steel boxes from the helicopter’s cargo section, each the approximate dimensions of a coffin, with wheeled frames that dropped from their undercarriages. They guided the two boxes to a small, hutlike structure on the roof—a service elevator, Kittridge guessed. A few minutes passed; the six reappeared and boarded the second helicopter. First one and then the other lifted off, thudding away.
April came up behind him. “I noticed that, too,” she said. “Any idea what it is?”
“Maybe nothing.” Kittridge dropped his hand. “Where’s Tim?”
“Already making friends. He’s off playing soccer with some kids.”
They watched the helicopters fade from sight. Whatever it was, Kittridge thought, it wasn’t nothing.
“You think we’ll be okay here?” April asked.
“Why wouldn’t we be?”
“I don’t know.” Though her face said she did; she was thinking the same thing he was. “Last night, in the lab … What I mean is, I can be like that sometimes. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“I wouldn’t have told you if I didn’t want to.”
She was somehow looking both toward him and away. At such moments she had a way of seeming older than she was. Not seeming, Kittridge thought: being.
“Are you really eighteen?”
She seemed amused. “Why? Don’t I look it?”
Kittridge shrugged to hide his embarrassment; the question had just popped out. “No. I mean yes, you do. I was just … I don’t know.”
April was plainly enjoying herself. “A girl’s not supposed to tell. But to put your mind at ease, yes, I’m eighteen. Eighteen years, two months, and seventeen days. Not that I’m, you know, counting.”
Their eyes met and held in the way they seemed to want to. What was it about this girl, Kittridge wondered, this April?
“I still owe you for the gun,” she said, “even if they took it. I think it might be the nicest present anybody ever gave me, actually.”
“I liked the poem. Call it even. What was that guy’s name again?”
“T. S. Eliot.”
“He got any other stuff?”
“Not much that makes sense. You ask me, he was kind of a one-hit wonder.”
They had no weapons, no way to get a message to the outside world. Not for the first time, Kittridge wondered if they shouldn’t have just kept driving.
“Well, when we get out of here, I’ll have to check him out.”
17
Grey.
Whiteness, and the sensation of floating. Grey became aware that he was in a car. This was strange, because the car was also a motel room, with beds and dressers and a television; when had they started making cars like this? He was sitting on the foot of one of the beds, driving the room—the steering column came up at an angle from the floor; the television was the windshield—and seated on the adjacent bed was Lila, clutching a pink bundle to her chest. “Are we there yet, Lawrence?” Lila asked him. “The baby needs changing.” The baby? thought Grey. When had that happened? Wasn’t she months away? “She’s so beautiful,” said Lila, softly cooing. “We have such a beautiful baby. It’s too bad we have to shoot her.” “Why do we have to shoot her?” Grey asked. “Don’t be silly,” said Lila. “We shoot all the babies now. That way they won’t be eaten.”
Lawrence Grey.
The dream changed—one part of him knew he was dreaming, while another part did not—and Grey was in the tank now. Something was coming to get him, but he couldn’t make himself move. He was on his hands and knees, slurping the blood. His job was to drink it, drink it all, which was impossible: the blood had begun to gush through the hatch, filling the compartment. An ocean of blood. The blood was rising above his chin, his mouth and nose were filling, he was choking, drowning—
Lawrence Grey. Wake up.
He opened his eyes to a harsh light. Something felt caught in his throat; he began to cough. Something about drowning? But the dream was already breaking apart, its images atomizing, leaving only a residue of fear.
Where was he?
Some kind of hospital. He was wearing a gown, but that was all; he felt the chill of nakedness beneath it. Thick straps bound his wrists and ankles to the rails of the bed, holding him in place like a mummy in a sarcophagus. Wires snaked from beneath his gown to a cart of medical equipment; an IV was threaded into his right arm.
Somebody was in the room.
Two somebodies in fact, the pair hovering at the foot of the bed in their bulky biosuits, their faces shielded by plastic masks. Behind them was a