The substance was tepid, warm almost, and made her finger tingle. It was slightly springy to the touch. It felt much like touching a mucous membrane, as though life surged just beneath the surface. When she removed her finger, the surface kept an imprint of her fingertip for a few seconds before springing back up. This was the one thing everyone feared. But it didn’t feel dangerous. She touched it again. She’d always imagined that it must be cold and slimy, but the surface felt just like skin. Like a living creature.
Anders’s footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs. He was singing an old love song, a waltz they’d played in the leisure center last Sevenday: “Pia, my pioneer, please say you hold me dear, say that you’ll let me adooore youuu…”
“Pencil,” Vanja hissed at the gloop. “Pencil. Pencil. Pencil.”
Nothing happened. “Pencil,” Vanja whispered in desperation. With a faint snapping noise, the gloop contracted into an oblong shape. It almost looked like a pencil. The surface had cooled, but was still soft. “Pencil.” The material hardened slightly.
“…tralala, no other giiirl for meee!” Anders exclaimed, and slammed the archive door shut. “How’s it coming?”
“Just fine.” Vanja closed her hand around the unfinished pencil and continued marking office supplies with her back to him.
“Good. This is important work we’re doing! Important!” He patted Vanja’s shoulder so hard it hurt.
At ten minutes to five, Vanja’s throat was dry and her tongue felt stiff. “I’m done,” she told Anders. “I can leave, right?”
Anders threw a thin stack of forms onto the counter next to her. “You need to file these.”
They were forms Vanja had copied to fresh mycopaper earlier that morning.
“Go ahead,” Anders urged.
Vanja swallowed her annoyance and went down to the archive. Anders remained at the counter, stamping something with those hard little thuds of his. Vanja pulled out drawers, filing papers at top speed so she would finally be allowed to leave. Her gaze fell on the secure archive. She’d only be given access with a commission of some sort. Or if she got hold of a key. Vanja fingered the object in her pocket. Or if she made a key. Before she could follow her train of thought, Anders called down the stairs that it was five o’clock.
Evgen sidled up next to her as she exited the building. “Is there somewhere we can talk? We can’t go to the library.”
“Why not?”
“We’ll discuss it later. Is there somewhere? Your place?”
Vanja shook her head. Evgen pulled his hat further down his forehead and let out something between a whimper and a sigh. “What’s going on with you?” Vanja asked.
“Meet me by Plant House Seven. Don’t take the same route as me.” Evgen turned south.
Vanja walked west, curving slowly toward the southwest and Plant House Seven. The plant houses began to glow in the gathering darkness as the growers inside switched their lamps on. The cold deepened noticeably with the fading light. At first, Vanja couldn’t find Evgen anywhere. Then he stuck his head out from behind a stack of manure barrels at the far end of the plant house. In the nook between the barrels and the opaque gable wall, they were almost completely hidden from sight from all angles. Vanja huddled close to Evgen, who took his gloves off, wrung them, and put them on again.
“Listen,” Vanja said before Evgen spoke. “I can confirm the whole story about Berols’ Anna.”
Evgen blinked. “How? Where? In the archives?”
“No. Nina. She was part of the rescue team.”
Vanja recounted all she could remember of Nina’s story. Evgen listened, all the while gazing out toward the horizon and fiddling with his gloves. When Vanja fell silent, he didn’t speak at first. Finally, he nodded to himself.
“‘We will come to your aid soon,’ was that it?”
“Yes.” Vanja rubbed her mittens together. “What if they’re already here?”
Evgen hummed. “My thought exactly.”
“The tunnels. Ivar heard voices under the farm.”
“You’re thinking that they made the tunnels.”
“That, or they’ve used them to travel here.”
“And there’s the machine.”
Vanja shuddered at the thought. “Any thoughts on what it does?”
“No,” Evgen said.
“I dreamed that it started moving.”
“One should go down there to check,” Evgen said.
“There’s no way I’m going down there again,” Vanja said. “I can’t believe we did it last time.”
“You’re right,” Evgen said. “They’re probably there.”
“But why is this happening now?”
“Maybe they couldn’t do it before. Maybe it’s become easier. Because there are fewer of us, or because more people are thinking along the same lines as you and I. We can’t be the only ones.”
“It is easier now.” Vanja pulled her mitten off and took the pencil-thing out of her pocket.
Evgen leaned forward and squinted at it. “I dissolved it. And put it back together,” Vanja said.
“Really?” Evgen’s hand hovered over the pencil. Then he withdrew.
“Really.”
“It’s all happening at once.” Evgen rubbed his forehead. “I brought you here to tell you that the papers are gone.”
“What papers?”
“What papers? What do you think? In old Amatka. Someone took them.”
“Are you sure?”
“What do you mean, am I sure!” Evgen’s whisper went up an octave. He took a deep breath. “Of course I’m sure. I’ve kept them in exactly the same spot since I started collecting them. And now they’re not there anymore, so someone must have taken them. Please tell me it was you.”
“No. I haven’t been back since the time you took me there.”
Evgen breathed out through his nose in one short snort. Beads of moisture had formed on Vanja’s eyelashes. Annoyed, she wiped them away and broke the silence. “What are you going to do?”
Evgen let out a shrill giggle. “It’s just a matter of time. Either they know who I am, and they followed me there. Or they’ll figure it out. Not a lot of people have access to those kinds of documents. It’s over, Vanja.” He pulled his coat tighter around him. “I’m going to be arrested. They’ll probably do a procedure on me, too. Do you know what they do with people after? They dump them in a secret camp and leave them to die.”
“I’ve seen it,” Vanja said.
Evgen seemed not to hear her. When she met his gaze, his eyes were blank and feverish. “The question is what I can do before they take me in. We have to act before… Look, it’s time. We have to do something, tonight. I have a plan. Follow me.” He held out his hand.
“What’s the plan, Evgen?”
“You won’t like it,” he said. “But if someone’s down there, I think we should talk to them.”
Vanja froze. “No,” she said.
“They’re coming to help us,” Evgen said. “Remember?”
“Evgen, wait,” Vanja said. “I have to go home to Nina, she needs me. And if I don’t come home… she’ll be suspicious. Could we just wait until a little later tonight?”
“It’s now or never, Vanja,” Evgen said.
“Just give me a few hours.”
“Fine. One o’clock.”
Evgen turned around and walked into Amatka, shoulders pulled up to his ears. He looked small against the plant-house wall.
Nina came down into the kitchen and ate the fried porridge Vanja served. She moved slowly as though she were in pain, but at least she ate. They didn’t talk. When Nina had managed a little more than half of her portion, she got up and put the plate in the fridge. Then she kissed the top of Vanja’s head and went upstairs. When Vanja came up a while later, she’d gone back to bed. Her own, this time.