I had so many questions for Margaret, like: “What’s with the mad scientist coat? It’s way too big for you.”
It made my head hurt to be this full of issues, but I ended up not having to ask questions because Houston said, “Explain yourself,” in that you-better-tell-me-whassup-or-I’m-telling-mom voice. And Margaret is such a show-off that she told me what I wanted to know before I even asked for it. She also said stuff I didn’t want to know, and a lot of stuff I didn’t understand. But that’s Margaret.
“I had my suspicions we were being watched, that everything was being remotely operated. Electronically that is, not through some Jedi-mind control,” she said looking at me.
I’m not stupid for thinking that it could have been some alien-mind control thingie, ‘cause we’ve been controlled a lot by the beasties in our heads.
“I mean, think about it. We were lured towards this house with a light and an unlocked door. A coffee maker turns itself on almost as soon as we’re inside. They see a few of us staring at the TV so they start to run the most popular and distracting program from the past year. The house had hot water and heat, until our overlords heard that the flies need it to be at least fifty Fahrenheit to breed to save Danny’s leg, and then they remotely switch off the boiler.”
“Why would they do such a thing?” Dan said angrily. “Why wouldn’t they want Danny to improve? Do they have a better idea? Are they planning on helping him?”
Margaret sighed and looked at the floor. She didn’t do this in her usual way, like when she’s fed up with how dumb we are and can’t believe she’s had to put up with us for so long. For the first time since I’ve seen her, she looked sad. “I’ll get to that; let me finish.”
KC got this “Aha!” look on her face and said, “So we are being held prisoner! I knew it! Did they recognize the ‘Mclean siege survivors’ right away, or did they Google our pictures after we arrived and turned on the fence to trap us? Are they keeping us here until the soldiers arrive so they can collect their big fat reward?”
“They don’t care enough about you to bother with any of that. They have no idea who you are, so put away your grand delusions.”
KC’s face fell, then fell even farther when Margaret added, “See? You’re not a has-been, you’re a never-was.” I think KC deserved that after shouting at Margaret and me the day before.
“Now, like I said before, let me finish.” She pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down. I knew that meant she was going to talk a long time, more than she usually does. I pulled up a chair too and so did the others, until they ran out of chairs and started sitting on the counter. Mouse sat on the counter next to the sink. I thought that was a good idea for her ‘cause she seems to have a problem with throwing up whenever Margaret speaks.
“This complex is one big experiment conducted by a research group called New Hope. They turned a newly finished but never-occupied housing development into a petri dish. Are you guys familiar with the science behind the growth of body parts?”
“Somewhat,” answered Ghost. “I remember seeing the disturbing picture of that live mouse with a human ear growing on its back.”
“You mean that instead of stealing body bits like in Frankenstein, they’re making them?” I asked.
“Pretty much,” said Margaret. “And Frankenstein is an appropriate analogy. If body parts are made, they no longer need to be stolen.”
“But what good are a bunch of body parts?” I asked. “Wouldn’t it take a long time to superglue them all together and make a body for those Vostok microbes?”
“I think what Margaret’s about to say is that they’re growing whole humans instead of body parts,” said Nemesis. “Or that they’re creating clones for the microbes to inhabit.”
“Very good,” said Margaret. “You’ve got to admire them for it. The skies may soon be free from microbe-laden rain, but they’re in our water supply and they’ll always be with us. What if we give them something to inhabit and a place of their own? They want to survive just like we do.”
“I get it, maybe they’ll leave us in peace if we do this for them,” said Houston. “But how do we fit into this? Why are they keeping us here if not for the reward?”
“They find research more valuable than reward,” said Margaret like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Besides, they’re fairly well-funded. They’re also looking at the next level. They want to see if the living could coexist with the dead.”
“Who on earth would be willing to live with a bunch of animated corpses?!” Mouse yelped in disgust. She turned away from Margaret and towards the sink like she was going to hurl again.
“Think about it. Haven’t you noticed an improvement since we’ve been infected with these microbes? They give you instincts you’ve never had before. They tell you where the danger is, where to go, what to do. How else do you explain Jesse’s ability to lead us to Ghost and escape the soldiers? If you’re inoculated, they can help you instead of kill you.”
“They killed Doom,” Mouse mumbled. She looked at Margaret with angry eyes, like she was the one that got Doom killed.
But Margaret ignored her and carried on. “Harold was one of the few inoculated scientists from New Hope. His plan was to observe them from the inside and report to the rest.”
“So what happened to Harold?” KC asked. “How did he end up dead?”
“They don’t know.”
“Great, that makes me feel much better.”
“Are those things outside, the ones that are pretending to be human, are they the new bodies?” I asked.
“No, they’re still working on the clones. They picked up the freshly infected, embalmed them, then ran dehumidifiers and air-conditioning to slow down decomposition. They selected this place because it’s at a higher elevation and it manages to stay cold throughout most of the year.” When we didn’t respond, she said, “Don’t you find it interesting how good they are at acting like normal people? They could totally fit in! They’re even working on fitting them with communication devices so they can press a button and say the same things all you average boring people say. You know, stuff like ‘Nice weather we’re having,’ or ‘You look good, have you lost weight?’”
“That’s a terrible way to exist,” said Nemesis glumly. “They’d die of boredom if they weren’t already dead.”
“How do they plan on selling this?” asked Houston. “You can’t say, It’s a quiet neighborhood, but the turnover is high.”
“What I want to know is, how did you and the live version of Harold communicate with New Hope?” asked Ghost.
A voice with no body spoke, making everyone but Margaret jump. Well, everyone except Danny, who had been asleep in his daddy’s arms the whole time. “The show homes are fitted with two-way speakers. Your friend here appeared at the other show home in Harold’s old lab coat and naturally we were intrigued.”
“Why won’t you help my son? Why did you turn off the heat? Why get in the way of his treatment?” Dan shouted. I didn’t know a guy as small as Danny’s dad could have a voice that big, and it made me jump again.
“We need to see how the Infected react to his near-death state. If you are indeed storage units for their kind and keeping you alive is the best way of preserving your body for their future, then what will they do when a storage unit starts to break down and decompose?”
Everyone started yelling at the voice all at once. Well, everyone except Margaret. It was hard to hear what was being said when everyone was yelling at once, but I could pick out a bit of what they were saying.
“How can you do this?”
“He’s just a little boy!”
“You’re monsters! How can you live with yourselves?”
“If you let him die, I will find a way out of here and I will kill every one of you!”
I think that last thing came from Danny’s father. They were all so busy shouting at some speaker in the ceiling that they didn’t notice Margaret slip out, and they were all too noisy to hear me when I tried to tell them about it. And they thought I was the one who didn’t pay attention!
“We do not expect you to understand the greater good that will come of this,” said the voice. It was a hard voice—no feelings in it. “We’re letting your friend Margaret join our team because she understands this and has proved her intellectual capabilities.” The others looked around and saw that she was missing, but they didn’t go after her. They just looked really, really offended. I’m not sure if Margaret tricked us or sold us out. At that moment she was more disgusting than all the RBs put together.
The voice started talking again but this time it tried to sound comforting. It didn’t work. “This is bigger than all of you. We have seen more death than you can imagine. We have also lost children. We’re doing this experiment so we won’t have to lose any more.”
“That doesn’t make it right!” Danny’s father cried out, and then he just cried. I had to get out of there because if I didn’t, I was going to start crying too. I tore out of the house just in time to see Margaret running down the sidewalk towards the other show home, her lab coat flying behind her like the cape of a super-villain.