He hesitated. ‘Perhaps.’
I tried to ignore the hesitation in his voice. ‘And if it does we’ll find Gracie again?’
‘If it can cure her I’ll help you find her.’
I nodded. I knew he couldn’t make the promises I wanted him to, and that even if he did, promises alone weren’t enough, but still, I wanted something certain, something I could hold on to.
‘You said when you found us it was because you could feel her. Can you still do that? Is she still okay?’
He stared at me for a long moment. His eyes were dark, unreadable. Then he looked up and past me, and I knew without needing to be told he was adrift somewhere in the Change. Seconds passed, and then something shifted and he was back.
‘She’s there,’ he said.
‘And safe?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, his voice flat, far away. ‘I think so.’
I wondered what it must be like for him, to be connected to a daughter he had never known.
In the storeroom I spread out my blanket and made a pillow with my backpack. Although I had thought knowing Gracie was safe would make me feel better, it just made her feel further away, the idea that we could save her even more fanciful. I lay on my back and stared up at the roof. All afternoon the feeling something was moving through me, around me, had been growing stronger and now I was alone, whatever it was felt so close I could almost touch it. Closing my eyes I told myself I was imagining it but it didn’t help. Instead it just grew more insistent, a sound without sound that danced on the edge of perception. For a minute, maybe longer, I lay listening to it, trying to make sense of what it was, what it might be saying. I could feel meaning in it, but it was elusive, slippery. Suddenly I heard a crash. I jumped to my feet and wrenched opened the door. My father was standing in the lab, shirtless in the heat. On the ground in front of him lay a broken beaker.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to frighten you. I knocked it over.’
I began to say it didn’t matter but then I noticed something. When he was seven his mother had accidentally splashed cooking oil on him, leaving a pattern of pinkish scarring on his right shoulder and chest. When I was little its stippled surface had fascinated me, but in the flickering light of the candle his chest was smooth, unblemished.
‘What happened to your scar?’
He hesitated. ‘What scar?’
‘The one on your chest.’
Somewhere in the distance thunder rumbled. ‘It healed,’ he said.
For a long moment I didn’t speak, aware of his gaze on me, unblinking. He was lying, and he must have known I knew he was lying. Finally he began gathering the broken glass, and not knowing what to say I closed the door and lay down again.
4
The next morning I woke early. The lab was light, the morning sun filtering through the windows, but my father was nowhere to be seen. Still unsettled I checked his room, then stepped out into the corridor and looked left and right but there was no sign of him. Despite the heat, I shivered, suddenly reminded of how alone I was.
I knew I should wait, but I wasn’t comfortable here by myself, so going back into the lab I grabbed my shoes and backpack and headed downstairs.
It had rained overnight, but the air was already hot, the sun beating down from a clear sky. I set off along the street, moving carefully, scanning the buildings and vegetation on either side. At the far end the street met another, the junction forming a small plaza bordered by what must once have been a garden; I paused, checking for some sign of life, then headed across the road and down a set of stairs on the far side.
These buildings must once have been offices, but now they were empty. I could see evidence of flooding, debris caught a few metres above ground level, but for the most part it was a mass of twisting vines and glowtrees.
Although the area seemed deserted, I kept glancing over my shoulder, convinced I was being watched. Finally I stopped and looked around. Somewhere nearby a Changed bird gave a mournful cry. Tightening my grip on my backpack I turned and started back. But before I had gone more than a few steps, a girl appeared in the entrance to the building on my right.
She was seven or eight and dressed in a faded pink T-shirt and shorts. Her black hair was loose and hung down to her shoulders. I took a step back, and then another, and although she was still, her eyes remained fixed on me. Finally I turned and, fighting the urge to run, hurried back toward the river.
As I rounded the corner I stopped and let out a breath. Looking ahead it seemed I could follow the path up and around the back of the building, and then loop around to my father’s building. But as I started down the other side of the building I was shocked to see the girl standing on the path in front of me.
It was only seconds since I had seen her in the street behind me, not nearly long enough for her to be here too, but here she was. My heart beating fast, I turned and ran the way I had come. But when I reached the corner she was there again. I stifled a cry and backed away again, only to collide with somebody. I cried out in fear and jerked away.
‘Callie! What is it? What’s wrong?’ said my father.
‘I . . .’ I began. My terror suddenly seemed ridiculous. ‘There was a girl,’ I said.
He hesitated. ‘Where?’
I gestured back the way I’d come. ‘And here.’
‘The same girl?’
I nodded.
‘You need to be careful, Callie. Things aren’t always what they seem. What are you doing out here on your own?’
‘You weren’t there when I woke up. I came to find you.’
‘I had to make sure the battery was working. You can’t wander about on your own. It isn’t safe out here.’
We walked back to the lab in silence. ‘I need to take some samples,’ he said.
He took a syringe from a drawer, tightened a tourniquet around my arm then slipped in the needle. I watched my blood fill the barrel, thick and dark. Once it was full, he withdrew the needle. He tapped a drop of blood into a test tube then placed it in one of the machines on the bench and pressed a button. There was a whirr. Then he sat in front of the microscope.
I drew up a stool and sat down beside him. He placed a drop of blood on a slide and pressed another slide on top, then clipped them onto the stage and peered into the eyepiece. At first he didn’t speak, just fiddled with the microscope. Then he made a small sound of triumph.
‘What?’ I demanded, leaning toward him.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Take a look.’
As I leaned in I remembered an afternoon in his lab years ago when he had showed me sand through a microscope, the wonder of its myriad grains, each like a little world. The man beside me seemed so different from the man in my memory.
The slide was crowded with tiny reddish discs.
‘What are they?’ I asked.
‘Blood cells,’ he said. ‘Now increase the magnification.’
A moment later the circles resolved into little platelets, each with a kind of depression in the middle, like a donut or a dish. I smiled, amazed.
‘They’re moving,’ I said.
‘They’re alive. Now look closer. Do you see anything?’
I looked from disc to disc, uncertain. And then, among the red cells, I noticed a flicker of something blue, or green, and then a moment later, another, and another.
‘What is it?’
‘It’s the Change, Callie. Or the engineered version. It’s in your blood.’
I sat back. ‘That’s good, right?’ I asked, trying to sound more certain than I felt.
He nodded. ‘It means the engineered version of the Change bonded with your cells without triggering metamorphosis. And that it’s still working, even when you’re continually exposed to Changed biology.’
I stared at the microscope. ‘So those cells, they’ve been in my blood ever
since you gave me the vaccine?’
‘They have.’
‘Why didn’t they show up on Quarantine’s scanners?’
‘Probably because their scanners are only sensitive enough to register the presence of Changed biology once metamorphosis has begun.’
‘That’s why they found anomalies in my blood when they examined me at the Quarantine facility.’
Something flickered behind his eyes, and for a brief moment I was reminded of the things I had seen in the Quarantine facility. Had they experimented on him? Or had he escaped before that could happen?
‘Probably.’
‘What now then?’ I asked. ‘Can we use it on Gracie?’
He shook his head. ‘I need to run more tests before I can answer that.’
‘How long will that take?’
‘Providing the battery doesn’t malfunction? A week. Perhaps longer.’
Behind him the machine with the test tube pinged. He pressed a button and picked up the ancient screen that stood beside it. His body tensed.
I felt a sick skip in my stomach. ‘What is it?’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t know. These results, they don’t make sense.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘When the Change bonds with terrestrial DNA, it uses the affected cells to create more copies of itself. But the Change also invades neuronal cells to produce a particular neurotransmitter that triggers the creation of the receptors in the brain that allow the Change to communicate with the affected organism. The engineered version of the Change in the vaccine is specifically designed to prevent that process. But this says you have a similar neurotransmitter in your system.’
‘So the vaccine is breaking down? I’m beginning to Change?’
‘No. Or I don’t think so. Metamorphosis is a different process. This looks more like the vaccine itself is mutating in some way.’
‘Why would that happen?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps it’s been triggered by repeated exposure to Changed biology.’
I crossed my arms. I was shaking. ‘What does it mean? Does it mean I’ll be affected?’
‘I don’t know. Although the mutation is similar to the way the Change triggers the production of neurotransmitters, I’ve never seen the ones in your system before. Have you felt anything odd in the past few days?’
I looked at him, suddenly wary. ‘Like what?’
‘The early signs of metamorphosis are quite subtle. Fever, heightened senses and responses to stimuli, insomnia. It’s like . . . like you’re suddenly aware of things you weren’t before. Sometimes you hear things, glimpse images or experience sensations from other organisms.’
I opened my mouth to speak. I knew I should tell him about the flashes of connection but something held me back. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Nothing like that.’
He stared at me for a long moment. ‘Give me your hands.’
I placed my hands in his. His skin was cool, dry. He closed his eyes, and when he reopened them he seemed to be looking past me, as if he was seeing something I could not.
The room was quiet, the sound of the insects outside falling away, but the stillness had shape, texture, as if the space around us trembled with something. My father seemed to have left his body, to be elsewhere; I was aware of something moving past me, of the voices in the distance. And then, all at once, he was back, his body reinhabited.
‘What did you just do?’ I demanded.
‘You remember I said that when I was infected I became part of the Change yet I wasn’t absorbed into it like the others?’ His voice was oddly disconnected, as if he were talking in his sleep.
I nodded.
‘That means I can access some of its awareness, sense the connections around me.’
‘You’re saying I’m connected as well?’
He shook his head. ‘It’s not that simple. I can feel your presence but . . .’
‘But what?’
‘But you’re like me. Connected but not absorbed.’
‘How can that be?’
‘Being here, so deep in the Zone, must have triggered something in the vaccine. The metamorphosis isn’t taking place, but the vaccine is reacting in a new way, altering you at a cellular level all the same.’
‘So what will happen?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen this before. Your cells are becoming receptors, wired into the Change.’ He fell silent.
‘What?’
‘If I can feel it, the Change will be able to as well. That means it’s only a matter of time before it realises you’re here.’
‘And what then?’
He looked grim. ‘I don’t know.’
5
For much of the next week it rained every afternoon and evening, downpours so torrential they drowned out all other sound. I was still shocked by my father’s revelation, unable to come to grips with its meaning. What was the engineered version of the Change doing to me? Would I lose myself and be absorbed like Gracie and Matt? He’d told me I wouldn’t Change but did he really know for sure? What if the whispering in my head was simply the first stage in my transformation? And even if I wasn’t absorbed, what would happen to me? Could I ever go back to the other side of the Wall?
After my encounter with the girl I was wary of heading outside again and instead explored the building while my father worked. Some of the rooms were undisturbed, books and equipment standing on shelves, photos of kids and wives and husbands stuck to walls or the sides of computers, even a notebook or two still open on desks, the notes on their pages blurred and faded but still recognisable. Elsewhere it was different. At some point the ground level had flooded, the water marking the walls and warping the doors and wainscoting. Where the water had soaked the carpet new life had sprouted, mats of Changed organisms with cilia that swayed like the eyes of snails, colour shifting across them in patterns as if they were one organism, and moist-looking fungi that clumped in the corners like monstrous ears. Even after a fortnight in the Zone I found them disturbing, even terrifying, reminders of the alienness of the life forms that now surrounded me.
It didn’t help, of course, that I had nothing to do. On the second day I found an office full of fantasy novels, fat paperbacks with worn covers, and although most were swollen with damp or reeked of mould, several were dry and intact, so I found a spot by a window where there was enough light to read. But the novels didn’t help me escape completely. I knew there were things my father wasn’t telling me about the city. Was there some threat he hadn’t told me about? And if there was why not tell me? Was it just that he still thought of me as a kid? Or was it something more than that?
Then there was his warning about the Change, its awareness of me. Perhaps he had simply put my own fears into words, yet as the days crawled on I found it more and more difficult to escape the feeling that something had shifted, that the quality of the Change’s awareness had altered. More than once I came around a corner in the building only to feel an uncanny silence, a space left where a moment before there had been – what? Not sound or movement, but something less easily described and more sinister: a hum in the air, a presence.
On the seventh day the rain eased, giving way to broken cloud and patches of sun, although by the time I went to bed I could see lightning on the horizon again. I was woken by a crack of thunder. At first I didn’t know where I was, but then I remembered: the storeroom, the university, the Zone. I stood up and opened the door. The lab was dark, and the door to my father’s room was closed. I crossed to the windows as lightning flashed, illuminating the building opposite and the street below, the thunder so close I could feel it. I jumped, and, despite myself, let out a cry of laughter. A moment later another flash lit up the space outside, the thunder detonating almost simultaneously. Still laughing, I leaned forward just in time to see lightning arc across the sky. Another peal of thunder s
hook the building, rattling the windows, and then another, and then, just as the storm passed overhead, a massive bolt of lightning struck the building opposite, throwing off a shower of sparks. I whooped. I knew it was dangerous to draw attention to myself, but I was sick of being careful, and no matter how much noise I made the storm would drown it out anyway. But then another flash of lightning illuminated the darkness and the sound died in my throat. A figure was standing in the street, staring up. And although he was only visible for a moment or two, I knew him immediately.
It was Matt.
I gripped the windowsill. It was impossible, insane, but I knew I had seen him. There was another crack of thunder, then lightning struck again, but this time the street was empty.
My heart lurched. It couldn’t have been Matt. It must have been a dream or a hallucination. Yet he had seemed so real. I swayed, suddenly aware I was shaking. And then I turned and raced for the door.
The hall was dark, and as I bounded down the stairs I lost my footing and slammed sideways into the wall, the force of the collision knocking the air out of me. I scrabbled at the lock on the front door then wrenched it open. The rain was so heavy I could barely see. I stared around frantically, then took off toward the far corner, water splashing at my feet, stopping as lightning lit the empty avenue beyond. I ran the other way, across an open area that must once have been lawns but which was now filled with glowtrees and other Changed plants, and down an alley.
I emerged into a second space, choked this time with twisted vines and impassable. Unwilling to accept Matt was not here, I screamed his name, first once and then again, my words drowned out by the rain. Finally I sank to my knees. My hair was plastered against my head and my clothes were drenched. I knew it was madness. I’d heard him die. And even if it had been him, why hadn’t he waited? Why had he disappeared?
A moment later I felt a hand on my back. My father was kneeling beside me, his face unreadable in the dark.
‘Callie?’ he said. ‘What are you doing out here?’
The Buried Ark Page 3