Inhuman

by Kat Falls

  “I don’t think, I know he did.”

  I swallowed. Again the fate of the last fetch played like a viral clip in my mind. Another heavy steel door awaited us at the bottom of the stairs. Spurling swiped her fob across the pad. This door slid open with a hiss to reveal a darkness so cold and profound that dread swelled like a wave and crashed over me.

  Spurling swept her hand toward the doorway. “After you.”

  I paused, unable to see anything in the darkness before me. I hoped that this wasn’t a trick — that if I stepped into the room, Spurling wouldn’t slam the door behind me, lock it, and leave me alone in the dark. Inhaling deeply, I stepped through the doorway and felt rewarded when the overhead lights snapped on to reveal an enormous white-tiled chamber. The air was stale, and dust coated the sparse furnishings: desks, chairs, and posts connected by chains to form a labyrinth of aisles.

  “What is this place?” I eyed the two steel doors ten feet apart on the far wall. The doors were identical to the one we’d just come through. More camera bots floated like buoys inches from the high ceiling.

  “It was a checkpoint chamber. One of ten entry points into the West.” Director Spurling waved a hand at the door on the left. “The tunnel is just six hundred feet long, the width of the bottom of the wall, but with the security checks, it took days to reach this room. The people who didn’t pass the medical tests were forced to return to the East through that door.” Spurling pointed to the one on the right.

  Shivering, I looked away, only to notice a beat-up leather satchel on the chair beside me.

  “Recognize it?” Spurling asked in a silky tone.

  I inhaled sharply and then wished I’d hidden my reaction — but she already knew the messenger bag was my dad’s. This was her show, and I was just playing the part I’d been assigned.

  Hefting the bag onto a desk, she dumped out the contents. Curiosity drew me closer. Some of the items could have belonged to anyone: a flashlight, rolled bandages, a bottle of iodine, matches, a map. But the bone-handled machete was unquestionably my dad’s. And then there was the long rolled canvas stuffed into the side pocket. I didn’t know what it was specifically, but I’d seen my father with others like it.

  Spurling pulled the canvas free and unrolled it. “Personally, I’ve always thought Lautrec was gaudy and overrated.” She turned the canvas toward me.

  It showed a nightclub scene. The top hats and gowns, the garish face in the foreground, were all rendered with distinctive “heavy contouring” as my dad would say — unmistakably Toulouse-Lautrec. “It could be a copy.” I knew how ridiculous that sounded the second the words were out of my mouth.

  “I doubt Mack would risk his life for anything less than the original.” Spurling rerolled the canvas.

  I flinched. She’d used my dad’s nickname like she was his friend. “If that’s all you’ve got against him — his bag — then —”

  In answer, Spurling activated her tablet and tapped the screen. The fluorescent lights dimmed overhead and the chamber filled with spectral light as the camera bots projected a holographic recording of the very room we were standing in. Tracing her finger across her tablet, Spurling made the camera bots circle the ceiling until the projected twin doors were aligned with the actual doors. I braced myself for what was to come, curling my hands into fists.

  “For the past year, I was convinced that your father was bribing some line guard to smuggle him over the wall. That’s how most fetches get east. But I couldn’t find any evidence of it. And then I remembered the exodus tunnels.”

  The projected images were shadowy, though clear enough that I could see the door on the right slide open.

  “After the West closed,” Spurling went on, “the tunnels were backfilled with twenty feet of rubble. But if someone wants something badly enough …”

  The chamber brightened as a flashlight beam appeared in the open door. It took me a second to realize that it was part of the recorded projection.

  Spurling’s expression turned smug. “When I had the cameras installed last week, I didn’t expect such a fast payoff.”

  I watched with dismay as a ghostly version of my father stepped through the steel door, his messenger bag in one hand. I scooted out of the way as he walked past, and then I caught Spurling’s faint amusement. When the ghostlike form of my dad was halfway across the chamber, a red light started flashing. Behind him, the door began to slide shut. My father whirled and raced for the tunnel, darting right through me. At the last second, he slipped sideways into the opening, but the messenger bag in his hand was too big and he dropped it just as the door closed.

  Spurling frowned and froze the image. “He tripped the motion sensor, which was supposed to lock down this chamber with him in it. That way he and I could have had a face-to-face chat. Instead, I have an overflowing case file, damning evidence, and a missing fetch. That wasn’t the plan.”

  A knot of pain tightened in my gut. It tightened and tightened, hard and cold, until it was the only thing I felt. Why had she shown me this? My father was all I had and she knew it. “What do you want?”

  She turned off the projection and the lights came back on. “I just told you,” she said, tucking the tablet under her arm. “I want to talk to Mack privately, but at this point, that’s not going to happen.”

  By “talk to” she meant “arrest.” Why didn’t she just say it?

  Because she doesn’t want to arrest him, I realized with icy clarity. She wants something else.

  Spurling watched me without a word, as if willing me to piece it together.

  I drew in a shuddering breath. So, what did she want? To talk to Mack privately, or so she’d said. But that wasn’t really it. No, what Director Spurling specifically wanted was to talk to a fetch. One who had been all the way to Chicago and back … My heart rose in my chest. Maybe my dad’s fate wasn’t sealed after all. “You want him to fetch something for you. Something you left behind in Chicago.”

  “Aren’t you the bright one?” Spurling took a cream-colored envelope from her suit pocket. “If Mack brings me what I want, I’ll destroy the recording and his file. All the information he’ll need is in here.” She handed me the envelope.

  I stiffened, seeing the catch. “I can’t give it to him. I don’t know where he is.”

  “Oh, but you do.” She tipped her head toward the twin steel doors.

  A heavy wave of cold moved through me. “You want me to go into the Feral Zone?”

  “Of course not. You’d never make it across the river. Go as far as Arsenal Island.”

  My vision tunneled. Spurling, the envelope, the chamber, all slipped back as if to give me room to think. She was offering me the chance to save my dad. I didn’t need to think. I’d do whatever it took — even cross the quarantine line.

  Spurling watched me with sharp eyes. “You want to help your father, don’t you?”

  I nodded, not trusting my voice.

  “Good.” She began putting my dad’s things back into the messenger bag, all except the rolled canvas and the map. “There’s a doctor on Arsenal Island — Dr. Vincent Solis.” She spread the map on the table and pointed to a rectangular island in the middle of the Mississippi River. “Dr. Solis will probably know where your father is. He has an ongoing deal with Mack.”

  “What kind of deal?”

  Spurling gave me a thin smile. “I’m not at liberty to say. Just know that I have chosen to look the other way when it comes to Dr. Solis’s activities … for now anyway.”

  The map had been printed pre-exodus — there was no symbol on it to indicate the Titan wall, which ran from the Canadian border with its trenches and electrified fence to the Gulf of Mexico. Also, the map showed dozens of bridges crossing the Mississippi River when only one was still in existence. Known as “the last bridge,” it crossed into the quarantine zone by way of Arsenal Island. Everybody knew that. Everybody also knew that the last bridge was heavily guarded.

  “Isn’t Arsenal Island a line patr
ol camp?”

  “It is. Dr. Solis lives there with the guards. So, don’t get caught,” Spurling said as if it was no big deal. “If you do, don’t expect me to intervene on your behalf. I’ll deny everything. By the way, when you find Mack, tell him that he has five days to complete the fetch.”

  “Why only five days?”

  “The patrol is shoring up the rubble along the east side of the wall. They start work on these tunnels Thursday morning.” She flicked a hand at the two steel doors.

  “Tell them not to!”

  Spurling arched a penciled brow. “The line guards work for the Titan Corporation. They don’t take orders from government officials, not even me.”

  “But what if it takes me five days to find him?”

  “Arsenal Island is directly on the other side of the wall. It should take you ten minutes to get there. After that, either Dr. Solis knows where Mack is hiding or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, do not go looking for your father. Just come back here and press the call button outside that door. I’ll come get you.”

  “If I try but don’t find my dad, will you still destroy the evidence against him?”

  “Please. Why would I put myself at risk if I have nothing to show for it?”

  “But —”

  “The more time you waste now, the less Mack will have for the fetch.”

  Before my legs locked up entirely, I slung the deadweight of the messenger bag over my shoulder and picked up the map. I would find my father and give him the letter and then he’d do the fetch and everything would go back to normal. I could do this. I would do this. And I wasn’t going to freak out about it … much.

  I lifted my dial. “I need to call our housekeeper and tell him that I’m okay.” Howard had to have heard from some parent that I’d been hauled off by biohaz agents. He was probably outside the quarantine center at this moment, trying to kick down the door.

  “Howard was arrested hours ago.” Spurling’s tone was offhanded. “I have to say, for an old guy, he’s a tough nut to crack.”

  “Crack?”

  “He’s being questioned about his knowledge of your father’s illegal activities.”

  I stared at her, wanting to shout that Howard didn’t know anything. But was that true? I wasn’t sure of anything anymore.

  “By the way,” she went on, “we dropped off your pets at the local shelter. You have until the end of the week to claim them.”

  And I’d thought this woman couldn’t make me hate her any more. “What if I can’t?”

  “Well, someone might adopt the one-eyed dog or the diabetic cat, but the rest? Even you have to admit they’re a pretty sorry lot.”

  I drew a breath against the tightness in my chest. Director Spurling had just painted a bulls-eye on everyone and everything I loved. And if I didn’t do what she wanted, she was going to start pulling the trigger. I cleared my throat. “I’d like to get going now, if that’s okay.”

  “Of course.” She led me across the room to the twin doors. “I knew you were the right girl for the job, Delaney,” she said, and pressed her fob to the pad on the wall.

  The door on the right rolled open and I found myself staring into a gaping darkness. Feeling close to heart failure, I stepped into the tunnel.

  “One last thing,” she said. “I’m sure you’ve heard that the Ferae virus isn’t as lethal as it was nineteen years ago.”

  I nodded, though I wasn’t planning on testing it out.

  “Then you’ve probably also heard that instead of dying, when people get infected now, they mutate.”

  A cold feeling crept along my neck. “Those are just stories.”

  “No, actually, they’re not. So be careful.”

  Every muscle in my body went rigid. “What? Are you saying there are mutants over there?”

  “On the far side of the river, yes. Stick to the island and you should be fine. Good luck, Delaney.” Spurling pressed the lock pad again and the door slid shut behind me.

  The instant the enormous door closed, darkness engulfed me, sending me into a frenzy to get the flashlight out of the messenger bag. I switched it on but didn’t feel any calmer.

  Mutate how? I wanted to scream through the steel. The rumors I’d heard were never clear on that point. The only consistent part was that criminals who were banished to the Feral Zone ended up deformed somehow. But who believed stories that were whispered at slumber parties?

  I couldn’t catch my breath, and it wasn’t because of the stupid too-tight vest this time. I leaned back against the cold metal door and aimed the flashlight down the tunnel. The beam pushed the shadows back only a few feet and the air tasted of mold and decay.

  Enough. I had to get moving. If I didn’t find my dad, if he didn’t complete the fetch, Spurling wouldn’t destroy the evidence against him. I forced myself to start walking, though seeing nothing but darkness ahead was plucking at my last nerve. With each step I took, I felt like I wasn’t traveling forward but back through time, and when I reached the end of the tunnel, I’d emerge into the most horrific event in American history. I aimed the flashlight’s beam at walls covered in graffiti — names, prayers, and notes from people who had been sent back into the Feral Zone. I lifted my dial. There was no phone signal, of course — not under tons of concrete. Still, I tapped the screen and let the dial hang from my neck, where it would record whatever I passed.

  My footsteps echoed off the concrete floor and ceiling, which would alert anyone or anything up ahead that I was coming. Shaking off that unhelpful thought, I moved on and came to an open suitcase with clothing spilling out. In the beam of the flashlight, I saw more suitcases and bags scattered ahead, along with random possessions: a bottle of Scotch, the Bible, a child’s tin robot. And then more ominous items: a handgun and gas mask that stopped me in my tracks. Talk about a reality overload.

  What was I doing here? No matter what Spurling wanted to tell herself, I hadn’t been trained as an apprentice fetch. I wasn’t prepared to venture into the Feral Zone. Or anywhere, really. My dad had hired Howard to be my bodyguard as much as our housekeeper.

  The weight of the wall pressed down on me. The tons of ugly concrete had been so hastily piled, who knew if it was structurally sound? Everything about the plague had been hasty. The speed with which the virus overtook the eastern seaboard. How quickly the rest of the world cut us off. The hurried mass exodus to the West. And the erection of first a fence and then the wall, courtesy of the Titan Corporation. Titan had been required to build the wall in reparation for creating the Ferae virus. A just punishment. Or so I’d thought until now as I stood beneath the result.

  I hurried on, humming to distract myself, but then heard the sound echoing off the tunnel walls. I fell silent. The last thing I wanted was to attract something’s attention. I picked up my pace and didn’t stop again until I stepped into a cavernous room like the one I’d just left. A checkpoint chamber. My flashlight beam swept the dusty air. Across the room, a sloping rock pile blocked off the passageway. I hurried toward it, only to trip halfway. The flashlight flew from my grip as I landed on something stiff and dry. Crawling over it, I snatched up the flashlight and looked to see what I’d fallen over. My chest compressed, forcing the air from my lungs and a scream from my throat. Dozens of dried-up corpses lay scattered across the floor. Worse, some were in pieces. Shriveled limbs were flung every which way like hunks of beef jerky.

  I scrambled back so far that my shoulders banged into the wall. I stayed huddled there, heart pounding, until I was certain that if I got to my feet, I wouldn’t bolt back the way I’d come. Mummified corpses couldn’t hurt me. They had to have been lying here since the exodus ended seventeen years ago. These were people who’d been denied entry into the West — probably because they’d been infected.

  I shoved my flashlight under one arm and pulled out my hand sanitizer. According to my tenth grade biology teacher, you couldn’t catch Ferae from dirt or grime, which this chamber was crusted with, or a corpse, even if the
person had died from Ferae. Just the same, I squeezed sanitizing gel into my shaking hands. Ferae was like rabies, passed on by the bite of an infected mammal … humans included. That’s why people said we could never reclaim the East — because there would always be animals that carried the disease, and we had no vaccine for Ferae and no cure.

  That didn’t matter though, because I wasn’t going to get infected with Ferae. I flicked the flashlight forward and made a wide semicircle past the corpses, while facts about the early days of the plague crowded my mind. How the infected became aggressively psychotic — like rabies times ten — and would go in search of people to bite: doctors who were trying to help them, friends, even family. The military had been forced to firebomb a lot of the eastern cities to stop infected people and animals from spreading the virus.

  The rubble was stacked up to the ceiling. After a moment of scanning my flashlight across the sloping mess, I spotted a gap at the top where fresh air drifted in. My nerves jumped: What if an infected person had wiggled through that hole and had been inside the tunnel with me all along? I whirled, my flashlight beam whipping around the chamber. Nothing. But now my heart was beating triple-time and sweat slicked my palms — not so good for rock climbing. But then, neither were high-heeled ankle boots.

  To even have a shot at making it to the top, I’d need to use both hands. I set my dial on glow — enough to see by — and left it recording. Why not document my first glimpse of the East? After one last scan of the chamber, I turned off the flashlight and stuffed it into the messenger bag. I reached for a large chunk of broken cement for leverage, only to recoil from the slimy feel of it. Water had trickled in through the hole along with the air. The whole rock spill was a slippery mess. Heart still on overdrive, I started up the treacherous mound, backsliding every few feet. While I climbed, I kept my eyes pinned to the gap in the rubble above, just in case something crawled in.

  Finally I reached the hole, a long burrow with a lighter shade of dark at the end. It was so narrow, I couldn’t believe that my father had managed to get through it. But he had. And so would I. I took off the bag, pushed it into the space ahead of me, and with a deep breath I wiggled in.