drive to make things right. After that, he used his hands. All throughout, he refused Jerusha’s repeated offers to help. This was Wally’s job.
Hours and hours of digging. Wally’s back ached, ferociously. Far worse pain came from kneeling on his injured shin, where the bullet had grazed a vulnerable spot thinned out by rust. It felt like a red-hot knitting needle had been rammed through his leg. But it was nothing compared to the pain in his chest, his heart. That was so intense he could hardly breathe.
The pain was a penance. He deserved it. His friend had been in trouble, and Wally had done nothing to help him. Nothing that made the tiniest difference, anyway.
Exhaustion claimed him the moment he finally took a rest. He woke with no diminishment in his pain. The burials were important, but they hadn’t even begun to make things truly right. Could anything?
The freed children watched everything he did with a combination of fear and curiosity on their faces. They seemed to understand that he and Jerusha were their friends. But all the same they kept their distance. Wally wondered if they would ever be capable of trusting another adult. Even Cesar and the joker girl.
The kids needed breakfast. Together, Wally and Jerusha didn’t have nearly enough food in their kit to feed so many.
Jerusha emerged from the only building that hadn’t collapsed, crumbled, or burned down. Unlike the other structures, it was relatively sturdy: thick, reinforced concrete walls; a solid, pitched roof for keeping out seasonal rains; no windows. “Hey,” she said. A thin, sad smile touched the corners of her eyes. “You’re up.”
“Yeah.”
“How are you holding up?”
Wally shrugged. Pretty bad, he thought. But better than Lucien and the others. “The kids,” he said, gesturing around the destroyed camp, “they need breakfast, but…”
“Don’t worry. Let me handle it. You’ve done more than enough, Wally.”
What would I do without you, Jerusha? “Thanks,” he said glumly. She carried a folder, he noticed, like the kind that hangs in a filing cabinet. Tears had cleaned little paths from her eyes through the smudges of dirt and smoke on her face. “What’s that?”
Jerusha sighed. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder, back toward the building. “That’s where they kept their records. I found this,” she said, shaking the folder. “Look, I hesitate to bring this up, but I thought you should know.” She took his hand. “This isn’t the only lab. The Nshombos have places like this hidden all over the PPA.”
Wally’s knees gave out. He sat heavily on a stack of bricks, the remainder of a corner support for one of the open structures. The bricks crumbled into a pile of rubble.
Jerusha showed him the folder. The lab here received its supplies of the wild card virus from a barge that traveled up and down the river. The barge, in turn, received its supplies from a central lab in Bunia, where they actually cultivated the virus. It was a huge program.
It had to be. For every hundred kids they killed, they might have created a single ace.
Changing them, Sister Julie had said. Wally had thought she meant the way they turned innocent kids into child soldiers. But that wasn’t the half of it: they were trying to create an army of child aces.
Suddenly Wally saw a chance to make things right. Except-
What will I do without you, Jerusha?
“We have to get these kids somewhere safe,” he said.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” said Jerusha. “Since we don’t have a boat anymore, and even if we did it wouldn’t hold all of the kids, we’ll have to start walking back east, toward Tanzania. Once we get somewhere with a working phone, we need to contact somebody on the Committee. They’ll send help. Then we can go find the other labs.”
Wally shook his head. “That’ll take too long. Kids are dying every day.” Like Lucien. “We have to split up.”
Jerusha’s mouth fell open. She gaped at him, as though he’d said something mean. She shook her head. “We can’t.”
“Them kids need a guide, somebody who can feed them, and somebody who can hide them in the jungle. I can’t do any of that stuff, Jerusha. But you can do it all. You’re exactly what they need.” Wally shrugged. “Me? All I can do is break stuff. So I’ll go to Bunia.”
“But they’ll know you’re out here. They’ll come looking for you.”
“Heck, yeah. Every soldier or Leopard Man they send after me is one more that won’t be chasing you. Even with the kids, your chances of hiding are way better than mine.”
“I don’t like this idea,” she said. “I hate it.”
“They can’t hurt me.” He looked down at his hands, flexing them into iron fists. “But I can hurt them.”
“But your leg,” she said, looking at the bandage taped over his bullet wound. The implication was clear: every day spent in the humid jungle made him less bulletproof. Made him vulnerable. But his iron skin didn’t have to last forever. Just until he made it to the Bunia lab.
Once he tore that place apart brick by brick, the rest didn’t matter.
He didn’t tell her any of that. Instead, he said, “I’ll be more careful. Now that I know about the danger, I won’t let it sneak up on me.”
He also didn’t mention that he was running out of S.O. S pads. It didn’t seem right to give Jerusha even more reasons to worry.
Michelle Pond’s Apartment
Manhattan, New York
“Are you ready?” Noel asked.
He’d popped into Michelle’s apartment in his new male form, and looking like he wanted nothing more than to leave as quickly as possible.
“Almost.” Michelle zipped her small Louis Vuitton duffel closed. It had been part of a gift basket she’d been given at an awards show a few years ago. She hated the way it looked (and hated being a walking billboard for Vuitton), and she didn’t care if it got lost or beat up.
“I need to see if Juliet is done with Joey.” She went to the bathroom and knocked on the door. “Are you done in there? Noel’s here and wants to get going.”
There were muffled curses through the door. Then she heard, “Fuck me. That ain’t half bad.”
The bathroom door opened and Juliet stepped out. She gave Michelle a withering stare, and then went into the living room. Michelle could hear her offering Noel tea.
Joey was in front of the mirror staring at herself. “Fuck me!” she exclaimed. “Will you look at this shit?”
Juliet had managed to cover the Crayola red with a dark chocolate color. And she’d cut Joey’s hair. For once Joey didn’t look as if she was going out to panhandle. Juliet had even dressed her in a crisp white blouse and neatly pressed grey slacks.
“You look great,” Michelle said. “Now stop talking. You’re ruining the illusion.”
“Fuck off, Bubbles.” Joey brushed past Michelle and went into the living room. Michelle followed her. In the middle of the room, Noel was holding a mug that read: lesbians do it with girls. A Lipton’s tea-bag tag dangled over its edge. He had an expression on his face like a cat being given a bath.
Michelle smiled. “I think we’re about ready,” she said. “I know you’re only doing this because of Niobe, but I want you to know how much I appreciate it.”
“You shouldn’t be doing this at all,” Noel said, hastily putting the mug down on the coffee table. “Nothing good is coming out of the PPA right now.”
This caught Michelle’s attention. “You seem awfully well informed about what’s going on there.”
A smug expression flickered across his face.
“What are you up to, Noel?” Michelle asked softly.
“Nothing you need to be worried about. Are you ready?”
Michelle grabbed her duffel and turned to kiss Juliet good-bye, but Ink had already left the room. There was a brief stab of hurt, and then it was gone. What she was going to do was more important than a kiss good-bye.
“Yes,” she said. “I guess we’re ready to go.”
“Good-bye, Ink,” Joey yelled.
