The Girl with All the Gifts

18

Dr Caldwell and Dr Selkirk wash Melanie all over her body, very thoroughly, with disinfectant soap that smells just like the spray from the showers. She submits to this in silence, her thoughts racing.

“Do you like learning about science, Melanie?” Dr Caldwell asks her. Dr Selkirk shoots Dr Caldwell a slightly startled look.

“Yes,” Melanie says guardedly.

When she’s clean, Dr Caldwell picks up some sort of tool about the size of a blackboard rubber. She presses on it, and it starts to hum in her hand. She puts it against the side of Melanie’s head, draws it across her scalp in short, straight lines. It sends vibrations through her skin into her skull.

Melanie is about to ask what this thing is, but then she sees Dr Selkirk lift up a handful of blonde hair and drop it into a plastic bin.

Dr Caldwell is thorough, going over the whole of Melanie’s head twice. The second time she presses harder and it actually hurts, just a little. Dr Selkirk scoops away more drifts of Melanie’s hair. Then she wipes her hands carefully with a wet paper towel taken from a dispenser on the wall.

Dr Caldwell applies bright blue paint to Melanie’s scalp, from a plastic jar labelled BACTERICIDE GEL E2J. Melanie tries to imagine what she must look like now, bareheaded and blue. She must be a little bit like a Pictish warrior. Mr Whitaker showed them some pictures of Picts, one time when his voice was blurry, and he couldn’t stop laughing at the phrase pictures of Picts. If someone went into battle naked, the Picts said he was sky-clad. Melanie has almost never been naked. It’s not a nice feeling at all, she decides; it makes her feel vulnerable and ashamed.

“I don’t,” she says.

“What?” Dr Caldwell sets down the brush and wipes her fingers against her white coat, leaving sky-blue streaks.

“I don’t like learning about science. I want to go back to the classroom, please.”

Dr Caldwell meets her gaze, for the first time. “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” she says. “Close your eyes, Melanie.”

“No,” Melanie says. She’s certain that if she does, Dr Caldwell will do something mean to her. Something that will hurt.

And suddenly, like seeing the other side of an optical illusion, she knows what that something will be. They’re going to cut her up and put pieces of her in jars like these pieces of other people all around her.

She throws her weight against the straps, struggles desperately, but they don’t move at all.

“Should we try some isoflurane?” Dr Selkirk asks. Her voice is unsteady. She sounds like she might be going to cry.

“They don’t respond,” Dr Caldwell says. “You know that. I refuse to waste one of our last few cylinders of general anaesthetic making the experimental subject feel vaguely drowsy. Please remember, Doctor, that the subject presents as a child but is actually a fungal colony animating a child’s body. There’s no place for sentiment here.”

“No,” Dr Selkirk agrees. “I know.”

She picks up a knife, of a kind that Melanie has never seen before. It has a very long handle and a very short blade – the blade so thin that when it’s edge-on to her, it’s almost invisible. She holds it out to Dr Caldwell.

“I want to go back to the classroom,” Melanie says again.

The knife slips through Dr Selkirk’s fingers and falls to the floor just before Dr Caldwell can take it. It makes a ringing sound as it hits, and again as it bounces. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Dr Selkirk yelps. She bends to pick it up, hesitates, straightens again and takes another from the instrument tray instead. She flinches from Dr Caldwell’s glare as she hands it over.

“If the noise is troubling you,” Dr Caldwell says, “I’ll remove the pharynx first.” And she puts the cold edge of the blade against Melanie’s throat.

“It’ll be the last fucking thing you ever do,” says Miss Justineau’s voice.

The two women pause in their work and look towards the door. Melanie can’t at first, because if she raises her head she’ll cut her own throat on the blade of the knife. But then Dr Caldwell moves her hand away, and she’s free to bend her neck and take a peek.

Miss Justineau is standing in the doorway. She’s holding something in her hands – a red cylinder with a black tube attached to one side of it. It seems to be pretty heavy.

“Good morning, Miss Justineau,” Melanie says. She’s dizzy with relief, but the ridiculous, inadequate words are hard-wired into her. She couldn’t keep them in if she tried.

“Helen,” Dr Caldwell says. “Please come in, won’t you? And close the door. This isn’t exactly an antiseptic environment, but we’re doing our best.”

“Put the scalpel down,” Miss Justineau says. “Now.”

Dr Caldwell frowns. “Don’t be absurd. I’m in the middle of a dissection.”

Miss Justineau advances into the room, stopping only when she comes to the bottom end of the table where Melanie’s bare feet are strapped down. “No,” she says, “you’re at the start of a dissection. If you were in the middle of it, we wouldn’t be talking right now. Put the scalpel down, Caroline, and nobody gets hurt.”

“Oh dear,” Dr Caldwell says. “This isn’t going to end well, is it?”

“That’s kind of up to you.”

Dr Caldwell glances at Dr Selkirk, who hasn’t made a move or said a word since Miss Justineau came into the room. She’s just standing there with her mouth half open, her hands clasped to her chest. She looks like someone who’s staring at a hypnotist’s watch and is about to go under.

“Jean,” Dr Caldwell says. “Call security, please, and tell them to come and remove Helen from the theatre.”

Dr Selkirk glances at the phone on the work surface and takes a half-step in that direction. Miss Justineau swings round a lot faster and brings the fire extinguisher down on the phone. The handset breaks in two with a dry, complicated crunching sound. Dr Selkirk jumps back.

“Yeah, look at it, Jean,” Miss Justineau tells her. “The next time you move, you’re getting this right in your face.”

“And you’ll make the same threat if I try to go to the door, or the window, I suppose,” Dr Caldwell says. “Helen, I don’t think you’ve thought this through. It really doesn’t matter whether I call off this procedure or not. You can take Melanie out of the lab, but you can’t take her out of the base. Every gate is guarded, and outside the gate there are perimeter patrols. There is no way you can stop this.”

Miss Justineau doesn’t answer, but Melanie knows that Dr Caldwell is wrong. Miss Justineau can do anything she wants to do. She’s like Prometheus, and Dr Caldwell is like Zeus. Zeus thought he was big and clever because he was a god, but the Titans weren’t scared of him at all. Of course, in the story, the Titans lost in the end – but Melanie is in no doubt about who’s going to win this battle.

“I’ll take it one step at a time,” Miss Justineau growls. “Jean, undo those straps.”

“Don’t,” Dr Caldwell says quickly, “do anything of the kind.” She gives Dr Selkirk a brief, fierce stare as she says this, then turns her full attention back to Miss Justineau.

And softens on the instant. “Helen, you’re not well. The situation here has put all of us under terrible strain. And this fantasy of rescuing the test subject… well, it’s part of your response to that stress. We’re all friends, and colleagues. Nobody is going to be reported. Nobody is going to be punished. We’re going to work this out, because really there isn’t any alternative.”

Miss Justineau hesitates, lulled by this gentleness.

“I’m going to put the scalpel down,” Dr Caldwell says. “I’m asking you to do the same with your… weapon.”

And Dr Caldwell does what she promised. She shows the scalpel, holds it high for a second, then sets it down on the edge of the table, close to Melanie’s left side. She does this slowly, with exaggerated care. So Miss Justineau is watching the hand with the scalpel. Of course she is.

With her other hand, Dr Caldwell takes something small and shiny from the pocket of her lab coat.

“Miss Justineau!” Melanie shrieks. Too late. Much too late.

Dr Caldwell thrusts the shiny something into Miss Justineau’s face. There’s a sound like the hiss of the shower spray, and a smell on the air that’s sour and scalding and takes your breath away. Miss Justineau gurgles, the sound cut off very suddenly. She drops the fire extinguisher, and she’s clawing at her face. She sinks slowly to her knees, then topples sideways on to the floor of the lab, where she twitches and writhes, making noises like she’s choking.

Dr Caldwell stares at her dispassionately. “Now go and get a security detail,” she says to Dr Selkirk. “I want this woman under military arrest. The charge will be attempted sabotage.”

Melanie slumps back on to the table with a moan of anguish – both for herself and for Miss Justineau. Despair fills her, makes her heavy as lead.

Dr Selkirk heads for the door, but that means she has to skirt around Miss Justineau, who is still on her knees, wheezing and moaning as she tries to draw a breath through the burning miasma of whatever it was that Dr Caldwell hit her with. It’s heavy in the air, and Dr Selkirk starts coughing too.

Entirely out of patience, Dr Caldwell reaches out her hand to pick up the scalpel again.

But right then, something happens that makes her stop. Two things, really. The first is an explosion, loud enough to make the windows rattle in their frames. The second is an ear-splitting scream, like a hundred people shrieking all at the same time.

Dr Selkirk’s face looks first blank, then terrified. “That’s general evacuation,” she says. “Isn’t it? Isn’t that the evacuation siren?”

Dr Caldwell doesn’t waste time answering her. She crosses to the window and hauls up the blinds.

Melanie sits up again, as far as she can, but she’s too low down. Mostly what she can see is the sky outside.

Both the doctors are staring out of the window. Miss Justineau is still on the floor, her hands clasped to her face, her back and shoulders shaking. She’s oblivious to everything except her pain.

“What’s happening?” Dr Selkirk bleats. “There are people moving out there. Are they—”

“I don’t know,” Dr Caldwell snaps. “I’m going to lower the emergency shutters. We can hold out here until the all-clear sounds.”

She reaches out to do it. She puts her hand on the switch.

That’s when the window shatters.

And the hungries swarm over the sill.