The Ward

PART THREE





40


6:00 P.M., SUNDAY


The suspension bridge sways under my feet, heavy with me, and the sack, and other things like life and love that you simply can’t touch with your hands.

Overhead, quiet and perfect like nothing could ever go wrong in the world, I see the stars. Out in full force.

If Callum and I can pull tonight off . . . My brain don’t even know how to think that kind of thought—it can’t imagine it. The borders will open—I’ll be able to see the West Isle for the first time. But would I even want to? A city with people who’ll push for genocide?

Maybe, when you’re not fighting to survive, you can afford to think about wiping others off the map. Either way, it’s not important. Tonight isn’t about getting tourist visas so we can take vacations to the Isle.

I’m here—I see the roof of the Hell’s Kitchen sickhouse only feet away, but I stop moving. Stop crossing the bridge.

Below, the wooden planks creak, and ahead of me the Strait splashes between us and the Isle. The Ward isn’t silent tonight, though. Not too far off I hear the high-pitched whistle of a firecracker. Then its thunderous finish. Like it is its own exclamation point announcing itself to the sky.

Telling the world to get ready for what comes next.

Tonight is about Aven, and the girl in the contagious ward, and everyone else afraid to go outside. It’s about putting us back on the map—as people, and as a city.

We’re not hosts.

I let go of my fist, tight around the suspension rope, and jump onto the rooftop.


Opening the door out of the stairwell into the top-floor hallway, I nearly gag. Have to hold my nose as I walk. The smell . . . it’s worse than the dying stink of the hospital.

Rank viscera. Old, decaying flesh. Blood loss, coppery and acrid.

This high up, and they usually just weight the bodies before tossing them into the canal below. But sometimes the flesh is dying and the body’s still alive. The smell is the same.

I can taste it all in the air, passing room after room. My stomach twists, and though this isn’t the floor I found Aven on, it may as well be. All the doors look the same, and I can almost see myself pushing them open. Frantic.

Yelling for anyone who might’ve seen the girl with the near-white hair.

I come up on apartment 305, my footsteps quiet and even. Candlelight flickers under the door, and I don’t even have to knock. It opens, and there’s Callum.

He pulls me in. Wraps me up in a hug. Seeing the sack, his face is a mixture of wonder and even more wonder. “You made it. . . .” he says, and kneels beside it. “Is this really it?”

Disbelieving, he lifts it up by the straps to feel its weight.

“To the brim,” I say softly, and I pat the rubber, a little bit proud. Then I look at him—really look at him—give him the once-over, two . . . three times. “You’re whole,” I say, wide-eyed, and he manages a weak laugh, nodding.

Even with the cure . . . everything is tense. There’s too much dying.

As he carries the sack to a corner of the room—a huge room—I see all the big furniture’s still here from after the Wash Out. Everything else, though—picked clean.

“That I am,” he answers, lowering the sack onto a bulky wooden table. Careful not to spill, he pours the water into a glass basin, shaking his head as he watches. He murmurs, “Only you,” then glances at me with that strange, awed look again.

I avoid his eyes; each time that happens, I find myself going more and more red in the cheeks, like I’m too unusual.

As he pours, the tiny green mushrooms fall out too. “What’s this?” he murmurs, leaning in to get a closer look. Then he answers his own question. “A bioluminescent fungus . . .”

I don’t know much about that first word, but I nod anyway. He’s talking about the aliens, all right. “It’s the plant you were talking about, right? It’s how the water got those phytothings,” I ask, but he don’t answer.

He’s totally absorbed, filling an eyedropper with the springwater. “Amazing,” he murmurs.

Through the tube, I see now that the water is darker than I thought. A brownish, reddish color. Flecked with neon. When he swirls it around, a glow-in-the-dark galaxy whirlpools in his very hand. He droppers it onto a glass slide, then adds a dye or something. He lays that under his ’scope’s lens. For a moment I’m surprised—I’m thinkin’ the ’scope got lucky. Survived the ransacking of the first lab. But then I see Callum hold a super-duper bright flashlight over it: Kitaneh’s handiwork must’ve included bulb smashing.

“Shine it here, please?” he asks.

I take it from him, trying to beam the light where he wants while he looks through the lens. After a few moments of him lifting his eye, moving the slide, adjusting the focus, and repeating the process about a half dozen times, Callum stands.

In a whisper, eyes glazed like he’s way too happy: “This is . . . I have no words. The fungus—it grows underwater, and the hot spring seeps out its nutrients. Kind of like a tea. You know, I’ve heard of something like this before.” He pauses, recalling as he looks up. “There’s a place called Siberia where a tree-growing mushroom exists, one with similarly beneficial properties. Antiviral, antitumor, antibacterial, et cetera. Locals make tea out of it. Still, this one blows it away. Far more potent. Take a look.” He nudges me in front of the ’scope.

Peering down, I see a half dozen other patterns, similar to the desert dunes and the bubbles. One looks like a fence, all Xs and diamonds. Another ripples like the Hudson on a windy day.

“The antivirals, along with all the other necessary chemical compounds, are there. We can cure the Blight with this,” Callum tells me, tapping the table. When I look up he adds, “Along with your blood, that is.”

I laugh, nervous. “Again?” I say, gesturing to myself. “Remember, Callum, limited quantities only.”

He chuckles and walks over to me, syringe in hand. Motions for me to roll up my sleeve. “Don’t worry, I won’t need much.”

I step back—I don’t believe him for a minute. We’re talking enough for at least eight hundred people. “Why? I thought with the mushrooms we’d have enough antivirals. . . .”

“We do. But, like I said before, your blood does something to jump-start the recipient’s immune system. With it, we only need to administer one dose. Follow-up doses would be necessary otherwise, and we just don’t have enough time—or water—to do that.”

I nod. Without another thought—we’ve come too far to get tripped up over a little blood donation—I extend my arm, exposing my inner elbow. The tip of the needle pierces flesh. I watch my blood go away. And away. And away . . .

“Okay, mister,” I grumble after even more time passes. “Leave some for the girl in the body, will ya?”

Callum laughs, but doesn’t move. Only when he feels he’s taken enough does he steps back. Then he looks at the desk.

On it, three glass bowls. All different sizes. The first and smallest (thank goodness) holds my blood. In the second, our alien mushrooms. The springwater is in the third bowl, swirly and neon.

Biting his lower lip in a smile, Callum double punches the air. I’m fool-grinning too. “We’re going to do it,” he says. We stand there, our eyes first caught on the bowls, then on each other, because hope has the perfect face.

“We need a plan. To get it to everyone . . . and Aven,” I say softly, afraid of sounding too selfish.

Even with all the others, I want to get her the cure first.

“Yes. We do. And we will. But first I need to figure out what ‘it’ is,” he tells me. “There’s still so much we don’t know.”

“True,” I say. I’m about to say more, but I stop. Cross my arms. As soon as his name entered my head, the writhing came back. The anger. All of a sudden, it’s like I’m holding that album again, filled with Derek and Kitaneh’s joy, centuries of love-dovey, gooey-eyed crap. Derek. Who kissed me back. Who would drink the water for himself, and let me watch my sister die.

“The Tètai, Callum . . . They’re not just guardians of the spring. They’ve been the spring’s guardians. All along. Centuries. I saw pictures. Actual old-school flash photography.”

Callum eyes me, but not with disbelief. Then he laughs, brows sky-high, and scratches his head. “I’d suspected that was possible, to be perfectly honest. But without seeing it in the water, I couldn’t even attend to the possibility.” He points back at the ’scope. “I still can’t see how, actually. We know that, for someone who’s sick, the water has restorative properties if administered in multiple doses over time. But immortality? That’s a whole different ball game, I’m afraid.”

I walk back over to the ’scope to have another look. “What if . . .” I start, and peer down into the lens. Just in this tiny microcosm of a swab, there are dozens more patternlike phytothingies than there were before—ones that look like hologram images of grassy fields, or rainbow feathers, or cords and cords of twisty rope. “Maybe there’s a new nutrient in here that does it. Or maybe if you’re not sick, drinking it regularly stops you from getting older. The governor did say something about the results being ‘miraculous’ when a healthy person drinks it every day.”

Callum’s hand is firm on my shoulder as he says, “You’re kidding, right? You never mentioned that—”

“I dunno,” I answer, standing up and turning to face him. “He said a lot of stuff. It was hard to keep track.”

I’d also just found out Derek is part of a secret guild, responsible for hiding a cure that could save my dying sister, so there’s that. . . . I was kind of distracted.

No need to mention that bit, though.

“I’m going to have to run tests. Many, many tests. So we don’t accidentally hand out doses of immortality . . .” Callum has started to look a little dazed.

“After you’ve figured out the cure part,” I remind the absentminded professor in him.

“Naturally.” He casts me a glance like he didn’t need the reminder. “And I still don’t understand how the spring would protect against the poison. Your bookie didn’t happen to mention that, did he?”

I shake my head. “Nope. Just said it would.”

“Hmmph,” Callum grumbles, scratching his ear. “I admit that there’s still quite a bit we don’t know about the water. I don’t like it, but we’re going to have to take it on faith that he knows what he’s talking about. And, considering he’s been around the stuff for more than five hundred years . . . I think it’s safe to assume he does.”

Together we turn to face the West Isle skyline, still visible through the dirtied, cracked window. Callum watches it like he’s waiting for something to happen at any moment. Which, if we wait long enough, it will.

“Then, the last order of business: distribution,” he says, leaning up against the bare white window frame. “I’ve been thinking about how best to get Aven the new serum once it’s made. I figure you’ll have some tricks up your sleeve as far as the rest of the Ward goes.” Callum says it to me so naturally. Like, of course I do.

Like it’s not a plan to prevent the government-sanctioned extermination of hundreds.

I almost laugh out loud, but then I realize it’s kind of a compliment—Callum trusts me. He barely knows me, and he thinks I can do this. I kind of like it.

“You first,” I say nonetheless, looking over at him. Just ’cause he thinks I have tricks don’t mean I actually have them.

At least not yet, I don’t.


Callum flips closed his cuffcomm, and the Ward Hope Hospital schematics he’s projected onto the wall disappear. The wall goes back to blank, with its peeling paint and cobwebbed corners.

“You really think that’ll work? Will you have time to make two separate batches?” I ask. “What if the night guard catches me? Tampering with the water supply is probably one of the biggest crimes around. . . . I know from experience. It’s how I ended up in the DI jail.”

“Don’t worry,” he insists. “I already know how to make the water stronger—I can make enough for just the hospital within the next few hours, which is all the time we have if you’re going to put it in the water system before the final night rations go out at ten. It’s making the serum for the hundreds of others that will take time. The hardest part for you, Ren, will be getting in. I’d give you my ID badge, but it’s too risky,” he insists. “The receptionist will have seen your image from the Wanted broadcasts. You can’t just walk in through the front door.”

“I’ll figure it out,” I say, confident.

I’ve totally got tricks up my sleeve when it comes to sneaking into, and out of, places.

“All right.” Callum eyes me before sitting down in front of his scope. “Your turn,” he says, and glances at his comm for the time.

I do the same and have to remind myself to breathe. My stomach goes all knotty—time just keeps passing, faster by the second. I’ve got no plan, and I’ve got to make it to Ward Hope by ten. . . .

“All right,” I repeat slowly, hoping that an idea magically appears in my brain. “Distribution.”

Come on . . . come on. Think.

Of course, it’s impossible to think when you’re telling yourself to think, ’cause all you’re doing is saying that one word over and over. Not actually thinking.

“Well . . . we’ve got to find a way to get enough vials of the cure onto every sickhouse rooftop in the Ward. All before . . .” My voice trails away; I sink into the thinking part.

There are sickhouses all over the U. We can’t just walk around, handing out some magic cure to everyone. . . . That would take forever. Not to mention that people might be suspicious of taking some strange medicine they’ve never heard of.

I scoff to myself. No one gets suspicious when they hear it from officials.

“They have to think it’s their ‘cure,’” I say aloud.

Callum looks up. Nods. Waits for the rest.

I go on. “We can’t swap one for another—whatever poison they’re giving out will be down people’s throats as soon as it’s on the roof. Everyone’s gonna be waiting in their stairwells at least an hour beforehand, guaranteed. So we’ve gotta get to them before the squadrons come through. Late enough that everyone still thinks our cure is coming from the government, but early enough that we’re not around when the actual aeromobiles arrive.”

“That’s less than six hours away,” he says. “And it’s going to take me half that long to make the cure. How do you propose we do it?”

Rooftop distribution. Countdown clock. Quick getaway.

Uh-oh.

“What if—” I start, excited. But then my fingers start fidgeting. I press what’s left of my nails into my palms and begin pacing the length of the room. I’ve got an idea all right, but no way is Callum gonna like it.

Spit it out.

“We need the other dragsters.”

I let the idea hang in the air, and wait for him to grab it. Or swat it. And . . .

I think I see a swat coming.

Callum’s mouth takes the shape of Oh, hell no, so I cut him off before he can object. “It’s the best way—they’re fast, and once they learn the truth, they’ll want this plan to work as much as we do.”

Shaking his head, “No, absolutely no. I just don’t think it’s safe, Ren. On so, so many levels. One, you’ll be on the U, an entirely residential area, piloting those death traps—which, let’s face it,” he says, waving his hands around, and I know I’m not going to like what comes next, “are really no more than scrap metal excuses for mobiles.”

Say what? I shoot him a glare made of so much evil, I think I actually see him step back, afraid. Raise his hands in surrender.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Perhaps that was uncalled for. But they’re dangerous, and dragsters are notorious adrenaline junkies, yourself included. Not to mention how many people we’d be trusting with incredibly sensitive information.”

“Callum, this was never gonna stay a small operation. Not with so many sick. And . . . though I know it’s not the same on the Isle, those of us who live here in the Ward—well, we all know someone who’s sick. Someone we love is always dying. That’s just the way it goes. Curing the Blight is probably the only thing that we’d ever be on the same side for.”

I can only hope that it’s true. The Ward’s also got a “survival of the fittest” mentality that could get in the way.

“Answer honestly: Can you depend on them?”

I don’t know.

Would Kent ever be on my side, for anything? Even this? He owes me. “I think so,” I say. I saved his butt today. “And I don’t have an idea that’s better than this one.”

I flip open my comm, punch in Ter’s number, then type my message:

Dragster meeting, ASAP—Derbies too. Bone Vault. Bring Benny.

—R.R.

Even though this is an unregistered cuffcomm, I use my racing initials, short for “Red Rider.”

“You sure they’ll show?” Callum asks, watching over my shoulder as I flip the comm shut.

Not in the least, I think to myself. Especially not if they know that I’m the one calling the meeting.

I open the cuffcomm again and send him another message:

Keep me dead, will ya?

Terrence will know what I mean.

“Now they’ll show,” I say, nodding. Hoping.