Children of the Plague

Chapter Fourteen: Ghost

Chapter Fourteen: Ghost

Lanni jogged unseen through the MPC to the infirmary. With careful timing and a bit of patience, she slipped past two guards at the infirmary’s single point of entry. She maneuvered through the former waiting room that served as the new maternity ward, complete with partitions and beds, and walked within two feet of Beth and Lynne without disturbing their conversation.

The two women were both actual, licensed nurses who had come here with three real medical doctors from the hospital across the street. One nurse and one doctor were always here with Tina and the other less fortunate women, but Lanni saw only the two nurses as she entered Tina’s room.

Tina was the only patient with a room to herself. It had actual electric lights, monitors, and a real, powered hospital bed, courtesy of the prison’s self-sufficient wind and solar power plant. Sometimes, they even worked.

Lanni would usually wait for the doctor to come in so she could overhear the discussion of Tina’s progress, but she was already pushing her luck and the colony’s by coming here first, instead of diverting the impending host attack.

She touched Tina’s bare arm, and ignoring her confused, groggy, expression as she awoke.

“It’s you,” Tina said softly. “You’re the ghost, aren’t you?”

“No,” Lanni whispered. “I’m not a ghost. I’m very real. I’ve been sneaking in here almost every day to save you and your baby from the plague. Please stay still, and don’t make a fuss, or the nurses will come in.” She lifted her mask for a moment and smiled. “It’s our secret, okay?”

“But you’re just a child. You can’t be more than fifteen years old.”

“Fourteen,” Lanni said out of habit. Most people assumed she was older. She had often been told she was mature for her age.

Despite the constant nanite impacts, she suppressed her aura and tried to balance Tina’s Con. The density of the Con in the little room was dizzying. Tina was not only dangerously out of balance, she was radiating waves of nanites! Her mental energy washed over and through Lanni, leaving a residual echo of thoughts and emotions.

Eagerness. Fear. Curiosity. Contentment.

How had every host in the world not detected this much energy and emotion?

“What are you doing to me?” Tina asked. “Since I can see you, does that mean I’m going to die? Am I already dead? I don’t feel dead.” She put her hand on her chest. “My heart is still beating. Your hand is warm, too. Shouldn’t ghosts be cold?”

“Just relax,” Lanni said. It seemed like the sort of thing a doctor would say to her patient. “You’re going to be alright. I already told you I’m not a ghost, didn’t I? I’m just a person, like you. I’m a friend.”

Looking up through the open blinds, she saw Dr. Neumann talking to Lynne. Beth was already gone. The blinds were open all the way to the corner, and anyone who happened to look her way would see her.

She was trapped in a room with one door and windows on every wall. The only way out was through both nurses and the doctor. A cry would go up, and she’d have to get through everyone else in this part of the prison.

She had to go. Tina’s energy was overpowering her ability to balance, and the host could already be inside the safe zone.

Distracted, she let her aura snap back into place. She jerked her hand away from Tina’s arm, but not quick enough. Her touch left a red mark like a sunburn.

Tina drew a hissing breath through her teeth at the sudden stinging pain, yet apparently didn’t seem to notice the discomfort of a kicking infant trying to escape her womb.

“What happened?” Tina asked. “I’ve heard rumors that your touch is like acid. I always felt like you were here to help me, though. Every time I see you, I feel a little better. You’re not a ghost, are you. You’re an angel; my guardian angel. I’m sorry, I’m rambling. Am I the only one who can see you? Oh, God. Am I going crazy? Please tell me you are real.”

“I’m real,” Lanni muttered, ducking below the bed, out of Dr. Neumann’s line of sight.

“I guess so, if you have to hide under the bed. How’d you get in here, anyway?” Tina asked.

“Are they still talking out there?” Lanni asked, ignoring Tina’s question.

“Yeah. Looks like they’re wrapping up, though. What are you going to do?”

Lanni crawled to the corner where she left her spear, and pulled the weapon down to the floor. “Please don’t mention me, Tina. There’s no telling what they might think if you do. I hope I can be back in time to see your baby. I think you’ll be meeting him pretty soon.”

“Just stay, then. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

Lanni opened the narrow linen closet with a smile. After risking everything to keep Tina and her baby safe, day after day, for months, it was nice to hear her offer to return the favor, even if she was strapped into the bed, and couldn’t sit up without help.

“What’s your name, anyway? Should I just call you Ghost? The Ghost? I know: Casper!”

“You can call me Lanni, if you want.” She heard leather-soled shoes clicking on the floor in the hall. She’d need a distraction if someone came in, or even looked through the safety glass.

“How are you feeling, Tina? Any pain? Anything different?” Those were questions the nurses used to ask her mother on her numerous trips to the hospital, and they were usually worth at least a few minutes of descriptive answers.

Tina’s soft voice droned on in her southern, but still odd accent. Dr. Neumann turned to look into the room as Lanni pulled the last cardboard box out of her way. Without waiting to see if she’d been spotted, she squeezed into the tiny cubby beneath the lowest shelf. The door wouldn’t close over her spear, so she left it sticking out through the crack.

A tiny, dried up spider dangling in the corner brought back her experience at Red Hook. ‘Hurt yoooou!’ Echoed in her head, making her shiver. It was just a dead spider. This was no time to freak out. At least not over a bug.

She pressed her palm against the wall, suppressed her aura, and let her energy change the structure of the stone. She scooped out handfuls of solid wall with her bare hands like wet paper-Mache, and dropped it on the floor as a fine dust.

If she’d had time, she would have repaired the hole to hide that she had ever been there. But time was no longer her friend. Like everything else she’d ever counted on, it, too had turned against her.

She pushed her spear ahead of her into what was once a huge pantry, and crawled through after it. From here, she could run back down the hall, circumventing the Dr. and nurse Lynne, but even with most of the MPC still asleep, someone would see her. She didn’t want to risk having to hurt anyone.

She dropped to her knees in the far corner, and this time, burrowed through the floor. The tile and cement folded in her hands like soft clay, and she soon had a hole big enough to squeeze through.

The room below was rectangular, probably twenty or thirty feet wide and twice as long, with no windows. She knew where she was. No one ever came to this floor. She could use the ladder in the unused elevator shaft at the back of the building, and climb all the way down to the sub-level where she could slip out through her no-longer-hidden loading dock.

“I’m sorry, Alex. I should have listened to you. I couldn’t help Tina. The Con was all wrong. It was uncontrolled, like a storm. Of course, you can’t hear me, so I’m talking to myself like a crazy person. Again. Thanks for that.”

“It’s not too late, though,” she continued, finding comfort in the sound of her voice. “The host isn’t here yet, so there’s still time. There’s still time.”

“You are not crazy, child,” Rumiko said. “No more than is normal.”

“I’m not doing so great, Sensei. I didn’t talk to Diane. I couldn’t balance Tina. Now I have to go find and kill a host before it beats me to the punch. This is going to be such a long day.”

So she hoped.