“Bathroom time,” the man said.
Shawn remained in his chair. “Don’t have to go.”
“Then you’ll be pleased to know we have a bucket.” He glanced at Ness. “How about you?”
Ness stood. The man let him out and locked Shawn in, leading Ness to a clean white bathroom, which Ness used without incident. Back in their office-prison, Ness and Shawn sat in silence for another twenty minutes until an older man entered with steaming bowls of macaroni and cheese. After days of dry, cold food, Ness set right to it.
Shawn didn’t touch it. “My arm hurts.”
The older man didn’t look up. “I’ll let someone know.”
“Might be broken.”
The man blinked over his glasses at Shawn. “Then you have suffered it with admirable stoicism.”
He left. As the door closed, Ness glimpsed the man with the gun seated across the hall, a black e-reader perched on his knees. Shawn stared dully at the door. Ness saved the last of his macaroni for Volt, who licked the cheese off his plastic spoon and chewed up a few bites of pasta before licking the bowl bare.
Shawn sulked. Ness slept. That was their routine for two days: periodic marches to the bathroom, two meals a day (including a can of water-packed tuna for Volt), and idle fiddling on the computers, with Shawn playing Minesweeper while Ness poked around the local network. Most of the files were password-protected. Many of those that weren’t were daily planners, now defunct, and spreadsheets that made no sense. At least it killed the time.
Two days later, the lock clacked. Ness’ stomach rumbled in response, but Roan entered. “Come on.”
“Think I’d rather stay,” Shawn said.
Ness picked up Volt and went into the hall. The man with the gun was there as always. Roan went to close the door. Shawn sighed dramatically and joined them.
Roan walked without sound. She took them to the front door. Sunlight blared. Heat pounded Ness’ skin. He groaned, then glanced quickly at Roan, fearful she might strike him for speaking out of turn. She didn’t acknowledge him.
Dust billowed from their feet. The black pavement shimmered with silvery promises of water that disappeared as they approached. Roan took them inside the tall building with the whitecapped roof and striated gray base. Steam rose from two clusters of squat cooling vents, while pillars of vapor bending in the meager southwestern breeze. Small brown birds chirped from the brush.
The air inside the main building was cold and infused with a chemical tang. The rumble of machinery vibrated in Ness’ lungs. Roan took them to an elevator. There had been millions of elevators once. It was possible this was the last.
They wound up in a room that looked ripped from Isaac Asimov’s dreams. Gray-blue panels lined the walls, set with a galaxy of buttons, knobs, and lights. Keys sat in switches below round orange button-lights. A flock of L-shaped levers rose from a control bank, their bases bright red, yellow, or blue.
“Is this the main control room?” Ness said in tones meant for a library.
“Indeed,” a voice said from behind them. A tall man with a full gray beard stood in front of a chair, the fluorescents gleaming from his glasses and bald scalp. “You’re Ness and Shawn?”
“That’s right,” Shawn said, cutting Ness off.
“I’m Daniel.” He gestured to the man beside him, who was taller yet, with thick lips, heavily hooded eyes, and tanned, wind-chapped cheeks. “This is Larsen. Roan tells us you’ve had a run-in with some unusual visitors.”
Ness was far from eager to speak in front of strangers, but his enthusiasm overwhelmed him. “Did you see them, too?”
“We have confirmed their existence,” Larsen said grudgingly, as if each word cost him ten dollars.
“Roan tells us you came here with thoughts of dealing with them.” Daniel rubbed his hands together. “We’d like to hear your plan.”
Ness flushed, his tongue thickening.
“Well,” Shawn said. “You dudes make bombs here, right? Nukes?”
The two men glanced at each other. Larsen smiled in disgust. “Hanford’s participation in the active production of weapons-grade plutonium ceased in 1987.”
“Then what the hell do you do here?”
“At this reactor?” Daniel frowned, stirring his beard with his index finger. “We generate power. The rest of the site is—was—largely dedicated to the cleanup of radioactive materials produced during the plutonium era.”
“Was that your big plan?” Larsen said.
“Well.” Shawn glanced back at Roan. “Look, I just heard about you all on the History Channel.”
“I’m sorry for wasting your time, sirs,” Roan said. She turned to the man with the machine gun. “Back to their cell.”
“Wait,” Ness said. “Do you still have radioactive material here?”
The two men burst out laughing. Even Roan cracked a smile.
“How many tons?” Larsen said.
“Liquid, solid, or in between?” Daniel said.
Larsen’s face returned to its humorless plane. “Why?”
“To me, they look like sea creatures,” Ness said. “Crabs or octopuses or something. Something that’s very sensitive to radiation.”
“How interesting.” Bemusement danced behind Daniel’s glasses. “You’re suggesting we become terrorists.”
Ness nodded. Shawn swore. The plant rumbled like the laughter of a long-dead god.
16
Tristan woke to orangeness. Her hands were dim and orange. The walls were soft and orange. Orange light traced a square a few feet above her head. She sat up, blood rushing from her head, and stood. The ceiling hung just above her. She pushed her palms against it. The spongy surface didn’t budge. She was trapped inside a box.
The air was damp, cool. She stepped toward the wall. Soft fabric rustled around her pelvis. She was nude except an off-white diaper strapped around her waist. Sickness rose in her gut. The curdling, hollowing sickness of violation. They had taken her here in her sleep.
There was just enough light to see that the box was empty, but she shuffled from corner to corner regardless. Her neck itched. Her fingers brushed cool metal.
She jumped back, stumbling into the spongy orange wall. It was lightly damp. She pulled away, slapping at her moist shoulder, but there was no escaping the orange beneath her bare feet. The liquid the wall left on her shoulder was thicker than water, salival. She had nothing to wipe her hands on except her diaper.
The thing on her neck was a finger-sized metal tube. She tugged it and fingers of pain reached into her spine. She gasped and sat down on the floor. Beneath her thighs, the surface felt like skin left too long in the water.
She was alone. Alden was gone.
She called out, but her voice died within the spongy walls. She struck them with her fist and her fist stopped without pain. Her knuckle prints faded from the porous, sweating surface.
Tristan stayed on her feet until they grew sore, then rested on the slimy floor. Sometimes she thought she felt it moving beneath her and she’d jerk into a low crouch, but it was too dark to see. She managed to nap. When she could no longer hold it, she peed into her diaper, which absorbed thirstily. She slept again.
Greenish light sliced into the box. The lid peeled away and tentacles burst over the lip, coiling, grasping. One slid around her thigh and tightened, its skin as damp and firm as the walls. Two wide eyes appeared above the rim. A beak clacked. She shrieked and pulled from the tentacle. Others joined it, squeezing the breath from her ribs, and hauled her into the green light.
A row of tall orange boxes lined three of the walls. She hung above the broad and empty floor, tentacles gripping her limbs. In the edge of her vision, a small tube flashed green. Metal scraped the metal port in her neck. She gagged. Her limbs went limp, half-numbed. The creature laid her on a table and rolled her through an empty hall. She could barely blink at the recessed lights glaring from the ceiling. The thing swung her into another room and receded from her sight. Metal instrumen
ts shined in the fringe of her vision. A door whooshed closed.
She couldn’t turn her head. It was just as damp in here as in her box. A cool that verged on cold. Across the room, something was breathing. The door swished. A second alien loomed above her, face masked in an agile plastic. It rolled her on her side. Another woman lay on a table across the room, her deep brown skin bare except for the white fabric around her pelvis. A short canister glinted from the woman’s neck. She breathed steadily. Something warm flooded into Tristan’s blood. She choked. A machine whirred, stopped, whirred. The being’s feet thumped the ground. It walked to a counter, picked up a metal canister shaped like a headless soap dispenser, and jabbed it with a blunt syringe.
The alien returned to Tristan’s side. Its tentacles pressed her into the table. A second burst of fluid entered her neck. Tristan gasped, tears pooling against her nose.
The thing walked to the door, exited. She was left in the low hum of machines and the woman’s even breathing. After a few minutes, Tristan’s muscles de-numbed enough to shiver.
“Hi.”
The woman’s eyes were open. Tristan’s tongue felt as thick as a foot. She shook her head a fraction of an inch.
“They don’t mind if we talk,” the woman said. “My name’s Cindy.”
“Tristan,” she slurred.
“It’s all right, Tristan. They haven’t killed any of us yet.”
“It gave me a shot.”
Cindy nodded, face somber. “That seems to be what these things do best.”
“Have you been here long?”
“I’m not sure. Haven’t seen a window yet, let alone a clock.”
“I’m looking for my brother,” Tristan said. “His name’s Alden.”
“Lot of people here,” Cindy said.
“He’s thirteen. Blond hair. Green eyes. Skinny. About 5’ 4”.”
The woman shook her head. “I haven’t seen any kids here.”
Tristan fought to sit up, but she could barely stir her arm. “Where did they pick you up?”
“L.A.”
“I was taken in San Francisco. They must be stealing people from all over.”
Cindy’s eyes became mineshafts of pity. “I’m sure you’ll find him, Tristan.”
Her throat was too tight to answer. The door swooshed. One of the beings tugged the diaper from her waist, tentacles slipping down her thighs. The thing carried her to a side room with bare walls and a drain. Lukewarm water blasted her skin. A machine groaned, blowing most of the moisture from her. The thing re-diapered her and returned her to the fleshy box. The ceiling self-sealed with a slurp, enclosing her in the orange dim.
Movement slowly returned to her limbs, but she had nowhere to go. She turned Cindy’s words over and over. She hadn’t seen any kids. Were they keeping them separate? The woman had been taken from Los Angeles. How far had the aliens roamed? Was there more than one place like this? Why were they here? Why were they being kept alive?
She had no sense of time. Two urinations passed before she was taken from the box again. The creature doped her, brought her back to the lab, where the alien in the mask gave her another injection from one of the metal canisters. It set down the syringe and squirted a sack of water into her mouth. Tristan gagged—it was lightly salty and as cool as the room—but then drank readily. It was the first water she’d had orally since arriving. The thing fitted a catheter to the port in her neck and left the room.
“Come here often?” Cindy said.
Tristan shrugged her shoulders, scooting her numb body a quarter of an inch at a time to face the other woman. “You’re back.”
“One of these days they may even ask me first.”
Tristan laughed through her tingling lips. “Is there a way out?”
“They brought us in, didn’t they? Most ins double as outs.”
“Have you seen anyone get brought in?”
Cindy shook her head, hair flattening against the hard, smooth table. “How’d you get caught?”
“I was in San Francisco,” Tristan said. “We were going to sail to Hawaii. We’d just shoved off when the ship appeared. We went back. Tried to run. My friends...”
“You were sailing to Hawaii? You got a boat?”
“After I stole it from some dead rich guy.”
Cindy laughed. “To think I just moved to Santa Monica. Should have stolen a palace in Malibu. Those people would never buzz an alien through the gates.”
“They’d have loaded them right into the squad cars,” Tristan said. “How did they take you?”
“They just busted in the door. Scooped out the whole block like an avocado.”
The door swished open. Cindy went quiet. Tristan was cleaned and returned to the orange box. She pressed her hands to the ceiling. The lid slurped, attempting to seal, but green light seeped through the open gap. Her hands sunk into the spongy pad. Her drug-weakened arms shook. She lowered them and the gap closed, locking her back in the gloom.
She felt sorry for herself through one more cycle of imprisonment, injections, cleanings, and the return to the box. Then she practiced kung fu. The box was humid and she sweated freely. The floor squicked beneath her shifting feet. The action centered her mind, cleaning it as thoroughly as the scouring showers washed her waste from her legs. Her stomach burbled, but she was able to practice for what felt like hours on end; her injections must have included nutrients. They wanted her healthy.
Yet the next time she saw Cindy, the woman had a cough.
“What do you do while they’ve got you in the orange?” Tristan asked.
“The orange?”
“Your box. Your cell.”
Cindy frowned at the ceiling. “I dream.”
“You just sleep?”
“I dream when I’m awake, too. There aren’t any sounds in there besides your own belly. After a while, you stop feeling the damp. I lie there and I dream of how it used to be. My husband. He was sweet. We fought too much. I didn’t understand how sweet he was. You married?”
“I was proposed to,” Tristan said.
“Well? Yes or no, damn it?”
“I said no.”
“You regret it?”
“I never had time,” Tristan laughed. “He tried to kidnap me as soon as I said no. I brained him with a bottle.”
Cindy laughed, then went quiet. “You serious?”
“Well, there was a reason I turned him down.”
Cindy gazed at the ceiling.
“But it isn’t just my man,” she said without prompting. Machines hummed quietly from the walls. “It’s all of it. I miss watching movies. On the couch and in the theater. I should have snuck in more food; they wouldn’t have done anything to me. A whole industry of people just want to make you happy for a couple hours. I miss making dinners. Turn a knob and the stove’s hot. The ocean, too. I lived in Los Angeles my whole life, you know how often I went to the beach? Five times. Five! I could have driven there every damn day.”
Tristan laughed. “I grew up in Redding. We were the same way about the mountains.”
“I’ll tell you something. They ever let us out of here, I’m going to live on the beach. Build myself a sand castle. Hire a couple of seals to keep out the trouble.”
Tristan grinned. The meds had made her pleasantly woozy and warm. They cleaned her and brought her back to the box. She forgot to try to keep the lid open.
She continued to practice her fighting. The yielding walls made a perfect punching surface. Her knuckles snapped into the sponge with wet smacks. But how could you block a tentacle? The bone-breaks Alden had taught her, would they work on the chitinous limbs of the invaders? She laid down on the clammy ground and visualized fighting the aliens, how their arms might slither free, how she’d gouge her fingers into their froggy eyes.
Tristan’s next visit to the lab, Cindy tried to say hello and coughed instead, curling into a shuddering ball. When she finished, she drew her hand away and stared. Crimson gleamed from her palm.
&
nbsp; “Aren’t you immune?” Tristan said.
“Yeah. I am.” Cindy wiped her hand on the table and squeezed her eyes shut. “They gave us this shit in the first place, right? What if it was on purpose?”
“On purpose?”
“You think they got us here for our health? What d’you think is in those needles, Tristan?” Cindy rocked to the side, rolling her drug-addled legs off the table. She limped to the door, feet dragging, and pounded it with a clumsy fist. “You motherfuckers! You open this door!”
The being that cleaned them emerged while Cindy’s hand was halfway to the door. Its eyes bugged, cartoonishly angry. It slathered her in a mess of tentacles and dragged her to the floor.
“Tristan!” Cindy’s hand jutted from the net of gray, worming limbs. “Help!”
Tristan rolled to her side. Her legs worked. The creature extended a pincer and plucked a syringe from the counter.
Tristan let herself go limp. “I can’t move!”
“Help me!”
Cindy thrashed her neck, yanking the port on her neck away from the needle. The alien bore down hard, many-jointed limbs flexing. Cindy rasped for air, coughing blood. The needle flashed. Cindy went still. The creature laid her on her slab and wheeled her from the room.
Back in her box, Tristan stared at the orange lid. The thought Cindy had impregnated in her head was impossible to unthink. Over the span of a few months, two impossible events had taken place: first viral apocalypse, then alien invasion. It was impossible the two things weren’t connected. The only thing that was hard to believe was that Tristan hadn’t put the two together sooner.
They’d brought the disease, but they hadn’t finished the job. A small fraction of the populace had proven immune. Even if the Panhandler had taken 99.9% of the world, that would leave 7 million humans to gum up the aliens’ landing. Here in this facility, the enemy was searching for a new strain, the variation that would knock the survivors as dead as the rest.
On her next treatment cycle, Tristan was alone in the lab. The masked creature plunged the syringe into the canister. Body-hot bile bubbled in Tristan’s throat. The alien swung the needle toward her neck. She tried to scream, but could only groan. The fluid burned in her veins.
The Last Days: Six Post-Apocalyptic Thrillers Page 122