“It’s overwhelming. I’m amazed that it has all kept running for so long. It will take me days to see everything, and months to understand it.”
“And what about Clarice and the other hunters?”
Rosalyn cleared her throat and jerked her head, but the hunter just behind Dinah didn’t seem to notice that they were talking about him and his kind. Dinah told him to go wait by the elevator.
“They got their medicine today just like you promised,” Karl said. “And if they get it tomorrow and the day after, they should continue to cooperate. But Clarice hasn’t given me any tells to let me know what she might be thinking.”
“That will have to do. Keep tabs on them. That’s your priority.”
Karl nodded. His face warmed and he tried for the fatherly hand on the shoulder, but Dinah turned and walked away before he could touch her.
“No warm feelings for Karl?” Rosalyn asked as they got in the elevator.
“It’s all too fresh. Maybe one day.”
“Do you trust him?”
Dinah shrugged. “Enough to use him here, yes. Do you?”
“I don’t trust anyone.”
Dinah nodded. She found that oddly refreshing.
***
Dinah had turned the research wing with its labs and the White Room into an off-limits area once all its former residents were moved up to the hospital. She stayed out of the room with green lights. It took a bit of poking around to find the terminal that controlled the doors with card key access. She set it so only two cards could get in or out of the entire wing and gave Rosalyn the second card. They kept Gregory and Dr. Hel there, locked in the two cells.
She alone took care of her brother, posting her hunter in front of the door outside.
He still slept in the White Room, secured to one of the padded exam tables, his slumber fitful. Tonight she’d had to clean up vomit several times, and his muscles had begun to spasm non-stop. He half awoke once only to moan and speak words that made no sense. He shivered despite her covering him with blankets.
The Beast liked the warmth of the lab. She found him watching her as she woke up, having fallen asleep in the chair in Ruben’s office.
“How did you get in here?”
He lifted his head when she reached for him, but at the last minute he shied away. She tried to coax him over to a half-eaten plate of cold noodles, but he wasn’t interested. If she ignored him, he kept close.
At two in the morning, her brother started into a hacking cough. She was still awake, reading through endless pages of programming and notations. She went out into the lab.
Her brother twisted and jerked at the restraints. His eyes rolled, and she saw only whites. She unlocked the wheels to the exam table and wheeled him to the room with the Wally cage, which she had prepared ahead of time. The cage was clean, the door open. She pushed her brother inside and undid the straps. It took some careful lifting, but she managed to get him down off the table and onto a long mat. She put the blankets down next to him, but now he seemed too warm. She removed the rolling table and locked the cage, and then watched.
His spasms came and went like a rolling tide. He curled tightly around bent limbs. His jaw appeared to jut. Minutes passed. He settled down. With one hand, he shielded his eyes.
She turned off the lights and left him alone.
38. The Gray Place
After a week of Nineveh’s new routine under Dinah’s management, the hunters, residents, and medical staff fell into a busy pattern revolving around the care of each of the individuals who were once her nodes. Once guided off their sedatives, many of them woke up enough to mumble, and a few enough to scream. Some had been locked inside their minds for years.
Dinah monitored the recovery work but didn’t enter the patient rooms. The thought of being recognized by any of her former nodes terrified her, even as she realized how illogical that sounded. Nineveh had done this to them. Ruben had. It wasn’t her. So why did she feel so guilty?
Redmon had her own room. Every time Dinah checked, she was asleep. Dr. M told her that Redmon was making a full recovery. He spearheaded the work to the best of his ability, but when she insisted on a new level of cleanliness, he soon implored her for more help. She recruited as many others as possible, directing maintenance workers and food service personnel to the hospital during their off hours, putting them to work feeding, cleaning, and changing sheets. Having a hunter at her side made these requests go down with little incident.
The hospital wing still stank, but progress was being made on the back load of dirty laundry. Some of it had to be incinerated. The patients also needed limbs to be massaged and bedsores to be treated. Rosalyn was particularly talented at threatening nurses to follow the schedule.
Threats didn’t work with Dr. Hel.
Dr. Hel sipped at a bowl of broth Dinah and Karl had brought her, not touching the wrinkled yellow apple or the two slices of bread. The door to what had once been Rosalyn’s cell was closed. Gregory was in there, and Dinah had to assume he would hear everything they said. Perhaps the two were communicating through the vent as Dinah and Rosalyn had.
“You’ve been quite busy,” Dr. Hel said.
“There’s so much to do. You know this place as well as anyone. You’re a teacher, a scientist, and a doctor. We could use you moving forward. We need your help.”
Dr. Hel smirked. “Your brother never bothered with such pretense.”
“What do you mean?”
“Masking his ambitions with noble purpose.”
“What, you think I have some ulterior motive for getting a bunch of kids unhooked from a machine where they were basically brain slaves?”
“Of course. Why else would you come back here voluntarily but to implement your designs on this place? You’ve taken control of one of the last bastions of technology left in the world. Nineveh now holds sway over the land around it. It’s poised to conquer. You will be at its helm.”
“I surrendered to my brother so the killing would stop. And it has.”
“Nothing has stopped.” She slurped more broth. “It’s on hold for a bit. Ask your brother, if you don’t trust your own ability to figure out what will happen next. Nineveh struck out at every community in a hundred miles. Do you suppose for a moment that the survivors will forget, or that the outlying towns will just wait their turn?”
“We’ll go talk to them,” Karl said. “Let them know that the people in charge have been replaced. Dinah will make sure that Nineveh becomes something better, that it shares what it has.”
“Will she?”
“She’s not her brother.”
“Who she is remains to be seen. At least he had vision and drive and could see what was coming around the next corner. If you had bothered to ask him before drugging him into a coma, you’d know he gamed out this scenario.”
Dinah sighed. Maybe she had been hanging out with Rosalyn too much, but Dr. Hel’s smug tone made her want to punch her. “And what scenario is that?”
“Peace. What do you suppose would have happened if all we did was go up top and trade and help our neighbors with their poisoned earth and fog collectors and irrigation issues? We, with our trucks and disease-free bodies and electricity? Would they have been content with spending their short life spans breaking the ground with sheer muscle power and sweat? Make no mistake. They would covet.”
“Karl helped people. Every time he went out. He fixed things, gave guidance whenever and wherever people would listen. Our neighbors welcomed his visits.”
Karl actually lowered his head as Dinah said this. He looked at the floor. She realized his guilt was his own and he would have to work through what he had done.
“One rung up and one rung down,” Dr. Hel said. “If your neighbor has a better way of plowing that he shares with you, you accept it and implement it. But when you enjoy bumper crop after bumper crop of everything you plant and none of your children die from cholera and you haven’t lost any children at birth, while your neig
hbor barely subsists, gets sick, and loses seven out of ten children before their first birthday…well, you can imagine what conclusions your neighbors will come to after seeing your successes season after season.”
“Folks might get jealous,” Karl muttered.
“Or think the gods favor you. Or think that you’ve cursed them. Or that you have something they might want to take. Your brother saw this. There are more of them than us.”
“I know,” Dinah said. “But that’s just one possibility. There are other scenarios that don’t result in the outside world breaking down Nineveh’s doors. Like wiser minds prevailing and learning to accept kindnesses and generosity and returning it where possible. That’s why the collapse didn’t end civilization. More people kept trying than not.”
“So that’s why your brother loved you. You’re incredibly naive. How amusing.”
Dr. Hel flinched when Dinah rose. But Dinah just turned and walked out into the hallway.
***
The Beast found her first, tucked away inside a forgotten maintenance closet next to a locked stairwell. She had propped the door open with a mop so the room could air out. The light inside wasn’t working, but enough cool blue illumination came in from the hallway that she could make out the surprisingly clean floor and a pool of shadows where she could hide.
The cat paused to stare as if to make out with his one good eye where she was. Dinah sat perfectly still, engulfed in darkness with her knees against her chest, like a pitiful phantom in charge of a rather boring station in Limbo.
He had something in his mouth. He dropped on the floor what turned out to be a thumb-sized bug and proceeded to pry it apart with dainty precision. The whole affair was much work with little reward, like eating the rare crayfish Karl had taught them to look for. The crustaceans had been in a small pond past one of the meadows. They were all shell and bone with but a trace of meat in their tails, but the novel flavor made the work in eating them worthwhile. The pond had dried up the third year after she had arrived at the farm.
“You old warhorse,” Dinah said.
The bug didn’t last long. The Beast busied himself working on something caught in his mouth. He chewed and chewed and chewed and never seemed able to swallow, but was too stubborn to just spit it out.
“Dinah, are you down here?” Karl called from down the hall.
Karl was a hunter. Maybe she had left footprints. Maybe the Beast had led him here, the little traitor.
She waited in silence. Karl knocked twice before stepping into the closet. He looked down at her, and she was happy that he didn’t ask anything stupid. He just smiled. He crouched down and put his hand out. The Beast rubbed Karl’s hand as if they were old friends.
“It’s good to get away,” Karl said. “Gives you time to think.”
“I almost forgot it’s hard to do that down here.”
He nodded. Finally, he said, “I put Doctor Hel back in her room. But she wants to leave Nineveh.”
That surprised her. “What, go outside? Her?”
“She says she’s done working here. She said she’s willing to take her chances.”
Dinah shook her head. “She’ll never make it.”
Karl shrugged. “You did.”
“I had you and Uma as teachers for six years. But she’s old. She’s been down here for like forever.”
“I doubt it was that long.”
“You know what I mean. She doesn’t know anything else, has no training, nowhere to go.”
“If she makes it to where other people are, she is a doctor.”
She tried to read his face for a hint at what he was thinking. He was waiting on her for a decision.
“So you’re wondering, do we let her?” she said. “She knows so much about the redoubt. She probably won’t make it anywhere before a dozen different things happen to her. On the other hand, she might not be the only one who wants to go. There may be others. What choice do we really have?”
“There are always choices.”
“No. We don’t do that. How could you even suggest that?”
“These are the kinds of options a leader has to weigh, even if it’s just to acknowledge that the option is immoral.”
She got up and instantly felt woozy. “I’m not a leader. I’m not in charge here.”
“If not you, then who?”
She looked down at the Beast. He wasn’t the least bit interested. He had curled in on himself for maintenance, ministering to something in his crotch region.
“Dinah, you’re the best choice for this place. You’re young, but you’re one of the few who’s been both down here and out in the world. You’re able to think your way through what needs to be done, but to do it with heart and a conscience. Maybe that’s what your brother was lacking. You’ve got the hunters under your control. Nineveh is yours whether you want it or not. But you’re not alone. You have friends who will help you through this.”
An odd bitter feeling rolled over her. “Is that what you are? A friend?”
Flustered, he stammered over a few words and then said, “I’m trying.”
At least he was all out of apologies, she thought. She pushed past him and stepped into the hallway. She listened for a moment to the mechanical sounds of the redoubt, the vibrations, the fluids running their course through plumbing above the ceiling tiles and behind the smooth walls.
“If someone wants to leave, we don’t stop them. Find out who wants to go and let them. But they don’t get to take anything with them but food and water.”
“Anyone? Even Gregory?”
“I’ll go talk to him.”
Karl moved to follow.
“But I’ll do it alone.”
***
“Those are your options,” she said.
“Is this some sort of trick, child? Stay here and follow your orders like an obedient dog or be cast out to walk the path of Cain?”
The “child” jab bugged her. Gregory couldn’t be much more than ten years older than her. He sat on the cell’s cot and leaned against the wall, his arms slack at his side. He had stripped to his waist, his white skin glistening with a film of sweat. She stayed in the doorway, one hand on the door in case he moved. His lunch tray was on the floor. Every morsel had been eaten, and he had taken his hunter medicine.
“You can help us turn this place around,” she said.
“You want to change things. Your way will bring back the old problems from a world that lost its way. Now you want to turn Nineveh into an image of that world.”
“I don’t want to turn Nineveh into anything. Have you walked the halls down here lately? This place is half empty. Everyone left inside is dying.”
“That’s why we’re preparing the world above for you. For everyone here.”
“Murdering the people already there isn’t the answer.”
“Cleansing.”
“Whatever. You think you can wipe out every human you meet and just expect everyone down here to miraculously become farmers?”
“My brothers and I have become whatever we needed to be. We’ll continue to do so. Your brother will make us into better hunters. Or farmers. We’ll take to the sky if we need to.”
“Right. He’ll give you wings.”
Gregory laughed silently.
“You’ve had some time to think about what you want to do,” she said. “We can’t keep you here forever. We don’t have the manpower to keep prisoners.”
“There’s no choice to make,” he said as he got up from the cot. “Nineveh has served its purpose. It has brought you back for the next stage. Each stage requires sacrifice, and I’m prepared to pay that price.”
“I don’t know what that even means.” He started forward, so she stepped back and shut the cell door and turned the deadbolt.
“You do know, Dinah, you do,” he said through the door. “You went forth and paid your price, and yet you returned to us. You’re strong. Your brother was right about you. I will show the same strength and return o
ne day.”
She put her head against the door and let out a long sigh.
39. Oversight
Every resident in the redoubt had to see the patients during the recovery. Dinah made it mandatory. If they didn’t go look, they might forget or think it didn’t happen.
Dinah knew she had to go face them too.
She walked through the hospital wing, having finally mustered the courage to enter the rooms and review each patient. She was pleased with what she saw. A few bed sheets needed changing, but most had been recently tended to. The beds all had an up-to-date posted schedule with penciled-in times of when the patients had last been checked and turned. Vital signs were now actively monitored. All the patients continued their regimen of medicine and feeding through tubes. Many would never eat solids again.
Nurses moved about between rooms at a shuffle, clearly exhausted. None made eye contact with Dinah.
She found Addis and sat with her a while. She told her about her life above and her time at Uma’s. Addis listened.
“I don’t need your help!” came a shout from the hall.
Dinah left the room and found Rosalyn standing over Redmon, who had just fallen to the floor. Redmon gritted her teeth as she crawled to a wall and began pulling herself up to her feet.
“Let her help you,” Dinah said.
Redmon continued to help herself. Once standing, she took a moment to catch her breath. Her less than obedient legs looked as if they would give out at any moment.
“Is this where you refuse my offer of a wheelchair?” Rosalyn asked.
Redmon shook her head. “Get it. But I’m not staying here anymore.”
They took her up to the greenhouse. Rosalyn helped Redmon stand at one of the raised vegetable beds. Redmon leaned down and breathed it in.
“I never thought I’d miss the smell of dirt.”
Rosalyn and Dinah looked at each other. They both smirked.
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