Dread Nation (Dread Nation #1)(92)
“Exactly. And Mr. Gideon is our best hope for enlightenment.” Katherine sets off, heading toward the entrance to the lab, parasol propped on her shoulder.
Mr. Gideon waits for us there, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, looking a bit fidgety. He sees us and his face twists into a welcoming smile, his gaze lingering on Katherine perhaps a moment too long.
The ugly jealous feeling lifts its head and roars, and I beat it back.
“Miss Deveraux, so pleasant to see you. Miss McKeene . . .” Mr. Gideon tips his hat to us, and I force a tight smile out of politeness.
“Mr. Gideon, so lovely of you to invite us to share the midday meal with you.”
“Yes, and thank you for coming. I’d worried that after last night’s incident my overture came too late, but it looks like we still have a little time.”
I grimace. “Mr. Gideon, no offense, but I ain’t really in the mood for riddles,” I say, even though I’m just supposed to be Katherine’s Attendant, a dark-skinned girl of no consequence.
He smiles and inclines his head. “Of course, Miss McKeene. I think it might be easier to explain if I could show you the data I’ve collected.” Mr. Gideon offers Katherine his arm. “If you don’t mind, Miss Katherine. All of my research is down in my lab.”
“Of course.” She takes the tinkerer’s arm and after a brief hesitation I stomp along behind them, fervently wishing I’d been born with golden skin and flaxen-streaked curls instead of hair like sheep’s wool and skin the color of dirt. It’s a completely irrational thought, but it’s hard knowing that my life could be much better had I only been born looking a bit more like my momma.
We descend into the bowels of Mr. Gideon’s lab, and I am once again enthralled by the magical appearance of the place. The electric lights, the various mechanical pieces spread across the worktable, the shelf of neatly labeled solvents—the tinkerer’s laboratory is a completely different world than the one I was used to.
Mr. Gideon walks over to a map marked with colored pins, removing his hat and hanging it on a nearby hook. He looks younger without it, and the weariness in the lines around his eyes is more pronounced.
“I apologize that all I have to offer for the noon meal is some cheese and bread, but it looks like now even I am subject to the current rationing within the town.”
“Is the rationing really because of the extra families or because the supply line from Baltimore is gone?” I ask, settling into a very comfortable looking brocade wing chair that is completely out of place in the otherwise functional lab. The chair is just as sumptuous as it looks, and I ignore the assessing look from Mr. Gideon and Katherine’s openmouthed surprise as I settle my backside into the cushions.
“Jane, perhaps we could approach the manner a little more diplomatically?” Katherine murmurs, her expression somewhere between anger and fear. She looks at Gideon, and I realize that she doesn’t entirely trust him. I file that information away for later.
“Look, Jackson hasn’t come back yet and we need answers. Last night I faced down a pack of shamblers that possessed intelligence I ain’t never seen before, the sheriff is probably even now plotting my death, and there is apparently nothing left of Baltimore County. I’m tired and I want answers, and it appears that Mr. Gideon has them, for better or worse.” I turn to the tinkerer. “Mr. Gideon?”
He grins at me, a genuine smile that lights up his entire face. “In the interest of time, tell me what you know.”
I very quickly fill Mr. Gideon in on the bits and pieces of information we gleaned from our brief reunion with Jackson. He nods as I speak, pulling out a small chair for Katherine and propping his hip on an empty workbench. When I’ve finished, he sighs. “It seems like you know quite a bit.”
“So, is it true? Is Baltimore County really gone? Had we ever gotten an edge on the shambler plague, or was that all just some Survivalist nonsense?” Katherine asks.
“A bit of both, I’m afraid. It’s more about politics. See, the war never really ended. When the dead began to walk at Gettysburg, both the Federal troops and the Confederates decided it was for the best to stop fighting each other and to fight the undead. And now, with life slowly returning to normal, there are plenty of folks with feelings about what the shambler plague means for the future of the country.
“I am an Egalitarian, and my father was a Survivalist. Both the Egalitarians and the Survivalists have run on platforms that involve recapturing the cities of the East and making them safe. Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia—these places represent American civilization, and many figured that the only way to keep the country together would be to rebuild it.”
I shake my head. “But people living that close to one another . . . all you need is for one person to go feral and the whole place is a shambler’s paradise.”
Mr. Gideon nods. “Yes, and that’s what I’ve told my father for years. But he’s convinced that if you can sell people on a dream of security and prosperity, then the facts are irrelevant. And, he’s right. The Survivalists provided jobs—building the walls, manning the patrols, all of it in the name of the appearance of safety, of normalcy . . .” Mr. Gideon trails off and scrubs his hand across his face. “But holding onto the cities was never sustainable. There are too many factors we cannot account for, and soon even the Survivalist leaders—the mayors, the congressmen—realized that it wasn’t a long-term plan.”