by Pam Jernigan
He didn’t know how to tell her she was wrong.
#
Leo actually looked a little upset. His expressions were subtle, but she thought she could read them now. “Hey, I’m fine.” Her hand lifted, but she re-directed it before she could follow the urge to touch his arm in reassurance. She pushed her hair back, instead.
Still, if he was going to be concerned… She made a mental note: Don’t leave the camp without telling Leo. Somehow.
Meanwhile, she had some gruesome lab notes to read. She started in on the next filing cabinet. She wasn’t convinced the files were in any sort of order, but they did seem at least vaguely chronological. There were more autopsy photos, with subjects less visibly damaged, which almost made them more disturbing. Lots of griping about stupid people although the context was unclear. Karen suspected anyone who disagreed with the doctor would be labeled stupid.
He’d made a lot of notes about ingredients for his formulas. He seemed to be constantly working on one. She would assume he was making progress towards his extermination project, except… he wasn’t particularly happy when some of the tests ended up with dead subjects.
“Version 47 was tested today… female subject, wounded. She was injected at sixteen hundred Tuesday. By Wednesday midday she was in a vegetative state. Time of death was 7:42pm. The wounds would have been survivable, therefore it was my formula that affected her. Very exciting, shows I’m on the right track. Just need to adjust the mixture…”
She blinked. Okay, he had a formula that would kill the Mindless? That was useful; they were hard to kill. Except, wait, had the subject actually been Mindless before he’d started experimenting?
“The University Ethics Board is threatening to revoke my grants. They don’t realize the stakes, the potential.”
So the Board, whoever they were, shared her reservations. She swallowed hard.
“My lab is nearly complete. Curt has found soldiers and support workers; they’re fortifying this camp, modifying it to my specifications. Once it’s ready, I’ll have much more freedom. Vaccine - with the need for regular boosters - is very effective.”
He had a vaccine? She thought he hadn’t been looking for one. Well, if the soldiers were vaccinated, it explained part of their willingness to go out of camp and face the Mindless. She shifted, resettling the file folder in her hand. As long as they kept getting booster shots, they were safe. Which would be good news if she trusted Borsa.
“Stumbled across what might be the healing factor present in the Mindless. Will need to test…. Amplified version is ready… soldiers brought in a prisoner and shot her in the gut for me.”
Her stomach churned in sympathy. Unbelievable.
“Gave the injection. Unconsciousness followed. Preliminary results are encouraging…. Normal human would not survive, but test subject shows signs of recovery… Final results: Test subject is not Mindless (no more so than before) and the wound is healing nicely, with no indication of infection. Told them to hold onto her for a few more weeks, just to observe…”
Oh, god, there were pictures to go with that one. Karen put the file down and walked away, breathing deeply. She had to get out of this camp.
Restless, she wandered closer to the cage. “Leo, this guy is one sick puppy. Give me straightforward violence any day.”
Leo, unsurprisingly, looked a little lost, so she expanded. “Dr. Borsa does nasty things to his experiments. He’s not right in the head. I mean, I get that science is important and all, but some of the stuff he’s done...”
Leo turned to look at Red Tie.
“Yeah, I hope your friend there doesn’t die.”
“They said… he might.”
Considering the dude had been interested in killing her a few days ago, she had a hard time getting too concerned, but Leo looked troubled. “He might not. Just have to wait and see.” She was overcome by a huge yawn and laughed a little as she came out of it. “Okay, I think it might be time for me to go.”
“O… kay,” Leo said, although he didn’t sound happy. Then again, when did he ever? But he was capable of being almost happy, and right now, he didn’t seem to be.
She paused, looking at him. “Seriously, Leo, do your best to stay off this guy’s radar. Don’t make him want to test anything on you, okay?”
Leo nodded, expression serious, no subtle signs of amusement or sadness or anger this time. “Be careful.”
She half-smiled. “I will if you will.”
His face relaxed a little. “Deal.”
“Deal. Okay, I’m off to bed.”
“Put file away,” he reminded her.
“Oh, right, thanks.” That would have been brilliant, leaving the file out. She closed the file and put everything back in the file cabinet as quickly as she could. Bed was starting to sound really inviting. She closed the drawers, gave the area one last look, and then turned to leave. As she neared the cage, she smiled. “Good night, Leo. See you tomorrow.” One way or another.
CHAPTER TEN
Leo watched the doctor. It was easier now that he didn’t have to pretend to be knocked out, but still, he must be careful. Borsa sat at a desk peering into a glowing screen. Leo wasn’t bored, exactly, but his mind did wander. He thought back to yesterday, when he’d tried not to broadcast his emotions, trying to figure out what he’d done.
Could he do the opposite? Project it? They had reacted to him before. Fear and anger might be easiest; they were familiar to the others. So. How did he generate those?
That one stumped him until a memory emerged from the fog. Karen, sitting helpless on the floor. Another of the Mindless following her fear. Ready to… He frowned, not liking where this was going. Later, on the road, the crowd had all sensed her energy, and would have torn her apart. Fear and anger were unavoidable now.
Leo looked at the others in the cage, the ones who would kill his Karen without blinking. They had been fairly quiet all morning, but now they stirred. It was fascinating. He was stirring them up. Not much, because he didn’t have real emotions, just the pale echoes of his kind. But it was enough to affect the others.
He looked across the cage at Red Tie, who was beginning to move, as well. He had been the one tracking Karen. The anger increased.
Nothing had happened, though, Leo reminded himself. Red Tie had just been following instinct after all. Same as Leo had. No sense wasting the energy. He let the fear and anger bleed away - he was so much better at not feeling things - and the others in the cage settled down. Karen was safe. Like Katrina. He was starting to see why Karen kept saying that about her sister. It kept the fear at bay. For a while.
#
Karen maneuvered her way into partnering with Pip for morning chores, and contrived to get them away from the others, at the far end of the garden. She glanced at the hoe in her hand and sighed. She could attack weeds for a while. Might even be therapeutic.
“So, Pip… can I ask you a weird question?”
Pip reached down to pull out the weed she’d fatally wounded. “Okay. What is it?”
Karen smiled and struck at a weed. She missed, the hoe sticking in the reddish dirt. “Have you ever…” Karen didn’t quite know how to phrase this, not even sure what she was asking. “Ever got friendly with someone, you know, inappropriate? Like, that your Dad would never approve of. Bad boy in high school or something?”
Pip paused, considering that. “Boyfriend?”
“Friend-friend,” Karen clarified hastily. “And you shouldn’t even be friends with them. Like, you had to keep it secret?”
“Well, around here there’s not much room for that kind of secret.” The hoe rose and fell. “But before we left the city? Yeah, I guess. Way back when, before the Mindless ruined everything.”
Karen bit her lip, to refrain from correcting Pip. The Mindless were as much victims as anyone else. Really shouldn’t be having that conversation. “So, who was it, and what made it inappropriate?”
“It
was an older girl, went to a different school.” Pip swung her hoe at another weed, almost pulling it out of the ground. “I got picked on, a lot, when I was little. The accent, prob’ly. Some kids were pestering me, one day after school, and this girl came along. She yelled at ‘em, and was all loud and rude. Taller than them, so they ran off.” She reached down for the weed carcass and tossed it to the side. “Her name was Ronisha. She was always in trouble, maybe in a gang, and my mom didn’t want me anywhere near her. But… she wasn’t like that with me. She, like, adopted me. We’d just talk, mostly.”
Just like me and Leo. “About what?”
Pip shrugged, swinging at another weed. “Families, the world. I told her about my school, helped her out a little in a couple of subjects.” Bending over, to see weeds better, Pip grinned up at Karen briefly. “She taught me brand names for vodka. Smirnoff, Absolut, Grey Goose, Stoli… My mom would’ve blessed me out. I always felt so daring.”
Karen huffed a laugh, swinging her hoe at another clump of weeds. She missed. “Wow, this thing is hard to control.”
Pip shook her head. “It’s heavy; you got to get used to the way the weight moves. Keep on, you’ll get it.”
“If you say so.” Karen tried again, frowning in concentration, taking a few practice swings. “So what happened with Ronisha? Mom find out? Apocalypse?”
“No.” She watched Karen’s swings. “There you go, you’re getting it. Don’t try to swing too hard. Gravity is your friend. All you got to do is lift it up and control the fall.”
Karen tried it. “Yeah, that’s better. Thanks.”
“Not a problem,” Pip assured her, moving on to the next clump. “Anyway, Ronisha… she was trouble. Almost got me killed when it caught up with her. Gang fight. They took me down right quick. I was in the hospital for a couple of days. Never did find out what happened to her.”
Probably also just like me and Leo. “So, was it worth it? If you could go back and start over, would you still make friends with her?”
Pip let her hoe swing down to rest on the ground, holding the handle. “Never thought about it before.”
“I mean… hospital.”
Pip nodded thoughtfully. “And once I was home again, Mom nearly killed me. Grounded with extra chores for months.”
“Yeah, that turned out badly.” She lined up to attack more weeds, sighing.
“Could say that,” Pip allowed. She got her hoe back in hand and moved along. “Why are you asking?” She looked sidelong at Karen. “You considering making friends?”
Karen grimaced, swinging at the weeds. Not good enough. Try again. “Not exactly,” she said. The second blow was more successful at knocking the weed out of the ground, and she reached down to uproot the plant. It moved, but clung stubbornly to the soil. Okay, one more whack should do it.
“So, you’ve already made friends, then,” Pip decided. “You’re just not sure what to do about it. Is it Curt?”
“What?” Karen’s grip on the wooden handle loosened, and she nearly hit her own foot. “Uh, no.” She hadn’t seen Curt in that light at all; had barely thought about him, really. “I mean, I already have a boyfriend - Jake.” Speaking of guys she’d barely given any thought to, these past few days. What did that say? “Just need to get back to him.” And stop thinking crazy.
“Huh. Curt’ll be disappointed. He thinks you’re hot. I reckon he was hoping you’d stay.”
“Well, he’ll have to deal with it.” Carefully, she took a better grip on the handle and swung the hoe. She hit almost where she was aiming.
“Fair enough. Suzette’ll be happy, though,” Pip said, moving onto the next row. “She likes collecting men. She’s sleeping with Dr Borsa, but she keeps Curt dangling, too. We don’t got that many women here, and at least for him, I don’t count.”
“She can have them both,” Karen said, laughing at little. She didn’t have the breath to do much more.
They worked in silence for a few minutes before Pip spoke again. “You know what, though… With Ronisha? I’d do it over again. Good friends… strong friends like that? Not easy to come by.”
#
Shortly after the doctor was dragged off to lunch, Red Tie opened his eyes, and blinked in confusion.
Leo felt his fear. Stronger than before. He leaned over into Red Tie’s field of view and said, “You… okay?”
Red Tie pushed up to a sitting position, looking around. “What? How?”
That was two words more than Leo had ever heard any Mindless speak. Huh. The doctor might be onto something. Leo sat back. “Quiet.”
“Yeah.” Red Tie looked around for awhile. “How… did… I get… here.”
Leo shrugged. “Were Mindless.”
Red Tie stared at him and slowly nodded. “Kinda still am.”
“They experimented.” He was very careful with the long word. “Don’t talk… when doctor is here. Could be bad,” he added, remembering what Karen had said. “Dissected.”
“O… kay.”
“I’m… Leo. You?”
Red Tie stared at him, frowning slightly. After a long pause he said, “I’m… Jamal.”
#
Waking up at midnight was getting harder. She was tired, and less enthusiastic about her excursions. Even if she found out what Borsa was up to, what good would it do? If she didn’t get home, this was pointless - and if they caught her snooping, they wouldn’t let her go home. Better to take something while she still had it. And talking to Leo… was just confusing. She contemplated rolling over and going back to sleep.
No, she couldn’t. She had questions, and they needed answers. Besides, she wouldn’t get caught; she had Leo to watch her back. Sighing, she forced herself out of bed and got ready to sneak out.
When she got to the lab, Leo was not standing by the bars waiting for her and she felt a flicker of concern. “Leo?” she called softly.
Movement attracted her attention. There he was, standing up, coming towards her. She smiled.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hey. How’s your friend?”
Leo looked around, back to where he’d been sitting. Oh, he’d been sitting with Red Tie. Interesting. “He’s… okay.”
“Good,” she said, surprised at the relief she felt.
“Told him,” Leo continued. “Not to talk.”
“Oh. That’s an issue? Huh.” She looked at Red Tie again, a little longer this time. He was sitting with his eyes closed. Looking exactly the same as before. “Guess the doc is onto something.” Borsa was kind of sick and twisted, but not stupid. This was a dangerous game she was playing, but she couldn’t stop now. “Time to file surf. Wish me luck.”
#
Leo watched as Karen searched the file drawers, wondering what she would think about Jamal. She wasn’t afraid of him… well, no more than she was of any of the others. Jamal remained confused and tired. He had listened though. Whenever the doctor was around, he stayed silent and inert. Borsa had been noisily disappointed in the lack of change.
“Le… o?”
Leo turned to see Jamal looking up at him from his sitting position.
“Who…?”
“Karen,” Leo answered, not sure how to describe her. Words, at least the ones he knew, seemed inadequate. He settled for saying, “Friend. Not kill,” he added for emphasis. “Protect.”
Jamal looked across the room, considering that. “If friend,” he managed, “why not help you?”
Leo frowned at this response. “She protects. I protect. You not kill,” he repeated, a little more forcefully. He intended to win this argument.
Slowly, Jamal nodded.
Leo detected a reluctance to agree. “Okay?” he asked.
After a long moment, Jamal shrugged, the resistance draining out of him. “Okay.”
It would have to be good enough. Not that it mattered, with him in the cage and her safely outside. He turned away, towards Karen.
She studied
another file, and stiffened, her emotions flaring wildly, brighter than he’d seen in days. Anger, shock, even more anger. The Mindless stirred.
#
Karen seethed. Holding the file carefully, she walked towards the cage. Leo stood as near to her as possible, his posture rigid as he watched her. “You have got to see this,” she said, displaying the file.
He didn’t even look, focused on her face. “Can’t read.”
“Oh. Right. Well, then I’ll tell you. The good doctor over here is the reason you were Mindless.”
His eyes widened.
“Yeah, I found it, right in his notes. He wasn’t trying to destroy your brain cells, or anything — I don’t think — but he came up with this serum to create super-soldiers. Geez, these people read too many comic books, only I guess his formula kind of did work, just not the way he wanted it to.” She stopped to take a breath. “He wanted ‘enhanced’ soldiers — he doesn’t specify what the enhancements are, or at least I don’t understand what he’s written. There’s something about empathy, which, present company excepted, has never seemed to be a feature of the Mindless. Looks like he sold the formula to a couple of different countries. Only the side-effect was to destroy most higher brain function and make the subjects more aggressive. Apparently his early test subjects were stronger than he thought — or maybe less mindless — and escaped. And the changes were endemic, system-wide, so they spread the infection. He made super-aggressive sub-humans, and they went out and started attacking people. Biting or bleeding, they infected others. Oh man, Leo, this guy destroyed the whole freakin’ world!”