[Incubation 01.0] Incubation Read online

  “I can’t imagine Little Loudon growing up without ever seeing grass, and yet that’s what might happen. I remember when I was little, living with my Nonna after my parents died, and she used to read the Bible to us, especially the Psalms. And one day she read the passage about ‘the lilies in the field’ and how ‘even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like some of these.’ I asked her what a lily was and she cried and cried. I don’t want Little Loudon not to know what grass is.” Her fingers wisp through the blades.

  We’re silent for a moment, and I think how lucky I was to grow up with the dome. Are there people alive now who have never seen grass?

  “Come on,” I say, dragging my socks and boots back on. “We’d better find Wyck.”

  We’ve barely mounted our scooters before we see Wyck heading back toward us. “I found us a place to spend the night,” he crows, obviously pleased with himself. “Less than a mile ahead.”

  I wonder if he even notices the grass, but say nothing. We crest a small hill and a town lies below us. We pause. “Town” is too grand a word for the cluster of houses and what looks like one store and an old gas station. I don’t have to ask Wyck if he’s checked it out to make sure it’s deserted; emptiness echoes from the buildings. The window glass is long gone and the openings are like zombie eyes: vacant and dead. I shiver.

  “Great, huh?” Wyck says, setting his scooter in motion and gliding down the slope. Halla and I trail him. “There’s even a well.”

  That’s good news. A deep enough well might not be contaminated.

  “I feel like I haven’t slept in three days,” Halla says.

  Suddenly, weariness hits me, too. It feels like gravity is working with twice its usual force, pulling my limbs down. “Let’s pick a house and get some rest.”

  Wyck leads us to the smallest house set a bit apart from the others, up against a band of dead trees. The house has weathered to a flaky gray so it blends with the tree trunks. The trees and house alike are half-smothered by chartreuse kudzu vines. “We should bring the scooters inside,” he says.

  The door creaks loudly as he nudges it open with the scooter. Inside, it’s musty and dim, a single room with gaps and pipes to the right where a stove, sink and refrigerator used to be, and two doors on the left. One leads to a bedroom with nothing but an iron bed frame in it by way of furniture, and one leads to a hyfac—what would have been called a “bathroom” when this house was built, I suspect—coated in mildew so thick I can’t distinguish the color of the tiles beneath it.

  Halla and I gag and back out of the room hurriedly. “I guess the facilities are outside," I say. "Men’s—first tree on the left, Women’s—second tree on the right.”

  “Speaking of which . . .” Halla exits.

  Wyck grins. “Wish you were back at the Kube?”

  I straighten my back. Honestly, there’s part of me that wishes I were working in the lab, looking forward to a hot dinner. But only a small part of me. “No. Do you?”

  “Hell, no. Especially since I wouldn’t be at the Kube—I’d be on my way to Base Kestrel.” He looks around. “We need to have someone standing watch all night.”

  “You’d have made a great border sentry,” I tease him.

  Rolling his eyes, he says, “We should take care of your leg. Don’t want it to get infected.”

  When he mentions it, I become conscious of the pain. I sit and push aside the torn fabric to inspect the bite. It’s more of a shallow gash, four inches long, like one tooth glanced along my calf. Blood is crusted over it and it throbs, but I don’t think it needs stitches. “It’s not too bad.”

  “Here, let me.” Wyck kneels to inspect the wound. Pulling out the first aid kit, he opens it and examines the contents. “We need to disinfect it."

  He rips open a disinfectant packet with his teeth and swabs the gash. “Sorry,” he says when I wince.

  His head is bent and I’m staring into his brown curls. He smells not unpleasantly of sweat and fresh air and I’m absurdly conscious of his hand cupping my calf while he works to loosen the dried blood. He’s got calluses on his palms that are somehow more arousing than soft hands would have been. I find myself wishing I’d shaved my legs yesterday and then half smile at the stupidity.

  “What’s funny?” He looks up and his hazel eyes, suspicious that I’m laughing at him, meet mine.

  I shake my head and Wyck finishes by applying a sterile pad to the wound. Halla comes in as I’m re-sealing my jumpsuit.

  “How are the facilities?” I ask.

  “Um, rustic.”

  We all laugh.

  “I’ll take the first watch,” Wyck says. “You and Halla sleep. I’ll wake you in four hours, okay?”

  “Yeah. Thanks.”

  I visit the facilities, and then we unpack the blankets Halla brought and arrange my backpack and her diaper bag as pillows. We each eat another vegeprote bar and Halla and I settle in the middle of the room, back to back, blankets wrapped around us. I slip Little House from my messenger bag and lay it close, where I can rest a hand on it. The floor is hard, unyielding under my shoulder. I’m bone-weary but sleep doesn’t come. I sense Halla is still awake, too.

  “Halla?” I whisper.

  “Hm?”

  “How did you know you were in love with Loudon? Enough to, you know, want to—?”

  She gives a sleepy giggle. “Oh, Everly. We just knew. It wasn’t like we weighed the pros and cons or gathered data. Being in love is not like a lab experiment.” She giggles again at the idea, and the sound makes me smile. “We’d been friends for so long, and the love thing crept up on us. He knew before I did, I think. He said it first. As soon as he did, I knew I loved him, too, knew that I’d loved him one way or another for years. Making love was just the perfect way to express how we feel about each other. ‘The two will become one flesh,’ it says in the Bible. I miss him so much.”

  “And the baby?” I’m not sure what I’m asking—if she was happy about being pregnant from the start, if she’s scared, something else.

  She doesn’t answer right away, and I think she’s fallen asleep.

  “When I first realized I was pregnant, I was scared, of course. Really, scared. I mean, Loudon was already gone by the time I knew, and well, I was just scared. But then . . . I’m not sure I can really explain it to you, to someone who’s never been pregnant. You probably think of Little Loudon as a collection of genes and chromosomes, biological bits and pieces, but to me he’s this beautiful little soul Loudon and I made together. He’s a treasure, a gift. Giving him up would be like . . . like . . ..”

  She apparently can’t think of a comparison significant enough. “Ooh, he’s kicking. Want to feel?”

  I’m curious. I roll so my stomach is against her back and let her place my hand on her belly. It’s rigid, with less give than I expect. The baby’s kicks move my hand. “Feels strong,” I say. He’ll need to be. I expect her to answer, but a whiffly snore tells me she’s asleep.

  I ponder the joy in her voice more than her words and finally drop off, oddly comforted by the sight of Wyck silhouetted against the window opening by the setting sun.

  Having stood the last watch, I shake Halla and Wyck awake at first light, anxious to put more miles between us and any searchers. They come fully awake quickly, as if the change in circumstances has changed something within, flipped a survival switch that knows a few seconds of lost alertness might be the difference between catching dinner and being dinner. We discuss our plan for the day.

  “We should check the well for water—” I start.

  “And see if we can find some clothes,” Halla adds.

  “And food,” Wyck says, “although what are the chances it hasn’t all been looted? You start with the houses, Halla”—Wyck points —“and I’ll try the store.”

  With a mock salute, he shoulders his bag and heads out. Halla drifts toward the nearest house carrying her bag, and I go to inspect the well. It takes only seconds to figure out we won’t be get
ting any water from it. When I drop a stone, it clatters when it hits the bottom. Dry. I head back to “our” house and meet Wyck returning, shaking his head.

  “Not a crumb.”

  It’s what I expected. “Okay. Let’s check the map—”

  A scream cuts through the still morning. Halla! Wyck and I exchange a glance and race out the door. Another scream pulls us to the largest house in the cluster. It has faded to gray, like the others, but has a wraparound porch and the remnants of gingerbread along the eaves. Wyck hurdles the steps to the verandah, and his foot cracks one of the boards. I ascend more gingerly, help him pull his foot free, and push the door open. Without thinking about it, Wyck and I enter back to back, each scanning for threats. A tatter of mulberry-colored velvet drapes a window opening and a shard of broken china rests in one corner. Other than that, there’s nothing. This house is as empty as the one we slept in.

  “Halla?”

  “In here.” Her voice quavers.

  We follow her voice through a dining room to a laundry room. The washer-dryer is on its side, dented and clearly non-functional, door open, and Halla is scrunched on the floor behind it, clutching an armload of clothes.

  “I saw someone,” she whispers. “A man. I was in the kitchen”—she points—“and he looked in the window. He looked straight at me! He was horrible—bearded, hairy. I could smell him. I screamed and ran in here where there’s no windows.” She buries her face in the clothes.

  “We need to get out of here,” Wyck says crisply. “There might be more than one.”

  He and I each grab one of Halla’s arms and haul her up. She stuffs the clothes she’s holding into her bag. I put my hand on the knife tucked into my belt as we hurry from the house and jog back to where we spent the night. I see no one, but can’t shake the feeling that we’re being watched. From the other houses? I study them surreptitiously as we pass. From the trees? I use my peripheral vision to try and spot something new, something out of place. I try to dismiss the feeling as paranoia. In all likelihood, it was an animal of some kind that Halla saw—a raccoon or bear, maybe. She said it was hairy and stinky. I’m not sure why the idea of an animal is less terrifying than a human, but it is.

  Reaching the house, we enter cautiously. My gaze flies to the scooters. One of them is gone.

  Chapter Eleven

  The missing scooter spooks us. Halla wasn’t mistaken—there’s someone here . . . or there was. I hope that only one missing scooter means he’s alone. We’re out of the house in seconds, plunging into the woods with the two remaining scooters. Halla and I share one; it’s uncomfortable, slow, and means we’re draining the charge faster than before. Wyck’s got Halla’s diaper bag with him on his scooter to lighten ours a bit. The scooters ride lower and maneuver sluggishly with the increased weight. Despite that, they’re faster than walking, and we’re desperate to put distance between us and the not-so-deserted town.

  Forty-five minutes out, surrounded by dead trees, my shoulders relax and I feel safer. I mentally review my plan. The roads are unsafe now that there are undoubtedly searchers on our trail. There’s a swamp between us and Atlanta, the Okefenokee, and I think our best chance of making it to Atlanta lies in that swamp. For one thing, there’ll be water.

  We come to a break in the trees where we’re able to ride abreast with Wyck and I explain my reasoning.

  “Go through a swamp? Get real,” Wyck says. “The roads are our best bet. We can make better time.”

  “We’ll be caught on the roads, or anywhere there’s dust. We need the cover of the swamp. The scooters won’t send up dust plumes on wetter ground.”

  “What about snakes and alligators?” Halla asks.

  “Immaterial because we’re not stupid enough to go into the swamp,” Wyck says.

  I frown. “Seriously, Halla, there’s going to be dangers of one kind or another—animal or human—no matter what route we take.”

  “Who died and left you in charge, Jax?” Wyck asks, real anger in his voice now. “You may have the highest test scores ever seen at the Kube and be a whoop-de-doo five percenter, but last I looked that didn’t make you God. Halla and I had a fine plan before you horned in: get to Atlanta as quickly as possible. Going fast gets us there quicker so we won’t need to find as much food on the way. And the fewer days we spend on the road, the less chance there is we’ll run into trouble. Speed is the key ingredient here.”

  I’m stung by his attack, and cover my hurt with an acerbic response. “You’re going to speed right into the IPF’s arms. You won't get within a hundred miles of Atlanta.” I tone it down. “Cover is more important than speed right now. In the swamp, we’ve got cover, we’ve got a chance. On the roads . . . we’ll be back at the Kube, or somewhere worse, by nightfall. I’d rather take my chances with the swamp and animals than the IPF.”

  “Or that man back there.” Halla shudders. “Okay, I vote swamp.”

  We look at Wyck.

  He crosses his arms and glowers. Finally, he gives a tiny nod. “How’s your leg?” he asks gruffly.

  I recognize the olive branch and smile with relief. I don’t like being at odds with him. “It’s good, thanks,” I say. “Due entirely to your doctoring skills. I’d probably have gangrene by now if you hadn’t patched me up.”

  My lighter tone works. Wyck cracks a smile and says, “I’ll play doctor with you any time.”

  His words jolt me, and I scan his face, but see no intent there except humor. The awkward moment passes when Halla says, “We should see if any of these clothes I got are useful. How many years do you think they sat in that washer-dryer?”

  Looking at them, I’m guessing at least twenty. It strikes me as humorous that looters never thought to look inside the broken machine. The clothing consists of tunics and leggings made from some second or third generation intelli-textile, not nearly as figure conforming or temperature regulating as our jumpsuits. For a moment, I’m reluctant to abandon my more advanced clothing, but the jumpsuits are too distinctive and I accept the man’s shirt and leggings Halla hands me without complaint. They’re a dull brown that will allow me to blend in better, at least.

  She hands Wyck a longer pair of black leggings and a tan shirt, and keeps a roomy tunic and flexi-waist pants for herself. By common consent, we semi-disappear behind the nearest trees and shuck our jumpsuits. I resist the urge to spy on Wyck, although I catch a glimpse of his tanned and muscular back by accident. I sniff at my underarm before donning my new clothes, hoping we get the opportunity to bathe before too long. If we have to go three weeks or more without a bath, searchers will be able to find us by the odor. With my belt, the shirt doesn’t swallow me completely and I tuck the knife into the back again. Halla tosses me a pair of socks when I emerge.

  “There are four and a half pairs of socks,” she says, holding up a lone gray sock. “How does that happen?” She looks more pregnant, somehow, in the loose-fitting tunic.

  Balling up the torn jumpsuit, I put it in my backpack, thinking that at the very least it will be useful as a pillow. Wyck returns in his new attire, smoothing down his curly hair, and we each eat a vegeprote bar and drink a little water before heading north into the Okefenokee.

  The ground beneath us changes gradually and it’s not until I hear a splash—frog or fish?—that I realize we’re at the swamp’s edge. It smells different here with a trace of sulfur in the air. Various forms of fungi sprout from the dead tree trunks, and Spanish moss drapes from the limbs, trailing almost to the ground in some places. It’s misnamed, of course; it’s really a rootless epiphyte from the pineapple family, not a moss, living on air which seems appropriate given its airy, tendrily appearance. Cypress trees rise spindly and tall, and the scrub oak we’ve been traveling through peters out. Dragonflies flit past, iridescent flashes of green, blue and red. Mosquitoes descend in a whining cloud and we’re slapping at ourselves until we find repellant in the first aid kit and apply it liberally. The amber water on all sides fizzes like a carbonated bev
erage, small bubbles rising to the top with a barely audible but constant hiss. I eye it dubiously. What could—? Chemicals. Whatever chemicals are contaminating the water are breaking down the peat at the bottom, releasing carbon dioxide. I wish we had time to stop and test it, see what’s causing that reaction.

  The ACV scooters travel as easily over water and boggy patches as forest ground, so we’re able to maintain our speed. “Our scooter is down to one-third charge,” Halla says. She’s been driving since we stopped for “lunch.”

  “Mine’s just under half,” Wyck says.

  The hard part starts when the scooters die and we have to trudge the rest of the way. Atlanta is to the northwest and the scooters’ compasses keep us headed in the right direction. About noon, Wyck gets bored and says he wants to scout ahead. Without waiting for me or Halla to reply, he skims away. I take advantage of his absence to tell Halla about my non-reunion Reunion Day and my conversation with Proctor Fonner.

  “Your parents left you at the Kube?” she asks when I finish. “Abandoned you? The government didn’t repossess you?”

  “My parents or someone else,” I say. “According to Proctor Fonner.”

  “Well,” Halla says, “I’m sad that your parents didn’t show up, but I’m glad that you’re here with me. Is that horribly selfish of me?”

  I shake my head. “I’m glad I’m here, too.” Mostly.

  We duck to avoid a low hanging branch, and skim across a wide stretch of tea-colored water, edged with algae and dotted with pale purple and yellow water lilies. I’m captivated by the flowers’ beauty until I spot two alligators drifting log-like.

  Halla asks, “How are you going to find your parents?”

  I sigh. “I wish I knew. I need to get access to a DNA database and enter a sample.”