“Hell no,” said Mad Dog. “We gotta wear special suits just to be around ’em.”
“And the animals,” agreed Metal.
I looked at the others. “Any ideas?”
Everyone shook their heads, except Kate. She turned to the bartender. “You still have books in your library?”
“Yes indeed,” he said. “Finster never let us throw ’em out. Said he needed ’em to make future researchers.”
“Fine.” She hopped off her stool. “I’m going to the library, if anybody else wants to come.”
Hell Razor wrinkled his nose like she’d farted as she walked out the door.
“Libraries. Right.” He swiveled around on his stool and pointed at the guys in the back room door. “We need any security passes to get into that lab?”
The big man shrugged. “You can get in, but you won’t get far. Most places are employee only.”
“We’ll see about that.” Razor downed his beer in one gulp. “Come on, Thrasher. Come on Snake. Let’s go kick in some doors.”
“I’m coming with you,” said Athalia. “I want to see inside that place.”
They shrugged as she joined them, but Angie held up a hand. “One second. Might save you some searchin’ around.” She gave Metal and Mad Dog a smile. “Don’t suppose you’ve ever seen a security pass for another facility lyin’ around in there anywhere. Place called Sleeper One?”
The men looked at each other, then shook their heads.
“Never seen nothin’ like that,” said Mad Dog. “But then, we just shovel shit. We never been into the high security areas. Could be anything in there.”
The bartender spoke up. “I know something that might help you, though it might not be current anymore. When I worked in subject holding the password to the cell block was Proteus.”
Angie nodded. “Not exactly what we were looking for, but thanks.”
She turned back to Razor, Thrasher, Vargas and Athalia. “All right, on your way, then. I’m gonna keep canvasin’ the locals.”
“You’re gonna keep drinkin’, you mean,” laughed Vargas.
Angie chuckled as the three rangers swaggered out, the sister following.
“That too.”
I kinda wanted to do a little more drinking myself, then take Angie into a quiet corner for a private heart to heart, but she didn’t look like she was going to budge from the bar, and neither did Ace, so I downed my dregs and headed out too.
“Gonna go make sure Kate’s okay.”
That got a look from Angie, and also Ace, which is probably why I said it, but neither of them said anything, so I kept walking.
I’d seen libraries before. Ranger Center had a good one, one of the best in Arizona. Darwin Village’s library took up two classrooms in an old school building. Everything looked neat and orderly, with the books shelved properly. I checked out the criminal sciences section and was pleased to see they had near a complete set of the Hardy Boys Case Studies. Wasn’t a ranger alive didn’t hope to do the memories of Frank and Joe proud.
The most fun, however, was watching Kate. From the sheer, astonished joy on her face, I figured her home village had fewer books than people, and most volumes were likely Bibles. She looked like she was in hog heaven. I, not needing to be any smarter, just followed my nose, pulling out books at random —mostly the picture books.
Kate on the other hand, after spending a while just soaking it all in, buried herself in a section called reference and began pulling out books as big as tombstones and flipping through them like she was in a fever. After an hour of that, I was beginning to regret leaving the bar, but finally she raised her head from yet another dusty volume and looked up at me.
“I don’t think they’ve got a disease at all.” She said. “They were dyin’, no doubt about it, but they’re dyin’ so slow and in such a particular way that I’m thinkin’ poison — radiation most likely. The question is, was it deliberate? Or was it some accidental exposure?”
I scratched my chin. “Well, it’s mighty peculiar that the folks that died first were the most educated folks, the ones who might realize quickest what was going on. Maybe they were gotten out of the way.”
“Maybe,” said Kate. “But it could also be that there was some accident in the research lab and the researchers took the biggest hit, while the support staff just got residual radiation.”
I frowned. “But if that’s the case, then how is Doctor Finster still alive?”
“Are you sure he is?”
That stopped me. “What. You think he’s dead in there? And the voice the townsfolk have been hearin’ on the PA system is just a recording?”
She shrugged.
I sighed, then gestured at the books. “Well, I guess all that is kinda beside the point. What’s more important is, did any of those books tell you a cure for radiation poisoning?”
“They did,” she said, then sighed louder than I had. “But the chances we’re going to find what we need to make it around here are about a million to one.”
– Chapter Five –
“Prussian Blue?” The bartender’s forehead furrowed in the middle like a rumpled blanket. “Hell yeah, we’ve got some Prussian Blue. Dave Cretian at the Black Market has barrels of the stuff. Never could find anybody to take it off his hands. Never knew anybody who knew what it was for except to use it as paint. Fact, he painted his house with some of it a few years back, but there’s plenty left over.”
“There better be,” said Kate. “Because it cures radiation sickness, and I’m pretty sure that’s what everybody here has got.”
“Wait a minute,” said Vargas. “House paint that cures radiation sickness? Did somebody spike your ginger ale?”
Kate shrugged. “I know it sounds crazy but it’s true. I read it in one of the books in the library. This guy in Germany found out that if you ate the pigment it sucked out the radiation as it moved through your system, and when you pissed it out again, the radiation went with it. It’s like an antitoxin. It removes the toxic waste from your body.”
Ace snorted in disbelief. “And what are the odds that the exact thing you need to cure this disease is right here where you need it?”
“Pretty good, actually, now that I think about it.” Angie swung around on her bar stool. “If the experiments up at the facility involved a lot of radiation, then they’d likely have kept plenty of stuff that cured it around in case of an accident, right?”
“But if that’s the case,” I said. “Why didn’t Finster tell all his employees to take it?”
“Maybe he doesn’t know,” said Ace. “A lotta jerks who call themselves scientists these days are only fools who found a book or two, and don’t know much more than normal folks.”
“Or maybe it’s what I said,” said Kate.
I looked around at her. “That he’s dead? Maybe so.”
The others turned — even the locals.
“You think the boss is dead?” asked Metal, who had joined Angie and Ace at the bar, along with his friend Mad Dog.
“How can he be dead?” asked Mad Dog. “We hear him on the PA system all the time.”
“Thought that might be a recording,” said Kate.
“Who cares if the boss it dead or not?” snapped Angie. “The important thing is keepin’ everybody else alive.” She turned to the bartender. “So where’s this black market place? We gotta get down there and get this Prussian Blue stuff.”
The bartender held up his hands. “Hang on, now. You ain’t gonna be able to just take it. Cretian is gonna want to be paid for anything he gives you, and he’s got the muscle to keep you from stealing it.”
Angie’s voice rose. “He’s gonna charge for the cure when the whole town is dying? What kind of monster is he?”