Dead Mann Running (9781101596494) (16 page)

“It’s okay,” he said. “Kyua loves you.”

He kissed her on the forehead. She closed her eyes and quieted. Other than a freaky snog between myself and Nell Parker, it was the most affection I’d ever seen between two chakz.

When he rose, she stayed put, as if awaiting further orders.

“A lot of chakz had faith when they were alive,” he said. “Sure, after they died, some stopped believing, but some didn’t. Right now, here in the camp, we’ve got a Muslim who still does his five daily prayers, six practicing Christians, and a Buddhist. But most chakz feel abandoned, like belief is only for the livebloods, that by our nature we’re damned, or somehow not part of God’s world. It doesn’t make them any less hungry for hope. So, Kyua. So, it’s real.”

I squirmed. “Let me rephrase the question. How much of this bullshit has some kind of objective basis? As in, do you know what kind of projects ChemBet is really working on?”

“Ah,” Jonesey said, crooking a finger. “Let’s talk.”

Moving at a decent clip that left the other chakz behind, he led me to the rear of the hall. I hated to say it, but it was more than his voice that had improved. He looked…healthier.

As we maneuvered the chain-link maze, he pointed out a few security cameras I’d never have spotted. “Those are video only. They don’t have the staff to monitor everyone round the clock, so they rely on audio sensors designed to detect moaners.”

Suddenly he grinned and grabbed me around the shoulder. “Detective work! Ha! Been so long since the streets and all that badass stuff. Should I call you by some code name in case someone’s listening?”

“The name on the card I used is Seabrook. But from what I’ve heard, the disguise isn’t great. It’s only a matter of time before a liveblood spots me.”

“You have
got
to fix that attitude! You are a
master
of disguise! Stop being so negative.” He moved his shoulders upward, giving me a glimpse of his old plaid shirt, still on under the jumpsuit. So maybe it had melded with his skin.

“I’m not negative. I’m positive. I’m positive you’re crazy. This isn’t about self-image, it’s about a ticking clock. Nothing lasts forever, right? So whatever I do has to be sooner rather than later.”

He opened his mouth in a way that made me terrified he’d launch into another motivational speech, but a mechanical trill from his pocket cut him off. I recognized the first few notes of Michael Jackson’s “
Thriller
.” Looking like the arrogant Yuppie he must have been in life, Jonesey held up a finger as he flipped open his cell.

“Martha! You did it! You
dialed
the phone and now you’re
talking
to someone! You didn’t think you could do that yesterday, did you? Now focus on remembering how I set it up for you—I’m four, like a
door
, your sister is five, ’cause she’s still
alive
. Four door, five alive. Got it? You go, girl!”

He flipped it shut.

I stared at him. “You can program your cell?”

Proud as a puppy who’d learned to crap on the newspaper, he nodded. “Takes like an hour to get one number into the speed dial, but, well, I have a lot of time here.”

Swapping the chain-link walls for corrugated steel, we reached an intersection between buildings. Jonesey pointed at one of the doors. “Mine, but we should probably talk out here.”

“Afraid I’ll contaminate the positive energy?”

“More like my work may have merited some extra
attention. I’m doing so much to keep spirits up here, they may never ship me to the testing labs.” He got quiet for a bit, then noticed I was staring. “What? Do I have a piece of chak on me somewhere?”

“No, it’s just…you look…
better
. I’m not saying you’ll win any beauty contests, but your eyes are clearer, you’re more reactive. You’ve even lost a bit of your slouch. If we ate, I’d wonder if they were slipping something into the food.”

He looked around, at the walls and fences. “It’s simpler than that. Losing your freedom is supposed to be terrible, but think about it. We’re out of the elements, we have roofs, a slower pace, the bleach is free. The lack of stress really works for us. What was it, a month ago you said I went feral? Since I’ve been here, nothing.”

“Next you’ll tell me that no one ever goes feral here in Shangri-la.”

“Fewer than you’d think,” he said. He pointed to a chak lazing in a chair like he was sunning himself. “Hagado there used to be a concert pianist. When he arrived he was so out of it, even I thought he’d blow in a day. That was weeks ago. Now he’s picking out “
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”
with one finger. Sure, it’s not
his
finger. I don’t know where he found it, but still, failing that test on purpose was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

“You failed
on purpose
?”

“Hey, hey, hey! You said yourself I look better…”

If there were any moisture in my mouth, I’d have spit on him. “This is a showplace for the press, so they can show the world how humanely we’re treated. All your preaching helps them out! You’re a patsy.” I grabbed the
cloth of his jumpsuit. “Do you have
any
idea what the other camps are like?”

He held my wrists and actually forced me to let go. I hadn’t remembered him being that strong. A gravity crept across his face. “As a matter of fact, Hess, I do. The overflow camps where they take most of us are just walls, or fences. They don’t even have buildings, let alone bleach. They’re pens where you wait to rot or go feral. Close enough?”

I was still angry, but caution kicked in. I rubbed my wrists, checked for loose bones. “You’re still connected. How?”

“The cell phones. Every chak has one, right? I’ve got eyes in the other camps, Fort Hammer, and more. The only place I don’t hear from is the lab. They take the phones away after orientation. But it’s a great network to spread the news when it happens.”

“When what happens?”

“This is more than a showplace. This camp really does supply test subjects for ChemBet. One day soon, they’ll find a way to bring us back to life. Real life.”

“Bullshit. At best ChemBet’s trying to figure out how to kill us. At worst, they’re making new monsters.”

He put a hand on my shoulder. “For an old friend, I’ll put it another way, real obvious. If you had, like, terminal cancer, and there was the slightest chance of a cure, wouldn’t you want to try it?”

I tried to steady my body. “Not if it was from the same freaks who gave me the cancer. Travis Maruta committed suicide because of what his work had done. Maybe Kyua knew something you don’t?”

“His death doesn’t matter. It’s not his body. Forget
soul
if you have to. It’s his ideas, the ones that make their way out into the world and change it. It’s his wife, his employees, even his notes. All that’s alive. All that’s hope. All that’s Kyua.”

“You’re nuts, Jonesey.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “Okay, now tell me how that makes me different from you?”

He had me there.

“See? So tell me why you’re here. What are you looking for? I know you’re not just hiding out.”

It was a mistake to answer. I knew what he’d think the blue stuff was, but with Misty gone, I didn’t have anyone to bounce things off. Jonesey clearly knew the place, and his connections were usually real. So I told him the whole story, even the parts no one else would believe. As I spoke, he got excited, blasts of air flying from his nose like he’d discovered a new way of laughing.

“Hess, you beautiful bastard! Hess! That’s it! You’ve got it! It’s got to be the cure! And you don’t even believe in fate.”

That much I expected, now the trick was whether I could talk him down. “Easy on the Kool-Aid, Jim Jones. Maybe someday your Kyua will come, but think about the current situation. That arm didn’t get divorced from its body due to irreconcilable differences. Saying something’s fishy is an understatement.”

But Jonesey wasn’t about to let the facts ruin his fun. “I’ve got connections, we can get you out tomorrow. You go, you get it, and you bring it back to my people! We’ll test it ourselves!”

I looked behind him. “You got a lab up your ass? Decontamination
suits? You said yourself it takes you an hour to punch a number into a cell phone.”

“So bring it back to ChemBet! I’ll make the call. I’ll get you immunity!”

When he flipped open the phone, I slapped it out of his hand.

“Stop it! Haven’t you heard anything I’ve said? At least three groups are looking for this stuff? Don’t be crazy.”

He looked at the fallen cell. “They said Einstein was crazy.”

“They also called a lot of crazy people crazy! Look what they did to Misty.”

“But with Kyua it can all be fixed. All of it. Misty could even bring back Chest—”

Before he could finish the sentence, I slammed him into the wall.

“You
don’t
know what that stuff is.”

Jonesey moved his head back and forth, but didn’t try to get away. “Forget I mentioned it. Forget I mentioned that
you
might have the power to save everyone. Don’t even try, Hess. Just let us all…rot.”

I hissed at him. “Sing ‘Kyua-Kumbaya’ all you want, but deep down, you try to remember how we all got here. Two steps. The first, Maruta and ChemBet. Remember who they are. The second step,
you
. Remember who
you
are.”

“Oh? Who am I?”

I had to spell it out for him. “You, Jonesey, are the idiot who put together a chak rally that turned into a massacre. How many chakz burned that day? How many
livebloods died? Got a rhyming game for that? A mousand, a louseand…a
thousand!
All the camps we’ve got now, full of rotting chakz?
Your
fault, Jonesey. Yours. Next time you make a speech about how we should dance into that testing facility, think about where you led us last time! Remember who you are.”

Maybe I got through. He wasn’t smiling anymore, at least.

“I will, Hess. Long as you remember who
you
are.”

I
thought I’d had it when they brought me in for my first physical, but Jonesey insisted it would be fine, that I just had to keep a good thought. He also told me he had a surprise for me later. I couldn’t wait.

Half the walls were cinder block, half white cloth mounted on wheeled frames. The floor plan could be changed at will, like flats on a theater stage rearranged for different scenes. Yesterday, it could’ve been a supply space, today it was a medical exam room. The overall effect left me feeling like I was in a pretend-doctor’s office.

My shirt was off. Some chubby guy in a lab coat, cigarette dangling from chicken lips, pressed a stethoscope into various parts of my body. If he’d actually been a doctor, he’d have spotted my fake scar, but I guess he was just playing one on TV. Then again, he did have the stethoscope on the right way. And a dead body, sans the élan, je ne sais quoi, or whatnot, looks fake to begin with. A mannequin
might look natural to someone staring at torn, dried flesh and dangling limbs all day.

I acted my part, exaggerating my limp, twisting my body. Whenever he got near the fake hair, or the eye-glob, I shivered and winced as if it hurt like crazy. That was easy, since my eye did hurt, ever since the flamethrowers. I wondered if the scar-putty had welded onto my eyelid, the way Jonesey’s plaid shirt was part of his skin. There was going to be hell to pay when I pulled it off.

If
I ever pulled it off.

Dr. Death couldn’t care less. When he wasn’t prodding me or making notes on a tablet, he was flicking ashes on the floor. Despite his shape, or lack thereof, he was young, probably a low-level researcher, and just nerdy enough to wear a pocket protector with the ChemBet logo on it.

He took some time fingering the bullet hole, grunting what sounded like approval about the stitches. It was dry now, whatever wetness having seeped out long ago.

“You patch this yourself?”

“Yeah.”

I got a big note for that. Maybe I’d be nominated for membership in the sewing circle. Past that, I wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but I hoped he’d found it. If I was ever going to figure out what was going on with those vials, I’d have to get into the lab.

A new screen flashed on the tablet. He blinked, read the first line, then said in a cheery voice, “My name is Steven. How long have you been here, Mr…. Seabrook?”

Was it two days or three? Not sure, I reached over to where my jacket hung on a hook and pulled out my recorder.
With a prissy sort of disapproval, he took it away before I could press
PLAY
.

“Hey! That’s mine, pal. Bought and paid for.”

He didn’t look at me, just made a note, then spoke again.

“My name is Steven. The point of this part of the exam is to test your memory. You’ll get it back when we’re done. What did I just ask you?”

“How long I’ve been here?”

“Great. And the answer is?”

I tried to sound certain. “Two days.”

He made a note. “And what’s my name?”

I knew Dr. Death was the wrong answer, but past that…

“Uh…”

He looked up at me and asked again. “What’s my name?”

When livebloods talk about memory farts, they say things like I drew a blank, or it’s on the tip of my tongue. This was more like you’re walking along and the road, which was fine a second ago, disappears. There’s a blank spot where the path was, and not so much as a detour sign.

I could tell from the look in Dr. Death’s eyes that I’d failed. There was more, a light in my uncovered eye that I kept seeing long after he pulled it away, some raps on my knee with a little rubber hammer that made my hand twitch. We both thought that was pretty funny, actually.

Then he handed me my recorder and told me to put my shirt back on.

“That it?” I asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Do I get in?”

I guess I sounded eager, because his eyes narrowed. “Do you believe in Kyua?”

Should I lie? Was it part of the test or was he satisfying his own curiosity?

“I believe in better living through chemistry.”

I didn’t get a lollipop, but he gave me an admiring nod. “Good sense of humor.”