on one of their hunts. Eighty-two went on those because he had to, because Alpha expected it and Otto demanded it, but so far he had not shot at any of the animals. In another year, when he was bigger, he knew that he would be expected to participate in the hunt rather than tag along with the videographer.
Nobody-not even the videographer-knew that Eighty-two had taken his own camera, a little button camera he’d stolen from the previous videographer’s gear.
The hunters had gone to Sao Paolo for a single day of celebration, and Eighty-two had slipped away from the pool area for forty minutes and found a cybercafe half a block from the hotel. Sending the e-mail with the video had been the single bravest thing he’d ever done, and those forty minutes were the most frightening of his life. He was not able to wait around to see if there was a response. He wished and prayed that there was, that the Americans were on their way.
Now he was back at the Hive. Back at the House of Screams, Eighty-two’s name for it, though he suspected many of the New Men thought of it in that way, too. After all, it was their screams that filled the corridors of the building day after day and night after night.
The boy wore only a pair of swim trunks. His skin was pale. He was not allowed to tan, and if he allowed himself to get a sunburn Alpha would have Otto beat him. Otto’s beatings lasted a long, long time. Eighty-two suspected that Otto enjoyed them and was sad when Alpha told him to stop. Otto’s lips were always wet with spit when he was done giving a beating, and his eyes burned bright as candles.
Down in the compound three of the New Men were working to dig postholes for a chicken pen. The boy watched them, fascinated. The New Men had thick features and coarse red hair, and when no one was around they chattered back and forth in surprisingly high-pitched voices. The boy recognized two of the New Men. One of them was the oldest of the community still living here on the island, maybe twenty-five, though his hair had already started to go gray and the skin on his face was creased with lines. He looked sixty or seventy. The young man working beside him was not much older than the boy, but the New Man was top-heavy with muscles and looked at least thirty. The third member of the party was a woman. Like the others she was dressed in lightweight cotton trousers and a tank top, but she was sweating as she dug and the shirt was pasted to her breasts so that the boy could easily see the dark outlines of her nipples.
Eighty-two felt a stirring in his loins and looked away, embarrassed that he was spying on her. And ashamed that it was affecting him.
The female’s shovel hit a stone in the dirt and she bent quickly and used her fingers to dig it out of the ground. Without thinking she threw it over her shoulder and picked up her shovel.
Suddenly there was a harsh shout from across the compound and the boy turned to see one of the guards-a huge man with a blond crew cut and a gun belt slung low on his hips-come striding toward the work party.
“What do you think you’re playing at, you ugly slut?” he shouted in an Australian accent that was sometimes hard for the boy to follow.
The three New Men froze in place, terror blooming instantly on their faces. They looked frightened and confused, unsure which rule they had broken but knowing that they had done something. They reacted to their conditioning and dropped to their knees, heads bowed, as the Australian approached. He towered over them, and the boy saw three more guards come down from the veranda and spread out in a loose line behind the blond man. They were all grinning.
The Australian nudged the rock with his booted toe.
“What’s this shit?” he demanded. The New Men did not move except to tremble with fear. It made the Australian grin broader. He raised his voice. “I said… what’s this shit?”
No answer. Even from his perch on the roof Eighty-two could see the female begin to cry, saw the first silver tears break from her brown eyes and roll down over her lumpy cheeks.
“You!” called the Australian. “Yeah, I’m talking to you, you ugly ape-faced bitch. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
The female slowly raised her eyes toward the man; her companions kept their heads firmly down, though their muscles were rigid with the terror that washed through them in icy waves.
“Who told you to make a mess of the whole damned yard? Look at this squalor.” He nudged the stone again. It was the size of an egg. “You get your ass over here and pick up this mess.
The female bowed several times and then scuttled forward, keeping low to the ground, so frightened of giving further offense that she scuttled forward on all fours. But as she drew close to the guard she slowed and stopped almost out of reach before extending one tentative hand toward the stone.
The guard looked down at her and the boy could see the moment when the Australian became aware of the thin cotton shirt clinging to the female’s heavy breasts. The look on the man’s face changed, shifting from vicious anger to something else, something that was beyond the boy’s understanding. The boy knew that the man might rape the woman-he had witnessed enough abuse to understand the forms it could take. Rape, sodomy, beatings, even murder. However, no matter how many times the boy saw these acts, or saw the aftereffects of them, he could not understand it. Even in his own personal darkness, even deep in the strangeness of his own damaged dreams, he had no connection to that kind of hunger. Eighty-two leaned forward, his muscles tensing, wondering for the hundredth time what would happen if he shouted at the men while they did this. Would they stop because of who he was? Or would interference merely result in another of Otto’s beatings? Indecision trapped Eighty-two on his perch as, below, the female picked up the rock.
She bobbed and bowed and mumbled apologies in her high-pitched nasal voice.
The Australian kicked her in the stomach.
A single sharp kick that drove the toe of his steel-tipped boot into the softness of her upper abdomen and slammed all the air from the female’s lungs. She could not even scream. Her body convulsed into a ball of knotted, trembling, gasping agony as the guards laughed and the other New Men knelt nearby and wept.
The guards made jokes about it and turned away, heading back to the veranda, back to their beer and dominoes, leaving the female in the center of the yard, the stone still clutched in her fist.
A minute dragged by as the boy watched. He sniffed back a tear and then froze as the two male New Men suddenly turned and looked up. Eighty-two remained stock-still. Had they heard him? Could they see him?
Even the female slowly raised her head and looked in his direction.
The guards were laughing and talking about football. They hadn’t heard anything. The boy’s eyes burned with tears, and he slowly lifted a hand to his eyes to wipe them clear.
Down in the garden the oldest of the New Men stared upward with a furrowed brow. Then he lifted a hand and mimicked the action. Or had he simply wiped away his own tears, the action merely a coincidence?
Then the second New Man did the same.
Eighty-two held his breath and did not move.
Finally the oldest of the New Men turned back toward the female. He cast a cautious glance at the guards and then slowly crept toward the female, gathered her in his arms, helped her to her feet, and walked with her back to their companion. Both of the New Men hugged her and kissed her, but always one watched the men while the others embraced. From time to time they all cut quick glances up to the shadows on the porch roof. Then they went back to work.
The boy watched the female’s hand, hoping that she would covertly pocket the stone. He would have taken it to use later if an opportunity presented itself. To use on Carteret while he slept. It was something Eighty-two wanted to do, had thought long and hard about doing, though he had not yet done it. But the female apparently did not have that thought or was afraid of being caught, because she dropped the stone onto the pile of dirt they’d dug from the hole and picked up her shovel.
After five minutes, the boy edged back along the porch roof and climbed into his bedroom window. Eighty-two sat on the edge of his bed and thought about what to do.
Chapter Forty-Two
Deep Iron Storage Facility
Saturday, August 28, 4:06 P.M.
Time Remaining on the Extinction Clock: 91 hours, 54 minutes E.S.T.
