Beth watched them, her lips pressed together, as she scooped curry into bowls that already held rice. She passed a serving to Clare first then offered one to Dorran. As he took it, she said, “You’re looking worse.”
Clare glared at her sister, trying to telepathically tell her to be friendly.
Beth caught the look and shrugged. “Maybe some food will help.”
“Thank you,” Dorran murmured.
Beth removed the pots from the stove but left the flame running to warm them like a makeshift campfire and dragged the third seat closer to Clare. As she sat, she scooped food into her mouth, swallowed, then leaned forward. “Now that we have a moment, why don’t you tell me what happened? How did you end up in the city? Or in the tower, for that matter?”
“I have a very similar set of questions for you.” Clare ran her spoon through her curry but didn’t eat. “Why didn’t you call me after the last time we spoke through the radio? Why did you go into the city instead?”
Beth’s mouth twitched. “I lost my radio when I escaped the bunker. I was looking for a replacement.”
“Still, though—the city was dangerous. Couldn’t you have found one closer to your home?”
“That’s the problem. Radios are in high demand, since they’re the only way humans can communicate now. A lot of the really remote houses have already been cleared out—not just from radios but from food, bottled water, batteries, fuel, and anything else useful. There are still plenty of supplies in the suburban developments, but there are also hollows. The more populated an area, the better the chance of finding what you’re looking for, but it’s also overrun with ghouls.”
“Huh. I guess that makes sense.”
Beth tilted her head to the side. “Your turn. Why don’t you tell me about what happened at Helexis Tower? I won’t lie—after spending days trying to reach it, I want to know who or what was inside. Everyone on the road was talking about the bizarre radio transmission advertising its address.”
Clare glanced at Dorran, and he nodded back at her. She took a bite of the curry as she tried to gather her thoughts, burnt her tongue on it, and choked. Beth chuckled as she found a water bottle in the bus’s external compartment and tossed it to Clare. She opened it and took a grateful sip.
The burn wouldn’t bother her for long. The thanites would take care of it within a few hours. That thought was more disturbing than comforting.
“Okay.” Clare clutched the bottle between her hands, staring into the stove’s flames. “It’s hard to explain the tower without telling you about everything else.”
“Go ahead.” Beth nodded, her expression intent.
Clare started from the morning when the quiet zones had swept the world. She explained what had happened after her car crashed, how Dorran had found her and saved her, and then her experience inside Winterbourne. She left out key details: the poisoning incident, some of the riskier adventures that Beth would disapprove of, and how deeply she and Dorran had begun to care for each other. She dreaded Dorran’s response to the last omission, but when she glanced at him, his expression was unreadable.
From Winterbourne, Clare briefly recounted the journey to Beth’s bunker. Explaining what they’d found at Marnie’s house was the hardest part. Clare’s eyes burned at the memory of her aunt bloated, distorted, and inhuman. Her voice wavered as she told how they’d put Marnie to rest. Beth remained quiet, but she bowed her head. Clare moved on to the events that had brought them to Helexis. Then came the encounter with Ezra, who had introduced himself as Peter.
She noticed Beth’s eyes narrowed during that part of the story. To Beth, that encounter would simply be reinforcing what she already believed: strangers couldn’t be trusted.
You weren’t there, Clare wanted to say. If you’d talked to him, I bet you would have believed him too.
But Beth didn’t make any comments, and Clare pushed through it as factually as she was capable of. She did her best to explain the thanites. Beth interrupted occasionally with questions.
“Let me get this right. There are more machines still floating through the air?”
“Yeah.” Clare swallowed a mouthful of curry. “But they’re inactive. The only ones doing anything are the ones inside our bodies.”
Beth nodded slowly. “So that’s why we’re resistant to infections.”
“That’s right.” Again, Clare’s eyes were drawn towards Beth’s scars. They couldn’t be more than a few days old, but they were already sealing over. That had to be the thanites speeding up her recovery. Clare’s own cuts were healing themselves nearly as quickly.
She finished the story by telling how Ezra had tested his so-called cure on Dorran. She stressed the sacrifice he’d made for her sake, but Beth failed to look impressed.
“Does this mean he’s the only human without thanites now?”
Clare shrugged. “It’s possible. Something happened. But Ezra didn’t share his results with us. We don’t know if the treatment worked the way it was supposed to.”
Finally, she talked about Ezra’s death and how they had hidden in the elevator. As she spoke, her mind wandered to the last thing Ezra had ever said to her.
Give it to me!
Clare trailed off mid-sentence. There had been no time to examine his words when hollows were swarming up the stairwell, but for the first time, Clare had a chance to recognise what he’d meant.
Ezra had been looking for the USB stick containing his code. She couldn’t remember what had happened to it after freeing Dorran from the experiment chamber. Clare closed her eyes and tried to think back.
I shut off the system… I hit the buttons to open the door… and I pulled the USB stick out of the port so that Ezra couldn’t start it up again.
Her eyes shot open. Both Beth and Dorran were watching her, equally confused and curious. Clare put her bowl on the ground and stood, feeling unsteady. “Hang on. Just a moment. I need to check…”
She jogged back into the minibus. Her and Dorran’s old jackets—the ones Ezra had lent them—were hung over the backs of chairs as they dried. Clare found hers and hunted through the pockets. In the second one, she found something small, solid, and metallic.
Oh. She hadn’t been thinking when she’d taken the USB. She’d never intended to put it in her pocket, but somehow, she had. Clare’s throat was dry as she returned to the outdoors seating area and held her hand out to show her companions.
Dorran’s eyebrows rose. Beth’s lowered.
“Is that the USB with the code?” Beth asked.
Clare nodded.
“And you didn’t think to tell us before now?”
The tone was sharp. Clare closed her hand around the USB. Dorran glanced between them and silently put his bowl to one side.
“I forgot I had it. It was a tense couple of hours.”
Beth leaned back in her chair and pressed her hand over her eyes. She was quiet for a moment then said, “Well, what are we going to do with it?”
Clare sank into her chair. As night fell, the small amounts of light that made it through the rainclouds vanished, leaving her feeling vulnerable and cold. “Ezra said there were scientists at a research station in Evandale. He said they would be able to work on the code—”