Contain (7 page)

His behavior has also been strange.
I’ve noticed him sneaking about the bunker at strange hours, acting
all smug as he goes into and comes out of various people's
quarters, showing up in places he doesn't need to be.

I guess that it has to do with his
attempts to rally support for his side. I've been noticing the
furtive looks others give me and my father. But I'm less worried
than I am irritated— at least, that's what I tell myself. How could
he possibly garner enough votes to knock Dad out?

“
Nobody wants Jonah to be
in charge,” I mutter to myself one morning at breakfast. Bren
shrugs and shakes her head at me. “I mean, who would vote for him?
Few of the younger people like him, and half the older ones think
he's lazy or mean-spirited.”

“
He
is
lazy and mean-spirited,” Bix
affirms. “But he can't help it. Anyone with an overripe jalapeno
stuck up his corn hole would be.”

“
Bix!” Bren says, gasping.
She holds a hand over her mouth to stifle her giggle.

I can't help but chuckle, too, which
only encourages him to keep on going.

“
You shouldn't worry about
him, Finn,” Bren tells me. I shrug, as if I'm really not, but I'm
pretty sure she knows it's just an act.

After finishing our bowls of rationed
oatmeal and dried apricot bars, we make our way down to the med bay
to check on Eddie. It's been nearly a week since the accident, and
the report this morning is that he's turned a corner. Doc Cavanaugh
says he's starting to improve, although he's still unconscious. I'm
afraid to ask her if he'll ever come out of it. I'm afraid she'll
say he might have brain damage or be in constant pain or something
like that.

We reach the lift and Bix presses the
button to call it. From somewhere behind the doors, deep down
inside the shaft, the gears begin to turn. I can hear the car
rattling as it rises from down below, and it reminds me that I
should be checking the food stores again.

“
The Rollins boys like
him,” I muse.

“
Who?”

“
Jonah. They're always
hanging off of him, trying to get his attention.”

“
They also like Bix,” Bren
says. “So obviously they're not very discriminating.”

“
Hey!”

“
They like Bix because he
tells them dirty jokes,” I say.

“
My jokes aren't dirty,”
Bix protests. “Your minds are.”

“
Right.”

“
Well, they may think
Jonah's cool,” Bren says, “but when it comes time to vote, it won't
be for him.”

The lift doors open and we step in.
It's an industrial-sized car, meant for large equipment, so it's
wide enough and deep enough to hold everyone in the bunker. But
despite having it all to ourselves, the three of us instinctively
crowd into the corner by the controls.

Bren pushes the button to go
down.

“
Besides, I don’t believe
Jonah's the one throwing his hat into the ring,” she
says.

“
The way he talks, it sure
sounds like he is.”

“
He's just cheerleading for
his father. Jack's the one who really wants to be in
charge.”

“
Great,” I reply. “Just
what I wanted to hear. Jack Resnick has a better chance of winning
than Jonah. He isn't as disliked.”

“
It’s not that they dislike
him,” Bix says. “It’s that they fear him.”

Bren nods. “People will vote based on
who they think is going to help us all survive until we can leave.
That means someone who can think his way out of a crisis, not
create one.”

“
Except it doesn't always
happen that way,” I say. “People too often vote with their
emotions, not their head.”

“
Or their
heart.”

We turn to stare at Bix. “What are you
talking about?” I ask.

“
Well, if Doc Cavanaugh
ran, she'd probably get a lot of the male votes. And a few of the
female ones, too. Have you seen the way Susan Miller checks her
out? She be wanting some of that action.”

Bren rolls her eyes.

“
You're joking, right?” I
say. “Or am I just clueless?”

“
You've never seen her give
Doc the lust-eye?” Bix asks. I shake my head, but he's already far
away, deep into his own little fantasy world. His eyes glaze over
and a crooked smile turns the corners of his lips upward. “Nice,”
he croons.

“
Ugh!” Bren cries,
pretending shock and disgust. “You are such a perv!”

“
Yeah!” I knock Bix out of
his reverie with a punch to the arm. “Doctor Cavanaugh's, like,
twenty years older than you. And Susan's even older.”

“
Only sixteen years,” Bix
says, doing the calculation. The car comes to an abrupt stop and
the doors begin to open. He steps out. “And it's not like she's not
available.”

“
Who's not available?”
Hannah asks, surprising us. She appears to be heading back
upstairs.

“
Doc Cav—” Bix begins to
say, before Bren and I start coughing loudly to interrupt him. But
Bix has absolutely no clue. “Doctor Cavanaugh,” he says, raising
his voice.

“
Available to talk,” I
quickly explain.

“
Talk?” he says, looking
confused. “Sure, if that's what the kids are calling the horizontal
tango these days.”

Hannah's mouth drops open.

“
Bix!
” Bren exclaims. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

A blush reddens Hannah's neck, but she
quickly recovers and acts like everything's normal.

“
How's your dad,” I ask,
changing the subject.

She brightens. “He's doing so much
better today! Doc says his skin is healing, and he has no signs of
infection. He's still not out of the woods yet, but he's getting
better every day.”

“
You've been able to see
him?”

The smile falters. “No, not yet. She
says there's still too much of a risk.” But her happiness partially
returns. “Maybe he'll be able to come home soon.”

Home. Even after three years, some
people still can't get themselves to call their quarters
that.

I'm actually relieved at the news. One
thing I've been avoiding thinking about is what would happen to
Hannah without Eddie. It's just the two of them in here. I don't
know what happened to her mother. I don't think anyone really
knows, as neither of them ever speaks of her. I sort of just
assumed her parents split up long before the outbreak, possibly
when Hannah was very young. If her father dies—

When
he dies.

I force myself not to think about
it.

“
Going back upstairs?” Bren
asks.

“
Mister Largent's here. He
told me I needed to get something to eat. I think I'll try and get
some sleep, too. Though I don't know how, I'm too
excited.”

She yawns, and for the first time I
notice how heavily her exhaustion hangs on her. Her eyes are puffy
and the shadows underneath them are dark. Her cheekbones appear
even more prominent than I remember them. Her hair's a mess, and
her threadbare jumpsuit, handed down from Bren, is rumpled. She
looks like she hasn’t taken it off for several days.

Bren takes her hand and leads her back
toward the elevator. “You guys go on ahead. I'll stay with
Hannah.”

She shoots Bix a sharp look, which he
doesn't pick up on.

“
It's okay,” Hannah says.
“You don't have to. I mean, I have things to do.”

“
I want to. We
all
do, don't we
guys?”

Bix throws a thumb over his shoulder.
“In a bit. But first we’re going to visit with the doc.” He waggles
his eyebrows.

Bren shakes her head and guides Hannah
into the elevator.

As soon as the doors shut, I punch Bix
in the arm again, hard this time, and call him an idiot. He frowns
at me and rubs the spot.

“
Talking about Doc
Cavanaugh like that in front of Hannah?” I say. “A bit insensitive,
don't you think?”

“
Why? She’s a big
girl.”

I roll my eyes, but clamp
my mouth shut. Hannah made Bren promise not to tell anyone what she
thinks of Bix, so, naturally, Bren told me. But now I'm bound not
to say anything to Bix, and that's a promise I
don't
want to break. “Just be a
little more sensitive next time is all. Poor girl's going through
hell.”

He manages to look adequately
contrite, which isn't all that hard once we turn back around and
are reminded of the real reason for our visit and not his fantasy
reason.

The smell of disinfectant lingers in
the air, mixed with the cloying scent of antibiotics. The overhead
lights flicker intermittently as we go, but we barely notice it
anymore. Our focus is on the man lying in the bed in the room near
the end of the hall.

Stephen stands when he sees us. He
glances once through the glass, though he can't see Eddie beneath
the makeshift tent of thick white plastic. He steps away to cut us
off.

“
How is he?” I
ask.

Stephen shrugs. He looks agitated,
though I can't imagine why. “Can't really say. He's a fighter,
though.” He shakes his head.

“
What is it?”

He shifts his weight from one foot to
the other and bites his lip.

Stephen Largent is a young guy, not
yet thirty. He has two kids, his oldest almost ten. To me, he seems
perpetually shell-shocked. Bix says it's because the kids run him
ragged, though I think there's more to it than that. I don't think
he still quite believes he and the rest of his family are still
alive.

For a long time, my father had him
doing odd jobs around the complex, as he didn't really have any
practical skills, but a few months ago Eddie said he needed some
help with the mechanical upkeep. Machines were breaking down faster
than he could repair them. He suggested that he train a couple
guys, Stephen included. Much to everyone's surprise, the man proved
to be a natural.

“
There's something screwy
about it is all,” he says. “I told Seth Abramson, Finn. But I'm not
sure he believes me.”

“
Believes what? What's
screwy, Eddie's recovery?”

“
Well, that, yes. I mean,
I'm no doctor, so I can't speak too much on that. But no, I mean
the pipe that put him there. The one that burst.”

“
What about it?”

“
Me and Danny went down
after Jack and the others repaired it. I mean, I know he's an
engineer and all, but Jack Resnick is no mechanic. Neither is Seth.
They know it, which is why they asked me to put a patch on
it.”

“
Is it going to fail
again?”

He shakes his head. “No, it's actually
a pretty decent repair job. It'll hold. I double checked the weld,
hiked up the pressure and it's good. But . . .
there's something strange about the way the pipe failed. It doesn't
look like a blowout.”

“
What exactly does a
blowout look like?” Bix asks.

Stephen shrugs his head. “To be
honest, I don't know, but logic tells me it wouldn't look the way
it did.”

“
Which is?”

“
Clean. Like it was cut
with a saw. Straight, you know?”

“
Are you sure it wasn't
just the way the pipe was made? Maybe it was a weak
seam.”

He frowns. “A seam that only goes
partway around? No, I showed it to Danny, and he agrees that it
doesn't look right, and I trust his opinion.” He waves his hands
about him. “Besides, with everything breaking all over the place
all of a sudden—”

“
Things don't last forever,
Stephen.”

His head shakes even more intensely.
“I know, but doesn't it seem strange?”

Nobody says anything for several
seconds. Finally, I ask, “What are you saying?”

“
I'm saying I think
somebody's going around messing things up on purpose.”

Stephen's suspicion nags me for the rest of the day, but it
infuriates Bix to the point that he's ready to publicly accuse
Jonah of sabotage. I tell him that would be a mistake. Without
proof of the pipe being tampered with, he could be making himself
an even bigger target for Jonah's taunting, while drumming up
sympathy for Jack. And even with proof, how would we be able to
link anyone to it? Most importantly,
why
would anyone do it?