Lightning Child

by Hakok, R. A.

  I pull my hood up and set off, heading for the gap in the fence that marks the entrance. When I reach the guard hut I stop and turn to scan the compound again, but whatever it is won’t come to me, and right now I have other things on my mind. I clamber over the security barrier and make my way in among the trees, following the tracks Mags and I made last night. Without them I’m not sure I’d be able to find my way, even in what passes for daylight. I don’t know how she managed it, in the dark.

  Yes you do.

  An image, sudden, unwanted: a pair of silvered pupils, caught for an instant in the flashlight’s beam.

  I squeeze my eyes shut against it. It doesn’t mean she’s sick. She can’t be. I’ve seen firsthand what that looks like: by the end Marv wasn’t able to lift a boot from the snow. She hiked all the way to Durham and back in a day, a distance he couldn’t have covered at his best, and it took nothing from her; I couldn’t keep up with her last night.

  I hold tight to that thought as I pick my way between the withered trunks. But whatever comfort it might bring, the faithless voice won’t allow it. It starts to whisper.

  Hicks was pretty quick, too, remember?

  Hicks knew he had the virus, though. He told me he could feel it, working its way through him. Mags says she feels fine.

  The voice shows me another image. This time it’s Finch’s fury, crouched at the back of its cell. I shake my head, desperate to dislodge it. If that were going to happen it would’ve happened already. It’s been weeks since she and the kid came through the scanner.

  I have little more than hope to back that theory up, however, and the voice knows it. I try and hush it, but it won’t be quieted. It has things to say now, and it means to be heard.

  You thought it would be that easy?

  I know what’s coming next. I shout at it to shut up, but it makes no difference; it carries on regardless.

  Kane launched every missile he had, enough to turn the night sky bright as day.

  I quicken my pace until my snowshoes are pounding the snow. But the voice is in my head; it can’t be outrun any more than I might hope to silence it.

  Hicks had it burned from his flesh, but that didn’t work either.

  I reach the end of the woods, strike out into open fields.

  Gilbey’s a scientist. She knows more about the virus than anyone. She invented it. She’s been searching years for a cure and she hasn’t found one yet.

  You really thought you could do better?

  I force my legs to work faster, anything to escape it. My lungs burn with the effort. Sweat soaks my back, my legs, more than my thermals can hope to wick away. It runs down my face inside my goggles, stinging my eyes. I yank down the thin cotton mask I wear, desperate for more air. And still the voice continues, over and over, a never-ending loop inside my head.

  You think the few minutes you got Mags in the scanner could do what Gilbey couldn’t?

  How could you?

  You don’t understand how it works, any of it.

  You’re just a kid.

  I have no answer for any of it. I only know what happened to Marv, and Hicks and Finch’s fury can’t happen to her.

  There’s no reason.

  It just can’t.

  I keep it up for as long as I can. My legs are accustomed to the snow, but not the pace I’ve set them. I feel the muscles there come to the end of their endurance, become unreliable. I catch an edge with a snowshoe, stagger into a drift. I throw my hands out against the fall, but I land awkwardly, my arms sinking deep into powder. I stay like that for a while, just sucking in air. The voice has finally fallen silent, but its work is done. A cold darkness wraps itself around my heart.

  At last I struggle to my feet. Snow has found its way inside my mittens; it sticks to my cheeks, my mask, my goggles. I don’t bother to dust it off. I point my snowshoes toward the road, but my knees have turned to rubber. It takes longer than it ought to make it the final few hundred yards back to the SunTrust Bank.

  As I stagger into the parking lot I see the kid, sitting by himself in the ATM lobby. He stares at me through those goggles. I should have paid more attention to that, I see it now. When did he first take to wearing them at night? I try to remember, but the days since we left Mount Weather have blended into each other and I can’t be sure. I unsnap my snowshoes, meaning to go in and ask him about it, but as I step out of them Jake appears at the door, blocking my way. He looks past me, over my shoulder.

  ‘Where’s Mags?’

  I tell him we went to check out the bunker; that she’s back there right now, working on getting the power back on. He stares at me like I might have sprouted another head overnight.

  ‘Seriously, you just left her, by herself? What if something’s hiding in there, like when you went to Mount Weather?’

  Something hiding.

  If only he knew how absurd that sounds. I feel something inside my chest start to convulse, and I realize I might actually laugh. I can feel it, bubbling up inside me. I have to grit my teeth to suppress it.

  Mags is that thing, you muscle-bound moron.

  Or soon will be.

  Jake’s still glaring at me, waiting for an answer. In the room behind the Juvies have stopped whatever they’re doing to tune in to this latest drama. I take a breath, start to explain that it’s okay. Fearrington wasn’t that big; we checked everywhere. It’s clear he doesn’t care much for that explanation, however. He turns on his heels and heads back inside before I’ve got more than a couple of words out. I stand there for a moment, aware that the Juvies are all watching me.

  I feel the heat rising in my cheeks. I follow him inside, meaning to make him listen to what I have to say, whether or not he cares to hear it. But before I’ve made it half way across the room Lauren steps into my path. She slips one hand through my arm and the next thing I know I’m being led over to where the rest of them are huddled around the fire.

  ‘So, Gabe, what’s it like?’

  I look at her, distracted, for a moment unsure what she means.

  She tilts her head, smiles.

  ‘The bunker?’

  I glance over at Jake. He’s stuffing his sleeping bag into his pack.

  She squeezes my arm and I feel the anger beginning to subside. I study the faces gathered around me. They stare up, anxious for details of our new home.

  ‘Well it’s a little smaller than Mount Weather.’ Way smaller. ‘But there’s food, and water.’

  I’m not sure what else to say. I find myself repeating the words Mags told me, the night before, in Fearrington’s mess.

  ‘I…I think we can make it work.’

  *

  WHILE THE JUVIES ARE PACKING UP I head back out to the lobby. The kid’s sitting under one of the ATMs, smoothing out a candy bar wrapper he’s picked up from somewhere. I check no one’s within earshot then I squat down next to him, ask how he’s feeling. He nods and says fine, but when I reach for his goggles he pulls back.

  ‘You have to let me.’

  He looks at me uncertainly.

  ‘It’ll be alright, I promise.’

  I lift the goggles onto his forehead. He squints a little against the light but keeps his eyes open. I dig in the pocket of my parka for the flashlight and crank the handle. It grinds for a turn, then the bulb starts to glow. When it’s as bright as I can get it I hold it close. The beam barely competes with the light filtering through the clouds, but when I shift it back and forth I catch a glimpse of what I knew I’d find there. I was ready for it, but my heart picks up a little all the same.

  ‘You’re feeling okay, though? No different?’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘Are you going to tell the others?’

  I think about that for a moment. There’s no prizes for guessing how the Juvies will react if they find out about Mags and the kid; there’s a good chance they’ll make them leave. I’m not prepared for that, not yet. I shake my head, tell him to put the goggles back on. He pulls them down, settles them
in place.

  I flick the flashlight off.

  ‘You’d let me know, wouldn’t you? I mean if you felt even a little bit strange?’

  He nods, then reaches inside his jacket for the dog tags he wears. He holds them up. The thin slivers of pressed steel rotate slowly on the end of their chain. The metal’s still smooth, but I hadn’t expected it to be otherwise. I examine them, mostly because he seems to want me to, then I tell him to put them away.

  The Juvies have no tricks up their sleeve; there’s no sudden burst of speed they’ve been holding back to carry us over the finish line. For once I’m grateful for it. I have some thinking to do before I bring them to our new home.

  I settle to their pace, letting my snowshoes follow the trail I left on my way back to the Suntrust Bank. The kid runs on ahead. Every now and then he stops and turns to look at me, like he’s wondering what’s holding us up. The Target, outside Warren, not long after we set out; that’s when he took to wearing them night and day. How many weeks ago now? Four? More? I really should have paid more attention.

  He says he feels fine, but I’m not sure how much comfort I can take from that. The voice has an answer. It replays Hicks’ words, the same ones I heard last night, in the cell with Mags.

  There’ll be no warning. It’ll be like a switch has been flipped.

  It shows me the thing that got Ortiz again, in the basement of the hospital in Blacksburg. How fast it had moved; not even Hicks had been quick enough to save him. I imagine what something like that would be like, loose inside the silo. I set the container with the virus down in the snow, pull the mask I wear down, take a breath, then another. I can’t let my thoughts get dragged that way; no good will come of it.

  I pick up the container and set off again. There has to be a solution; something I can do to fix this. I call up everything I know about the virus, anything Marv ever told me, anything I read in the newspaper clippings I used to collect, anything I might have heard Hicks say. It doesn’t take long; there’s not that much. I lay it all out in my head anyway, examining each piece of information, like I’m trying to find a place for it in a puzzle. It does no good, other than to remind me how little I understand of any of it. I keep returning to the same conclusion. There’s only one person who might be able to help: the person who knows more about the virus than anyone; the person who invented it.

  The one who infected Mags in the first place.

  That can’t be the answer, though, and even if it is, there’s no way I’d ever convince Mags to come with me back to The Greenbrier. Not after what happened to her there.

  I pull the mask back up and set off after the kid.

  There has to be another way.

  I just need to figure it out.

  It’s already late morning by the time we make it to the Mount Gilead Church Road. I lead the Juvies single file across the open fields and in among the trees, picking my way carefully between the withered trunks, until at last I spot the raised security barrier ahead. I wait with the kid while one by one they clamber over. When the last of them has made it in I look down at him. The barrier’s too high for him to clear; it’s almost as tall as he is. But when I hold out my arms to hoist him up he just shakes his head.

  I tell him he can make his own way over then. I throw my leg over and slide down the other side. I send the rest of them off in the direction of the two concrete cubes, then I pick up the container with the virus and bring it behind the guard shack. I set it down in the snow, lay it carefully on its side and scoop armfuls of powder over it until there’s no trace of the olive drab plastic. I’ll need to come up with a better hiding place, maybe somewhere deep in the woods, where it’d never be found. That’s for later, though, once I’ve got the Juvies inside.

  I head back, planning to haul the kid over the barrier if I have to. But when I make my way around front of the guard shack he’s standing on top of it, holding his snowshoes. He looks at me for a moment then slides down the other side, steps back into them and starts making his way across the clearing. I stare at the barrier a moment longer, unsure how he did it, then set off after him.

  Up ahead the Juvies have gathered by the entrance. I follow the tracks they’ve left in their wake, a swathe of churned up snow cutting through the smooth, unmarked powder. Sometimes when your mind’s focused elsewhere solutions to other problems you didn’t even think you were still working on float to the surface. It suddenly occurs to me what’s missing from the compound.

  Vent shaft covers.

  I look around, searching for the telltale bumps in the snow, but there’s nothing. Those grilles in the shaft were definitely for ventilation; I could feel the breeze when I placed my hands over them. The pipes must lead to the surface somewhere; if not inside the perimeter then maybe beyond the fence, among the trees. I look at the blackened trunks pressing up against the chain link, wondering whether that’s something I should be worrying about too. But the vents were way too small for someone to crawl down. No one’s getting into Fearrington the way I snuck back into Eden.

  I unsnap my snowshoes and make my way into the narrow opening. The keypad accepts the code and I haul the blast door open. As I step into the airlock I realize I’m holding my breath. I’m hoping for the lights in the passageway beyond to be on, but when the inner door swings back it’s to darkness. Mags hasn’t got the power back on yet.

  Assuming that’s what she’s still working on.

  I tell the voice to hush. The kid’s still fine. He got the virus way before she did; carried it far longer. It makes no sense she’d turn before he did.

  You’re sure about that? He was taking Gilbey’s medicine a long time too, remember?

  I close my eyes, pushing that thought from my mind.

  ‘Everything okay, Gabe?’

  When I open my eyes Lauren’s standing next to me, a concerned look on her face.

  I nod quickly.

  ‘Yeah. Absolutely. Just letting my eyes adjust.’

  The kid squeezes past, hurries along the corridor. When he gets to the stair he pushes the goggles up onto his forehead and looks over. He stays like that for a moment and then starts down the shaft without so much as a backward glance; by the time I reach the gangway I’ve already lost him to the turn of the stair. The pitter-patter of footsteps drifts up, echoing off the concrete. He hasn’t bothered with his flashlight, but if the darkness impedes him he shows no sign of it.

  Lauren leans over the guardrail.

  ‘How does he…?’

  She says it softly, under her breath, so I doubt the question’s directed at me. Which is just as well, seeing as the answer I have isn’t one she’d much care to hear. Behind her the Juvies are already crowding into the corridor. I dig in my pocket for the flashlight and hold it up.

  ‘The power’s still out. You’ll need these.’

  There’s the inevitable shuffling while they fumble in pockets or backpacks for the windups they each carry, but finally I hear the whir of the first dynamo being cranked, followed seconds later by others. It rises to a soft drone then one by one the flashlights blink on, casting overlapping shadows that shimmy and bounce along the passageway’s concrete walls.

  We make our way out onto the stair. The old metal complains at the weight of so many boots, but it holds steady. Behind me flashlights curl up into the darkness, a raggedy helix of fireflies. I lead them down. For a long while there’s just the long drop of the concrete shaft, but finally we reach the upper levels and the silo opens out.

  Mags must hear us coming, or maybe the kid fetches her, because when we reach the mess she’s waiting. She sits on one of the tables, her boots dripping water onto the worn tread plate. Her fingernails are dark with something that might be grease or maybe engine oil. A smudge of it marks her cheek, another her temple. A single flashlight rests on the table next to her, the yellowing bulb casting weary shadows over the scuffed steel. The kid stands to one side, watching our approach.

  She looks up as she sees me, but her e
xpression’s hard to read. Behind me the Juvies continue to file down out of the darkness. As they see her they come to a shuffling halt and a dozen flashlights swing in her direction. I hurry across the gangway and stand in front of her. I turn to face them, holding a hand up against the beams.

  ‘Hey, point those somewhere else, would you?’

  There’s a moment’s hesitation, then one by one the beams drop. The Juvies hang back, gathered on the gangway or bunched up on the stair; no one seems keen to follow me into the mess. I step to one side, her cue to go on. But for a moment she just stares at me, like she’s wondering what the point of all that was.

  ‘Well, there’s plenty of diesel.’ She pauses, then continues. ‘The problem is the generator; the flooding’s done more damage than I thought.’ Uneasy murmurs greet that news; fuel or not, if we can’t get the power on this is going to be a shorter stay than any of us had bargained for. She raises her voice. ‘I think I can fix it; it might just take a while.’

  ‘Like when we got to Mount Weather,’ I add, like anyone needs reminding of the bright, underground city I traded us for this place. ‘It took a few days to get everything working there too, remember?’

  I study the faces crowded onto the gangway, assembled on the stair. They’ve already seen as much as they need to of our new home and I can tell they don’t care for it. It’s right there in their furrowed brows, the turn of their mouths, expressions even I can read. I can’t say as I blame them. I don’t care much for it either, and it was me who brought us here.