FOURTEEN

Hungry?” the man asked. He pointed to a tray with green gelatin and stale toast. “I can make sure to get you something a little better than the hospital food.”

Theo was hungry.

“You’re from the government,” Theo answered, ignoring his hunger. He sat in a chair beside Billy, who was unconscious, his massive body filling the hospital bed completely, drip tubes in arms, breathing steadily. His right bicep was heavily bandaged. “Then tell me what’s going on. One second, me and Billy are going to fight Vore. The next, I wake up here.”

Theo had his arms crossed, staring at the blur of some big guy across the room who had just introduced himself as Avery from some agency. National Intelligence. Theo was having a hard time concentrating. His nose hurt. Not that he needed the pain as a reminder. Along with the usual blur, white fuzz filled the foreground of his vision. He’d already gingerly run his fingers across it, so he knew it was a wide swath of bandage across the bridge of his nose, pulling tight on the skin of his face. Cotton filled his nostrils. He had to breathe through his mouth, and his upper palate was dry.

“How about thanks?” Avery said. “You notice your nose is fixed.”

“But not my glasses.” Theo wasn’t giving this guy anything. The hospital felt like a prison. Theo knew a lot about prison.

“To your left. On the bed tray.”

Theo squinted. He had to resort to feeling around. His fingers bumped glasses frames. He snatched them off the tray. He ran his fingers over the frames and felt some bubbles where glue had dried unevenly. He put them on and winced at the pressure on the bridge of his nose but decided the pain was well worth the cleared vision.

Theo saw that the big man across the room was old enough to have wrinkles around the corners of his eyes. Short, cropped dark hair but bald across the top of a wide head. Sitting relaxed, legs crossed, in a black suit. Brown tie. Same kind of outfit as the men who had come to their apartment in Lynchburg and asked questions about Caitlyn, promising them money if they turned her in. Theo and Billy had done just the opposite—given Caitlyn warning, then run away, abandoning the apartment, the work permits, and becoming Illegals in a soovie park. Even here, this close to DC, they thought they were safe from government. He and Billy had believed that soovie camps were too unstructured and chaotic and had too many other Illegals for the government to track them down.

But somehow the government had.

Theo knew this conversation was about Caitlyn but wasn’t going to show it. He studied the government man and pressed his lips together in a subconscious gesture of intended continued silence.

Avery looked amused, as if he understood that Theo was seeing him with fresh eyes. “It was the best we could do during the night to put them back together. By the thickness of those lenses, you must be blind without them.”

“Hyperopia. Got it real bad. Means I’m farsighted. Can’t count my own fingers without my glasses.”

“Yeah. You check out fine otherwise. Doctors examined you same time as they did your friend. That thick scar on your right forearm. How’d you get that?”

“Not your business.” In Appalachia, Theo had escaped from a Factory. Only way he could stay free was if he lost the tracking device that was put in every prisoner. He’d been forced to dig it out with a knife. Himself. The subsequent infection and fever had almost killed him.

“The report’s got you at five feet four inches,” Avery said. “Eighty-two pounds. You better hope you grow some, talking like that. Not always going to have your friend around to protect you.”

“He’s going to be okay. Right? And what about Phoenix? You didn’t leave her there in the soovie park.”

“Suddenly we’re friends, when you need something.”

“He’s going to be okay, isn’t he? And if you left Phoenix there by herself, you and me got nothing left to talk about, because as soon as Billy can walk, we’re going straight back to the soovie park.”

“The girl’s getting medical attention. Here. And your friend is all right, only because he’s bigger than an ox. The death doctor put a chemical soup into him that would have killed anyone else in twenty minutes. As it was, he nearly went anyway. Took a total blood transfusion to clean him out. You have any idea how much that costs?”

Theo had a good idea it meant that Avery and the government wanted something. Theo also had a good idea what that something was. Just like before.

“What do you want?” Theo said. He knew it was about Caitlyn. Like before. He was also wondering how the government had found him and Billy. “People who live in soovie parks don’t have much money.”

“Tell me about yourself,” Avery said. “Not much chance you were born in a soovie park. What’re you running from?”

“How about explaining what happened last night?” Theo had no doubt the government man was going to get around to a lot more questions. Once he found out that Theo wasn’t going to answer a single one of them, he’d leave. Theo figured he’d better get his own questions in first.

“Sure,” Avery said, very relaxed. “We heard things were about to get real ugly in the soovie park. We got there in a chopper. Dispersed the crowd. Took you out of harm’s way.”

“I could figure that for myself. How? I was so scared that I thought I was going to die.”

“Not your business.” Avery grinned. “That’s a phrase I just learned from someone.”

“How’d you know what was happening?” Theo asked. “With the crowd. To come in and fly us away?”

“You’re funny,” Avery said. “What makes you think you’re valuable enough to be rescued?”

“We’re here. You spent money cleaning out Billy’s blood. You must have thought we were worth it.”

Avery grunted.

“How’d you know what was happening?” Theo asked. “Then I want to know what makes us valuable.”

“There’s always someone in a soovie camp paid to pass on information to the government. Cell phone on a private frequency. Think we ever want some kind of organized uprising surprising the people in the city?”

This didn’t sound like a lie to Theo. Influentials worked hard to make sure there weren’t any riots. Too many Industrials and Illegals. Not many Influentials.

“And what makes us so valuable to fly us out?”

“Wasn’t you we were protecting,” Avery said. “It was Phoenix’s mother. She, um, knew a lot of men. Heard lots of stuff from all sorts of places. She was someone paid to pass on information.”

“Maybe you could have got there before the death doctor.”

“Maybe. We didn’t know how sick she was until it was too late.”

“You went in to rescue a dead woman?” Theo asked. He began to think he shouldn’t show too much suspicion in case the government really didn’t want something from him or Billy.

“Went in to rescue a memory stick,” the government man answered. “Had a bunch of information on it that lets us know who runs things. What they might have planned. You know as well as I do how the scavengers take everything in the first half hour after someone dies.”

“Then I guess you’re done with us,” Theo said.

“How about answering one question then?” Avery said. Pleasant smile.

“Probably not,” Theo said. It was going to be about Caitlyn.

“There’s a second reason you had value to us.” Avery leaned forward. “What you two showed was real moral courage. The government needs people like that. So here’s my question. You and your friend want to go back into another soovie park and start passing information to us? Money’s good, and we’ll make sure you’re always protected. Just like last night.”

“Nope.”

“Too bad. Guess we’ll have to turn Phoenix loose. By herself. Outside the city walls. Unless you want to change your mind. Then we’ll make sure she gets adopted by a nice family inside the city.”