“Some,” Jimmy says. “He was talkin’ a bit more. He said he thought we was a dream.”

“How long’s he been in here?”

“He didn’t say.”

I reach over and shake Red’s shoulder. “Red? Can you hear me, Red?”

He moans. I feel his head lift and then drop again.

We sit lined up against the wall for hours—three lonely felons waiting on our fate. The only thing worse than the darkness is the silence. I play a game with myself to pass the time, trying to guess what Jimmy’s thinking. Of course, I never know if I’m right or not because I don’t ask him. I’m not sure why I don’t. Maybe because I’m worried that he’s thinking all of this is somehow my fault. Then again, maybe he’s playing the same game and trying to guess what I’m thinking, and neither of us is really having any thoughts of his own.

Red stirs next to me. “Aubrey? Are you still here?”

I reach over and rest my hand on his arm. “I’m still here, Red. You okay?”

“I’ve seen you before but you always disappear.”

“I’m really here, buddy. So’s Jimmy. He’s right there on your other side.”

“He is?”

“Hey, Red,” Jimmy says. “I’m right here.”

“Are you both stuck in here too?”

“Let’s not worry about that right now,” I say.

“Well, I was wishing you’d show up, so if I wished you here and it’s my fault you’re stuck, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. Red. None of this is.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Why would you think that?”

“Because I caused the strike.”

“The strike? What strike?”

Red lets out a prolonged sigh. A long time passes in silence, and I assume he’s gone back to sleep. Then he sighs again. “I shouldn’t have done it,” he says.

“What’d he say?” Jimmy asks.

“He says he shouldn’t have done it.”

“Done what?”

“I don’t know. Shouldn’t have done what, Red?”

“I sent a note down on the train to my girl. I wanted to let her know I was okay. And then ... and then ... well, I guess word got around, and they decided they weren’t gonna send up any more supplies until their retirement started again.”

“Is that why Hannah threw you in here?”

“She said I was stupid.”

“You’re not stupid.”

“She said I was responsible.”

“Responsible for what, Red?”

“For killing everybody down in Holocene II.”

He says it softly, but the words hit me like a hammer. Did Hannah flood Holocene II? Is that why all the tunnelrats are up here? An image of all those people waking up to water gushing in to fill the caverns sends a shiver up my spine.

“Red, did you see her do it? Did she flood Holocene II?”

When Red doesn’t answer, I shake him, but he only moans and falls over to lean on Jimmy. There’s no way I heard him right. It can’t be. She wouldn’t.

“Jimmy, did he say Hannah flooded Holocene II?”

“He dun’ know what he’s sayin’,” Jimmy replies. “He said we was ghosts too. Let’s let him rest.”

“Well, we can’t just sit here,” I say.

“What else are we s’posed to do?” he asks. “All we can do is wait. Wait and save our energy until somebody comes.”

“And what if nobody comes?”

“Then we wait some more.”

“And dehydrate like Red here and maybe die?”

“There ain’t nothin’ else to be done.”

“Fine,” I say, “but I’m not drinking your piss.”

“Damn straight you ain’t,” he says. “You drink your own.”

Blinding light in my eyes.

Am I dreaming? No, the door is open.

Strong hands grab my arms and jerk me up. My legs are asleep and give out beneath me, and my feet slide along the floor as I’m dragged toward the light, out from the room, and up the stairs. I struggle to turn and at least say goodbye to Jimmy, but I hear the door slam shut behind me before I can.

So this must be it, I think.

But they don’t take me into the killing room, at least not right away. Instead, they drag me into Eden’s control room, now remarkably restored from the fire Jimmy and I set, and slump me into a chair. As my eyes adjust to the light, I look about at sour-faced tunnelrats and at the new equipment in the room. It’s amazing that they’ve restored it so quickly. I lean forward and look through the window into the pool of red-glowing liquid where my mother and father’s brains had been enslaved before Jimmy and I blew it up. It has been refreshed, and countless new hoses turn and coil in the soft, gelatinous current, like serpents just waiting for new brains to latch onto. I can’t believe Eden’s back in business.

The door opens and Hannah walks in, followed by the professor. She’s wearing a pressed white zipsuit, with her red hair pulled back and tied in a ponytail. She looks professional and competent, like some futuristic executioner, especially next to the professor, who looks more frazzled than ever with his wild hair and his missing teeth.

“You need to get water down to Red right now,” I say.

Hannah smiles, pulls out a chair from the control panel, and sits facing me. She says, “We’ve got to work on your manners, Aubrey. Once again, you don’t even say hello before you start barking at me.”

“He’s dying down there. You need to bring him food and water. Please.”

“Well, since you asked nicely.” She nods to the professor. “Get them some algaecrisps and something to drink.”

“Have the rats do it,” he says.

Hannah shakes her head. “I’m telling you to do it. Now get on it. And do the other thing too. Just in case.”

The professor reluctantly marches to the door and leaves the room. I can only hope he goes down there alone and that Jimmy can have his way with him. I doubt he’d be that stupid though, especially after what happened on the dock.

Hannah looks me over and then sighs. “Aubrey, Aubrey, Aubrey. What’s going on with you right now?”

“What’s going on with me? How about what in the hell’s going on with you? You send Jimmy and me out there with that crazy fool, filled with misinformation. You lie about wanting to free my people. You damn near kill us. You did kill Junior. And you killed all those people ... even your own brother, Hannah. You killed your own brother.”

“I didn’t intend for him to die,” she says, as if that were her only crime. “I thought maybe you’d get him to come back with you. I was actually hoping to meet him.”

“Well, he cut off his hand to do the right thing, Hannah. And then he died for it. You know what? I’m almost glad he didn’t get to meet you, because you’d be a disappointment to a good man like him. You didn’t deserve to meet him.”

Hannah leaps up from her chair and points her finger at me, as if she’d like to stab me with it. “You have no right to say that to me, Aubrey! No right.”

“I have all the right in the world, Hannah. I don’t even know who you are. And I don’t think I ever really did.”

When I finish speaking, I realize that I’m standing too. A tunnelrat steps over and pushes me back down into my chair.

“You and I are no different,” she finally says.

“Oh, yes, we are. I’m nothing like you.”

“We do what we have to do,” she says. “Just like the wave. You killed my father and Tom and all the scientists down here because you thought you had no choice.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well, why did you do it then?”

“No,”—I shake my head—“I didn’t do it. I didn’t set off that wave, Hannah. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill one life, even to save many.”

“Well, then, who did, if it wasn’t you?”

“Your mother did.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not. She came down and set off the wave, and she gave me those vials of longevity serum, and she said we needed to do the right thing this time, Hannah. The right thing. That’s what she said. And none of what you’re doing here is the right thing, and I know you know it too.”

For a moment, Hannah looks sad. Maybe even remorseful. Ten years seem to erase from her face, and she looks once again like the girl I first saw hitting tennis balls. She paces the room, her hands clasped behind her back and her eyes focused on the floor. The tunnelrats’ heads swivel to follow her, as if entranced by her movements. But when she stops and looks up at me again, her expression has transformed back to its practiced passivity, her chin slightly raised and a half smile on her mouth. Wherever she’s gone, there’s no coming back.