Nineveh's Child

by Gerhard Gehrke

  A hunter stepped into the room. Rosalyn put her head down and worked at sawing a piece of fish on her plate into infinitely smaller parts. Eventually he turned and left. “The hunters that burned the farm used a machine in their truck for some liquid they drank. I thought it was for food, but they ate dehydrated meals from those bags and had water bottles. Maybe it was medicine.”

  “I saw the same thing. It’s more than vitamins. They need it to stay alive. Maybe they need it to keep from being overwhelmed by everything pumping in their veins. I believe the Wallys are even connected somehow. But the coms and the medicine…these are our two keys. Look, I can’t promise that anything we try will work…”

  “Just tell me when to be ready.”

  “Tonight.”

  ***

  Only when Dinah visited Ruben in his office between sessions could she get away from the guards’ watchful eyes. He remained connected throughout the day, yet unlike Dinah, he was able to stay aware of his surroundings. He appeared pleased when she came by.

  Today she was visiting on her lunch break. Dr. Hel entered the office but said nothing, as if just reminding Dinah that she was still being supervised.

  There came a crash out in the lab. Dr. Hel went running, and she was soon chastising Dr. M for some act of clumsiness. Ruben ignored it. Dinah noticed that Ruben’s throat mic was again on the counter. She had only seen him wear it when out of the office. He didn’t seem to need to wear it when the hunters were close by.

  She returned that afternoon and again that evening. Each time Ruben was still at his computer, visibly tired. After being unhooked for the last time that day, Rosalyn had said she was feeling nauseous, and Dr. Hel had left with her. Ruben’s guard was at the usual spot in front of the office door.

  Dinah rubbed Ruben’s neck and read over his shoulder. Soon he was nodding off.

  It was such a small move, picking up the mic. But at any second the guard could turn and see, or Dr. Hel could materialize out of nowhere. Her brother might even reach for it as he descended into his exhausted stupor. It felt like reaching for a bomb with teeth. But before she could reconsider, the deed was done: the mic was in her pocket.

  Dr. Hel appeared a few minutes later. She had the hunter escort Dinah to her cell. As she left the White Room she heard Dr. Hel say, “Ruben, it’s late. Why don’t we put you to bed?”

  ***

  That night, when the hunter appeared at her door, Dinah was at least a bit surprised.

  She had gone to bed only an hour before and hadn’t slept a wink. When the door opened, he just stood there, a dark shadow backlit by the dim nighttime illumination of the rec room. She pulled her blankets up under her chin and waited, the pilfered mic concealed. She had to play the part.

  His subvocal mic clicked. He made dry mouth sounds as he spoke.

  “Come with me,” he said finally.

  “Some lights would be helpful,” she said.

  He flipped them on. She waited, yawning theatrically, until he took the hint and backed out of the room so she could dress. She leaped out of her sheets and pulled on her jumpsuit. Her stolen mic went into her pocket.

  “Where to?” she asked the hunter as she emerged from her cell.

  “White Room.”

  He led her down the corridor. A lone orderly passed them heading the opposite direction, wheeling a garbage can with an attached tray full of cleaning chemicals. The man carefully avoided eye contact. The hunter took her to the empty lab and unlocked the door to her brother’s office. He wasn’t there.

  Even freaks need to sleep sometimes.

  “You’re supposed to wait in here.”

  She nodded obediently. The hunter stepped out into the lab and sat down on a stool. Dinah closed the door partway, wondering if he could hear her heart hammering. The hunter didn’t stir.

  She felt a rush now that she was alone. Ruben’s terminal wasn’t part of her plan, yet for a moment she ran her fingers on the keyboard. If there had only been some way to set up the network without hurting anyone. So much blood spilled, and for what? The network attracted and repulsed her, making her want to smash the machine in front of her, as if the one terminal could stand as proxy for all the hurt Nineveh had caused.

  She moved on to the communication box. She put on the stolen mic so that it rested against her throat. She knew that it worked when giving a single command to a single hunter. She changed the dial setting and took a breath.

  “All units alert,” she said, swallowing her words as the hunters did. She would go hoarse if she had to speak like this all day.

  Within fifteen seconds, she got a click-back acknowledgment from twenty throat mics. Even hunters slept, and she had just woken all of them. They knew how to hop to when an order came from the command mic.

  “What’s going on?” The number one flashed on the com box as the words came in. It was Gregory.

  “Engage full standby and prepare the vehicles. We’re going out. Get Karl out of his cell. Escort him down to the White Room and leave him with the guard.”

  “What’s the situation?” Gregory asked. “Are we under threat?”

  “Get Karl. Follow your orders. Wait for further instructions.”

  “Roger on Karl,” came a reply from number three. Instead of Karl, it sounded like “Kuh.” Three must be on Karl duty. The other hunters clicked once as an acknowledgment.

  She saw the lights for One and Three blink. Were they having a conversation between themselves? Not good. She considered pulling the plug on the communication network, but that would only alert the hunters even more. She waited. Studying the communication box, she realized she could have left Gregory out of the loop and just spoken to the other hunters, but if he’d been awake, he’d have known. The hunter outside her door was number seventeen; he had been the last one Ruben had spoken to.

  She guessed the small antennae and the logged hunters had a certain limited range. This couldn’t be all of them. Whatever ones were outside and in the valley had to keep a similar setup, or there was a long-range radio somewhere, perhaps on their trucks along with the medicine machines. She needed Karl and his expertise.

  Several minutes later, she heard Seventeen talking to Three. She strained to listen. If Gregory was already down here, she was finished.

  “…ordered to bring him here.”

  “For what? He can’t even stand. Take him to one of the exam rooms.”

  “Negative. He’s to be brought here. Get a chair.”

  Next came the scraping of a dragged piece of furniture.

  “Now leave him,” Dinah said to Three. And to Three and Seventeen: “All of you upstairs. I’ll have a nurse take it from here. He’ll be no trouble.”

  “But sir—” Seventeen began.

  “Go.”

  It was stupid, she knew, but she opened the door as the two hunters departed. One of them looked back and saw her. He hesitated for a moment before vanishing around the corner and out of sight like an obedient hunter. Their footsteps receded down the corridor.

  Karl lay sprawled in a lab chair set against a wall, his large form causing the chair to tilt precariously. His redoubt-standard jumpsuit looked dirtier than before. His skin looked pale, his face hollow. His mouth was slack, his lips cracked and crusty with dried blood.

  “Hi Karl.”

  His eyes blinked a few times before he raised his head and looked at her.

  “Hey, kid.” He seemed to not register where he was. He would have kept rolling forward off the chair, but she was there to stop his fall. It was an odd moment, her holding him up and him looking at her with a mix of confusion and gratitude.

  “What’s going on? Why am I down here?”

  “Can you stand up? Lean on me.”

  He struggled to his feet, one arm resting heavy on her shoulders. “I’m too heavy.”

  “You’re fine. I’ve got you. We just need to make it into the next room.”

  Many small steps later she got him down into a chair in front of her b
rother’s terminal. She pulled the communication box near him and handed over her throat mic. Karl looked at the equipment and slowly shook his head.

  “Dinah, I don’t really understand this stuff. I was never trained.”

  “But my brother had you fixing things.”

  “Sure, he did. Wiring and soldering is a snap. Same principles on a computer. But if you want me to operate a program, I can’t help with that.”

  “But you know how the hunters speak to one another using these?”

  He nodded.

  “You need to keep them all upstairs by pretending you’re Ruben. Short sentences so they don’t pick up on any difference in word use. Give orders, not explanations. That’s what he would do. Gregory is channel one. He might be the hardest one to fool, so be careful.”

  “All right, but this is crazy. I don’t know how long this will work. Once Gregory gets on the line and asks questions, he won’t fall for this. He’s actually capable of independent thought. Some of the rest are, too. And what will you be doing?”

  “It’s time to let my brother taste the fruits of his labor.”

  She left Karl alone in the office. She took a moment to listen in case any of the guards were returning, but she heard no chatter. First, she needed to get Rosalyn. Then she needed to calm down so she could think clearly, as both Karl and Rosalyn had to trust her and do what she told them. At that moment, all she wanted was to crawl back inside her cell and play with numbers the next day and every day, the redoubt and the outside world be damned.

  ***

  It was taking far too long. She was searching for keys and key cards in the lab and every office that would open, but ten minutes went by and no joy. Dinah couldn’t risk summoning the hunter again. She headed toward the cells, not knowing what else to do. The hallways were empty. When she knocked on Rosalyn’s cell door, she answered instantly.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Can you open your door?”

  A pause. “Yes.”

  “Do it.”

  After a quick series of clicks the lock popped. Rosalyn slipped something into her pocket as she emerged from the cell. A scowl crossed her face.

  “You took long enough coming for me,” Rosalyn said. “I thought you were leaving me behind again.”

  “I know. I couldn’t get my hands on a key.”

  “I never told you I had extra lockpicks besides the ones you stole.”

  “I assumed you had more. I can hear you practicing. So here’s what’s going on.”

  Rosalyn’s brow contracted further as Dinah told her about Karl and getting the hunters to go on alert, leaving the lower floors clear.

  “Sounds like you got this all figured out,” Rosalyn said flatly. “What do you need me for?”

  “You know how to get doors open, don’t you?”

  Rosalyn offered the slightest smile. “So you need me just because you can’t find any keys.”

  “Basically. What else do you have besides the lockpick?”

  “Nothing that I’m handing over to you.”

  “Well, we’ll need it all now, because we don’t have much time.”

  Dinah led the way upstairs toward the hospital wing and her brother’s bedroom. It was an educated guess that the room hadn’t been moved, as he probably needed all the machines and nurses to be close by if he got sick. Rosalyn surprised Dinah by taking them on a detour to the kitchen, her stepsister moving as if she knew the layout. She went to a refrigerator and procured a key card hidden behind a crisper drawer. She didn’t let Dinah touch it.

  They passed through three major intersections along the way, pausing and listening for anyone moving about at the late hour.

  The hospital wing opened to them with Rosalyn’s card. They walked down the quiet main corridor, eyeing every door as if someone might leap out at them. They kept a hand to their mouth and nose, as a smell of urine clung to the air.

  When Dr. Hel appeared from behind the nurse’s station, Dinah jumped. The woman must have been sleeping with her head on the desk and picked just that moment to wake up.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Neither had an answer. Instantly Dinah went from newly risen conqueror of the redoubt to teenage girl caught sneaking somewhere where she wasn’t supposed to be. She ran through a half-dozen lame lies in her head. None of them would hold water.

  “Uh,” she managed.

  Rosalyn moved forward with purpose. She grabbed a dry mop propped upright in a bucket at the side of the hall and pointed it forward like a spear.

  “Step back!” Rosalyn screamed.

  Dr. Hel had been reaching for a phone. Rosalyn smashed it and knocked it off the desk. Dr. Hel flinched, a hand thrown over her face.

  “Please don’t hurt me,” she said.

  Rosalyn pointed at one of the nearby rooms. It had no name on the doorframe.

  Dinah checked inside. “It’s empty.”

  Rosalyn prodded Dr. Hel along into the room. Both the door to the hallway and the bathroom door had locks that opened from the inside and wouldn’t keep anyone in. Dr. Hel seemed to be less afraid of Rosalyn with every passing moment, her eyes darting between her and the hallway.

  “We’ll have to tie her up,” Rosalyn said.

  When Dr. Hel heard this, she bolted, pushing the mop pole away and knocking Rosalyn aside. Dinah grabbed her by the hem of her skirt and kicked out one of the doctor’s feet. She went sprawling. Rosalyn was on her in a flash. She smashed the mop into the woman’s head and held her down.

  “I got her,” Rosalyn said.

  Dinah found a spare phone that had a detachable cord. Dr. Hel was now screaming for help. Rosalyn kept smacking her with the mop, which did little to muffle the cries.

  Dinah had never considered herself physically strong. Maybe it was the last few years of chores and the weeks of living in the hills that had tuned her up, but she wrestled Dr. Hel’s arms behind her and bound her with the cord without too much effort. Additional cords were needed, which Rosalyn brought in short order, along with a roll of tape.

  Dr. Hel howled and kicked at Dinah. Rosalyn grabbed her legs while Dinah wrapped her up as tightly as possible. Rosalyn put a pillowcase over the woman’s head. Her cries for help had become expletives.

  Both Rosalyn and Dinah were sweating. Rosalyn started to laugh, gesturing with her new weapon of choice.

  “Let’s go.”

  34. Before: Nineveh

  The nurse in the hospital wing had taken the magnetic lockpick away. Dinah was certain her brother wouldn’t survive the night, but no amount of begging or threats prevented the staff from taking her back to her room. Dr. M came by and offered her a stern lecture and a weak promise that Ruben would be fine and just needed time to recover. Once he left, Dinah returned to the hallways outside the hospital wing, but found no way in. Eventually she tired and returned to her room.

  The Beast sat at her door. She nudged him out of the way as she opened it, but didn’t comment when he held his ground and waltzed inside before her. At least he didn’t have a gift with him. He went to her desk chair, hopped up, and settled in. That was when Dinah spotted the note sticking partway out from under her pillow.

  Dinah,

  Be ready to leave tonight after midnight.

  There was no signature.

  The note was simple, scratches on paper consisting of just eight words, yet she read it over and over, not believing what she was seeing. The words arranged themselves in her head, lining up as if they were a math problem. She assigned values to the letters in a hundred different ways, and they added up and didn’t compute all at the same time.

  Ruben couldn’t have written the note. He was bed-bound. And he didn’t trust anyone, so who had left it? Anyway, Ruben was the one that needed help, not the other way around.

  She took the note, crumpled it, and stuffed it into a pocket.

  It was already an hour after midnight. The note could only have come from Stevie. It was a prank worthy of him, and
he had gotten into her room once before.

  “Great watchdog you are,” she said to the Beast.

  He just stared at her. She turned off the light and went to bed.

  ***

  Someone knocked at her door. It was three in the morning. The Beast had snuck onto the foot of the bed, but with the knock he leaped down and went under it.

  Dinah didn’t know who she was expecting, with the mysterious note and its promise to save her from this place. Whatever gag was underway was in its final act, and she wanted it over with. She got up and opened the door.

  Dr. Hel stood there, with one of the beefier medical orderlies standing right behind her.

  “We need to take you to the White Room for a physical.”

  “But why? It’s late. Can we do it tomorrow?”

  She saw the look on both their faces. Not going wasn’t an option. So she went.

  Dr. Hel offered an explanation once they made it to the elevator. “We think you may have been exposed to a virus while visiting your brother. Foolish girl. We work so hard to keep you well, and then you do something like this. It just makes more work for us, Dinah.”

  “A virus? My brother’s not sick with a virus.”

  “You don’t know what he’s sick with, and I’m not going to discuss this. We need to do a viral screen and give you a booster. It won’t hurt a bit.”

  Of course, it hurt. Dinah sat on the exam table in the White Room, wincing with each failed jab into her arm. No nurse was available. Dr. Hel’s needle skills were subpar, and that was being generous.