by Jon McGoran
Devon nodded. “Yeah, but they’ve pretty much run out, so there’s a shortage. There’s deposits on the ocean floor, but too deep to get to.” He patted the ground. “Turns out, though, that there’s also trace amounts of it in coal. And in me, too, for that matter. I probably absorbed thirty bucks worth of yttrium when I was down there. It’s supposed to be harmless, but I have my doubts.”
“But the coal’s gone, right?” Claudia said.
He nodded. “Every drop. But when they liquefy the coal and pump it out, the yttrium is left behind in the residue.”
As the pieces assembled in my brain, I slid to the ground, shocked but not surprised. It seemed like any time you came across something really evil in this world, chances were it led back to one person.
“But why don’t they just use more exosuits?” Claudia was asking. “Each of those exosuits could probably mine five times as fast as a person without one. Who would go to all that trouble—kidnapping all these chimeras and altering them and forcing them to work down there? Why not just get a bunch more of those exosuits?”
“We wondered the same thing,” Devon said. “I think they must be really expensive. OmniCare has tons of money, but they only have eight of those exosuits—we counted. It only takes four well-armed pairs—they always work in pairs—to brutalize and control eighty or ninety chimeras.”
“It’s not because they’re expensive.” I said it quietly, but everyone turned to look at me. “The exosuits are semi-robotic. That means they use yttrium, right?”
Claudia nodded. “Yeah, probably.”
“That’s why they’re not buying up a ton of exosuits,” I said. “For the same reason they’re going to such terrible lengths to get the yttrium out of the mines. Because Howard Wells needs every last speck of it he can find. This is all about him and his new generation of Wellplants.”
CHAPTER 30
For a long moment we were each on our own, dealing with our individual reactions of horror and disgust and anger and sorrow. I wanted to curl into a ball and sob. But instead, I got to my feet, brushing the dirt off my pants and my jacket.
Kiet looked up at me. “Where are you going?”
“We need to get a move on,” I said, wiping my eyes. “We need to get to Gellersville and get tools so we can fix Claudia’s car, and tell the world what’s going on here, and stop it before anyone else gets hurt.” I turned to Kiet. “Maybe we can get one of those inhalers as proof.”
Kiet thought about it and nodded.
“You need tools?” Devon asked.
“A socket set,” Claudia replied. “For a bent charger plate.” She took a few steps closer to Devon and explained about her broken-down car.
“We’ve got some tools you can borrow,” Devon said. “As long as you don’t mind them being a little rusty.”
Rajiv got to his feet and said, “I’ll get them.”
Devon called him over and spoke into his ear, then called out, “Thanks, Rajiv!” as his friend ran off into the woods. While we waited for Rajiv to return, Kiet started walking into the clearing again.
Devon held up a hand and said, “Close enough.”
Kiet looked miserable. “So this is it?” he finally said.
“I don’t know,” Devon replied lightly. “I hope not….I never did like the idea of a long-distance relationship. But they say boundaries are important. Maybe this will be good for us in the long term.”
Claudia and I both smiled at that. Kiet did, too, even as he shook his head in disapproval. “That’s not funny,” he said.
Devon held up his thumb and his forefinger an inch apart. A little. “It’s really good to see you,” he said.
“You, too. But…” Kiet waggled his hand, indicating the space between them. “This?”
“I was afraid I’d never see you again,” Devon said. “Were you afraid I was dead?”
Kiet nodded, tearing up again.
“Then you should be happy.” Devon smiled, but he didn’t seem happy either.
I liked Kiet, and I found myself liking Devon even more. And at my core, I felt a rage at the people who put them in this predicament. At Howard Wells and that Dr. Charlesford, and everyone else who was a part of it.
I had known already that this was no longer just about Doc. Down in that sub-basement under OmniCare, it had become clear that something huge and terrible was going on. But somehow, seeing Kiet in such anguish, seeing him and Devon torn from each other, seeing people physically separated from those they love, and in such a ghoulish way, and for such a base, materialistic reason, it made putting a stop to it that much more urgent.
Rajiv ran back through the woods, carrying a dented toolbox in one hand and a breather in the other. He set the tools on the ground next to Devon and handed him the breather.
Devon stood up and pulled the mask around his face, then he picked up the toolbox and walked up across the clearing, toward Kiet.
He held out the toolbox toward Claudia. “Just bring them back when you’re done,” he said as she took it, his voice only slightly muffled by the breathing mask. “Or don’t. I don’t know.”
“Thanks,” she said, dropping to one knee and looking inside. “These are perfect.”
Then Devon reached out his arm to Kiet. “I’ve got five minutes on this thing. Want to go for a walk?”
Kiet took his hand and nodded. As they turned and walked up the hill away from us, Devon looked back at Claudia and me. “We’ll be back in a few minutes.”
They walked off, hand in hand, then arm in arm, making a circle through the woods, never completely out of sight for more than a minute.
Claudia was engrossed in checking out the tools. I leaned against a tree, trying to keep an eye on Devon and Kiet without looking like I was keeping an eye on them, trying not to think about how much I missed Rex, how worried I was about him.
When Kiet and Devon made their way back down to where Claudia and I were waiting, Devon pulled up his mask and they kissed once again. Afterward, he held the mask to his face and took a deep breath, then he shook the can next to his ear, listening to it. He pressed a green button on the side and held it as it let out a soft gasp.
He tossed the breather to me, and trotted back down across the clearing. “I want you to take a walk with me, too,” he called out. “Just press the blue button to fill it, then put the mask over your face and press the green button to breathe.”
Kiet seemed pensive, probably thinking about whatever they had discussed. But he still looked up at me, quizzically. So did Claudia. I replied to them both with a shrug as I pressed the blue button.
It was louder than when Doc had pressed the button on the breather Cornelius had been wearing, sounding halfway between a clogged vacuum cleaner and a spoon in a garbage disposal. After about ten seconds, the noise trailed off to silence.
My hands fumbled with the mask as I put it on. I was nervous about being summoned and about trying to work the breather while walking into an environment that I knew could kill me.
I got the mask into place and pushed the green button. The can vibrated softly and the mask filled with air as I walked across the clearing.
Devon smiled as I approached. “Thanks for coming,” he said, holding out his arm to indicate where he wanted to walk. We both looked back at Claudia and Kiet as we set off.
“You’re the girl from Pitman, aren’t you?” he said.
I wasn’t from Pitman and I didn’t want anyone thinking I was, but I knew what he meant. “Yes,” I said. My voice sounded muffled in my ears.
“That was impressive what you did out there.” He turned and looked at me, studying me. “Are you spliced?”
I shook my head.
“Just wondering,” he said. He glanced back at Kiet again, through the trees, then at me. “Look, I don’t know you, but I know a little bit about you, so I’m going to tell you something that I can’t tell Kiet right now. He’s too upset as it is.”
“Tell me what?” We were walking down a slight incline, past a tiny, s
agging little wooden house. It wasn’t until we stepped past it and out of the trees that I realized it was sitting next to the remnants of a wide avenue.
Devon gestured to our left and we turned to walk along it. Ahead, the road was lined with the remains of a small town—little houses, a few stores, and an old gas station on one side, and a school on the other—all of them sagging, every single window broken.
“We’re dying,” Devon said as we walked.
“What?” I asked. “What do you mean? Who is?”
“All of us here. Everyone still down in the mines, too.”
“H-How do you know? Is it from the yttrium?”
“No. It’s this thing they did to us. You don’t live more than a few months with it. Down in the mines, most of us don’t last that long anyway. But some do. The tough ones. After three months or so, though, they all get sick. They start to cough, they get weak. Within a couple of weeks, they’re dead.”
My head was spinning.
“Are you sure it’s not from whatever they were mining?” I said. “The other toxic chemicals?”
He nodded as he stepped up onto the porch of one of the houses, opening the door and motioning for me to follow.
“How do you know?” I said, as I entered after him.
The house was tiny, but in better shape inside than I expected. We stepped into a living room with a jumble of mismatched furniture: an armchair, a coffee table, a sofa. The windows were all broken, but heavy curtains hung in front of them blocking out the worst of the cold.
On the sofa, trembling under a thick layer of blankets, was a chimera, a lion splice. He seemed to be unconscious. His breathing was shallow.
“This is Henry. We thought—we hoped—just what you said, that it was something about the mines that was killing us, and that when we escaped, we’d escape that, too. It’s not much of a life here, but it’s a life, and we could work on making it better, work on stopping what they’re doing to us at that place. But Henry is our senior citizen. He went into the hospital and ended up in the mines just over three months ago.” Devon paused to frown down at the figure on the sofa, then lowered his voice. “He’s not doing well. In the mines, by the time they got to this point, they only had a few days left.”
Henry’s eyes opened a slit. “I can hear you, you know.” His voice was raspy and thick. He coughed after he spoke.
Devon sat on the bed next to him. “Sorry, buddy. I was just—”
“No worries,” he said, feebly waving him off. “You’re not saying anything I don’t already know.” He looked up at me, and then turned to Devon. “Is she that girl from Pitman?”
He nodded.
Henry snickered, then coughed. “Things must be getting dire if I’m getting bedside visits from minor celebrities.”
I could feel my cheeks light up. “Oh, no, that’s not it at all,” I said. “We were just—”
He snickered again and waved me off, too. “Just messing with you.”
“She came with Kiet,” Devon said. “They discovered the CCUs.”
“We’re going to get help,” I said. “We’re going to shut it down.”
Henry looked at Devon. “Kiet’s here?”
Devon nodded. “Just outside the safe zone.”
Henry’s hand flopped on top of Devon’s and gave it a limp squeeze. “He okay?”
Devon smiled, but a teardrop fell from his cheek onto Henry’s blanket. “He looks great.”
“Good,” Henry said. “That’s good.”
They stared at each other for another second, meaningfully. Then Henry turned to me, suddenly looking exhausted. “You’re going to get help, huh?”
“We’re going to try. Me and Kiet, some others. We’re going to shut that place down.”
He smiled and yawned. “Good,” he said. “Too late for me, I’m afraid, but I hope you do.” He closed his eyes. “Not going to be an easy thing in the kind of a world this one has turned into. But I guess if anyone could change things it’d be the girl from Pitman and her friends.”
Again I resisted the urge to say I wasn’t from Pitman, but I realized it didn’t matter. He was already asleep.
I was horrified and heartbroken, but in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help wondering how much air I had left in the breather. I was glad when Devon nodded toward the door and said, “We should get you back.”
As we stepped outside, I took a deep breath of the canned air. Georgie and two other chimeras were sitting on a porch a few houses up. We waved and they waved back, watching us.
“There’s something else,” Devon said as we walked quickly back the way we had come, uphill this time. “After Henry, I’m the one here with the most seniority.”
I turned to look at him, not quite sure what he was getting at.
“I’m just a few days behind him,” he said. “A week at the most. So that’s what I have to look forward to. I…I don’t know why I’m putting this on you, other than that I can’t tell Kiet, not now, and I have to tell someone. Someone who can tell him…later.”
“He needs to know.”
“Not yet, he doesn’t.”
I would have argued further, but by then we were approaching the clearing. Kiet was on his feet, watching us. Claudia was sitting on the toolbox, waiting.
The breather let out a faint beep.
Devon smiled. “Good timing. Looks like you’re almost out of air.”
CHAPTER 31
Kiet watched us intently as we approached. Devon bent close to me and said, “Kiet has to get to work so they don’t suspect he’s involved with you two, but do me a favor. Give him this breather, tell him how to fill it, and send him over here to say goodbye to me properly.”
I ran across the clearing and gave Kiet the breather. He filled it, put it on and ran over to Devon for one last embrace.
“You’re sure you can fix the car?” I asked Claudia, as we turned away from them. I think we both wanted to give them some privacy, but for me, knowing what I now knew, it was also just too tragic to look at.
“Piece of cake,” she said lightly. Then she squinted at me, studying my face. “Are you okay?”
“No. I’m freaking out. I’m worried about Rex and Doc, and about the people here, and everybody in that damned mine.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I hear you.”
I glanced over at Kiet and Devon, standing with their foreheads touching, whispering to each other. I wasn’t going to rush them, especially since I knew they only had so many goodbyes left. But I could feel my anxiety growing to start doing something, anything, to help them and Rex and everyone else.
After one last, quick kiss, Kiet ran toward us and Devon turned and walked briskly back toward Centre Hollow.
“Okay, let’s go,” Kiet said without looking at us as he walked past us and into the woods. We followed him for a few minutes, until he stopped at a break in the trees. He looked to his left and right, his eyes wet and pained. “Devon said this is Main Street.”
I looked each way, too, the way you’re supposed to do when crossing a street, I guess. To our left was the WELCOME TO CENTRE HOLLOW sign where Devon and his friends had dragged Claudia, Rex, and me to safety. Across from it was the small cluster of houses that somehow hadn’t been claimed by the vegetation, and farther down was the wrecked VW.
“This should take us back to Bogen Road, where your car is,” Kiet said, pointing right. “When we get there, I’ll go back to OmniCare.”
He started walking along the road. We both hurried after him, but he made no effort to slow down. Claudia and I exchanged a glance, realizing he wanted to be alone. We stayed back, matching his pace but keeping our distance, taking turns carrying the toolbox.
After a while he slowed, almost to a stop. As we stepped up next to him, he said, “Sorry,” and resumed his pace.
“Nothing to apologize for,” I said.
“Absolutely,” Claudia said.
“I can carry that for a while,” he said, taking the toolbox from Claudia.
“Kiet,” I said. “Are you sure you want to go back to that place?”
He laughed. “I’m sure I don’t. But I have to. And I need to be there on time, too. There’s this one big delivery truck that arrives at ten every morning. It’s huge: paper goods, food for the cafeteria, linens and stuff, all together in this one huge truck—”
“Is that how the splinter inhalers come in?”
He shook his head. “No, everything but the medicine. Anyway, we have a half hour to empty it. If we’re not done by ten thirty they get all bent out of shape. And if I’m not there to help, they’ll fire me, but more important, they’ll know I’m involved somehow. Having me there gives us a better chance to fight them, especially if I can get my hands on one of those inhalers.”
We continued to trudge along, not saying a word until a new road appeared in front of us, more intact than the one we were on.
“This is Bogen,” Kiet said. He pointed down the road, to the right. “Your car should be down that way.” He turned to us. “I hope it’s still there.”
“It is,” Claudia said, before I could start to worry. “If anybody fixed it up enough to run, it’ll be fixed enough for the security system to kick on.”
“Okay. When you get it running, take this road back a couple miles and you’ll hit Belfield.”
“Yeah, we passed it on the way in,” I said.
“And Gellersville is farther that way?” Claudia asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, a little ways past the hospital. I live upstairs from Frank’s on Main Street—best pizza in Gellersville,” he said, with an exaggerated wink. “It’s actually the only pizza in Gellersville. But it’s an okay little town, chimera-wise, that is. Belfield, too. More E4E than H4H, if you get me.”
“Okay, cool,” Claudia said.
“Where’s the jail?” I asked, “Where would they have taken Rex?”
“That’s in Gellersville. Next to the police station.”
I nodded. “You going to be okay, going to work after being up all night?”
He nodded, stifling a yawn. “Yeah. As long as I punch in on time and get the truck unloaded, it should be cool. So…I’m going to try to get my hands on one of those inhalers. What are you going to do?”