Say nodded again. A little color returned to her face, and she gazed at Sejal with rapt adoration. Vidya was certain she was going to throw up.
“Jillias,” Sejal said. “Will you do me a little favor? Please?”
“Yes, Sejal,” she murmured. “Anything for you.”
“Release the computer. Would you do that? For me?”
A long pause, and then a nod. “Tessa,” she said, “lift emergency lockdown.”
“Acknowledged,” the computer said. “Lockdown lifted. Access restored.”
A great weight lifted from Vidya’s shoulders. She scrambled to her feet and turned to Prasad. “We need to begin working with the children.”
“That won’t help,” Say said dreamily from the floor. Sejal was holding her hand.
“What do you mean?” Prasad asked sharply.
“The Unity is coming,” Say told them.
“What?” Vidya, Prasad, and Sejal’s voices spoke as one.
“I activated the emergency alert system.” Say’s hand crept up to smooth Sejal’s dark hair. Vidya wanted to slap her. “It calls the Unity guard in case of a life-or-death emergency, like if we spring a leak and can’t get to the submersile. Better arrest than death. They’ll be here within the hour, my love.”
Vidya stared at her in horror and hatred. The desire to throttle the stupid woman was so strong, her ears were ringing. Before she could move, however, Prasad’s gentle hand landed on her shoulder.
“If we have little time,” he said, “then we must hurry.”
Practicality won out. Vidya tossed the roll of tape to Sejal. “Tape her up, then come help us in the Nursery.”
Sejal obeyed. Dr. Say accepted his ministrations without comment as Vidya and Prasad left the lab and went into the Nursery. When they reached the first glassed-off area, the one with the oldest children behind it, Vidya saw that every one of them was squirming and convulsing. Not one of them made a sound. Katsu sat in the room’s rocking chair, her eyes shut. Prasad opened the door to the glassed-off area. The only sound was the soft beeping of medical monitors and the eerie rustle of bedclothes sliding over convulsive flesh. The sound made the hair on the back of Vidya’s neck stand up.
“Where are the children that Max Garinn injected with his virus?” Vidya asked. “We should begin with them.”
Prasad quickly lead her down the hallway to another glassed-off Nursery. Eight beds held eight wizened figures. Six of them were squirming against their restraints, eyes tightly shut. The other two appeared comatose.
“Each bed has a cryo-unit beneath it,” Prasad said, moving into the room. “We need to slide it out and put the child inside. The computer will do the rest.”
Vidya followed as Prasad reached under the first bed. A black coffin-sized unit slid out and he pressed a release. The top slid open. Vidya began disconnecting the life support units. Touching the dry skin made her flesh shudder. Grimly she ignored the sensation and helped Prasad undo the child’s restraints. It was a girl, thin and wrinkled.
One little foot lashed out and caught Vidya in the stomach. Breath left her in a whoof. The girl fought and gnashed her teeth but made no sound. She was surprisingly strong, and it took some effort to wrestle her into the cryo-unit. The lid slid shut. There was a whooshing sound, and the glass fogged with condensation. Prasad wiped it away. The girl lay quietly in the unit, to all appearances peacefully asleep.
Vidya realized she was sweating and her stomach hurt where the girl had kicked her. She glanced at Prasad, who looked equally disheveled.
“Only thirty-eight more, my wife,” Prasad said.
Vidya nodded and they turned together toward the second child.
Sejal stuck the last piece of tape over Say’s mouth. Her emotions were a tangle. When he touched her with the back of his finger, he had seen the small part of her that found him physically attractive. It hadn’t been much of a stretch to touch the emotion and make it coil around her like a mutant jungle vine until she would willingly do whatever he asked. The look she gave him, one of total adoration mixed with red lust, made him feel a bit sick. The moment the gag was in place, he let go of the emotion and it snapped back to its original state. Her eyes flickered as the false love died, replaced by confusion, then anger, then rage.
“Sorry,” Sejal said. “But we couldn’t have you locking down the computer again.”
He left her then, moving quickly toward the Nursery. Mom and Prasad would need all the help they could ~Sejal.~
Sejal stopped cold. “Hello?”
— Sejal, it is Katsu.~ The voice was tense.
Sejal shook his head. Kendi had told him about whispering, of course, but he had never felt someone speak inside his mind like this.
“What’s wrong, Katsu?” he asked aloud.
— I need your help. The new children are entering the Dream, and they’re all angry. They’re going to spread out and I can’t stop them. I need your help. Quickly! They’re splitting apart!~
Sejal’s heart lurched. He dashed past the other taped-up prisoners and into the Nursery area. Katsu’s body sat in a rocking chair in the first room. In the second, Mom and Prasad were wrestling a struggling child into a cryo-unit. Sejal did some quick math and realized it would take hours to get every child into a unit if they all struggled and fought. But what if…?
He stared at the children in the Nursery and reached toward them with his mind. If he blanked them out, they would stop struggling and Mom and Prasad could get them into the units more easily. More importantly, they wouldn’t tear up the Dream. Sejal reached.
He felt nothing. No minds. The only people he could sense were his parents.
— Because their minds are in the Dream, Sejal!~ Katsu shouted. ~I need you here. Help me!~
Sejal poked his head into the Nursery. “Mom! Katsu needs me in the Dream. I’m going in.”
Before Vidya could respond, Sejal slid to the floor. His insides were tightly wound, and he wondered if he would be able to concentrate enough to reach the Dream. But after two deep breaths, Kendi’s training took over. The outer world faded away, and Sejal reached for the Dream.
He expected his seashore, and was therefore startled to find himself standing in front of the black place. Screams, angry and hungry, crashed over him and he put his hands to his ears.
“Katsu!” he shouted over the noise. “Katsu!”
Even as he shouted her name, he realized he knew exactly where she was. He had touched her in the real world, of course, and that now allowed him to find her in the Dream. She was in the center of the black place.
Sejal hesitated, hands over his ears. When he had played the flute for Katsu, he hadn’t actually entered the blackness. The angry, horrible screams worked their way into his head, and the darkness boiled. Figures moved inside it, and he felt their hunger and their sickness. Evey instinct Sejal had told him to flee far and fast. But Katsu was in there and she was fine. Sejal was her brother, and they were both half-sibling to the children. What worked for her should work for him.
Sejal took a deep breath and tensed himself to leap into the blackness. Before he could do it, however, another cry filtered its way through the noise. Sejal froze. He had felt it more than he had heard it. It was a desperate cry for help, and voice was powerfully familiar. It came from above. Sejal looked up and saw a falcon circling overhead with desperate beats of her wings.
“Kendi?” Sejal said.
“Sejal!” Katsu’s voice cut through the wailing and Sejal could now see her inside the dark place. “Sejal, I need you!”
The falcon cried again, wordless and pleading and Sejal’s earlier resentment toward Kendi vanished. Kendi was in danger. Kendi needed him. But so did the universe itself. Sejal stood at the boundary of darkness.
“Sejal!” Katsu shouted desperately.
The falcon cried, begging.
Tears streaming down his face, Sejal plunged into the dark place.
