Chapter 79: 79 They (Do Not) Live, Part One

Maria smoothed down her jacket as she walked to the freezer. By her side Mnemosyne gave orders as Jin and Freya trailed like little ducklings behind them. She didn't listen to their words, only kept her eyes on the freezer coming closer with every step.

The ducklings dispersed before they reached it.

Mnemosyne stopped moving 20 metres from the freezer. Maria was a step ahead by the time she realised.

"Did you notice something new?" Maria asked.

Mnemosyne tossed her hair out of her eyes and bit at her mouth. "Anything I could see, you would see first. But I believe I'm better at a distance and you and Milo can hold down the front line."

"Are you sure?"

Maria grabbed at one of Mnemosyne's hands and Mnemosyne let their hands intertwine, responded with a gentle squeeze before letting go. "Yes, that would be better," Mnemosyne said, and with a sharp turn headed for the hospital instead.

The noise grew louder the closer Maria got to its source. A steady thump came from inside the freezer, as if whatever was inside was trying to knock its way out.

She nodded at Milo, who stood, hands clasped behind his back. He nodded back.

Ibrahim made his way to their small group, and made his presence known with a hand on Milo's shoulder. Milo looked over at him, and looked him up and down with an expression that managed to seem both calm and dismissive.

"Have you finished flirting with Zelko's boyfriend?" Milo asked.

Ibrahim grinned. "Flirting? Oh, I wouldn't say I've even begun doing that. My dear friend, are you jealous?"

Milo looked at the freezer door instead of at his friend. "Why do you ask such ridiculous questions?"

Maria gave them a patient smile. "What do you think our plan should be?"

Milo took on a contemplative look. "At first I was shocked when I saw it but now that I've had time to think I can recognise it isn't Sonya, this is only a machine using her body to discomfort us."

"Do you think this is a test?" Ibrahim asked.

"It's an attempt at torture," Milo answered.

Maria crossed her arms and sighed. "Whatever the reasons this was created – whether to shock us with the bodies of our dead being used like this, or make us hesitate to respond with violence to its provocation – what we need to know is what to do about it."

"We shoot it, of course," Ibrahim said, and revealed a fat handgun and Bowie knife previously concealed by the folds of his coat. "Luckily I liberated some of Mr Nguyen's weapons. How careless of him to leave them lying about in your cabin where anyone could find them. They're not as elegant as the tools that were confiscated from me upon capture, but they do have a certain charm."

*

The loud banging noise continued on into the night. Even in the hospital the noise was loud and clear, like someone was banging on their walls, expecting to be let in.

Tsuyoshi paced up and down, pulling at a thread on his jacket. Even looking at him made Angharad tense.

"I need a smoke," he hissed, and started fumbling with the pack in his pocket.

"Smoke outside," Angharad said.

He looked at her, eyes large with anger. "Outside with that?"

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She looked away. "I mean, just don't smoke in here."

She curled up further in her chair, arms tight around her knees as he walked away.

He didn't come back while she was there. The banging sounds were too loud and just infrequent enough that she couldn't get used to them and fall asleep, so she began to pace halls, checking in the ground floor rooms at how the people there held up. Dr Yeoh looked stern-faced and tired as she looked over her son, who turned in his bed and pretended to sleep. Tabitha lay with her pillow half over her head. Darren sat up on his mattress, clawing at his own face, until Willow pushed past where Angharad stood frozen in the half open door and grabbed his hands.

At some point Angharad walked past Dr Yeoh's abandoned office, where Niall stood shuffling papers.

"Oh, no you don't," he said from somewhere behind you. "It's nearly four in the morning. Go to bed. Sleep is important for adolescent growth."

"You're 25, not 50. Stop talking like you're a billion years older than me."

"I'm smarter and stronger than you—"

"You wish."

"—so I can and will push you out of here."

"Fine."

*

She wasn't the only one awake. Even as the banging sounds decreased and a layer of quiet began to descend on the camp, people kept moving through the area between the buildings. Mnemosyne was by the cafeteria, talking to people and pointing at things, probably ordering people around. The Colonel's French friends were heading towards the freezer shed, as Captain O'Connor and Milo walked away from it. The Colonel himself talked to Tony and lead him in the direction of the hospital, while making encouraging faces and whispering something that Angharad tried not to overhear, even if she couldn't help but watch.

It was the watching other people that meant she bumped into someone else, who grabbed her arm as she startled. She looked up into Jin's face. Had he gotten taller overnight? It wasn't fair.

"Sophie's staying with Eleanor tonight, so don't worry about her," he said. That only made her worry because she'd totally forgotten to worry about Sophie until that point. He pulled her along and pulled her out of her thoughts, followed up with, "You can stay with us tonight."

But he pulled her in the direction of Freya's cabin and not his own room. Which was better, obviously, but kind of confusing.

He took his shoes off just inside the door and gave her a pointed look until she bent down to take hers off, too. Inevitably, she fell over trying and wished she hadn't decided to wear the strappy shoes with the buckles that day.

The banging sounds finally eased off.

"You look tired," Jin said.

"Okay, that's, like, super rude," Angharad said.

Freya laughed. "Jin can sleep through the sound of a bombing. He should teach you how."

"I'm guessing that's not, like, a metaphor."

"Definitely not a metaphor. Come here," Freya said.

Angharad, finally shoeless, stood and stumbled over. She bent down to look in at Freya's bunk and then Jin pushed her all of the way in. She landed with an 'oof' and Freya wrapped her up. Jin got in on the other side and they wrapped her up in the middle of them. She was too tired to ask why.

When she woke, hours later, it was to the renewal of the industrial noises from a few days earlier. Even more annoying and harder to bear now that she knew what the camp was building.

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