Arcadium by Sarah Gray
Chapter 15
AT SIX AN ear splitting alarm sounds and a voice comes over a loudspeaker. “Hot water is on until seven. Breakfast from seven to eight. Work and school duties at eight.”
“What a lovely wake up call,” Kean says, rolling out of bed onto the floor.
“Oh my God, I think my ears just exploded,” Henry groans. “Tell me they don’t do that every day.”
I head to the showers with Liss. We wait in line with the other females and show our ID’s again. When it’s out turn, we remove our ID tags, discard our old uniforms into a bin and get handed clean ones. In each cubicle there is soap and shampoo, no conditioner though. There are also no towels so we have to walk, totally naked, from the cubicle to the drying station. No one seems to care but us. We wait in line, dripping water onto the cold white tiles.
At the drying station we have to step into one of the small cubicles. Heat radiates from hot plates and blasts of air tussle my hair. I’m completely dry in twenty seconds, hair and all. When Liss is done, we change into our fresh uniforms and head to breakfast.
Liss holds my wrist since she can’t hold my hand. She looks like a strange little space creature in her white suit.
“That was so weird,” she says.
“I know.” I stand at the mess hall entrance, scanning the tables for the others. Trouble sees me first and stands up. He’s easy to pick out in the crowd because he’s the only Chinese person and the only person smiling that big.
I wave back, and then take Liss to the food line. We show our ID’s to receive a breakfast of warm baked beans and black tea.
There’s a constant din of muffled conversation and scraping chairs. A sense of normality. Like nothing ever happened. I slide into the seat next to Kean and Liss sits opposite me.
“Did you guys have a weird shower experience too?” I ask, picking up my spoon.
“You mean the naked experience? That was an eye opener,” Kean says, but he still has a smile on his face. He looks so nice when he smiles, the corner of his mouth creases and a tiny dimple forms high in his cheek. His teeth are almost perfect, his pale hair…
“What about me?” Henry says, leaning over. “Everything is at eye line for me! That was so wrong. I’m traumatised for life.”
“Oh, so there’s no problem with creepies chasing you and trying to eat you alive.” Kean grins. “But a bit nudity is the thing that gets to you.”
“A bit! That was more than just a bit!” Despite his protests, Henry laughs.
“Anyway…” Kean turns to me. He’s already finished his beans and is just sipping away at his mug of tea. “How did you sleep?”
“Ok. I think the stuff they gave me is wearing off, especially after the shower shock. You?”
“Yeah. Henry’s snoring kept me awake for a while.”
“Whatever,” Henry shoots. “I don’t snore.”
Kean grins at me. “You know, Florence, you slept with your eyes open last night, for a while anyway.”
“Really?” I finish my mouthful.
“Yeah, you were staring right at me for ages and then you just rolled over.”
“Yeah, right. Liss, do I sleep with my eyes open?”
“I don’t think so,” she says thoughtfully.
“See.”
Kean laughs and lifts his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying you did and it was kind of freaky.”
I smile back at him. “At least I’ll see the infected coming before you do.”
“Yeah, sure. We’ll see who wakes first. I have like two or three life saving interventions to make up for.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“Don’t you worry.” Kean taps his finger to his temple. “I am already planning… already planning.”
“Does that mean we’re leaving?” Liss asks in a sharp voice.
“No.” I shake my head. “No, we’re staying. Kean’s just dreaming of being a hero.”
“Good,” she says, adjusting her concerned expression to a smile.
We all walk Liss and Henry to the school, and watch them for a few minutes through the library windows. “So this is what it feels like to send your kid off to school,” Kean says.
“It’s weird. I don’t like the thought of being away from them.”
“What are you going to do today?” Kean asks. We watch Liss and Henry sit at a table. A kid leans over and starts talking to them.
“I don’t know. Wander around, I guess. I’ll walk with you guys to work assignment.”
“We should probably head off then.”
Trouble follows us through the hallways.
“You have to look after Trouble,” I say. “I don’t know how everyone will react to someone they can’t understand.”
“Yeah, I know. I’ve got his back. I’m pretty sure they’ve put us together for that reason anyway.”
“What time do you finish?”
“Six.”
“Long day.”
We stop at another wall of glass. Behind it, all the people too old for school gather, waiting for their work assignments.
“Well… have fun at work,” I say, and nod at Trouble.
“Thanks, darling.” Kean smirks. “I’ll probably see you at lunch anyway.”
I sigh and then smile. “Get in there, already.”
Kean looks at Trouble and they both wander in.
I head off straight away because it feels weird watching them on the other side of the glass, like they’re in some kind of experiment. I stroll the silent hallways with no idea what to do. Everyone must either be in school, on work assignment or locked away in a lab somewhere.
Now that I think about it, I don’t remember seeing any of the doctors or scientists in the mess hall. They probably have a better place to eat with nicer food and more intelligent company. With the elegant wall panelling and covered floors in Doctor Harding’s office, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re all living in first class accommodation while we slum it in cupboards with bunk beds and communal showers. I mean, seriously what’s with that? I thought I’d look forward to a shower every day but it’s just weird. Factory line weird. It’s the way you wash animals, not humans.
I haven’t been beyond the library yet so I head in that direction. I figure now is the best time to explore, while everyone else is busy. I do feel kind of sorry for Kean and Trouble though, being on rubbish duty for nine hours. I wonder what they’ll get me to do when my hands heal properly.
I come to another glass wall. Behind it is the gym, full of treadmills and machines, weights and colourful exercise balls. And it’s completely empty. I push open the door but hear a sound. Someone’s running, fast, pounding away on a treadmill. I’m about to slip away when the glass door clangs shut behind me.
The running sound slows suddenly and then stops all together. A shirtless guy comes around the corner wiping his face with a towel. He stops and stares at me for a moment as if I’m infected.
“I thought I heard someone come in,” he says across the room.
“Sorry.” My hands fidget, looking for pockets my outfit doesn’t have. “I didn’t realise anyone was in here.”
He shakes his head strangely; it looks like some kind of uncontrollable tick. He’s only wearing a pair of white shorts and running shoes, and somehow I feel like I’ve walked in on him changing. His frame is narrow, not incredibly muscular but he must works out a lot. And damn, his face is pretty. It’s all sharp and angular, dark hair sits messily on top of his forehead that glistens with sweat. His chest is still heaving from the run.
“I haven’t seen you before,” he says.
“I’m new.”
“Oh.” He pauses, runs the towel through his hair and walks over. He wipes his hand first before holding it out. “I’m Adrian Harding,” he says, shaking my hand.
“As in Doctor Harding?”
He flashes a smile. “As in Doctor Harding’s son.”
“Oh,” I say. “Are you a doctor too?”
“
“Florence.”
He nods slowly. “Three six zero, right?”
I blink, and stand for a moment, temporarily stunned. “Yeah, how’d you know?”
“I just know things.” He slings the towel over his shoulder. “What happened to your hands?”
“Car accident.”
“Oh yeah, I think I remember seeing that on tape.”
“You have cameras?”
“Course.” He shrugs. “We don’t go outside but it’s handy to see what’s going on out there.”
“What’s out there?”
“Nothing mostly. Few infected wanderers, sometimes survivors. Not many make it into the facility mind you. I’ve seen some crazy attempts in the video room though.”
I just stare at him.
Adrian wipes his forehead again, and he studies my face. “You want to see?”
A drop of sweat slides over his bicep.
“Ok,” I say. I wait as Adrian changes. When he comes out he’s wearing the same white uniform as me but his last name is embroidered on the left side of his chest.
“Follow me,” he says.
As we walk I feel the need to fill the silence by saying lame things. “I haven’t been down here yet.”
“Well, you’ve only been awake for a day, you can’t know the ins and outs of this place like I do.”
“Don’t you have work assignment or something?” I ask.
“Nah, dad runs the place so I don’t really have to do anything.”
“Don’t you get bored?”
“Oh my God, all the time. You will too, but I can show you all the fun things.” A smile slides across his face like slick oil spilling into the ocean. He stops suddenly.
I stop too, and feel totally awkward as he just stares at me. I clear my throat. “This it?”
“Yeah.” Adrian looks away and punches a code into the door lock.
“You need a code for everything round here, don’t you?”
“Pretty much. To get into all the interesting bits anyway.”
We step into the video room and the door closes behind us.
It’s dark; the only light comes from the thirty or so black and white monitors hanging from the walls.
“Whoa,” I say, trying to take it all in. “How many cameras do you have?”
“Twenty two perimeter cameras.” Adrian points to the monitors on the wall in front. “Two on the elevator.” He points left. “Seven on the inner perimeter, like mounted on the building.” Adrian shifts to the right. “And even more in the labs and hallways.”
“There are cameras in the hallways?”
“Yeah, but not yours. Just around the science labs.”
“But isn’t access restricted anyway? Why would you bother?”
“I don’t know, for safety or something.” Adrian sits in one of the chairs and swivels it around. He peers at a monitor. “Look at all those good little scientists, scurrying around finding the cure.”
I stare at the screens, each one is in a different position: hallways, empty rooms, laboratories full of movement. People in white uniforms and lab coats move back and forth. One monitor shows the room full of glass quarantine cells. I squint; it looks like someone’s in one of the cages. I point to the white blur. “Is that a person?”
“Yep. Another guy arrived not long after you guys. He’ll be in there for the full quarantine period, before he’s admitted to the general population.”
“Why do you make them wait so long? I thought the disease takes over within hours?” I say, looking back at Adrian.
He crosses his arms over his chest. “It’s just the standard quarantine period. It’s long, yeah, but better to be safe.”
“If someone was infected though, how long would they have?” I’m still standing, as if there is a clear barrier and I can’t cross over it and sit down.
“Best case scenario… maybe an hour or two from the time of transmission. Sometimes it’s super quick though, twenty minutes and they hit the deck, another few minutes and they’re up again trying to eat anything they can.”
“Including people.”
“That’s a lovely picture you’ve given me,” Adrian says, but his words don’t quite match his expression. That’s when I realise he probably hasn’t been outside for long, hasn’t seen the horrors up close.
Adrian swivels around on his chair. “Want to see when you guys came in?”
“You still have it?” I sit in the chair next to him and watch him tap away at the keyboard.
“We have everything on record. That’s the thing about scientists, they keep records: video, log books, security footage, everything.”
“Makes sense.”
Adrian pauses and looks over suddenly. “You have a lovely voice.”
A weird shiver runs through me. “I do?”
“Yeah.” Adrian turns back to the computer screen. “I’m used to silence. All day, every day.” He laughs. “It’s nice to hear a nice voice.”
“Oh, right. Why don’t you just help out with work or school if you’re so bored?”
Adrian pauses and smiles at his screen. He turns slowly, a condescending look on his face. “I’m not allowed to. I’m kind of banned.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know why.” He laughs and turns back to his screen. “Dad’s rules. Only a fool questions his father.” He points to a blank screen just to the right of me. It flickers to life with a black and white image of the street.
The picture crackles and jumps for a moment but settles into the recording. A counter in the top corner measures the time, right down to the second.
“Here.” Adrian’s eyes are glued to the screen. “Here you guys come, driving in the car and BAM! You take out the infected guy. And…” He pauses to let the picture catch up to his commentary. “You hit the post. You can see the airbag there, that white bit.”
“I didn’t have an airbag,” I say, watching the few seconds of stillness before the car doors start popping open. I can see myself, dazed, stumbling to the back of the car. It’s weird watching myself. I look like any old fuzzy anonymous person on security footage.
“Right. Now we switch to the inner mounted camera.” Adrian presses a button and the angle changes. It’s further back and we’re running toward the camera now, being chased down by an absolute hoard of infected people.
“Kid in a wheelchair, hey?” Adrian grins. “That’s classy.”
“What did you expect? That we’d ditch him?”
He glances at me. “Most people would.”
“Most people are stupid.”
Adrian laughs like it’s a hilarious joke and not a general reality. He jabs his finger to the monitor. “Watch this.”
The angle changes again to one inside the elevator. “This is my favourite part,” Adrian says. He watches with great amusement, as if he’s at the local cinema and not watching real people almost bite the dust. “Look… there’s the swarm of infected closing in… and there you are, standing in the doorway going head to head with them. The only possible way that could be cooler is if someone put a samurai sword in your hand.”
I watch myself, and remember being down there, holding Liss’ hand, knowing we were about to die. I don’t remember it being cool or funny or entertaining.
“And doors shut…” he says. “Elevator starts and here it comes…” He claps his hands loudly and I jump.
“There goes the wheelchair kid and then the old guy. Drop, drop, dropping like flies and… there you go! You guys just got chlorofined.”
“Got what?”
“The gas. It’s a refined version of chloroform we’ve been working on here. It’s much safer to use on groups with different sized bodies because it won’t overdose the smaller ones. Anyway, when you press the elevator button it releases chlorofine into the air so that when you reach the top you’re manageable, and if you’re infected, you’re disposed.”
“A few. I don’t know the exact numbers.”
The screen pauses on our limp bodies, strewn across the elevator. “How do you dispose of them?”
“Incineration.”
“That’s a lovely picture.”
Adrian laughs. “Funny.”
“How long have you been in here?” I ask. “You seem… desensitised.”
“Right from the start. I guess I’ve seen so much on the monitors it doesn’t really affect me.”
I look back at the screen thinking that if Adrian had to survive outside, he wouldn’t last five minutes. I grip the edges of my chair and wait as the urge to punch him in the face subsides slowly. “How come this camera station isn’t manned?”
“What’s there to man?” He shrugs. “No one wants to break out, and it’s not like we’re stopping people from coming in. We don’t really have crime so… what’s the point?”
“It could be your job,” I say, swivelling my chair from side to side.
Adrian looks amused. “I’d go mad! Stuck in this dark little room all day.” He stares at me. “Maybe if I had company.”
“Um… anyway,” I say, trying to change the subject as quickly as possible. “What now?”
Adrian leans an elbow on the desk. “That depends on what you want to see next.”
Since I’m feeling pretty awkward sitting in a tiny dark room with a guy who’s clearly lost the ability to socialise in a non-creepy way, I’d say anywhere would be better. “Can I have a look at the laboratories?”
Adrian slaps his hand down on the desk. “Yeah right! They’re full of scientists and doctors who would freak out if you went anywhere near them.”
I nod and look away, pressing my lips together. I try to put on the most unimpressed look I have. “I didn’t think you’d be up to it. Pity. I would have thought…”
Adrian leans forward in his chair. “Hey, I didn’t say I couldn’t, I just said not right now.”
I look back, almost too eager. I hope he doesn’t notice. “When then?”
He shrugs, taps his hand against the bench. “I bet I could sneak you in tonight.”
“Cool,” I say. “What time?”
“It has to be late, like midnight. I can meet you outside your room if you like.”
“Oh… alright.”
Do I feel bad for manipulating the poor socially deprived guy just to get a peek at the inner workings of the facility? Hang on, that makes it sound like I have sympathy for him. I don’t, not one drop. If this is my new home then I want to know everything about it, including what’s behind the locked doors. So no, I don’t feel bad. I don’t trust anyone.
“You want to see something else?” he asks.
“Sure.” I follow Adrian down the corridor.
“You’re not supposed to know about this either, but I don’t care. They don’t come out here during work hours.”
We stop at a door with another code box. I pretend to glance around but watch out of the corner of my eye as he punches in his numbers. I actually manage to catch the first three digits: four-two-six.
The passageway beyond leads to a dimly lit set of stairs. We go straight up and hit another coded door. I can’t see anything over Adrian’s shoulder this time. When he opens the door, light pours through, a warm breeze sweeps over us and we step out onto the roof.