He was strapped to the hospital bed. It must be a hospital bed because his back was upright, but his legs were fully extended and his hands were tied to the rails.
Something smelled bad, like body odor, and he figured it must be him.
He’d been so stupid, but Maibe needed the cure. He couldn’t pass up the chance the cure really existed this time. He couldn’t stand picturing her as a Feeb. Mottled, wrinkled, ashy, aged. Just looking at her made him swear he could see the virus particles infecting every cell of her body. His skin crawled when she got that blank look in her eyes.
“Why are you here?” a voice said.
Alden turned his head, searching for the body attached to such a voice. A voice that spoke in such a neutral tone he couldn’t tell if it was a man, woman, or child.
He was in a room. Faint light came from somewhere above and behind him, barely lighting the space around his bed. He looked gray, Feeb-gray. Adrenaline shot through his veins and his heartbeat raced.
Was he a Feeb now?
He leaned over and examined his skin.
Clear, smooth, unwrinkled, untainted.
A new thought came to mind. Did the Feeb-haters have him?
“You are not sick,” the voice said again. This time it sounded like a male voice.
Alden swiveled his neck, but that was a mistake because his head began to pound. One spot on the back of his head throbbed like a volcano about to erupt.
There, in the corner. A little rectangular speaker mounted near the ceiling. Metal rings were attached into the cement on the floor and low on the walls in regular intervals.
“Why am I tied up?” he croaked.
“We don’t have any sort of cages in this section. Not for people, at least.” This time the voice sounded female.
“But why—”
“This is a secret facility. How did you find us?”
A man’s voice, he decided. It had just a hint of depth. He imagined a skinny guy, basically hairless, thoughtless, full of nerdiness.
“I’m searching for the cure,” Alden said. “I’m searching for the Feeb cure. Do you have it?”
“But you don’t need it.” Whoever spoke now was someone different. More childlike. Almost plaintive. It made his head hurt. Was he talking to one person or three people? Was one of them a child?
“I…It’s for a friend,” Alden said.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, friend,” the male voice said, “but there is no cure. Not yet at least.”
Alden flexed his hands into fists and tested the straps until they bit so deep that his skin began to turn purple.
“Stop that! Make him stop that!” The childlike voice. There was a murmured conversation, like the male voice was shushing the child. He couldn’t understand what they were saying, but he could tell their were three voices. Three different people.
He looked again at the speaker but couldn’t see a camera.
“Stop hurting yourself and I’ll tell you how we can see you.” The child’s voice again.
He relaxed, mostly because his wrists hurt and the straps hadn’t budged. He wasn’t strong enough for this. He was never strong enough.
“Above you,” the child said.
He looked up and there it was, a tiny black circle attached to the ceiling, a glint of light on the lens. Next to it there was a type of vent, like for heat, but it was so cold in there he thought it must be broken.“If I’m your friend, why am I tied up?”
“We were trying to be nice,” the child said. “He didn’t really mean it.”
“Who are you? How did I get here?” Alden said, thinking now maybe he had been talking to a child the whole time because why would the adults let a child talk at all? He tried to remember—he had been scouting a research facility in the old manufacturing district of a small town. There had been rumors of a cure. Or at least, rumors of drugs that could help. He remembered a cave of sorts. Dogs and coyotes and fresh Vs had him on high alert. There had been people. Uninfected like him. He’d run into Gabbi, Ricker and the others out on some raid. They were after some drugs to help with the Feeb symptoms, but he’d been after a bigger prize. A full cure. The next thing he knew he’d woken up here.
Silence on the speaker’s end.
“Do you know Sergeant Bennings?” Alden said, desperate to hear the voice, any voice again. He hadn’t wanted to use his father’s name. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with his father for a long time. No matter how many times he tried to tell Maibe that, she never quite believed him. Watching how his father had controlled the camps and treated the Feebs, he knew it had been wrong, all of it was so wrong. His mother would have thought so too, but she was a Faint. She had been Faint since almost the beginning.
He had helped Maibe get out as many Feebs as they could until Maibe had gotten too sick to do it anymore. That had almost broken him—watching her disappear into herself. And here he was, throwing his father’s name around in the hope that it might save him now.
Maibe had been right all along. He wasn’t built right to survive in this new world, but he couldn’t bear the thought of being alone in that room with the speaker box, camera lens, and vent as his only cold company. “Are you working with Sergeant Bennings and the council? I’m his son. I came from his camp. If you just get in contact with him—”
“I do not work with the council anymore,” the female voice said finally, and this time he sort of recognized it. He knew he should be able to place her. It made his head spin, trying to keep track of the voices without seeing their faces.
“I do know Sergeant Bennings,” she said.
Alden didn’t know what to say. What to do. “What do you want?”
“The cure, of course.”