Inhuman

5

Guardsman Cruz had shifted into stone-cold line guard mode — every inch of him, every synapse. Probably something the patrol hammered into the guards during training: how to seem simultaneously decent and reasonable yet capable of sudden violence. It was chilling. Even if my nerves weren’t stretched to snapping point, which they were, I wasn’t going to try spinning another lie. Not only did I not have the practice, I’d be worse under duress. And with his steely gaze pinned on me, Guardsman Cruz was laying on some serious duress.

“I can’t tell you,” I said, choking out the words.

A muscle ticked along his jaw as he studied me. “What’s your name,” he said finally. Grammatically, it was a question, but it sure didn’t sound like one.

“Lane.”

“Just Lane?”

“Delaney Park.” Not a lie, though I was hoping that he’d think Park was my last name.

“You crossed the quarantine line, Lane. Maybe you noticed it — that three-thousand-mile-long wall back there. Your being here is a capital offense and I am two seconds from arresting you, which is exactly how long you have to tell me what you’re doing here.”

“Okay, all right. I’m looking for Ian McEvoy.”

Shock leapt into Cruz’s expression. Clearly he recognized the name. “I was hoping Dr. Solis could tell me where he is,” I finished.

“He can’t.” If Guardsman Cruz could have crammed his answer down my throat, he would have.

“How do you know?”

“Because I report to Dr. Solis.” Cruz ground out the words. “I spend every day in his lab, doing whatever he needs me to because he’s trying to cure Ferae. You know what he’s not doing? Associating with a known fetch.”

“That’s not what Director Spurling says.”

“Who?”

“The head of Biohazard Defense.” I tried not to sound smug. Smug would not go over well with this guy.

Cruz shot a look over his shoulder and then snagged my wrist and pulled me deeper into the shadows between the barracks. “They caught Mack, didn’t they?” His tone was low, hard, and not even a little sympathetic. “What did he tell them about Dr. Solis?”

“Nothing! Ow,” I said pointedly, raising my arm. He released my wrist and I took a moment to gather my adrenaline-soaked thoughts. Spurling would have a fit if she knew that I was confiding in a line guard, but I couldn’t see another way forward. “Director Spurling doesn’t have my dad, just evidence against him.”

He sucked in a sharp breath. “Mack is your father?”

“Yes. And she already knew about his deal with your boss. Will you please take me to him now?”

“No,” he said in a tone that closed the discussion as definitively as the Titan wall had closed off the West. “Go back to Director Spurling,” he said, practically spitting her name, “and tell her that the doctor doesn’t know Ian McEvoy. Has never even heard of him.”

“She’s not going to buy that. Anyway, she’s not looking to arrest anyone. She has a job for my dad.”

His eyes widened. “A fetch?”

“Yes. If he brings her back what she wants, she’ll destroy his file.”

Cruz scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Hopefully, he was reassessing the situation. He turned that considering gaze on to me. “And this director sent you here — to Arsenal Island — to tell Mack about this deal?”

When I nodded, he frowned. “How old are you? Sixteen?”

“Seventeen.” Close enough. My birthday was coming up — in three months, anyway.

“What your dad does, fetching, it’s a felony. But that doesn’t give an official the right to send a kid over here where you could get infected or killed or worse.”

I bristled. “There’s something worse than being killed?”

“How about being eaten alive?” he asked casually.

All right, yes, that was worse, but kid was simmering in my gut. “You know, having my dad’s file erased would be good for Dr. Solis too. ’Cause if they put my dad on trial, it’ll come out that —”

“I can fill in the rest. Thanks.” Despite his cool tone, Guardsman Cruz didn’t look mad. He tipped his head up to the sky and let out a slow breath.

Wait — was he really considering not following orders?

“What’s your name?” I asked quickly. “Your first name.” I didn’t want to talk to a killer robot anymore. I wanted him to be a person.

His expression relaxed a fraction. “Everson.”

“Where’s that?”

“It was a town in Pennsylvania where my mother grew up.”

He had a mother? Wow. Guardsman Cruz was becoming more human by the second.

“Stay here,” he said, nudging me aside. “As in really stay this time.”

I blocked his path. “Where are you going?”

“To get you some clothes. No guard would be caught in that getup on Arsenal.” He nodded at my vest. “Not even if she’s off duty.”

“It isn’t mine. My friend —”

“Do something about your hair.” He pushed past me, clearly not interested in why I was dressed like the step-daughter of a stripper.

I slumped against the barracks wall. Everson, Pennsylvania. It sounded like a nice town, but was the boy nice?

Please. He was a line guard. Nice didn’t apply.

The killer robot returned with a pile of clothes, combat boots, and a gray cap. I tensed, waiting for more guards to appear. When no one marched around the corner, I relaxed a little. He hadn’t reported me. For now.

Everson held out the bundle. “I got them from the women’s barracks, so feel guilty. Some guard is going to —”

“From a clean pile?”

“Does it matter?”

It did to me. But based on the press of Everson’s lips, I dropped the issue. “Where can I change?”

“Here.”

“Uh, no. I — can’t.”

“And I’m not taking you anywhere dressed like that. So either change or cross back over the bridge.”

Another nonchoice. His eyebrows — straight and dark over his eyes — gave him a stern look, which made me reluctant to push my luck. I’d just have to change fast. “Are you going to turn around?”

He shifted his gaze to the basketball court — like that would be enough to put me at ease. What did he think I’d do? Clobber him when his back was to me?

Gritting my teeth, I kicked off my ankle boots and got the snaps on the vest undone, but that was as far as I could make myself go. As humiliating as the vest was, I didn’t want to change into someone else’s dirty laundry in front of a line guard while standing outside in an alley where anyone might waltz by.

“What’s taking so long?” Everson asked.

He looked over. Good thing I hadn’t flung off the vest. “Can you please turn around? I promise not to make a run for it.”

“So you say.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“I don’t want you doing something stupid.”

Nice. “Well, how about trusting that I’m smart enough to realize that you know your way around here and I don’t. So, if I were to run, I’m guessing you would catch me.”

“Good guess,” he agreed.

“And considering you’re as big as a cow, I’d probably end up dirty and hurt. Two things I hate. So, believe me, I’m not going to run.”

He eyed me like a pop quiz that he hadn’t studied for, but then gave me his back — ramrod straight, of course. I felt a little better. I still had to get undressed outdoors, but it was reassuring to know that logic worked over here.

“Cow?” he asked, sounding put out.

“Bull. Whatever. Big.” I gave the shirt a sniff. It wasn’t too bad, so I pulled the stretchy neoprene over my head. Between the shirt’s high neck and the three-quarter sleeves, it would keep me a lot warmer than Anna’s vest had.

“Ready,” I said, once I’d gotten everything on, including the boots. I transferred the bottle of hand sanitizer and guard badge from my jeans to a side pocket on the camo pants.

Everson tugged my cap low over my eyes. “You’re lucky I’m the one who found you. Any other guard would have hauled you off to Captain Hyrax.”

I tensed. “Why didn’t you?”

“I didn’t drink the Kool-Aid. Come on, let’s go.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant and I didn’t care. Just so long as he didn’t turn me in. “One minute.” I tried to roll up Anna’s vest but the vinyl was too stiff. It didn’t fold well either and was not fitting easily into the messenger bag.

“You’re not planning on following in your father’s footsteps, are you?”

I wasn’t, but that didn’t mean I wanted some line guard pointing out my shortcomings as an amateur fetch. I shot him a dirty look.

“Just asking,” he said.

Was that amusement in his voice? He tugged the vest out of my hands and snatched up my white boots. “Hey,” I hissed as he stalked off. “I have to give those back.”

Stepping from between the barracks, he tossed the things into the first trash can he passed. I frowned but didn’t try to fish them back out. As grateful as I was for his help, Guardsman Cruz was starting to rub me the wrong way. Were all line guards so bossy? I tucked my ponytail under the cap and joined him.

“You’ll pass.”

Darn right, I’d pass. I could do the whole ramrod posture, perfectly-made-bed robot thing. Okay, maybe not the marching and the push-ups …

“Good job on the boot size,” I said, but he just waved me forward. Whatever. I wasn’t here to make friends. Still, I was pleased that everything fit. I even felt a little tougher dressed in military pants and a carbon-gray top. Now I could slip through the shadows like a real fetch instead of shining like a beacon of westerness in white vinyl.

We didn’t take the trail the guards with Bangor had hurried down. Instead, Everson guided me alongside the fence that enclosed the island. A high-pitched yammering echoed from the far bank of the river. Everson didn’t seem to hear it. I paused to peer through the chain link into the darkness beyond, but could see nothing.

“Don’t touch the fence,” he warned.

“Is it electrified?”

“Yeah. It’s set to stun-lethal. Meaning, touch it once, the shock will knock you flat. Touch it again, your heart stops.”

When the yammering started up again, he jerked his chin toward the sound. “Feral.”

I looked, but I couldn’t even make out the river, let alone the east bank. “You mean an infected animal?”

Everson cocked his head, listening. “Human, I think. One that’s too mutated to talk.”

My gut twisted. Mutated. So the rumors were true. “Is Bangor going to mutate?” Everson nodded. “Okay,” I said, though it absolutely wasn’t. “But why was he acting crazy?”

“Right now he’s just fevered. Bangor’s body is trying to kill the virus with heat, but it’s not working, so his body keeps upping his temperature.”

“Why were his eyes yellow?”

“Because even if he lives through the fever, Bangor is still grupped.” Everson glanced back at me. “Genetically corrupted.”

Ahead of us, a pool of light illuminated a massive gate made of chain link and corrugated steel, topped with cantilevered spikes wrapped in razor wire. As if that wasn’t intimidation enough, a guard booth was stationed beside it. Everson pointed past the gate. “We’re at the bridge.”

“The last bridge?” I peered through the fence and could make out its skeletal silhouette against the river.

“The one and only.”

Despite all the spotlights aimed at the gate, the bridge itself was disappointingly dark. Probably another security measure. Still, when Everson wasn’t looking, I pushed record and aimed my dial toward it. It was a famous landmark, after all.

“Listen,” he whispered.

I’d heard it too. A child’s voice saying, “Please help us.” The guard didn’t stir in his sentry station, even though he had to have heard the child as well. Everson slipped behind the guard booth. I followed and saw a little girl in a filthy T-shirt clinging to the chain link on the bridge side. Clearly the gate itself wasn’t electrified. A man in a blood-soaked shirt and torn pants lay in a wagon beside her, his limbs draped over the edges. At Everson’s approach, the girl looked up with eyes a nice, normal shade of brown. If she wasn’t infected, where had she come from?

“Please help him.” The girl pushed a snarl of black hair behind her ear. She had to be ten at most.

Everson peered through the fence at the unconscious man. “Was he mauled?”

Mauled. The word wound up my spine and clung there.

“My mom turned. She went — She was about to …” Shuddering, the girl looked down at the man in the wagon.

His face was tipped away from us, which was probably a good thing since the sight of his chest and right leg made me light-headed. I couldn’t tell stripped shirt from stripped flesh. Only the faint wheeze of his breathing revealed that he was alive.

“Get away from the gate, you stupid grunts!” shouted an angry voice. I turned to see a ruddy-faced guard step from the booth. His gaze skipped over me and onto Everson. “You,” he spat. “What a surprise.”

Ignoring him, Everson crouched so that he was at eye level with the little girl. “What’s your name?” he asked in a voice so low and gentle that I couldn’t help but stare. Where was this guy when I was back on the hill? Or standing in my underwear between the barracks? Moments that wouldn’t have been nearly so nerve-wracking if he’d used that tone with me.

“Jia,” the girl said, still clinging to the chain link.

“Did your mother bite him, Jia?” Everson nodded to the unconscious man with blood pooling by his outstretched leg. The girl gave a pained shrug. “Where is your mom now?” Rising, Everson looked past her into the darkness beyond.

Jia took up the man’s hand. “He shot her….” She said it so softly I wasn’t sure that I’d heard her right. “To save me.”

The ruddy-faced guard stalked toward us. “I told you, no one here is going to help you,” he snapped at her. “So, take off. And take him with you.” He pointed his gun at the mauled man.

“I’ll test them.” Everson turned on the guard. “If they’re clean, you’re going to open the gate.”

The two glared at each other. Then, surprisingly, the guard retreated. “Sure, let them in. What do I care?” he snarled before slamming back into the booth. “Let them all in, big man.”

Guess I wasn’t the only one who thought Everson was bossy.

“I need to get some things so I can test your blood,” Everson told Jia. “And his.”

“But he needs help now,” she cried.

“I can’t touch him yet. But I’ll be back with a couple of medics who’ve had a lot more training than me. If he’s not infected, they’ll help him. I promise.”

As we hurried toward a large building, there was so much I wanted to know — like did uninfected people live in the Feral Zone? But I was too worried about the little girl to think straight. “If Jia’s mother is dead, where will she go? Who’s going to take care of her?”

“If she tests clean, I’ll take her to the orphan camp,” Everson said. “It’s on the other end of the island.”

Orphan camp. That didn’t sound too awful. It had to be better than living with a mother who attacked people. “How could Jia’s mother have mauled that man?” I asked from behind him.

“Later.”

But as another series of screeches erupted from beyond the fence, I caught up with Everson. “What is happening to these people?”

He sighed, relenting, but didn’t slow his pace. “You know Ferae is a bootloader virus, right?”

“I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means Ferae carries foreign DNA. Animal DNA, to be exact. So do other viruses — swine flu, avian. The difference is that Ferae dumps its load into the infected person’s system. It’s called viral transduction. And when that happens, the person is epically grupped.”

“Because he’ll mutate … but how?” The screech from across the river trailed off. A chill skittered through me and I stopped short. “They become animals.”

“Not all the way.” Everson faced me, his expression grim. “They’re still part human….”