“God damn it, Ink,” Joey said. “This is fucking Africa, man. Lions and tigers and shit, guys with guns, and that Weathers buttwipe for lagniappe. You going to scare ’em off with your tats? Fuck that cheese.”
“ Yu… yu… you two dumbasses are completely inept when it comes to people!” Juliet hiccuped.
“It’s true, we suck at that.”
“Assistant? She won’t fool anyone!” Juliet yanked her hand out of Michelle’s and then grabbed a handful of Kleenex out of the box. “She’ll screw it up the first time she opens her mouth. Look at her. She’s a mess.”
“That’s why we have to make her over before we get Noel to take us there.”
“Make me over?” Joey was outraged. “What the fuck.”
“Nothing too elaborate. Just fix your hair and-”
“Hell, no. I like my hair the way it is.”
“What happened to you in that coma?” Juliet asked between hiccupy sniffles. “When did you become so bossy?”
Michelle stared at her, perplexed by the question. “I’m doing what I always do. I take care of things.”
Nyunzu, Congo
People’s Paradise of Africa
“Lucien!” wally cupped his hands to his mouth. His voice reverberated across the smoking grounds of the laboratory. The whine of over-taxed boat engines receded into the distance, their own boat among them. “Lucien!”
Wally inhaled, swelling his chest with air like the bellows of a pipe organ. “ LUCIEN! Come on out, guy! It’s me, Wally!”
The corner of a tin roof crash-clanged to the ground when a mud-brick retaining wall collapsed. Jerusha’s plants had damaged the wall; Wally’s yelling shook it just enough to finish the job.
He paced through the ruins, forced to limp because of the jags of pain in his leg. Where a bullet had grazed a thick spot of rust… but he’d think about what that meant after he found Lucien.
Smoke stung his nose, burned his throat. He felt like he was choking. “You’re-” His cough sounded like a stone knocking around inside a washing machine. He struggled to get the words out. “You’re safe now.”
His eyes watered. Was that the smoke?
Why hadn’t Lucien come out yet? He must have been frightened by all the fighting. He must have been good at hiding, the little guy. Wally hadn’t seen the barest trace of him. Not in the barracks. Not in the lab itself. Not in the cages, thank God.
And over there, at the edge of the clearing… No. Wally didn’t want to look over there. Lucien wasn’t there. He couldn’t be.
“Lucien!”
“Wally.”
“Lucien!”
“Wally!” Jerusha took his hand. “Let me help you.”
Wally was so caught up with his search and his worry that he didn’t notice right away that they were holding hands. But then he did, and his stomach did a somersault.
She pulled him toward a knot of children huddled together in the shadow of the ruined lab. The kids shrank back, clutched each other more tightly when the pair approached. They had tear-streaked faces and runny noses.
Jerusha knelt before the kids. She spoke to them gently, in French. She pointed at herself and Wally. Wally caught the name “Lucien.”
The kids didn’t say anything. They stared at Jerusha and Wally, wide-eyed. One little boy gave his head the tiniest shake. He said something to his companions, but it didn’t sound like French.
“What did he say?”
“Not sure,” said Jerusha. “But I think he’s translating to Baluba for me.”
“Hold on a sec,” said Wally. He squeezed Jerusha’s hand before releasing it. Freed children and emancipated staff members cowered when Wally limped across the clearing. The staff members looked even more frightened than the freed children; maybe they were right to do so.
Wally hurried to where he and Jerusha had stashed their packs, ignoring the pain in his leg. He dug out his photo of Lucien and brought it back to Jerusha.
She was talking with the little boy who translated for her. He had large, almond-shaped eyes. He looked to be nine or ten. His name was Cesar, she said.
Wally pointed at the photo. “Lucien?”
Cesar shook his head. So did the others.
Jerusha took Wally in one hand and Cesar in the other. She pulled them toward another, larger, group of kids. He held up the photo while she spoke in French and Cesar translated into Baluba. Nothing. Just confused glances.
They questioned everybody. A few of the former staff members trembled, or erupted into a torrent of French when Jerusha spoke to them. She translated their pleas for understanding, for mercy, for Wally and Jerusha not to hurt them. They’d been forced to do these terrible things against their will, she said. Jerusha’s eyes watered, too.
Wally grew more anxious, his palm sweaty in Jerusha’s hand, with every person they questioned. Every blank stare was another lost chance to find Lucien. Every shake of the head was another path to Lucien, closed.
Something tugged at his pant leg. He looked down. A little girl, not much older than eight or nine, looked up at Wally. Dozens of quivering fingers with gnarled, yellow nails protruded from her neck, arms, and legs; the poor thing was one of the dozens of jokers Wally had freed by disintegrating the cage doors. “Lucien?” she said quietly.
“Yes! Lucien!” He held up the photo. “Lucien?”
The little joker girl said something in French. Jerusha knelt beside her. They had a short conversation. It ended with the girl crying, and Jerusha turning pale.
“What? What did she say?”
Jerusha stood. She flung her arms around Wally, sniffling. “Oh, Wally… She says she was in a group of kids that received injections two days ago. She was the only survivor.” Her voice broke. She hugged him more tightly. “I think Lucien was in that group.”
“No. No, he wasn’t. That’s not true. She’s wrong.”
“She knew him, Wally. She’s from Kalemie, too.”
“No. Lucien’s alive and I’m gonna find him.”
“Lucien,” said the girl. She raised her arm, pointing. The extra fingers all bent in the same direction, like stalks of wheat bowing before the wind. They pointed toward the edge of the clearing, toward that place where Wally didn’t want to look.
Where the backhoe stood next to a wide mound of freshly turned soil. Where the jungle stank of death. Where vultures picked at the earth.
“No!” Wally limped to the mound. “No, no, no. Please, no.” He grabbed the backhoe and heaved, ripping it free with the shrieking of tortured metal. The vultures squawked in protest, the wind from their wings buffeting Wally as they leaped for the sky.
Wally gripped the backhoe bucket with both hands and scooped a long, narrow trench out of the mound. He flung the dirt away. He did it again and again, each pass going a little bit deeper, each pass proving that Lucien wasn’t here. Proving that Lucien was alive and safe. Somewhere.
Until he hit something soft. A tiny foot, caked in quicklime, curled toes sticking up through the mud.
“No!” Wally hurled away the broken backhoe arm; it whistled out over the jungle and disappeared. A distant clang echoed back a few seconds later, along with the screeching and shrieking of upset wildlife.
He fell to his knees. He dug with his hands. A shadow fell over him: Jerusha, weeping softly at grave’s edge.
The grave held seventeen little boys and girls, their bodies all ruined by the wild card virus. Melted, crystallized, putrefied, skinless, boneless, faceless. Black queens, and jokers who had survived the transformation only to be shot in the head. Or what passed for the head.
Lucien was near the bottom.
His body had become a kite. Narrow bones like pencils formed ugly bulges in his waxy, translucent skin. They’d torn through in places, cracking his skin like fragile parchment. His face had become flat and two-dimensional, like a stained-glass portrait of a little boy. But he still had those ears, those ridiculously large ears…
Lucien had died in an American Hero T-shirt. It was part of a whole package of clothes that Wally had sent; it had his face on the front.