“Have you tested for pseudotype viruses?”
“We’re still running the samples,” Turner said.
“Anything?”
“Not yet.”
“You’ve had Shiver,” Flynn said sullenly. “You should be even more cautious.” She looked more angry than distressed now. They were wondering whose side he was on, and he was half inclined to tell them.
“I won’t even need a suit,” he said contemptuously, and tossed the phone back to Flynn. He walked toward the trailer.
“Hold it,” Turner said, his face red. “Go in there without a suit, and you’ll stay. We won’t—we can’t let you out.”
Dicken turned and bowed, holding out his arms in exasperated placation. There was work to do, a problem to resolve, and anger wasn’t helping. “Then get me a goddamned suit! And a phone or an intercom. She needs to communicate with the outside. She needs to talk with someone. Where are her parents—her mother, I mean?”
“We don’t know,” Flynn said.
The narrow rooms inside the mobile home were neat and cheerless. Rental-style furniture, upholstered in beige and yellow plaid vinyl, lent them an air of cheap and soulless utility. The girl had brought no personal effects, and had touched none of the stuffed animal toys that lined the shelves in the tiny living room, still in their plastic wrappings.
Dicken wondered how long ago the stuffed animals had been purchased. How long had Jurie been planning to bring SHEVA children into Pathogenics?
A year?
Two dining chairs had been upset beside the dinette. Dicken bent to set them right. The plastic in his suit squeaked. He was already starting to sweat, despite the air conditioner pack. He had long since come to sincerely hate isolation suits.
He looked for other obstructions that might snag the plastic, then moved slowly toward the bedroom at the back of the trailer. He knocked on the frame and peered through the half-open door. The girl lay on her back on the bed, still wearing pedal pushers, blouse, and a denim jacket. The bed’s green plastic covers had been tossed aside, and she was staring at the ceiling.
“Hello?”
The girl did not look at him. He could see her skinny chest moving, and her cheeks were ruddy with fever or fear or perhaps despair.
“Helen?” He walked along the narrow space beside the bed and bent over so she could see his face. “My name is Christopher Dicken.”
She swung her head to one side. “Go away. I’ll make you sick,” she said.
“I doubt it, Helen. How do you feel?”
“I hate your suit.”
“I don’t like it much, either.”
“Leave me alone.”
Dicken straightened and folded his arms with some difficulty. The suit rustled and squeaked and he felt like one of the plastic-wrapped stuffed animals. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”
“I want to throw up.”
“Have you thrown up?”
“No,” she said.
“That’s good.”
“I keep trying.” The girl sat up on the bed. “You should be afraid of me. That’s what my mother told me to say to anyone who tries to touch me or kidnap me. She said, ‘Use what you have.’”
“You don’t make people sick, Helen,” Dicken said.
“I wish I could. I want him to be sick.”
Dicken could not imagine her pain and frustration, and did not feel comfortable probing it out. “I won’t say I understand. I don’t.”
“Stop talking and go away.”
“We won’t talk about that, okay. But we need to talk about how you’re feeling, and I’d like to examine you. I’m a doctor.”
“So was he,” she snapped. She rolled to one side, still not looking at Dicken. Her eyes narrowed. “My muscles hurt. Am I going to die?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I should die.”
“Please don’t talk that way. If things are going to get any better, I have to examine you. I promise I won’t hurt you or do anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.”
“I’m used to them taking blood,” the girl said. “They tie us down if we fight.” She stared fixedly at his face through the hood. “You sound like you’ve helped a lot of sick people.”
“Quite a few. Some were very, very sick, and they got better.”
“And some died.”
“Yes,” Dicken said. “Some died.”
“I don’t feel that sick, other than wanting to throw up.”
“That might be your baby.”
The girl opened her mouth wide and her cheeks went pale. “I’m pregnant?” she asked.
Dicken suddenly felt the bottom fall out of his stomach. “They didn’t tell you?”
“Oh, my God,” the girl said and curled up, facing away from him. “I knew it. I knew it. I could smell something. It was his baby inside of me. Oh, my God.” The girl sat up abruptly. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
Dicken must have showed his concern even through the hood.
“I’m not going to hurt myself. I have to throw up. Don’t look. Don’t watch me.”
He said, “I’ll wait for you in the living room.”
She swung her legs out over the side of the bed and stood, then paused, arms held out as if to keep her balance. She stared down at the fake wooden floor. “He used nose plugs and scrubbed me with soap, and then he covered me with cheap perfume. I couldn’t make him stop. He said he wanted to learn whether he would ever have grandchildren. But he wasn’t even my real father. A baby. Oh, my God.”
The girl’s face wrinkled up in an expression so complex Dicken could have studied it for hours and not understood. He knew how a chimpanzee must feel, watching humans emote.
“I’m sorry,” Dicken said.
“Have you met anyone else like me who was pregnant?” the girl asked, holding, compelling his gaze through the plastic.
“No,” Dicken said.
“I’m the first?”
“You’re the first in my experience.”
“Yeah.” She got a panicky look and walked stiffly into the bathroom. Dicken could hear her trying to throw up. He went into the living room. The smell of his sorrow and loathing filled the helmet and there was no way to wipe his eyes or his nose.
When the girl came out, she stopped in the doorway, then sidled through, as if afraid to touch the frame. She held her arms out to her side like wings. Her cheeks were a steady golden brown and the yellow flint-sparks in her eyes seemed even larger and brighter. More than ever, she looked like a cat. She glared at him quizzically. She could see his puffy eyes and wet cheeks through the plastic. “What do you care?” she asked.
Dicken shook his head inside the helmet. “Hard to explain,” he said. “I was there at the beginning.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure there’s time,” he said. “We need to find out why you’re sick.”
“Explain it to me, and then you can look at me,” the girl said.
Dicken wondered how they would react outside if he spent a couple of hours in the trailer. If Jurie should happen to come back…
None of that mattered. He had to do something for the girl. She deserved so much more than this.
He pulled up the covering seal and unzipped his helmet, then removed it. It certainly wasn’t the worst risk he had ever taken. “I was one of the first to know,” he began.
The girl lifted her nose and sniffed. The way her upper lip formed a V was so strangely beautiful that Dicken had to smile.
“Better?” he asked.
“You’re not afraid, you’re angry,” the girl said. “You’re angry for me.”
He nodded.
“Nobody’s ever been angry for me. It smells kind of sweet. Sit in the living room. Stay a few feet away, in case I’m dangerous.”