Toxic (22 page)

“That’s for sure, Primark.”

“Also, he tried to outsmart one of my troopers. The abza’n Sarejt was a competent officer. I didn’t tell you to kill her due to pleasure or as a whim. She was planning to betray the company by delivering information on our operations.”

“I understand.”

“He programmed two drones to watch over a group of humans?”

“Absolutely. Should we capture them? One of them is the unit who escaped from our domes.”

The insult needed to be avenged. He had promised to hang that man himself on the manufacturing chain. The Primark whistled his orders.

“
Nijt
. Let’s see what the Lynian thinks he’s going to obtain from these miserable creatures. He’s following a clue which I can’t allow myself to neglect. I’ll be back in two octars.”

Kjet took his hands off the table. His tongue slid against his lips and tasted the suspended molecules. The air had a bitter and humid taste to it: that of the moving sand.

W
ithin the group, arguments were inevitable. In addition, according to psychologists, Elaine remembered, conflict always came up at the worst time. When she pushed the doors to the main room open, she understood that something was going on. Bruce shot up from his chair with a jump. Alva showed her astonishment behind her fingers on her lips. As for the Colombian, he armed his gun and ripped one sole question through the air in a cold tone, the same one as during their first encounter. The nurse let go of Dewei’s hand.

“No, I wasn’t bitten,” she reassured them.

Both of them were covered in mud from head to foot, stained with blood and flesh mixed with dirt. The trio kept its distance behind the couch arrangement.

“Where’s Masters?” Bruce asked, plugging his nose. “Fuck, what a smell!”

“I thought he’d already come back,” Elaine said, surprised.

Before Hector’s nervous gaze and the biologist’s fearful look, she insisted. “We weren’t bitten!”

“You are covered in pieces of… I don’t even know what. You should understand our hesitation.”

Alva was right. They looked infected.

“Let me explain it to you.”

Hector moved his gun’s barrel. “We’re listening to you, but you’re staying where you are.”

In a hurry to get rid of her stench, she summarized two hours of searching in a few words, carefully omitting the last fifteen minutes when she had escaped death in the back of a garden. Confusion still had a hold of her. The metal silhouette overcame her thoughts. She wasn’t sure she understood what she had seen or what the alien wanted from her. She had decided to not tell anyone about it, at least until recovering from the shock. The Asian had promised her he would keep the secret. As for her own behavior towards the creature, Dew remained silent.

“Masters got out after you?”

“He’s a marine, Alva. He won’t be long.”

Her companions looked at her suspiciously. They didn’t seem convinced.

“Fuck you! Whether you believe me or not, it won’t change anything. I need a shower,” she declared, taking the stairs.

Hector lowered his gun.

The second floor had two bathrooms. She left Dew, who was independent enough to take care of himself, in the first one, and then locked herself into the second. The big mirror, above the sinks, caught her attention. She didn’t recognize the woman revealed by the crude and devastating light. Her first reflex was to wet her face. She inspected herself carefully, looking for a cut or wound. The infection was produced when contaminated materials got into blood circulation through a cut, even a small one. One drop was enough.

The sink’s enamel went red. She stopped and looked around the bathroom. One second later, she decided to empty out the cupboards in search of towels. All the towels. She piled them up on the floor and grabbed one of them randomly, which she put under the tap before scrubbing her filthy body. Next, she used a clean one. And then another. Her skin went red with the force of the friction. Not satisfied with the result, she opened the shower window and let the water run. The luxury room had a solar water heating system which was still working. It was always like that.

She had escaped from death. She had been within a hair’s breadth of it. However, the glass displayed this morbid reflection back to her. She couldn’t stand this vision. She would never become a soulless creature, wandering aimlessly looking for fresh flesh to devour. The view, which she had just touched from so close up, scared her so much that she lost control. She threw the spoiled and stained towel at her reflection. She let herself slide to the floor and put her hands to her face. The vapor encircled her body shaking with sobs.

Masters got back to the villa an hour later.

Exhausted, the colonel told them about how he had drawn the infected towards a neighboring area. His words confirmed those of the nurse and the group relaxed. She had put on clean clothes and was sipping a coffee, sitting on a high kitchen chair. Masters joined her.

“How is our Chinese friend?”

“He fell asleep.”

“No explanation of his disappearance?”

“An autistic person’s motivations are incomprehensible to us. Something insignificant can upset or excite them. They can behave in a confusing way. All that we can do is keep an eye on him and make sure he doesn’t get into danger.”

Masters dragged over a stool.

“You realize that you can’t watch over him permanently? Sometime or another, he’s going to escape from our watch. It’s just a question of time.”

The spark which lit up his dark pupils called out to the nurse.

“Let’s hope he stays calm.”

“Yeah. We can dream too.”

Elaine brought the cup to her lips and then cleared her voice after a sip.

“You saw them, right?”

“Saw who?”

“The aliens. What do they look like?”

The marine’s forehead crinkled into parallel lines above his salt and pepper eyebrows. “I don’t know anything about it.”

He got off of the chair. Elaine held him back, her hand on his forearm.

“Listen. I understand what you went through. You lost men and friends, and probably people dear to you, like all of us. These beings invaded our planet at a time when we were facing an epidemic of unimaginable magnitude. I don’t think for a moment that these two events aren’t linked in some way or another. We should try to find answers.”

Masters gave a faint scowl and then a retort.

“Believe me that it’s better to stay out of their way. They’ll only make a mouthful out of your pretty face. The largest military power in the world, the USA, was destroyed. We tried to attack them with nuclear weapons them without success. The nukes didn’t work.”

“If there’s a cure, we should discover it before them. Maybe they’re looking for it,” she ventured.

“Oh really? And you heard that from an alien, did you?” he said, ironically.

Elaine looked at him with her eyes wide.

“I agree with the idea,” he admitted, “but our friends clearly have other ideas in mind.”

“We suggest that we stay here for a few days. Three or four,” Bruce confirmed during the meeting called in the room.

The storm had given way to a glowing red sunset. The dark clouds shrouded the half-engulfed globe on the horizon. They had opened the windows. The humidity mixed with the sea breeze.

The biologist put forth a series of logical and sensible arguments with the ease of a lecturer addressing a supportive public. The villa, vast and comfortable, could welcome them. They needed to rest and to breathe a bit before setting sail once again. Alva agreed with each statement. Hector, to her great surprise, stayed completely quiet. The abrupt change in attitude of the man who was always talking about going back to his country intrigued her. When Elaine asked questions, the Colombian responded with the same confidence as his partners.

“There aren’t enough supplies for the trip. I'll have to organize a few excursions into town.”

A few days
, she thought. She understood the situation quickly. They had decided for the group. She exchanged a complicit glance with the colonel. They had been gone for barely two hours and already, a sort of alliance was being made behind their backs.

“No! You promised to find the cure. I don’t want to stay here!”

Her voice broken, Alison was on the steps leading to the second floor. She was staring at them and rubbing her eyes. Bruce and Alva lowered their heads. Hector remained unshaken. Elaine hurried towards her to reassure her and to reaffirm the promise made to her the previous day. A heavy silence ensued.

They agreed to take a break from the discussion and continue it later. Alva and Hector headed in retreat towards the kitchen with the pretext of making dinner. Masters approached the stairs, leaning on the railing.

“They will propose a vote and this will be decided fairly,” he predicted.

“We’ll be the minority.”

“That’s the charm of democracy. One vote different and everything changes.”

The colonel’s irony hid a deep bitterness. Elaine caressed the girl’s hands. Her thumbs made little circles on the silky skin.

“Dew will follow us.”

“It’ll be a draw. That won’t fix anything. They could also refuse to allow him to participate because he’s… handicapped. They want to stay and we want to leave. That’s the dead end. The real question is: what are we going to do?”

Elaine nodded.

“We need to get to Site B as soon as possible.”

“The coordinates place it on the open sea. So, we’re going to need a good boat.”

“With all these marinas around us, I imagine there are lots of them.”

“We don’t have time to find one that will withstand the open sea.”

The hidden meaning didn’t escape her. She let go of Alison’s hand while the girl was drinking up the conversation, full of hope.

“You want to steal Hector’s boat?”

Masters confirmed her thoughts with a discreet smile accompanied with a wink directed at Alison. The Colombian wouldn’t hesitate to fight. She added that this plan was crazy. Crazy and very risky, she repeated. Hector could explode and become violent.

“No crazier than attracting L-D’s by banging pots and pans. His boat is exactly what we’re looking for. It has electric motors and if there’s danger, it can dive.”

Elaine closed her eyes. She thought about the synthetic voice that came from that sort of metal-forged mythological monster once again.

“OK.”

Alison snuggled against her. “Thanks,” she murmured.

The marine tapped her shoulder.

“The simplest ideas produce the best results. We’ll set sail tonight.”

The soldier was right.

Once the arguments in favor of a prolonged stay and those for leaving the next were set out, Alva had proposed to answer the question via a vote. Masters and Elaine played their game as planned. The masquerade finished, Elaine said she was tired and excused herself.

On the second floor, she saw a glow coming out of Dew’s room. The villa had enough rooms for each person to have their own. She pushed open the door.

On the bed, the boy was staring at the tablet resting on his crossed legs. She watched him silently. His fingers slid along the matte surface as if the device still worked. Was he acting like this because of past habits? They had grabbed him in the port of Key West and up until now, Elaine hadn’t addressed the question for fear of upsetting him. She acted like she did with her patients with him, she realized, sitting in front of him.

“Dew, tonight we’re leaving for Site B.”

The hand movements on the device stopped. Dew raised his head. The black bangs hid his forehead and his expression. She decided to dig right into it.

“The alien could have let the infected kill us without intervening. He wanted you, Dew. They know that you can walk around in the middle of a horde without being bitten.”

He pulled his precious notebook towards him from on top of the pillow and started to write.

I don’t understand. What are you saying?

The nurse took a quick breath and then put her hands down flat on the sheets.

“You have crises, Dew. During one of them, we found you surrounded by infected at Cocoa Beach. You remember, right?”

The Asian screwed up his eyes. Finally, he expressed an emotion. He shook his head, visibly upset, and scribbled hastily,
What crisis!?

She leaned towards him.

“You don’t know that you suffer from a disease?”

I’m sick?

People with certain types of autism went through moments of their life actually sleepwalking. She told him what had happened the day before.

I remember leaving to get some air while Alva and Bruce were arguing. I wandered and…

The pencil remained still above the sheet. She encouraged him to continue.

“And?”

I don’t remember
.
We arrived at the pier
.

“Do you remember that afternoon and the alien?”

Yes
.

“And the tree house? How did you get there?”

I don’t know
.

She took his hand.

“We’re leaving tonight, with the colonel and Alison.”