Rebirth Part 11

Evangeline stepped away from the wall, where she had been watching the proceedings. "Hold her," she growled, "or I will."

Ruthie began to make a sound that chilled Cass. It was a scream, compressed and flattened into a thin, chilling wail, worse than if her daughter had yelled at the top of her lungs. Her face reddened and her eyes squeezed shut, her lashes dotted with unspilled tears, and she fought as though her life depended on it. Cass held on, her heart breaking, but as Pilar took aim again she knew that it would go worse for Ruthie if she continued to resist, and she held her as tight as she could.

Pilar jabbed the sharp point into Ruthie's skin with force, and blood beaded and spilled. Ruthie's eyes flew open and when she saw the blood her wail bloomed into a terrified, other worldly shriek. She stopped only to get her breath and then she screamed again and again, an eerie banshee rupture, as Pilar fumbled with the glass slide and the tube of blood, muttering all the while. When it was done, Cass wiped Ruthie's finger on her own shirt, then wrapped her fingers around it tightly.

"All done," she crooned, whispering and rocking Ruthie. "All better. All better. All better."

Pilar busied herself at her desk, turning her back on them, arranging the samples on a tray, making notes on a lined pad. Dor's and Cass's eyes met and he shook his head worriedly. All remained in this diorama of the aftermath of the screaming for a minute before Ruthie flailed one last time and went limp in Cass's arms, her wails winding down into snuffles.

"That's it, then, until we get the results," Pilar said, turning back to them with a tight smile. "Let's finish checking you out so we can get you over to Ellis. There's not much more we can do until we get the results back."

When Evangeline opened the office door, Cass heard crying coming from one of the other offices. Passing by the open door, joggling Ruthie to comfort her, she saw a haggard woman weeping while a man in scrubs stood over her and snipped away her hair, down to a quarter of an inch.

"Lice," Evangeline explained, grimacing with disgust. "We check everyone for parasites but these people...they're in rough shape. Hell, they've probably got worms and scabies and crabs, too. No sense tracking that all over the place."

After taking them to an adjoining office, Evangeline took her leave, promising to see them later. Her discomfort in the place was evident. The woman who checked them over was far more gentle than what they had witnessed with the other newcomers. She parted their hair with a fine metal comb, working under a window where the afternoon light was strongest, and looked in their mouths and under their arms. She kept up a steady stream of conversation, asking them questions about the trip, about Ruthie, chatting about the cafeteria and what was for dinner. "My girlfriend works over there and she told me they got some of that government cheese," she shared as she finished checking Cass. "How that stuff can survive a summer in a warehouse, I have no idea, but they're making some sort of kaysev mac and cheese. Do you like spaghetti, Ruthie, honey?"

Ruthie had calmed down and even seemed to have forgotten her anxiety about the blood. She almost seemed to be considering answering the woman, smiling shyly and peeking out from under her long, luxurious lashes. Cass gave the woman a grateful look. She had been ready to hate everyone, but aside from Evangeline with her frightening eyes and angry rhetoric, the people here seemed not much worse than people anywhere. Again the troubling thought floated through her mind that this might not be the worst place in the world to make a home.

"You do like spaghetti, don't you, noodle-girl?" Cass said, wiggling her fingers, and Ruthie laughed, her shoulders shaking soundlessly.

"Okay, your turn, noodle," the woman said, dropping her comb in a tall bottle of antiseptic. "Looks like someone's already given you a pretty haircut."

She reached for Ruthie's pale blond hair, finally long enough that it no longer stuck up like an overgrown crew cut-but when she touched the strands Ruthie ducked and made a tiny mewling sound. It took Cass a second to react-she'd been lulled by the warmth of her momentary happiness but gathered Ruthie in a tight hug as the little girl wrapped her arms around her neck and held on tight. The woman held up her hands defensively.

"I'm sorry," Cass said. "She, um, she had a...something happened."

The woman nodded and her irritation softened. Something happened-the catchall explanation Aftertime. Who was left who hadn't been wounded, who hadn't suffered some kind of trauma? Children's feelings were so close to the surface; they had fewer memories of Before, fewer years to learn to hide their feelings.

Only, Cass didn't know what exactly had happened to Ruthie to make her so skittish about her hair. Since she was rescued from the Convent, Ruthie was as affectionate as ever with Cass, wanting to be held more than ever before, crawling up on her lap, lifting her arms to be picked up. At night she often stumble-crawled from her small bed to theirs, making her way up and under the covers without ever waking. She liked to be hugged and tickled and snuggled, but she hated to have her hair combed, and once in a while she covered her head with her hands and shut her eyes and looked so sorrowful that it broke Cass's heart.

She knew they had shaved Ruthie's head in the Convent, but she didn't know why. Punishment? Religious ritual? While she kept up a one-way conversation with her daughter all day long, pretending that it didn't bother her at all when Ruthie didn't answer, she never talked about the Convent other than to kneel down in front of Ruthie at least once a week and remind her that she could tell her mama anything, anytime, that she would never ever be in trouble for the things she told. It was a lesson from a book she had once owned, something pressed in her hands by a well-meaning woman in A.A. the week after Cass had finally talked about what her stepfather had done to her. The book was called It's Okay To Tell and it was supposed to teach you how to deal with children who had been victims of abuse.

Offering the book was breaking the rules-in A.A. you were never supposed to give advice and Cass was pretty sure that the book was just another form of advice. Cass thought the advice rule was stupid-after all, what was the point of coming to meetings if no one was allowed to tell you what you were doing wrong? The woman was a fortyish, bloated blonde who seemed entirely without color, from her bloodless lips to her pale, cloudy eyes to her mud-colored clothing. She had pressed the book in Cass's hands and then held her gaze a moment too long, and Cass started to get uneasy. The woman wanted something from Cass, something Cass didn't know how to give-to be understood, to have someone acknowledge how she'd been hurt, to offload even a little of her pain. They stood that way for a second, each of them holding one end of the book, until Cass mumbled her thanks and yanked it from the woman's hands and bolted from the building.

She'd driven to a grocery store that was open all night and parked under the streetlights and read the first chapter. She couldn't put the woman's hungry expression out of her mind. When she couldn't stand to read any more, she opened the door of her car and leaned out, her hair brushing the ground, and slid the book behind the front tire. She closed her door and backed over the book, then drove ahead and back over it a second time, before driving home with her hands shaking on the wheel, not understanding what had happened. She never went back to that meeting.

But she remembered that first chapter. "Silence is toxic," was the title. It talked about shame and "interrupting the message," and so all this time later she knelt before Ruthie and said it was okay to tell, that her mother would always listen and never judge, that she was the most beautiful and loved little girl in the world, perfect in her mother's and-she felt only a little self-conscious about saying it-in God's eyes, as well.

"Well, you're all done here," the woman said now, bringing Cass back to the moment. "I don't need to check her. I don't want to upset her, poor thing. I can see you're clean as whistles, all three of you."

She summoned Pace, who led them back outside. More hallways, more doors, out in the air again; it took a moment for Cass to get oriented. The wall was visible here and there between the buildings; from a distance it looked pretty, even quaint, as though ivy might grow up its sides, as though kids might lose softballs over the top.

Some people said the Beaters were getting smarter all the time. What would happen if they found a way to get over the wall? There had been evidence of cooperation among them over the summer-hunting in groups, for instance. A single Beater could be overwhelmed, beaten, even killed with a relatively low risk of infection, but three or four were another matter entirely. They had been smart enough to figure that out. What if their next leap forward was to drag things-pallets, wheelbarrows, crates-over to the edge of the wall until they could scale it?

Except that this wall wasn't meant simply to keep the Beaters out. It also kept the people inside.

Past the old bookstore-there were still pennants and T-shirts and plastic mugs in the display windows, though sun-bleached-toward a pair of low-slung, pebble-walled buildings, among the older ones on campus, built fifty years earlier when they favored odd angles and small windows. Wheelchair ramps led up to the door of each building. Someone had spray painted words on each building, an inexpert job with paint drips along the bottom of the blocky letters. Infirmary was written on the side of the building on the left. Pace led the way up the ramp of the other building, which was labeled Ellis.

"I suppose it's a little sentimental," he said. "Ellis Island and all that. Mary can be...what's the word. Grandiose? Well, you'll see. She'll probably come by tonight or tomorrow."

"Who?"

"Mary Vane. You know. She's in charge."

Cass had heard about her back at the library; Smoke and the other guards passed along rumors about her, bits picked up from travelers, from the few who'd encountered the Rebuilders and not been recruited. She was supposed to be some sort of brilliant scientist, a visionary. People said she had worked for the government, or a drug company, or that she taught at the university. A few said she'd been serving time. Really, no one knew for sure.

"What's she like?" Cass couldn't resist asking.

Pace hesitated, his posture stiff. "Extraordinary, of course. A natural leader. Gifted...passionate."

Euphemisms, Cass figured, trying to guess what he was really saying. It was no surprise that he was giving her the party line.

"Who's in the infirmary?" Dor asked.

"When people arrive here with conditions that cannot be treated quickly, or if they are contagious, they stay there while their case is considered."

"So it really is like Ellis Island," Dor said. "What happens to the ones who don't pass the test-you throw them overboard? Send them back where they came from, like they used to at the real Ellis?"

"We have a clinic," Pace said, ignoring his tone. "You'll be amazed. I mean, of course our hope is that you never need it but they do amazing things there. Full triage and emergency facilities, and they can do certain types of surgeries. They've done an appendectomy, a cesarean birth. Set lots of broken bones. If people can be cured, they cure them."

He opened the door with a key and ushered them in.

Little natural light made its way through the high transom windows, and in the large open room a single floor lamp was lit. Two men sat at a dinette table in the semi gloom. They got to their feet, one nearly knocking over a plastic tumbler, and Cass saw that they were armed, guns and Tasers on their belts.

"Hey, Pace," the taller one said. "Heard you'd be coming by. We're ready for 'em."

"These gentlemen will take good care of you," Pace said. "Kaufman and Lester, this is Cass Dollar and David MacAlister. They'll be with you overnight. The young lady's name is Ruthie."

"Nice to meet you," Lester said, giving Ruthie a slight bow and a crooked smile. Cass liked him immediately, then chastised herself for it.

"I'll be going, then. I'm sure I'll see you tomorrow."

The door shut with a resounding click, followed by the sound of a dead bolt sliding home. Pace, locking them in. Cass automatically looked for another door; there it was, through a narrow kitchenette, the bold-lettered Exit sign still in place above. No doubt locked, as well.

"We're glad to have you folks," Lester said. "Kind of dull around here today. Sometimes we're full up and sometimes it's like this. Ain't a whole lot going on, and we get sick of each other's company, mmm-hmm."

"Thanks, man." Dor shook hands with both men. Cass watched the way he stepped closer than most men would, the way the quieter Kaufman hesitated, the way Dor pretended not to notice. His grip was hearty, overly so, and Cass knew she was the only one who could tell this was another variation of himself, slipped on for reasons known only to him. "Appreciate it. Nice, the way you have it rigged. Got to say I'm looking forward to a decent night's sleep. Been a while."

"'At's a shame, ain't it." Lester shook his head, making a gentle tsking sound. For some reason Cass thought of the skycaps lined up at the airport with their scanners and auto-taggers. The ones like Lester who had that old-fashioned way about them, a retro courtliness, really cleaned up in tips. "'Specially when you got the little ones. I think we have something for her round here. Got some games and puzzles. Let me look, now. Little lady, you want to see what we have back here?"

Ruthie nodded without making any move to let go of Cass. Lester chuckled.

"Well now, maybe in a minute. I think you'll like what we got, though. This used to be a preschool for kids 'bout your size."

"A preschool? On campus?"

"Yes, ma'am," Kaufman said. "Little kids here. The infirmary next door was K through three. Student teachers from the School of Education did their practice teaching here. Worked out good for us, since the other one's got the separate classrooms, which is better for the, uh, communicable type people.

"And we got the one big room," Lester added. "Not much privacy but most folks are only with us a few nights before they get their more permanent-type arrangements."

A dozen narrow beds lined the wall, neatly made up and far more uniform than the accommodations in the Box, which were cobbled together from raids on houses and an army surplus store.

"Got those from the FEMA warehouse outside town," Kaufman said, noticing where they were looking. "Back during the fires in '14 when they set up a Central Valley supply depot. They never used them all and they've been sitting there ever since. Tip-top shape. New as can be. Gotta love the federal government, right?"

Across from the beds, forming small conversation areas between the windows, were easy chairs and love seats clustered around coffee tables to form several conversation areas. Books and games were stacked on the tables; a half-finished jigsaw puzzle was laid out on one of them. In the pool of light cast by the lamp, two people sat silently. A pale, thin young man lay back in a recliner, a blanket pulled up to his chin and tucked all around his slight body. He appeared to be sleeping. Next to him a middle-aged woman sat with her feet tucked under her in the corner of a love seat closest to the young man, a ball of green yarn spinning slowly on the cushions next to her. She didn't look down at the flashing needles, at her fingers working the yarn, but watched Cass and Dor and Ruthie carefully, as though she were forming an unfavorable opinion of them based on criteria knowable only to her.

"Just the five of you tonight," Lester said with manufactured cheer. "David, Cass, this is Malena and her son, Devin. Guys, this little one is Ruthie."

Malena nodded; Devin didn't stir. Lester turned away from them and spoke quietly: "You might want to just keep to yourselves. I'd say she's got a fair number of, you know, anger issues. I know you've been on the road-no need for you to have to deal with that right now. Why don't you just relax. Dinner'll come around in-" he checked his watch, an expensive old gold one, the sort that wound itself "-another half hour or so. There's towels in the bathroom if you want to clean up. If you need to go to the bathroom, just let one of us know and we'll escort you. It's right in back so at least it's not far."

After another moment's settling in, Cass took Ruthie to the bathroom and cleaned as much of the grit from the journey as she could, Lester waiting patiently outside in the darkening evening of a tiny courtyard, as though he was her prom date, and she was feeling a little more comfortable. A night in a bed with clean sheets, secure in the knowledge that nothing bad would happen at least until morning, would be nice, especially since the presence of the others meant she wouldn't have to interact much with Dor. Discussions about their next move would have to wait. Cass felt a little guilty about that, knowing he must be even more anxious about Sammi now that they were so close, but there was nothing to be done about it. As nice as Lester was she had no doubt which side he was on.

Dinner had arrived when they got back. Malena was trying to coax her son to eat, holding a fork near his lips and murmuring as though he was a toddler. There had to be something really wrong with him, Cass decided, and she turned away from the unfortunates the way she-the way everyone-had learned to do. Tragedy wasn't contagious, but the emotions that went along with it were, and if you wanted to be able to handle your own burden you had to resist picking up even a fraction of anyone else's.

Places were laid for them at the dinette table along with Dor and Kaufman and Lester. Cass cut Ruthie's kaysev curd into bite-size pieces and helped her spoon up her peas-canned, with a sprinkling of fresh mint that made Cass suspect the Rebuilders had an extensive greenhouse of their own-so that none would fall from her spoon and go to waste. She was about to start on her own dinner when a loud, piercing tone filled the large room.

Ruthie jammed her hands over her ears and her mouth wobbled, and Cass wrapped her in her arms. Thankfully, it was quickly over. A man's voice came on: "Details two and five report to the Tapp Clinic. Repeat, all members of details two and five, please report."

22.

"SHIT," LESTER EXCLAIMED, PUSHING AWAY THE dinner he'd barely touched. "Can't believe we got another one. Seems like I was just up."

"Somebody in five keeps drawing the short straw, I guess," his partner replied.

"No, it's not that. I'm just sorry to leave you with the rest of the shift." He looked genuinely sorry, Cass thought. She wondered if the two men were close. "You know how they drag it out."

"It's okay, go. I'm fine."

"Yeah, it's just-" He inclined his head in the direction of Malena and Devin and frowned.

"Nothing's going to happen in the next hour," Kaufman said quietly. "Nothing I can't handle. And you know if you don't go-"

"We're damned if we do and damned if we don't," Lester said, pushing back his chair. "Okay, okay, but I'll get back as fast as I can. It's probably just another ragbag."

"Hate that. For your sake I hope it's just one this time."

"Yeah. Anyway, have fun. Ladies." Lester bowed his lanky form deeply, waggling his thick eyebrows, which caused Ruthie to giggle silently. He made a less elaborate bow in Malena's direction but received no response for his trouble other than a frosty glare. After he let himself out the building's front door, Kaufman checked the lock before returning to the table.

"Sorry about that, folks." He stared at his food, frowning.

Cass noticed that Dor had slid his dinner slightly closer to Kaufman's, his long forearms resting casually on the sides of the tray, a posture that emphasized his size and bulk. He'd made quick work of the curd and vegetables and mopped up the last of the sauce with a piece of bread, a hard-crusted, dense slice that was the characteristic taupe color of kaysev flour and studded with unfamiliar grain. Not wheat. Millet, perhaps.

Cass wondered when she'd be able to see the Rebuilders' gardens, to discover what they had cultivated here, if there were many plants she had not been able to grow in the Box herself. She'd had little luck with grains so far.

She was surprised by the intensity of her longing to see what else they had managed, to beg or steal cuttings and take them back to her own garden. To the soil she'd amended with compost cultivated in the narrow strip of land between apartment buildings across the street from the Box's entrance. Smoke and some of his guys had installed chain-link at either end of the plot for safety, and she loved to let her mind wander while she worked, enjoying the sun on her neck, the good earthy smells of the black earth. Even the rotting, decomposing garbage and leftovers did not bother her; when she turned a shovelful of earth and came up with a wriggling clot of worms, she was filled with the kind of intense joy and pride she hadn't felt in a very long time.

Despite the pleasant memories of her garden and her determination to wait until morning to focus on their next steps, Cass had trouble getting through her meal. She was tired from the trip, worn-out from the adrenaline spikes and crashes. Numbed by terror and faintly nauseous from all the blood that had been shed in the past twenty-four hours. She tried to force herself not to think about the car-crash decoy and the bodies picked clean by the birds, the terrible things that had happened in the house, the Beaters in the road-but she couldn't shake the aftereffects, the anxiety and fear. She helped Ruthie eat instead, and listened to the men's small talk, and stole glances at the tired woman across the room, who was doing the same thing she was, trying to coax food into her sickly child. Each time Malena caught her eye, Cass looked quickly away; it was too hard to see the desperation on the woman's face. Her eye sockets were sunken and purple, her hair lay in lank tangles, and her hands shook faintly. Cass could only imagine the prayers she had said for her son's recovery. Evidently God had not yet come through, and it looked like Malena had stopped eating and sleeping.

Dor made idle conversation and Cass also watched Dor watching Kaufman. She thought she saw something-a flicker, a moment of change when his keen black eyes seemed to focus like the sights on a laser. Cass knew Dor was mapping this man out. She supposed he had a plan-if not yet, he would soon. She was certain Dor was drawing conclusions about Kaufman, about Lester and Malena and even the sick boy in the chair. It was what he did-he observed people so intensely that he picked up on many things they didn't even know about themselves.

It was only one of many reasons she had avoided encounters with Dor, and he was not hard to avoid. But it would be a lie to pretend that she didn't watch him. Yes. When he wasn't looking, she watched him watching others, and it was like this, always. The laser focus. The absorbing of details. The filtering of distractions. The considering and calculating. And then-yes, just like now. The moment when Dor came to some conclusion, and his features relaxed and re-formed, chameleon-like, into a new public character he would play to achieve some unnamed end.

In the Box, these changes were subtle. Sometimes Cass convinced herself that Dor wasn't even aware he was doing it. Often he retreated to his most frequent mask, the one she thought of as his default but not necessarily true self: friendly but aloof, terse but rarely angry. A myth. He was the benevolent but unattainable man behind the curtain, the merchant, the moneychanger, the keeper of scales and coin. The guarantor.

Now, however, he put on a different face, one Cass hadn't seen before. She paused in surprise, a spoon lifted halfway to her lips, as Dor eased down in the chair, extended his legs under the table, and crossed his hands on his belly in an attitude of self-satisfaction.

"Man, I could sure use a frosty cold one right now," he said. "Raiders game on TV, halftime with those girls? You know, those little black skirts? Sorry, hon," he added automatically, shooting her an easy grin that didn't reach his eyes.

Kaufman chuckled. "Don't be saying that around here. I hear you, but in case you haven't heard, this place is dry. No booze, no smoking, no fun."

"No shit." Dor looked crestfallen. "Damn. So I guess I won't be getting my bottle of Jack back that I've been carrying around for emergencies."

"No, I'd say that's a negative. Though you can bet someone's gonna be enjoying it on the sly tonight. There's a little...creative warehousing going on, know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I hear you. Like any military."

They sat in companionable silence for a moment. Dor let it ride out, shaking his head sorrowfully. Then he said, "Yeah, so the-what did you call it? Ragbag?"

"Oh, that." Kaufman glanced surreptitiously at Malena and her son, then at Cass-she made sure she was looking away, as disinterested as she could manage to appear-and lowered his voice a notch or two. "We're not supposed to talk about that while you're in here-but, man, you gotta understand about some of this shit before you see it, y'know? I mean, you don't want to get taken unawares."

"Uh-huh, sure."

"Well-it's one of Mary's things."

"Mary-what is it, Mary Vane?"

"Yeah, she's been in charge since the start. Anyway, she's okay. I guess. I mean, some of her ideas are a little out there. They say she was some sort of government scientist or something, I don't know. But this, see, sometimes someone comes in and it's obvious they're infected. It's happening more lately. People eat any shit they can get their hands on, out on the road. Get hungry enough and they're not careful and they end up eating blueleaf roots, especially now it's going dormant and it's hard to tell which is which."

Dor's eyes flickered again, the tiny opening and shutting of the mask. Or maybe the flicker was the fleeting dimming of his true self, ceding to the intense demands of maintaining this other, dampened self. Either way, he didn't look at Cass.

So the Rebuilders had managed to make great strides ahead, again. Just as with the outlier immunity, they knew things here in Colima that people elsewhere-even in the Box where there was plenty of everything, plenty of smart people-took much longer to figure out. The Rebuilders understood the threat inherent in the dormant kaysev. People on the outside should have understood the danger, should have been wise, allowed fear to lead them. Cass had learned to detect those dormant plants that were dangerous and she had taken pains to teach all of the gatherers how to tell the difference between the edible kind and the blueleaf. She had actually only seen blueleaf twice since moving into the Box, and both times it was raiding parties who brought it to show her, specimens they'd found in drifts far out on the perimeter of their patrols. Anywhere people sheltered, summer vigilance seemed to have ensured that the poison strain had been obliterated.

"That's bad, man," Dor muttered, shaking his head.

"Tell me. We got a whole group here don't do anything but work on that shit. Everything we eat, they grow, even our kaysev. We don't eat anything from outside. They got them this whole greenhouse they're building. It's cool. Just wait until you see it. But anyway, that same test, you know the blood test for outliers?-they can use it to tell if you're infected, too. But, well...you know how it is. You don't really need it."

He looked down at the table, and Cass imagined they were all thinking the same thing. The infected went feverish within hours of ingestion. At first, nearly a year ago when the kaysev first appeared, you might think you had a bad case of flu, that your light-headedness came from the fever's onset, or something like that-hell, it had been thought a drug like acid at one point-but now everyone knew the set of symptoms that arrived all together: the luminous, jaundice-darkened skin; the fever that could go as high as 106 degrees in an adult, higher in a child; the odd bright luminosity of the eyes as the pigment intensified and the pupils shrank.

"Mary, she won't take any chances. If they're infected she won't put 'em in the infirmary long enough to get the tests back. Too dangerous, you know?"

Chapter end