in that position all the way back to her cell, and all through her straps being untied. She doesn’t move a muscle. She keeps her gaze fixed on the floor, not trusting herself to meet the eyes of Sergeant’s people without giving the secret away.
Only when they’ve gone, and the bolts have shot closed on the cell door, does she reach behind her back and slide out the foreign object that’s been lodged there, registering first the solid weight of it, then the rectangular shape, and finally the words on the cover.
Tales the Muses Told: Greek Myths
, by Roger Lancelyn Green.
Melanie makes a strangled sound. She can’t help it, even though it might bring Sergeant’s people back into the cell to find out what she’s doing. A book! A book of her own! And
this
book! She runs her hands over the cover, riffles the pages, turns the book in her hands to look at it from every angle. She smells the book.
That turns out to be a mistake, because the book smells of Miss Justineau. On top, strongest, the chemical smell from her fingers, as bitter and horrible as always; but underneath, a little, and on the inside pages a lot, the warm and human smell of Miss Justineau herself.
The feeling – the bullying, screaming hunger – goes on for a long time. But it’s not nearly as strong as it was when Melanie was smelling Miss J herself, right up close, with no chemical spray at all. It’s still scary – a rebellion of her body against her mind, as though she’s Pandora wanting to open the box and it doesn’t matter how many times she’s been told not to, she’s just been built so she
has
to, and she can’t make herself stop. But finally Melanie gets used to the smell the way the children in the shower on Sunday get used to the smell of the chemicals. It doesn’t go away exactly, but it doesn’t torment her in quite the same way; it becomes kind of invisible, just because it doesn’t change. The hunger gets less and less, and when it’s all gone, Melanie is still there.
The book is still there too; Melanie reads it until daybreak, and even when she stumbles over the words or has to guess what they mean, she’s in another world.
She will think of that later – only a day later – after the world she knows has gone away.
14
Monday has come and gone, and the list that Dr Caldwell requested has not been forthcoming. Justineau has not spoken to her, or sent a memo. She has not explained the delay, or requested additional time.
Clearly, Caldwell thinks, her initial assessment was correct. Justineau’s emotional identification with the subjects is interfering with the proper performance of her duties. And since her duties are owed to Caldwell, are factored into Caldwell’s clinical plans, Caldwell has to take that dereliction seriously.
She calls up her own database on the test subjects. Where to start? She’s looking for reasons why
Ophiocordyceps
has shown such unlikely mercy in this tiny handful of cases. Most people infected with the pathogen experience its full effect almost instantaneously. Within minutes, or hours at most, sentience and self-awareness shut down permanently and irrevocably. This happens even before the threads of the fungus penetrate the tissue of the brain; its secretions, mimicking the brain’s own neurotransmitters, do most of the dirty work. Tiny chemical wrecking balls pounding away at the edifice of self until it cracks and crumbles, falls apart. What’s left is a clockwork toy, that only moves when
Cordyceps
turns the key.
These children were infected years ago, and they can still think and talk. Even learn. And their brains are mostly in a reasonably sound condition; mycelial threads are widely dispersed through the nerve tissue, but they don’t seem able to feed on it. There’s something in the children’s body chemistry which is retarding both the spread of the fungus and the virulence of its effects.
Partial immunity.
If she could find the reason why, Caldwell would be halfway
Only when they’ve gone, and the bolts have shot closed on the cell door, does she reach behind her back and slide out the foreign object that’s been lodged there, registering first the solid weight of it, then the rectangular shape, and finally the words on the cover.
Tales the Muses Told: Greek Myths
, by Roger Lancelyn Green.
Melanie makes a strangled sound. She can’t help it, even though it might bring Sergeant’s people back into the cell to find out what she’s doing. A book! A book of her own! And
this
book! She runs her hands over the cover, riffles the pages, turns the book in her hands to look at it from every angle. She smells the book.
That turns out to be a mistake, because the book smells of Miss Justineau. On top, strongest, the chemical smell from her fingers, as bitter and horrible as always; but underneath, a little, and on the inside pages a lot, the warm and human smell of Miss Justineau herself.
The feeling – the bullying, screaming hunger – goes on for a long time. But it’s not nearly as strong as it was when Melanie was smelling Miss J herself, right up close, with no chemical spray at all. It’s still scary – a rebellion of her body against her mind, as though she’s Pandora wanting to open the box and it doesn’t matter how many times she’s been told not to, she’s just been built so she
has
to, and she can’t make herself stop. But finally Melanie gets used to the smell the way the children in the shower on Sunday get used to the smell of the chemicals. It doesn’t go away exactly, but it doesn’t torment her in quite the same way; it becomes kind of invisible, just because it doesn’t change. The hunger gets less and less, and when it’s all gone, Melanie is still there.
The book is still there too; Melanie reads it until daybreak, and even when she stumbles over the words or has to guess what they mean, she’s in another world.
She will think of that later – only a day later – after the world she knows has gone away.
14
Monday has come and gone, and the list that Dr Caldwell requested has not been forthcoming. Justineau has not spoken to her, or sent a memo. She has not explained the delay, or requested additional time.
Clearly, Caldwell thinks, her initial assessment was correct. Justineau’s emotional identification with the subjects is interfering with the proper performance of her duties. And since her duties are owed to Caldwell, are factored into Caldwell’s clinical plans, Caldwell has to take that dereliction seriously.
She calls up her own database on the test subjects. Where to start? She’s looking for reasons why
Ophiocordyceps
has shown such unlikely mercy in this tiny handful of cases. Most people infected with the pathogen experience its full effect almost instantaneously. Within minutes, or hours at most, sentience and self-awareness shut down permanently and irrevocably. This happens even before the threads of the fungus penetrate the tissue of the brain; its secretions, mimicking the brain’s own neurotransmitters, do most of the dirty work. Tiny chemical wrecking balls pounding away at the edifice of self until it cracks and crumbles, falls apart. What’s left is a clockwork toy, that only moves when
Cordyceps
turns the key.
These children were infected years ago, and they can still think and talk. Even learn. And their brains are mostly in a reasonably sound condition; mycelial threads are widely dispersed through the nerve tissue, but they don’t seem able to feed on it. There’s something in the children’s body chemistry which is retarding both the spread of the fungus and the virulence of its effects.
Partial immunity.
If she could find the reason why, Caldwell would be halfway
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