Another flurry of activity, but no more talking.
I pushed on a couple more yards. The hum was loud, but I still held my breath, desperate to stay quiet. Just ahead of me, light filtered through the vertical spaces in the duct vent. I pulled alongside it and rested on my elbow so that I could see down into the room.
It was the largest room in the fort. The walls were black, lined with flameless lanterns. The solar generators must have been powering them. They cast overlapping circles of light on the dark floor, and on the group of four men who stood together. But the strangest sight was the space beneath the lanterns, where several guns were propped against the wall in orderly rows, just as Dennis had told us.
The hum seemed to come from a large machine to one side of the room. There was a table beside it, with an assortment of old-looking knives and other ominous metal objects arranged neatly on a white cloth. And a chair, with crisscrossing leather straps.
“Is the generator charged?” demanded Chief.
A man beside the machine nodded. “It’s ready.”
“Let’s start.”
I shifted position so that I could watch Chief as he moved creakily toward a rail. Below him was a giant glass cube, showered in even brighter light than the rest of the room. Two men stood beside the cube, dressed in bright white clothing that covered every part of their bodies. There was someone inside too.
Griffin.
He leaned against one of the walls. On the other side of the cube, separated by a glass divider, the floor was black.
Suddenly a door burst open. Out of my line of sight, someone strode across the floor. “What’s going on, Chief?” the new arrival demanded, silky smooth voice tinged with venom.
I couldn’t see him, but I didn’t need to. I’d have recognized Dare’s voice anywhere.
CHAPTER 36
All’s well with the natives, I assume.” Chief addressed Dare without looking at him. “Or are they getting restless?”
“One of your trigger-happy men just shot Ananias,” replied Dare.
“Such a waste. We’ll never get that bullet back.” Chief gave an exaggerated sigh. “All the same, it hardly concerns you. You said yourself that you have no connection to those people. Although,” he added, watching Dare from the corner of his eye, “from the way you just burst in here, I’m wondering if maybe that’s not the case.”
Dare’s expression didn’t change at all. “Where are the children, Chief?”
The old man tsked. “Why? Are you getting sentimental in your old age?”
“I told you to imprison all of them.”
“Yes. But you didn’t tell me where.” He adjusted the sleeves of his tunic. “The children are on Moultrie. Behind bars, exactly as you requested.”
“There are rats on Moultrie. You’re giving them the Plague.”
“Indeed, I am. Think of them as my security. Just to make sure everything goes to plan.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” Dare’s eyes did a measured sweep of the room. He had the look of a man on edge. “I don’t like to see children suffer, Chief.”
Chief stifled a laugh. “You might have wanted to think about that before you handed me Griffin.”
Dare stepped forward. In response, the guards raised their guns. “Your men seem anxious.”
“As do you.” Chief sighed deeply. “I’d given you up for dead until last night, Dare. But your arrival doesn’t change anything. You’re our guest, and we have plans for young Griffin.”
Dare continued past the older man and surveyed the room with the glass cube. “What’s going on here? Our agreement last month was for an injection.”
“I told you that could never work. Anyway, what does it matter? He’s the solution.” Chief stepped beside a large machine. He ran a hand across it gently, as if he were reacquainting with an old friend. When he turned a dial, the hum became a high-pitched whine. “Anyone might survive a small dose of Plague. But there’s only one person who could survive a massive dose, and we both know it’s that boy in there.”
“You may as well torture him. This is inhumane.”
Chief spun around. “When was this ever humane? Is that what you thought all those years ago, when we stood in this very room? Did you convince yourself that an injection of the Plague bacterium was somehow more humane than direct contact with the rats themselves?”
“Of course it’s different.”
“Let me remind you that you claimed to have delivered the solution to me. You promised me the Plague years were over, and I threw all our resources into making it so. But she wasn’t the solution, was she? And in the end, the only reason that woman survived is because I gave her the therapy,” Chief roared. “You offered her up for slaughter, and I cured her. Not you. Don’t ever forget that.”
Chief strode toward the rail. He regarded the glass cube proudly.
Griffin didn’t look up. All his attention was fixed on the other side of the divider, where the black floor began to shift. Only, it wasn’t a floor at all. The floor wouldn’t move, wouldn’t ripple like that. The floor wouldn’t make a sound.
It was rats, and they were desperate to get to Griffin.
I couldn’t take my eyes away. On Hatteras, the Guardians had told us to keep our distance from rats, and to warn someone if we came across a dead one. They were easy instructions to follow because the rats were shy creatures, more frightened of us than we were of them. But these rats were like the ones on Moultrie—violent and hostile.
“Alice,” I whispered loudly, but there was no response.
“You don’t get it, do you,” said Chief, voice calmer again. “Twenty rats won’t just prove that Griffin is resistant. Such a large dose of Plague will boost his antibody titers. It’ll help him in the long run.” He opened his arms wide. It was a gesture I’d seen more than once, and which I’d trusted to be genuine. He pointed to the machine as if coaxing Dare to join him over there. “The plasmapheresis unit still works. My technician has been testing it on himself. In a matter of days, we’ll be able to extract antibodies. Because Griffin’s titers will be so high, we’ll need less of his blood to treat everyone. Think about it, Dare: For the first time in a generation, we can passively immunize people.”
“Your people.”
“No, Dare. Our people.” Chief wore the expression of a disappointed parent. “I know those colonists are related to you. Same birthplace. Same ability to survive against all odds. I saw them all for elementals the moment they arrived. That’s why the adults are imprisoned in Sumter, where we can keep an eye on them. Someone saw Marin catching a fish, you see. Lured it toward her and caught it barehanded. There’s no way I’m taking any chances against an element as strong as that.”
A strange transformation overtook Dare then. “Tell me, Chief. Exactly whom did you send to lock up the children? Was it Kell?”
“The fate of the children on Moultrie rests in our hands now,” replied Chief, ignoring him. “Griffin’s blood will save them.”
“Kell hasn’t returned. Has he?”
“Enough!” Chief rapped his knuckles against the machine impatiently. “You don’t have your cronies around you anymore, Dare, and I’ve tolerated your questions long enough.” He raised a hand and gave a signal to the man across the room. “Raise the divider.”
Dare strode toward Chief until a guard stepped in his way. “You thought it was adults you needed to worry about, didn’t you? But elements peak in late adolescence. Kell wouldn’t have stood a chance.”