Arcadium (21 page)

“Air
conditioning and filtration system.” Adrian points to the ceiling.
Above me is a plastic grate, big enough to climb through. I
shiver.

“Dad likes it
cold.”

“I’m sure he
does,” I say.

Suddenly Adrian
goes rigid in his chair. “Get down,” he commands in a low sharp
voice. I drop to the ground and stare at him from my hands and
knees position. He’s looking through the window out into the first
room. Adrian drops down below the window and scuttles along toward
me. “Get in the cupboard,” he whispers, pulling it open for me.
There’s nothing in this one and he shoves me urgently. I twist
around, pull in my legs and he shuts the door.

“Don’t move,
don’t make a sound. Don’t try and leave.” Adrian runs, half bent
over, back to the chair and begins going through the papers on the
desk just as the lab door hisses open.

I sit frozen,
hugging my knees to my chest. I can just see out the grille and a
pair of bare ankles in black heels rush in. The feet stop in front
of me but point away. “Adrian,” A confused female voice says. “What
are you doing here?”

The woman walks
over to him. She’s wearing a lab coat, a white skirt and the same
jacket uniform as the rest of us.

“Oh, hey,
Sammy,” Adrian says. He actually manages to sound pretty casual.
“Do you know where the X-gen research is? Dad sent me to get
it.”

“Forget that,”
she says, rolling onto the balls of her feet. “Go get your father.
I have something to show him.”

Adrian swivels
around in his chair. “What is it?”

“Just get him.
We’re on the verge of a break through.”

Adrian gives
her a bored look. “At half past midnight?”

“Would it kill
you to help, Adrian?”

Adrian shrugs.
“Maybe. Why chance it, I say.”

“If you take
him the news he might think you had something to do with it.”

“True.” Adrian
stands up. “I’ll be back in a second.” He glances toward my
cupboard and his eyes go wide for a second. It’s not like I could
move even if I wanted to, I’m jammed so tightly in here.

The door closes
behind him and suddenly I’m alone in the lab with the female
scientist. Without the constant dialogue between her and Adrian it
gets deathly silent. I focus on breathing as quietly as I can and
trying not to move an inch.

The woman is
standing with her back to me, leaning over a computer and rapidly
typing. I wonder what would happen if they found out I’m hiding in
the cupboard. Would it warrant punishment or would they just laugh
it off?

Sammy’s pretty
absorbed with the computer monitor at the moment and I could
probably slip out of my hiding place unnoticed. But then I remember
Adrian’s last words to me: don’t try to leave. Even if I got to the
door unnoticed I don’t have the code. And to get back to my room I
need to use it three times.

The door opens
a few minutes later and Doctor Harding marches in, his beady grey
eyes converging on the woman. Adrian wanders in after him.

“Sammy?” Doctor
Harding stands next to her and crosses his arms.

“I was going
over the patient notes in my quarters and came across this…” she
points to a sheet of paper and pushes it across the desk to
him.

Adrian lingers,
leaning against one of the benches while I sit cramped in the dark
cupboard watching through the grille.

“Subject C
appears to be regressing. Not quickly by any standard means but
look at the blood work from the last twenty-four hours. And compare
it to now.”

Doctor Harding
holds the papers up to his nose and then looks over them at Sammy.
“Interesting. Any visible change?”

Sammy shakes
her head. “I haven’t checked yet.”

Doctor Harding
blinks. “Do it. I’ll need a full work up immediately and round the
clock observation. If she gets better or worse, I need to
know.”

Doctor Harding
spins suddenly and walks to the cage of rats. He tips his head and
peers in. “We’ll need to broaden the subject scope. Male, female…
youths too. Find out if there are any discrepancies.”

“Of course,
Doctor Harding. At once.” Sammy gathers her paper work and strides
to the door that leads further into the line of labs. Doctor
Harding is about to follow her when he turns back. “Adrian, get
Hope, Sanders, and Roth.”

“Sure thing,
dad.”

Finally Doctor
Harding lets the door close behind him and Adrian watches them
through the windows for a moment. He glances over his shoulder too.
“Ok, lets get out of here.”

I push open the
cupboard door and fall out. “Ow, that was so painful.”

“That was
close,” Adrian says, still looking behind. He grabs my elbow and
drags me out into the office, back out into the hallway.

We hustle over
to the civilian side of the facility. “That’s good right?” I say
wrestling my elbow back from his pincer grip. “Regressing is good.
That means the infection might be curable.”

“Quiet,” Adrian
says.

When we reach
the door he’s so tense that he looks over his shoulder as he
punches the code in and that’s all I need to catch the last digits.
Suddenly I have the full code.

I step through
the door but he doesn’t follow. He doesn’t belong on this side of
the facility.

“Adrian,” I
say.

Finally he
looks up at me, his hand still on the code box.

“That was
amazing.” I force a smile as though I’m greatly appreciative.

He straightens.
“It was?”

“Yeah, totally
cool.” I nod. “Thanks.”

Adrian smiles
suddenly and starts nodding. “Sure, no problem. I’ll see you
tomorrow then?”

“Uh, sure.” I
step away and give him a tiny wave. “Night.”

“Night—” The
door closes behind me and cuts off his last word. I race back to my
room, finally able to use all that adrenaline that’s been pumping
since I was shoved in a tiny cupboard.

I almost trip
over Kean as I reach the door. He’s sitting on the floor outside
and jumps when I come racing around the corner.

“What is it?”
He jumps up.

I take his hand
and drag him into the empty female bathroom, and right into a
shower cubicle. When I stop he looks totally worried. I lean my
head back against the wall. “You really have to get the next
mission,” I say. “I feel like my lucky streak is almost up.”

“What
happened?”

I take a slow
breath. “We were in the lab when a scientist came in. I hid in a
cupboard while Adrian made up some excuse about being there and
suddenly everything just went crazy. Doctor Harding was there, they
think they’re onto a cure!”

“Are you
alright?”

I nod quickly
and pull him into a hug.

“Are you high?”
Kean laughs gently and wraps his arms around me. “Just what kind of
labs were those?”

I sit my head
just beneath his chin, still trying to catch my breath. “I got the
code.”

“What are you
thinking?” Kean’s voice vibrates through his chest. “You want to
make a break for it?”

I pull back so
I can see his face. “Do you want to?”

Kean drops his
eyes for a moment and shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s like that
seatbelt catch twenty-two thing you said. We stay here and we can’t
get away quick enough but outside we always run the risk of
dying.”

“They have the
virus in here. Inside. No wonder every door is coded. They’re
experimenting on rats.”

“God, it’s like
we can’t get away from this disease, no matter what we do.” Kean
glances at my forehead. “You can’t really go anywhere with your
stitches and broken fingers.”

I nod. “We
should stay then. For a while.”

“Just a while.
I don’t know how much more rubbish I can sort.” He puts his lips
against my forehead. “What’s the code?”

I tap it out on
his chest with my finger. “Four-two-six-eight-four-two-six.”

“Is that a
circle?”

I nod. “Pretty
easy to remember, hey.”

“Wow. Sometimes
you’re such a genius.”

“You mean all
the time.”

He groans a
little. “I really like you, Florence.”

He must feel
the tension run through my body because he pulls back and studies
my face.

“Don’t give me
that look,” he says. “The one that says it’s not safe, we can’t.
One kiss isn’t going to kill anyone, especially not Liss.”

“I know. I
just…” I shake my head because I don’t know what I’m trying to say.
Maybe all these crazy feelings can’t be categorised into words.
Maybe they’re just there to be felt and never understood. “I
just…”

He waits, still
studying my face as if it has all the secret answers.

“I like you… I
just don’t know how to.”

“Is that all?
That’s the only reason?”

I tip my head
back and glare at the ceiling but my lips curl into a smile. “Yes.
Whatever. Lets go to bed, you’ve got work tomorrow.”

“Whoa, you move
fast. I don’t think I’m ready for that,” he says. A grin brightens
his face.

I shove him
back against the wall, pretty hard too. “Ha, ha. Aren’t you so
funny.” I step back out into the bathroom.

“I like to
think so,” Kean says, following.

***

At six I wake
with a shock to the piercing morning alarm. Everyone starts
groaning in protest. Henry pulls his pillow over his head and Kean
rubs his eyes with his palms.

“Well that was
a rubbish sleep,” Kean says. His voice sounds croaky and tired, and
really it’s my fault.

“Hah, I get
it,” Henry says, lifting his pillow off his head. “Rubbish… because
you’re in the business of rubbish.”

“Oh my God.”
Kean rolls out of bed and kneels on the ground next to his bunk. A
faint grin traces his lips. “You used to be funny, Henry. What
happened?”

Henry swats his
pillow at Kean’s head. “It’s all those stupid activity sheets
dumbing me down.”

Kean wrestles
the pillow off him. “Just remember to colour inside the lines, not
outside.”

Henry pulls
himself up into a sitting position. “Yeah, I learnt that when I was
five.”

“Whatever.”
Kean stands up and stretches his hands above his head. “Let’s get
breakfast,” he says through a yawn.

Everyone seems
reluctant to move. Trouble stares at the ceiling, and something
about him seems off. I watch him for a while before realising he
looks odd because he’s not smiling. On the outside, even when
surrounded by infected people, he seemed peaceful all the time, but
right now he looks tense.

Liss is still
pretending to be asleep. Henry and Kean are play fighting and Henry
is yelling, “Don’t make me go back to school! I’ll get dumber!”

I sigh and sit
on the end of Liss’ bed. I don’t feel like getting up either but it
doesn’t seem like we have a choice. While we’re here we have to
play by their rules. I look back at Liss and wonder how long we can
last like this.

Chapter
19

This morning
Doctor Hope collects me from my room and leads me into her office.
It’s a nice room, deliriously neat and tidy, not a fleck of dirt on
the ground or a speck of dust on her desk. Not that we have any
dirt here to traipse around in anyway. All her stationary is lined
up in a row and on a tray she has scissors, tweezers, a box of
gloves, some tape and a few bandages set out.

“Sit down,” she
says, pulling on latex gloves.

I sit in front
of her and she peels back my forehead bandage. The silence becomes
to weird for me and I just can’t resist asking. “Found a cure
yet?”

“Not yet,” she
says, inspecting my head. “But we’ll keep looking.”

“Hey, um, I
wanted to ask you something.”

“Hold still.”
She picks up the scissors and starts snipping at the stitches. When
she’s finished she puts down the scissors and picks up the
tweezers. “Ask away.”

I feel a
tugging sensation as she pulls out each stitch and I wonder how big
the scar will be. “Do many people leave Arcadium?” I ask.

Doctor Hope
pauses and the tweezers hover dangerously close to my eye. “No one
leaves.” She pulls out another stitch and discards it on the tray.
“Why would anyone want to leave? It’s dangerous out there.” The
last stitch sticks and stings when she yanks it out. She drops her
eyes to mine. “Do you want to leave?”

“No, of course
not. I was just wondering if people ever do move on.”

She stares at
me for way too long before putting down the tweezers. “No they
don’t.” Doctor Hope sprays something on my forehead and dabs it dry
with a bandage. “I think we’ll leave this one open to the air. It’s
healing well.”

Doctor Hope
snaps off the gloves and drops them on the tray. “On the outside
you may think it’s just a matter of surviving.” She unwraps the
bandages from my hands. “But it’s not. It’s simply a question of
how long your luck lasts. You can’t run and hide forever. The
infection is simply too aggressive.”

“Besides,
you’ll find a cure, right?”

“I certainly
hope so.”

For a moment I
wonder what would happen if they found a cure tomorrow. Would we
all get to stay together now that we have no one else? Would we all
be able to go back to school and back to work and forget about the
time the world went crazy?

Doctor Hope
begins peeling off the tape and splints. My palms seem to have a
permanent bandage texture imprinted onto them and my fingers have
calmed down a bit; the bruises are going bright yellow. There’s
still a bit of swelling but they look way better.

“I’ll need an
x-ray for our records and we’ll put the splints back on just to
make sure they’re healing straight. So, if you’d like to come with
me.”

I follow her
out into the hallway and when we turn the corner I see Adrian
wandering towards us.

“Hey,” he says,
waving. “What’s going on?”