Project 137

by Seth Augenstein

  A jolt ran up my spine, prickling the hairs on my neck.

  But before I could inspect it, three headlights appeared behind us, through the glass of the first-floor door. I clicked my own headlamp off and urged the kid onward through the darkness.

  We kept going. The kid led me down a black passageway and out a different door, at the opposite end of the gymnasium. The sunlight blinded the two of us for a second. But I pushed the boy around the corner, to the basketball courts in the middle of the U-shaped school. We ducked behind a dumpster.

  I tore off the NBC suit, first unzipping the helmet, then pulling off the sleeves and the legs. Then I noticed the kid just standing there, staring at me. Terror twisted his face, and he looked like tears were about to burst from his big eyes.

  “What’s wrong, kid?” I asked.

  “Are you going to rape me?”

  I stared at him, unsure at first if I heard him correctly. I stepped out of the NBC suit.

  “No, kid. I’m not going to rape you,” I said, peeling the suit off my shoe. “Why would you say something like that?”

  “My mom says bad guys rape kids when they get them alone.”

  “I’m not a bad guy. The people in the white suits are bad guys.”

  “But you were wearing a white suit, too,” the boy said. “And a mask.”

  I shook my head.

  “No, I was just pretending so I could save you,” I said. “I’m not a bad guy.”

  “Oh,” the kid said.

  “Do you know who Meruda is?”

  The kid just shrugged and shook his head.

  “Alright,” I said, crushing the NBC suit into a tight ball, “let’s get you back to your teacher.”

  Just before I threw the suit in the dumpster, I noticed the label still stuck to the glove—the one I’d taken from the boy’s shirt. I peeled it off, then held it up in the light. My heart skipped a beat. It was the same label I had seen at the hospital, the same serial number and bar code I had discovered in the rooms of the dead patients.

  BOW-137.

  I held it up to the kid.

  “Where did you get this?” I said.

  “The bad guy put it on me,” the kid said, face crinkling like he was about to cry. “He said it was like a name tag, so he wouldn’t forget me.”

  “He was one of the bad guys,” I said, nodding, patting the kid’s back gently. “Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here.”

  I pocketed the label. We walked away quickly, across a cracked basketball court and an overgrown baseball diamond, to a fence at the edge of the schoolyard. The patrol of hazmat-suited soldiers was nowhere to be seen. The kid went right toward a one-foot gap and squeezed through. I squeezed to fit through, got stuck, then backed up and vaulted over it with a huge effort. We looked at each other for a second.

  “You’re not going to ebduck me, are you?” the kid said, blinking up at me.

  “No, kid—I’m not going to abduct you,” I said. I slapped at my pants, and a puff of green dust drifted off on the breeze. “I’m one of the good guys. I’m getting you back to your class.”

  The kid lifted his wrist, and typed into the Atman implant there, one of the miniature models.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Messaging my teacher,” the kid said. “Telling her I’m with a stranger. Just in case.”

  “Just in case what?”

  “Just in case you ebduck me. Or rape me.”

  I could only shake my head. What the hell were they teaching kids nowadays? We walked along the eastern side of the school, back in the direction of Lanza’s truck. I changed the subject, trying to assuage his fears of my intentions.

  “What is your name, by the way?”

  “I can’t tell you,” the kid said. “My parents told me not to tell strangers. My dad’s in the government.”

  “I’m a doctor. You can trust me,” I said.

  The boy shook his head. I didn’t push the issue. We walked on—me ahead, slowing every few steps to let the kid’s tiny legs catch up. I noticed the intersection where the other class had turned away from the school, and I turned us in that direction.

  “What happened at the school just now?” I asked.

  The boy shrugged, still staring down at the ground in front of him.

  “It was a big crash, and everyone hid under desks, like in the active-shooter drills,” he said. “Then there were two men in white clothes who pushed everyone out. They kept me and Timmy behind. They said we needed to help them find some of the kids from the other classes. Then the bad man who you hit covered our faces with something that hurt my nose and face. It made us sleep and when we woke up, we were tied up. The man acted really weird. He kept talking into a radio about some lady. But then you came and untied us.”

  “A lady?”

  “Yeah. Some lady. That lady you asked about. Mary Two—that name. I don’t know her.”

  I shook my head. Meruda. Whoever or whatever it was, it was everywhere. The kid scratched his head, stumbling a bit back and forth, like an old drunk, as he talked.

  “The man was really weird,” he continued. “He kept looking at this thing in his hands. He walked around us. He looked at the thing. It was like an Atman or something. He stuck something in our mouths for a while.”

  “He stuck something in your mouths?” I said, alarm rising in me.

  “Yeah, I think it was a ther-mom-et-er,” the kid said. “But it was bigger than that. He kept pushing buttons on it after he took it out. It would make beeping noises. It was like…”

  Here the kid trailed off. We were cresting a hill, and I could see a group of people—a school class—at the side of the road, underneath a willow tree. The boy walked faster.

  “It was like what?” I asked. “Tell me.”

  “It was like the guy was doing a speri-ment or something. Like how we did a science speri-ment with the cricket and the pins and knife in class last week.”

  The kid shuddered at the memory. I patted him on the head. Heading down the slope, practically jogging now, we drew closer to the group.

  “He didn’t touch you anywhere—he didn’t do anything to you?” I asked.

  “No,” the kid replied. “Just the ther-mom-et-er. In my mouth. No rape or ebducktion. Just the speri-ment.”

  I pointed the kid in the direction of the crowd, and then walked quickly across a yard in the direction of Lanza’s truck. When I reached the corner, I caught flashing lights out of my peripheral vision, off to the west. I walked quicker. When I rounded the corner, Lanza was leaning against the back of the pickup, exhaust swirling around him. He glowered at me as I approached.

  “You left the truck,” Lanza said.

  “I just took a look around the school,” I said. “Curiosity got the better of me.”

  “There was a report of a non-authorized person abducting a child in the evacuation zone,” said Lanza.

  “No abduction,” I said. “I just took a walk around the perimeter, seeing if I could put my medical license to good use.”

  “Your suspended medical license,” said Lanza, shaking his head, as we climbed in the truck. “You know, Joe, there are stiff penalties for messing around with a Bureau of Wellness investigation. Stiffer than losing your job. Stiffer than losing your house.”

  “There were two kids inside the school. They were tied up. They were part of an experiment, Zo. They were left there to die.”

  “So you actually went inside an unauthorized, potentially-biohazardous accident scene.”

  “I put on an NBC suit before I went in.”

  “And you stole an NBC suit. From the Bureau, while you’re suspended. Then you went into the tightly-controlled scene of an investigation. And abducted a child.”

  “I didn’t keep the suit or anything,” I said, my voice rising despite my best efforts to keep it calm. “Something had to be done, Zo. Those two kids were tied up by some rogue researcher. God knows what he was up to.”

  Lanza turned the
truck off the curb, and we drove to the ultrahighway.

  “I don’t want to hear any more,” Lanza said. “Since I helped you flee criminal trespass and abduction charges, I’m not saying anything. I saw nothing, and neither did you. You weren’t there. We don’t even know each other.”

  “Fair,” I said. “You know what happened? What brought the drone down?”

  “It’s all in the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Wellness. They’re the only ones who know.”

  “But I thought the hospital was the lead agency,” I said.

  Lanza scratched his brow.

  “You know—that was weird,” he said. “Some of the people were Bureau, others were military. But I didn’t get a good look at them—they were all wearing NBC suits. Never seen military and Bureau work together like this.”

  I said nothing. Lanza lit a cigarette, and the dashboard sensor began beeping again. Lanza coughed, then spit out the window. I opened my window and held my breath against the smoke.

  PROPHYLACTIC FUNERAL

  U.S.A., 2087

  TWENTY-EIGHT CHILDREN PERISH IN SCHOOL DISASTER, the Newark FactSecond headline screamed. But the number was inaccurate, as usual—and O’Keefe reported no cause of death. The victims were all cremated at a special undisclosed facility within days, McDermott told me over a brief call. He told me all the nurses and the rest of the doctors were asking about me, and some had taken up a petition demanding my job back. I told him not to worry—I’d find a way to beat the Kraken, in the end.

  Rothenberg, the trauma surgeon, was buried two weeks after he died. No one could understand what the delay was, especially since Rothenberg was Jewish and for thousands of years they buried their dead as soon as possible—as Rothenberg continually told me over the years. Friends waited for an obituary that never appeared, and then hundreds of Atmans received a two-line message over Amicus on a Thursday, saying the wake and funeral would be held the very next night, honoring their beloved husband, father, and friend. It gave only a time and an address for the funeral home—no pictures or any personal messages about the doctor who had given his life for his patients, the friend and colleague with whom I had worked with for ten years since we graduated medical school together.

  All this Mary relayed to me in the bathroom the day of the funeral. She had returned from Tough Mothers Pregnancy Boot Camp, showered, and shaken me awake. It was already late afternoon. I’d been sleeping the day away in the weeks since my suspension, the sun streaming in unfamiliar angles into the bedroom until it breached my lidded eyes, finally jarring me awake. I would start looking at some of the Bureau files I still had access to, before dinner. But this was the latest I’d started the day yet—Mary had already started simmering the tofu and vitamins for dinner.

  I stumbled to the bathroom and stood in the shower, soaping and rinsing, my blood warming under the hot stream. She was on the other side of the curtain, detailing her face at the mirror with rouge and some black touches of mascara. I watched her blurry form through the clear plastic and could smell jasmine fill the room as she sprayed perfume on the nape of her neck, the tender undersides of her arms.

  I couldn’t keep hold of the slippery white soap. It dropped once and twice, then once again. The last time I stooped to pick it up, and my foot gave way. I grabbed hold of the steel bar on the wall, but only after banging my heel on the hard side of the tub. I howled in pain.

  “Everything all right?” she said.

  “Yeah, I just dropped the soap,” I said. “I can’t get a grip.”

  She pulled aside the curtain, looking my naked body up and down. She shook her head.

  “I’m not talking about the soap,” she said, “You’ve been a zombie recently, Joe. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  I lathered and rinsed off my chest. I shook my head, sending suds flying. I gave her the best smile I could approximate, then turned to the wall and kept scrubbing.

  “I lost my job, Mary,” I said. “A decade of my life down the drain. I’ve got to start all over again. Maybe I’ll do housecalls—that could be the future. Or maybe I could become a lumberjack or something. I’ve already started the beard.”

  She reached over, ran a palm across my stubbly wet cheek.

  “Honey, the Bureau doesn’t certify anyone to do housecalls. And there aren’t enough trees left to cut down for you to be a lumberjack,” she said. She shut the curtain and drifted back to the mirror. Her voice hardened, an empty echo on the bathroom tiles. “Why don’t you get those papers back to the hospital, and see if you can pull some strings to get your job back? It would be so much easier. Neal Wetherspoon could help you out.”

  I turned off the spigot. Swishing the curtain aside, I met her eyes and reached for a towel. I stepped out of the tub.

  “He’s not with the hospital any more, either,” I said.

  She turned around, uncapped lipstick raised.

  “He retired again?” she said.

  “No,” I said, toweling my hair roughly. “Just in hiding. Mary, something’s going down at the hospital. We’re better off staying away from all that.”

  She stared at me, eyebrows arched. I blinked, drying my face.

  “I didn’t know what to tell you before. But now I’m sure,” I said. “There’s something criminal going on at Saint Almachius. Wetherspoon and I aren’t exactly sure what it is—but it’s the reason we were forced out.”

  “You’re a whistleblower, you mean,” she said. “And you’re being retaliated against.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” I said, plumbing my ear canal with a pinky finger.

  “Then why don’t we get a lawyer? Honey, if you’re doing the right thing, then you need to make a stand. Any court would side with you on that. Any judge would see reason.”

  I bent toward her and kissed her cheek.

  “Mary, the courts don’t work that way. Not anymore, they don’t.”

  Her mouth twisted. Color drained from her face. She yelped.

  “Oh God, Joe,” she said, shoving me at the door. “Go—get out!”

  She pushed me out, slammed the door, and the retching began. Still naked and dripping on the floor, I pressed my ear to the door. Each heave echoed louder off the tiled walls than the one before.

  “Dear, are you alright?” I said.

  “Get…ready…the funeral,” she barked.

  Ten minutes later, I was totally dry, my suit was on, with the tie and cuffs adjusted. I went back by the bathroom, and just as I was about to knock, she opened the door. She looked perfect in her form-fitting black dress, a hint of pregnant plump at her middle, and her lipsticked mouth a deep crimson. But a red streak ran from her mouth’s edge to the middle of her cheek.

  “I’m ready—let’s go,” she said, smiling tiredly.

  “I think you missed a bit,” I said, licking a finger, wiping at the rouge smudge with it. It wouldn’t come off—it was thicker than lipstick. It was dried blood.

  “Oh—that,” she said. “That’s fine. I’ll get it.”

  “That’s blood, Mary. That’s not normal.”

  “Don’t tell me about my body, Joe. I know what the references say, and I know that this is not unheard of with the vitamins program. And Abbud said I have a special case.”

  “Mary, I don’t think—”

  “Joseph! Enough!”

  Whenever she called me Joseph, it meant I should stop talking. So we walked out. Outside, I got behind the wheel, and she slipped in the passenger’s side door. I tried to start the car, but it only clicked. Sighing, I fastened my seatbelt, then blew into the hole on the steering column. It started at the third turn of the key. Mary’s car had all the new standard safety features.

  “Why do you always drive?” she said.

  “Because I’m more aware of the dangers of the road. I have better road awareness.”

  “You’re paranoid, you mean,” she said.

  “I’m not paranoid,” I said. “I’ve just reached a point in my life where I reali
ze that everyone is out to get me.”

  “That’s very funny, Joe. Haha.”

  We cruised onto the ultrahighway. The sun had slid behind the clouds on the horizon, and the holographic ads off the roadway started to glow brighter in the dusk. Saxas announced some developments in the Asia situation and an outbreak of unknown disease in a small town in western Iowa. But Mary reached over and flicked it off.

  “I wanted to hear that,” I said.

  “We need to talk, Joe,” she said.

  “Can it wait?” I said, my hand on the radio knob.

  “No.”

  My hand fell to my lap. A moment of silence. The road hummed underneath the car. My mind raced for a moment. She had found the bank statements. She knew the numbers, the bottom line. I braced myself. This could be the moment that she asked about our money and absolutely everything fell apart. I felt the air fragment all around me.

  “What’s going on at the hospital? You have to tell me,” she said.

  I breathed, and it was almost a sigh of relief. But I switched lanes and swallowed hard, trying to look casual.

  “If I could tell you exactly, I would, dear,” I said. “But I don’t know, exactly. I can tell you people are doing things they shouldn’t be doing, and people are dead because of it. I promise I’ll tell you when I know more.”

  “Like how you told me about the plague right away.”

  Another moment of silence. She shook her head.

  “But that’s history,” she said, shaking her head.

  Silence again. I didn’t want to say anything more. I couldn’t say anything more. I was just glad there was no talk of the money.

  “So—what I really wanted to talk about,” she said. “Do you ever get the feeling we’re not ready to be parents?”

  I shook my head. I drifted over to the fast lane, punched the accelerator.

  “Why would you ever say that?” I said.

  She raised her hand to her temple, like she was battling some pain inside. With her other hand she rummaged in her bag for something—a rattling bottle of pills.