In the End (Starbounders) (21 page)

Chapter Thirty-seven

Nothing happens.

Dr. Samuels looks as shocked as I feel. Kay rips her hood off, and Dr. Samuels stares at her, his look of surprise giving way to one of glazed horror.

“I . . . I thought they’d finally come for me. . . .” He’s wide-eyed, mouth gaping, and turns to the gun in his hand. He sets the weapon on his desk, then yanks his hand away as if he’s been burned.

Kay steps over and plucks the gun off the desk. “Holy crap, when I gave this to you it didn’t occur to me you’d use it for
that
.” She checks the gun. “Good thing the safety was on.”

“Yes.” Dr. Samuels lets out a nervous sigh. “Quite.” He places his hand on his chest and watches as Kay removes the clip and tucks it into one of her pockets. After checking the chamber, Kay sets the pistol on the desk. Dr. Samuels stares at it. “I just couldn’t risk being taken.”

My heart threatening to pound out of my rib cage, I pull down my hood. Dr. Samuels’s mouth drops open. “Amy,” he whispers. He takes me in for a moment. “I suppose I knew you’d be back, for your sister.” He nods at the gun on the desk between us. “I thought you were one of Marcus’s men, come to take me away because of what I did for you.”

I’m still shaken by his attempted suicide, but if we want to get to Baby, we need to keep moving. “I know you’ve taken huge risks already, getting the message to us, stealing the key cards,” I say. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. And I know you’re worried about being caught. . . . But please, we need your help again.”

Dr. Samuels looks at us silently for a long moment. “What do you need?”

“A fingerprint. To get into the section of the lab where they’re holding Baby.”

Dr. Samuels nods. “Yes, FPV. Put into effect just recently.” He straightens his bow tie, rubs his hands through his sparse, white hair.

“Will you help us?” I ask.

He rubs his temples again, then eyes the gun on the desk. “Well, three minutes ago, I tried to kill myself.” He looks up at us with a faint smile. “So obviously fear of death isn’t my problem.”

“I don’t blame you,” I say quietly. “If you thought you were going to the Ward.”

“Torture,” he says grimly. “That’s what they’re doing there, I know. That’s what they’re doing to that little girl, your sister. It’s . . . it’s an abomination. We’re
doctors
,” he hisses. “We took an oath to do no harm.” He gives his head a sharp shake. “We’re
human beings
.” He slaps his palms onto his desk and stands. “Let’s go.”

We flank him on the way back to the restricted area, where he swipes his key card and pushes his finger on the pad. The door swings open and we’re through it.

I have no idea which of the many doors hides Baby from me, yet have to tell myself not to run down the hall ahead of them. I have to control my emotions, not let them take control, or I’ll end up doing something stupid.

Dr. Samuels stops at a door, swipes his card again, and taps a code into the keypad. He scans his print. The door opens to a dorm-style room.

Immediately I suck in a breath, paralyzed by the sight of Baby sitting at a child-sized table, coloring in a book.

There are a few toys, a few books on her bed, but everything else about the room is clinical. Hard, cold surfaces. Her bright-yellow jumpsuit blazes in the glaring light.

I am unable to move or even react. My time in the Ward floods back to me. I would spend days at a time in my room there, living the same bare existence that Baby is living here, drugged and numb. I begin to shake, my limbs no longer under my control. I stare at Baby, who hasn’t bothered to look up at the open door. I feel a hand on my back, Kay’s reassuring touch, and I know I have to push through the pain. I can’t fall apart now, not when I’m so close to saving her.

I step into the room and walk slowly to Baby’s side, pulling off my hood so I don’t scare her. She never used to want to color. The
swoosh
ing sound of the crayon across the paper unnerved her. I kneel next to her as she scribbles furiously on the page, oblivious to the noise she is creating. I circle her in my arms and pull her to me.

She’s limp in my embrace. I pull back and examine her.

“Baby . . . it’s me. I’m so glad you’re okay.” When she doesn’t respond, I pet her head. “Baby?”

At last she seems to focus on me, and my heart swells—and then breaks again when she opens her mouth to speak:

“My name is Hannah,” she says. “Who are you?”

Chapter Thirty-eight

She can’t have forgotten me. It’s not possible. I place my hand in hers and sign,
It’s me, Amy.

Her hand remains lifeless in mine. Her fingers are freezing, her skin chalky white.

Baby,
I try again.
I’m here to take you away with me.
She still doesn’t respond, so I say aloud, “I’ve come to get you. I’m going to take you away from here.”

For the first time Baby reacts with something other than indifference. “But I want to stay,” she tells me, her face scrunched in worry. She reaches up and twirls a hair around her finger. Before I can stop her, she tugs it free. I move her hair aside gently, revealing a pink bald patch on her scalp, agitated and raw.

“Oh, Baby. I’m so sorry. I should have come sooner. I tried, I really did.” How have I allowed them to turn Baby into this zombie child? I blink hard, battling back tears.

Kay and Dr. Samuels are whispering at the door. Then Kay’s calling to me. “Amy, what’s the holdup? We’ve got to get going.”

“She doesn’t”—I turn to Dr. Samuels, swallowing my emotion—“she doesn’t recognize me.”

“Sunshine, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to make her come.”

I nod, take hold of Baby under her arms and hoist her to my hip. Her six-year-old frame feels so light, as if I’m holding the shell that used to contain her. Pressed close to me, I can feel her heartbeat, weak and sporadic, through my synth-suit. She appears resigned to being carried until I’ve made it almost to the door, and then she lets out a scream so loud, I nearly drop her. Weak as she is, how can she make so much noise?

She keeps it up. There’s nothing for me to do but take her back into the room. Cradling her head on my shoulder, I get her to quiet down, but when I move to escape with her again, she lets out another heart-wrenching wail.

“You’ve got to leave her,” Kay commands.

“No.”
Now that I have Baby in my arms, I’m not letting her go. Not for anything.

“She’s been compromised,” Dr. Samuels explains quietly. “She won’t go willingly.”

“‘Compromised’? What does
that
mean?”

“She’s . . . She’s not herself.”

I start to ask him again what he’s talking about, but I know. Baby isn’t Baby. Dr. Reynolds has seen to that. I think of the video, and I shudder. They’ve made her into Hannah, New Hope citizen and willing test subject. I hope it’s not too late, that Baby hasn’t completely disappeared. I look into her cold, vacant eyes, and I’m not so sure.

“You can come back for her,” Dr. Samuels says weakly.

Baby’s shoulder cuts into my arm as I squeeze her to me. She’s skin and bones. “By the time we get the chance, she could be dead.”

“We can’t drag a screaming child through the lab,” Kay tells me. “And even if we did manage it, how could we hide you both?”

“We can get some sedatives,” I say desperately. “Dr. Samuels, you must have access.”

“I don’t know how her body would react,” he tells me. “I don’t know what they have her on, and she looks anemic. I don’t think her liver, not to mention her heart, could take anything right now.”

“Amy,” Kay’s voice warns. “We have to go. And Baby can’t come with us.”

I want to tell them to go on without me, just so I can spend a few more moments with Baby. I think of Pam, staying with Mike in their cell until the bitter end, unwilling to leave him to save herself. I have to do what’s best for Baby, though, and her best chance is having me on the outside, working to get her out.

I ease her down into her chair, placing her purple crayon in her ice-cold fingers. “I’m going to leave now, Baby,” I say, surprised at the strength of my voice when my insides feel like gelatin.

“My name is Hannah,” she says, resuming coloring on her paper. “I’m not a baby.”

“Okay, Hannah.” The name sounds so strange in my mouth. “Hannah, I’m going to go now, but I’m going to come back and get you. I’m going to find someplace for us, someplace we can call home.”

She looks up at me, her brown eyes strangely serene.

“I am home.”

Chapter Thirty-nine

Numb, I back away from her slowly, unable to absorb the fact that the Baby I knew is gone. But it’s right there in front of me: That clever, fearless, lovely girl has vanished.

“Quickly, follow me,” Dr. Samuels tells us.

“Amy, put on your hood,” Kay says, and I do it, glad to mask the pain on my face. I’m the last one out of Baby’s room, and I can’t help but look back at her, clutching her crayon and scribbling robotically. The door closes and the click of the latch feels like it’s severed something deep inside me, but I turn and follow them down the hall.

Dr. Samuels leads us quickly down a series of unfamiliar corridors and at last into some sort of meeting room. There’s an oval table surrounded by several chairs and a projection screen on the wall. “Wait here until I’m sure the coast is clear,” he tells us before ducking out the door.

I stand by the wall while Kay sits on the table. She gives me a moment before asking if I’m okay.

I nod only because I have to give her some response.

“We’ll go back for her, Amy,” Kay tells me, but this time I can’t even nod.

Then Dr. Samuels opens the door but doesn’t come in. He just stands there, staring at me for a moment. “Amy, I’m sorry. I had to.”

I frown, looking at him, then to Kay. “What?” I turn and see that standing behind him is my mother.

I glance at Kay, whose look of horror confirms my fear.

“What did you do?” she asks through gritted teeth.

Dr. Samuels has betrayed us.

“Amy!” My mother rushes me and hugs me to her. She smells like flowers and cotton, and in my bewilderment, I hug her back. Then I regain my senses and break her hold, backing quickly away.

She sees my look of confused hatred. “Amy, please. You don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand?” I hiss. “How you left me to rot in the Ward, how you let them torture Baby?”

She shakes her head. “It’s not as simple as that.” She keeps her distance, but her voice is pleading. “I let him put you in the Ward because I thought it was the safest place for you. Then, when Dr. Samuels told me about what treatments you were really receiving, I went to Kay. I told her where you were.”

I stare at her, disbelieving. “You’re lying.”

“Amy.” I feel Kay move to my side. “She’s telling the truth. She wanted you out of there.”

“Amy, I couldn’t stand up to Dr. Reynolds then. Not directly. I didn’t have the support.”

“And now?” I ask. “Why are you here now?”

She shakes her head again. “Dr. Reynolds has gone mad since you escaped. He thinks I’m purposely stalling in finding a vaccine. Insane. He’s placed us all under surveillance. It’s impossible to get work done. I can’t leave the lab without being followed by that gorilla, Marcus. I’m sure he’s looking for me right now.”

I still don’t trust her. And yet, there are tears in her eyes.

“Amy, Dr. Reynolds was convinced you’d come back and contact me. He’s been waiting.” She steps closer, grips my arms. “It’s dangerous for you here, but when I saw you in the hall . . . I was so happy.” She releases me, presses the backs of her hands to her eyes.

I want to hate her, but part of me knows she’s telling the truth. She did her best. All the strings she pulled to keep me under Dr. Reynolds’s radar, all the conversations we had about how I needed to fit in to be happy. She was trying to protect me the only way she could.

Still, I can’t help but stay at arm’s length from her. “I only came back for Baby,” I tell her.

“Yes,” she says, a look of fresh pain crossing her face. “Baby. I’ve tried to keep her safe, tried to keep her from him. And that meant acting as though she didn’t matter, as though she were nothing more than an annoyance. I thought having her live in the dorms, distancing her from you, would be enough to keep her under his radar, but . . . one of the minders saw the injection scar on her neck and she was scooped up.”

She’s searching my face. I try to keep it frozen, but I feel my resolve melting.

“I had no idea who she was until then, but Dr. Reynolds is convinced I was keeping her from him. That I knew she was part of the original test group and I didn’t tell him. He began to spread rumors that, after your breakdown and escape, I couldn’t handle the strain. I know he wants me in the Ward.”

“What?”

“He sees me as a threat, Amy. He always has, and now—now he’s just unhinged.”

The idea of my mother—my powerful mother, always in control—thrown into the Ward to be tortured and experimented upon. . . . I just can’t wrap my head around it. “Is he . . . Is he going to
do
it?”

“Given the opportunity,” she says, “yes, absolutely. But even as mad as he is, he’s kept his political sense, knows not to push too hard too quickly. I’m a public figure, not just to the people of New Hope, but to the researchers. In their eyes, I’m still the director, their leader. If nothing else, it would be a blow to morale to have me committed.” A quiet, desolate laugh escapes her lips. “So I play the political game too. I do what I can—what little I can—to keep him in check while pretending to be on board.”

I’m stunned and terrified in a new way: Now I have my mother’s safety to worry about too. It seems impossible, but it’s true.

“As soon as I could,” she goes on, “I looked at Baby’s blood work and told Dr. Reynolds that I didn’t think she could be useful—it’s the truth; the bacteria that causes the infection has mutated too much. I don’t even know that if she’s bitten again, she would survive. There’s no way to know how she survived the first time. But he didn’t believe me. He thinks I’m trying to sabotage his efforts, as if I’d manipulate my findings just to trip him up.”

Brenna was bitten more recently. . . . Was I right about her being immune to the new strain? If that’s true, then Baby is useless to them. Maybe Ken can find a vaccine analyzing Brenna’s blood. And if that doesn’t work . . . Rice hasn’t been bitten at all. I shake the horrific thought from my head. Would I trade Rice for Baby?

Kay interrupts my horrible thoughts. “The other researchers are unhappy too, right? They must want to get rid of Reynolds.”

“I’m sure many do,” she allows, “but they also know it wouldn’t be easy. And there are others who see what Dr. Reynolds is doing, preserving the human race at any cost, as necessary. I used to be one of them,” she says, then gives her head a shake. “But after they took you . . .” Again I think of Rice. Where does he truly stand?

“But like you say, you’re the director,” Kay cuts in, “their leader, not just another researcher. Surely, you can do something.”

She sighs. “If I ever did have power, it’s all but gone now. Reynolds brought me here from Chicago and made me director, thinking I’d inspire confidence among the citizens. I was non-military and, with my background in bacterial research, the person best suited to find a vaccine. He could hype me as the
hope
in New Hope. And I did do research work. At the start, I think it made obvious sense to him to bring me in: I’d created the bacteria we were fighting against, after all. But I also made him uneasy, and over these last few months all I do is speak at events, record updates for the news.” She shakes her head. “Now I’m just a talking head. Whatever power I might’ve had, Dr. Reynolds gave me—and, after Amy’s escape, he’s stripped it away.”

“But no one in New Hope knows you’re just a figurehead, do they?” I say. “None of the normal citizens.” After all, everyone in New Hope lives under the haze of the researchers’ lies. “They don’t know that the Floraes are people, or that you’re experimenting on children. They don’t even know how dominated they are by Dr. Reynolds.”

I remember my talks with Dr. Reynolds, my psyche-eval. He wants New Hope to be perfect, but
his
version of perfection. No room for dissent or discussion. When the bacteria were released, he saw it not as a nightmarish tragedy, but as his opportunity to remake humanity according to his vision. He’s manipulated every aspect of New Hope, using his background in psychology to prey on people’s fears and make them blindly follow him. The last thing he wants is for people to know the truth.

“You should tell everyone in New Hope,” I say quietly to my mother. “You should confess everything.”

My mother shakes her head slowly. “Amy, no. Even if Reynolds didn’t immediately silence me, it would do no good. It would only upset the general population.”

“Well, it’s time they were upset.” I look into my mother’s eyes. “It’s time they knew the truth. All of it. The Floraes, the research, the Ward.”

My mother is still unconvinced. “I don’t think—”

“Then people could decide for themselves,” I say, my voice shaking with anger. I’m so sick of the lies, the cover-ups.

“Decide
what
, Amy? This isn’t a democracy! It’s as if you think they can just vote Reynolds out.”

“If the people knew the truth, it would rob Dr. Reynolds of some of his power,” Dr. Samuels says from where he’s been standing in the corner of the room, waiting quietly. “It would be a start.”

My mother turns and looks at him, then she swivels back to me.

“I’ve thought about it,” she admits. “But there’s something else. He threatened . . . not in so many words, but he made it clear that if he ever found out I was plotting against him, he’d take Adam away from me. He could do it. He wouldn’t think twice about hurting Adam to control me.”

I think about my little half-brother. He’s only three. Would Dr. Reynolds really take a child? Of course he would. He took me. He took Baby.

“Some of the researchers and I have talked around the issue. They’re as alarmed as I am by Dr. Reynolds. But everyone is so careful. No one wants to be sent to the Ward. I have to be careful, too. For Adam.”

“What would you do?” I ask. “If you weren’t so afraid.”

“I’d distribute my current lab notes. They’re damning enough on their own. But I’d also release the records that would expose that I created the bacteria, that the Floraes are people. But, Amy: What do you expect people to do with that information?”

Again Dr. Samuels speaks up, this time more forcefully. “You could do more than simply release the information. You could set it all out for them, tell them what it all means, what’s really been going on here. And you could put yourself forward as an alternative to Reynolds.”

My mother laughs hollowly at this. “A coup, Dr. Samuels?”

He nods, his mouth set in a firm line. “Precisely. You’re the only person in a position to influence one . . . and we have a secret weapon.”

All eyes turn to me. “What?” I ask, not understanding.

“When you escaped,” Kay tells me, “Dr. Reynolds told New Hope you were dead. It was a big deal, the director’s daughter dying. There was a funeral and everything.”

“It was macabre,” my mother intones. “I knew you’d escaped, but I had to sit there and play the grieving mother, act as if my daughter . . . you were dead.”

“But, if we show people you’re alive,” Kay says, “they’ll know Dr. Reynolds has lied. They might be more willing to listen to what else he’s kept from them.”

“Fine,” I say. “I’m in. Just tell me what I have to do.”

At first I think my mother’s just going slap down the idea. But she doesn’t. “They could well choose to keep Dr. Reynolds in power, to find a vaccine,” she says quietly.

“But at least they’d have a choice,” I tell her. “And what makes you so sure that they’d value a vaccine above anything else? It’s become an obsession among the researchers, and maybe Dr. Reynolds sees it as an end that will justify his methods, as the ultimate vindication, but what would the citizens of New Hope think? Sure, it would be reassuring, but would they truly be willing to sacrifice children to get it? If it were a cure, maybe . . . but you told me a long time ago that a cure was impossible, that the Floraes would never become people again.

“So isn’t there already an alternative?” I continue. “You have the emitters to keep away the Floraes. You have other technology that can keep us safe, that can help humans reclaim the world.”

Dr. Samuels nods his agreement. “A vaccine is not the only thing that can save humanity. It would only solve one problem. Let the citizens of New Hope decide what sacrifices they’re willing to make.”

My mother shakes her head. “What would you have me do? Make an announcement on the evening news? Show that Amy is still alive and then expose all of Dr. Reynolds’s secrets?”

“Exactly,” Kay says. “You’d have the support of at least half of the Guardians.”

“It would be pointless. Dr. Reynolds would be able to distance himself from any research I’ve done. It would discredit me and make him look even more attractive to the people of New Hope.” She sighs, closes her eyes for a moment. When she opens them, her face has changed, her jaw set.

“The only way it would work would be to release everything at once. We have to get
his
lab notes, as well. He’d have documentation of all the experiments. Then I could share everything at one time, send out a data burst to every computer in New Hope. I could have it coincide with an announcement on the news, so even if Dr. Reynolds shuts us down, he won’t be able to stop the information from spreading.”

“You would do that?” Kay asks. “You could still be blamed for everything.”

She nods, then looks at me as she says, “I
am
to blame. I was responsible for the bacteria. It’s about time I was made accountable. If everyone knows, even if I’m punished, Adam would be safe. Most people wouldn’t want to hurt an innocent child.”

“Maybe they’ll understand,” I tell her. “New Hope still needs a leader.”

“I’ll remain director, if they’ll have me.” Her eyes flick to Kay. “But we still need Dr. Reynolds’s lab notes.”

“I’ll get them,” I say. “I’ve already been in his office.”

“Amy, you didn’t!” She’s horrified. “What were you thinking? No. If he finds you, he won’t send you back to the Ward. He’ll kill you.”

“I won’t wait around for him to find me,” I snap. “People have to start putting themselves at risk.” I refuse to be ruled by fear. And I can see my mother is about to refuse to as well.

“His notes aren’t in his office anyway,” Dr. Samuels says. “They’re in the lab, in a safe. You need Level One Clearance and his personal combination. I think . . . I think I can help get the notes.”