The Anomaly(64)

Ken shook his head.

“More of the same?”

“Empty rooms,” he said, “but with those pyramid things we saw on the other side of the ball. I put my hand on one and it felt warm, which is weird. Or I’m starting to lose it. But the passage ends in a flat wall. And yeah, I watched the roof on the way back. No shafts. So—you got any news?”

“You were right,” I said. “She was there.”

“And?”

“Nothing helpful. She implied again that there’s pieces we could put together. Said the paintings were fifty thousand years old.”

“And?”

“That’s it.”

Ken looked at me.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m also convinced Gemma actually did feel something brush against her leg earlier. The same thing just came and had a good look at me in the dark.”

Molly was very unhappy to hear this. “What was it?”

“I don’t know. It was, like I say, dark. But I’m pretty sure if it had decided to attack, it would have won.”

I watched Ken think this over. Dimly lit from below, he looked like he’d lost weight in his face. Okay, only an ounce or two, from dehydration, but I still didn’t like seeing it. Most of the time our culture tells you skinnier is better. It doesn’t take long in adverse conditions for that to change. The brain flips back to the old, tougher days, a mind-set in which seeing a member of your tribe reduced stirs a fear that the same will soon happen to you. That things are running out. That they may soon be gone.

“That is,” he said, thoughtfully, “actually the best news we’ve had in a while.”

“Yeah,” I said.

Molly frowned. “How do you figure that?”

“Because it didn’t try to eat him,” Ken said. “Which means either it’s got good taste or it’s not desperately hungry. It got in here somehow. And either recently, or via a route it’s confident it can escape through.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Let’s wait and see if the others found anything,” Ken said. “If not, then…”

“Yeah, we’ll try that. I can’t think of anything else.”

“Can I join the hive mind, please?” Molly said. “Or is it invite-only?”

“The room with the paintings,” Ken said. “We didn’t get to the end. The light ran out and so we turned around.”

“Oh, screw that,” she said. “I’m not—”

“You’re not invited, Moll,” I said, deadpan. “You were a pain in the ass before.”

“Ha ha.” She stuck her tongue out.

We turned at the sound of Pierre and Gemma emerging from the other passage, then hurried over when we realized Pierre had his arm around Gemma’s waist, half carrying her.

“She’s really not feeling good,” Pierre said. “That’s why it took us so long. Sorry. We didn’t find anything anyway.”

We got Gemma to the middle of the room and onto the ground. She sat there hunched up, arms tightly crossed. Molly laid the back of her hand against Gemma’s forehead.

“She’s got a temperature.”

“Christ,” Ken said. “Gemma—what’s the problem? Is it the flu or something?”

“I don’t know. Maybe, yeah. I ache all over. But…”

She moved her hands away from her stomach, revealing how bloated it was. “I’ve got terrible gas, too. It’s tight like a drum. And really painful.”

“Your sandwich was the same as ours, right?”

“Yes.”

“And you haven’t eaten anything else?”

She looked up. Her face was drawn, eyes cloudy. “No.”

“Gemma, look—it’s no big deal. If you had something stashed in your bag and kept it to yourself, it doesn’t matter. We just need to figure out what’s wrong with you.”

“Fuck you, Nolan. Of course I didn’t.”

“Okay.”

“I…” Abruptly she turned her head and threw up.

Nothing much came out, but the smell was sour and rank. Molly pulled a spare T-shirt out of her backpack, helped wipe around Gemma’s mouth. Then it happened again. Three strong retches, subsiding into dry heaves.

“Oh shit,” Gemma said, her voice guttural and clogged. “I really do not feel good.”

“I’m pursuing this for one reason only,” I said. I knew I was sounding like an asshole. It didn’t matter. “If this is the flu or something, chances are we’re all going to get it. It’d be better to know ahead of time.”

Gemma took the T-shirt from Molly and wiped ineffectually around her chin. Her hair was hanging in rats’ tails over her forehead and down her cheeks.

She breathed in, out, in, out. Looked like she was going to retch again, but didn’t. She winced, long and painfully, and crossed her arms back over her stomach.

“Okay,” she said. “I had no food. But.”

“But what?”

“When I asked you about where to go this morning?”

“You needed to go to the bathroom.”

“Right. I went. And when I was done, I was thinking I didn’t know how much longer I could go without a drink, and I was already halfway there. So.”