Chapter 77: 77 The Sound Before an Earthquake, Part Three

The hospital was a mess. Dr Yeoh screamed and threw things at the Colonel, who put up with it with way more patience than Tsuyoshi had. That Gael kid Jin dragged in the day before spent a second day refusing to let anyone take his wound seriously, even though it looked even more disgusting than it had before.

"Is your arm foaming?" Angharad asked, as she stood over the kid, peering at his arm.

"It's not foaming," Gael said.

"It's certainly not looking good, whatever it's doing," Niall said.

Even through several walls behind him, Tsuyoshi could still hear Dr Yeoh's screeching. He crossed his arms and sighed.

"At very least let me disinfect it," Niall said.

Gael flicked his eyes towards Tsuyoshi, for some reason, as if he thought Tsuyoshi was ever going to get on his side. Tsuyoshi just rolled his eyes and walked down the hall.

Zelko was inside their room, his body an awkward form as he leaned against the wall. Tsuyoshi couldn't help flicking a suspicious glare toward him, too.

"Sorry," Zelko said.

"What are you sorry for?" Tsuyoshi asked.

"All that stuff." Zelko cleared his throat. "Happy birthday."

"Could not be happier," Tsuyoshi said.

From down the hall he could hear Angharad shout, "Oh, gross!" just as Gael started to cry and throw up. Worst birthday ever.

*

The sign on the outside of the hospital flashed 'Get ready for it' and then went back to its regular scrolling message about the time.

In the cafeteria the kitchen robots were missing and nothing left in their place. Angharad leaned over the counter and saw that even the multi port adaptors were missing, and no cords had been left behind. The floor was still filthy, a level of grime that Ibrahim's regular attempts to wipe clean couldn't wipe out.

Jin grabbed Angharad's jacket and pulled her back to the right side of the counter.

"This can't be a sign of anything good," Angharad said.

"This place likes to mess with our heads. It's nothing new," Jin said.

Freya bounced on her heels and said, "We have to stay positive. This might not be that bad."

"I mean, we have to stay positive or we'll all give in to despair and never get out and that would suck. But I still don't think this is a good sign. I mean, I saw how bad Gael looked this morning," Angharad said.

Jin rolled his eyes. "That's not connected."

Angharad crossed her arms tight against the cold. "Okay, but how do you know it's not connected? It totally could be."

They argued on the way out and halfway across the gravel between buildings.

Angharad saw Josephine walking to them. Josephine's eyes were pointed down at her feet as she walked slowly across the gravel in freshly cleaned running shoes. When Josephine looked up and noticed them she stopped walking and made a weird, awkward noise.

"Will you help us figure out what's going on?" Freya asked Josephine.

Josephine rubbed at her neck and made another awkward noise.

"Help us or don't," Angharad said.

"Then I will!" Josephine declared. "It will be my pleasure to lend my assistance."

"You can help me with something while they do something else," Jin said.

He inclined his head in the direction of the other end of the camp, and Josephine started to walk off that way.

"Hey," Angharad said, and kicked a bit of gravel at Jin's feet. "Kiss your girlfriend before you go! Show her some actual affection."

"Why? Freya already knows I like her," he said.

Angharad raised an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Fine," he said.

He looked nervous when he put his hands on Freya's shoulders and kissed her, softly, but Freya's smile after he let go looked gentle and kind. Jin scratched at his own hair, messing it up even further, and then jogged to catch up with Josephine.

Freya turned and accompanied Angharad on her slow walk back to the hospital.

"Thank you for that," Freya said. She bumped shoulders with Angharad, and Angharad giggled.

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"Jin might think it's just because I'm a voyeur but I actually think it's super important to, like, make sure the people you love know you love them so they don't get confused or whatever. Not that I think you would. And, like, physical contact is really important for people's mental well-being!"

This time it was Freya that laughed, though her laugh levelled off into a sigh. "I do sometimes think he treats me more like a friend than a girlfriend."

"No way! Didn't your boss totally figure it out even when you tried to pretend to just be friends?"

Freya nodded. "She did. But Jin... I always feel like I have to kiss him first or we'll never kiss, like he forgets that's a thing he can do with me. "

"Well, he's an idiot but he's definitely hot for you."

Angharad led Freya through the hospital doors.

The hallways held less sound than they had earlier in the day. Angharad could no longer hear the sound of Irene Yeoh's voice. She looked at the walls, wondering if the Colonel was still alone with Irene, trying to calm her down. Angharad knew she should be the one in there to do it, but the Colonel – Antoine, she kept forgetting to think of him that way – had pressed her back out into the hallway when she'd offered and told her it wasn't her burden to bear, and wouldn't listen no matter how much Angharad explained that it wasn't a burden.

But it wasn't fair to ignore her friends, either, so she'd let him talk her out of it.

Angharad and Freya rounded a corner and came upon Tsuyoshi looking through the piles of notes in Dr Yeoh's office. He rolled his eyes constantly as he re-sorted the piles.

Angharad ran up to him to make sure he didn't bury himself in all the paperwork.

When Angharad ran into his side and wrapped her arms around him, Tsuyoshi dropped a notebook and a pen.

"That better be Angharad," he said.

His face, when he turned to look at her, folded into an expression that was almost a smile. He dropped an arm around her shoulders and she leaned up to kiss him on the cheek. Even that wasn't enough to warm his expression all the way up. He leaned more weight on her than she expected and she rocked on her feet.

"Happy birthday," she said. "How does it feel to be 20?"

"It sucks more than 19 did already," he said.

He pushed her back, and then she remember Freya standing there in the hallway and laughed, nervous.

"Um, this is my friend Freya," Angharad said.

"I know who she is," Tsuyoshi said.

Freya glided forward, her smile undimmed. "I'm sorry to interrupt you. Normally I report to Dr Yeoh around now."

"Yeah, well, she's somewhere else right now and you wouldn't want to talk to her anyway," Tsuyoshi said.

They made small talk for a while, boring stuff, and Angharad was almost ready to suggest they leave when Milo came stomping down the hall.

"I saw one of the bodies move when I opened the freezer," Milo said. "I'm not making it up."

There was a weird flattening of Tsuyoshi's expression. Angharad didn't get what that was about.

"They're corpses. They're not fresh. They were not moving," Freya said.

"What were you even doing in the corpse freezer?" Angharad asked. "That's so gross."

"Why would I make this up?" Milo asked, his voice already getting annoyingly loud and aggressive. Men were so annoying that way. "Zelko said something about a body moving once."

Tsuyoshi crossed his arms so tight his denim jacket folded over itself. "Just because Zelko and I see the dead moving doesn't mean dead bodies are moving. Don't be weird about it. Don't make it weird."

"I'll go back to that creepy shed and prove it," Milo declared.

Freya shrugged and said, "Sure. I'll come with you to check it out."

On their way out they passed Jin and Josephine, who shuffled in slowly, voices low and friendly. Jin nodded at Freya as she walked close and, okay, suddenly Angharad got why Freya worried. He was kind of bad at showing affection.

"Are you sad you're going to miss sharing Christmas with your dad this year?" Jin asked, once he'd finally shuffled in close enough to talk.

"Well, I mean, Christmas is really important to our business because a lot of people buy vacuum cleaners," Angharad said, "so I guess I'll miss the excitement of checking on all the orders and making sure the right advertising mail goes out all the way up to the new year."

"No, I mean religious Christmas," Jin said. He squashed his face up into a weird squinty expression that she was pretty sure meant he thought she was being ridiculous. He was being way more ridiculous.

"I'm still Jewish," Angharad said. "That hasn't changed in the last two months."

"What about that guy?" Jin said, as he pointed at Tsuyoshi, who looked about as unimpressed as Angharad felt.

"Tsuyoshi's a Buddhist," Angharad said.

"Only at funerals," Tsuyoshi said. "I mean, I don't really care. Christmas is great. Uncle Tim watches sad movies and drinks himself to sleep."

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