Howl stares up at the opening as if he isn’t sure he wants to go in either, but then nods and leads the way.
Musty air breaks over us like ice water, sinking into my skin and leaving me shivering. The cave ceiling slopes lower and lower the farther we go, until Howl’s head and shoulders hunch. Helix breaks a quicklight in front of us, his crouched outline glowing red instead of the cheery yellow I remember from City quicklights. The tunnel drills deep into the rock, twisting so the light is just a suggestion, almost a memory, ahead of us. For once, my imagination stays cold.
I haven’t had a hallucination since we came across the frozen pile of soldiers. The bleeding eyes of the dead patroller paint themselves into the black all around me, and I shake my head with a wince at the memory. But it goes away. The dark is just . . . dark.
After what seems like hours of stumbling after Helix’s red glow, I startle back when a bright blue light flashes in front of me and a luminous rectangle patch appears in the rock wall. Helix presses his hand to the telescreen, saying, “Lan Helix.”
A telescreen? They have those up on the Steppe, maybe in the Sanatorium here and there, but there’s not many of them. How can the Mountain just casually leave one Outside to monitor the door?
A cool female voice whispers through me, “Lan Helix, Menghu. Within assignment.”
Howl steps up to the bright screen. “Sun Howl.”
The female voice doesn’t answer for a moment, but the confirmation comes. “Sun Howl, Menghu. Within assignment.”
Howl pulls me up to the light, gently pressing my hand against the telescreen next to his. “Say your name,” he whispers.
“Jiang Sev.” I flinch when the screen pulses blue under my hand. It’s a degree or two warmer than the stone around us.
The voice whispers again, “Jiang Sev. Under supervision. Sun Howl responsible. Please immediately process.”
The telescreen goes black. Warm air rushes out into the cave, and the darkness ahead of us changes to twilight. Twenty feet in, a light clicks on overhead. The pebbled dirt under our feet changes to metal grates and the smooth rocky walls are swallowed by blue-painted cement.
Howl hangs back, as if he knows I wouldn’t be able to stomach walking with Helix where I can’t keep an eye on him. We stop when we get to a branch in the hallway. Helix catches my eye and winks, taking off down the hallway on the left without looking back. I repress a shudder.
He didn’t say anything when he woke up this morning. Nothing about June being gone, not a word on the four dead Wood Rats. He just grinned an awful, sharp-toothed smile at Howl and led out.
The farther we walk, the less comfortable I feel. After weeks of being Outside, the low ceilings feel too close. The tons of dirt and rock above me feel heavy and unstable, as though the whole place could come tumbling down on our heads at any moment.
The hallway ends with a door marked in bright orange block characters: QUARANTINE.
Howl pushes the door open for me, both of us blinking in the eye-wrenching bright lights of the small room. Windows threaded with metal wire cover the upper half of one wall, looking over five uniformed men sitting at desks. The blue paint on the walls is scratched and dented, as though a gang of angry kids took to the place with shovels.
A young man about my age walks up to the nearest window and presses a button on the desk in front of him. His voice buzzes through the glass, lips not quite syncing with the words. “Nice to see you, Howl. Jiang Sev, I’m Raj. Dr. Yang gave us most of what we need for you to stay.”
I lean over to Howl and whisper, “Didn’t you say anyone could come in here? As long as they have someone to vouch for them?”
He shrugs. “I don’t think everyone who walks in here is as good-looking as we are.” He points to a deep dent in the wall, as if someone punched it repeatedly. “Or as well mannered. Must keep them separate at first.”
Raj continues, “I’ll give you your bunk information and a schedule to go with your assigned collective in just a minute, and if you’ll stand still, the computer’s snapping your pictures for ID cards. Also, we’d like to do all the testing before we get you settled in.”
Howl scratches at his face, several days of beard lining his chin. I think it looks nice, but from all the scratching, I’m pretty sure he’s missing the First-grade electric razor he abandoned with his pack. “Not just SS levels? What other tests do you need?”
“Encephalitis lethargica levels first, of course, but we also need to do immunizations, blood typing, a basic physical . . . nothing too exciting.” Raj consults a clipboard, checking something off. “Howl, your last tests were updated three years ago. We’ll just need levels from you.”
Howl quirks his head to the side, eyes narrowed. “Are all the other tests new? I don’t remember having my blood drawn before.”
“No. This is standard procedure. There might be special requests from Dr. Yang, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary.”
Raising my hand to get Raj’s attention, I cut in. “Whether it’s standard or not, you try to draw my blood right now, all you’re going to get is dirt. Can we clean up first? I smell like I haven’t taken a bath in more than a month. Because I haven’t.”
Raj blinks. “I suppose that can be arranged. I’ll take you down to the Outside showers. You’ve taken Mantis within the last ten hours, Sev?”
Dr. Yang didn’t leave anything out. I nod.
? ? ?
The Outside shower turns out to be one booth, one hose tangled on the floor, no soap, and no door. Next to the shower there’s a sink and a squat toilet. From the state of the floor, I’d be surprised if soap of any kind has ever touched the place.
Howl pulls the pack from his shoulders and grabs one of the towels Raj gave us from my arms. “I’ll keep watch for you if you do it for me.” He snags the towel on a rusted hinge that must have held a door once upon a time, pulling it across the entrance and covering his eyes with one hand. “Won’t look, I promise.”
Even with that convincing promise, I can’t properly enjoy the lukewarm water pouring down over my hair and back. Howl might keep his eyes covered, but the room opens to a hallway.
The time Outside has left me with dirt sunken into my skin, lining all of my joints, and embedded under my cracked nails. It might take weeks to get it all off. Years. Bars and bars of soap, if they have it here. I sigh as I turn off the water. The rusty stain on my pinkie under the ring looks diseased, as if the old metal is causing my finger to rot. I take off the ring and scrub at my tarnished finger. Tai-ge’s face swims up through my thoughts, but I don’t put the band back on. My past is dead. It has no place here.
Raj walks in just as Howl steps into the booth. “Is everything fitting all right?”
My uniform is too big. I’m pretty sure someone owned it before it came to me, maybe several someones. The loose-fitting pants brush the floor even when I’m standing on my toes, the green canvas fabric frayed at the hem and hip pockets. The black T-shirt has a hole in one sleeve, but I can’t argue with clean. The ring goes into my pocket. “It’s fine.”
Raj’s eyes dart toward the shower as Howl starts to hum. “This is your schedule and access card.” He hands me a small white envelope. “That’s so you can eat before we insert your ID chip.”
The card sports a picture on the top left side: me with a healthy coating of dirt and leaves, looking slightly cross-eyed. Great. I take solace in the fact that Howl’s card makes him look like he might be drunk.
“I’ll just . . . wait.” Raj glances at the shower again, water flowing out from under the towel. “I’ll get you to the correct wing for your collective.”
Howl’s head appears above the towel, muddy trails of water weeping down his face. “Don’t bother, Raj. I’ll show her. Where are you headed, Sev?”