Children of the Plague

Chapter Seventeen: Good Mornings

Part Three: Sector Zero Chapter Seventeen: Good Mornings

Diane always woke up frowning. The colonists and other exterminators probably wouldn’t believe it, but even for her, being pleasant and finding happiness in this life took work. She had become quite skilled at it, over time. But mornings… Well, mornings were always tough.

She woke up slowly, feeling the weight of decades she hadn’t yet seen, dreading the moment she’d have to open her eyes and admit that reality had somehow become worse than nightmares. Then again, maybe it was just the cell.

There was just no way to make a tiny square room with concrete walls, stale air, and iron bars feel like home. The toilet bowl at eye level, a couple of feet from her pillow, certainly didn’t lend a Martha Stewarty atmosphere, either; never mind that it didn’t even flush.

She sat up, rubbed her stiff neck, and tried to think of something nice. A happy thought first thing in morning helped to wash away the dirty residue of her recurring, always awful, but never remembered nightmares. The happy thoughts were slow in coming.

At least I am not really an inmate. Not anymore.

It wasn’t exactly a cheerful thought, but it was the best she could muster. Even thinking about how miraculously well her pregnant sister was doing brought more worry than relief.

A cool shower. Clean clothes. Lasagna. Loud music. Fishing trip.

It didn’t work. She couldn’t shake the darkness from her mind. A fading shadow of a dream clung to her consciousness like a greasy film. The details had already evaporated, but it left her with a heart-rending sense of loss, as if someone she dearly loved had just died.

It was enough to put anyone in dreary mood, especially when the day ahead promised only hunger, pain, and for most of her cohabitants, confinement to the prison home they jokingly dubbed the Manhattan Penal Colony.

A moment later, the feeling was as forgotten as the dream, and her usual happy demeanor eased into place. She sat up and stepped into her morning routine, while the day’s agenda took shape inside her stubbly head.

After a few yoga stretches, she picked some clothes from the pile on the floor, sniffed them, and pulled them on. Yesterday’s sweat made the snug tank cling to her skin. She pretended not to notice the snags, holes, and blue-black gore stains on her favorite pink skinny-jeans. Her socks were the worst. Her toes poked through ragged holes in the tips on both feet, reminding her of long gone days when she cared about things like pedicures.

The unopened liter of Fiji Water on the sink made her smile, though. She hadn’t seen one of those in almost a year. In the microsecond between seeing it and reaching for it, the fact that it shouldn’t have been there registered in her mind. She jerked her hand back away like it was poisonous snake.

She certainly hadn’t seen a bottle of Fiji Water for nearly a year! So why was one suddenly in her room? Where the heck had it come from?

A host!

She remembered Tom MacDonald, a former MPC colonist who stabbed five people to death as they slept, including his wife and daughter. The host that used his body like a puppet left his mind mostly intact, so he would know what he had done.

Suppressing her panic, she spun around, searching the room for anything that was out of place, missing, or hadn’t been there before.

I ain’t going down easy, like Tom.

The poor guy had probably been brushing his teeth, or sipping coffee in his mind while the host controlled his body. He wouldn’t have noticed the little details that the host got wrong; a green washcloth instead of a blue, or a bottle of Fiji Water on the darned sink, when there wasn’t any to be had in the whole five sectors!

She clumsily put up her blocks, the barriers that shielded her from mental attacks. She wasn’t even sure if blocks would work against something that was already inside her head. She didn’t feel any resistance; no tendrils of hostile mental energy that would point to an attack, but she kept the blocks up while she scanned for more nanite activity.

She was nearly as bad at scanning as she was at blocking, a situation she intended to correct with practice, but had never found the time. She could tell her scans worked this time, because she could sense a weaker than normal presence of nanites in her room. That wouldn’t have been the case if she were being attacked. The water didn’t vanish when she put her blocks up, either, so it had to be real. Right?

Sometimes you’re as dumb as a post, Diane.

She sighed in relief, let her blocks go, and scolded herself for being too jumpy. The MPC hadn’t seen so much as an unexpected husk for three months, let alone an offspring or a host. She didn’t know why the monsters were staying back, but they were, and she was glad of it.

That didn’t mean she could let her guard down, but she could probably afford to be a bit less jumpy. It was far more likely that somebody found a case of water and brought her a bottle while she slept, than a host infiltrated the prison and climbed into bed with her.

Someone must have found the water on one of their recent supply raids. A genuine smile crept across her face in anticipation of that cool, clean water on her lips. When she found out who had left it for her, she would kiss them. Or punch them for scaring her.

It had to be one of the other exterminators; probably Lee. She pictured herself kissing the little man, and laughed. It wasn’t an entirely unpleasant thought, but she could never be attracted to a shorter man. Her face warmed, thinking about it.

Am I blushing?

She quickly doused all thoughts of kissing, and splashed water from the pitcher over her face and head. She needed to shave again, too. Her tattooed scalp wore a coat of prickly stubble.

She luxuriated in the feel of the squarish water bottle in her hand. She ached to feel the little blue lid snap away from the plastic ring with that satisfying click. She hesitated before twisting the cap off. If someone found this bottle, there were probably more of them out there. She’d save this one for Tina. It was Tina, after all, who had hooked on this brand in the first place.

With a resigned smile, she made for the stairs, her spear in one hand, and a liter bottle of Fiji water in the other. By the time she reached the first step, she had settled into the happy, hopeful mindset that everyone knew, and maybe even liked her for.