The Girl With All The Gifts (35 page)

That seems to be the end of the story, but Melanie waits, tense and expectant, in case there are questions.

“Christ almighty!” Gallagher moans. He buries his head in his folded arms, and keeps it there.

Justineau turns to Parks. “What do we do?” she asks him.

Because like it or not, he’s the one who’s going to formulate their strategy. He’s the only one who really has a chance of bringing them out of here, now that they’ve run out of e-blocker and there’s an army of murderous lunatics camped on their doorstep. She’s heard stories about what the junkers do to people they take alive. Probably bullshit, but enough that you’d want to make sure they took you dead.

“What do we do?” Gallagher echoes, unfolding from his crouch. He stares at her like she’s crazy. “We get out of here. We run. Now.”

“Not yet we don’t,” Parks says deliberately. And then when they turn to him, “Better to roll than to run. I’m maybe an hour away from getting the generator working – and from where I stand, this bucket still gives us our best chance. So we don’t make a break for it. We lock down until we’re good and ready.”

“It’s anomalous behaviour,” Caldwell muses.

Parks gives her a shrewd glance. “From the junkers? Yeah, it is.”

“They were in convoy when we saw them. Using the base’s vehicles to cover the ground fast. Switching to a fixed base – a command post of some kind – makes no sense. A group that size is going to find it hard to live off the land. Scavenging has proved difficult enough even for the four of us.”

Justineau can just about find room to be surprised. “Wow,” she says, shaking her head. “Why don’t you go and tell them that, Caroline? They nearly made a really stupid mistake there. They need someone with your wisdom and foresight to smack their heads together and get them thinking straight.”

Caldwell ignores this sally. “I think we may be missing something that would make sense of this,” she says, forensically precise. “It doesn’t make sense as it stands.”

Parks comes away from the door-frame, rubbing his shoulder. “We lock down,” he says again. “Nobody goes out there until further notice. Private, did you find any duct tape in those lockers?”

Gallagher nods. “Yes, sir. Three full rolls, one started.”

“Tape up the windows. No telling how good those flare-baffles are.”

When he mentions flares, Justineau feels a rush of shame and retrospective dread. When she fired that flare last night, she could have brought the junkers right down on their heads. Parks should have shot her when he had the chance.

“And check how we’re doing for water,” he’s saying now. “Doc, you were going to see if there was any in the filtration tank.”

“The tank is full,” Caldwell says. “But I wouldn’t advise drinking from it until the generator is running. There’s algae in there, and probably a lot more contaminants besides. We can rely on the filters to do their job, but only once they get some power.”

“Then I guess I’d better get back to work,” Parks says. But he doesn’t leave. He’s looking at Melanie. “What about you?” he demands. “Are you holding up? Been most of a day now since any of us put any blocker on.”

“I’m fine now,” Melanie tells him in the same pragmatic tone – as though they were discussing some problem external to both of them. “But I can smell all four of you. Miss Justineau and Kieran a little, you and Dr Caldwell a lot. If I can’t go out to hunt again, you’d better find some way to lock me up.”

Gallagher looks up quickly when Melanie says she can smell him, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s looking a little pale around the gills.

“Handcuffs and a muzzle aren’t enough?” Parks asks.

“I think I could pull my hands out of the handcuffs, if I had to,” Melanie tells him. “It would hurt, because I’d have to scrape the skin all off, but I could do it. And then it would be very easy to get the muzzle off.”

“There’s a specimen cage in the lab,” Dr Caldwell says. “I believe it’s big enough, and strong enough.”

“No.” Justineau spits out the word. The anger that went to sleep while Melanie was talking yawns and stretches, awake again in an instant.

“It sounds like a good idea,” Parks says. “Get it ready, Doc. Kid, stay close to it. Like a hop and a jump away. And if you feel anything…”

“That’s absurd,” says Caldwell. “You can’t expect her to self-monitor.”

“Any more than we can expect you to,” Justineau says. “You’ve been itching to get your hands on her ever since we left the base.”

“Since before that,” Caldwell says. “But I’ve resigned myself to waiting until we reach Beacon. Once we’re there, the Survivors’ Council can hear us both out and make a determination.”

Justineau is two syllables into an obscene rejoinder when Parks claps his hand down on her shoulder and turns her round to face him. The brusqueness of it takes her by surprise. He’s almost never touched her, and never since his abortive pass on the roof of Wainwright House.

“Enough,” he says. “I need you in the engine room, Helen. The rest of you, you know what you’re doing. Or you should do. The kid goes in the cage. But you don’t touch her, Doc. For now, she’s off-limits. You cut her, you’ll answer to me. Trust me, all those slides you spent last night making up will not survive the encounter. Understood?”

“I’ve said I’ll wait.”

“And I believe you. I’m just saying. Helen?”

Justineau lingers for a moment longer. “If she comes near you,” she says to Melanie, “just scream and I’ll be right there.”

She follows Parks all the way aft to the engine room, where he closes the door and leans his weight against it.

“I know things are bad,” Justineau says. “I’m not trying to make them worse. I just … I don’t trust her. I can’t.”

“No,” Parks agrees. “I don’t blame you. But nothing’s going to happen to the kid. You’ve got my word.”

It’s a relief to hear him say that. To know that he recognises Melanie as an ally, at least for now, and won’t let her be hurt.

“But I’d like you to do me a favour in return,” Parks goes on.

Justineau shrugs. “Okay. If I can. What?”

“Find out what she really saw.”

“What?” Justineau is mystified for a moment. Not angry or exasperated, just at a loss to understand what Parks is saying. “Why would she lie? Why would you even think that she …? Shit! Because of what Caroline said? Because she fancies herself as an anthropologist? She doesn’t know shit. You can’t expect psychopaths like the junkers to make rational decisions.”

“Probably not,” Parks agrees.

“Then what are you talking about?”

“Helen, the kid’s talking hairy-arsed nonsense. I’m pretty sure she saw something last night. And it was probably something that scared her, because she’s really sincere about wanting us to leave. But it wasn’t junkers.”

Justineau is getting angry again. “Why?” she demands. “How do you know? And how many times does she have to prove herself to you?”

“None. No times. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on her now. But her story doesn’t hold together at all.”

He picks up one of the manuals he’s been working from, which he’s left lying on the cowling of the generator, and sets it aside so he can sit there. He doesn’t look happy.

“I can see why you wouldn’t want to face up to this,” Justineau says. “If they followed us from the base, it means we screwed up. We left a trail.”

Parks gives a sound that could be a laugh or just a snort. “We left a trail you could follow facing backwards with your head in a bucket,” he says. “It’s not that. It’s just…”

He raises a hand and starts counting off on his fingers.

“She says she saw all men, no women, which means this is a temporary camp. So why don’t they put up a perimeter? How come she can walk right in there and walk right out again without being seen?”

“Maybe they have lousy security, Parks. Not everyone has your skill set.”

“Maybe. And then we have those guys conveniently coming in just at the right moment and saying they’re following someone. And the tattoo. Private Barlow, back at the base, he had that same word on his arm. Some coincidence.”

“Coincidences happen, Parks.”

“Sometimes they do,” Parks agrees. “But then there’s Rosie.”

“Rosie? What’s Rosie got to do with this?”

“She hasn’t been touched. We found her standing right here in the street, and there isn’t a mark on her. Nobody tried to jack the door open, or to lever out one of the windows. There was all that dirt and grime on her, and not so much as a handprint or a smudge. I’m having a hard time believing that fifty junkers could walk through here and not see her. Or that they could see her and not want to take a look inside. Come to think of it, I’m having a hard time believing that you and Gallagher managed to do your foraging yesterday without bumping into them. Or that they didn’t see your flare. If they really are following our trail, they’re missing a hell of a lot of tricks.”

Justineau is looking for counterarguments, and finding some, when she runs right into the one piece of evidence that Parks didn’t see. Those sidelong looks at Caldwell … it was as though Melanie was really aiming her story at an audience of one all along. Talking to the doctor over the heads of everyone else in the room.

So she doesn’t argue. There’s no point when she’s more than half sold. But she doesn’t let it rest there either. She’s not going to go off and interrogate Melanie without knowing what Parks’ play is.

“Why did you do that then?” she demands. “Back in there?”

“Why did I do what?”

“Order a lockdown. If Melanie is lying, there’s no danger.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you didn’t try to get to the truth. You acted like you believed every word. Why?”

Parks takes a moment to think about that. “I’m not going to bet our lives on a hunch,” he says. “I think she’s lying, but I could be wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Bullshit, Parks. You don’t second-guess yourself like that. Not from what I’ve seen. Why didn’t you at least call her on it?”

Parks rubs his eyes with the heel of his hand. He looks really tired all of a sudden. Tired, and maybe a little older. “It meant something to her,” he says. “I don’t know what, but unless I’m dead wrong, it’s something she’s way too scared to talk about. I didn’t push her, because I don’t have a bastard clue what kind of something that might be. So I’m asking you to find out, because I think you can get her to tell you what scared her without making it any worse for her than it is already. And I don’t think I can. We don’t have that kind of relationship.”

It’s the first time since Justineau met Parks that he’s actually surprised her.

Without thinking about it, she leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. He freezes just a little, maybe because where she kissed is mostly scar tissue, or maybe just because he didn’t see the move coming.

“Sorry,” Justineau says.

“Don’t be,” Parks replies quickly. “But … if you don’t mind me asking…”

“It’s just that you talked about her like a human being. With feelings that might sometimes have to be respected. It felt like that was an occasion that ought to be marked somehow.”

“Okay,” Parks says, trying that on for size. “You want to sit around and talk about her feelings some more? We could—”

“Later maybe.” Justineau heads for the door. “I wouldn’t want to distract you from your work.”

Or get your hopes up, she adds to herself. Because Parks is still someone she mostly associates with blood and death and cruelty. Almost as strongly as she associates herself with those things. It really wouldn’t be a good idea for the two of them to get together.

They might breed, or something.

She goes through into the lab where she sees that Caldwell has already set up the specimen cage. It’s a fold-out structure, like the airlock, but sturdy. A cube of thick wire mesh about four feet on each side, supported by solid steel uprights that lock into place in brackets set into the walls of the lab. It stands in the forward corner, where it doesn’t impede access to work surfaces or equipment.

Melanie is sitting in the cage, knees hugged to her chest. Caldwell is doing very much what Parks is doing with the generator – overhauling a complicated piece of equipment, one of the largest in the lab, so deeply and completely absorbed that she doesn’t hear Justineau come in.

“Good morning, Miss Justineau,” Melanie says.

“Good morning, Melanie,” Justineau echoes. But she’s looking at Caldwell. “Whatever you’re doing,” she says to the doctor, “it’s going to have to wait. Go take a cigarette break or something.”

Caldwell turns. Almost for the first time, she lets her dislike of Justineau show on her face. Justineau greets it like a friend; it’s really something to have got through that emotional barricade.

“What I’m doing is important,” Caldwell says.

“Is it? Too bad. Get out, Caroline. I’ll tell you when you can come back.”

For a long moment they’re face to face, almost squaring off against each other. It looks like Caldwell might go for it, damaged hands or not, but she doesn’t. It’s probably just as well. She looks bad enough right now that a stiff wind would knock her down, never mind a stiff punch in the head.

“You should examine the pleasure you take in intimidating me,” Caldwell says.

“No, that might spoil it.”

“You should ask yourself,” Caldwell persists, “why you’re so keen on thinking of me as the enemy. If I make a vaccine, it might cure people like Melanie, who already have a partial immunity to
Ophiocordyceps
. It would certainly prevent thousands upon thousands of other children from ending up the way she has. Which weighs the most, Helen? Which will do the most good in the end? Your compassion, or my commitment to my work? Or could it be that you shout at me and disrespect me to stop yourself from having to ask questions like that?”

“It could be,” Justineau admits. “Now do as you’re told and get out.”

She doesn’t wait for an answer. She just bundles Caldwell to the forward end of the room, pushes her through into the crew quarters and closes the door on her. The doctor is so weak that it isn’t even hard. The door doesn’t lock, though. Justineau waits there for a moment or two in case Caldwell tries to come back in, but the door stays closed.