Some Fine Day (28 page)

That’s what my mother told me. But I didn’t want to listen.

I saw him die. But I didn’t want to believe.

In light of what’s been happening in here, maybe it’s better. I’m not sure I could handle seeing Will with what Nileen’s got. I definitely can’t handle seeing Nileen this way. A hatred fills me that’s so intense, it’s all I can do not to kill Miles on the spot.

At least I can still try to help her. And the kid.

“What’s his name again?” I ask, scrubbing a hand across my eyes. “I forgot.”

“Petyr,” Nileen says.

“OK.”

I pick up the hypo where Miles dropped it and jab it into the vial.

“What are you doing?” he asks cautiously.

“I’m giving them the new vaccine.”

Miles frowns. “There is no new vaccine.”

“Then what the hell is this?” I show him the vial.

He examines it. “QPT. See, it says so right there on the label.” He points to tiny print I hadn’t bothered to read.

“Oh shit. Shit!” I hurl it across the lab.  “Where the hell is everybody? You must have started with a couple dozen, at least, to have enough for trials. Where are they now?”

Miles cringes. “Well, a lot of them died. A few were transferred to another secure facility.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Honestly! I don’t know!”

I feel sick. The whole thing was pointless. I can’t take Nileen, I can’t take Petyr. They’re almost gone anyway. And pretty soon I’ll be wanted by the entire prefectural police force. Not to mention the special ops people. There has to be
something
I can do.

“What about that guy?” I point to the first cell. “Is he infected too?”

“Not exactly.”

“Elaborate.”

“He’s the last QPT subject. I doubled the dosage this morning to see what would happen.”

I stare at him until he looks away. “You’re a monster, Miles. I hope you know that. So you’re telling me he’s just drugged up, but no virus?”

“Essentially.”

I stride over to the box, look inside. The old man hasn’t moved. “Open the door.”

Miles quavers a little. “That’s really not a good idea. He can be. . . unpredictable.”

“Just open it!”

“OK, OK.” Miles walks around the corner of the box to a small door, inserts his Pii. There’s a series of heavy clicks as the locks disengage. He immediately backs up and returns to Rebekah’s side.

I push the door open. The old guy still hasn’t moved, and I wonder for a moment if he’s dead. It doesn’t smell good in the box, a combination of stale sweat and vomit, although the surfaces look clean. I stick the gun in my waistband so my hands are free. I don’t want to shoot him if he freaks out; he probably hasn’t seen another human outside a space suit in months.

“Excuse me,” I say.

Nothing.

He’s wearing a thin hospital gown, and I see bruises running up and down his wrinkled arms, most of them greenish yellow, not recent. They’re clustered along his inner elbows, so I guess they were drawing blood samples from him, but stopped for some reason. Or started taking it from somewhere else.

I walk to the cot and place a hand on one shoulder to shake it, and suddenly my wrist is seized in a viselike grip. I pry his fingers back and he lets out a howl of rage. He’s much stronger than I expected. Incredibly strong, for such an old man. I don’t remember ever seeing anyone so old in Banerjee’s group. Charlie was in his seventies, but this guy must be at least a decade older.

“Stop it, I’m here to help you,” I say, not loud, but he’s clearly traumatized and has no reason to believe me, so he just fights even harder. His eyes are wild, I can see the whites showing all around.

His eyes.

Two different colors. Hardly noticeable, unless you really look. The left slightly bluer than the right, which is more of a slate grey.

I stare at him, my grip slackening, and he stares back at me. I sense an emptiness there that scares me more than all the rest of it.

“It’s me, Will,” I whisper.

I touch his cheek, touch the deep creases and sagging jowls. Seeing his eyes in that face is deeply jarring. But I know him. Without question. I’d like to think that I would even if his eyes matched perfectly.

“Come on, it’s me,” I say again, and he brings his fist up and tries to punch me but I deflect the blow. “You can’t win, I’m stronger. Just listen! I’m taking you out of here.”

He blinks, and I can see the effort it takes for him to process this information. “Out?” he croaks.

My heart splinters, then hardens as I think of what I’m going to do to the people who did this. Not today. But someday. Someday soon.

“Yes, out. Can you walk?”

I help Will stand and lead him out of the box. The burst of energy he displayed when I touched him seems to have used him up, and now he does move like an old man. Miles watches me warily as I approach.

“Is your curiosity satisfied, Miles? About what happens when you double the dosage?” I say. Even in his weakened state, Will looks ready to kill someone. And I’m not very inclined to stop him.

“A completely unforeseen side effect,” he stammers. “It doesn’t seem to alter the muscles or internal organs, just the collagen levels of the outer epidermis, creating an appearance of extreme old age. Rather like Werner’s syndrome, although much more accelerated. That’s why I stayed so late tonight. To monitor the progress. . .” He trails off as I raise the gun.

“Does it wear off?”

“I don’t know.”

I shut my eyes. The throbbing has eased up a little, but I feel so tired. I realize I don’t care if he’s old forever. Or crazy. He’s still my Will. And that’s when I get the glimmerings of an idea about how we’re going to escape, not just from the Helix, but the prefecture.

“Give me your Pii, Miles.”

“Are you going to shoot me?”

“Not if you’re a good boy and do what I tell you. Now give me the card and put Rebekah in there.” I point at the empty quarantine cell.

Will is limping along the row, looking inside each in turn. When he finds Nileen, he lets out a sound no human being should make. He thrusts one hand inside a rubber glove and Nileen takes it in her own. I hear them whispering to each other.

Miles just stands there. “Or maybe you’d prefer to share a cell with them,” I say, glancing at Nileen and Petyr, and that gets him moving.

“Sit down and face the wall,” I tell him once he has Rebekah stretched out on the cot. Miles complies, nose wrinkling in distaste at the smell.

“This isn’t the end, Miles. You should know that. It’s just the beginning.” He’s starting to turn when I kick him in the side of the head, not as hard as I want to but hard enough. He keels over, and I stretch him out next to Rebekah. I slam the door behind me and make sure the locks are engaged.

I can’t have Miles conscious and talking when the guards show up. He knows what Will looks like now. Maybe I should have just shot them both; probably I should have. God knows I want to. That’s what they taught me to do at the Academy. That would have been the recommended course of action. But it’s not my style, and never will be.

Now comes the hard part.

I find the hypo where I’d thrown it across the room, fill it with QPT, replace the plastic tip. I should have asked Miles what “double the dosage” meant precisely, but it’s too late now. I put the needle in my pocket and go to Will.

“We have to leave,” I say, hating the callousness of the words but knowing they’re true, that there’s nothing we can do to help Nileen anymore. Nothing. And the longer we stay, the more certain it is we’ll be caught.

He rounds on me, eyes blazing, and I take a step back. Then he slams a hand against the glass. Slams it again. He doesn’t seem to feel anything, and I start to worry.

“Will!” Nileen yells through the intercom, and he stops hitting the glass, although one eyelid is spasming badly.

“Go,” she orders.

He shakes his head, mutely gestures at the door to the cell.

“I wouldn’t even if you opened it,” she says. “This thing is catching. And unlike them, I ain’t a mass murderer.” She turns to me. “Jansin, they took Fatima. Had to shoot Bob about a dozen times to get to her, but he weren’t no match for the soldiers in the end. They got the captain too, and others. Took ’em away. But they ain’t sick like us.” She blinks. “Or weren’t when they left anyway. Promise me you’ll help them.”

The odds that we’ll even get out of the Helix alive are slim, let alone find some secret military installation and break anyone out. That I’ve made it this far is mostly dumb luck. But there’s only one possible response in such a situation. “I promise, Nileen.”

She nods. “Will, you go along with Jansin now. We’ll be OK.”

“Does it hurt?” he whispers.

“A little, but not too much,” she says, and I know she’s lying. “Goodbye, Will.”

He sobs. She was a good friend to both of us. I wish I could burn this place to the ground.

Nileen turns her back on us, and I take Will’s arm and steer him towards the door. He moves like a sleepwalker, turning and going forward when prompted but without any will of his own. I hope he comes back soon, because I need him if we’re going to have any chance, any chance at all.

We pass through the laboratory and I swipe Rebekah’s Pii, enter the code to the staging area. One of the lockers says
M. Pemberton
on the side. Miles and Will are roughly the same size, and inside I find a pair of slacks and a shirt that look like they’ll fit. Will stands perfectly still as I lift off the hospital gown. I have to put each arm and leg into the clothing, like dressing a child.

The animals keep quiet as we walk past their cages; the chickens and cows are sleeping, but some of the pigs are awake. They watch us with intelligent eyes, and I feel bad for leaving them there, really bad. Terrible, in fact. The strength of the emotion catches me by surprise, and all the horrors I’ve just seen hit me like a tank and I start shaking.

I stop walking and lay my head on Will’s chest and cry, telling myself I need to get it out now so I can think straight but really unable to control it. He just stands there, arms hanging by his sides. He smells bad, but I don’t care, I’ve missed him so much, and that makes me cry harder.

“Jansin,” he says after a minute.

“What?” I mumble into the damp stain on his shirt.

“That’s your name.”

I look up at him and his eyes are still shell-shocked but there’s a spark of self-awareness that wasn’t there before.

“What is this place? Where are we?”

“It’s called the Helix. It’s an experimental research facility.”

“Underground?”

“Yes.”

Shadows move across his face. I can see him straining to remember, to comprehend, and failing. I look away before he sees the pity in mine.

“Listen, Will, I’m getting you out of here. Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore, I swear it.”

I wipe my nose and smile reassuringly. That’s when the first alarm goes off.

Finlay’s Paradox can be summed up thusly: while engineered genetic mutation is a prerequisite for survival underground, should it go awry, there is no refuge from the consequences.

It’s a distant wail, still faint, but the hair on my arms stiffens and I grab Will and start running as fast as I can. Maybe the guards changed and the new one didn’t like my scam with the Pii, or even checked my name and realized who I was. The
why
doesn’t matter. In seven minutes, the entire Helix will be locked down and then it’s just a matter of time until they hunt us into a corner.

We’re through the next two doors in thirty seconds, and now we’re on camera again. But I have no intention of exiting the way I came in. Thanks to Rafiq, we’re leaving by the back door.

I pull the gun out as we pound down the walkway, looking up just in time to see two guards come flying around the curve ahead. The first skids to a stop and raises his weapon but I already have him in my sights.

“Get down!” I scream at Will, firing four times in rapid succession. The recoil of the ceramic gun is tremendous and the last three rounds go wild, but the first hits its mark and the guard spins into the wall and collapses.

Then the walkway behind me explodes. I fly into the air, landing on one shoulder about five yards away, at the feet of the second guard. Before he can move, I sweep my leg in a low arc, trapping him in a scissor lock as he falls. The guard thrashes and beats at my legs, but I’ve got my thighs around his throat and don’t stop squeezing until his body goes limp.

I kick him away and crawl back down the corridor to Will. He’s lying on his side, eyes closed and blood coming out of his nose. He’s so frail, just a bag of bones. I shake him and he coughs. I pray nothing is broken, though I’ll carry him if I have to.

Yellow lights are flashing at intervals along the wall and the alarms are so loud now I can feel them pulsing in my bones. The main security hub is buried below the research level, but it won’t take long for the rest of the cavalry to arrive.

I drag Will to his feet. He stays there, barely, so I haul him stumbling around the next curve. Right before the barrier dividing Agrosciences and Climatology I find what I’m looking for. A white door, marked Maintenance. I swipe Rebekah’s Pii, praying hard that it works. She must have full access, because the door clicks open, revealing a wide service corridor that runs parallel to the one we’re standing in. All the Helix’s supplies come through here after being offloaded from trucks.