Demitria Lunetta - In the End

“Won’t they be worried you turned it off?” I ask.

“If they were listening in at that exact moment, maybe. Or if they try to contact me while we’re talking, but I’m not due for another check-in until tonight. I’ll take the risk.”

He’s still staring at the picture. Gingerly, he touches it, caressing the girl’s face, then looks back at me and produces a single laugh so quiet, I think I might be imagining it. Then he takes the notebook, tapping it absently on the dresser.

“Ted,” he says. “Did she tell you who he is?”

I shake my head.

“Ted’s a bear.” That little, nearly soundless laugh escapes him again when he sees my confusion. “Kay’s older than me, by all of twenty-three minutes. She always thought that meant something, that I had to do what she told me to. When we were little, I had this teddy bear. Ted. I loved that stupid bear so much, but Kay never saw the point of loving an object. She would take Ted, make me beg for him back, you know how children are. I would cry and tell her that Ted needed me, but she’d never budge. She would say, ‘Ted doesn’t need you. You need Ted.’ I’d usually have to do all her chores before she gave him back.

“When we got older, the few times she really wanted me to do something for her, she would always say, ‘Ted doesn’t need you, but I do.’ She hardly ever needs me now, though. Or if she does, she doesn’t ask.” He looks at me narrowly, then shrugs. “She’s asking now. She wants me to help you.” He puts down the notebook he is fiddling with and faces me. “If Kay trusts you that much, then I do too. What is it that you need, Amy?”

A wave of relief washes over me. “I need to know about Baby. She was taken by Dr. Reynolds,” I tell him. “They think she was bitten by a Florae and didn’t change.”

“You mean Hannah O’Brian?” he asks. I nod at Baby’s true first name, though this is the first time I’ve heard her last name. “She’s all any of the researchers are talking about. I have a sample of her blood in the lab.”

“Kay thinks you might be able to help me save her.”

Ken gives me a sharp look. “Kay must not understand. Hannah was part of the original experimentation process that produced the bacteria that created the Floraes. She was in the group that tested the vaccine. She’s the only human that we know of to have been bitten by a Florae and not turn into one. I’ve made a new batch of vaccine based on her blood sample.”

Something comes to me then, something Amber told me after she arrived in New Hope, after I saw her for the first time and nearly strangled her for what she did to Baby and me. I’d put her in the hospital. A flash of anger is dissipated by the memory of her in the Ward, her lobotomy scar across the side of her head.

“Someone told me there are children in Fort Black with the same mark Baby has, the triangle on the back of her neck.” It marked her as a test subject. It marked Rice as well, but Dr. Reynolds must see more value in him as a researcher than as a lab rat. Or is it possible that Dr. Reynolds doesn’t know Rice was injected with the original vaccine?

Ken shakes his head. “We had a facility near this prison. Not the same one that Baby was in, but we were performing similar tests there. When the infection broke out, we evacuated the children from that facility to Fort Black. The walls offered better protection. That was years ago, though. We hadn’t anticipated the chaos that Fort Black was in. We lost track of those children. . . . Not one of them made it to New Hope. That’s why Hannah is so important. Of all those children, all those locations, she’s the only survivor we know about.”

My jaw tightens. So they don’t know about Rice. How did he get the scar on the back of his neck? How has he kept a secret? I don’t dare say this to Ken. Instead I ask, “And how did Dr. Reynolds regain contact with Fort Black?”

“He never lost it. Like I said, after the infection, there was absolute chaos, but Reynolds already had the Warden on the payroll. Hutsen-Prime was doing some testing on the prisoners here before the outbreak. The Warden was more than accommodating. He just saw dollar signs. When we lost all our test subjects, that’s when Reynolds decided to use Fort Black as his ready-made petri dish.”

“And now? There’s no money anymore. But the Warden’s still allowing all the people of Fort Black to be experimented on without their knowledge. What does he get now?”

“Food, gasoline, power. He lets us conduct our research, and we help him remain king of his crumbling castle.”

It makes sense. It makes it hard for me to breathe, but it makes sense. Ken may be Kay’s brother, but the offhand way he delivers this awful information makes me want to . . . I don’t want to think about what it makes me want to do to him. I know that they’re trying to save the human race, but can’t they see that they’ve lost their humanity in the process?

I breathe and try to focus. “I understand that your research is important,” I say, “but they’re hurting Baby . . . Hannah. Your vaccines aren’t working. You have to try something else.”

“The replication isn’t working because the bacteria has mutated from its original strain.”

“My mother told me that. She said it went airborne, then changed again.”

“To a pathogenic bacterium . . . which can only be spread with an exchange of bodily fluids, such as saliva or blood.”

“Right, so if the bacteria itself has changed, what good is Hannah? You have the original vaccine; you can modify it without her.”

“Hannah is a medical miracle, one that researchers are trying to duplicate. We’ve given the vaccine to test subjects, but they still aren’t immune. They change when we introduce the bacterium, just like everyone else. There is an answer, though, and it’s somewhere in Hannah’s blood. If we can figure this out, no one else will change. I can assure you that Hannah is well cared for. She’s very valuable.”

I swallow. How many people have they changed trying to test a useless vaccine? “Kay thinks she’s in danger.”

“Kay doesn’t have all the information. She doesn’t have the clearance.”

“Kay knows more than you think.” But I don’t tell him how I know this. I can’t put Rice in danger. I change tactics. “Maybe you could request that Baby be sent here. Then you can have full access to her. It will only benefit your research.”

“I have her blood. That’s all I need.”

“Kay said you’d want her for yourself.”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” he asks, his voice getting louder with frustration. “Kay knows only a fraction of what she thinks she knows. I have Hannah’s blood. I don’t physically need her here with me.”

Despite myself, my eyes well with tears.

“But . . . you have to help me.” My heart has dropped into my stomach. He’s been no use at all, after trying so hard to find him. I wanted so badly for Kay to be right, for Ken to be the answer. He was my only option. And now I have nothing. All this wasted time and energy for a dead end.

“Look, I know you care about Hannah deeply, but she’s just one child. What is one child for the future of humanity?”

“I’m not willing to sacrifice Baby for the good of humanity. I don’t care how selfish that is. She doesn’t deserve to be tortured so others can live.” I look at him, into his eyes. “What if it were Kay?”

He stares back at me for a moment, then looks down with a sigh. “I’ll try to find out more for you, but that’s all I can promise.”

“Thank you.” I can’t help it. Despite the fact that I’d just been fantasizing about breaking him in two, I step forward to hug him. He tenses, so instead I hold out my hand for him to shake. Kay isn’t comfortable with hugs either.