Lightning Child

by Hakok, R. A.

  Mags lifts the flashlight from the table and stands, then makes her way past me to the stair. The kid hurries after her, like he’s worried he might get left behind. When she reaches the gangway she stops. It takes a second for Lauren to realize she means to get by and then there’s confusion as she tries to get out of the way. Those behind shuffle back, pressing themselves against the guardrail or retreating up the stair. Mags takes a step back, allowing Lauren and a few of the others forward into the mess. When the gangway’s clear she squeezes the kid’s shoulder and they cross. For long seconds their boots echo up out of the darkness and then it goes quiet again.

  ‘Okay, well, I guess we’d best get settled in. Dorms are three levels down. Everyone gets their own…’ - I’m about to say cell but catch myself just in time - ‘…room.’ I don’t have it in me to sound cheery, and even if I did, I’m not sure it’d do much good.

  There’s a pause and then those nearest the front turn towards the stair. As they start to make their way down I remember I’m not done; I have one more piece of bad news for them. I’d prefer not to have to deliver it so quick on the heels of their arrival, but there’s really no helping it. I take a step forward, hold a hand up.

  ‘But before you go I need you to empty your packs.’

  Jake looks at me suspiciously.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I still need to do a proper count, but I reckon there’s food here to last us a few winters, as long as we’re careful.’ I pause, letting that one piece of good news sink in. ‘But it’s in cans.’

  A groan travels up the stair. After a decade in Eden they know all about Crations. What comes in the MRE pouches may not be great, but it’s way tastier than anything you’ll find in a tin, at least one that has U.S Army stamped on it.

  Lauren looks around, and I get the sense that’s she’s taking a measure of things, like she did by the lake in Mount Weather, right before we voted to leave.

  ‘Why can’t we just finish off what we brought, Gabe? I mean we’re here now, right? We’ve made it. We’ll be eating out of cans soon enough.’

  I see heads nodding, murmurs of agreement. I close my eyes. Maybe she’s right. There can’t be much of our travelling rations left, now; does it really matter if we eat the last of them? I have a much more immediate problem to worry about.

  It’s Jake who answers for me.

  ‘Because at some point we’ll be leaving again, Lauren. And when that time comes every ounce of food we can carry will matter. So all of you, just do as he says: hand them over.’

  The Juvies shuffle to the tables and start unloading their packs. When the last of them have been emptied there’s even less than I had hoped for, just a few pitiful stacks of cartons. Jake looks at each for a few seconds, like he might be counting what’s there. He turns to me.

  ‘Just to be clear though, these are for when we leave.’

  A few of the Juvies look puzzled, but I have no trouble working out what he means. In Eden MREs were in short supply. Marv and I used to get them from Quartermaster, for when we’d go out scavenging. I also had my own deal going on with Amy and some of the other Juvies who worked the kitchens; they’d get them for me in exchange for stuff I’d fetch from the outside. But for everyone else they were rationed pretty tight; before Mount Weather I doubt Jake or any of the other Juvies who worked the farms had seen one in years.

  I shake my head.

  ‘I’ll be eating the same food as you while we’re here, Jake. We all will. Nobody’s getting any special treatment.’

  He holds my gaze a while longer, like he’s not sure how satisfied he is with that answer, but in the end he just points his flashlight toward the stair and starts making his way down. One by one the others follow, until there’s no one left in the mess but me and Lauren. Eventually she swings her pack onto her shoulder and goes to follow them. As she’s about to step off the gangway she stops and turns around, offering me an apologetic smile.

  ‘I’m sorry, Gabe. I didn’t mean to cause trouble, about the food, I mean. I just thought…’

  ‘It’s alright, Lauren.’

  She stands there for a second, then she bobs her head, smiles again.

  ‘It’ll be okay, you’ll see.’

  I nod, like of course she’s right. She looks at me for a second longer, then turns and sets off down the stair after the others.

  *

  I WALK OVER to one of the tables, drag out a chair. I slump into it and sit there for a while, just staring at the scuffed steel.

  What just happened, with Mags and the flashlights, that was close. Until I’ve figured out what to do I need to find a way to keep her and the kid apart from the others, as much as possible. The flooding in the plant room, maybe it’ll turn out to be a blessing. She’ll be working on the generator till she gets it running; after that there’ll be other machinery needs fixing too. Who knows how long that might take? The kid, he won’t leave her side, and the Juvies won’t venture down there; they’ll want to stay out of her way, much as they can. I think of them just now, shoving themselves back up the stair to let her pass.

  It’s hardly a plan, but it’ll have to do while I come up with one. I push the chair back, head for the gangway. I make my way down, not really sure where I’m going, just letting my boots find their own way. When I look up again I’m at the stores. I stop. Row after row of metal shelves, each laden with boxes, stretching back into darkness. I had planned to inventory what’s there anyway, and counting things has always helped. Maybe it’ll be like with the vent shaft covers earlier, outside in the compound. If I can just take my mind off Mags and the kid, even for a little while, perhaps the answer will come to me.

  I cross the gangway and step in among the shelves. I tear a strip of card from the lid of the nearest box and make my way along the aisle, a nub of pencil from my pocket in one hand, the flashlight in the other. I shine the beam over the stacked rations, wiping dust from their flanks so I can read what’s printed there. Occasionally I drag one down, to confirm the contents match, but mostly I keep counting, not wanting to give my thoughts a chance to catch up. When I reach the end of the first aisle I hurry on to the next without stopping. It doesn’t take me long to finish the upper level. As soon as I’m done I move down to the one below.

  A half-hour later I come to the end of the last shelf. I look back along the stacks of boxes. It took me the best part of a week to go through everything that was in Mount Weather’s stores, and when I was done my lists had filled a notebook. I glance down at the card. My scribbles don’t even cover one side of it. Aside from a single ammo can of Sterno, a box of candles and a couple of crates of bottled water it’s canned food, and more of it. There’s only three meals to choose from: Ham and Eggs, Meat Stew with Vegetables and Beans with Frankfurter Chunks in Tomato Sauce. We’re going to be mighty sick of those by the time we’re done, but as long as I haven’t messed up the counting there should be enough to last us a couple of winters, maybe three if we’re careful.

  I drag a final box off the shelf and set it on the floor. Motes of dust tumble through the flashlight’s beam, see-sawing down to settle on the worn tread plate. The flap says meat stew and when I look inside the contents are a match. I lift one of the cans out and hold it up to the flashlight. The metal looks dull, tarnished. Mags said she thought this place was at least as old as Eden, and I’ve seen nothing that’d make me doubt that view. I reckon Fearrington must have been abandoned long before the Last Day, mothballed, just like Eden had been, before Kane decided he had a use for it after all. It would explain how we found it: nothing on the shelves that might spoil and everything else just so, with no trace of a hurried evacuation. I point the flashlight down the aisle, playing the beam over the stacks. If that’s right then what’s on these shelves has been sitting here for half a century, maybe even longer.

  I hear noise on the stair and when I look up Jake’s silhouette’s standing on the gangway. One by one the other Juvies appear behind him. From their faces it’s
pretty clear they haven’t found anything in the lower levels to make them feel any better about their new home.

  I return the tin to its slot and close the flap, then pick up the box and slide it back into place. Jake looks past me to the shelves.

  ‘So how does it look?’

  ‘Three winters.’

  He repeats it, like he’s testing what I’ve just told him, or maybe he’s simply contemplating spending that much time in a place like this.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  I am, but I find myself looking down to the strip of card anyway.

  ‘Long as we’re careful.’

  ‘We should start work on some growing benches, then.’

  I catch Lauren rolling her eyes at that, but I tell him I think it’s a great idea. Setting the farms up again will be a lot of work, and if the Juvies are busy up here there’s even less chance they’ll go wandering down to the plant room to check on Mags.

  I say he can take this level. There’s as much space as he’ll find anywhere in the silo and the shelves should provide him with the materials he’ll need; all we have to do is move what’s on them. He looks at me for a moment, then steps past to examine the closest one. He runs his fingers over the steel, testing the bolts that hold the shelves to the uprights, like he’s trying to find a problem with what I’ve offered. I guess he mustn’t see one, because he starts organizing the Juvies into groups, then dispatches them into the aisles.

  I stand back and watch as they go to work. I have to hand it to him; it’s all pretty efficient. The Juvies at the end are already lifting boxes down, passing them along and out to the landing, where others are waiting to stack them by the guardrail.

  I glance back at the stair. Forming a line up to the level above would have been better, but I’m not about to suggest it. Now that he’s got a project Jake almost looks happy again; he’s dragging boxes off the shelves and tossing them along the line like there’s little he’d rather be doing. I pick up the closest one and start making my way towards the gangway with it.

  Neither of the Guardians got assigned a place on one of Jake’s chain gangs and now Tyler steps forward, like he means to help. As he reaches for a box another thought occurs to me. I tell him to hold up.

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry to have to ask, but can you and Eric take the rifles and stand watch outside?’

  Eric’s face falls. The silo may not have a lot going for it, but being inside where it’s passable warm beats being out in the cold.

  ‘I’m sorry; I know we just got here, but the journey took us way longer than I expected. Peck will have reached The Greenbrier not long after we set out; whatever went down between him and Hicks, that’ll have played out long ago. One or other of them’s probably on the road already. We can’t let them surprise us.’

  ‘Alright, Gabe, you got it. C’mon Eric.’

  ‘And when you come back in, leave the rifles up in the airlock, yeah? It’s the only way in. Makes no sense having them down here.’

  He nods.

  ‘Sure thing.’

  I watch as they both set off back up the shaft. It’s not long till I’ve lost them to the turn of the stair and all that’s left is the echoing clang of their boots on metal. Soon that too fades.

  I hoist the box back onto my shoulder.

  What I said about Peck and Hicks is true, and it’s reason enough for wanting to post a guard. But there’s another part to it, one I scarcely dare admit to myself.

  I don’t know how long I have before Mags and the kid go the way of Finch’s fury. That moment lies an unknowable amount of time ahead, but it’s on its way; I’m as certain of that now as I once was that the dog tags and crucifix proved otherwise.

  And if that time comes before I’ve figured out how to stop it I need the two Juvies with the rifles to be as far from her as possible.

  *

  I SET TO WITH THE BOXES, hauling the rations Jake and the others are clearing from the shelves up to the level above.

  It’s harder work than I had anticipated. The print on the side says fifty pounds, but it soon starts to feel like a lot more. I learn quick to check bottoms and seams. The damp air’s got to the old card, and some of the boxes are no longer up to the task of holding their contents together.

  After a few trips Lauren decides her time’s better spent helping me than among the shelves, on one of Jake’s details. I tell her I’m fine, but she just shakes her head and says Jake has enough helpers already, and I look like I could use the assistance. Problem is two people’s not sufficient for a chain. and the stair is too narrow for more than one person. We try it for a while, but each time we meet and I have to squeeze past her it’s awkward. I suggest maybe it’d be better if she worked on clearing space from the shelves above instead. For a split second her face rearranges itself into an expression I can’t quite read, but then just as quick the smile returns. She says Sure then turns and disappears up the steps, the hank of her ponytail swinging after her.

  Without Lauren to distract me I settle into a rhythm, of sorts. My thoughts return to Mags and the kid. I run through everything I know about the virus again, but at the end of it the conclusion’s no different than it was on our way here: Gilbey’s the only one who might be able to help. There’s no way I’ll get Mags to go back to her, but maybe I don’t need to. Gilbey has medicine, medicine that can hold back the virus. Not forever, certainly, but a long time. Hicks must have been taking it since he got infected, back in Atlanta, and that was ten years ago now. The kid almost as long, if Mags is right about the time he spent in that cage. It’s a long way from a cure, I know it, but right now I’d take it, in a heartbeat.

  I return to the level below, pick another box from the nearest stack, heft it onto my shoulder.

  Problem is Gilbey’s not just going to give it up, though, not without wanting something in return.

  Something big.

  I make my way back up the stair. As I’m crossing the gangway Lauren appears from between the shelves. She collects another box from the end of one of the rows, flashes me a smile. I hear Hicks’ drawl in my head even before she’s disappeared back into the darkness.

  Warm bodies, and lots of them.

  Eden was the prize; that’s what he told me, that night in the main cavern, right before Mags burst out of the tunnel. It’s the only reason Gilbey had been willing to let her and the kid go: Hicks had promised he’d get her the rest of the Juvies if she did.

  I stand there considering it, for perhaps longer than I ought. I can’t give up the Juvies for Mags, though.

  But maybe I don’t have to.

  I slide the box I’m carrying off my shoulder and set it on top of a stack next to the guardrail.

  How many inmates had I counted at Starkly?

  Thirty-seven; half again our number. Would that many warm bodies be enough for Gilbey? Would she trade me as much as I could carry of her medicine for their location?

  I start off down the stair again.

  She might.

  I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to think of anything else I have to offer, anything she might want instead. But there’s nothing. Starkly’s my best shot.

  My only shot.

  I tell myself it’s not like they were innocent men, any of them. Murderers for the most part. Ain’t nobody ever been sent to Starkly on wino time, those were Mac’s exact words. If Finch were in my shoes he’d do it, in a heartbeat, I have no doubt of that. He’d do it and sleep sound that night, and all those that followed. Only one reason I walked out of that place alive, and that’s the same reason I escaped The Greenbrier. Finch knew I was travelling with others; he wanted me to lead him to them so there’d be more for Blatch’s cookpot.

  I set the box I’m carrying on top of the nearest stack and start making my way back down.

  We may not be done with him yet, either. He’ll keep sending Goldie and those other men out looking for me, hoping they’ll pick up my trail. Looked at that way it’d be no more than self-defense.
I’d simply be making sure they were dealt with before they got around to finding us.

  Little more than a question of timing, really.

  Even as I think it I realize that was exactly how Hicks managed to get himself straight with what Gilbey had done to Mags, and Johnny, and all the other survivors that had found their way to The Greenbrier.

  I tell myself this is different. It’s only information I’d be offering; just the fact of their existence, a location, nothing more. Given enough time Hicks might even have stumbled on to them by himself. He was out looking for subjects for Gilbey to experiment on when he ran into Mags and me, after all. And Starkly’s not that far from The Greenbrier.

  Even if I give him the location, it’s not like I’d be sealing their fate. That place is as much fortress as prison now; there’s no certainty Hicks would even be able to find a way in, let alone overcome those inside. And Finch would be a more than capable adversary. The most dangerous man ever to set foot through Starkly’s gates, that’s what Mac had said.

  These and a dozen other excuses run through my head as I heft one box after another up the stair. I try each on for size, hoping to find the one that’ll make the decision sit that bit easier. None of them do, no matter how many I come up with; no matter how I dress them up.

  I can’t even pretend I’d be doing it to fix the world, like Gilbey, or Hicks. It might not even save Mags, while we’re at the business of truth-telling. Most likely it’ll just postpone the inevitable. I’ll do it, all the same; I’ve known that since the idea first came to me. I’ll trade the thirty-seven souls living inside Starkly’s walls if it means there’s even a chance to save her, maybe the kid too if I’m lucky and can make it back in time. And there’s only one reason when it comes right down to it: those other people don’t mean anything to me, and she does.

  I think of Gilbey; the necklace around her neck, the one that belonged to her daughter, Amanda; the box in the storeroom with her things inside. Hicks told me he’d blown up the scanner just in case it could have been used to cure her, to make sure Gilbey wouldn’t lose focus. It occurs to me then that all the terrible things she did, it would have begun just like this: weighing the value of a life, one she cared about more than anything, against others, less important to her. I can’t know the exact circumstances of it, but in the end those matter little.