recognise us or they wouldn't. My hand drifted down to the gun hidden beneath my baggy t-shirt.
All we could be was ready.
But all around us, the world carried on as if we weren't in it. The streets were dusty with ragged fragments of cloth and paper blowing down them in the hot wind. The Infected seemed to be in no hurry, walking slowly down the narrow streets to nowhere in particular. Bloody remnants of wounds stood out stark red on their faces, hands and legs; but no one seemed to care. Once, as we walked past, a man with a seeping sore over his left eye fell down on the pavement and didn't get back up. No one reacted, they just adjusted their paths round his body and carried on walking.
For the first time, I realised that some of the piles of cloth on the pavement had once been people, worn away by time. Dead and left to rot where they fell. Why bother to bury your dead when you just don't care that they're gone?
After thirty minutes walking the scruffy residential streets gave way to broader, bleaker roads with the concrete hulks of government buildings squatting on either side. Barbed wire lined the tops of tall fences but there was nothing to keep out any longer. The streets were deserted, none of the Infected in sight. The buildings too had the unmistakeable look of desertion about them. Only the every-present cameras peered out from their walls. Within there was an echoing emptiness which was evident even fifty feet away.
We walked on. The sky was hazy above us, caught between sunshine and rain. No shadows anywhere, just a pervasive muted light. Another fifteen minutes and we were there.
The street outside was entirely empty. There was a tall fence, security gates, cameras, guard towers. But again, that air of desertion.
'You're sure he's here?' Kelis asked.
I shrugged. 'That's what the old woman said.'
'Yeah,' Soren said dryly. 'And why would she ever want to lie to us?'
I saw Haru swallow hard, then square his shoulders. 'Well, we're here now. And look…' he pointed over the gate, deep inside the palace complex. 'There's light in there. There must be power. Why would they waste electricity on a place that was empty?'
The cameras to each side watched us blankly. There was no question that whoever was inside knew we were there.
'So…' Kelis said. 'Do we go in?'
I looked at the cameras again. 'Nothing to lose now. I guess we climb.'
Kelis boosted each of us over the high fence, using that deceptive strength of hers. Soren went last, pulling her up and over as if she weighed nothing at all. His hand lingered on hers before he let it go. I saw her notice it, the slight unease as she finally pulled her fingers free. That was never going to end well.
Inside we all paused a moment – waiting for the other shoe to drop, I guess. But no guards came pouring out, no sirens started blaring and after a moment we got moving deeper into the silent concrete complex.
When I was a kid, no older than nine or ten, I read The Day of the Triffids. I remember having to sneak it past my parents, because they would have thought it was too scary for me. But it didn't scare me at all. The image that stuck in my mind, the one I absolutely loved, was of the hero wandering through a deserted London, where everybody else was dead.
I remember finding that an incredibly seductive idea. To be able to wander into everybody's houses, see what went on behind doors that were usually closed. To have it all to yourself. Maybe it was a legacy of that time I'd spent in hospital when I was very young and I had no privacy at all: even the inside of my body became public property then. Maybe that was why I could imagine being so alone without finding it lonely.
Wandering through those echoing, empty rooms made me think of that with a sudden sharp stab of nostalgia for a childhood that could never be relived, not even through children of my own. There wasn't a soul in the place. No bodies, even. Nothing. We passed through living quarters, utilitarian barracks, plush sleeping chambers, impersonal guest rooms, through offices and eventually through labs. Three of them, fully equipped but not purpose built. These had been offices once, I guessed, before Ash put them to better use. There was no sign that they'd been left in a hurry, or during any kind of emergency. No signs of flight, or disaster. The people who'd once occupied them were just… gone.
'OK,' Kelis said as we looked around at the benches, Bunsen burners, pipettes and all the usual apparatus of a working lab, 'I guess this is just a front. He must have his real base somewhere else.'
'It could be anywhere,' Haru said. 'How will we ever find it?'
'But you were right to begin with,' I told him, 'the power's still on. Something's still happening here.' Halogen light shone down from the ceiling, flattening our features.
'A relay station,' Ingo said. His voice was soft but startling, because it was always so easy to forget that he was there. 'Remote control. There were satellite dishes on the roof, transmitters. The feed from the cameras goes out, the signal for the loudspeakers comes in.'
'Goes out where?' Soren said. 'Comes in from where?'
'Off the island,' I said with sudden certainty.
Kelis raised an eyebrow. 'You think?'
I gestured around me, at the carefully abandoned lab. 'This was his headquarters. He was doing whatever he was doing here. Why would he bother to pack it all up just to shift somewhere else on Cuba? The only reason to leave would be to go somewhere else entirely.'
'OK, I buy that,' Kelis said. 'So what was he doing in this place? This lab – it's not original is it? He built it, just like Queen M built hers.'
'Yeah,' I said. Only he built it better, because Ash was a real scientist, not a social one. I walked away from the others, along the length of the benches, scavenging for any clues. They weren't hard to find. I don't think when he'd left here he'd meant to erase his traces. He'd just taken what he still needed and left the rest behind.
It was all very familiar looking, and no wonder. The same set-up we'd had back at the base. I recognised the Petri dishes with carefully cultivated cultures, left to die or breed alone. In the furthest corner of the room there was a laptop, plugged in but switched off.
'Paydirt,' I told the others as I booted it up.
'Why did they leave it behind if it's still working?' Haru said dubiously.
I shrugged. 'Because they didn't need it anymore and they didn't expect anyone to find it.'
I was right, though a part of me knew that Haru was right as well. This was all just too convenient. Did Ash want me to find it? Why? But even if he'd meant me to have this information, for whatever twisted game he was playing, it didn't mean it wasn't worth having.
'Anything?' Kelis asked.
I nodded as I skimmed through the directory before I delved deeper, because you'd be amazed how much people give away just in the way they name things. 'Definitely something.'
Thirty minutes later I could tell her exactly what. It wasn't a surprise, not after everything else I'd seen, but the certainty still sat like a sour lump in my gut. Guilt too, because a part of me had suspected all along, even back when there was still something I could have done to prevent it. Memory again, sharper than pain.
Ash out of the lab, taking one of the few sleeps we allowed ourselves back in those frantic days when it still seemed possible that we could stop it all, if only we could do it in time.
I was feeling wired that night, I remembered that. I wasn't sure why, maybe it was the message I'd had from him, a quick email which had taken three days to reach me. It must be getting bad out there, I knew, if information itself was beginning to sicken and slow. He hadn't been able to say much, with the security checks at his end and ours. But I could hear his voice saying every line and it had left me itchy to see him, to hear his voice for real. I knew that I probably never would again and it was almost unbearable. When you love someone like that it seems impossible that the love itself can't overcome every obstacle between you. If love can't do that, then what's the point of it?
So I was restless and unhappy and, as I usually did, I chose to sublimate it in work. My computer was slow to boot, some bug the techies hadn't been able to fix, so I switched on Ash's instead, unthinkingly using the password he'd told me long ago when we were students together and the only thing he had to hide was the fact that he'd been cheating on his girlfriend for the last three months.
I was planning on logging onto the shared drive, not even looking at his private files. I didn't expect there to be any private files. When would he have time to do anything but work?
