The monitor went blank. I had known her so long I could hear her spinning sarcastic remarks deep within her brain. I didn’t want to hear a single one of them.
“You should find somebody else,” she whispered. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”
“But you’re the one, Beth. My one.” I stretched my arm as far as I could reach until my fingertip touched the tip of her nose, that one small centimeter of unravaged flesh.
She made a tiny sound that could have been pain, or sorrow, or happiness. I had to squeeze shut my eyes for a second until they were dry again.
I cleared my throat. “Enough about me. What did you study today?”
“Natural history.” The monitor flashed a cute kitty emoji. “God, I wish I was doing research. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be sending more expeditions to the top-side, get a start on some kind of environmental rehab. It’s been three generations since we ran away. It’s not good for us.”
She didn’t just mean the fungus or the new viruses that bred and thrived down here in the dark. She meant it wasn’t good for humanity to get away from the stars and the sky and all the other animals. I’d heard it a thousand times before. Others might try to argue with her that the radiation storms and poisoned water made the world above too dangerous for human survival—Beth knew so much more about chemical warfare and radiation than I did that I’d given up playing the devil’s advocate.
“Hey, if you want a pet, I’ve got some fruit flies back at the lab who could use a good home.”
The monitor stuck out a tongue at me. Then she made her rasping sound, but it was deeper and harsher than her laugh.
“You okay?”
The rasp became a gurgle like nothing I’d ever heard before.
“Beth?” She jerked and lurched on the bed. Her carapace crunched. I yanked my hands out of the gloves, ran to the door, slapped the call button. “We could use some help in here!”
The door buzzed open and an orderly threw me out of the room. Nurses in hazmat suits darted inside as the door swung shut.
“Henry? You okay?” Noor, my favorite nurse, steered me toward the nurses’ station. Her green eyes matched her head scarf.
“She sounded really bad.”
“Honey.” She put her arm around my shoulder. “I don’t want to be the one who says this, but Beth’s taken a turn for the worse. She might seem okay, but that’s just as phony as the smiles you give her. Her hearing’s down to thirty percent, and the doctor says we can’t risk cutting open her good eye anymore.”
I stumbled away from her grip. “Blind? Totally blind? And deaf?”
“They’re going to try a new kind of hearing aid, but it’s just a matter of time.”
I put my hands over my face and let the nurse put both arms around me. The sticky pink smell of energy sticks surrounded me like a bubble.
An impenetrable bubble not so different from the gray shell that closed off Beth from the world.
“Henry?” My mother’s voice finally cut through the dreams.
“Hrm?” I managed. My body was still back in those dreams, dark, stuffy, strangling.
“The phone’s for you.”
I sat up and found the sheets wound so tightly around me I couldn’t peel them away from my shoulders. “Thanks. I’ll be there in a sec.”
I forced the bedding off me, a cold sweat breaking out between my shoulder blades. Was this what it had felt like when the fungus first started sealing Beth’s arms to her sides? Trapped, so trapped.
I stumbled into the main room and picked up the phone. We shared just the one since there wasn’t enough plastic and circuitry for everyone to have their own. “Henrietta here.” I cleared my throat and repeated myself.
“It’s Alberto. Sorry to wake you.”
I pulled the phone away from my ear and squinted at the time. My shift at the lab didn’t start for another two and a half hours. “What’s up?”
“Spore contamination in the droso room. We’re closing the whole facility until a team can get the place cleaned out.”
“Shit. How’s the back-up fly stock?”
“Jane’s been keeping them at her place, so they’re fine.” He let out a long groan. “I think we’re going to lose at least a week for this.”
“Shit.” What else could I say? “Well, give me a call when we can reopen.”
“Okay.”
“Wait—are we still getting paid? Alberto?”
He’d already hung up.
Shit.
My mom hurried by, her workbag over her shoulder. “No work today? Maybe you can clean the kitchen?”
The air pump in the ceiling let out a piercing shriek that made her cover her ears. I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for it to quiet down before answering. “Yeah, sure. Why are you off to work so early? And where’s Dad?” School didn’t usually start for another hour or so.
“He had a crisis on the second level. I’ve got health training or something. Maybe we’ll finally teach kids how to use a hankie instead of their fingers. Anyway, love you, sweetie.” With that, she vanished out the door.
I glanced at the clock again. My dad worked in the water department and had a crisis somewhere at least once a week. The city hadn’t been designed to last this long.
My feet shuffled their way back to my room. At least I had my own space here, even if my fingers brushed the walls when I stretched out my arms. I opened the shallow storage cupboard and took out the floppy company pillow.
In my preteen years, my mom had tried to teach me to embroider. I’d managed to work some music notes in a black satin stitch and a big letter B. I pulled the pillow up to my nose and breathed deep. Beneath the dusty smell of time, I thought I could still make out notes of artificial citrus and dandruff shampoo.
I turned away my face so my tears wouldn’t contaminate the pillow. I squeezed it hard and then put it back in the cupboard. The blankets lay in a heap where I’d dropped them. I pulled them over my head and sat in the warm darkness, thinking.
She deserved better than a slow death in quarantine. She deserved a chance to make her dreams come true.
I got dressed and left our quarters without bothering to eat breakfast. It was a long walk on an empty stomach, but I didn’t have any place more important to be. My stomach didn’t even growl as I stood waiting for a family to check in at the security desk. It must have been their first visit. It took a long time.
“Henrietta!” Joel said when he saw me. “You’re early today.”
I only blinked a little as I found my way to the check-in desk. “I need your help.”
I put on the hazmat suit at the second mile marker. The others had said goodbye to us back at Airlock Three, half a mile ago, my mom crying and coughing a little, suffering from the usual March cold, my dad standing stoic and blowing his nose like crazy. Noor wanted to come, too, but had called to let me know she had to cover someone’s shift at the last minute. Beth’s dads cried too hard to talk. No matter the precautions, this trip to the surface was going to shorten what little time Beth had left.
It had sounded like a good idea three days ago. But that had been in the safety of the city, asking for the support of the people who best knew Beth and I. A mini-research expedition, I had called it. A dream come true for a girl who had given her life for science. All of Beth’s professors in college had helped me beg the city for this, and against all odds, we’d gotten approval.
Now it was only me and the nearly dark tunnels and the soft growl and hum of Beth’s airtight cart. I turned around to check on her. She was sleeping hard; the pain meds they had given her would have knocked out a man twice her size. Even with the drugs, she’d be in constant pain during the trip. Every bounce, every jostle, every tiny vibration wore on her fungi-crusted exterior and twanged the mycelial threads that had fused her organs into place.