15

DANIEL HAD HIS OWN WAY OUT. IT CAME IN SIX vials tucked away in his coat. If he just opened one of the vials and waited, it would kill everyone in this compound—the blood hunters, the other prisoners. The girl. Her baby. Everyone except him. One little vial and Daniel could go free. Part of him was almost scared enough to do it. He didn’t owe Orleans anything. They were all as good as dead here anyway. He still had his work to do. He could return home and spend the rest of his life tucked away in a lab, looking for the cure, like so many great scientists before him. All he had to do was wipe the slate clean.

But he couldn’t. Because there was a baby, and a girl. And enough dead in Orleans already. He almost wept in relief when she said she had a plan.

The girl looked so unconcerned, sitting there like this was an everyday occurrence for her, being kidnapped in the middle of the night. But maybe this was normal in Orleans. Daniel thought over the girl’s plan. It might work, but he doubted it. There were too many people with a reason to stop them for it to be that easy.

And even if it did work, what good would it do him? They had crossed the river getting here. He would never find his way to the Institute or the Wall on his own. He needed more information, or escape was moot.

“Where are we?” he asked the girl, hoping he didn’t sound too desperate. If she thought she had something over him, it could make things more difficult.

The girl stuck her chin out, jabbing it toward the datalink cuff around his wrist. “Ain’t that tell you?”

He shook his head. His maps were limited to the city, not wherever this place was, across the river.

“We in Algiers, best I can say. Edge of East Orleans.”

Daniel tried to access his maps for anything outside the city center. Nothing came up. He sighed and hoped the girl was willing to bargain. “I’m looking for a place called the Institute of Post-Separation Studies. Have you heard of it? Can you take me there?”

The girl stared at him for a beat, then shook her head, laughing. “Boy, I got my own troubles. I ain’t no tour guide.”

Daniel clenched his fist in frustration. “I’ll trade for it. I have supplies.”

The look she gave him was appraising, but not friendly. “What you got you think I need?”

Daniel shrugged. “All sorts of things—bottled water, food packs. Clothes. I could give you a new shirt.”

For the first time, the girl seemed to notice she was half naked, with nothing more than a cloth sack for a shirt. She stuck her chin out defiantly. “Don’t see none of that on you.”

“Well, not on me. I left my stash in a building across the river, west of here. I don’t have maps of this area. If . . . if we get out of here, and you take me to the Institute, then we can go to my stash and I’ll give you whatever you need.”

The girl snorted and looked away. She was just some dumb kid, Daniel realized. She’d probably never even heard of the Institute, let alone know how to get there.

“The Professors be all but dead,” she said finally. Her eyes focused on him. Maybe she wasn’t so dumb after all. “What you want with them?”

“That’s . . . that’s my business,” he said. “The Institute? That’s where these Professors live?”

“And die, too,” she said. “Ain’t no help for you there. Besides, that a long way to go for nothing but a new shirt. That ain’t reason enough.”

What else could he offer her? What more could she want? “I could get your baby over the Wall.”

The girl’s face faltered for a second, and Daniel held his breath. Then she frowned. “Fool, you locked up here and all but killed. What make you think I’ma trust this baby to you?”

Daniel thought of the vials of virus in his coat again. Using them would be genocide. He had to find another way. “You said you needed my help to escape. Well, I need you to get me to these Professors or I’m still stuck here. Help me and I’ll help you.”

She sighed, almost imperceptibly. “Where you put your stuff? You say west?”

Daniel’s eyes narrowed. It was one thing to ask for help, another to ask for trust.

“Mister, look,” the girl snapped. “Daniel,” she said, softer this time. “I know you scared. Me too. And I got this baby to take care of. I got to do right by her, not just you and me.”

We all have to do what’s right, Daniel thought.

“You don’t deserve to be here no more than we do, so we gonna work together and get out of here. Then I get you to the Professors. And that be that.”

Daniel watched the girl and the baby in her lap, thinking of what doing the right thing had cost him so far.

“My name is Fen de la Guerre,” she told him suddenly. “I am an O-Positive.”

The way she said the words sounded formal, like a ritual.

INQUIRY: What is significance of blood type in the Delta?

RESPONSE: Blood type is identity in the Delta. It indicates tribe and potential value of blood, if type is rare or useful. It can imply a tribal challenge, or an act of trust. Type AB is the rarest, but O is a universal donor, and therefore of increased value.

“Fen . . .” Daniel sat up and cleared his throat. “Thank you,” he said. Trust might come slowly, but they both needed it if they were going to get out of here alive.

“Mister—Daniel. You say that thing on your wrist analyze stuff. Do it read blood types?”

Blood types, chemical compounds, air quality. The datalink was a very sophisticated computer, even if it was self-contained. “I suppose so,” he said.

“Trade, then. You type Baby Girl, and I get you outta here, safe and sound.”

“But we already—” he started to protest. How could he trust her if she kept changing their agreement?

“Keep your shirt, and your water. It don’t matter to me as much as this.”

He hesitated. “Bring her here.”

Fen tucked the baby back in her sling and slid over to him. “Do it hurt?”

“No,” he said, pulling up his coat sleeve to reveal the full datalink. Raising his arm, he showed her the scanning plate, a rectangle on the bottom like smooth green glass. “Look. It reads things from here without breaking the skin.”

Daniel motioned to Fen and she held the baby’s hand up. Gently, he pressed it to the scanning plate and his arm lit up like fireflies weaving in the dark as the datalink screened the baby’s blood. Then it clicked softly and he let go of the baby’s hand. The datalink whispered the information into his head.

“She’s O positive. Like her mother,” he said with a smile, wondering if the news was a relief. He couldn’t tell by the look on Fen’s face.

Suddenly, the door handle twisted, the lock clicking open with a heavy grinding noise. Daniel cowered and Fen flinched, setting the baby to crying again.

“Daniel,” Fen hissed. “Get down.” She motioned for him to lie down and feign sleep.

Between slitted eyelids, Daniel watched Fen reach into the hay pile behind her, pulling out the moss she had removed from the baby’s diaper. And then he understood her plan. Newborns didn’t process food into feces, but a black thick substance called meconium. Quickly, Fen smeared it into the corners of her eyes, mixing it with spit until she had streaks down her face.

Daniel recoiled, but lay still. Trust, he reminded himself. It wasn’t like he had any other options.

The door swung open and a man in a dirty white lab coat appeared, needles in his hand.

Daniel saw the man glance in his direction, then turned to Fen, who sat with her head tucked down, face hidden from view.

“Come on, girl. We need to type your baby,” he said, and reached for her. Fen rose, head down.

“Get me outta here, mister,” she pleaded. “That man a leper. He making me sick.”

She stepped closer. Daniel braced himself. Maybe he could rush the door, take the man off balance.

Then Fen screamed, “He killing me!”

She thrust her face into the lab man’s, black ooze leaking from her eyes, and he screamed, falling out of the door. Daniel didn’t hesitate. He leapt to his feet, moaning the way his brother had, ravaged by Delta Fever. They both groaned and stumbled out into the main room, but the man in the lab coat was nowhere to be seen. There was one other attendant, but he had no weapons. One look at Fen’s face and Daniel’s rags, and the man cursed and ran. The old smuggler had been right about the leper rags after all.

Daniel raced after Fen out of building 17. To the left lay the road into the camp toward the cook fires, all cold now in the morning light. A dog started to bark, and Daniel wondered how long it would be before the hunters woke up and caught them again. The lab men were halfway across the yard, calling for help, calling them infected. Daniel followed Fen’s lead, staggering and moaning until they were close to the back fence, more a log pile than a real structure. They clambered over the logs, Daniel clumsily, Fen surprisingly agile even with the baby slung across her chest. Then they were out of the farm and in the woods. They ran.